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“Absolutely. You must be the investigator from S.T.”
“Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “Nice meeting you. I see I caught you hard at work.”
“Always. I’m glad you figured out where I was.”
“The girl who came to the door told me you were back here.”
“You met Memory.”
“I assume so, though she didn’t introduce herself.”
His expression was wry. “She sometimes comes up short in the ma
“No need to apologize. You’re the one I came to see.”
“Hope I can help. How’s Deborah doing these days?”
“Good. We did a beach walk last Wednesday, and she’s in better shape than I am.”
“Have a seat if you can find one,” he said.
“This is fine.”
He hoisted himself onto a bare patch of workbench while I leaned against the table, keeping us eye-to-eye. We chatted for a bit, working our way around to the subject at hand.
Finally, he said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ll try to be succinct about this,” I said. I launched into my tale, distilling it down to the salient points. “An old kidnapping case has popped into view again for reasons too complicated to go into. A little girl named Mary Claire Fitzhugh disappeared in July of 1967 and hasn’t been seen since.”
“That’s bad.”
“Very bad, but at least there’s hope we’ll find out what happened to the child. As I understand it, you and your mom and dad were in Santa Teresa that same summer-”
“Greg wasn’t my dad,” he said. “Just want to be clear on that since Mom was.”
“Sorry. I’m hazy on the details, which is why I’m here.”
“Matters not. Go on.”
“I know the three of you were staying with the Unruhs. Deborah tells me Greg was pressing them to hand over the money his grandfather had left him so he and Shelly could buy a farm…”
Shawn was already shaking his head. “I heard ’em cooking up the story, but it was fiction, every word of it. Nitwits. I don’t know what they were thinking. Patrick wasn’t going to underwrite their cockamamie plan, even if it had been legitimate. The money was in trust and there was no way they could’ve busted into it. Well, maybe with a legal hassle, but Greg wasn’t in a position to stick around for that.”
“What was he up to? Can you fill me in?”
“Sure. Greg dropped out of Berkeley in his sophomore year, which meant he lost his 2-S student deferment and was reclassified as 1-A, ready for immediate induction. His draft notice caught up with him and he promptly burned it. He and Mom were both paranoid about authority, her more than him. He decided to go to Canada. She wasn’t keen on the idea, but he had friends in hiding up there and he figured he could take advantage of the co
“I can understand the kind of pressure he was under.”
“Well, yeah, from his perspective. I’ll tell you what was dumb. I didn’t realize this until later, but in July of ’sixty-seven, Greg was twenty-five years old. Once he turned twenty-six, he’d be off the hook, so all he had to do was wait. I don’t think they were taking married guys, so if he and Mom had been willing to go that far, he’d have been home free. Not that they’d have done anything so pedestrian. They were hippies and way too free-spirited for anything as mundane as a civil ceremony. Anyway, once it was obvious the Unruhs weren’t going to cooperate, we hit the road, which was their solution to just about anything.”
“Why such an abrupt departure?”
“They did everything on impulse, though there might have been something more going on. I heard a lot of heated whispers from the back of the bus. Greg was in a panic.”
“Any idea when that was?”
“Not a clue. I was a kid. What did I know? I remember Mom lobbied hard for San Francisco. There was all this talk about the Summer of Love and she was pissed she’d be missing out. She said it wasn’t like they’d have a posse on their tails. There were thousands of guys ducking the draft, so all they had to do was keep on the move and they’d be fine. Cut no ice with Greg. He was anxious to get out of Dodge, so to speak. As far as she was concerned, that was his problem, not hers. She knuckled under in the end, but not without a lot of knock-down, drag-out fights. You want my take on it, I got the impression somebody called the draft board and dimed him out.”
“If they left empty-handed, what’d they do for money?”
“The usual-panhandled, sold dope, stole stuff. It’s what they always did when they were down and out, which I might add was their permanent state. The trip took weeks because of all the stops we made, scoring cash for gas and food. To this day, I bet I could support myself standing at a four-way stop with a funky cardboard sign.”
“They didn’t turn around and head back to Santa Teresa for any reason?”
“No way. Greg was freaked out. They were happy to be gone.”
“Patrick believed they’d come up with a scheme to get money. He was convinced they never really left town.”
Shawn shook his head. “I’m the only one who ever came back and that was three years ago when I read about Patrick being killed. I wanted to pay my respects.”
“Are you aware that Rain was kidnapped right about the time Greg and Shelly left?”
“Rain was?”
“Less than a week after they took off. The ransom demand was fifteen grand, which Patrick paid. She was returned in good shape and ten days later, the other little girl was snatched. The Unruhs thought Greg and Shelly had a hand in it.”
“Not true. Once we left the States, that was it. Why would Patrick blame them?”
“Because it made sense. At least in his mind. The two were desperate for money. The Unruhs refused and the next thing they knew, Rain was abducted and they were forced to pay. The plan was lame, but Deborah says their brains were addled from all the dope they smoked.”
“Well, that’s a fact. I was stoned half the time myself.”
“At ten?”
“That’s what life was like in those days. Don’t get me wrong. Mom had her principles. Until I turned sixteen, she wouldn’t condone peyote, cocaine, or heroin. She also drew the line at LSD. Very strict, she was. She got into the heavy stuff herself, but not until later.”
“You were homeschooled?”
“That was her claim, but it was BS. She quit school when she was fifteen and pregnant with me. That was ninth grade so she didn’t know enough to teach me anything. I survived by looking after myself. If I’d been a pain in the ass, she’d have dumped me the way she did Rain.”
“When did you last see your mom?”
“She died of AIDS in ’eighty-six. Ugly business. I could have done without that.”
“What about Greg?”
“He died of an overdose when I was fourteen. That’s when Mom and I came back to the States. Mom’s first thought was San Francisco. Man, she was really burning up the road. Of course, the Haight was dead by then, but she was ever hopeful. We lived in Berkeley for a while and then Santa Cruz. Eight months in Mexico and I can’t remember where else. We didn’t stay long in any one place. It was a crappy way to grow up.”
“How’d you end up in Belicia?”
“It was one of our many stops along the way. I met a guy here who handcrafted furniture, and he said he’d mentor me if I was ever interested. By the time I was twenty, I’d had it with all the moving around so I settled here. He taught me everything I know.”
“It looks like you’re doing well.”
“This is true,” he said, with mock modesty.
“How long have you and Memory been together?”
He smiled. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry. I just assumed.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Really? I’m not sure Deborah knows about that.”
“No reason she would. We left Santa Teresa in July. Memory was born in Canada the next April. Greg was pissed about the whole deal. He said the last thing they needed was another mouth to feed. He wanted Mom to put the baby up for adoption, but she was having none of it. They went after that subject hammer and tongs. He said since she’d dumped Rain, she could dump this one, too. Mom wouldn’t budge. Personally, I don’t believe the baby was his.”