Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean Page 8

  Now it was my turn to be noncommittal as I shook his hand. I watched while he said good-bye to Nick and Tina. When Karl had gone, Nick resumed cleaning the fish-market counter. “Karl’s a nice man,” Tina said, as though she knew what was going through my mind.

  “How long have he and Mother known each other?”

  “Oh, they’ve known each other for years.” Tina picked up a sponge and began wiping countertops in the deli.

  “That’s not what I meant. How long have they been dating each other?” Though I couldn’t imagine when my mother would find time to go out with anyone, given her schedule.

  “I think they met at a New Year’s Eve party. It does Marie good to get out once in a while. She spends so much time at that restaurant. He’s a nice man. Marie enjoys his company.”

  Tina sounded as though she were warning me not to interfere in my mother’s relationship. She had a point and I decided I’d make an effort. After all, I was only going to he in Monterey for a week. Still, I wanted to know more about the man Mother was seeing. It was only fair. I recalled that she’d had the same interest in my companions back when I’d started dating.

  “So tell me about Karl,” I said, leaning forward on the deli counter. “Is he divorced?”

  “No, his wife’s dead. He was married to Janine Harper, from King City. Maybe you’ve heard of the family. Her brother Charlie is a county commissioner.”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t heard of the Harper family but I didn’t keep up with Monterey County genealogy. King City was a good-sized town about fifty miles south of Salinas on U.S. 101, toward the bottom of the Salinas Valley, nestled in farming and ranching country between hills to the east and the Santa Lucia range to the west.

  “Janine was killed in a car accident,” Tina said, rinsing the sponge in the sink. “Karl’s brother Gunter was driving.”

  That would explain how this sister-in-law had an interest in the boatyard. But it didn’t explain the look in Karl Beckman’s hazel eyes when I’d mentioned Lacy.

  “Same accident? What happened?”

  “No one knows.” Tina paused and shook her head. “It was raining, a night in February, about eighteen months ago. The car skidded off the road, down by Hurricane Point, and went into the ocean.”

  The ocean. Don’t turn your back on the ocean. Donna’s words echoed in my mind. I thought of the ocean’s latest victim, Ariel Logan.

  But the ocean had help this time. Ariel Logan had evidently turned her back on someone, or something, besides the ocean.

  Ten

  PACIFIC GROVE, OR PG, AS THE LOCALS CALL IT, OCCUPIES the tip of the Monterey peninsula. It began life as a Methodist summer resort and has retained its reputation as a quiet, staid community. It’s known for the well-kept Victorian houses lining its tree-shaded street—and the butterflies. Each September migrating Monarch butterflies return to Pacific Grove, swarming over the Spanish moss and the Monterey pines at the northwestern end of Lighthouse Avenue, near Point Pinos.

  Donna and her lover Kay share a house on Thirteenth Street just off Ocean View Boulevard, a one-story Victorian facing a tiny park. I parked my car farther up the street, toward Central Avenue, and walked back toward the wood-frame house. It was a small two-bedroom structure, painted white, its shutters and gingerbread trim a contrasting blue. I heard waves crashing on the rocks half a block below and felt moisture in the air. Surrounded by the ocean and with pine-tree-covered hills at its landward boundary, Pacific Grove was often shrouded with a dense gray blanket of fog. Through the trees I could see it coming in, creeping over the water to embrace the land.

  Kay opened the front door as I stepped onto the porch. She was in her early forties, a tiny slender woman, five feet tall at the most, her long dark hair rolled into a knot at the back of her neck. This evening she wore loose-fitting trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, both in a bright fuchsia set off by a jade-green sash. She carried a wineglass in one hand as she ushered me into the living room, which was furnished with an eclectic mix that included an ornately carved lamp table, a round plush ottoman that looked as though it needed to go back to the garage sale, a high-backed chintz sofa mounded with multihued silk and velvet pillows, and a bright green canvas sling-back chair right out of the fifties.

  “Donna’s changing clothes.” Kay gave me a quick hug. “How are you, Jeri? You look wonderful. We haven’t seen you in ages. Want a glass of wine?”

