"Jesus. You make me feel like we should sign a contract," I said, shaking her hand.
"Technically, we should. But I trust you."
"Why would you trust me?"
I had the feeling she had an answer, but that she thought it might be too much for me to comprehend and so thought better of sharing it with me. I began to wonder if she was really from this planet.
"Just because," she said. A child's pat answer to people who aren't really paying attention. I let it go.
"I'll need some information from you. A photograph of Erin, her address, make and model of her car, that sort of thing."
As I was asking, she bent down, unzipped a compartment of her book bag, and withdrew a manila envelope, which she handed to me. "You'll find everything in there."
"Of course." I shouldn't have been surprised. "And when you went to the sheriff's department, who did you speak with?"
"Detective Landry. Do you know him?"
"I know who he is."
"He was very rude and condescending."
"So was I."
"You weren't condescending."
A black Jag backed out of the Seabright garage, a suit at the wheel. Bruce Seabright, I assumed. He turned away from us and drove down the street.
"Is your mother home?" I asked. "I'll need to speak with her."
The prospect didn't thrill her. She looked a little nauseated. "She goes to work at nine. She's a real estate agent."
"I'll have to speak with her, Molly. And with your stepfather, too. I'll leave you out of it. I'll tell them I'm an insurance investigator."
She nodded, still looking grim.
"You should leave for school now. I don't want to be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor."
"No," she said, heading back toward the house, head up, her little book case rattling along on the sidewalk behind her. We should all have so much character.
K rystal Seabright was on a cordless phone when Molly and I walked into the house. She was leaning over a hall table, peering into an ornate rococo mirror, trying to stick down a false eyelash with a long pink fingernail while she chattered to someone about an absolutely fabulous town house in Sag Harbor Court. No one would have picked her out of a lineup as Molly's mother. Having met Molly first, I might have pictured her mother as a buttoned-up attorney or a doctor or a nuclear physicist. I might have, except that I knew firsthand children and parents didn't always match.
Krystal was a bottle blonde who'd used one too many bottles in her thirty-some years. Her hair was nearly white and looked as fragile as cotton candy. She wore just a little too much makeup. Her pink suit was a little too tight and a little too bright, her sandals a little too tall in the spike heel. She glanced at us out of the corner of her eye.
"… I can fax you all the details as soon as I get to my office, Joan. But you really need to see it to appreciate it. Places like this just aren't available now during the season. You're so lucky this just came up."
She turned away from the mirror and looked at me, then at Molly with a what now? expression, but continued her conversation with the invisible Joan, setting up an appointment at eleven, scribbling it into a messy daybook. Finally she set the phone aside.
"Molly? What's going on?" she asked, looking at me, not her daughter.
"This is Ms. Estes," Molly said. "She's an investigator."
Krystal looked at me like I might have beamed down from Mars. "A what?"
"She wants to talk to you about Erin."
Fury swept up Krystal's face like a flash fire burning into the roots of her hair. "Oh, for God's sake, Molly! I can't believe you did this! What is the matter with you?"
The hurt in Molly's eyes was sharp enough that I felt it myself.
"I told you something bad's happened," Molly insisted.
"I can't believe you do these things!" Krystal ranted, her frustration with her younger daughter clearly nothing new. "Thank God Bruce isn't here."
"Mrs. Seabright," I said, "I'm looking into a case at the equestrian center which might involve your daughter Erin. I'd like to speak with you in private, if possible."
She looked at me, wild-eyed, still angry. "There's nothing to discuss. We don't know anything about what goes on over there."
"But Mom-" Molly started, desperately wanting her mother to care.
Her mother turned a withering, bitter look on her. "If you've told this woman some ridiculous story, you're going to be in such hot water, young lady. I can't believe the trouble you're making. You don't have any consideration for anyone but yourself."
Two red dots colored Molly's otherwise paste-pale cheeks. I thought she might start to cry. "I'm worried about Erin," she said in a small voice.
"Erin is the last person anyone needs to worry about," Krystal said. "Go to school. Go. Get out of this house. I'm so angry with you right now… If you're late for school you can just sit in detention this afternoon. Don't bother calling me."
I wanted to grab a handful of Krystal Seabright's overprocessed hair and shake her until the hair broke off in my fist.
Molly turned and went outside, leaving the front door wide open. The sight of her wheeling away her little book bag made my heart ache.
"You can leave right behind her," Krystal Seabright said to me. "Or I can call the police."
I turned back to face her and said nothing for a moment while I tried to wrestle my temper into submission. I was reminded of the fact that I had been a terrible patrol officer when I'd first gone on the job because I lacked the requisite diplomatic skills for domestic situations. I have always been of the opinion that some people really do just need to be bitch-slapped. Molly's mother was one of those people.
Krystal was trembling like a Chihuahua, having some control issues of her own.
"Mrs. Seabright, for what it's worth, Molly has nothing to do with this," I lied.
"Oh? She hasn't tried to tell you her sister has vanished and that we should be calling the police and the FBI and America's Most Wanted?"
"I know that Erin hasn't been seen since Sunday afternoon. Doesn't that concern you?"
"Are you implying I don't care about my children?" Again with the bug-eyes and the practiced affront-always a sign of low self-esteem.
"I'm not implying anything."
"Erin is an adult. At least in her own mind. She wanted to live on her own, take care of herself."
"So you're not aware that she was working for a man who's been involved in schemes to defraud insurance agencies?"
She looked confused. "She works for a horse trainer. That's what Molly said."
"You haven't spoken with Erin?"
"When she left she made it very clear she wanted nothing more to do with me. Living a decent life in a lovely home was just all too boring for her. After everything I've done for her and her sister…"
She went to the hall table, glanced at herself in the mirror, and dug her hand into a big pink and orange Kate Spade purse. She came out of the bag with a cigarette and a slim lighter, and moved toward the open front door.
"I've worked so hard, made so many sacrifices…" she said, more or less to herself, as if it comforted her to portray herself as the heroine of the story. She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke outside. "She's done nothing but give me grief since the night she was conceived."
"Does Erin's father live in the vicinity? Might she have gone to spend time with him?"
Krystal burst out laughing, but not with humor. She didn't look at me. "No. She wouldn't have done that."
"Where is her father?"
"I wouldn't know. I haven't heard from him in fifteen years."
"Do you know who Erin's friends are?"
"What do you want with her?" she asked. "What's she done now?"
"Nothing I'm aware of. She may have some information. I'd just like to ask her some questions about the man she's been working for. Has Erin been in trouble in the past?"
She leaned way out the door, took another hard drag on the cigarette, and exhaled the smoke at a hibiscus shrub. "I don't see that my family is any business of yours."