Family Honor - Robert B Parker (3 page)

"Don't mind Betty," he said finally. "She can be difficult."

"I would imagine," I said.

He smiled. "She'd have preferred someone less attractive."

"I'm trying," I said.

He smiled widely. "And failing, may I say."

I nodded. "Your daubhter's name is Millicent?"

"Yes -Millie."

"When did she disappear?"

"She hasn't disappeared," Patton said. "She's run off."

"When did she run off?"

"Ah, today is Wednesday," he leaned forward and looked
at the calendar on his desk. "She went not this past Monday, but, all,
a week ago Monday."

"Ten days?" I said.

"Yes. I know it seems long, but, well, we weren't too
worried at first."

"She's done this before," I said.

"Well, in a sense, that is, she's gone off to stay with
a friend for a couple of days."

"Without telling you."

"You know how rebellious teenagers are," he said.

"I'm not judging your daughter or you, Mr. Patton. I'm
trying to find a place to start."

"I have a picture," he said.

He took a manila envelope out of his desk drawer, and
handed it across to me. I took the picture out and looked at it. It was
a good picture, not one of those bright-colored school photos in the cardboard
folders that I used to bring home every year. It showed a pretty girl,
perhaps fifteen, with straight blond hair and her mother's even features.
There was no sign of life in the picture. Her eyes were blank. She seemed
to be wearing her face like a mask.

"Pretty, isn't she," he said.

"Yes. This a good likeness?"

"Of course, why do you ask?"

"Well, just that sometimes people look a little more,
ah, relaxed in real life, than they do in studio photographs."

"That's a good likeness of Millie," he said. "May I keep
this?"

"Of course."

"You know what she was wearing when she left?"

"No, I'm sorry, she had so many clothes."

"Take anything with her?"

He shook his head, with that false helplessness men like
to adopt when talking about women.

"And have you any suggestion where I should start?"

"You might ask at the school?"

"Which is?"

"Pinkett School," he said. "In Belmont. The headmistress
is Pauline Plum."

Pauline Plum. From Pinkett. How darling.
 

Behind Julie, the light was slanting into my loft from
the South Boston waterfront. It came in through the big window at the east
end, and splashed over my easel, making an elongated Ichabod Crane shadow
on the floor. Just out of the shadow, in the warmest part of the sunlight,
my bull terrier, Rosie, was lying on her back with her feet in the air
and her head lolled over so she could keep an almond-shaped eye on our
breakfast.

"Tall, cute little crow's-feet around the eyes," I said.
"Great hair."

"Nice?"

"A little impressed with himself."

"But you liked him?"

"Not much," I said.

Julie took a bite of her sesame seed bagel and a sip of
her coffee. "Money?"

"It would seem so. Huge house, servants, a croquet lawn,
trap shooting, river view."

"In South Natick?"

"There's still land left there," I said. "This is a very
big property."

Rosie got up and came over and sat the way bull terriers
do with her tail balancing the back of her and her butt several inches
from the ground. She looked steadily at me now, her narrow black eyes implacable
in their desire for a bite. I broke off a piece of bagel and handed it
to her.

"How about the wife?"

I had a mouthful of coffee and couldn't answer so I just
shook my head.

"We don't like the wife," Julie said.

I swallowed the coffee.

"No, we don't," I said. "Arrogant, impeccable, condescending."

"God, I hate impeccable," Julie said. "They get along?"

"Maybe not. I almost had the sense she was jealous of
me."

"Oh ho," Julie said. "He seem interested in you?"

"He might have been."

"Well, that's not so bad. Tall, crinkly, rich, and interested."

"And married."

"That doesn't have to be an obstacle," Julie said.

"It is to you."

"Well yes, but Michael and I get along," Julie said. "And
even if I wanted to cheat I'd have to get a baby-sitter."

Julie was always eager for me to have an affair, I think,
so she could hear about it afterward.

"How is life among the rug rats?" I said.

"Mikey has discovered that if he doesn't eat I go crazy."

"It's good to have a resourceful kid."

"The little bastard won't eat anything but macaroni with
butter on it."

"So?"

"So it's not balanced."

"Oh hell," I said. "People live quite well on a lot worse."

"He needs protein and vegetables."

"Maybe he sneaks some when you're not looking. You're
the psychiatric social worker," I said.

"What would you say to someone about that?"

"That it's one of the few areas where he can exercise
control," Julie said. "I can't force him to eat."

I nodded encouragingly.

"Like toilet training," Julie said.

"Didn't you have trouble toilet-training him?" I said.

"So what do I tell the pediatrician when she tells me
he's malnourished."

"Tell her he'll get over it," I said.

"Oh sure. It's easy ... you haven't got any children."

"All I did was ask a couple of questions. Besides, I have
Rosie."

"Whom you spoil horrendously."

"So?" I said. "Your point?"

Julie finished her sandwich. "I can't wait," she started.

