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  Praise for Janet Dawson and

  DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN

  “A welcome addition to this tough genre.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Janet Dawson writes with a deft, sure hand, much the way her sleuth Jeri Howard detects. With both author and sleuth, you know you’re in the hands of true professionals.”

  —JULIE SMITH

  “Dawson keeps suspense and interest at high pitch.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  By Janet Dawson

  KINDRED CRIMES

  TILL THE OLD MEN DIE

  TAKE A NUMBER

  DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN

  NOBODY’S CHILD

  DON’T TURN

  YOUR BACK

  ON THE

  OCEAN

  Janet Dawson

  Copyright © 1994 by Janet Dawson

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in criticial articles or reviews.

  Cover design by Sue Trowbridge, interbridge.com

  ISBN 0449-22184-9

  ISBN 978-0-9834031-3-5(ePub)

  First Hardcover Edition: November 1994

  First Mass Market Edition: October 1995

  For Dawn and Alan in Monterey,

  for Anne and Chuck in Morro Bay,

  and for Barbara,

  who stayed home so I could travel.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Acknowledgments

  I PICKED THE BRAINS OF A GREAT MANY PEOPLE WHILE researching and writing Don’t Turn Your Back on the Ocean. Any errors are mine alone.

  Bob Leos of the Monterey office of the California Department of Fish and Game and William H. Munger of the Monterey County Department of Health were extremely helpful and I am grateful for their assistance. I am also thankful for the help provided by Lisa A. Hoefler, Operations Manager and State Humane Officer, Monterey SPCA; Kathy Johannes, North County Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, Paso Robles; George Isaac and Deborah Johnston of the Monterey office of the California Department of Fish and Game; John C. Ramirez of the Monterey County Department of Health; Sergeant Terry L. Kaiser, Investigations Division, Monterey County Sheriff’s Department; Jim Hlavaty, United States Coast Guard; Brooks Bowhay, Harbormaster, City of Monterey; Frank Siino, Monterey Bay Boatworks; Frank Sollecito, Monterey Police Department; Robert M. Jones, National Marine Fisheries Service; Andy Russo and Sal Tringale for the tour of the Sea Wave; Bob Hurford, California Regional Water Quality Board, San Luis Obispo; Florence Rapp; Mary Swift; Cynthia and Haig Krikorian of Lalime’s in Berkeley; and Philip and Nancy Chu of Nan Yang in Oakland.

  One

  ON LAND, THE BROWN PELICAN LOOKED BIG AND UNGAINLY. This one perched on a fence near the end of the Coast Guard jetty, a bundle of gray-brown feathers dwarfed by its huge dark bill and the loose dark brown throat pouch beneath. The pelican stared at me with one round unblinking eye, set high in its white-feathered head, then spread its powerful wings and took flight. I marveled at the bird’s unexpected grace as it glided with military precision between the turquoise water of Monterey Bay and the clear blue September sky.

  Suddenly the pelican altered course and plunged some twenty feet into the water, breaking the smooth glassy surface. I counted the seconds until the bird emerged from the water, a silvery fish wriggling in its beak. The bird straightened its S-shaped neck and swallowed its prey.

  “We’ve got some sicko at it again,” Donna Doyle said, joining me near the fence. “Just like back in 1984 and 1987. The creep catches the pelicans, cuts off their beaks or slashes their pouches. Or both. Then he releases them. Pelicans can’t fish without their beaks, so the birds starve to death.”

  I shuddered at the image, chilled despite the warm late-September sun. I turned to look at my cousin. As a private investigator, I’m well aware that there are a great many evil people loose in the world. Quite often they treat their fellow human beings the way they treat animals.

  “Who’s involved in the investigation this time?” I asked.

  “We are, of course.” In this case, we meant the California Department of Fish and Game. My cousin is a biologist who studies and monitors seabirds, specifically the brown pelican, a thirty-million-year-old species that is on the endangered list. Blame DDT and a host of other pollutants.

  Donna grasped the mesh of the chain-link fence separating us and other human observers from the rocks that formed the breakwater at the end of the jetty. Dozens of California sea lions sprawled unconcernedly in the early-afternoon sun, their companions an assortment of seagulls, cormorants, and pelicans.

  “Also the Monterey County SPCA and the National Marine Fisheries Service, since pelicans are protected. But I thought maybe you could help.”

  “Me?” I stared at my cousin. She was three years older than me, thirty-six, and a few inches shorter than my own five feet eight inches. Her round fair face was full of freckles, splashed across a snub nose. “What makes you think a private investigator from Oakland can help?”

  “The outside observer,” Donna said. She ran a hand through her short unruly blond hair. “Another pair of eyes that might see something we’ve missed. These incidents are similar to the earlier ones, but there are some differences, too. Think about it. I have to talk to someone.”

