W Is for Wasted

  “Time flies,” I remarked. I gestured toward the empty house. “Was Ethan the one who stole the doorknobs?”

  “The doorknobs are gone?”

  “Some of them. Did he strip the carpeting?”

  “I did that. He kept his dogs locked up while he was out and they tore the place apart. Only two of ’em, but they must have egged each other on. Get rid of the smell of dog pee, I’d have to burn the place down. You smell that or is it just me?”

  “Place stinks.”

  “Appreciate the confirmation. He talked me out of a pet deposit. I must’ve been smokin’ crack that day. You’re not a local?”

  “I’m not. I drove up from Santa Teresa this morning.”

  “What’d he die of, the old guy?”

  I didn’t see any reason to tell this guy the whole of it so I shrugged. “I don’t know the details. Just the broad strokes.”

  “The broad strokes being what?”

  “Probably a heart attack,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Ethan’s sisters as long as I’m in town. Ellen and Anna. Are they still around?”

  “The younger one for sure. Anna’s the wild child. She does manis and pedis in some dump of a salon. The other girl, I never met.”

  “‘Manis and pedis’—meaning manicures and pedicures?”

  “Whoa! You are really sharp.”

  I ignored the sarcasm. “Do you know how I can reach them?”

  “What’s your stake in this?”

  “What makes you ask?”

  “I can’t believe you drove all the way up here for something you could’ve done by phone.”

  “I didn’t have Ethan’s number. Besides, if I’d called I’d have missed him by a week, right? I thought it would be a kindness if they heard it from me instead of reading about it in the paper.”

  “You’re a good Samaritan.”

  “Some would call it that.”

  “Any rate, you don’t want to rent the place, it’s time I locked up.”

  “I appreciate the information about Ethan’s wife. I’ll see if I can track her down.” I held a hand out. “My name’s Kinsey Millhone.”

  “They call me ‘Big Rat.’ And don’t ask. Long story and it really doesn’t have a point.”

  We shook hands.

  “If I run into Ethan, I’ll tell him you’re in town,” he said.

  “He won’t know who I am. I didn’t find out about him until yesterday.”

  “You expect to be here overnight?”

  “Unless I catch up with him today.”

  “I run into him, I’ll let you know. Where you staying?”

  I didn’t think it was any of his business, so of course I lied.

  “Don’t know yet. I haven’t found a motel. What would you suggest?”

  “Padre Hotel. It’s been around for years. Used to be high-class. Now it’s so-so, but location’s good. Close to downtown.”

  “What happened to Evelyn Dace?”

  “She married someone else. Some guy from her church. I have a friend rents a little place above their garage.”

  He slipped his wallet from his back pocket and removed a business card that he held out. “Tell you what. I get back to the office, I’ll look up Dace’s application and get you his wife’s name. Probably a phone number listed as well. Might save you some time. Give me a call in an hour or so and I’ll try to help you out.”

  “Thanks.” I glanced down at the card, noting that his last name was Rizzo. I was betting his nickname, “Big Rat,” originated from the film Midnight Cowboy, twenty years before. Dustin Hoffman played the part of Ratso Rizzo.

  Big Rat said, “I don’t guess he’s coming into money now his old man’s croaked?”

  “None as far as I know, but it never hurts to ask.”

  “Amen to that.”

  • • •

  I sat in my car for a moment, making a quick note about the club where Ethan played on weekends and an approximation of his wife’s last name. I watched as Big Rat locked the front door and climbed into his truck, which he’d parked at an angle in the foreshortened driveway. He backed out and swung wide, giving me a jaunty wave as he disappeared down the street. His red Nissan pickup with yellow flames custom-painted along the bed was as conspicuous as my car, which served as one more reminder to dump the Mustang and find something else.

