“That’s her. And that”—Jen nodded at the colorful figure—“is an early Gaddo. You probably saw our two other ones, up at the front door—Adam and Eve. They’re so beautiful. All three were done in the seventies, before Gaddo went too bizarre. And although she’s nowhere near as popular as she once was, thank God, our conservator is absolutely certain that once we show the art world what we have here, this week’s madness is going to feel like a gentle drift downstream. We covered the heads before we opened Tuesday, so we could control when and how to make the announcement. We also put up some boring signs saying the plastic is protecting the heads from further deterioration.”

  “Did no one know you had a Gaddo?”

  “Oh, they knew it was here—hard to miss. And you could sort of tell it had three heads, but it’s been there for so long, and the hedge is so high, no one’s seen the back for years. As soon as she saw them, Mrs. Dalhousie—our conservator—sent our gardening crew for a ladder and some trash bags.

  “I thought she was nuts, because the hidden faces are amazing. But then Mrs. D pointed out that piling the artistic revelation on top of the news about the body would make everyone’s life even more impossible—including that of the police. Some plastic trash bags would let us separate the two…upheavals. The sheriff agreed. Especially when we explained that, considering Gaddo’s later reputation, someone is sure to suggest that she put the body there herself.”

  The eyebrow went up again. “Are you suggesting some kind of human sacrifice?”

  “I’m not—this was a commune of organic farmers and their kids, not some weird Manson cult. But you know the internet, no rumor too wild. And Gaddo’s fans are a little out there to begin with. However, no matter what happened, there’s some family who lost a loved one and never knew where they were. So we decided that when that news is no longer quite so fresh, we can shape a separate announcement about Midsummer Eves itself. Because it really is an extraordinary piece, both as a piece of art and as a step in the artist’s development.”

  The two women gazed down at the ugly black-and-silver lump atop the sweep of bright tile.

  “Mrs. Dalhousie will have her work cut out for her. She’s come across photos in the Archives that show the sculpture standing the other way around, just before it was installed, though it’s half-hidden behind scaffolding and she can’t think why they’d have turned it 180 degrees. Anyway, if the thing makes as big a splash in the art world as she anticipates, we are not ready for that now. So: trash bags. And later today, a nice tidy piece of cloth.”

  Jen sighed. “I hate having to be concerned about the Estate’s reputation and convenience. It feels petty and inconsequential, compared to having some loved family member disappear. And if there is anything any of us can actually do to help, please let us know. In the meantime…” She shrugged. “I have a job to do.”

  “I understand. I would like to see those photos.”

  “Mrs. Dalhousie should be in the Archives until five o’clock—that’s in the house, one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

  “Good.” At last, the inspector turned to the containers arranged on the table before her. She picked up the menu card, which explained that the containers were compostable, the ham was organic and locally sourced, the herbs, vegetables, and olives in the pasta salad were from the Gardener Estate itself, and the dairy products in the sandwich and individual cheesecake came from a nearby, award-winning dairy. She laid the card aside and peeled the potato-based film from her recyclable bamboo fork. “Ms. Bachus, when did you first come to the Gardener Estate?”

  Jen, surveying the elements of her own lunch, wished she felt some appetite. Maybe if she and this woman could talk about anything else…

  She heard the silence and looked up, and gave a quick shake of her head. “Sorry—I was just thinking how difficult a cop’s social life must be, when a simple question comes out like an interrogation.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well, I don’t know when I first came to the Estate grounds, because we lived five miles away and my parents used to hike all over. I didn’t know the commune itself—I was teeny when it disbanded—but even if it had been here, I’m not sure Mom would have brought me. She knew some kids who lived at Olompali, back in the Grateful Dead days, and she’d seen what could happen when things got chaotic. My dad died when I was nine, and she and my brother were both working, so I’d wander all over. Trespassing, of course. It was a different time then, you know?”

  While Jen talked, she’d been rearranging the contents of her sandwich, but again, silence attracted her attention. The cop wore a look of polite incomprehension.

