Добавить в цитаты Настройки чтения

Страница 10 из 90

The librarian was seated at a desk under one of the windows. The name plaque in front of her read LORI CAVALLERO, HEAD LIBRARIAN. She looked up at me expectantly. She set her pen aside, got up, and crossed the room, walking on the balls of her feet to minimize the sound. She appeared to be in her late forties, her dark hair a long, careless tumble around her face. Her mouth was bracketed with deep lines and a faint frowning V was sketched between her eyes. She wore a long brown knit dress over boots, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

“Are you Ms. Cavallero?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“I’m Kinsey,” I said with a smile to match hers. “I was wondering if I might take a peek at the 1967 yearbook. I’m trying to track down an old friend.”

“Of course. We keep the yearbooks in the other room. You want to follow me?”

“Great,” I said. I couldn’t believe another closely held conviction was taking a hit. Now it turned out the faculty and staff were as nice as the kids. What was Sutton’s problem?

She moved to a door on our left and ushered me into the room. “This was Albert Climping’s study,” she said. She gave me a moment to appreciate the room and its furnishings. The study was smaller than the library and beautifully proportioned, with a spiral staircase taking up one corner. I counted twenty built-in file drawers, each labeled with old-fashioned cursive on white cards slipped into brass frames. I could see wide, shallow drawers that I imagined held maps or documents intended to be stored flat. A massive desk took up the center of the room, resting on an Oriental carpet in muted browns and blues. A big stone fireplace with an impressive carved mantel was centered in the wall across from the door. On the far wall there was a second carved wooden door, probably leading to the hall beyond. The remaining wall was paneled in mahogany. The oil portraits that hung in the open spaces between bookshelves were darkened with age and suggested successive generations of severe Christian gentlemen and their long-suffering mates.

“Wow,” I said, in all sincerity. From my perspective, the prime item of interest was the spiffy-looking copy machine I’d spotted just inside the door.

“The yearbooks are on the bottom shelf,” she said. “I’ll be in the other room if you need anything else.”

“Thanks.”

She moved into the larger room and closed the door.

And just like that, I was given access to the information I thought would require a mandate from the California State Senate. I dropped my shoulder bag near the copy machine and crossed to the shelves where the yearbooks were lined up. The 1967 edition was there and I toted it with me, riffling through pages while I activated the On button and waited for the machine to warm up. The first twenty-five-plus pages were devoted to the graduating seniors, half-page color head shots with a column beside each photograph, indicating countless awards, honors, offices, interests. The juniors occupied the next fifteen pages, smaller photographs in blocks of four.

I flipped over to the last few pages, where I found the lower school, which included kindergarten through fourth grade. There were three sections for each grade, fifteen students per section. The little girls wore soft red-and-gray plaid jumpers over white shirts. The boys wore dark pants and white shirts with red sweater vests. By the time these kids reached the upper school, the uniforms would be gone, but the wholesome look would remain.

I turned the pages until I found the kindergartners. I checked the names listed in small print under each photograph. Michael Sutton was in the third grouping, front row, second from the right. His eyes were big and brown and worried even then. Most of his classmates towered over him. His teacher’s name was Louise Sudbury. I looked for the two other Michaels, Boorman and Trautwein. Michael Boorman was a towhead, a goofy grin showing a blank where his two front teeth had been. Michael Trautwein was heavyset with a round face and a crown of dark curly hair. All the boys wore shoes that were comically large compared to their bony little six-year-old legs.



The copy machine wasn’t old but it was slow. Nonetheless, my visit to the library and my return to the parking area, photocopies in hand, were accomplished in a snappy fifteen minutes. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Things seldom went this swimmingly for me, which should have been a clue.

5

The home address Sutton had given me was 2145 Hermosa Street, on the west side of town. His was a neighborhood of condominiums and single-family residences, many of which were rentals. The houses tended to be small and plain, with stucco exteriors and shallow-pitched asphalt roofs. Frame bungalows were tucked between two-story apartment complexes devoid of architectural interest. Mature trees towered over the tenth-of-an-acre lots on which they’d been planted, suggesting a lack of vision on the part of those first owners, who’d apparently failed to recognize that after forty-five years of California rain and sun, a red gum sapling or a two-foot spruce would dominate the front yard and dwarf the modest house it was meant to ornament.

I slowed, sca

I found a parking place, locked my car, and walked back to the house. Ordinarily, locking my car was more cautionary than critical, but not in this area. Hermosa came to a dead end at the 101, which was visible through a bare patch of wire fence that was otherwise blocked by weeds. Freeway traffic kicked up a buffeting wind, accompanied by an eddy of exhaust fumes. Trash had been sucked up against the fence where the rush of passing cars created a vacuum. How did a kid raised in Horton Ravine end up in a neighborhood as crummy as this? When Climping Academy boasted about entire graduating classes going on to college, there wasn’t any mention of what came afterward. I’d always imagined a high-toned education guaranteed an equivalent high-toned lifestyle, but I lived better than this guy and what was that about?

I went up the porch steps and knocked on the screen, turning to continue my visual survey while I waited. The two houses directly across the street from Sutton’s had been torn down and someone had taken advantage of the empty double lot to offer off-street parking for ten bucks a week. This was enterprising as parking at the curb was free. Every house I saw had iron grillwork secured across the windows to deter the burglars, who probably had the good sense to burgle the pricier houses in town.

When I heard the front door open, I turned. Sutton stood behind the screen, wearing the same shirt and tie I’d seen him in the day before. His dark brown eyes conveyed the usual unspeakable gloom. He said, “Oh, hi. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“Sorry to stop by una

“I was just on my way out. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“This won’t take long. A minute tops.”

By way of a reply, he held open the screen door. I crossed the threshold and stepped into his front room. The light was muted, filtered through the pink hydrangea blooms that crowded against the window glass. The air smelled of bacon, scorched coffee, spilled beer, cigarettes, and dog hair. A golden retriever lumbered to its feet to greet me, long tail banging against an overstuffed chair. The room was too small to accommodate an animal that size. Dogs need a yard to wander in and a shady spot where they can curl up and snooze. A retriever might also appreciate the opportunity to actually retrieve something, like a ball or a stick. I’ve never even owned a dog and I knew that much.