  I got back on Truxtun and turned right, trolling in an eastward direction. I confess I was having trouble getting the hang of how the streets were laid out. Some were numbered and some of them had names. The ones I was passing were lettered, as in E, F, G, H, and Eye, the latter probably spelled out so the I wouldn’t be mistaken for the number one. Truxtun and California Streets seemed to be parallel, but other streets were a-kilter, as though the whole geographical plain had taken a forty-five-degree turn. I was looking for the Beale Memorial Library, which according to my map was no more than half an inch away.

  Once I spotted it, I parked in the lot to the left of the structure and headed for the entrance. The exterior was handsome, buff-colored, with a band of desert rose along the roofline. The building was new with a plaque on the side indicating that it had been dedicated only six months before, April 30, 1988. A time capsule had been sealed in the foundation to be opened in April of 2038. It might be worth a trip back just to see what was buried there. I’d be pushing eighty-eight years old and ready for a touch of excitement, assuming it didn’t prove too much.

  The interior was spacious and smelled of new commercial carpeting. The ceiling was high and the light was generous. I couldn’t even guess at the square footage or the number of books the building housed, but the patrons had to have been thrilled with the facility. I asked a woman sitting at the information desk where I might find old city directories, and she suggested the Jack Maguire Local History Room on the second floor. I bypassed the elevator and trotted up the stairs. The door to the local history room was locked and empty from what I could see through the glass. I spotted a woman in a wheelchair working at a desk in the room next door.

  “Is there any way I can get in there? I’d like to check city directories from a few years back.”

  “You might ask Verlynn at the reference desk. She has a key.” She pointed to a desk halfway across the vast carpeted expanse.

  I crossed and waited my turn. When Verlynn was free, I explained what I wanted and she followed me back to the history room with her key in hand.

  She unlocked the door and opened it, flipping on the overhead lights. “The volumes you want are on that wall straight ahead. We have city directories going back to 1899 and telephone books from about 1940. Those shelves over there you’ll find yearbooks from elementary, junior high, and high schools in the area. Not every year is represented. We depend on our patrons for donations. Will you be okay on your own?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  “Let me know when you’ve finished and I’ll lock up.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  I already knew where Dace had lived before his incarceration. I’d picked up that address from the expired California driver’s license in his safe deposit box. What I was interested in were two other sets of addresses. I hoped to track back in time to the point where Dace interacted with his beloved Uncle R. The dates on the backs of the two black-and-white photographs I’d seen were September 1941 and June 4, 1945. Something else occurred to me. My parents were married in 1935, which meant my mother might well have been with him on trips to Bakersfield. What if she was the one who’d taken the two photographs? The notion sent a chill down my spine.

  I was also looking for any Millhones in the area at that time, and for Quillen and his wife, Rebecca, in particular. If my father grew up in Bakersfield, there might be other family members still in town. I pulled the Polk and the Haines directories for 1942, 1943, and 1946. The 1941 city directory was probably published early in the year, which meant that by fall of 1941, the information might be six months out of date. The same was true of the photo taken in Ju
ne of 1945. People move. They die. Couples get divorced. The constant shift in status and location far outstrips any attempt to report.

  The Polk Company has been publishing city directories since 1878, beginning with a simple alphabetical listing of the residents of any given town. In 1916, the directory was expanded to include both an alphabetical listing of residents and an alphabetical listing of street addresses, with names of the occupants included. The Haines directory, also known as a crisscross, is a mechanical reversal of the information in the phone book, its listings ordered by street names and by telephone numbers in sequence, beginning with the area code, then moving on to the exchange. If you have a street address and you want to know who lives there, you can consult either publication. If you have a phone number but no clue whom it belongs to, you start a search with the Haines and work backward to the name and address of the person to whom the number has been assigned. There are a certain percentage of unlisted numbers, but in the main you can uncover more than you’d imagine.

  In addition to the six directories I had, I pulled both the Polk and the Haines for the calendar year 1972 to see if any of the names carried over. I toted all eight volumes to the closest table and sat down. I loved having the room to myself. It was quiet and smelled of old paper. The windows were clean and the light spilling in had a peaceful quality. I reached into my shoulder bag and found my index cards. I removed the rubber band and shuffled through them until I found the address I’d cribbed from Dace’s driver’s license. I picked up the 1942 Polk and began a finger walk through the pages.

