Dragon Fruit Page 18

  The footsteps approached around the corner of the house. If I jumped up and dove for my clothes, the prowler might see me through the bedroom window.

  My head faced the window. So I saw him, when he stepped up to it. Steve Sanchez looked quite a bit like his sister, with one difference: his expression was cruel.

  I watched him through partly-lifted eyelids. Sanchez stepped up to the window and cupped a hand to the glass. His eyes met mine. I just prayed he thought mine were closed.

  After a minute he turned and retraced his steps. There was a heavy pounding on the front door.

  I jumped out of bed and struggled into my wet jeans and T-shirt. Then I marched to the front door and threw it open. My eyes moved past the guy on my doorstep, to take in the dark gray BMW parked in my drive.

  ‘What the fuck do you want, Sanchez?’

  Surprised, I suppose, that I knew who he was, he stared at me without speaking. Then his eyes went to my chest. My shirt was damp and I’d had no time to put on a bra.

  Sanchez returned his gaze to my face. When he spoke, I was the surprised one. Steve looked like a bruiser, but his voice was soft, almost feminine.

  ‘I ask the questions, Zarlin. What the fuck are you doing, messing with my sister?’

  I thought of Mike Tyson. Somehow Sanchez had figured out a way to make his girlie voice threatening, and it gave me a chill.

  But Steve would have been better off appealing to my better nature. If somebody scares me, I get mad. That’s just how I am.

  ‘Mind your own fucking business. I’m on the Brawlers. If I want to talk to a teammate, that’s what I’ll do.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh. You wanted info out of her, info about me. That, or you want to fuck her. Either way, Zarlin, you’re way outta line.’

  I realized Sanchez was inches away from shoving me into the house and roughing me up. I thought of Chucha, and wondered if this guy was her attacker. Now I was afraid – and pissed off.

  ‘Why did you do it, you asshole? Chucha Robledo did nothing to you. Yeah, I know you were tipped off. And I know you beat her up.’ I stepped over the threshold, hoping to make Sanchez step back. But he didn’t, and I found myself nose-to-nose with a nasty-tempered pit bull.

  ‘What, the tranny? That piece of she-it?’ He tipped back his head and laughed. I was tempted to punch him in the voice box. Send that voice a few octaves higher. But the truth was, I didn’t dare.

  ‘Yeah, the tranny was getting in the way all right. Attracting too much attention. But somebody else took care of it, not me.’ He grinned. ‘Hey. Where’s your boyfriend, Zarlin? Not around when you need him?’

  ‘Back tonight,’ I lied. ‘He’s been up in the forest, rounding up drug smugglers like you.’

  Now all traces of amusement evaporated from Steve Sanchez’s face. He leaned in close. ‘The homeless freak, the one they call Sideview? I know you been talking to him. Get your nose outta my business, you hear? Or Sideview is gonna be chillin’ up in Atascadero State Hospital.’

  ‘Who the hell is Sideview?’ Best to play dumb. Because of what Darren had witnessed, he was a serious threat to Steve Sanchez. I just hoped Sanchez thought I didn’t know that.

  ‘Who’s Sideview? Don’t play me. He’s a freak, just like that other freak – Brodie. You know what happened to your brother, right?’

  I felt sick. Charlie was right: Brodie had died because he’d known too much. Now for the first time I knew that for sure.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. I ordered myself to keep my eyes on the prize.

  ‘You abducted a child, Sanchez. An innocent little girl. And another girl died on the boat, coming up from Mexico. That makes you—’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, bitch. I don’t hurt kids.’ His soft voice twisted into a snarl. ‘I’m done talking with you. Just remember what I said about Atascadero. I don’t mess around.’

  Before I could respond, Sanchez grabbed me by my injured shoulder. I grew faint from the pain.

  ‘Atascadero. Or worse.’ He leaned in close. So close I felt his breath on my cheek.

  ‘That creep Sideview could end up just like your fucking brother, understand?’

  EIGHTEEN

  The Santa Barbara Mesa isn’t a mesa, not as far as thegeologists are concerned. In fact it’s a marine terrace, built up over millennia from the shells and skeletons of a gazillion sea creatures.

