4
Daisy took an alternate route on our return to Santa Maria, swinging north in a wide loop that, according to the map, encompassed the townships of Beatty and Poe. In point of fact, I didn’t see either one. I squinted, saying, “Where’s Poe? The map says it’s right here close to a little town called Beatty.”
“I think those are company names. Poe, I don’t know about, but there’s a Beatty Oil and Natural Gas. If there were ever towns in those spots, they might’ve left the names on the map so the area won’t seem so desolate.”
The surrounding countryside was flat, entirely given over to agriculture: fields of lettuce, sugar beets, and beans as far as the eye could see. The air smelled of celery. Bright blue port-o-potties stood like sentinels along the road. Cars were parked along the berm adjacent to some fields. Wooden crates were stacked high on flatbed trucks, and migrant farmworkers bent above the rows, harvesting a crop I didn’t recognize on sight, flying by as we were at sixty miles an hour. The road made a wide curve north. Oil rigs dotted the land and in one section, there was a small refinery that threw off an odor reminiscent of burning tires. In sections, I could see a line of stationary boxcars that must have stretched for a quarter of a mile.
I looked past her through the driver’s-side window. Tucked in a stand of pines, a grand old stone-and-stucco house sat close to the road, abandoned to all appearances. The architecture had elements of English Tudor with a touch of Swiss chalet thrown in, the whole of it incongruous in the midst of tilled and untilled fields. The second story was half-timbered with three gables punctuating the roofline. “What the heck is that?”
Daisy slowed. “That’s why we came this way. Tannie and her brother, Steve, inherited the house and three hundred acres of farmland, some of which they lease out.”
Two massive stone chimneys bracketed the house on each end. The narrow third-story windows suggested rooms reserved for household servants. A magnificent oak had been planted at one corner of the house, probably ninety years before, and now overshadowed the entrance. Across the road, there was empty acreage.
The yard was completely overgrown. Weeds had proliferated and once decorative shrubs were close to eight feet high, obscuring the ground-floor windows. Where there had been a gracious approach, defined by boxwoods on both sides of a wide brick path, the passage was now close to impenetrable. Someone was using a small tractor to clear the overgrowth near the road, piling it in a mound. The brush closer to the house would probably have to be hacked away by hand. Daunting, I thought.
“Catch the back side,” she said as we passed.
I shifted in my seat and glanced over my shoulder, looking at the house from another angle. A wide dirt-and-gravel lane, probably the original driveway, now doubled as a frontage road with a service road splitting off to the right. I was guessing that the service road intersected one of the old county roads that was rendered obsolete once New Cut Road went in.
On the back side of the house, most of the third-story windows in the rear were missing, the frames and timbers charred black from a fire that had eaten half the roof. There was something painful in the sight and I could feel myself wince. “How’d that happen?”
“Vagrants. This was a year ago. Now there’s a raging debate about what to do with the place.”
“Why was the house built so close to the road?”
“Actually, it wasn’t. The house used to sit dead center on the land, but then the new road was cut through. The grandparents must have needed cash, because they sold off a big chunk, maybe half of what they owned. The ink wasn’t dry on the check before negotiations were under way for a housing tract that never went in. Talk about local politics. Now Tannie’s in a quandary, trying to decide whether to restore the house or tear it down and build in a better location. Her brother thinks they should sell the property while they have the chance. Right now, the market’s good, but Steve’s one of those guys who’s always predicting doom and gloom, so they’ve been butting heads. She’ll have to buy him out if she decides to hang on. She’s hired a couple of guys to help her clear brush on her days off. The county’s been testy about the fire hazard, given last year’s burn.”
“Does she want to farm the land?”
“I doubt it. Maybe she plans to open a B-and-B. You’d have to ask her.”
“Amazing.” I could feel the shift in my perception of Tannie Ottweiler. I’d pictured her barely making ends meet on a bartender’s salary, never guessing she was a land baroness. “I take it she’s thinking about moving up here.”
“That’s her hope. She’s been driving up Thursdays and Fridays, so if she’s here again this week maybe the three of us could have lunch.”
“Sounds great.”
There was a silence that lasted fifteen miles. Daisy was communicative in small doses, but she seemed to feel no obligation to chatter full-time, which suited me fine.
“So what’s your story?” she asked, finally.
“Mine?”
“You’ve been asking questions about me. Fair is fair.”
I didn’t like this part, where I was forced to pony up. As usual, I reduced my past to its basic elements. I didn’t want sympathy and I didn’t want additional questions. In any version I told, the ending was the same and I was bored with the recitation. “My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was five. I was raised by a maiden aunt, who didn’t parent all that well.”
She waited to see if I’d go on. “Are you married?”
“Not now, but I was. Twice, which seems like plenty.”
“I’ve got four divorces to your two so I guess I’m more optimistic.”
“Or maybe slower to learn.”
That netted me a smile, but not much of one.
When we got back to Daisy’s house, I picked up my car and drove the hour back to Santa Teresa, returning to my office, where I worked for the balance of the afternoon. I took care of the phone messages that had accumulated in my absence and then sat down and read the newspaper accounts about Violet in the weeks following her vanishing act. The initial item about the missing woman didn’t appear until the eighth of July, Wednesday of the following week. The article was brief, indicating that the public’s help was being sought in the disappearance of Violet Sullivan, last seen on Saturday, July 4, when she’d left to join her husband at a park in Silas, California, nine miles from her home in Serena Station. She was believed to have been driving a violet-gray two-door Chevrolet Bel Air coupe, with the dealer’s sticker displayed on the windshield. Anyone with information was encouraged to contact Sergeant Tim Schaefer at the Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department. The telephone number for the north county substation was listed.
Daisy had clipped two more articles, but there was little additional information. There were references to Violet’s having money, but no dollar amount had been confirmed. A bank manager in Santa Teresa had called the sheriff’s department to report that Violet Sullivan had arrived at the Santa Teresa Savings and Loan early in the afternoon on Wednesday, July 1. She’d spoken first to him, presenting her key and asking for access to her safe deposit box. He was already late for lunch so he’d turned her over to one of the tellers, a Mrs. Fitzroy, who’d dealt with Mrs. Sullivan previously and recognized her on sight. After Mrs. Sullivan signed in, Mrs. Fitzroy verified her signature and accompanied her into the vault, where she was given her box and shown into a small cubicle. She returned the box some minutes later. Neither the teller nor the bank manager had any idea what was in the box or whether Violet Sullivan had removed the contents.
In a third article, which ran on July 15, the county sheriff’s department’s public relations officer stated they were interviewing Foley Sullivan, the missing woman’s husband. He was not considered a suspect, but was a “person of interest.” According to Foley Sullivan’s account, he’d stopped off to have a beer after the fireworks ended at 9:30. He got home a short time later and saw the family car was gone. He assumed that he and his wife had missed each other at the park and that she’d arrive shortly. He admitted to being mildly intoxicated and claimed he’d gone straight to bed. It wasn’t until his daughter woke him at 8:00 the next morning that he realized his wife had failed to return. Anyone with information, etc.