Mariner's Compass (13 page)

I picked up the phone and dialed the phone number listed for Jacob Chandler’s sister in Lubbock. It was five-thirty p.m. here, so that meant it was seven-thirty there. The phone rang six times, and I almost hung up when an elderly lady answered.

“Hello, hello? Can I help you?” her crackly voice asked.

“Mrs. Ludlam? Mrs. Rowena Ludlam?”

“Yes, who’s calling? I don’t want any time-shares, young woman.”

“I’m not selling anything, Mrs. Ludlam. I . . .” My mouth turned dry. How do you tell a perfect stranger that her brother has died?

Just tell ’em, honeybun, Dove would say. We old folks are tougher than you youngsters give us credit for.

“Mrs. Ludlam, my name is Benni Harper, and you don’t know me.”

“Young woman, what are you selling?”

“Ma’am, I’m not selling anything. I’ve . . . I’m afraid I’ve got some sad news for you. About your brother, Jacob.”

“Jake!” she exclaimed. “You’ve seen my brother Jake? Where is he? Is he all right? Where’s he been? Oh, my stars, Mother’s last words were about wanting to see her Jakie one more time. I’ll never forgive him for that. Where’s he at? Why’s he wanting to contact us now?”

I let her words peter out before continuing. “Mrs. Ludlam, I’m sorry to tell you that your brother passed away of a heart attack.”

“Jake’s dead?” Her voice corkscrewed into a squeak. “We always thought he was dead, but we never really knew and always wondered, but I always thought of him as dead, but Mother always hoped and hoped, and now he is dead. Isn’t that the oddest thing?”

I didn’t know quite how to answer that. “Yes, ma’am,” I finally said.

“What did you say your name was? Where are you calling from?”

“I’m Benni Harper and I’m calling from San Celina, California. Well, actually I’m calling from Morro Bay, which is twelve miles from San Celina, but I live in San Celina and—”

She interrupted my rambling. “How do you know my brother? Are you with Social Services? Was he homeless? How did you know to call me? Did he ask you to call me before he . . .” A second of silence, then, “Oh, Lord, we haven’t heard from him for over thirty-five years. Young woman, are you sure it’s my brother?”

“Well, his papers say he’s Jacob Chandler and—”

“What papers?”

“His driver’s license and his house and—”

“He had a house? You mean he wasn’t homeless?”

“No, ma’am. Can I ask you something? When was the last time you saw your brother?”

A short silence, then, “My stars, I’m trying to think now. Must’ve been about 1956, no, 1957. That’s it. It was 1957 because that was the year Mother won the blue ribbon for her knitted afghan at the state fair. Took her eight months and then she upped and gave it to Janeen Rylie down at the church for a prayer pal gift. She probably let her cat sleep on it. He went down selling to New Orleans and never came back.”

“Selling?” That fit what Gabe’s private investigator friend had found out.

“My brother was a traveling salesman. Sold cleaning products to restaurants. Found his car sitting outside a town called Lake Charles. Never did find him, though. We figured he just ran off. Left a fiancée and a whole apartment full of new furniture. We heard she married someone else. A man named Bowman. They moved to Des Moines.”

“You never heard from your brother again?”

“No, we didn’t, and I’m still mad about it. I don’t know why he up and took off, but he didn’t need to go and do that to Mother. They had their moments, but there’s not a thing worse in the world than dying not knowing what happened to one of your children.”

Thinking about how easy it was for Gabe’s friend to find her, I asked, “Mrs. Ludlam, why didn’t you hire someone to find him?”

“With what money, young woman?” she snapped. “We was poorer than church mice all our lives. And why, pray tell? Besides, he made it clear he didn’t want us to find him.”

“How? I thought you hadn’t heard from him.”

A disgusted
humph
came over the line. “Land sakes, I’m so used to telling that story to save Mother’s feelings it’s almost the truth to me now. But since he and Mother are dead now, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. He did contact me once. Sent a postcard about a month after they found his car. Said, ‘Weenie, don’t look for me. Going to Alaska. Jake.’ Came from Phoenix, Arizona. Had some cactus on it.”

“You sure it was from your brother? You recognized his handwriting?”

“And, pray tell, who else would call me Weenie? He’d tortured me with that nickname from the time I can remember.”

“You called his job?”