  Earlier I’d wondered why my cousin had asked me to meet her here. Now she walked toward the inward side of the jetty, where the vessels of Coast Guard Group Monterey were tied up. Donna went through the gate and boarded the gleaming white cutter. I took a seat on the low concrete wall on the bay side of the jetty, just to the right of two elderly men who’d cast fishing lines into the blue water.

  I heard sea lions barking in the distance, beyond the end of the jetty. The creatures congregated under Commercial Wharf Two, farther to the east, where the fishing boats unloaded their day’s catch. Fisherman’s Wharf was closer, several hundred yards distant. The wharf jutted over the water, buildings and planks balanced on a forest of thick pilings pounded into the bay floor. A number of small boats rode the water in between, at anchor, a picturesque sight for the customers of the restaurants whose broad
glass windows sparkled in the afternoon sun.

  I shifted, tucking my blue-jean-clad knees under my chin, and gazed out at Monterey Bay, a marvelous sight on this clear autumn day. As the bay curved to the east toward the coastal hills, it was edged by the smooth sand of Del Monte Beach and the mounded dunes along Highway 1, where huge breakers rolled foaming onto the beach. Farther north, past the Salinas River and Castroville, the self-proclaimed artichoke capital of the world, I saw the tower of the Pacific Gas & Electric generating plant at Moss Landing. Beyond that, distance and haze made the shoreline and the coastal hills indistinct as they circled north, then west, past Watsonville, Capitola, and Santa Cruz.

  The blue-green water glittered like a jewel, dotted here and there with white foam and froth, moving with tide and current, waves and backwash from the boats that rode its surface. The bay was alive with fish and sleek black sea otters, barking sea lions and harbor seals, white seagulls, brown pelicans, the darker cormorants. Beneath the water’s surface kelp drifted gently, hiding place for octopus, squid and rays, schools of fish and thousands of tiny sea creatures, all depending on one another for survival.

  The first whale I ever saw was in Monterey Bay. I was five years old, walking hand in hand with my grandfather on the bluff overlooking the rocky shore at Lovers’ Point. Suddenly Grandpa pointed at the water. My eyes followed the direction of his hand and I saw a whale breach, close to shore. The creature’s enormous gray bulk lifted impossibly high, majestic in slow motion. Then it returned to the mother ocean with a mighty splash as I stood openmouthed, awed, entranced, clinging to Grandpa’s hand.

  “Well, that was a dead end.” Donna tapped me on the shoulder and brought me to the present. “I thought one of the Coasties had a lead, but it didn’t pan out. Did you think about what I said?”

  “No,” I admitted. I’d been drowsing in the sun, and Donna’s mutilated pelicans had been far from my mind. “I’m on vacation. I’m here to loll about on Mother’s deck, with a can of beer and a paperback, soaking up the sun. A week’s respite from personal injury cases and digging information out of tax records at the assessor’s office. Even private investigators take vacations.”

  Not very often, though. I was the sole owner and investigator of J. Howard Investigations. If I took time off, J. Howard didn’t get paid. It was different from my five years as an operative for the Errol Seville Agency. Back then I had health and dental insurance provided by the company. But Errol had retired to Carmel eighteen months ago, sidelined by health and age, so I set out on my own.

  My cousin tilted her head to one side, a challenge in her blue eyes. “Come on, Jeri, you know you can’t resist a puzzle. Meet me this afternoon at the SPCA and talk to my friend Marsha. She’s their investigator.”

  “Okay, okay. Now can we get some lunch? I’m hungry.”

  “Well...” Donna’s voice trailed off as we continued up the jetty, to where it intersected Cannery Row. Now we walked along the paved Recreation Trail that edged the bay, all the way from Del Monte Beach to Point Pinos at the tip of the Monterey peninsula. The Rec Trail was crowded with people, though it was a weekday, people walking, running, roller-skating, on bikes, or pedaling one of the two-seater jitneys tourists rented down on the Row.

  Something else was on Donna’s mind, something other than the most recent spate of pelican mutilations. I’d known her all my life and I could pick up on her moods. More than relatives, she and I were friends, similar in age, temperament, and personality. Her father and my mother are siblings, so she is my first cousin, one twig on my extensive maternal family tree. The tree is quite large, with lots of roots here on the peninsula.

  I guessed Donna would tell me what was bothering her, in her own good time. “Where are we going for lunch?” I asked.

  “The wharf. Ravella’s.”

  “Got the urge for squid. I know you. Fine with me. I just got here yesterday, so I haven’t seen Nick or Tina yet.”

  My family, on my mother’s side, is Irish and Italian. Grandpa Dennis Doyle was a big black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman from County Mayo, a fiddle-footed fellow who wandered from Ireland all the way across America, finally lured to Monterey by the work offered by the canneries. He married Angelina Ravella, daughter of a Sicilian who’d been fishing the bay since the turn of the century. And so my two families were linked.

  The Ravellas were additional and numerous branches on the family tree. Granny Doyle’s brother Dominic and Dom’s sons Nick and Sal carried on the Ravella fishing tradition. Nick was now retired from the fishing fleet. He and his wife Tina operated Ravella’s Fish Market, a fixture on the wharf almost as long as there has been a wharf.

