Patience Mackellar, first encountered in KEEPERS (2001), is a short, somewhat plump woman in her middle fifties with curly gray hair, a round, deceptively guileless face, an inquisitive mind and an increasing capacity for living up to her given name. She honed her investigative skills by working with her wheel-chair-bound husband, a former cop, in their Berkeley P.I. firm. After Mike Mackellar's death, she moved to their vacation cottage in Port Silva and established her own business, Patience Smith, Investigations.
Verity Mackellar is her mother's opposite, a strawberry blonde nearly six feet tall who keeps her body lean and her aggressive nature in check by running. Patience was welcoming, but uneasy, when her thirty-year-old daughter abandoned a bad marriage and a suit-and-briefcase job in San Francisco and came for refuge to Port Silva. However, the two of them managed to settle in together more or less comfortably, with Verity taking an increasingly effective role as part-time investigator. (See KEEPERS).
In DEATH DUTIES, Chris Larson is in Port Silva to bury her father, who had coached Chris and Verity's soccer team through several long-ago summers. Bitterly ashamed of his inadequate defense of his father against the anonymous accusations of pedophilia that drove the respected and successful businessman to suicide twenty-eight years earlier, the dying Andy Larson begged Chris to clear Edgar Larson's name. Chris, a divorced mother of two young children who lives and works in Los Angeles, can't stay in town for long, so she is determined to hire Patience Smith Investigations to do the work of unmasking her grandfather's accusers.
With Patience's reluctant agreement, Verity sets out to talk to former neighbors of Edgar Larson, to people who knew him and people who knew of him, trying to discover the man he was in responses direct, evasive, and even threatening. Meanwhile, Patience quietly explores contacts she's made over the years and pays close attention to new ones, always alert to an apparent coincidence that may prove to be something else entirely. Before the truth is uncovered, lives as well as reputations are endangered, and chaos threatens to engulf not only Patience and Verity, but even Sylvie, the much-loved eight-year-old girl they have "adopted."
Excerpt
Prologue
Christina Ann Larson, age four and a half, squatted in front of the low table and looked at the books spread out there. Which one? she asked herself silently, and put a finger on first one bright cover, then another. Goodnight Moon was for babies. Green Eggs and Ham? No, he was tired of that one. She touched the brightly clad little elephant: Babar? But he didn't really like Babar. He liked Frances better, the little badger girl.
"No, no, no," she muttered, and leaned forward to reach for the fat book that had no pictures on its cover, only words: Story Poems. This was his favorite of all her books, and maybe it would make him laugh.
Clutching the book to her chest, she stood up and moved across the room, bare feet making no noise on the braided rug. Her grandfather sat in his leather chair on the far side of the family room, facing the glass panes of the French doors to the deck and the yard. She herself couldn't see anything interesting out there, only gray, drippy fog that made her cold just to look at.
"Grampa?"
She wasn't sure he'd heard. Then he turned his head and looked at her. Anyway she thought he was looking at her; his glasses were so dark she couldn't see his eyes.
"Grampa, will you read to me? Please?"
Didn't say anything, not yes. But not no. She leaned against his bony knees and looked up at him, at his straight, unsmiling mouth and the little white prickles of whisker on his cheeks and chin. He still didn't say anything, but looped an arm around her and pulled her up onto his lap, where she breathed in his usual smell of cigarette smoke and the stuff he put on his hair. And something different, too, like the old clothes she played with in the attic.
She wriggled into a more comfortable position and settled back against his wide chest. "Here, read me about Custard," she instructed, and set the book on her lap, letting it fall open to the page with the drawing of the dragon.
"Chrissy Ann, you can read that to yourself. You know the whole thing by heart."
"We-ell. Maybe I do. But I like to hear you read it. Please?"
"We-ell," he echoed, and tucked her closer with one arm as his other hand reached for the book. "Let's see. 'Belinda lived in a little white house, with a little black kitten and a little gray mouse, and a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, and a realio, trulio—' "
"Christina!" The swinging door to the kitchen hit the wall, and Chrissy's mother stood there in the doorway, her long hair loose over her shoulders and her apron tied high over the belly-bulge where Chrissy's baby sister or brother was growing. "What are you doing? You come here right now. Now!"
As her grandfather's big hands lifted her from his knees and set her on her feet, the book fell to the floor. She crouched to pick it up and stayed there, looking at him, looking at her mother's red and angry face. "Mama, I was just—"
"Your grandfather is tired. You mustn't bother him." Her mother stood straighter, brushed her hair back with one hand and reached with the other for Chrissy. "I'm sorry, Edgar. She's been told not to bother you."
As she was being towed off by her mother's firm grip, Chrissy looked over her shoulder at her grandfather, but he had turned his face away and was gazing out into the fog again.
Chapter 1
"Okay, here's your very own library card," said Verity Mackellar.
"Thank you," said Sylvie Medina with a broad grin, and then, to the woman behind the counter, "Thank you."
"You're quite welcome, dear. Use it well," the librarian added, as she moved to answer the ringing telephone.
"You have ten minutes to pick out books," Verity told Sylvie, and winced as the long-legged, skinny little girl set off at a trot, dodging tables and chairs and people on her way to the children's section.
