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  “Everything’s fine, Eugene. This is Jaymie, a friend from Santa Barbara.”

  “Hi, Jaymie.” The man fixed me with a brief penetrating look. “Well, I won’t interrupt. I’m going upstairs to get some work done. Steven, I’ve asked you, please don’t let Luke climb on the furniture.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but walked back out the door.

  “Hey, little monkey.” Steven plucked Luke off the divan and set him on the floor. “Go get your new toy, OK? Get the truck Grandma Alice sent you.”

  “Stay here, Daddy.” The child ran out of the room.

  Steven met my eyes. “You have to ask about that Friday night, I get it. I was the designated gofer, all right? Dave sent me out for some stuff he forgot for the party, plates and plastic utensils. Later on, I made a liquor run. Otherwise, I was at Mel’s place.” He shrugged. “That’s all I can say.”

  No firm alibi there. But just maybe the truth. I decided to take a sidestep. “Your parents must adore Luke. He’s the cutest thing ever.”

  “Mom drives up once a month, usually with Mel. But I never take Luke down to SB. I tried it once.” He made a face of disgust. “Dad acted like his grandson didn’t exist. Stared straight through Luke, like he wasn’t there.”

  Chapter Ten

  Call me a sentimental sop. Steven had motive, and his liquor-run alibi was weak as near beer. But as I waved goodbye to him and Luke, I found myself wanting to believe there was no way in the world a daddy like that would kill his nephew. No way in hell.

  But I knew from experience that anything was possible. Anybody could kill.

  I headed out of the city with the commute traffic, across the Bay Bridge. It was late, and I’d had enough drive time for the day. I turned off the freeway in Hayward and located the Sunset Motel, a cheap-looking establishment harking back to the fifties. The cheap-looking motel wasn’t so cheap, as it turned out, but I was too worn out to look elsewhere.

  Actually, I like a no-frills motel room. Maybe because everything is so simple? There’s a Bible in the drawer, in case you have thoughts of killing yourself. And sometimes there’s a motor to jiggle the bed. Other than that, there are no expectations.

  I flopped down on the bed in Room 32 and stared up at the water-stained ceiling. I couldn’t be certain Steven Steinbach hadn’t killed his nephew, but I sincerely doubted it. Trouble was, that left me with the other guy I didn’t want to suspect: John Tactacquin.

  I felt bad for Taryn. A sweet kid. But her father had carried a grudge, and offered no actual alibi. What, he’d had a few beers with a bud, but wasn’t prepared to reveal the guy’s name? Give me a break. And there was more: as the Rasmussens had witnessed firsthand, Tactacquin had a short fuse.

  True, I needed to know more about Vanessa and Porter. The piñata party was scheduled for tomorrow night, and by the following morning Claudia would have something to report. But did I seriously suspect either of the two teenagers of murder? I’d have to say no.

  So I’d have to narrow the focus on Tactacquin. And let the chips fall.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Time to go hunt for meat: a burger with fries. Across the room in my duffel bag, my cell rang. I wasn’t in the mood to pick up. I let it ring itself to death. Just to nag me, it beeped as a message was left.

  What the hell. I got up, rummaged in the bag till I located the phone, and called voice mail. My heart clip-clopped as I listened: the fixer had phoned.

  Zave here. Listen, there’s a guy you’ll want to talk to. I hear he was working in the jail the night your brother died. I don’t think he saw what happened, but he knows something, for sure. Call me for the contact, babe.

  I waited a few minutes, till my heart rate calmed. Then I got a pad and pen from my bag, switched on a lamp, and propped myself up on the bed with the two skinny pillows. I dialed.

  “Jaymie? Where are you?”

  “Room 32. The Sunset Motel in Hayward. Not far from Oakland, where the infamous Zave Carbonel was born and raised.”

  “Hm. How did you get there?”

  “Believe me, I didn’t pedal up 101. I rented a car.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “I interviewed a guy in the city today, in connection with the aquarium case. What have you got for me?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t give up on that. Your pen at the ready?”

  “It is.”