  After WWII, the GI Bill financed the construction of small two- and three-bedroom tract homes up and down the state. It wasn’t till fifty years later that Santa Barbarians noticed the tacky little Mesa tract houses were perched over the Pacific, and thus provided the city with its only seaside housing. There went the neighborhood – and how.

  Money dribbled into the Mesa from Los Angeles, then increased to a gusher. One by one the bungalows began to be converted into million-dollar-plus properties.

  Number 1451 Las Ondas was one of those which had been ‘done up’. Now two-storied and roofed in blue-green copper, it loomed over its modest neighbors. Either daddy indulged his Francie, or hubby was a software designer.

  I pedaled up the short drive, dismounted at the kitchen door and set my Schwinn on its stand. While I waited for Gabi to answer my knock, I looked into the backyard. A skinny lap pool, landscaped with chocolate and lime-colored shrubs, ran the length of the back fence. A granddaddy of a golden retriever was curled up on the deck. He raised an eyebrow round as a penny, then shut his eyes.

  ‘Miss Jaymie, come in. I got the coffee press on.’ Gabi beamed a welcome. Then her face fell. ‘Miss Jaymie? You don’t look so good.’

  ‘I had a visitor.’

  ‘Not the nice kind I can see.’ She took my good hand in hers and drew me into the gleaming kitchen. Great steel appliances loomed like cargo containers. Polished stone countertops gleamed.

  ‘We are not gonna sit in here. See those chairs, they look nice. But they will hurt your back.’

  Gabi lifted a pair of vintage cups from a glass-fronted cupboard. ‘Miss Francie, she is an artist, you know? All the cups, they are different. Collectible. She says they have different personalities.’

  I accepted my pink and red cup. ‘So you’ve given me a cheerful one, right?’

  ‘Positively positive, yes.’

  Gabi poured a slow steady stream of aromatic coffee into the cups, then set them on a vintage aluminum tray. ‘Miss Francie, she don’t cook. But she has lotsa parties and she pays me to help her. I know where to find everything in this kitchen. She don’t have a clue.’

  I followed my personal assistant – and Miss Francie’s personal assistant too, it seemed – down a tiled hall.

  ‘Walker and Zanger.’ Gabi pointed at the floor. ‘All the houses I work at, they got Walker and Zanger, you know?’

  ‘Gee, I need to get some of that.’

  We entered the living room. I set my cup down on a smoked glass coffee table and lowered my butt into a black leather chair. As I did so, I banged my elbow on the steel armrest.

  ‘Fuck!’ I whined. ‘That hurt.’

  ‘You can’t just fall into these chairs. Like Miss Francie says, you gotta think about how you’re gonna sit down, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Very Zen. Maybe I’ll just sit on the floor.’ I looked at the Walker and Zanger. ‘That doesn’t look so comfortable either.’

  ‘Miss Jaymie you have to relax. Here, have a French macaron. I don’t buy them for the office cause they are too much money and they aren’t very big.’

  ‘My God.’ I’d just taken a bite of rapture into my mouth. ‘Who needs sex?’

  ‘What?’ Gabi stopped with her macaron halfway to her mouth. ‘Miss Jaymie, sometimes … sometimes I think you don’t make no sense.’

  I licked my fingers. ‘I mean, with French macarons in the world … oh, never mind.’ We were quiet for a time as we sipped our coffee laced with real cream.

  ‘I can tell something bad happened to you, Miss Jaymie. And I know you don’t want to t
alk about it right now, ’cause that will make you feel bad all over again.’ Gabi pressed a napkin to her lips. ‘I also don’t want to talk about some things.’

  I set my happy cup on the table. ‘You mean Angel, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I am so angry, Miss Jaymie. Angel asked can he come and talk to you, but I told him he better stay away. And I told him to stay away from me too.’ She stared at a big artsy rock on the coffee table. The rock was sitting on its own carved wood stand.

  ‘I don’t want to hate Angel, you know? Hate is bad for the one you hate and also bad for you too.’