"Your daughter certainly takes after you."
Verity turned to stare at the speaker, a slim woman several inches shorter than her own nearly six feet in height. Early thirties, thought Verity, and noted thick blond hair blunt-cut by some scissors-genius, diamond ear studs, leather coat open over roll-neck cashmere sweater and narrow tweed trousers. Not your average Port Silva library patron.
"I don't see... Sylvie is not my daughter, exactly." Verity decided that the green eyes inspecting her must be weak. Her own long braid was strawberry blond, her skin fair, her eyes a grayed blue, while Sylvie's ink-black hair framed a narrow, olive-skinned face with huge eyes so dark brown as to seem black.
"Christina Larson. Chris, to former teammates," said the woman, holding out a manicured hand. "Sorry, but she moves like you, holds her head like you. Does she play soccer like you?"
Larson. Verity returned the woman's firm grip, then pushed her hands into her jeans pockets and tipped her head, considering. Maybe twenty years earlier, a summer sports league at the Y, and Chris Larson a pigtailed blonde with braces and a killer kick, two years older than Verity. Chris was a tough teammate, and for the gap in age, a good friend. Summer friend. Verity's family came from the Bay Area to Port Silva each summer, and Chris, too, had been a summer visitor, staying, Verity suddenly recalled, with her divorced father. Along with her younger sister, a whiny little brat.
"Of course, I remember you. And your dad was our coach, with the patience of a saint. How is he? How are you?"
"He died last week, in hospice in Santa Rosa. I'm in town to get his house ready to go on the market. And here right now to pick up a few novels for company while I do that." Cradling several library books in the crook of an arm, Chris moved away from the counter as she spoke, and Verity, after a glance toward the children's section, followed.
"I'm sorry. He really was a nice man."
"Thank you. And your family?"
"Dad died, too, five years ago, and Mom moved up here afterwards. She has a small business."
"Is she Patience Smith, Investigations? I thought she might be, Patience is not a very common name, and I've heard... I've been hoping I'd run into you. Verity, can we go somewhere for coffee, to talk?"
Something more than a casual encounter here, it seemed, and something also about rumors. Verity's "Sorry" sounded curt, as she'd meant it to. "Sylvie has a piano lesson in about five minutes. And here she comes."
Sylvie zoomed across the room and screeched to a halt beside Verity, bearing an armload of books.
"Hello, Sylvie," said Chris. "I'm Chris Larson, and I knew your—Verity—when we were both about your age."
"Hi." Habitually wary of strangers however well turned-out, Sylvie's inspection of this one was lengthening to the edge of rudeness when she finally offered a brief smile. "Verity's my found mom, and I'm her found kid."
Chris Larson's answering smile softened her rather somber face. "Then you're both lucky, I'd say. Verity, I wouldn't bother you, but it's important. Something my dad asked me to do. Maybe while Sylvie's at her lesson?"
Over several summers, Andy Larson had helped Verity learn to manage her skinny, rapidly growing body, something her own wheelchair-bound father was unable to do. "Okay," she said reluctantly. "Her teacher works at home just a few minutes away. I'll take her there, and then meet you at Coffee Essence, on Main Street."
The three of them went out the front door and headed for the parking lot. Sylvie, running ahead, gave wide berth to a haggard-looking old woman in a greasy padded jacket and watch cap who stood beside the path and rattled the change in a coffee mug. At the edge of the parking lot another woman pushed a shopping cart with a piece of plastic tarp protecting or maybe concealing its contents.
'You'd think the town could do something about these people," said Chris. "Look, there are actually a couple of tents on the library lawn."
"Nobody knows what to do," said Verity. "There's no money for shelters except for those a couple of churches maintain in their basements. And there's no housing in this town for low-income working people, never mind derelicts. Here's my car. I'll see you shortly."
While the girl prepared her latte, Verity scanned the mirror behind the counter and spotted Chris at a table near the back of the room, shoulders slumped and head bent over her coffee cup. Verity's sense of debt to Andy Larson, and her natural curiosity, were countered by one of Patience's maxims: An investigator who mixes the personal and the professional is asking for two kinds of trouble. Words that by now should be etched into her very bones, she told herself grimly.
She tipped a bit of sugar into her latte, added chocolate sprinkles and nutmeg, and carried the hot mug and a glass of cold water to the rear of the room, to settle into the chair across from Chris and put on a polite, inquiring expression.
Chris's smile was brief. "I have a daughter about Sylvie's age—nine?"
"Eight. Just."
"I envy you her enthusiasm. I have to bribe Jennifer to get her to her music lesson. How did the two of you manage to 'find' each other?"
"It's a long story," said Verity, her tone making clear that she had no intention of telling it. "As for the lessons, music seems to be part of her natural language, and she loves learning more of it. But I'll need to get her home for a snack as soon as the lesson is over. Do you want to tell me why you're interested in Patience Smith, Investigations?"
"I have something that needs investigating, locally. So I, um, asked around, and I checked the telephone book, to see if there might be any private investigators here in Port Silva. As I said, the name rang a bell. Weren't she and your father in the same kind of business, back when we knew each other?"
