“Accuse me of anything you like. You have no proof and there’s nothing you can do about it even if you did.”

“You got me on that one. At least Mamie knows now and we’ll see what she does with it.”

22

The meeting faltered to a close and we parted company. Verbal clashes seldom come to a satisfying end. They peter out in weak retorts that leave you wishing you’d been as clever in the moment as you are in reviewing the conversation later. I hadn’t scored even one decisive point and none of us had altered our positions in the slightest. I was glad I’d met Evelyn because I had a better sense now of who she was and how she operated.

Poor Dace. I’d formed a ragged picture of his life, joining fragments like a reel of film spliced together with all the big scenes missing. The storyline was there but the point was lost. The meaning of life (assuming there is one . . .) is the glue we use to join events, trying to fill the cracks in hopes the whole of it will make sense. Beginning, middle, and end don’t always add up to much, and, in his case, only an odd note of melancholia remained.

I went up to my room and packed. I took the elevator down and presented myself at the front desk with my duffel in hand. I signed the credit card receipt and returned my key. It wasn’t until I was crossing the parking lot that I saw Ethan Dace appear on the far side of the Mustang. He’d parked his banged-up white Toyota in the slot to the left of mine. At first I thought he’d crouched between the two cars to keep himself out of view, but maybe he’d only bent to tie his shoelace. I was on the verge of asking how he’d figured out where I was, but we all knew by then that my Grabber Blue Mustang was better than a flashing neon sign.

Casually, he turned and opened his passenger-side door. He tossed something onto the front seat before he slammed the door again and turned to face me. He tilted his head in the direction of the hotel entrance. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“I saw my wife and mom leave just now. You call a meeting?”

“That was Mamie’s idea. She had questions about the will. It was a waste of time in my opinion, but I wanted to show what a good sport I am.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“That was it,” I said. Then the light dawned. “Oh, now I’m getting it. You think I summoned Mamie and your mom so I could tattle on you.”

“Nothing to tattle. I was talking to a friend.”

“My mistake. It looked like you were flirting with that redheaded hottie. Anna’s friend, isn’t she? I didn’t catch her name.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Fear not, good sir. My lips are sealed. Now if you’ll step away from my car door, I’d like to get in.”

For some reason, that set him off. He rose up on the balls of his feet, leaning toward me while he jabbed a finger in my face. The fact that he didn’t raise his voice made the underlying anger more sinister than the threat that followed. “You want to make trouble? I’ll make trouble for you and don’t think I won’t.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll sue. Me and my sisters will sue your ass, you get that?”

“I do. Thanks so much. Is there anything else?”

“You better lawyer up. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I have an attorney.”

“I’ll bet you do. I bet you hired one the second you found out about the money because you knew what kind of hole you’d dug for yourself. My dad was a drunk, which you seem to know all about. So maybe you talked him into cutting us off so you could step into the breach.”

“Let’s not talk about this, okay? You want to hire an attorney, you can go right ahead. I told you to do that the first time we spoke. You have a copy of the will. You have the hearing date, and you can do anything you like.”

He turned without another word and moved around the back of his car to the driver’s seat. He got in and slammed the door.

It took him two tries to get his car started, but then he peeled out with a chirp.

Anna was right. The guy was a drama queen.

I unlocked the Mustang, tossed my duffel into the backseat and my shoulder bag in the front. I got in, started the car, and pulled out of the slot. Such was the thrilling climax of my twenty-four-hour sojourn in Bakersfield.

By 10:52, I was driving west on California Street toward the southbound on-ramp to State Route 99. There were two more delays coming up but I didn’t know that yet, so I was excited about getting home. Bakersfield had been a bust. In the main, I’d accomplished my goals, but in doing so, I’d stirred up a nest of hornets. Two of Dace’s three kids were hopeless. I couldn’t convince them their father had been dealt a bad hand. As far as Ethan and Anna were concerned, his leaving me the money had only fanned the resentment they’d carried for years. How else could it have turned out? Of course they were angry. Of course they responded with more of the same.