Howard got in touch with her.
“I was like a terminally ill cancer patient reaching for laetrile,” he told Michael. “So I called her.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She was too stoned to talk.”
Small blond girls sprang up like mushrooms all over town: alone, with a young man, an old man, a black man and woman, three teenagers, and an entire Mexican family. One of the reports came from a Mrs. Jeanette Orchard who claimed she saw a middle-aged man at a gas station with a blond child who was crying. A follow-up by a sheriff’s deputy revealed that the middle-aged man owned the gas station and the child, a short fat ten-year-old, was crying because he wouldn’t let her have any more candy bars. Mrs. Orchard was extremely disappointed since she’d put a down payment on a mobile home in anticipation of the reward money.
“At least she didn’t want to buy a racehorse,” Howard said, laying aside the reward file. “What’s next?”
“Pictures,” Michael said. “Hundreds, from publications throughout the country. There’s not much point in looking at all of them.”
“I think there is. We decided in the beginning that we’d examine all the police files in the hope of finding an area they failed to cover. Wasn’t that our mutual decision?”
“Yes.”
“So, let’s go.”
There were literally hundreds, carefully labeled, each subject identified and each photographer credited, with the date and place taken and the initials of the deputy who had filed the picture.
There were formal poses of Annamay intended for Christmas gifts, and snapshots of her at play and at school; of the school itself; of the house Annamay lived in and the palace and even of the man who’d designed them both, Benjamin York. There were pictures of Kay and Howard together and separately; of Chizzy coming out of the coroner’s inquest; Dru in the hall of the courthouse standing between her mother and stepfather, looking small and scared. Even Mitsu and Suki, who normally smiled a great deal, stared somberly into the camera as if it were a judge.
There were also pictures of nearly everyone who lived, worked, or visited in the neighborhood, from Ernestina, the maid next door to the Hyatts, caught throwing a plate into the garbage can, to the old madam waving to the world from one of the balconies of her villa. The madam lent a sinister air to the case as bits and pieces of her past came out in the newspaper accounts.
It was hinted in one of these accounts that the madam had supplied children to some of her special customers, but a disclaimer was printed in the next edition. Many people missed seeing the disclaimer and others regarded it simply as a ploy to avoid a possible libel suit. The madam received crank letters she wasn’t allowed to read and crank phone calls that weren’t relayed to her. The upshot of the matter was that her conservators found it expedient to double the wages of her household staff.
All the members of the staff had been interviewed by sheriff’s deputies, some briefly, some at length, depending on the verbosity of both parties involved. But the madam herself had not been questioned.
The file listed her real name as Rosa Firenze: Born in Chicago, raised in a succession of foster homes until her first arrest at age thirteen for aggravated assault. After a series of arrests she drifted westward and finally discovered her destiny. In San Francisco at the beginning of World War II Rosa found the fleet and the fleet found her.
Michael said, “Why wasn’t Miss Firenze questioned?”
“Since she has been declared incompetent by the court her lawyer’s permission was necessary and he refused to give it. So officially the police could do nothing.”
“And unofficially?”
“Miss Firenze sometimes escapes from the grounds. On one of these occasions a deputy found her wandering around the neighborhood and exchanged words with her. The exchange didn’t last very long. An attendant arrived and whisked her away. But according to my informant she was coherent and eager to talk to an outsider. There is even a rumor,” Howard added, “that she is writing her memoirs and the whole crazy lady bit is a ploy to keep her under observation. There are undoubtedly a certain number of bigwigs in the armed services and politics who would prefer to keep Miss Firenze out of print and circulation. I’m inclined to doubt the memoirs story. She’s the kind of woman who inspires such stories, maybe starts a few of them herself.”
“If the rumor is true,” Michael said, “Miss Firenze might be interested in seeing a publisher.”
“You.”
“Me.”
“You could be pretty convincing, I’m sure. But if the rumor is false you blow your chance of ever seeing her. Better stick to your own profession.”
“What makes you think she might want to see a minister?”
“I have a hunch. My dad, who’s spotted her through the telescope in the lighthouse, says she wears clothes that look like a nun’s habit. That could indicate some sort of penitence on her part.”
“Maybe. I’ll give it a try anyway.”
Rosa Firenze’s name was added to the list of subjects needing further attention. More interviews were read aloud, first by one man, then by the other, until it was almost midnight and they were both tired, and Howard was depressed as well. Although more than a dozen names were added to the list, no really promising leads emerged from the mass of material, no glaring omissions on the part of the police.
What had started out as a serious project with a chance of succeeding now seemed hardly more than a child’s game Annamay and Dru might have played after finding one of the goldfish dead in the lily pond or coming across the body of a bird or butterfly. Throughout the gardens the graves of many small creatures were marked by miniature crosses made of twigs or popsicle sticks. We are two grown men playing with twigs, Howard thought.
He sat by the window which had a view of the main house. His father’s quarters were dark, but lights were still on in the kitchen and Chizzy’s room downstairs and in Kay’s bedroom upstairs. He was surprised at how little time it had taken him to think of it as Kay’s bedroom although the closets and drawers still contained most of his clothes.
He opened the window. The smells of autumn drifted in, damp earth, eucalyptus wood burning in someone’s fireplace, lemon blossoms. But the most teasing and pervasive of all was the scent of bread baking. Chizzy was cooking again to bake away her blues. And while Chizzy cooked, he and Michael were playing a child’s game for the same reason.
“What if we’re only wasting our time?” Howard said. “We can’t bring her back anyway.”
“No, but we might prevent another child from suffering the same fate.”
“Face it, Mike. We’re dreamers, that’s all. Dreamers.”
“Okay, so I’m a dreamer,” Michael said. “Wake me when the world is over.”
“I wish I had your kind of faith.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Whatever it is that keeps you going.”
“What would keep me going right now is a slice of Chizzy’s homemade bread. Let’s go over and beg some from her.”
“Good idea.”
Chizzy was flustered by the sudden appearance of company. She pulled her plaid flannel robe around her and tried to tidy her wiry gray hair. Neither effort was successful. She had long since outgrown the robe and her hair always looked the same, resisting her determined attacks on it with brush and comb. It sat on her head like a steel-wool scouring pad.
“I didn’t mean to wake anybody,” she said, wiping her hands on the dish towel that dangled from one pocket of her robe. “I was waiting for Miss Kay to come home and I decided to pass the time by doing a bit of baking.”
The bit of baking filled one entire section of the counter. There were at least a dozen loaves of various shapes and sizes, including a very tiny one which Chizzy attempted to hide before either of her unexpected guests saw it. Howard saw it anyway and knew the miniature loaf had been made for Annamay. He averted his eyes and Chizzy finished her clumsy job of hiding it in the cupboard.