  A man and woman pedaled toward us in a jitney, weaving from one side of the Rec Trail to the other. A little tow-headed boy sat in front of them in the bike’s basket, his face beaming in the sunshine. We got out of their way, then Donna stepped off the path, heading for a bluff overlooking this sheltered part of the harbor between the wharf and the shore, where an unoccupied picnic table stood under the shade of a Monterey pine. Below us a sea otter did what otters seem to do best, eating as it floated on its back, oblivious to all but the sun and the water. The otter was close enough to shore that I heard the sound it made as it broke a clamshell on the rock resting on its chest

  “I need to talk with you,” Donna said, “before we get to Ravella’s.”

  I turned my gaze from the otter to my cousin’s face. Her sandy eyebrows were drawn together, emphasizing her frown. “What else is going on besides these pelican mutilations?” Now I frowned. “Is it family stuff?”

  Donna nodded. “Cousin Bobby.”

  “Of course. Cousin Bobby. In trouble again?”

  “Actually he’s cleaned up his act. Hasn’t been in trouble for a while. Until now.”

  We stood in silence as the otter below us submerged and swam toward the wharf, the tip of its head visible above the water. Bobby was the youngest of Nick Ravella’s brood, the only boy, preceded by three girls. He was twenty-nine, the same age as my own brother Brian. I pictured Bobby, seeing a tough wiry body honed by years of hard work aboard his father’s fishing boat, a head of curly black hair atop a lean brown face. He had big brown eyes curtained by long lashes, and a cheeky infectious grin that made sure he never lacked for female companionship.

  Bobby was a charmer, all right. He also drank too much, and his reputation as a hell-raiser was legendary. When he had a snootful he got belligerent and argumentative and got into fights. Even worse, he sometimes climbed into the driver’s seat of the lovingly restored classic 1957 T-bird that had once been Nick’s, and drove while drunk. As a result he had a couple of DWIs on his driving record and the attention of law enforcement all over Monterey County.

  “How and why has Bobby cleaned up his act?” I asked Donna. She and Bobby had always been close, despite the difference in their ages, so she’d certainly be in a position to know.

  “The how is AA. He’s been going to meetings and staying sober.” Donna stepped away from the edge of the bluff. We climbed back up the slope and rejoined the walkers and roller skaters on the Rec Trail. “The why is Ariel Logan.”

  “A woman,” I said. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was redeemed by another person’s faith. “She must be special.”

  “Yes. I introduced them, so I feel rather proprietary about the whole thing. It was just over a year ago, last August. She was buying fish at Ravella’s. Bobby and I were there. They looked at each other—sparks.”

  “How did you know Ariel?”

  “Her family lives in Carmel. She’s a grad student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, studying environmental engineering. She toured our marine pollution lab down at Granite Canyon that summer, so that’s how I met her. All this past year Ariel and Bobby were seeing a lot of each other. I know she was bothered by his drinking, because she mentioned it to me. I think she gave him an ultimatum of some sort, last spring. Whatever happened, it took. All of a sudden Bobby straightened out.
He’s made a real change for the better. I’ve noticed it. So have his parents. Even his ex-wife noticed it.”

  “So what’s wrong now? You’re walking so slow I know you want to tell me before we get to Ravella’s.”

  Donna turned and faced me, her frown deepening. “Ariel Logan is missing.”

  Two

  NEAR FISHERMAN’S WHARF A TREE-SHADED CLEARING held a statue of Santa Rosalia, patron saint of Italian fishermen. A woman in long flowing robes, she stood looking out at the harbor, her hands outstretched, all smooth curving lines. Donna and I stopped near the statue and looked down at the water, washing onto the sandy sliver of beach edging this portion of the shoreline. A young couple had staked out a spot on the beach. They were eating sandwiches and fending off bold seagulls who aimed to part them from their lunch.

  I spotted a bench under the stand of Monterey pines and claimed it. Once seated, I stretched my legs out in front of me, staring at the dusty toes of my formerly white athletic shoes. Then I raised my eyes and looked out toward the Coast Guard jetty, watching the progress of a man and a large dog in a dinghy, threading through the larger boats.

  “Everyone around here knows I’m Bobby’s cousin,” Donna said. “I got a call yesterday from someone I know at the sheriff’s department. They want to question Bobby.”

  “Why?”

  “Bobby and Ariel quarreled at the Rose and Crown on Alvarado Street, last Friday afternoon. The barmaid and several customers saw them.” Donna’s hand clawed at her blond curls. “No one has seen Ariel Logan since. Or at least no one will admit to it.”

  “There must be more to it than that. What else did your source at the sheriff’s department tell you?”

  “Our old friend the anonymous telephone caller. Something along the lines of, ‘If you want to know what happened to Ariel Logan, ask Bobby Ravella.’”

  “Could be some wiseass who saw the argument and is trying to be funny.”