  “ ‘Olompali’?”

  “You seriously don’t know anything about the Gardener Estate, do you?”

  “Well, you said it was a commune.”

  “I thought—you know. False modesty, police investigative techniques. So you don’t…And you…Oh God. I’ve been going on about cannabis and cults and the Grateful Dead, and you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.”

  “I was only told about the bones here a few hours ago. Not much time for background research.”

  The cop’s expression of polite bewilderment suggested that Jen had been speaking Turkish. Suddenly, she became aware of a bubble of emotion trying to push its way to the surface. Two battering days on top of several weeks of difficult conversations and year after year of having this place and its history the center of her every waking hour…

  And the way the inspector had pronounced Olompali. With the same precise emphasis she’d used earlier on the words wisteria gazebo…

  The bubble burst, coming out not as wild sobs but as a snort of laughter. Jen couldn’t help it, couldn’t help how the other woman’s blink of consternation only made matters funnier. The most interesting person Jen had met in a long time, who cared nothing at all for the endless minutiae of an estate manager’s life. Which might have been depressing, even insulting, but somehow hit her as absolutely invigorating. Like a jerk on the leash to her long years of self-absorption.

  Jen threw back her head and laughed.

  The outburst didn’t last long, but as it trailed away, it left her feeling more herself than she had since the crane’s engine roared to life Monday morning. She even felt the first vague stir of appetite.

  “Sorry,” she said, for what felt like the twentieth time since she’d met Inspector Raquel Laing. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that, it’s been a while since I met a person who not only knows nothing about the Gardener Estate, but who isn’t even very interested in it. You, Inspector Laing, are a welcome and refreshing addition to what’s been an extremely trying week.”

  4

  Raquel Laing was not often surprised by people. Puzzled, certainly—she often had no clue why people did things, but as far as she was concerned, understanding the why didn’t matter, so long as she could read the signs and anticipate behavior.

  Jen Bachus had surprised her.

  The moment she arrived at the door of the manager’s office, Raquel had seen the stress: tight shoulders, wary eyes, an exaggerated twist of the lips for every minor challenge—looking for a paper, pushing back a fall of unruly hair, turning away yet another intrusive outsider. It didn’t require her compulsive fiddling with her many rings or the flicker of disgust at the sight of lunch to know that the woman was near the breaking point.

  Deliberately, Raquel had moved to counteract that tension, with a calm voice and the stance of authority. She’d managed to divert Ms. Bachus from the question of why a San Francisco cop was working a San Mateo case, and other than one minor glitch—something to do with the wisteria—the interview continued, despite the woman’s distraction.

  But then, when the next glitch rose up—Raquel’s glaring failure to understand—instead of storming off and telling Raquel to go do her homework, Jen Bachus had laughed.

  And continued to chuckle as she saw Raquel work to reassess the situation.

  The relief of laughter had restored her appetite, as she picked up her sandwich with no sign of disgust. Her shoulders were relaxed, the muscles soft around her jaw and eyes. It made her look younger, more approachable, more appealing. Dee would like her, Raquel thought, then wondered where the idea had come from.

  “I’m glad you find my ignorance amusing,” she said. “Although I am actually interested in the Estate.” And I have been for nearly four hours now, she did not add.

  “It’s okay. Most locals only show up here when they have some out-of-town visitor to entertain.” Jen took a bite of her sandwich, chewing with a degree of relish.

  Pushing brings antagonism; informality disarms. Raquel put on her most affable face. “Unlike you, who’s been trespassing here since you were a kid. The roads would have been quiet enough that you could go all over on a bike, right? Let me guess: a red one.”

  Jen uncapped her bottle of sparkling water. “Blue. A hand-me-down from my brother. But yes, by the time I started sneaking in on my own, the Estate was more or less deserted. There were all kinds of falling-down huts and abandoned cars and school buses, places where they’d planted vegetables and pot, but The Commons itself was long gone. Putting the Eves up seems to have been one of the last things they did.”