  “I’m fine. And yes,” I said, answering both questions.

  I followed Kay through the dining room, where the round oak table was set for three, with gleaming silver and delicate flowered china. None of the pieces matched—they’d been unearthed from antique stores over the years and were now displayed as treasures on the white tablecloth and in the glass-fronted china cabinet that stood against one wall. In the narrow kitchen, Kay took a bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator and poured me a glass.

  As we walked back to the living room I noticed Kay’s earrings, glittering as they moved in the light from the fixture overhead. They were constructed of tiny strands of gold combined with fire opals. No doubt she had made them herself. Kay designed and manufactured jewelry in her crowded studio on the back porch of the house.

  “How’s the jewelry business?” I moved a couple of pillows and took a seat on one end of the sofa. The other end was occupied by a calico cat curled atop a blue velvet pillow, nose tucked under her paws. The cat opened one eye and looked me over, then settled back into sleep.

  “Terrific.” Kay inserted herself into the sling-back chair and set her wineglass on an end table. “I’ve got pieces in galleries from Santa Cruz to Big Sur. From my standpoint, this is much better than Eureka.”

  Donna’s last Fish-and-Game assignment had been in the Northern California town of Eureka, up in Humboldt County, more remote than the Monterey peninsula. Since she and Kay had been together for over seven years, Kay had moved whenever Donna moved, sometimes to the detriment of Kay’s career, something I suppose any couple faces. Donna had transferred back to Monterey two years ago and they’d bought the house.

  Donna came out of the bedroom, comfortably attired in a blue sweatsuit. “Hi, Jeri.” She waved at me and detoured through the dining room, returning a moment later with a full wineglass and the bottle of chardonnay. “Anyone need topping off?” Kay held out her glass.

  “How’s the Doyle branch of the family tree?” I asked my cousin.

  Donna set the wine bottle down on the coffee table and took a seat on the disreputable ottoman. “Mom and Dad are fine. You won’t see them until next week. They’ve gone tootling off to Hawaii. Sister Judy still lives in Boston and loves it.”

  “Brother George?”

  Donna shook her head. “George is a poop. He has been ever since he was a kid.”

  George was her older brother. He hadn’t reacted well when Donna came out of the closet nearly fifteen years ago, and from all reports he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact that his sister was a lesbian.

  “He and Marilyn, a.k.a. the wife from hell, just built themselves an ostentatious house up at Fisherman’s Flats,” Donna was saying. “I’ve never been invited to darken the overpriced door. He’s probably afraid it’ll rub off.” She and Kay both laughed, somewhat wryly. “We only see George at family gatherings, like Aunt Teresa’s big do on Labor Day. He’s always coldly polite.”

  His loss, I thought. “Is George still building hotels right and left?” Donna’s brother was a developer, and according to the family information network he’d been involved in several of the resort hotels springing up like weeds all over the peninsula. George hasn’t had much use for me since I asked if he and his cronies had anything to do with an arson fire on Cannery Row that conveniently vacated the lot where they’d later built a hotel. I was pulling his leg but George is devoid of humor.

  “He’s salivating over the closure of Fort Ord,” Donna said, sipping her wine. “Now that the Army has pulled out, he’d love to build high-priced houses all over
the firing range.”

  “The base closure’s really going to affect the economy down here,” I said, and they both nodded. In addition to a large transient military population, Fort Ord had provided jobs to many Monterey County civilians, and now those jobs were gone. The base closure promised to boost the local unemployment rate, already high, to even steeper levels.

  “This place has changed a lot since I was a kid.” Donna reached for the wine bottle and poured more chardonnay into her glass. “Monterey used to be a blue-collar town, with the fishing and the canneries, which I barely remember. Now the collar’s white.”

  “Oh, no,” Kay interrupted, “it’s not even a collar. It’s a T-shirt, from one of those tourist shops down on Cannery Row.”

  We all laughed. “With a picture of an otter, floating on its back on a sea of white cotton,” I added.

