“Clearly Chris was a talented kid,” I said, “and I really am trying to find him. Can you tell me anything about him?”
“Nothing much,” Zig said. “I always felt sorry for him. It turns out I knew the whole Danielson clan, including Richie, Chris’s asshole of a dad. His grandfather, Gary, was a helluva nice guy, but his grandmother?” Zig shook his head regretfully. “Linda Danielson was a piece of work, beginning to end. Too bad her son took after her instead of his old man. As long as Gary was around, everything was hunky-dory with Chris being here. Once the old guy was gone, Linda moved heaven and earth to boot Chris out of the house. She had all kinds of excuses, claiming he’d taken money from her and was giving her no end of grief.
“Chris and Billy, my nephew, were friends. Billy was the one who let me know what was going on, and that’s why I offered Chris a job. I worried that he’d be a problem, but turns out he wasn’t. He was dependable as all get-out, did his work, never gave anybody any lip or trouble. And then one day he didn’t turn up for his shift and didn’t call in either. As far as I know, that’s the last anyone ever saw him.”
“But no one bothered to report him as missing?” I asked.
“After Chris disappeared, Billy went to see Linda Danielson. She claimed Chris had gone back home to Ohio of his own accord. Since she hadn’t bothered reporting him missing, why should anyone else?”
An outside door slammed open, and a group of ravenous-looking teenagers surged into the room. “Oops,” Ziggy said. “The basketball game must be over. Duty calls. See you later.”
As soon as he walked away, I turned toward Twink. “How did you manage that?” I asked.
“Manage what?”
“Find me someone who knew the kid I’m looking for?”
Twink shrugged. “Wasn’t hard,” she said. “Places like this are so small that pretty much everybody knows everyone else.”
The room quickly filled to standing room only. As more kids entered, the din level rose until I could barely hear myself think. Carrying on a conversation was out of the question. Once our burgers came, they were every bit as good as advertised, but while Twink and I ate our meals, I couldn’t help thinking about Chris Danielson.
I had now seen three of his drawings, and if those were any indication, he’d had the potential to become a real artist. Instead both his life and his growing talent had been cut short. Something he had dashed off in a matter of minutes during a slow spot in a shift was now a treasure for Siegfried Norquist. Chris must have captured Sonja Norquist in the same subtle way he’d rendered both Danitza and his mother, embodying their personalities with a depth of feeling no intrusive camera lens could ever have delivered. And having seen those three examples of Chris’s extraordinary artwork made me that much more determined to learn exactly what had happened to him.
Twink had requested separate checks, but when our waitress dropped them off, I grabbed both before she had a chance to reach for hers. When I paid the bill, I added in a hefty tip. Having lunch at Zig’s Place would have been worth every penny at twice the price.
Chapter 18
“Sounds like Chris Danielson had a pretty rough go of it,” Twink commented once we were back in the Travelall and headed for Diamond Ridge Road.
There was no point in denying it. Twink had heard about the case fair and square as a result of her accidentally choosing Zig’s Place for lunch. Now that I had another side of Chris’s story, I owed Twink a piece of it.
I nodded. “He was just a kid when his father murdered his mother and then committed suicide. Chris and his older brother, Jared, went to live with their mom’s folks in Ohio. When that didn’t work out, he came to Homer to live with his other grandparents.”
“Which didn’t turn out to be a bed of roses?” Twink asked.
“Exactly.”
“How old was Chris when he went missing?”
“Seventeen.”
“Sounds like he had a tough life. You think he’s dead?”
I wasn’t ready to give Twink a straight answer on that one. “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I told her.
The houses along Diamond Ridge Road were all set back from the street, but the address Todd had sent me took us to a large two-story timbered place that looked like a chalet that had escaped from somewhere in Switzerland. Twink rounded the circular driveway and pulled to a stop next to the front steps.
“Here we are, and take your time,” Twink announced. “See you when you’re done.” She lit a cigarette, drew out her paperback, and settled in for the duration.
There was no way to know what to expect from this visit, but as I approached the door, I gathered myself for a possible confrontation. I’d already heard that Roger Adams had a temper, and when he learned the reason for my visit, I was relatively sure he wouldn’t be thrilled to see me. I rang the bell and waited and then waited some more. Finally a key turned in the dead bolt, and the door swung open.
The barefoot man I saw standing before me wasn’t at all what I expected. Scrawny to the point of being gaunt, he was dressed in a pair of flannel pajamas that appeared to be several sizes too large for him. He resembled the guy I’d seen in the photograph on the Roger Adams Web site, but if this was the same man, he seemed to have aged several decades. His hair stood straight up, as though he’d just crawled out of bed.
“Mr. Adams?” I asked uncertainly.
Swaying slightly, he used the doorjamb to steady himself while studying me with a bleary-eyed stare. At last he nodded. “Who are you?” When he spoke, his voice was raspy, as if weakened from lack of use.
“My name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I explained, offering him a business card. “I wanted to talk to you about—”
Before I could say anything more, he brushed the card aside. “A detective?” he asked. “Are you here to help me?”
Help him? Believe me, that was not at all the greeting I had expected. While I struggled to find an appropriate response, a woman dressed in a terry-cloth robe materialized in the entryway behind him. Just visible over Roger’s pajama-clad shoulder, she had a towel wrapped tightly around her head and appeared to have just stepped out of the shower.
She dodged around the man in the doorway as though he weren’t there and then stopped directly in front of me. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded furiously with her eyes drilling into mine. “And what do you want?”
Nice to meet you, too, I thought.
“As I was just telling Mr. Adams here, my name is J. P. Beaumont,” I said aloud. “I’m a private investigator from Seattle. I’d like to speak to Mr. Adams about the disappearance of Christopher Danielson.”
“Who?” the man asked vaguely, putting one hand on the woman’s shoulder as if using her to help himself remain upright. “Has someone disappeared? Do we know him?”
The robe-clad woman, clearly the second Mrs. Roger Adams, covered his trembling hand with a solicitous one of her own. “It’s all right, Roger,” she said. “This is nothing for you to worry about. Just let me handle it.”