I could simply cut my losses and head for home. I packed, grabbed a quick do-it-yourself breakfast in the hotel lobby, then checked out and fell into my car.
Riddick, California (pop. 6724) was one of those small American towns that seem to have been set down completely arbitrarily, as if it had just fallen off the back of a lorry en route to where it should have been built. The fringes were a shapeless straggle of scruffy shopping centers and boarded-up businesses. The main street had the provisional air of a Hollywood western set that was about to be replaced by a sci-fi metropolis. At one end was a flower shop called Stalk of the Town. On an impulse I went in and bought a bunch of lilies. It seemed like the sort of community where that kind of gesture might still be appreciated.
Ten minutes later I was in Middlefield Way, a clutch of unassuming, almost-identical little houses, all with picture windows and aluminum siding. Mask out the tropical-green hills and the blue sky, and you could have been almost anywhere in America. There were basketball hoops on the garages, and here and there a stars and stripes clinging to a pole in the front yard, as if it no longer had the confidence to let rip and show the world what it was made of. It was hard to imagine the street as a hotbed of political activism. I decided not to mention the Ohlone, at least to begin with. It would be safer just to stick with Anne.
I drove slowly along the street, identified 2216, then turned and parked a few houses along. I was still early, so I stayed put for a few minutes, trying to picture Hazel Voss’s brief life here: playing with the neighbors’ kids; perhaps watching Sesame Street in the family room; walking or taking the yellow bus to school; driving with her mother to the mall to shop or see a film or go bowling. The whole dreamlike panoply—dreamlike to a British eye, at any rate—of small-town America. And there must be plenty of worse places to grow up. But it was a tiny—I cast around for the word—a tiny snow-dome world. Not much of a preparation for finding yourself trapped in the labyrinth. Poor kid.
Snow-dome, said Anne. Nice touch. That’s something I’ll bet TOLSTOY can’t do: metaphor.
I clenched the wheel and screwed up my face, making my ears hum. When I relaxed it again, she’d gone.
“Please,” I said. “Let’s keep it like that. I can’t do whatever I’m supposed to do if I’m constantly doubting what I see or hear.”
I got out and walked back to 2216. Someone had tried to give the small front yard a lived-in feel by populating it with a miniature windmill, a spotted deer, a fiberglass horse-and-groom. But they were all being overrun by an invading army of weeds and grass, which only added to the forlornness. I picked my way through the tussocks to the porch. In the window hung a plastic sign, tricked out to resemble pottery: Bless our Home. The Little Prayer on the Housie.
Anne laughed: that familiar sound, like one of those old-fashioned tin openers hacking open a can of beans. It was so real this time that I glanced round, half-expecting to find her there.
“I’m following your instructions,” I shouted into the emptiness. “Now leave me in peace.”
I pushed the doorbell, setting off a few jaunty bars of Yankee Doodle somewhere inside the house, followed by an outburst of furious high-pitched barking. A woman appeared. She was late forties, wearing glasses and a frilly housecoat, her bare dough-stick legs potted in a pair of flounced slippers. Her face was a pale splodge, like a child’s drawing. The only definition came from an uneven daub of red lipstick.
“I’m Robert Lovelace,” I said.
“Ginny. Ginny Voss.”
As she took my hand, a little white dog ran towards us, yapping. It had mournful eyes, and long silky ears framing its face, giving it the haughty demeanor of some bewigged Restoration fop.
“That’s OK, Dulcie,” wheezed Ginny Voss. “He’s a friend.”
“These are for you,” I said, giving her the flowers. “I was so sorry to hear about your loss.”
She stared at them for a moment, as if she weren’t quite sure what they were. Then she mumbled “Thank you,” and led me into the living-room. It was dominated by a bulbous blue sofa facing an outsize TV. A breakfast bar marked the frontier with a small kitchen. One empty cup on it, one empty plate. No sign of a husband. No sign of anyone else at all. The whole place had the stuffy, dust-and-air-freshener smell of a cheap motel room.
“You say you’re from England, right?” she said.
I nodded.
“So they heard about Hazel all the way over there, huh? The other side of the pond?”
“Well, I hadn’t, to be honest. I’m only here because of a friend of mine.” I hesitated. “A colleague. Anne Grainger?”
She pulled her mouth down, shook her head.
“It was Anne who got the ball rolling. Pointed me in this direction.”
She shivered and pressed her hands together. “Well, I don’t know if she realizes it, but you know what? I been praying for this. A journalist wants to write something about Hazel. So you tell her thank you from me, OK?”
I sucked my teeth.
“Is that a problem?”
“No,” I said. “Of course I will.”
“Or maybe I should write and tell her myself? I will, if you give me her address.”
“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll be glad to do it.”
She nodded. “You like some iced tea?”
“Yes. Or . . . or coffee, maybe?”
She glanced towards the kitchen. There was a coffee-maker on the work surface, but it was half-hidden behind a clutter of jars, its power cable coiled on the lid.
“If I can figure out how to make it,” she said. “That was Hazel’s. She loved coffee. But I never cared for it. So—”
“Iced tea’s fine.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Had Anne known that the trail would lead here? I looked round, trying to imagine her in this house. It was hard. She was too much of the grande dame. The dinginess, the hideous sofa, the picture of a white-robed Jesus holding a lamb, the stained-pine display cabinet cluttered with photos, fake flowers, a china puppy playing with a china kitten—it would have all made her uncomfortable. Talking to Ginny Voss would have been a huge effort for her. But, at the same time, it was easy to see why she would feel a responsibility for Ginny Voss—view her as one of the voiceless mass of decent “ordinary” people whose views needed to be defended against the sneers of the bien pensants.
I walked over to look at the photos on the cabinet. Most of them were of a young girl, presumably Hazel. Aged seven or eight, with a big gap in her upper teeth. A few years older, holding the little dog as a puppy and smiling hammily at the camera. About the same age, standing at a kitchen counter, dressed up like a chef, one arm curved proprietorially round a mixing bowl. Late teens, wearing a mortarboard and holding a rolled-up graduation certificate.
“Yes, that’s her,” said Ginny Voss, re-entering with a tray carrying two glasses and a packet of biscuits. “That’s my little girl.”
“When . . . When . . .”
“When did she do it? A few months back.”
“And did you have any idea?”
She shook her head.
“You didn’t think . . . you saw her, or anything?”
“How could I? She was away at school. First I heard was when the police came to the door.”
She sounded rattled, as if I’d accused her of some failing as a parent. I pointed at the picture of Hazel in the kitchen. It was the one where she was looking the happiest. “That’s a nice shot.”
Ginny