Half Moon Bay: A Novel (Clay Edison Book 3)
Half Moon Bay: Chapter 33

Beverly, and yet not.

Beverly’s black hair, with modern layers and razor-cut bangs, smooth rather than windblown and nurtured to a healthy sheen.

Beverly’s eyebrows, professionally sculpted.

Her nose was blade-thin and meandering, like a mountain ridgeline—Beverly’s, right up until the very tip, where it bunched and became mildly bulbous, like some aftermarket adornment half a size too large.

That knob of flesh: It belonged to someone else.

Gene’s genes.

The broad cheekbones tapering to a wedge were Beverly’s. Beverly’s large, dark, lozenge-shaped eyes, darting from point to point over my face, evaluating me as friend or foe. The corners of her mouth drew back, poised to turn up or drop down, depending on the results of the analysis.

The fog had begun to burn off. I could feel the apartment’s stuffiness oozing out, carrying an aroma of witch hazel. The woman in the doorway wore a tailored blouse, black sateen with white piping, sleeves rolled to her elbows and buttoned in place with tabs; matching black slacks. She was barefoot. Somewhere inside that apartment was a matching pair of shoes, black sandals or ballet flats whose simplicity belied the quality of their construction. I knew as well that the sleek black car parked behind me was hers, too.

In the narrowness of her torso I saw Beverly’s understructure with a touch more padding. This woman was not Beverly from the snapshot, Beverly at thirty. She was Beverly at fifty. Although people would say of her: You have to admit she looks good.

Her makeup was artful, taking advantage of the olives and umbers in her skin; accentuating her best features without making any vain attempt to hide her age. Along the way someone had taught her how to wield a brush. A stylist, or a skilled female relative.

Were she still alive, the real Beverly Franchette would be about eighty. No one had ever taught her how to do makeup. I had in my possession fifteen or so photos of her, and in every one she conveyed an unfinished aspect. To measure her against the woman in the doorway was unfair. Ask women what period of their lives they’d like preserved for the record. Few would pick high school or the months following childbirth.

Unfair to compare.

Impossible not to.

Beverly-not-Beverly folded her arms across her chest, and time folded, too. The nicked doorframe of the apartment was and was not the porch rail of the house on Vista Linda. The arrangement of her limbs became that of Beverly, holding a bundled, faceless infant, staggered by the weight of new responsibility, doing her best to look happy. She had no excuse to be anything but. She’d gotten what she wanted.

I was taking too long to speak, weaving in and out of the past.

Beverly-not-Beverly shifted her hip, blocking the doorway. Her fingers curled around the door’s edge.

Definitely foe.

“We’re not interested,” she said.

I said, “I’m looking for Chrissy Klausen.”

I said it because that’s what I’d been prepared to say. I didn’t need to say it. It was no longer true. I wasn’t looking for Chrissy anymore. I had a single objective: to stall while I found the correct words, the phrase that wouldn’t detonate in my face.

She reexamined me, rerunning her analysis. “Sorry, you are?”

“Clay Edison. I’m an investigator. A man named Peter Franchette asked me to replace Chrissy. She used to work for his family.”

“Doing what?”

“She was their nanny.”

The idea appeared to amuse her. “Chrissy was?”

“In Berkeley. Late sixties.”

“I guess everyone lived in Berkeley during the late sixties,” the woman said. “I wasn’t aware she ever held a job, though. Who did you say you work for?”

“Peter Franchette.”

“Uh-huh. May I see some ID?”

I hesitated, then gave her my badge. If she thought it irregular for a Sheriff’s deputy to be working for a private individual, she didn’t give any indication of that. Nor had Peter’s name elicited any reaction.

“What does this guy want with Chrissy?”

“To establish contact. She was an important part of his life.”

“She must be, if he’s hiring people to replace her.”

“I was able to narrow it down to this general area. I’m going around talking to every Klausen I can replace.”

Another amused smile. She returned the badge. “There’s more than one?”

“Four, including Francine. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to who knows Chrissy.” I paused. “You do know her.”

“She’s my aunt,” the woman said.

“Francine is your mother?”

