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“She’ll probably get in touch with you. That’s how this whole thing got started. She’s been calling me once or twice a year for the last twenty-one years, asking for updates. I told her we had nothing new as far as I was aware, but I’d check with Cheney Phillips and get back to her. That’s when I heard Michael Sutton had come in and Cheney’d sent him over to you.”
Stacey said, “What about this Sutton kid? How solid is his claim? He sounds like a nutcase to me.”
I had to shrug. “Well, it’s really not such a stretch. He was playing on a property owned by a family named Kirkendall, just up the hill from the Unruhs. As Dolan says, there are horse trails ru
“You believe him?”
“What he says makes sense. He sees the two guys and they see him so they know they’ve been busted. They can’t count on a little kid to keep his mouth shut so they swap out the little girl’s body for the dog’s. That way if he properly identifies the place, it looks like he’s made a mistake.”
“Why’d they choose that property?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” I said. “It might have been an attempt to point a finger at Shelly and Greg. The Unruhs were convinced the pair had a hand in it because the total they asked for-adding Rain’s ransom to the demand made of the Fitzhughs-was forty thousand dollars, exactly what Greg’s grandfather left for him in trust.”
Dolan said, “That’s a detail I find puzzling-and this has bugged me for years-a ransom demand for fifteen thousand dollars seems odd to me. Even a forty-thousand total seems screwy. Why not a hundred thousand? Better yet, half a million? Why risk the electric chair for chump change? I mean, who kidnaps a kid and asks for so little?”
“I’ll tell you who,” Stacey said. “Amateurs, that’s who. Which is why they never tried it again. The second kidnap blew up in their faces and that was the end of it. Two career criminals cured of the urge. Speaking of which, I’m out of here. You come up with anything good, you can wake me later on.”
“I have a question before you go,” I said. “Have either of you ever run across a Lompoc PI named Hale Brandenberg?”
Stacey said, “Sure, I know Hale. He started out about the same time I did, only he was younger by a goodly number of years.”
“You think he’s still around?”
“Last I heard. You want to talk to him?”
“I’d love to. It’s not about this case. It’s something else.”
“Let me make a few calls and see if I can find out where he ended up.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”
Saturday morning I slept in until 8:00, a luxury for me. My breakfast meeting with Rain was scheduled for 9:00, which gave me time to dawdle over the newspaper and my first cup of coffee. Once I’d showered and dressed, I walked two blocks over to Cabana and two blocks down. On the beach I could see where ropes of kelp had washed up on the sand. The tide was going out and the waves rushed forward and then receded, tugging the gray-green fronds into the depths again. The wind was up and I could see whitecaps ruffling the water beyond the surf. In the harbor the masts of sailboats swayed back and forth in a rhythm of their own. Countless gulls formed a gray fu
At the entrance to the coffee shop I paused. There was only one young woman at a table alone. She raised a hand and waved, having identified me by the same process of elimination. I indicated to the hostess that I was joining a friend. I slid into the padded Naugahyde booth across from her and signaled to a waitress who was passing with a fresh carafe of coffee. She turned my mug right-side up and filled it.
Rain passed the stainless steel pitcher of milk and I added enough to turn the coffee beige. We introduced ourselves properly and then chatted about nothing in particular, which gave her a chance to study me while I made a study of her. She had the fresh look of youth. Her complexion was clear and her features were delicate. She had Betty Boop lips and hair like a cloud of platinum-blond frizz, bobbed level with her ears. Discreet pearl-and-diamond earrings caught the light. She wore jeans and a gossamer white shirt over a white lace camisole, a combination more elegant than I’d have imagined. Two booths over, a busboy wiped down the table with his eyes pi
“Have you ordered yet?” I asked.
“I was waiting for you.”
The waitress returned with her order pad in hand. I asked for a small tomato juice, rye toast, and a soft-boiled egg. Rain ordered the breakfast special. When the meal came I watched her work her way through orange juice, scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, link sausages, and buttered biscuits with strawberry jam. Though she ate as rapidly as I did, I finished first, leaving her with two biscuits to go.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“I’ll be twenty-five in July. Why?”
“Please tell me you don’t eat like that and then go to the ladies’ room and barf it all up again.”
“And waste all this food? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No laxatives? Ipecac? Finger down your throat?”
She laughed. “I’ve got the metabolism of a bird.”
“That’s what the ski
“Not me. In my teens I had migraines and I barfed enough for a lifetime. I admit I was pretty good at it, but eating’s too much fun.”
“Can I ask you about your father’s business? Deborah says you took over after he died.”
“I did. He was actually my grandfather, as I’m sure you know, but I called him Daddy because that’s what he was to me. He owned a plant in downtown L.A., manufacturing sports uniforms. Later, he created a line of foul-weather gear-raincoats, rain hats, anoraks, rain jackets, slickers, umbrellas…”
I stared at her. “Are you talking about Rain Checks?”
“That’s him.”
“You’re kidding. You’re the ‘Rain’ in Rain Checks?”
“Yep.”
“How did he come up with the idea when California has so little rainfall? What is it, fifteen days a year?”
“He was smart. Early in his career he worked for a company that made sports apparel. He was on the road a lot, mostly in the North-west, Oregon and Washington States. He could see the niche. People had raincoats, umbrellas, and boots, but it was all a hodgepodge and none of it was stylish. He decided to tackle the high-end market, where Burberry and London Fog were the only competition. Now we sell through all the luxury department stores; Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman. We have a huge worldwide presence as well. London, Rome, Prague, Tokyo, Singapore. ‘When foul weather threatens your day, take a Rain Check.’ ”
“I love those ads,” I said. “You know how to run a business?”
“I’m learning,” she said. She popped the last bite of biscuit in her mouth and wiped her fingers on her napkin. “After Daddy died, I changed my major from social work to business and got my MBA. I have a team of experts holding my hand, and we’ve done well so far. Knock on wood.”
“I am totally amazed.”
“You’re not the only one,” she said. “Anyway, I know your primary interest is the kidnapping-abduction, or whatever.”
“I’m curious about the experience.”
“It was fine. Really. I was four. I didn’t know what was going on so why would I react badly?”
“No unpleasant associations?”
“Not at all. The guys were nice. I got to play with this adorable yellow kitten. The only thing I was ever upset about was not getting to keep her when it was all over with.”
“There were two guys?”
“Two that I saw. One was Santa and the other was just this goofball who wore glasses with cardboard eyes in the frames and a big plastic nose. He had a wig, too-bright red fake hair like Raggedy Andy. There might have been other guys, but I doubt it.”