"They were. Tri-County Investigators, based in Berkeley." Verity stirred her latte and took a sip, her eyes on Chris's face.
"See, this is important to me, but I can't do it myself. I share custody of my two children with my former husband in Los Angeles, and he'll snatch any evidence of lack of care on my part as a chance to get full custody. But I can pay well; I had a 'good' divorce, as they say, and I'm a successful screenwriter."
Cut to the chase, screenwriter, Verity thought but resisted saying.
Chris squared her shoulders and lifted her head. "Okay. Twenty-eight years ago, when my parents and I were living with him here in Port Silva, my grandfather, Edgar Larson, was accused of child molesting. He didn't do it, but he was--shunned, anyway. And a few months later he killed himself."
Twenty-eight years ago Verity was three years old. But Patience might have some memory of this event. "Was he actually charged?"
Chris shook her head and pushed her empty coffee cup away, to clasp her hands tightly together on the table. "No. According to my father—I wasn't five years old yet—there were two anonymous calls to the police department. And my grandfather was questioned, several times, at the police station. Dad said that a little girl had been abducted and murdered earlier in the year, and her murderer not yet found. So the town was on edge, and rumors flew and grew. Small towns can be really shitty like that."
Verity caught a gap in this. "Her murderer was subsequently found?"
"Not exactly," said Chris in bitter tones. "But Dad told me that not long after my grandfather blew his own head off, another little girl was killed the same way, out toward Comptche. A man who'd been living near her home disappeared shortly after her death, and it turned out he had two convictions for molestation and had just approached yet another little girl, who escaped and told her parents about him.
"Not, of course," she added, "that this did my grandfather, or even his memory, any good at all."
Verity waited, hoping that she was radiating quiet receptivity. It was a skill of her mother's that she was trying hard to acquire.
"God, I need a drink!" Chris ran both hands through her hair. "Meanwhile, whoever accused my grandfather ruined not only his life, but my parents' marriage as well, and pretty much screwed up my childhood, something I hadn't fully realized until my dad and I talked about it. See, my mother believed the accusation. Or she couldn't not believe it, couldn't trust him. She was, she is, a nervous, edgy woman, and she was six months pregnant when the whole mess started."
"And you were all living with him?"
She sighed, and nodded. "He'd sold his small timber company when my grandmother got sick. After she died, he was lonely, and my dad was not happy with his job in L.A. as a small attorney in a very big firm, so we moved to Port Silva to share Grampa's big house. My mother hated it here," she added.
"But I loved it. I loved Grampa, he was my best friend. And all of a sudden, Mama wouldn't let me near him, wouldn't let him touch me. I think that's what really killed him."
"Chris, what is it you want to do, to have done, about all this?" Verity looked at her watch. The scheduled lesson would be finished soon; but Sylvie was Charlotte's final pupil of the day, and the two of them enjoyed each other's company.
"And you see, it's not just me, it's my dad." Chris was in full spate now. "He'd had a really lonely life, never remarried, probably never got over my mother. He gave up law and taught junior high, I think so he'd have summers free to spend with his kids, the only time he got to see us. And my bitch of a little sister, who was less than three years old when they divorced, always insisted he wasn't really her father and threw a fit about coming.
"Then the cancer hit him, and surgery, and all the other shit that goes with it but nothing was enough. He's lying there dying, and the thing that hurts him most, that keeps him from sleeping even with all the drugs, is that he feels guilty about my grandfather. And I am going to the nearest bar for a double martini as soon as I finish this maudlin story, okay?"
Verity pushed her untouched glass of water across the table, and Chris snatched it up for a long swallow.
"My dad felt he should have made a fuss at the time. Should have shown his father that he loved him and believed him. Should have fought for him. Instead, as he remembered it, he just... chickened out. So he asked me to do this for him, to find out what happened, who accused my grandfather, and I said I would."
She gulped another mouthful of water. "Will your mother help me?"
"Chris, it was all so long ago. The chance of finding out anything now is very small."
"I'll pay twice the usual rate. Three times."
Verity hesitated, then shook her head. "If we take the case, it will be for the usual hourly fee and expenses."
"We? You're an investigator, too?"
"I work for Patience part-time. Maybe one day we'll change the firm's name to 'Patience Smith and Daughter.' "
Chris's face creased in the first hint of a smile since she'd begun her narrative. "Good choice. Who'd ever believe 'Patience and Verity, Detectives'?"
"I'd think those names would inspire trust," said Verity.
"Well, I'd trust. I do trust. And if you can find out for me who accused my grandfather, and why..."
"Why's always hard, Chris."
"Believe me, I know that. But if you do find out who did it, I promise you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, along with my thanks. And my father's blessing."
Verity pushed her chair back and stood up. "I'll talk it over with Patience. Where are you staying, at your father's house?"
"Oh God, no, it's just too bleak there. I'm at Inn of the Woods, south of town."
Where she'd easily spend half of ten thousand in one week. "Okay, here's what I'll need you to do. Write down every single thing you can remember about your grandfather and his life here. What he did, who he hung with, what his hobbies were. Everything. And I'll call you tomorrow."
© Janet LaPierre.