19
I went back to the motel office and borrowed Mrs. Bonnet’s phone. I contacted the sheriff’s office to report the incident and was told they’d send someone out. I then called Southern California Automobile Club and requested assistance. While I waited, I called Daisy’s house and Tannie answered the phone. She said Daisy had already left for work. When I told her about my tires being slashed, she was properly outraged. “You poor thing! I can’t believe someone would do that to you.”
“Personally, I’m thrilled. I mean, on one hand, I’m peeved. I hate to be without transportation and buying four new tires is the last thing I need. On the other hand, it’s like hitting all three cherries on a slot machine. Three days into the job and someone’s already nervous as a cat.”
“You don’t think it was vandalism?”
“Absolutely not. Are you kidding? I grant you my car’s conspicuous in a parking lot full of trucks, but the choice wasn’t random. This was supposed to be a warning, or possibly punishment, but I take it as a good sign.”
“Well, your attitude beats mine. I’d be raising six kinds of hell if somebody slashed my tires.”
“Shows I’m on the right track.”
“Which is what?”
“I have no idea, but my nemesis must think I’m close to figuring it out.”
“Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“Right. Meantime, I need the name of a garage, if you know someone good.”
“You forget my brother’s in the business. Ottweiler Auto Repair in Santa Maria. At least he won’t gouge you on the price.”
“Great. I’ll call him. What about you? What’s your day looking like?”
“I’ll be out on the property with a couple of guys. If I were so minded, I could be clearing brush for the rest of my life. I’m meeting with a contractor at eleven thirty, but you’re welcome to come by.”
“Let’s see how long it takes me to get my tires swapped out. If everything goes smoothly, I’ll stop and pick up some sandwiches and we can have lunch.”
“Tell Steve I sent you. That’ll surprise him for sure. Better yet, I’ll call him myself and tell him you’ll be in.”
“Thanks.”
A sheriff’s deputy arrived at the Sun Bonnet within thirty minutes, and he spent an additional fifteen minutes, taking photographs and filling out information for his report. He said I could pick up a copy to forward to my insurance company. I couldn’t remember the amount of my deductible, but I’d doubtless end up paying for them myself. Shortly after he left, the tow truck arrived, and the driver loaded my car onto a flatbed truck. I hopped in the cab with him and we covered the fifteen miles to Santa Maria without saying much.
While the car was being unloaded, Steve Ottweiler appeared and introduced himself. He was seven years Tannie’s senior, an age spread that seemed to favor him. According to social standards other than my own, a man, at fifty, is just starting to look good, while a fifty-year-old woman is someone the eye tends to slide right past. In California cosmetic surgery is the means by which women stop the clock before the sliding begins. Lately the push is to get the work done earlier and earlier-age thirty if you’re an actress-before the slippage sets in. I could see the strong family resemblance between Tannie’s brother and their father, Jake, whom I’d met the night before. Steve had the same height and body type, lean and muscular. His face was broader than his dad’s, but his complexion was the same sun-stained brown.
I purchased four new tires, taking his advice about which brand I should buy, that being the one he had in stock. We sat in his office while the mechanic put my car up on a rack and started loosening lug nuts. Currently Steve Ottweiler was the only person in the area I didn’t suspect of slashing my tires, primarily because this was the first opportunity I’d had to piss him off. Somewhere in the last two days, I’d stepped on some toes, but I hadn’t stepped on his-as far as I knew.
I said, “You were, what, sixteen in Violet Sullivan’s day?”
“I was a junior in high school.”
“Did you know Liza Mellincamp’s boyfriend?”
“Ty Eddings? Sure, though more by reputation than anything else. I knew his cousin, Kyle. They were both a year ahead of me so we didn’t have much occasion to interact. Actually, I’m not sure anyone knew Ty that well. He transferred in from East Bakersfield High School in March of that year. By the time July rolled around, he was gone again.”
“Somebody told me he left the same weekend Violet did.”
“No connection that I know of. They were both troublemakers, but that’s about it. He’d been kicked out of EBHS and sent to live with his aunt in hopes he’d mend his wicked ways. Guess that idea flopped.”
“Meaning what?”
“Word had it that he’d taken up with Liza Mellincamp, who was all of thirteen. The year before, he’d knocked up a thirteen-year-old girl and she ended up dead from a botched abortion. Ty was accorded outlaw status. Very cool in those days.”
“He wasn’t disliked or avoided?”
“Not a bit. We were all big on drama back then. Ty was regarded as a tragic hero because everyone thought he and the dead girl were deeply in love and her parents had forced them apart. He was Romeo to her Juliet, only he came out of the deal a lot better than she did.”
“But is it out of the question that he and Violet might have gotten together? Two black sheep?”
“Well, it’s always possible, though it doesn’t seem likely. Violet was in her twenties and married to boot, so she hardly registered with us. We lived in a world of our own. You know how it is; the big event for us was two classmates who got killed in a car accident. Violet was a grownup. Nobody cared about her. Liza was the one I felt sorry for.”
“I don’t wonder,” I said. “I talked to her yesterday and she said she was crushed when Ty left town. What was that about?”
“ The story I heard was Ty’s aunt got a phone call from someone who told her he was fooling around with another underage girl, namely Liza. That was Friday night. The aunt turned around and called his mother, who’d flown to Chicago for a wedding. She got back to Bakersfield late Saturday night and picked him up first thing Sunday morning.”
“You’d think he could have gotten word to Liza. She was dumped without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“I guess good manners weren’t his thing.”
“What happened after that? I asked, but she wasn’t happy about the question so I left it alone.”
“ Things went from bad to worse. Her parents had divorced when she was eight. She’d been living with her mom-essentially without supervision, since her mother drank. When her dad got wind of her relationship with Ty, he flew out from Colorado, packed her up, and took her back to live with him. Of course that went nowhere. The two didn’t get along; she hated his new family and she was back the next year. No big surprise. You take a kid like her, used to freedom, and she’s not going to react kindly to parental control.”
“How’d he hear about Ty if he was in Colorado?”
“He still had contacts in town.”
“So she ended up living with her mom again?”
“Not for long. Sally Mellincamp died in a house fire the next year and a local family took Liza in. Charlie Clements was a good guy and didn’t want to see her sucked into the foster care system. He owned the auto-repair shop in Serena Station that I bought when he retired in 1962. Liza married his son.”
“So everything connects.”
“One way or another; it sure looks that way.”
Steve was called out to the service bay, but he urged me to stay where I was until my car was ready. His office was small and utilitarian-metal desk, metal chair, metal files, and the smell of oil. Parts manuals and work orders were stacked up everywhere. I took advantage of the moment to review my index cards, playing with the information every way I could. A moment would come when everything would lock into place (she said bravely to herself). Right now, the bits and pieces were a jumble, and I couldn’t quite see where any of them fit.