  Moving from page to page, I uncoupled my emotions, like a string of railroad cars I was leaving behind while the engine chugged on. This was about numbers and street names, which meant nothing to me. I simply recorded the information as I came across it. Later, I would attach sights and sounds to each location as I discovered it.

  There were two Dace families. The first, Sterling Dace (Clara): util wkr, PG&E, (h) 4619 Paradise. The second was Randall J Dace (Glenda): srvc rep, PG&E, at 745 Daisy Lane. I was guessing these were Dace’s parents. If so, it looked like he’d moved into the family home at some point after his mom and dad had passed away. I circled the address in my notes and then picked up the names, occupations, and addresses of the nearby neighbors. I wasn’t sure what the relationship was between Randall and Sterling. Brothers? Cousins? Maybe father and son. I turned to the M’s and found Quillen Millhone (Rebecca): winch trk oprtr, Keller Ent (h) 4602 Choaker Road.

  I pulled the 1946 Polk directory from the stack and placed my hand on the cover as though swearing an oath. I worked my way through the oversize pages and found the same two listings for Randall and Sterling Dace at the same respective addresses.

  I backtracked to the M’s and again found Quillen Millhone. I could find no other Millhones. Again, I made a note of the neighbors on either side of the Choaker Road address on the off chance there might be someone still living who remembered them. A quick study of the city map showed Choaker Road off Panama Lane, which was too far out of town to worry about at this point. I’d confirmed that the Daces and my grandparents were contemporaries. I’d seen both sets of names in the years 1943 and 1946. All were present and accounted for.

  I checked the 1972 Polk and found R. Terrence Dace. Evelyn was there as well (her name tucked next to his inside parentheses), followed by his occupation, tree trmr, and the street and house number, 745 Daisy Lane. I noted the names and addresses of neighbors on either side. There was a David Brandle at 741, a Lorelei Brandle at 743, and a Penrose and Melissa Pilcher at 747. No Millhones. I returned the books to the shelves. On a hunch, I moved forward in time to the current telephone book in hopes of finding the last names Pilcher or Brandle, wondering if Dace’s neighbor lady was still living. There was an L. Brandle at another address, though I didn’t expect the two were a match. There was no sign of Mr. and Mrs. Pilcher. In that same phone book, I flipped through the residential listings to the H’s, searching for Ethan’s wife. I ran a finger down the page: Heiman, Heimendinger, Heimluck, Hein, Heindle, Heinemann, Heining, Heinrich, Heintz, Heiser, Heisermann. The name after the surname Heisermann was Mamie, complete with a street address in the 5600 block of Laurel Canyon Drive. That was the best news I’d had all day. I made a note of the phone number, though I didn’t intend to call first. In my business, it’s better to tackle certain interviews without warning the subject in advance. Metaphorically speaking, you can sometimes catch people with their pants down around their ankles.

  15

  I stood on Ethan’s front porch and rang the bell. Mentally, I amended that to Mamie’s front porch, as the house was in her name. This place was a big improvement over the one he’d been renting. No doubt, his budget was limited. A wife who kicks her hubby out for idleness is usually not that eager to pay for his idleness somewhere else. A banged-up white Toyota was parked in the drive. As I passed, I peered in, making a note of the car seats, toys, board books, Happy Meal boxes, and cracker crumbs, which suggested he used the vehicle to tote the children from place to place, as why would he not?

  This was a neighborhood of tract homes probably built in the past ten years. All of the exteriors were peach-colored stucco and the roofs were the standard red tile. It was clear the occupants took pride in their properties. The backyards I could see through a succession of wire fences sported evidence of young children: a chunky-looking plastic sliding board, a tricycle, two Big Wheels, a wading pool, and a one-room playhouse also made of plastic, complete with shutters and window boxes.

