That should turn up the heat, I thought.
It bugged me that the manager of the condominium hadn’t acted swiftly to change the locks on Phyllis’s apartment. From what Erroll said, Ned had worked his way through every moving carton she had on hand and had then torn up the rest of the place. Seemed logical to assume he hadn’t found what he was looking for. If he had, he’d have hightailed it out of town on his way to find Celeste. Assuming she still had his souvenirs, of course. The press had alerted the public to the dangers of this man on the loose. Between that and his festering gunshot wound, he’d be looking for another place to hole up.
I changed into my sweats and walked to Cabana Boulevard, where the bike path paralleled the beach. I chunked my way through the first half mile, feeling rusty and unenthusiastic. My muscles were still in a state of shock from my self-defense class the day before. The afternoon was a pretty one with temps in the low seventies and a breeze whipping up whitecaps out on the ocean. For the time being, I set aside the specter of Ned and focused on another problem.
In my conversation with Henry, he’d brought up an interesting point, that being that Anna’s views of motherhood were, in part, the function of her exposure to parental attitudes that were largely negative. Her brother, Ethan, and her sister, Ellen, had six children between them. Ellen seemed to be happily married, but her life was weighted down by exhaustion. I hadn’t met her three kids during my brief time in Bakersfield, but from what I’d seen of her, she wasn’t radiant with maternal love. Ethan’s marriage was less than ideal, and while I respected his parenting, the presence of his children put a damper on his pursuit of his career. In a little Bakersfield bar, I’d watched him perform, accompanying himself on the guitar while he sang. The transformation was stunning. I could see that being confined to Bakersfield would limit his chances of being picked up by an agent or a record company. As far as I knew, Anna had neither talent nor ambition, but she had dreams of a better life, and to her way of thinking, children were nothing more than an impediment.
It occurred to me that my friend Vera, with her five gorgeous, well-behaved kiddy-winks, might be the perfect role model for Anna to contemplate while she pondered her choices. When I finished the run, I showered, dressed, and then put in a call to Vera, explaining the situation.
“I’d love for Anna to see you in action,” I said. “She equates motherhood with the end of life as we know it. She actually talks about loading her coat pockets with rocks and walking into the river. Not that we have one around here . . .”
“Got it. No problem. Round her up and bring her over by five. The twins should be home from school by then—”
“Wait a minute. Scott and Travis are in school? That can’t be true. The twins are only six months old.”
“I’m being facetious, dear. If you’ll remember, you didn’t meet Abigail until she was a year and a half.”
“But I met the twins months ago! I knit both of them those booties with the teddy bears on the soles.”
“So you did and they were adorable. I had no idea you possessed such homely skills. Anyway, Neil is on call tonight, so he won’t be home till late and dinner’s anything we choose. Get here in the next hour and she can witness feeding time. It’s better than the zoo.”
I locked up and then trotted the three doors down to Moza Lowenstein’s house, where I knocked on the door. When Moza appeared, I remembered she was not only hard of hearing, but still under the impression I was soon to be great with child. I didn’t have time to set the record straight. “I’m looking for Anna. Is she in?”
“She’s taking a nap.”
“At this hour? It’s nearly dinnertime. Was she up late last night?”
“I don’t know what she ate last night.”
“Why don’t I go rouse her myself?” I said as I proceeded down the hall.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said, but I was already halfway to Anna’s room. Moza followed me, looking on uneasily as I knocked on her bedroom door, then opened it and stuck my head in. “Hey. We have a dinner date. I want you to meet a friend.”
Anna sat up in bed and pushed a tangle of dark hair away from her eyes. She wore an oversize tatty T-shirt in a robin’s-egg blue, which of course looked fetching on her. “Is this a joke?”
“I don’t have a sense of humor, Anna.”
“Who’s the friend?”
“Vera Hess. She lives in that gray Victorian house next door to Cheney’s. You’ve probably seen her.”
“The big blonde,” she said. “She intimidates the shit out of me.”
“Oh pooh. She’s great. You’ll love her to pieces. Now, come on. You even have time to shower if you make it quick.”
? ? ?
When we arrived at Vera’s back door, it was close to five thirty. I knocked once and let us in. Vera doesn’t believe in guests knocking or ringing the bell because it forces her to drop whatever she’s doing and come running. Her three older children, Peter, Meg, and Abigail—ages five, three, and almost two, respectively—were in the kitchen, seated at a little white wooden table with matching chairs. The twins were in their infant seats nearby, both of them asleep, their dark hair faintly damp. All of them were clean and scrubbed, already in the kind of pajamas you’ve seen in children’s catalogues featuring sleepwear no ordinary mortal can afford. They were eating their dinner, which in the case of Peter, Meg, and Abigail consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches and cups of tomato soup, my personal favorite.
Vera does have “help,” I have to be honest about that. Mavis was at the stove tending the soup, which was close to simmering and smelled divine. Vera was in charge of the grilled cheese sandwiches. Anna and I sat at the counter looking on. I could see why Anna would be intimidated. Vera was a force of nature and seemed to do everything well. I’d worked with her at California Fidelity Insurance in the “olden” days when she was single, smoked cigarettes, and drank bottles of Coca-Cola she kept in a little cooler behind her desk. She’d tried to fix me up with her now-husband, Dr. Neil Hess, a charming general practitioner whom she felt was too short for her. I could see they were smitten with each other and I confess I played Cupid, which mostly consisted of Vera being furious with me in the ladies’ room at work because she thought I’d been flirting with Neil.
“How’s it going?” she asked Anna.
“Not well,” Anna said.