W Is for Wasted

by a next-door neighbor, Lorelei Brandle, who was at the house during the time in question. The defense also challenged Cates’s credibility in tying Dace to the crime. The jury was unimpressed, and after deliberating for four hours, convicted Dace of felony murder. Dace was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and began serving his time in January 1974.
    It wasn’t difficult to imagine the sequence of events. After Dace’s conviction and sentencing, his wife filed for divorce, insisting that he quitclaim the house to her. Or maybe he’d voluntarily relinquished claim in light of his disgrace. Once he was freed from prison, sued the state, and collected his settlement, the money must have looked like a way to make amends. I could imagine him arriving in Bakersfield, eager to contact his children so he could tell them his name had been cleared. Big mistake. According to Dandy, the reunion was a disaster. In the end, they’d severed their relationship and he’d traveled to Santa Teresa in hopes of reconnecting with whatever remaining family he could find.
    Occasionally, the teller would lean forward and look at an item herself, but for the most part she seemed content to observe without comment.
    Aaron came to Dace’s social security card and a California driver’s license that had expired in May of 1976. He made a note of the social security number, Dace’s full name, and his address at the time the license was issued. “The initial ‘R’ stands for Randall,” he remarked.
    “Good to know.”
    He passed both documents to me after he added the information to his inventory.
    I checked the date of birth on his driver’s license. “Catch this. He was born in 1935, which means he’s fifty-three years old. He looked more like seventy when I saw him.”
    “Nobody ever said drink, drugs, and cigarettes were the fountain of youth.”
    “I guess not.”
    Aaron read and passed along paperwork related to the settlement, showing Dace’s receipt of the money, his signature attesting to the fact that this was settlement in full, that he held the state harmless, and so forth. I added that document to the mounting pile of those we’d reviewed.
    The next items Aaron passed me were three sixteen-page folios Dace had put together for his children. I recognized his characteristic printing style. The three booklets were handwritten and handbound. The first covered edible California plants; the second, medicinal herbs; and the third was devoted to California wildflowers. Included with the text were delicate drawings, some done in pen and ink and some in colored pencil. There was a note attached to each, indicating which child was meant as the recipient. There was no way to know whether he’d put the folios together while he was still in prison or after his release, but I was struck by the care he’d taken. He couldn’t have executed the intricate illustrations if he was drunk. These were like poems made visible, precise and lovingly rendered. For the first time, I realized Terrence Dace was a talented man, with an innate intelligence and sensitivity few people in his life had reason to appreciate. How many hours had he spent on the project, and how much affection had he lavished on the drawings and the text? I hoped someone would track down his kids and deliver these in his behalf. It might make a dent in whatever ill will they bore him. The guy deserved better.
    The next envelope Aaron picked up was five inches by eight and closed with a metal clasp. Aaron opened it and removed four black-and-white photographs. They were the old-fashioned Kodak prints edged in white. Aaron noted the topmost photo and studied it briefly before he picked up the next. I did the same thing as he passed each one along. Even the teller leaned forward to have a look. In the first, a towheaded boy of six was perched on the shoulders of a rangy, good-looking man who was grasping the child’s feet to anchor him in place. The background showed glimpses of flat, empty land. I could see a crumpled fence and two young trees. I pictured farmland and open countryside. On the back of the photograph, in pen, the note said ME AND UNCLE R, SEPTEMBER 1941 . The boy had to be Terrence Dace. I’d seen him only once, in death, and while it was a stretch to trace the similarities between the child and the wreck of a man he’d become, the faint link was there.
    The second photo showed the same towheaded boy, progressed to age ten.