S is for Silence

While the car was being unloaded, Steve Ottweiler appeared and introduced himself. He was seven years Ta

I purchased four new tires, taking his advice about which brand I should buy, that being the one he had in stock. We sat in his office while the mechanic put my car up on a rack and started loosening lug nuts. Currently Steve Ottweiler was the only person in the area I didn’t suspect of slashing my tires, primarily because this was the first opportunity I’d had to piss him off. Somewhere in the last two days, I’d stepped on some toes, but I hadn’t stepped on his-as far as I knew.

I said, “You were, what, sixteen in Violet Sullivan’s day?”

“I was a junior in high school.”

“Did you know Liza Mellincamp’s boyfriend?”

“Ty Eddings? Sure, though more by reputation than anything else. I knew his cousin, Kyle. They were both a year ahead of me so we didn’t have much occasion to interact. Actually, I’m not sure anyone knew Ty that well. He transferred in from East Bakersfield High School in March of that year. By the time July rolled around, he was gone again.”

“Somebody told me he left the same weekend Violet did.”

“No co

“Meaning what?”

“Word had it that he’d taken up with Liza Mellincamp, who was all of thirteen. The year before, he’d knocked up a thirteen-year-old girl and she ended up dead from a botched abortion. Ty was accorded outlaw status. Very cool in those days.”

“He wasn’t disliked or avoided?”

“Not a bit. We were all big on drama back then. Ty was regarded as a tragic hero because everyone thought he and the dead girl were deeply in love and her parents had forced them apart. He was Romeo to her Juliet, only he came out of the deal a lot better than she did.”

“But is it out of the question that he and Violet might have gotten together? Two black sheep?”

“Well, it’s always possible, though it doesn’t seem likely. Violet was in her twenties and married to boot, so she hardly registered with us. We lived in a world of our own. You know how it is; the big event for us was two classmates who got killed in a car accident. Violet was a grownup. Nobody cared about her. Liza was the one I felt sorry for.”

“I don’t wonder,” I said. “I talked to her yesterday and she said she was crushed when Ty left town. What was that about?”

“ The story I heard was Ty’s aunt got a phone call from someone who told her he was fooling around with another underage girl, namely Liza. That was Friday night. The aunt turned around and called his mother, who’d flown to Chicago for a wedding. She got back to Bakersfield late Saturday night and picked him up first thing Sunday morning.”

“You’d think he could have gotten word to Liza. She was dumped without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“I guess good ma

“What happened after that? I asked, but she wasn’t happy about the question so I left it alone.”

“ Things went from bad to worse. Her parents had divorced when she was eight. She’d been living with her mom-essentially without supervision, since her mother drank. When her dad got wind of her relationship with Ty, he flew out from Colorado, packed her up, and took her back to live with him. Of course that went nowhere. The two didn’t get along; she hated his new family and she was back the next year. No big surprise. You take a kid like her, used to freedom, and she’s not going to react kindly to parental control.”

“How’d he hear about Ty if he was in Colorado?”

“He still had contacts in town.”

“So she ended up living with her mom again?”

“Not for long. Sally Mellincamp died in a house fire the next year and a local family took Liza in. Charlie Clements was a good guy and didn’t want to see her sucked into the foster care system. He owned the auto-repair shop in Serena Station that I bought when he retired in 1962. Liza married his son.”

“So everything co

“One way or another; it sure looks that way.”

Steve was called out to the service bay, but he urged me to stay where I was until my car was ready. His office was small and utilitarian-metal desk, metal chair, metal files, and the smell of oil. Parts manuals and work orders were stacked up everywhere. I took advantage of the moment to review my index cards, playing with the information every way I could. A moment would come when everything would lock into place (she said bravely to herself). Right now, the bits and pieces were a jumble, and I couldn’t quite see where any of them fit.

It was Winston’s confession I kept coming back to. For years he’d kept quiet about seeing Violet’s car. Now I realized how lucky I was his wife was booting him out. Because he was pissed with her, all bets were off, and he felt no compunction about spilling the beans. If I’d talked to him a day earlier, he might not have said a word. It was a lesson I needed to keep in mind: People change, circumstances change, and what seems imperative one day becomes insignificant the next. The reverse is true as well.

My VW was returned within the hour, my tires looking as crisp and clean as brand-new shoes. In addition, I saw that someone had treated me to a complimentary car wash. The interior now smelled new, thanks to a deodorant tag hanging from the rearview mirror. I caught sight of Steve Ottweiler as I was pulling out and gave him a wave.

Heading west on Main, I realized I wasn’t that far from the neighborhood where Sergeant Schaefer lived. I took the next right-hand turn and circled back, parking out in front of his house as I had on my earlier visit. When he didn’t answer my knock, I followed the walkway around the side of the house to the rear, at the same time calling his name. He was in his workshop and when he heard my voice, he peered out the open doorway and motioned me in.

I found him perched on a stool with a miter box and clamps on his workbench. He’d cut lengths of framing and he was gluing them together. Today he wore denim overalls, and his white hair pushed out like foam from under a black baseball cap.

“I expected to find you working on a chair.”

“I finished that project and haven’t yet started on the next. These days, I’m so tied up with hobbies, it’s lucky I don’t work or I’d never fit it all in. What brings you this way?”

“I thought I’d give you an update.” I told him about my tires, my call to the sheriff’s department, and my subsequent visit to Steve Ottweiler’s shop.

“Sounds like you’re making someone sweat.”

“That’s my take on it. The problem is, I have no idea who or how.”

“Tell me what you’ve done and maybe we can figure it out.”

I filled him in on my interviews, starting with Foley Sullivan, saying, “I hate to admit it, but I thought Foley made a pretty good case for himself.”

“Sounding sincere is a specialty of his. What about the others?”

“Well, the people I’ve talked to fall into two categories: those who think Violet’s dead-you, me, and her brother, Calvin-and those who think she’s alive, namely Foley, Liza, and possibly Daisy. I’m not sure where Chet Cramer stands on the question. I forgot to ask.”