  Ethan answered the door with a girl-child on his right hip and a boy-child crowded against his left leg. He said, “Yo!” as a form of greeting.

  “Hi, are you Ethan Dace?”

  “That’s me.” His expression changed from pleasant to cautious.

  “I’m Kinsey Millhone,” I said, holding out my hand.

  Obligingly, he shifted the baby so we could shake hands. His manner was pleasant, but it was clear my name meant nothing to him. The Millhones must not have occupied a prominent place in the family lore. He said, “If you’re here trying to sell me something, I’m afraid I can’t help. Sign says no soliciting.”

  He gestured toward a stenciled notice to the right of the front door.

  “I can see that,” I said. “I’m here for something else.”

  “You better make it quick. Baby needs a diaper change.”

  “I drove up from Santa Teresa this morning with bad news about your dad. Would it be all right if I came in?”

  He stared at me briefly, his expression opaque. “Might as well.”

  He moved aside, allowing me to step into the living room. He closed the door behind me. “These are my kids. Two of ’em, at any rate. I got another girl in first grade.”

  The little boy was staring at me, trying to make up his mind if I was of interest.

  The baby’s age was indeterminate. He looked down at her, jiggling her in a manner that made her smile. She had four teeth the size of freshwater pearls. “This is Bethany. We call her ‘Binky,’ and this is Scott. Amanda’s still at school, though she should be home shortly. A neighbor picks her up.”

  “How old is the little one?”

  “Ten months. Scott’s three and a half, in case you’re about to ask.”

  From somewhere in the back, two big Doberman pinschers trotted into the living room side by side and checked me out. Lean and muscular and black, with caramel-colored trim, they flanked me, giving me the sniff test, which I hoped I would not flunk. I wondered if there were traces of Ed, the cat, on my jeans. Ethan didn’t issue a warning, so I assumed there was no danger of an attack.

  “Do the dogs have names?”

  “Blackie and Smokie. The kids came up with those,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  He was handsome in a low-key way; dark straight hair. One lock fell forward across his forehead and the rest of it he wore shoulder length. On most men, this style is not flattering, but fellows will persist. He was otherwise clean
-shaven with straight brows and green eyes. He carried the baby to one of a pair of brown leather couches separated by a big blond-wood coffee table. He laid her on her back and picked up a disposable diaper from a wicker basket at his feet. Binky arched her back and turned one shoulder, intent on rolling over. I figured babies must be like turtles; when they’re on their backs, they’re always working to right themselves. There was a doorknob resting between couch cushions. Ethan handed it to the baby. She held it by the shaft like a lollipop and gnawed on it, sufficiently distracted that he was able to proceed with the diaper change. If Big Rat wanted his doorknobs back, he was going to have to come over here and wrestle with Binky, who was clearly attached.

  She had perfect baby looks, like something you’d see in a print ad for baby food. Her brother was also blessed with prettiness; big dark eyes, curly dark hair, luscious coloring. He returned to a small table and chairs, arranged to the right of the kitchen door. He was in the middle of a scribbly piece of art, using a red marker pen.

  Ethan was decked out in jeans, desert boots, and a white long-sleeve waffle-pattern shirt with a button placket that suggested thermal underwear. I watched him tape a clean diaper into place, after which he made a neat bundle of the urine-soaked specimen he’d just removed. This he placed on the coffee table, where it sat like a big, white plastic turd. He lifted Binky and stood her upright against the table. I watched her sidle around the edge, banging on the top intermittently with her doorknob when it wasn’t in her mouth. Maybe she was teething and the metal felt good on her gums.

  He leaned toward me with his elbows on his knees, returning to the subject at hand. “By bad news, I’m assuming my father passed away.”

  “He did. Last week. I’m sorry to have to spring it on you.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. “What happened?”

  “He was found in his sleeping bag at the beach. He probably died of a heart attack. The coroner’s investigator is still hoping to track down his medical records.”