“Grandmother. My mother’s Carol. Chrissy’s her sister.”

“May I ask your name?”

“Audrey. Marsh.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Marsh.”

“You too. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not very close with my aunt.”

“Does she live around here?”

“Oh no. She left years ago.”

“Left for?”

“Italy. She married an Italian. You might want to inform the man who hired you.”

“It’s not a romantic interest, per se,” I said.

“That’d be a first for Chrissy.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Like I said, we’re not close. I don’t think my husband’s ever met her. I doubt I have a working phone number. My mom probably does. I can ask, next time I talk to her.”

“What about them? Are they close?”

Audrey Marsh shrugged. “Chrissy’s lived abroad most of my life. To be honest, I never cared for her. She was always cold to me. It hurt my mom, though, to be cut out.”

“Did they have a falling-out?”

“I don’t think it happened at once. More an accumulation of little hurts. You know?”

“Sure.”

“Her husband comes from some sort of aristocratic family. She became the Contessa de Something or Other when she got married. She might pass through, en route to someplace more glamorous, but other than that we barely saw her. I think it bothered my mom to see her putting on airs.”

Suggesting the contessa’s new life kept her too busy to maintain family ties.

I could come up with other reasons for her wanting to avoid California or acting awkwardly around her niece.

“Can I ask, is your mother older or younger than Chrissy?”

“Older. Four years? Five? Something like that.”

“Do you take after her? In terms of appearance, I mean.”

Too aggressive: The change of topic raised her antennae. She scanned me once more before saying, “Me? Not really. The story is my father had an ancestor who was black Irish, and that’s where I come from. Anyway.”

She shrugged again. Time to wrap it up. “Feel free to leave me your information and I’ll pass it along.”

“Thanks,” I said. “If you don’t mind—one more thing.”

I knelt to unzip my bag. When I stood again, holding the snapshot of Beverly and the infant, she had shifted behind the door, as though I might come up waving a machete.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

Reluctantly, she took the photo.

Except for the most die-hard selfie addicts, most of us look at other people far more than at ourselves. What’s true of one’s life is true of one’s physical appearance: We are often too close to see it clearly.

And I had my own biases. I wanted so much for this woman to be the girl in the photo.

Seconds ticked by. I felt my hopes starting to sink.

Audrey Marsh had a mother and a father. She had an explanation for why she did not look like either of them. She had a childhood and a set of memories to back it up. Why would she revise her autobiography, on the spot, on the basis of a snapshot?

She flipped it over to read the date.

Flipped to the front again.

“Who is this?” she said.

“Beverly Franchette,” I said. “Peter Franchette’s mother.”

She nodded, gave a knowing smile.

She was the victim of a prank.

Only she’d gotten ahead of it. She was nobody’s fool.

She gave the photo back.

“Take care,” she said and shut the door.

—

I STOOD IN the prickling heat, castigating myself. I could have stopped with her name, handed the reins to Peter, and let him make the first overture. Now I’d stoked her paranoia.

I peeled off two business cards, slipping one beneath the door and tucking a second on the Tesla’s windshield.

I got in my car, backed out, and began heading for the exit.

Wait.

In the rearview mirror, Audrey Marsh strode shoeless across the asphalt, waving.

I lowered my window.

She said, “Give it to me, please.”

I held out the snapshot. She snatched it away and took a long step back, as if I might try to drag her into the car.

“Where did you get this?” she said.

“From Peter.” I paused. “I have a few others.”

She gestured for them impatiently.

I gave her all the Beverly photos I had. She looked through them, lingeringly at first, but then in rapid cycles, like flash cards, cramming for an exam her life depended on.

Ribbons of heat rose up from the tar.

Seagulls circled and shrieked.

Her anger began to recede, replaced by an air of purpose. Curiosity, even. She’d lost her data and had to start over. A new problem to solve. No sense crying.

I’d seen this reaction before. It was Peter Franchette’s reaction when I began to question his assumptions.

Audrey Marsh juggled the photos back into alignment and returned them to me—all except the snapshot, which she continued to hold against her chest, like a talisman.

She said, “Let’s talk inside.”