Back Story. Part 7

"Siblings?" I said.

"She never mentioned any."

"How long have you known her?"

"Two years," Paul said. "We worked together in the first play I did in Chicago. When she's up, she's a h.e.l.l of a lot of fun."

The waitress brought smothered pork chops for Paul, spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s for me.

"Why are you asking about her?"

"Because I don't know about her."

Paul was nodding as I spoke.

"And that's what you do," he said. "You ask unanswered questions."

"Information is good," I said.

"So how come you didn't ask more about the aunt?"

I smiled.

"Because you're going to go up to Maine and see her," Paul said. "You have her name and the town she lives in."

My mouth was full of spaghetti. I nodded. I was eying the a.s.sortment of pies behind the counter as I ate. Plan I ahead.

"I know another reason you asked if she were my girlfriend," Paul said.

"Paternal solicitude," I said.

"Besides that," Paul said. "If she were my girlfriend, then you'd have to welcome her to the family. And she's afraid of dogs."

"Not a trait I value," I said.

I eyed the pies again. I thought one of them might be cherry.

"Of course we're not exactly family," Paul said.

"Depends on how you define family," I said.

"You, Susan, and me?"

I nodded.

"And Pearl?" he said.

"Of course," I said.

"How about Uncle Hawk?"

"Uncle Hawk?"

"Uh-huh."

"I think Uncle Hawk is all the family Uncle Hawk needs," I said.

14.

In Kennebunkport, Sybil Pritchard lived in a small house with an oblique view of the water. She had shoulder-length gray hair and bare feet and wore a floral-patterned blue-and-yellow ankle-length dress.

"Well," she said when she answered the door. "You're a big strapping boy, aren't you."

"I am," I said. "Could we talk for a bit? About your sister's murder?"

"My sister was murdered thirty years ago," she said.

"Twenty-eight," I said. "Can we talk?"

"Are you a policeman?" she said.

"I'm a private detective, working for your niece."

"Daryl?" she said. "Come in. Sit down. Tell me what you want."

Her house was coastal cute, with a hemp rug, lobster pot coffee tables, steering-wheel mirrors, ship's captain lamps, and big scallop-sh.e.l.l ashtrays. There were a lot of b.u.t.ts in the ashtrays, and when we sat in her front room, Sybil immediately lit another cigarette and didn't apologize. There was a big Shaker table in front of a bay window where you could see a sc.r.a.p of the ocean. On it were several spiral-bound notebooks and a blue champagne flute with pencils in it. She saw me look.

"I write poetry," she said. "By hand. The tactile sensation of actual transcription seems vital to the creative process."

I nodded.

"What can you tell me about your sister's death?" I said.

"Nothing. She was in a bank. Some radicals held it up. One of them shot her."

"Where were you at the time."

"Movies. I took Daryl to see Harry and Tonto."

"Your sister was in Boston to visit you," I said.

"She was crashing with me," Sybil said. "She was in Boston chasing some guy."

Sybil's face was dark from sun and tough from wind and deeply lined from maybe too many cigarettes. She was about sixty, and she sat with her legs apart, one arm tucking the slack dress between her legs.

"Who?" I said.

"Don't know. She was always chasing some guy, dragging the d.a.m.n kid along," Sybil said.

She took in smoke and exhaled slowly. I quit smoking in 1963. The smell no longer pleased me.

"How about her husband?"

"Poor Barry," Sybil said. "He married her, when she got pregnant with Daryl, you know, sort of do the right thing?"

"Were they married long?"

"h.e.l.l, I don't really know who married them. You know? They may have just sworn an oath of flower power."

"They were hippies?"

"Sure. Me too."

"Drugs?"

"You better believe it," Sybil said.

"Pot?"

"Everything," she said. "If I could light it on fire I'd smoke it."

"Been off for awhile?"

"I quit in March of 1978," she said.

She snuffed out her cigarette b.u.t.t, took a fresh one from its pack and lit it, and took a long drag.

"Except for these," she said. "I coulda lit this one from the other one. But I hate the chain-smoke image. So I always put one out before I light another one."

"I admire self-control," I told her.

"You probably quit years ago."

"I did."

"You don't have any of that sunken-cheeks look," she said. "Like me."

I had nothing to say about that, so I cleverly looked around the room. There were some genuinely awful seascapes framed on the walls.

"Were they together long?" I said. "After Daryl was born?"

"Emily and Barry? Depends what you mean by together. You know how we all were then?"

"I recall the period," I said.

"Yes, of course you do. You were probably off somewhere doing push-ups. A lot of us were crazy to be unconventional. If older people did it, we couldn't possibly do it. My father was in the Rotary Club, for G.o.d's sake. My mother played f.u.c.king bridge!"

"So what about Barry and Emily?"

"Emily would go off and have an interlude with some guy who looked like Rasputin, and when he dumped her she'd come back to Barry."

"And Barry took her back."

"He didn't want to look conventional, I think. You know? Never darken my door again? I was in a pretty long-term fog during the time."

"And they lived in La Jolla?"

"La Jolla?" Sybil laughed. It was an unpleasant guttural. "My father and mother lived in La Jolla. Emily and Barry lived under a Coronado Bridge ramp." She laughed the guttural laugh again. "La Jolla!"

"After Emily's death, Daryl went back to her father?"

"Yes."

"And when's the last time you saw her?"

"That was it," Sybil said. "I guess Barry didn't feel very good about the Gold girls."

"That was your maiden name?"

"Yep. Gold."

Sybil started on her third cigarette.

"Is there a Mr. Pritchard?"

"And before that a Mr. Halleck and a Mr. Layne and a Mr. Selfridge. After Pritchard, I stopped marrying them."

"You have any idea who might have killed your sister?"

"One of the hippies in the bank," she said. "n.o.body knows which one."

"Just for the h.e.l.l of it," I said.

"That's what the cops told me," she said.

"Any reason to doubt it?"

"Nope."

"Any idea who the hippies are?"

"Nope."