  “Guy’s name is Thad Chaffee. He was a psych tech at the jail, on duty the night Brodie died. Doesn’t work there anymore. I’m told by my source that Chaffee may know one or two things.”

  My hand trembled as I wrote down the name and details. “How do I contact him?”

  “I’ve got his cell number. Jaymie, you need to keep your eyes open with this one. Chaffee’s no choir boy.”

  “No surprise there.” I took down the number. “Zave, is there a home address? Or a current workplace?”

  “Chaffee lives and works at the same location: 758 Riven Rock Road.”

  “Fancy address.” I knew better than to ask how Zave had learned all this. He frowned on such questions.

  “Yeah, he’s some kind of caregiver now. But listen, Jaymie. This business about your brother. I’m not so sure you should get involved. Just a sense I’m getting, you know?”

  “All you’re doing is encouraging me with that kind of talk.”

  “I knew you’d say something like that.” Zave was quiet for a moment. Then his voice changed: he added some sugar. “Babe, when are you getting back? I got an itch.”

  “Right now I’ve got stuff on my mind. You’ll need to scratch it yourself.”

  “Stuff? Bullshit. Know what I hear? I hear that old tone in your voice, the one that means you’re thinking about the deputy. Sure you two aren’t shackin’ up at that Sunset Motel?”

  “There’s nobody here but me and the bedbugs.” But Zave’s antennae were fine-tuned. Mike wasn’t present in the flesh, but I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

  * * *

  I got up with the sun the next morning and hit the road. I could snag coffee and maybe something to eat along the way. But as it turned out, I wasn’t hungry. My mind was focused one hundred percent on a guy named Thad Chaffee, and what he might know.

  By one o’clock I was barreling into Santa Barbara, fueled mainly by my churning thoughts. I left 101 and entered Montecito, forcing myself to slow down, and wound through lanes lined with the dense Victorian boxwood hedges that hid the massive estates from view.

  Glimpses of 758 Riven Rock appeared through the shrubbery. It was an opulent property, a replica of a French château. I parked my car a hundred yards down the road, then shut my eyes for a moment to focus on the task at hand. I might have only one shot at Chaffee, and I didn’t want to fumble it.

  After a few minutes I climbed out and stretched my cramped muscles. Then I ambled up Riven Rock, assuming what I hoped was a nonchalant and entitled air.

  The château reminded me of a giant wedding cake. The huge confection was peach-colored, embellished with dozens of white pillars and several hundred yards of lacy white trim. À la Provençal, the stately drive lined with olive trees swept through a field of lavender. The sweet, delicate odor sailed forth on the breeze.

  I continued to circle the property, taking it in. I passed a pair of intricately wrought gates, art nouveau. And I noticed a second house set deep into the property, two-story but much smaller, built in a similar style. It was meant to look like a carriage house, I supposed. If I had a caregiver living on the property, that’s where I’d stash him.

  All very well. But how was a visitor like moi going to knock on the door? No doubt cameras were trained on the gate and the drive. No doubt a camera was trained on me at that very moment.

  The caregiver couldn’t stay home 24-7. Maybe I could discover a way to snare him outside the gates of his paradise.

  My phone rang: Señorita Molina. “Claudia, hey.”

  “What up, dawg.”

  Dawg was a start. I’d i
nstructed her not to call me bitch anymore.

  “Are you ready for the party tonight?”

  “That’s what I want to tell you about. The party was last night, and it was badass!”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Claudia, what are you talking about? You told me it was Friday.”

  “It’s what they do, man. They change the day at the last minute, so they don’t get busted. Smart, huh?”

  ”I wish you’d have let me know when you heard. Last night I was out of town. I wanted to be around in case anything went wrong.”

  “Hey, chill. Nothin’ went wrong. Just wait till I tell you about it. I gotta say, those white kids can play. You at the office?”

  “No, I’m not.” I watched as a powerful Doberman galloped across the vast lawn of the pseudo-château, heading straight for me. Fortunately an eight-foot cyclone fence stood between us. Even so, I decided to mosey on down the road to my car.

  “Listen, Claudia. Come by my place this afternoon, say around four. Twelve El Balcon. You probably haven’t heard of the street, so I’ll give you directions.”