“He upped and quit, they said. They said they sent his last paycheck to general delivery in Phoenix and never heard from him again.”

“You never told your mother about his postcard?”

“I thought it’d be kinder to let Mother think he’d gotten in some accident than for her to know he’d just run off. To be honest, she’d always spoiled him, so I’m not surprised.” Her voice turned sly. “Why are you calling anyway? Is there some kind of inheritance or something?”

“I’m still looking into it,” I hedged. “Can you answer another question?”

“Depends.” Her voice was suspicious now.

“I just wondered if you could give me a quick description of your brother.” I picked up his driver’s license.

“’Bout five feet eight or nine, brown hair, brown eyes. Just your average Joe.”

It all matched though his hair was gray on his license.

“Young woman, is there some kind of inheritance?”

That made me feel guiltier than I already did. Not only did Mr. Chandler abandon his friends here in Morro Bay, but he’d done even worse to his blood family. “I’ll get back to you about that as soon as I can. Things are very unsettled right now.” I hoped she wouldn’t ask me again if I was with Social Services. I wouldn’t outright lie, but if she just didn’t ask . . .

Her breathing grew ragged over the phone. “Is there going to be a service?”

“Yes, tomorrow:”

Her voice softened, and for the first time sadness crept into its bitter edge. “Could you take a picture of him? I’d like to see him one more time.”

“I could photocopy his driver’s license picture. It’s the only picture I’ve found of him so far.”

“That would be nice, but I mean how he looks now. Laid to rest.”

I swallowed hard. “I’ll see what I can do. I am sorry, Mrs. Ludlam.”

“You know, I did love my brother at one time. I surely did.” She hung up the phone with a quiet click.

I called the mortuary where they held Mr. Chandler’s body and, after a bit of verbal stumbling around, asked if anyone could take a picture of the body for me. I found the thought of it grotesque, but if this small thing made Mrs. Ludlam feel better, I would do my best to accommodate her.

“Certainly,” the man over the phone said. “It’s requested more often than you realize. We have a Polaroid camera here. I’ll send the photograph with our representative tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I said, relieved I wouldn’t have to take the picture myself.

At seven o’clock, my stomach told me that Rich’s enchiladas had been consumed much too long ago. I fed Scout, then we walked down the steps to the Embarcadero, following a fiftyish man and his wife carrying a couple of camera cases and a tripod.

“Hope we’re not holding you up,” the man called out four steps below me as he carefully picked his way down. He wore a gray sweatshirt that said across the back—“Dwight Yoakum World Tour—Bakersfield to Bangkok—Country All the Way.” The woman, a fluffy-haired, bleached blonde with thick eye makeup, turned her head and smiled at me.

“He’d throw himself on the ground to save that camera,” she said. “If I fell, I’d just have to fend for myself.”

“Your hair would break the fall,” he called up cheerfully. She blew him a loud raspberry.

“No problem,” I said. “I’m in no hurry.”

“We’re going to try to sell some pictures to travel magazines,” she said when we all reached the surf shop parking lot. “Maybe recoup some of the money he’s spent on photography equipment.”

He grinned at me, his face pink with embarrassment. “Now, Susan, this young lady doesn’t want to hear about my hobby.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Hobby? Try obsession.”

“Beats chasing women, love,” the man said.

I smiled at her. “He’s got a point there.”

“Know any good restaurants?” the woman asked. “We just got here.”

“Cafe Palais.” I pointed across the street. “I had a great breakfast there this morning. I’m going to try their dinner now.”

“Cafe Palais. I like the name,” the woman said. “We’ll try that.”

The cafe was crowded again, suggesting that we’d chosen wisely since on a Monday night off-season they were probably locals. Eve was so busy that she only stopped by my table for a moment and said a quick hello and reminded me to try Martin’s famous sandwich.

The Kentucky Brown sandwich turned out to be as wonderful as Eve had promised. It was an open-faced sandwich consisting of crustless toast with a layer of turkey breast covered with a rich homemade Mornay sauce topped with sliced tomatoes, crispy bacon strips, grated cheese, and bread crumbs.

“This is wonderful!” I said to Eve when she refilled my coffee cup.

She smiled. “Martin’s specialty. He worked during his college years in the kitchen at the Brown Hotel in Louisville where the hot brown was invented. I tell him it was only his sandwich that convinced me to give up Manhattan.”