And I finished for her, "Until you have kids!"

We both laughed.

"The mother's curse," Julie said. "How old is this girl
you're looking for?"

"Fifteen," I said.
 
We were through breakfast and putting the dishes into
the dishwasher.

"Pretty?"

"Come on down to the office," I said, "I'll show you her
picture."

The kitchen was in the middle of the loft. Behind it was
my bedroom. The east end was where I painted. The west end was my office.
Julie and I stood near my desk looking down at the picture of Millicent
Patton. Rosie followed us and flopped down behind me. I knew she was annoyed.
She never understood why I couldn't just stay still near where she was
sleeping.

"Well, at least she doesn't have purple hair and a ring
in her nose," Julie said.

"At least not in the picture," I said.

"If things are good at home," Julie said, "kids don't
run away."

"True," I said. "But what defines bad at home will vary
a lot from kid to kid."

"So where will you start looking for this little girl?"
Julie said.

"Do the easy things first," I said. "Call the local police
to see if they've picked up a juvenile that might be Millicent or found
any unidentified bodies that might be Millicent."

Julie shook her head as if to make the thought go away.
"Have you done that?"

"Yes. No one fits."

"Good. Now what?"

"Where do young girls usually end up when they run away
from home?"

"Prostitution," Julie said. I nodded.

"You say that to her parents?"
 
"No."

"What if you find her and she doesn't want to leave?"

"I'll urge her," I said.

"What if there's a pimp?"

"There's almost always a pimp," I said.

"Maybe you should ask Richie to go with you."

"I can't do this work if I have to ask my ex-husband to
protect me."

In the quiet I could hear some of the trucks grinding
along Congress Street in low gear as they hauled stuff to or from the new
tunnel site.

"I have never understood why you do this work, anyway,"
Julie said.

"I know," I said.

"Maybe if you gave me a reasonable explanation..."

"It pays for my painting."

"Shouldn't the painting pay for itself?" Julie said.

"Day at a time," I said. "It also pays for my MFA."

"Which you've been pursuing since I was childless."

"Night at a time," I said.

"Sunny," she said. "I've known you all my life and I don't
understand you."

"At least you know it," I said. Julie looked at her watch.

"My God," she said, "I'm late, late. I love you, babe,
you know that."

"I love you, too, Jule."

We hugged. She left. I stared at Millicent's picture for
a while. Then I put Rosie in the car and went out to visit the Pinkett
School.
 

We talked in her office, on the first floor of the Pinkett
School's white clapboard main building, me in a maple captain's chair with
a small plaid cushion on it, Miss Plum sitting straight in her highbacked
leather swivel, with her feet on the floor and her hands folded before
her on the desktop.

"Millicent Patton is not a very industrious student,"
she said.

"How so?"

"She is bright enough, at least she seems so. But she
also seemed to lack any motivation."

"Bad grades?"

"Yes, but more than that. She isn't active in school affairs.
She doesn't play a sport. She is not on the yearbook staff, she has no
extracurricular activities on her transcript."

"She is not a resident," I said.

"No, we are not a resident school."

"Any special friends here?"

"Sadly, none that I know of."

"No friends that she might have gone to visit without
telling her parents?"

"None."

"Could she have friends you don't know about?" I said.

"Possibly," Miss Plum said. "But I keep a close eye on
my charges, and after you called I made it a point to refamiliarize myself
with Millicent and her situation."

"No boyfriends?"

"This is a girls' school."

"Doesn't mean she might not have a boyfriend," I said.

"We feel dating is better left to later years," Miss Plum
said. "We try to focus our girls on growing into accomplished young ladies."

"And I'll bet you do a hell of a job," I said.

Miss Plum frowned. Accomplished young ladies did not speak
that way.

"Our graduates usually continue their education at the
best schools," she said.

"Where do you suppose Millicent Patton is headed?"

"I fear that perhaps a public junior college would be
her only option," Miss Plum said.

"Eek," I said.

"Did you go to college, Miss Randall?"

"Yes."

I knew Miss Plum was dying to know where, but I was too
perverse to tell her, and she was too well-bred to ask. I'd known a lot
of Miss Plums, people who couldn't form an opinion of you until they knew
where you went to college, and what your father or husband did for a living,
and where you grew up. I was sure in Miss Plum's world that no accomplished
young lady became a private eye.

"So what was wrong with Millicent Patton?" I said. "Why
didn't she fit in? Why is she the one that won't go to a good school and
has no friends and might end up, God forbid, in a public junior college?"

"As I say, she is unmotivated."

"That's not really an answer," I said. "That is just another
way of describing the problem."

"What answer would you prefer, Miss Randall?"

"Why was she unmotivated?"

"I can't say. I can tell you that the failure is not at
Pinkett. We have tried every possible way to encourage her participation
in the educational experience here."

"Do you know her parents?" I said. "Yes."