Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [16]
“Officer Kerney,” the woman said, looking him up and down, taking in the jeans, boots, and western shirt. She hadn’t expected a cowboy cop to come to the door. But then, Paso Robles wasn’t as stylish as Santa Barbara.
Kerney nodded and flashed his shield, which he’d carried to California in his overnight bag.
The woman gave it only a quick glance as she extended her hand. “I’m Penelope Parker,” she said with the slightest hint of a Southern accent. “Come in.”
Kerney followed Parker into a large room with a line of windows looking out to a covered loggia supported by four columns and surrounded by a semicircular wall. Beyond was a view of mountains, the city below, and finally the bay, where masts of pleasure boats bobbed like tiny toothpicks in the water.
“Alice is napping right now,” Parker said, “and I don’t want to wake her. It shouldn’t be too long before she rings for me.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Kerney said.
Parker gestured to the patio, opened the door, and led Kerney outside. “How did Mr. Spalding die?” she asked.
“For now, it appears to be by natural causes,” Kerney said as he joined her at the patio wall. Below him an abandoned three-story stucco house sat with a patched tar-paper roof and plywood-covered windows and doors. A paved drive ran behind the building to a dead-end parking area where a few benches had been positioned to take in the view of the bay.
“Alice won’t be happy to hear this,” Parker said. “She’ll probably reject what you have to say.”
“Why is that?” Kerney asked, wondering why a derelict house on an overgrown lot with a parking area stood in the middle of such an expensive neighborhood.
“Because of her condition, and because of Mr. Spalding’s legally binding agreement to make continued good faith efforts to locate their only child, a son named George. Alice had her lawyer make that language part of the divorce settlement, and she refers to it obsessively.”
“They have a son who’s gone missing?” Kerney asked. The grounds around the abandoned house overflowed with huge palm trees, and more lush shrubbery, vines, and flowers he didn’t recognize. But these plants were growing wild, not carefully tended like those in the gardens of the houses all around.
“If only it were as simple as that,” Parker replied. “George was killed in the Vietnam War. However, Alice refuses to accept that reality.”
“Because of the Alzheimer ’s?”
“Oh, no,” Parker said. “The onset of the Alzheimer’s occurred two years ago. The hunt for George has been going on much longer, almost thirty years. Alice’s obsession about it was one of the things that drove a stake in her marriage.”
“You knew them back then?”
“No,” Parker said with a shake of her head. “I’ve been Alice’s personal assistant since the divorce. In fact, in a way, I’m also part of the divorce settlement. Mr. Spalding pays my salary and benefits. Before they split up, I worked for both of them for about two years.”
“Has the son’s death in Vietnam been fully documented?” Kerney asked.
“Completely,” Parker said. “Still, Alice persists in her belief that he’s alive. You’ll see what I mean after she’s up. There’s a room in the house devoted completely to George. But no one’s allowed in it unaccompanied. Not even me. If you ask, she’ll show it to you.”
“Do you know the current Mrs. Spalding?” he asked.
“I’ve never met her,” Parker replied. “Clifford bought her a Tuscan-style mansion in Montecito. But as I understand it, she rarely stays there.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Parker nodded. “I can give you directions before you leave.”
“That would be great,” Kerney said. He pointed at the abandoned house. “What is that place?”
Parker leaned against the patio wall. “It’s a park owned by the city but rarely used. Originally, it was a residence and a plant nursery started by an Italian named Francesco Franceschi, who came here in the 1890s. He was responsible for importing almost a thousand foreign species