  “They’re such picturesque little buggers.” As Donna shook her head I thought of yesterday’s conversation at the SPCA, when Donna and Marsha Landers defined the cute factor. “No wonder the tourists like them. Otter-feeding time is the number-one attraction at the aquarium.”

  “I don’t remember the canneries,” I said. “But I can remember a time when you could roll a bowling ball down the middle of Cannery Row and not hit anyone.”

  “Before the aquarium,” Donna said. “That’s the way we date things nowadays.”

  “Good, bad, or indifferent, everyone has an opinion about the aquarium.” I sipped my wine. “I’ve heard Mother complain about how tourism has changed this area, yet the tourists represent a big chunk of her business.”

  “People used to go down to Cannery Row to pay homage to John Steinbeck, because they’d read Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, and they wanted to visit Doc Ricketts’s lab,” Donna said. “Now I’ll bet most of the people who visit the Row have never even heard of Steinbeck, let alone read him. They go to visit the aquarium.”

  “And they visit the galleries and the shops where I display my jewelry,” Kay said, reaching for the wine bottle. “Thus providing a source of income for this particular self-employed craftsperson.”

  “Mind you, I’m not totally putting the knock on the aquarium,” Donna added. “Most of the exhibits focus on the marine life in Monterey Bay. It’s a wonderfully unique marine environment and thank God we’ve now got sanctuary status. The people who visit the aquarium are getting some education about things like tidal pools and the creatures that live in them. They’re finding out there’s more living things out there besides otters.”

  “Which brings us right back to the cute factor,” I said. “The last time I was at the aquarium, I overheard some woman going on about the otters. They’re just so darling and so cute and who can relate to fish anyway?”

  “But if people can see the diversity of marine life,” Donna argued, “maybe they’ll think before they pour paint thinner down a storm drain or toss trash off a cabin cruiser.”

  “Or mutilate a pelican.”

  At my words, Donna frowned. “If I ever get my hands on the person responsible for this...”

  Her voice trailed off. We were silent for a moment, then Kay rose from the sling-back chair. “I can smell my lasagna. It’s time to eat.”

  We followed Kay through the dining room to the kitchen. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Donna asked.

  “Put the salad on the table.” Kay handed her a big wood bowl full of tossed greens. She put on a couple of quilted oven mitts and opened the oven door. First she took out a foil-wrapped package that looked like a loaf of garlic bread and handed it to me as I hovered in the background. “Bread basket,” she ordered. I looked around and spotted it near the sink. Then she carefully removed a huge glass baking dish full of spinach lasagna and set it on a couple of trivets. “I think I’d better serve in here.”

  Donna returned from the dining room with three plates. Kay deftly cut three portions of lasagna and transferred them to the plates. By then I had the garlic bread safely wrapped in a couple of napkins, nestled in the basket. Donna opened another bottle of wine and we seated ourselves at the table.

  “Mother told me about what’s been happening at the restaurant,” I said, helping myself to the salad. “She wants me to look into it. Reluctantly, I might add. She doesn’t want me to antagonize the staff. I’ve already managed to do that, where Julian Surtees is concerned.”

  “Oh, you met Julian, did you?” Donna grinned. “And what did you think?”

  “Arrogant snob, cocky bastard, full of himself. Have I missed anything?”

  Donna and Kay both laughed. “But he is good-looking.” Kay tilted her head, so the gold and opal earrings swayed. “Just because I prefer women doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the aesthetics of an attractive man. He’s nicely put together.”

  “And he knows it,” I finished. “Is he cutting a swath through the ranks of male or female admirers?”

  “Julian’s definitely heterosexual,” Kay said. “Much to the dismay of a certain gallery owner over in Carmel. I’ve seen Julian squiring several women. There was that redhead whose name I can never remember. You know who I’m talking about, Donna. That horsey type from Carmel Valley. But lately he’s been dating Lacy Beckman.”

  Beckman. The name I kept hearing, over and over, all day long. “Karl Beckman’s sister-in-law? I haven’t met her yet but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Somehow I can’t imagine Julian Surtees attracted to anyone but himself.”

  Kay laughed. Her next words fed my curiosity. “I thought Lacy was interested in her brother-in-law. But Karl’s been dating Marie since New Year’s. Since then I’ve seen Lacy with Julian Surtees several times.”