I laughed. “Doesn’t do well to let them get too big a head.”

“That’s what I say.”

She turned to walk away, and I blurted out, “Eve, can I ask you something?”

She looked at me curiously. “Sure, what?”

“It’s about Mr. Chandler.” I set my fork down and looked straight into her intelligent eyes. There was something about this woman that I sensed was honest and street-smart. If there was anything about this man that was off-kilter, surely she’d have sensed it in the years she’d served him meals.

“What about him?” she prompted.

“Did he strike you as being . . . weird in any way? I mean, like, did he ever get, you know, strange with you?” I bit my lip, embarrassed about what I was asking.

“You mean did he ever harass any of my waitresses or me?” She shook her head no. “He was a real nice man. Tipped good but not extravagantly. Was polite but not too forward. I’ll give him this—he never left his table in a mess, and we appreciated that. He’d talk about the weather or his wood carving or sometimes someplace he’d seen when he was a traveling salesman. He’d seen a lot of the country. We had a long talk about Coney Island one time and about New York hot dogs. I don’t think he was a sex pervert, if that’s what you’re asking, but honestly, do we ever know anyone? I mean, this thing he’s done, making you his heir, that took us all by surprise. We honestly thought . . .” She stopped, realizing she’d gone too far.

“That he’d leave it to Tess,” I finished.

She ducked her head and didn’t answer.

“It’s okay. I’ve figured out that they had a special relationship. Believe me, this is as confusing to me as it is to all of you.”

“It’s just that she really needs . . .” She stopped again, her face pink. “I shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“She needs what?” I asked.

Eve tightened her lips and shook her head. “Tess’s money problems are her business, but she’s a nice person, and I feel bad for her. Duane’s legal problems ate up what savings she had—”

“Legal problems?”

“Look, I’ve said enough already. I know Tess won’t hold it against you, but it wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t know she did get help from Jake.”

“And now that’s cut off,” I said softly.

“I think she should have kicked both those boys out a long time ago, but that’s just me. Enjoy your sandwich.”

The sandwich was delicious, but halfway through I stopped eating, feeling slightly sick to my stomach either from the richness of the sauce or the complex, troubling situation I’d been drawn into.

Outside the restaurant I untied Scout’s leash from the bench and just started walking, hoping the excercise would help me sort out what I’d learned about Mr. Chandler. He’d apparently abandoned his family in the middle fifties, showed up here in Morro Bay in the early eighties. What had he been doing the rest of that time? And, more importantly, why had he ended up here obsessed with me?

A heavy mist filled the air with a chilly wetness, but that didn’t deter me, and I walked past the giant chessboard, a place I needed to come back and hang around when it was occupied and eavesdrop a little, past the Coast Guard buildings, and followed the road leading to Morro Rock. It took me about forty-five minutes to reach the parking lot at the rock’s base. Standing next to the huge black rock, peering into the gauzy fog surrounding it, I tried to quiet the noise in my head. Watching the screeching gulls and the elegant black cormorants fly low over the water, feeling the crash of the waves against the breakwater, tasting salt every time I licked my lips cleared my head only a little as it skittered from possibility to possibility about this mysterious man. In the falling dusk, the ocean looked almost metallic, like tarnished silver. I sat on the edge of a rock, running my hand over and over Scout’s damp head, wondering if Gabe and Sam were having fun—and wished I was with them, sitting in a cozy club somewhere, being warmed by a good blues guitar.

Then I sneezed twice. “I’m going to get pneumonia if I don’t get something warm to drink,” I told Scout. “Let’s head back.” Though the walk had done me good, I still was no closer to understanding this situation.

I stopped at Greta’s Koffee Haus on the Embarcadero. A canvas awning provided Scout with shelter, though the damp weather didn’t seem to be making him near as uncomfortable as me. Those Labrador genes, no doubt. The combined smells of marzipan, cinnamon, butter, and hot coffee teased my senses the minute I walked into the tiny, six-table bakery/coffeehouse and convinced me that dessert was the logical answer to my dilemma.

I’d settled down with a slice of chocolate-chip coffee cake and a small café au lait when Rich walked in. He bought a cup of coffee and, with a questioning look, gestured at the empty chair across from me.