  “Is there anyone around who would remember those years? Not necessarily who lived here, but nearby?”

  But that was too direct. Jen’s shoulders drew up and she concentrated on her sandwich, taking a deliberate mouthful too large to talk around. She chewed slowly, watching a hawk hovering high above the field. Eventually, she swallowed. “There’s sure to be.”

  And sometimes you push. “Perhaps some of them still work here?”

  “Could be.”

  “Ms. Bachus, do you have a reason not to tell me?”

  Jen’s face twitched rapidly through surprise to dismay, settled into an almost adolescent sullenness—then changed again as her eyes came to rest upon the handle of Raquel’s cane.

  “Oh, my God,” she blurted. “That’s where I know you from. That press conference last week. The Highwayman. You think this is one of his?”

  Raquel sighed. The damned name was all over the news, since the arrest of Michael Allan Johnston and the belated admission that The Highwayman had not been some imaginary monster-under-the-bed, as they had claimed for years. Instead, a number of unsolved disappearances and murders from the seventies and eighties were indeed beginning to look connected.

  Bad enough that half the jurisdictions in the Bay Area had totally overlooked a serial killer. Worse that it came on the heels of a similar revelation about ex-cop Joseph DeAngelo, whose spree of rapes and murders, hidden behind ten nicknames and multiple jurisdictions, was only found when DNA caught up with him, thirty years later.

  Half the counties in the Bay Area were now scrambling to get up to speed with the Highwayman investigation. Al Hawkin had meant well, bringing Raquel to the press conference, but if he’d let her stay away as she’d asked, she would not be explaining herself to a potential witness on the Gardener Estate.

  What was she supposed to tell this woman, anyway? Yes, I’m most likely wasting your time. This body probably has nothing to do with Michael Johnston. Even if it did, San Mateo Homicide will have to go over it all again, once they’re available. I’m just a cop who knows more about The Highwayman than most anyone, even if I am on medical leave (sort of) and here without my bosses knowing (some of them) and I’ll wash my hands of your problem the minute I eliminate it from the Highwayman case.

  “Do you?” Jen demanded. “Think this is his?”

  “I have to ask you not to talk about this, to anyone.”

  “But you do. Oh Christ. Poor thing. And—oh crap. We’ll have to shut down now.”

  “Jen—Ms. Bachus, listen. I will be honest with you. We don’t know. We have no reason to suspect any link. But he was active in the late seventies. I only want to make sure he wasn’t here.”

  “But when word gets out…”

  “If it does, it won’t be from us.”

  “If I recognized you, anyone could.”

  “Okay, but I am with San Francisco, and I’ve been working with their Cold Case Unit. There are any number of investigations I could be pursuing here.”

  “Still.”

  “Ms. Bachus, we have to eliminate—”

  “I know. I know, I know.”

  Raquel watched as the manager sat, elbows on table, dark brown hair spilling over her hands. How did those rings not continually catch on her hair?

  “First the bones, then the Gaddo, now The Highwayman. What a shit-storm.” Jen exhaled, and sat up, straightening her shoulders. “But I guess you have a job to do. And whoever that is—was—they deserve justice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You said you hadn’t identified the body, but do you have any, er, candidates?”

  “That’s one of the reasons why I’m here. There are a lot of tests to finish, and the bones were pretty thoroughly…disturbed.” Crushed to bits, half-washed-away, then scattered across seventy feet of field by the crane.

  “I watched it happen. And afterward, I watched those crime-scene people go over, picking up all the little bits. One of them even had the crane lift the Eves up again so she could slide under and check the bottom! I don’t know about her, but that’ll give me nightmares, her feet sticking out from under that slab of concrete like the wicked witch—” She shuddered. “Anyway, whoever it was, my chief responsibility is the Estate and the people who work here. We’re all upset and frightened and hating that we’ve been walking around, oblivious of that poor soul. And whatever you find, it’s going to create more trouble for us. So of course we’ll help you—all of us—but don’t expect us to be happy about it.”

