Jonathan Marsh lived out in the avenues, in the part of town they called the Sunset District. This was residential San Francisco, sand dunes when the 1906 quake hit, now street after street of two-story junior five stucco houses, cars rusting with the sea air that blew in from Ocean Beach. Not much in the way of trees, not like the pretty city further inland, just plenty of overhead wires, crisscrossing plain fog-strewn avenues.
Jonathan Marsh’s garage door was open when Colleen pulled up to a neat white house with red trim. A gray-haired man in his sixties was bent over a workbench. A turquoise blue 1955 Ford Thunderbird occupied the tidy garage. Colleen got out and headed directly there, not bothering with the front door.
The man wore a blue cardigan and pressed trousers. He was working on the metal flap of a heat register with a screwdriver, trying to free up a hinge that had been painted shut.
“Mr. Marsh?” she said.
“Miss ahh …” He didn’t look up. “I’m sorry …”
“Hayes,” she said, setting a business card down on the workbench. “Colleen Hayes.”
“Yes,” he said. He focused on his task but pointed over his shoulder at the workbench on the other side of the Thunderbird. “Over there—help yourself.”
She walked around the sports car and found a cardboard box with Lesley Johns: 413 Frederick, 1967, written neatly on the side in black marker.
She stood at the bench going through the box. Jonathan Marsh had been right when she spoke to him on the phone. There appeared to be absolutely nothing of value in this box—some keys, a golf ball of all things, correspondence held together by a thick rubber band, a transistor radio, and an old toothbrush.
She undid the bundle and sorted the letters: an old PG+E bill in Lesley Johns’ name, past due, more than a few letters requesting payment for various items, all in her name. Colleen got out her notebook and pencil and went through the personal correspondence.
Anything that had been addressed to Lesley Johns had been opened. She assumed Jonathan Marsh was looking for any trace of his former tenant, a forwarding address or a phone number. Colleen did the same, opening each letter, first checking the author, verifying that it wasn’t Margaret Copeland. Feeling voyeuristic, she jotted down names and addresses to follow up on. But with eleven-year-old letters, the words long shot rang loud and clear.
Toward the bottom of the stack, she found a small pink envelope, the kind a woman might send a thank-you card or personal note in.
It was addressed simply to Alex, no last name, at her parents’ Half Moon Bay address. A virgin five-cent stamp was stuck in the upper right corner. No return address. It was penned in pretty cursive handwriting.
Colleen’s nerves tingled with apprehension.
She slipped the note out. Pink parchment paper.
You can’t believe the crazy things that have been going on in this crazy city! All I can say is that I need a break from this endless chaos. I have had enough.
I spoke to Father Guy and he said you have been acting up, dear little sister. No, I don’t care about the colored boyfriend the way mother and father do—in fact, there’s something beautiful about black skin and white skin together—but you’re far too young to even know about such things. There are men out there who will tell you what you want to hear and break your heart. Take it from me.
Our private phone calls make me realize how much I miss you.
That’s why I am coming home this weekend, like it or not. I haven’t been invited to Thanksgiving so, in order to preserve everyone’s sense of dignity, since I know all those stuffed shirts we call relatives will be there, I’m coming Saturday, after everyone’s gone.
And I’m going to straighten you out, young lady!
And maybe, just maybe, you will do the same for me.
Love you and miss you so much, Margaret
Colleen gulped back the beginning of salty tears as she verified the date on the letter. November 20, 1967. One day before Margaret was murdered. If only she had been able to make it home for Thanksgiving.
Colleen couldn’t help but think of her own daughter, Pamela, in that damn commune now, not far from here. It felt as if she was gone as well. One more time Colleen recalled the day when she came home early from Gates Rubber in Denver, found Pamela crouching in the corner of her darkened bedroom. Shivering in a T-shirt, hugging her knees. Eight years old. Eyes glazed over. Colleen had suspected. And done nothing.
She bent down, tried to hug her daughter. But it was like holding a stone. Pamela pushed her away. Continued to push her away. Even to this day.
Colleen let go, gave her daughter space she would never yield.
“Your father?” she asked quietly.
There was a pause, then a single, frightened, angry nod.
Five minutes later, her ex lay sprawled on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, clutching at the screwdriver buried in his neck. Frozen.
She had suspected something was wrong.
If only she had acted sooner.
If only she had not acted out of rage. Selfish rage.
If only Pamela would forgive her.
With a thickness in her throat, Colleen slid the letter back into the envelope. She put the rubber band around the rest of the correspondence, placed that back in the box with the golf ball and keys and toothbrush, and put the lid back on the box.
And she went back to where Jonathan Marsh was still futzing around with his heat register.
“Yes?” He didn’t look up.
She showed him the letter.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“Remember where and when you found it?”
He squeezed his eyes in thought. “Tucked away in one of the rooms. In a drawer in one of the built-in cabinets. I found it when I was cleaning the place out. Eleven years ago?”
“So it was written but never posted.”
“Seems about right.”
“Remember our arrangement.”
“If I find out where Lesley Johns lives, I let you know.”
“Correct.” Jonathan Marsh went back to his heat register.
She slipped the letter that Margaret Copeland had written to her sister, Alex, one that had never been mailed, in the breast pocket of her bomber jacket, and walked back out to her car. The sun was fighting to get through the rain clouds but it was a losing proposition.
She got into the car, lit up a cigarette, took a puff. Two. Three.
She tossed her cigarette out, rolled up the car window, and headed down to the beach, where she took the Great Highway south toward Fort Funston, thinking about how close Margaret Copeland had gotten to not being murdered.