  Donna shrugged. “I don’t know Lacy that well. She always seems rather chilly to me. Maybe Julian will warm her up.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Kay said. “Julian is like Jeri’s mother. Married to the job.”

  “I got the impression he’d like to move in and take over Café Marie,” I said.

  “You don’t think he’s behind the incidents at the restaurant?” Donna frowned. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. But the things that you and Mother described had to have been done by someone with backstage access. The staff would certainly notice if a customer walked into the kitchen and started messing about. My best guess is that the saboteur is an employee. Julian Surtees is the most recent addition to the roster. He’s certainly got the opportunity. Motivation I’ll have to dig into.”

  “Speaking of digging into, it looks like you need some more lasagna.” Kay stood up and reached for my plate. “How about you, Donna?”

  Donna shook her head, but I succumbed. “I shouldn’t. But it’s so good. I didn’t have much lunch. Just a small portion, Kay.”

  “Did you talk to Bobby?” Donna asked me as Kay stepped into the kitchen. “How did he react to the news about the autopsy?”

  “He’s grieving for her. I don’t know that the idea of murder has sunk in yet. And when it does...”

  Donna sighed. “Something’s bothering me. I’ll have to check on this, but it seems to me if Ariel went into the water at Rocky Point, where her car was found, the current would have pushed her body north, toward Point Lobos. But it was found below the Rocky Creek Bridge. That’s more than a mile south, and there are a lot of coves and inlets and underwater currents to consider. Of course, I could be wrong. When someone goes into the ocean, search-and-rescue looks for the body a half mile in either direction of the entry point.”

  “We don’t know where she went into the water,” I said. “She may have met someone at the restaurant. She could have been walking on the headland. Or her body could have been dumped right off the Rocky Creek Bridge.” I played with my fork. “I overheard some women talking at Café Marie. Mother was catering a luncheon for a lot of sailboat owners. One of these women knows Ariel’s parents. She was quite sure that Bobby’s responsible for Ariel’s death. Evidently the Logans feel the same way.”

  Kay returned
from the kitchen and set my plate in front of me. “That kind of talk is all over town. Or towns,” she said. “I heard the same remark this afternoon when I was visiting a client in Carmel.”

  Donna finished off the wine that remained in her glass. “People have been talking since Ariel was reported missing. It’s because of that argument Bobby and Ariel had last week. They couldn’t have picked a more public place to have a disagreement.”

  “I asked Bobby about the argument.” I picked up my fork. “But he wouldn’t tell me anything about it. Except that he’d made a promise. He owes someone a favor and it’s complicated. It seems really important to him, almost as important as Ariel. Do you have any idea what or who he’s talking about? Who else is close to him?”

  Donna thought about it for a moment as she used a crust of garlic bread to mop up some remaining tomato sauce. “Karl Beckman. He and Karl seem to be good friends.”

  “Despite the difference in their ages?” This surprised me. Bobby was twenty-nine, probably twenty years younger than Beckman. It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary that he’d have a friend older than he was. Certainly he knew and worked with people of all ages. But why Karl Beckman? “How close are they?”

  “Maybe it’s a business relationship,” Kay suggested. “Bobby’s a fisherman, Karl repairs boats. That sort of professional acquaintance does grow into friendship.”

  “I think it’s more than that,” Donna said, playing with her napkin. “I’ve seen them together, having what looked like deep serious conversations, not the sort of talk you’d get into if you wanted to have your hull repainted. Could be Karl views Bobby as the son he never had. He and his wife just had one child, a daughter.”

  “Yes, he mentioned her. I was at the wharf before I came over here. I went to see Nick and Tina. Karl Beckman was there, talking with them. Tina told me Beckman’s wife died eighteen months ago, in a car accident with his brother. What’s the story there?”

  “No one knows,” Donna said. “Gunter and Janine were headed south on Highway One. It was raining, and the car skidded and went off the road near Hurricane Point. I guess Lacy inherited Gunter’s share of the business. She’s the office manager.”