  “I do understand. I’ll try my best to be unobtrusive until San Mateo can take it back. But I’d like your help compiling a list of people who were here at the time.”

  Jen looked up as an appalling thought came to her. “You don’t think it’s possible that—What’s his name? The Highwayman?—that he actually might have lived here?”

  “Michael Johnston. And no, there’s no evidence that he ever lived here.” Yet.

  “Well, that’s something, anyway. As for a list, I can give you some names, though there will be more in the Archives. Mrs. Dalhousie will help.”

  Raquel closed the lid on the empty salad container and moved on to the sandwich. “What is in the Archives?”

  Jen was toying with a carrot. “What isn’t? The Gardeners were one of the most influential families in California. Their estate is a landmark, physically and historically. Fortunately for us, when The Commons arrived in 1975, they just—”

  “Pardon,” Raquel interrupted, “The Commons is, what, exactly?”

  “That’s what the commune called itself.”

  “So this place was actually a commune? Peace-and-love, changing the world, all that?”

  “Absolutely—free love, brown bread, organic vegetables, and the rest. Not, as I said, a cult. In no way was it a cult. Ever.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway, they’d been up in Oregon, but after Rob inherited and they came here, they just shoved everything they couldn’t find a use for into the attics. Which has been an untold blessing for us. There are ledgers from the Gardener gold mines, incorporation papers for the Gardener electrical and water companies, four decades of garden journals, notes and drawings from the architect. Maude Gardener—wife of the first Thaddeus Gardener, who built the house—had a real knack for bringing together unlikely people to forge political and artistic alliances. We have thank-you letters written by every president from Teddy Roosevelt to FDR. There’s a short film of Albert Einstein being silly at the piano, and another of William Randolph Hearst being pushed into the reflecting pool. Maude collected Hollywood types, who would pay back her hospitality by filming a scene in the house—it appears in dozens of films. The garden alone influenced West Coast horticulture. The ballroom murals are by Thomas Hart Benton, and the foyer—well, I’m sure you saw the foyer as you came through. We get people here researching architecture, landscape design, twentieth-century art, all kinds of things. Although not many people are as fascinated by its commune era as they are the thirties and forties.”

  “Would you say it’s common for a house like this to have a research center as well as garden tours?”

  “Inspector Laing, I’m trying to tell you, there aren’t any other houses like this. In England, maybe, but not in the United States—certainly not in California. And even here, most of what’s in the Archives only survived because the Gardener family enjoyed its feuds, and no one could decide what to do with everything. I thank God for Mrs. Dalhousie, who spends far more hours than we pay her for, putting them in order.”

  “What kind of feuds?”

  “Mrs. D could give you the details, but what it boils down to is, Rob Gardener’s grandfather—Thaddeus Eugene Gardener the Second—was a true-blue, woman-hating, abusive son of a bitch, pardon my French. People called him the Old Bastard, and he lived up to it. He neglected his wife and daughter, drove his only son to suicide, and more or less kidnapped two of his grandsons—Rob and his older brother, Fort—to bring them here so he could control their upbringing. Fort—that’s a nickname, for Thaddeus Gardener the Fourth—took off for India as soon as he hit his twenties and got written out of the will, but when Rob up and joined the Army, there weren’t any other sons to leave it to, just the boys’ cousins, David and Cynthia. And though David loves the place—and must have even as a child—he wasn’t strictly speaking a Gardener.

  “So because the old man didn’t trust his son’s sons, didn’t count his daughter’s children, and couldn’t quite bring himself to leave the place to charity, he drew up what our lawyer describes as a stupidly convoluted will with a lot of stipulations. I don’t know all the details, but in the end, Rob accepted them. And then he got back at the Old Bas—at the old man—by bringing the whole commune here with him, which I’m sure was not what Thaddeus the Second had in mind. The commune only lasted a few years, but Rob stayed on, first in the house itself and then in an off-the-grid cabin he built up on the edges of the property. That’s where he lives now.”