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“All because of a fling ten years ago.”
“Maybe neither Janet nor Nigel got over the insult,” I said. “Maybe hatred of Harry Chandler is what keeps those two together.”
Chapter 44
“I’VE GOT HER,” I said to Conklin.
He looked up from his computer.
“Marilyn Varick,” I said. “Google shows a dozen pages on her. She was something special about five years ago.”
Our former Jane Doe had saturated the local surfer news and blogs. Many of the articles about her had photos of her in a Speedo standing next to her surfboard, and there were links to YouTube. I clicked on one, played a video of Marilyn riding enormous waves at Pillar Point.
I turned the monitor so Rich could see.
“Jane Doe was a surfer,” I said. “A champion.”
Rich had been doing his own research as I looked up Marilyn Varick on the Web. He said, “She’s got priors for possession, loitering, panhandling, all in the last two years. She was always picked up in Pacific Heights. I guess that was her home base.”
“LaMetta Wynn said that she was sleeping in doorways. LaMetta gave her money. Maybe other people did too,” I said to Rich. “Our drawing doesn’t look much like these younger pictures of her in real life. It’s like comparing a plum to a prune.”
I did a search for Marilyn Varick on Facebook, found more beauty shots of a graceful young woman daring the waves off Ocean Beach, but she hadn’t updated her page in two years.
“Something happened to her a couple of years ago,” I said. “She dropped out.”
Rich said, “Wynn said there was no way Harry Chandler knew Marilyn Varick. Chandler also said that he didn’t know her. But then we have Nigel Worley saying Chandler had a wide range of types. Maybe a pretty surfer girl would have been one of those types.”
“Speculating now,” I said. “Say Chandler meets her, dates her, breaks her heart. Marilyn goes downhill. Starts living on the street near Chandler’s house.”
“She’s not in missing persons,” Richie said. “But she’s got parents living in San Rafael.”
“Someone’s got to do the notification,” I said.
“It’s my turn,” said Rich.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I want to.”
Chapter 45
I SAT BY the indoor swimming pool in a lovely modern house in San Rafael, nineteen miles north of San Francisco. The walls were glass and the morning sun made beautiful swirling patterns in the water. An English springer spaniel slept in a dog bed, his legs running in a dream.
Richard and Virginia Varick were a handsome couple in their sixties, dressed in tennis shorts and sweaters. Mrs. Varick couldn’t sit still. Her husband leaned back in a metal-frame webbed chair and looked at me suspiciously.
I thought he knew why I had come.
When I first saw Jane Doe’s remains, I thought that once we knew who she was, the rest of the puzzle would fall into place; we’d learn the nature of the crimes and the motive, and from there we’d have a good shot at figuring out who had killed her and the others.
Now, as I sat with the Varicks, my only thought was that I was about to shatter the final happy moment in their lives.
“When was the last time you spoke with your daughter?”
“Is Marilyn in trouble?” Virginia Varick asked me.
“I’m not sure, Mrs. Varick. Could you look at this drawing?”
I had printed out a clean copy of the sketch that had been drawn from the partially decomposed head of Jane Doe. I handed it to Mrs. Varick.
“Who is this person?” she asked me.