  “What, is this the twentieth century or somethin’? I’ll pull the address up on my cell.”

  * * *

  I was struggling to single-handedly install a sunshade over my west-facing window when I heard Dexter out in front, barking his big dog bark. I climbed down off the ladder and walked around the corner.

  There sat Detective Molina, frozen in position on a low-rider bicycle. The chrome fittings flashed like mirrors, and screaming orange and yellow flames licked along the frame.

  “Jaymie! Get this three-legged thing offa me!”

  “He won’t bite. The most Dex will do is nip you on the back of your heels.” I couldn’t suppress a smile.

  “Nip? I don’t want no nip!” Claudia folded her arms across her chest and glared.

  “Here, boy.” Dex retreated to my side and flopped down, panting happily. “OK, Claudia. It’s safe.”

  I watched as she dismounted and wheeled her bike over to the breezeway, keeping one wary eye on the cow dog all the while. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything,” I said.

  “I ain’t afraid of that mutt. I just didn’t wanna kick it in the teeth ’cause, you know, it’s your dog.”

  Claudia trailed after Dexter and me, into the house. “Let’s sit out on the back patio,” I suggested. “It’s too hot in here. How about a soda? Coke or Orange Crush.”

  “Orange Crush.” Claudia plucked her wife-beater shirt from her chest and panted out some air. “It’s hot all right. Why do you live up on this cliff?”

  I opened the fridge and took out two cans of soda. “Nobody bothers me up here, for one thing. And for another thing, well, you’ll see in a minute. Want a glass?”

  “What for? You just gotta wash it.”

  “You’re pretty cocky today.” I handed her a can. “The piñata party must have gone well.”

  “You could say that.” Claudia pressed the cold can to her cheek and smiled.

  “Come on, party girl.” I led her out back to the narrow strip of concrete I liked to refer to as the patio.

  “Yeah, now I totally get it. That is a kickass view!”

  I dropped down in one of the old redwood chairs. “I never get tired of it. Every day it’s different.” I looked out at the silvery islands, floating in a gold lamé sea. “So tell me about your big night out.”

  Claudia took a sip of her soda. “It was pretty amazing. The guy that died? He was the one who invented the whole thing.”

  “Skye Rasmussen?”

  “Yeah. See, Vanessa told me all about it. It started up a year ago, last fall. They wanted to do something crazy and wild for their senior year, something totally new. And that kid Skye decided, let’s do a piñata party. They all thought it was stupid at first. But then he explained.” Her smile expanded to a wicked grin.

  “Dale, dale, dale. See, Skye learned about piñatas in his ethnic studies class.” Claudia shook her head in admiration. “I never knew this. But the piñata, the traditional one, has seven points. Each point stands for a sin. The seven deadly sins, get it? So when you whack the piñata, you’re smashing your sins. Then you get rewarded for that, with the candy and favors.”

  “And if you lose your aim, you lose your way? That’s interesting. But still, is it so wild and crazy, smashing a piñata? Sounds kinda childish.”

  “Ohh no, it ain’t childish,” Claudia said gleefully. “Trust me, it’s strictly X-rated. See, they smash the piñata and the favors fly out all over the place, right? Gambling chips for avarice, condoms for lust, marijuana buds for sloth, and those little plastic liquor bottles for gluttony. Stuff like that. All the kids scramble around on the floor, fighting to get the ones they want. The condoms and the weed are the most popular.”

  “I’ll bet they are.” I wasn’t liking the sound of this, not one bit.

  “Then the fun starts. See, the party’s in this old hotel that’s closed down, right? Out near the ocean.”

  “The Miramar?” A public eyesore, the Miramar had been boarded up for years. No developer was willing to take on the renovation project, given the city’s costly building requirements.

  “Maybe. I don’t know what it’s called. But the security guy, they pay him and he lets them use it. It’s perfect, see, because of all the empty rooms.”

  “The rooms?”

  “Yeah.” Probably without realizing what she was doing, Claudia reached down and rubbed Dex behind his ear.

  “See, there’s a room for every sin, right? And there’s a guard at every door. They call the guard a Diablo. And the Diablo only lets you in if you’ve got the right favor for the room. If you wanna go in the sloth room, you gotta have that marijuana favor.”

