“I thought they were, until last week.” A film of moisture appeared in the man’s eyes. “I need your help, Aragon. I can pay any amount you ask for.”
“It’s not up to me. I work for a law firm, and I do what the head of that firm, Mr. Smedler, tells me to do.”
“Smedler can be handled.” There was a note of contempt in his voice, as though handling people like Smedler was simply routine. “Are you interested in the assignment?”
“Yes. As long as you realize that the girl cannot be forced to return.”
“Even if she’s mentally and emotionally unstable?”
“I doubt you could prove that. The laws protecting the rights of individuals have become very strict.”
“I have never forced her to do anything,” he said, but he looked oddly disturbed, as though something he thought hidden had been discovered. “Force is not part of my nature. When you find her you will simply persuade her to come home, where she is loved and safe.”
“What caused her to leave. Mr. Jasper?”
“I don’t know.”
“There were no quarrels?”
“No.”
“Even a small disagreement might provoke—”
“I told you, no.”
“May I talk to your wife?”
“I think not. She’s easily upset. It would be preferable if you dealt entirely with me.”
“Cleo mentioned your son, Ted. He might have some information not available to you, Mr. Jasper.”
“That’s impossible. He’s away at college.”
“What college?”
“It would be a waste of time to question Ted. Anyway, why she left isn’t the issue. It’s where she went that must concern you.”
“The two are usually connected.”
“Find her,” Jasper said. “Just find her.”
He made it sound more like an order than a plea.
“Has she ever run away before?”
“No.”
“Talked about it?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Monday night. Cleo and my wife and I had dinner together. During the course of it I asked her how she’d spent her afternoon and she said she had gone to the museum. I was pretty sure the museum was closed on Mondays but she spoke of seeing lots and lots of pictures. I didn’t argue. After dinner she went to her room to watch TV. Frieda and I retired early. It’s a large house with thick, solid walls that muffle sounds. Perhaps Cleo stayed up late watching TV. At any rate, she didn’t appear for breakfast and we didn’t waken her. I left for the office and Frieda went to a meeting. We assumed that when the school bus came to pick her up she would board it as usual. The cook says she saw the bus waiting in the driveway when she arrived for work but didn’t see Cleo get on it. That’s all.”
It didn’t sound like all, or even like half. Jasper seemed to realize this, too.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he said, “because I don’t know everything. I’ve acted in loco parentis for fourteen years, ever since Cleo was eight, and I thought I understood the girl. It appears now I was wrong. The lie about how she’d spent the afternoon may not have been the first, perhaps only one of a hundred. I say perhaps. Again I don’t know.”
The admission was obviously difficult for Jasper. Though the room was chilly, he wiped his forehead as if being wrong or even doubtful gave him a fever.
“The school called Tuesday afternoon to see if Cleo had stayed home because of illness. They keep close watch on these matters because many of the students are highly susceptible to contagious diseases. So that’s how we discovered she had gone.”
“Did she take anything with her?”
“Yes.”
“Clothes? Suitcase?”
“The dog,” Jasper said. “She took the dog, Zia.”
He pressed a handkerchief against his mouth and the noise it stifled could have been a cough, a laugh, a cry of rage.
“The dog,” he repeated. “It’s a basset hound belonging to our gardener, Trocadero. The old man’s heartbroken. He saw her leave the grounds with the dog at midmorning and thought she was going to take a run on the beach, which is only three blocks away. He spent the afternoon searching for the dog, calling the Humane Society, the Animal Shelter, even the police. After the school called in the late afternoon I did some searching myself, but not for the dog. I drove around to various neighbors, called friends, checked the bus station, the airport, even the two local car rentals, though I knew Cleo couldn’t drive. Finally I went to Troc’s apartment over the garage and told him Cleo had run away and taken Zia with her. He didn’t believe me.”
“What did he believe?”
“That someone had picked them up in a car. He had no proof, nothing to go on but a hunch. He claims Zia weighs sixty-five pounds, much too heavy for Cleo to lift, let alone smuggle aboard a bus or plane. Troc placed an ad in the lost-and-found column of the local paper offering a fifty-dollar reward for the return of the dog, no questions asked. The ad appeared in this morning’s paper. So far there have been no answers.”
He paused, staring out the window with its view of the city. Every day it seemed to be crawling farther up the mountain that separated it from the desert beyond. It was a small city but it looked suddenly enormous, capable of hiding hundreds of lost dogs and young girls.
Jasper turned back to face Aragon. “Do you recall the three girl hitchhikers who were murdered here last year?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.” The bodies of two of the girls had been found at the bottom of a wooded canyon, partially decomposed. The third body was picked up by a fishing boat beyond the kelp line, bloated by decomposing gases and mangled by sharks.
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Aragon said. “The interest is too high.”
“Have you any more concrete advice?”
“You might follow up on that ad. Increase its size, change the wording from return of the dog to leading to the return. And increase the reward to five hundred dollars.”
“I can pay more. Any amount.”
“Try it this way first.”
“I considered inserting an ad for Cleo herself, with a picture and description and so on, but Frieda vetoed the idea. She has too much of what she terms pride. I’m not sure that’s the right word. At any rate I didn’t go against her wishes. Things are bad enough without that.”
“There’s a hot line for runaways that pretty well covers the country. If she changes her mind and wants to come home, you’ll hear about it.”
“She wouldn’t know about such a thing as a hot line. She’s very unworldly.”
“You said she watches TV.”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she’s not as unworldly as you think, Mr. Jasper.”
Jasper stirred in his chair like a boxer evading a punch. “I’d better be leaving. I’m already late for an appointment... Are you going to help me find her, Aragon?”
“I have to wait for orders.”
“They’ll come.”
When he went out to the parking lot at five thirty he found Charity Nelson waiting beside his old Chevy. For purposes of shade, the space with his name on it was the best in the lot, but the shade was provided by a eucalyptus tree and the owners of newer vehicles took pains to avoid it. The Chevy stood in splendid isolation, its already pockmarked finish immune to the tree’s oily drippings.
Charity was leaning against the hood, fanning herself with an envelope.
“When are you going to get rid of this old heap, Aragon?”
“When somebody gives me a new heap.”
“Maybe this is a down payment.” She patted her handbag. “Want to guess what’s in here?”