The restaurant, located next to the beach, wasn’t open for business when he arrived, although several servers were busy setting the tables on an outdoor patio. He took his boots and socks off, rolled up the cuffs of his jeans, and walked in the shade of the cliffs that lined the shore. Only a few people were out, including some joggers, a couple walking two dogs, and several tourists snapping pictures near some rocks where a young seal seemed to be calmly posing for a photo shoot. Out beyond the surf, a dolphin briefly surfaced, drawing the attention of a lone seagull circling overhead.
On top of the cliffs, which showed signs of constant erosion, houses surrounded by tall, skinny palm trees looked out at the ocean. Steep stairs, some rickety and dangerous, provided access down the cliff face to the beach. Kerney wondered how long it would take before the sea, the wind, and the rain brought everything crashing down. A hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand? Eventually, it would happen.
His thoughts turned to Sara and the beaches they’d walked together on their honeymoon in western Ireland. There, cliffs of solid rock towered over them and a heavy surf threw angry plumes of white foam into the air. It had been a happy time on the shore of a turbulent sea under misty gray skies.
Sara had spent hours inspecting and gathering seashells, stuffing the choice ones in the pockets of her windbreaker, enlisting Kerney to fill his pockets as well. The shells now sat in a large, hand-blown glass bowl on Sara’s desk at the Pentagon.
He wondered how Sara and their son, Patrick, were doing back on the East Coast. He pictured her getting Patrick out of bed, fed, and ready for the day, Patrick banging his rattle on the high chair and giggling, Sara dressing hurriedly and running a brush quickly through her strawberry blond hair.
The restaurant was open when Kerney returned, and he took breakfast on the patio, careful as always not to eat too much. He’d been gut shot in a gun battle with a drug dealer some years back, and it had damaged his stomach badly.
He finished his meal and decided it wasn’t too early to call Penelope Parker. She answered on the first ring and readily agreed to meet with him again. He left the restaurant just as a smiling young couple with a toddler sitting happily on the man’s shoulders entered. The sight of the family made him miss Sara and Patrick all the more. But soon he’d be with them for two solid weeks. He would be teaching some classes and taking a top-cop seminar at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, thirty miles away from the small house Sara and he had bought in Arlington, Virginia.
The thought of seeing his family made the day seem much brighter. He smiled as he headed down the road to visit Penelope Parker.
Ms. Parker seemed pleased to see Kerney when he arrived. There was a nervous energy to her greeting that he couldn’t quite decipher. He wondered if it came from spending her days cut off from the world while tending to Alice’s needs. She escorted him to the patio where coffee, juice, and a platter of warm scones were arranged on a table, and seated him so he could have the best view of the city and the bay.
Parker had dressed up for the occasion. She wore a pair of dainty, open-toe shoes, black slacks that accentuated her slender legs, and a short-sleeved, partially unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt that emphasized the curve of her breasts. Without prompting, she told Kerney that Alice still didn’t understand that Clifford was dead.
“I don’t know if she’s able to process it,” Parker said as she leaned over Kerney’s shoulder and poured his coffee. “She may never be. Her mental capacity is diminishing rapidly.”
The color rose on her cheeks when Kerney looked up and thanked her. He quickly realized Parker was lonely for more than simple companionship.
“Do you have any help to look after her?” he asked.
Parker nodded as she sat and served Kerney a scone. “Trained caregivers are here at night, and I do get an occasional weekend off. But when Alice becomes confused, I’m the only one who can deal with her, so I always try to be fairly close at hand.”
“Where is Alice now?” Kerney asked.
Parker smiled as she stirred cream into her coffee. “She’s in her room. I asked the caregiver to stay over for a while to be with her so we could talk without any interruption.”
“What can you tell me about the origin of Clifford Spalding’s wealth?”
“As I understand it, he owned an old motel in Albuquerque adjacent to a very large shopping mall that wanted the land for expansion. The developer had a pending lease agreement with a national chain to build an upscale motor lodge for vacationers and out-of-town weekend shoppers. Clifford negotiated a deal that gave him some working capital and a minority ownership in the franchise. That’s how it all started.”
“When did this happen?” Kerney asked.
“Long before my time,” Parker replied. “The same year George was killed in Vietnam, or soon thereafter.”
“How did Clifford parlay his profit into a hotel empire?” Kerney asked.
Parker leaned forward, revealing a bit more cleavage. “Another hotel company wanted to establish a presence in Albuquerque and offered an attractive buyout deal for the property after the new motel was up and running. Mr. Spalding retained his minority interest as part of the deal and used his cash-out from the profit he’d made to buy a ninety-nine-year lease on a run-down motel in downtown Santa Fe. He got some investors to put up money for the renovation, and turned the place into a thriving boutique hotel operation.”
“Did he live in Santa Fe?” Kerney asked.
“No, he and Alice had a house in Albuquerque.”
Parker stood and filled Kerney’s juice glass, this time touching him lightly on the shoulder as she poured.
“Why would Alice want Clifford tied to a divorce decree that made him responsible for the continued search for George?” Kerney asked, after Parker, cheeks slightly flushed, returned to her chair.
“Partially out of spite, and partially to use every possible way to hit Clifford in the checkbook,” she said.
Kerney sipped his juice. “Explain that to me.”
“She hates the fact that Clifford never believed George was still alive. It got to the point, just before the divorce, where Mr. Spalding was publicly demeaning her about it to their friends. It was her way of striking back at him.”
“Yet Spalding cooperated in Alice’s hunt for George,” Kerney said. “He hired a private investigator, and stayed in touch with the local police.”
“I always felt he did that more to placate Alice than to really look for George.”
“What about the search for Debbie Calderwood?” Kerney asked.
“George’s personal effects included love letters Debbie had written to him while he was in Vietnam. Those letters convinced Alice that Debbie knew something about George’s military service the Army wasn’t telling her.”
“Like what?”
“That George had some secret duty, a special operation or a hush-hush assignment.”
“Where are the letters?” Kerney asked, remembering Lou Ferry’s story of how Spalding had made him fake a report on Calderwood’s possible whereabouts.
“Alice and Clifford had a big fight just before he walked out on her,” Parker replied. “She came home to find him burning everything about George and Debbie that she’d accumulated over the years. He destroyed all of it.”
“Interesting,” Kerney said. “Did this happen while Clifford had the private investigator working on the case?”
Parker nodded. “Right about then, as I recall.”
“But you never met him, or knew his name,” Kerney said.
“That’s right,” Parker said. “Nor did Alice. Mr. Spalding was something of a control freak. When Alice challenged him about it, he said the man couldn’t possibly remain objective unless he was free to do his job without her interference.”