  “It sounds very … organized.” What I was actually thinking was, I shouldn’t have sent a fourteen-year-old kid, cocky or not, to an orgy. “I hope you didn’t—ah—participate.”

  “What? Course I did. I had to, they think I’m tough.” She snuck a look at me. “I didn’t pick up any of the condoms, though. And I’m not gonna. Don’t need that shit, know what I mean?”

  “Sure. But don’t worry about it, Claudia. You’re not going back.”

  “Oh, I gotta go back. They’re having another one pretty soon. And Vannie and Port are starting to trust me. See, I only figured out part of it so far.”

  “Part of what?”

  “It’s just like you said, Jaymie. Something bad happened. This one girl I was talking to told me that Skye and some other kid got in a big fight at one of the parties back in January. And Skye stopped going after that.”

  Risking splinters, I slid forward in my chair. “Who was the other kid? What was it about?”

  “All I heard is, it had something to do with a guy named BJ, but he wasn’t the one who got in the fight.” Dex now had a front paw on Claudia’s knee and was gazing adoringly up at her. “That’s why I gotta go back. I gotta find out the rest.”

  “How often do the kiddies hold these little play dates?”

  “Sometimes it’s two weekends in a row, sometimes a whole month goes by before they do it again. But the next one? Most of the kids are going away to college, so it’s probably going to be pretty soon.”

  I was torn. I needed to know what had happened to Skye. But did I want to deliver this child into the arms of Satan? Claudia might think she was being careful, but I knew anything could happen in the heat of the moment.

  “Listen. I don’t think you—”

  “Don’t tell me not to go,” Claudia said quickly. “You gave me a job and I’m gonna do it.”

  I knew it was useless to forbid her to attend. Claudia Molina was even more hardheaded than me, which was saying a lot. “Difficult though it may be, huh?”

  “I really hate it.” She snickered. “And don’t forget, I’m getting paid for it.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it great. You want me to pay you to party with kids who are three or four years older than you.”
/>   “Don’t tell anybody how old I am,” Claudia warned. “They think I’m sixteen. I told them I’m behind ’cause I was in juvie for nine months and the whole time I was there, I refused to do any schoolwork. They think that’s totally cool.”

  “I’ll try not to ruin your rep. But I am going to ask you for something.”

  “What?”

  “Your knife.”

  She squealed like she’d been burned. “Ain’t nobody touching my dad’s knife!”

  “You’ll be safer without it,” I insisted. “I don’t want you getting tempted and using it, the way you did on the Stellato kid. Besides—not carrying a weapon is a condition of your probation, remember?”

  I knew how impulsive Claudia could be. And she’d be in hot water if she pulled her switchblade on one of the high-school kids.

  “So I’ll leave it at home.” She stuck out her lower lip like a six-year-old.

  “You’ll leave it with me. I’ll give it back when the gig’s over.”

  “Shit.” She took the knife from her pocket and handed it to me. “Don’t go cuttin’ yourself, girly-girl.”

  “No problem. I don’t plan on using it.”

  Claudia bent forward and hugged the snaggletoothed Dex. “Know what? This dog’s not so bad.”

  My heart softened. At that moment, the party girl looked about ten.

  “Now remember, Cinderella, the same rule applies the next time around. When the clock strikes midnight, you’re out of there. Agreed?”

  “Sure, Jaymie. Whatever you say.”

  * * *

  The aquarium was closed on Mondays, and the next morning I decided to take advantage of that. I wanted to talk again with Cheryl Kerr. She seemed like an introvert and lived with her mother, so I figured I’d find her at home on her day off.

  It didn’t take much searching to dig up the address: Modoc Road, near 101. I hopped on my Schwinn and coasted down El Balcon, then turned right onto Cliff. I ran through some facts in my mind as I pedaled along.

  On the day of his death, Skye Rasmussen replied to a text from a friend at 5:17 P.M., before leaving his cell in his pickup. Skye’s text said he had to stop by the aquarium, but that he’d get to Leadbetter Beach by 6:00.