“Not recently,” he said hesitantly. “Ray used to have a plot nearby. Grew conifers that he sold to Christmas tree brokers.”

“Used to?”

“He sold the place to a young couple after he lost his daughter. Moved into a rooming house a block from city hall.”

The possibility that the sheriff had lied to discourage me from snooping around hadn’t left my mind. I found myself wanting to know more about the man who was the law in La Vista.

“He told me about his wife dying of cancer. What happened to the daughter?”

Maimon raised his eyebrows and stopped stroking the Lab. The dog stirred and growled until the stimulation resumed.

“Suicide. Four or five years ago. She hung herself from an old oak on the property.”

He recalled it matter of factly, as if the girl’s death hadn’t been surprising. I commented on it.

“It was a tragedy,” he said, “but not one of those cases where one’s initial reaction is stunned disbelief. Marla’d always seemed a troubled child to me. Plain, overweight, excessively timid, no friends. Always had her nose buried in a book. Fairy tales, the times I noticed. I never saw her smile.”

“How old was she when she died?”

“Around fifteen.”

Had she lived she’d be the same age as Nona Swope. The two girls had lived nearby. I asked Maimon if there’d been any contact between them.

“I doubt it. As little girls they sometimes played together. But not after they got older. Maria kept to herself and Nona ran with the wild crowd. You couldn’t find two girls more dissimilar.”

Maimon stopped stroking the dog. He rose, cleared the table, and began washing dishes.

“Losing Maria changed Ray,” he said, turning off the water and picking up a dish towel. “And the town along with him. Before her death he’d been a hell-raiser. Liked to drink, arm-wrestle, tell off-color jokes. When they cut her body down from that tree he turned inward. Wouldn’t accept solace from anyone. At first people thought it was grief, that he’d come out of it. But he never did.” He wiped a bowl past the gleaming point. “Seems to me La Vista’s been a little more somber since then. Almost as if everyone’s waiting for Ray to give them permission to smile.”

He’d just described mass anhedonia — the rejection of pleasure. I wondered if therein lay the key to Houten’s tolerance of the ostensibly self-denying Touch.

Maimon finished drying and wiped his hands.

I got up.

“Thank you,” I said, “for your time, the tour, and the fruit. You’ve created great beauty here.” I held out my hand.

He took it and smiled.

“Someone else created it. I’ve simply displayed it. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Doctor. You’re a good listener. Will you be going to Garland’s place now?”

“Yes. Just to look around. Can you direct me?”

“Proceed along the road the way we came. You’ll pass half a mile of avocado. Owned by a consortium of La Jolla doctors as a tax shelter. Then a covered bridge over a dry bed. Once off the bridge drive another quarter mile. The Swope place is to the left.”

I thanked him again. He walked me to the door.

“I passed by the place a couple of days ago,” he said. “There was a padlock on the gate.”

“I’m a pretty good climber.”

“I don’t doubt it. But remember what I told you about Garland’s being antisocial. There are coils of barbed wire on top of the fence.”

“Any suggestions?”

He pretended to look at the dog, and said with forced nonchalance: “There’s a toolshed next to my back porch. Odds and ends. Rummage around, see if you find anything helpful.”

He walked away from me and I exited the house.

The “odds and ends” were a collection of high quality hand tools, oiled and wrapped. I selected a heavy-duty bolt cutter and a crowbar and carried them to the Seville. I put them on the floor of the car along with a flashlight retrieved from the glove compartment, started up the engine, and rolled forward.

I looked back at the brightly lit nursery. The taste of the cherimoya lingered on my tongue. As I drove off the property the lights went out.

21

I’d received impressions of the Swopes from multiple sources but had yet to form a coherent image of the shattered family.

Everyone had thought Garland unusual — emotionally inappropriate, secretive, hostile to outsiders. But for a hermit he’d been surprisingly outgoing — Beverly and Raoul had both described him as opinionated and talkative to the point of boorishness, anything but socially reticent.

Emma had emerged as her husband’s cringing subordinate, almost a nonentity, except in Augie Valcroix’s view. The Canadian doctor had described her as a strong woman and hadn’t rejected the possibility that she’d instigated the disappearance.

On the subject of Nona there seemed to be the most agreement. She was wild, hypersexual, and angry. And had been that way for a long time.

And then there was Woody, a sweet little boy. Any way you looked at it, an innocent victim. Was I deluding myself into believing he might still be alive? Engaging in the same kind of denial that had turned a brilliant physician into a public nuisance?