  ‘Yeah, hate is bad. It’s best to stop hating. But forgetting? I don’t know how people do that.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about Angel, Miss Jaymie.’ Gabi waved a hand in the air. ‘Please tell me even if you don’t want to say it. What is wrong?’

  ‘Plenty. I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘At the beginning, not the end. That is always the best—’

  The doorbell rang. At least I assumed it was the doorbell: it chimed like temple bells.

  ‘Oh, I forgot!’ Gabi jumped up and ran from the room. A moment later, she reappeared. She was dragging a large sack across the floor. A whiff of baby poo rose to my nostrils.

  ‘It’s the laundry man. I was supposed to put this on the front porch.’ She disappeared into the hall, and I followed.

  A guy dressed in a white cap, shirt, and pants stood in the doorway. Outside, a Mission Linen truck idled at the curb.

  ‘Hi. Thanks, I see you’ve got it there.’ He took the sack from Gabi and hoisted it to his shoulder.

  I walked up to the open doorway and watched the laundry guy walk down the front path to the truck. Even after the truck had driven away, I stood there gazing into thin air. My mouth was open, I realized. I closed it.

  Charlie was right: the clue was there all along. I hadn’t recognized it. Just like Charlie said, the clue was the thing that was out of place.

  Who used laundry services, besides commercial establishments?

  People with babies, that’s who. The dirty diaper brigade.

  ‘Miss Jaymie? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Gotta run!’ Then I was off, racing around the corner of the house. With one hand I righted my bike, then kicked up the stand. I sailed down Las Ondas, in hot pursuit of the laundry truck.

  I caught up with the guy at Shoreline Park and slammed to a stop beside his open door. The laundry man was pale, young, with a long aesthetic nose and a prematurely receding hairline. He was taking a break from his duties, leaning back in the driver’s seat and reading a paperback.

  ‘Hi! Say, I have a question for you. Does your route cover Hope Ranch?’

  He could have been the type who’d have told me to mind my own business. But he wasn’t that type. He was no doubt underemployed, bored stiff, and as it turned out, he was only too happy to gab.

  ‘No, but my friend’s route does. Why do you ask?’

  Might as well do this the right way. I pulled a damp card from my jeans coin pocket and handed it over.

  ‘Jaymie Zarlin, Santa Barbara Investigations. Wow, a PI.’ He set his book facedown on the dash and grinned at me. ‘I’ll give you Enrique’s number. And ask me anything you want, investigator. Anything at all.’

  I parked Blue Boy in the Arroyo Burro lot, trudged through the dry sand past the Boathouse Restaurant, and headed west. The tide was out and the beach was deserted. Evening approached, and a cold wind whipped in off the water. I zipped my sweatshirt to my chin and jammed my hands in my pockets.

  It didn’t take me long to arrive at the Hope Ranch beach, maybe ten minutes at most. Another ten minutes farther to the west was the beach below More Mesa, where the panga boat had landed. The puzzle was beginning to fit together.

  Rosie’s abductor, according to Darren, had grabbed her out of the boat and set off jogging east, down the beach. I was willing to bet my life on it: carrying Rosie, he’d left the beach at Hope Ranch, heading inland through the cut in the cliffs.

  Following in what I now believed were the kidnapper’s footsteps, I walked up the zigzag path to the road. A woman jogged past, giving me a suspicious stare. I accelerated my stride, to make it look like I was out walking for exercise.

  It took me eight or ten minutes more to arrive at Agua Azul. I moved to the far side of the road. I was careful not to step off the asphalt, concerned I’d snap a stick and alert Greco. The hound had a bark that was as loud as a lion’s roar.

  The big gates were locked. But the fence on the right only extended four or five yards into the steep landscaped hillside. It was just there for show.

  I made it past the infinity pool and the main house, unheard and unscented. I kept going. I was headed for the garden cottage, the miniature barn. That was where I’d spotted the maid, walking in with an armload of linen.

  According to Enrique, the Mission Linen guy, the frequency of his pick-ups at Agua Azul had recently doubled.

  A hundred yards on I halted. From this angle I could see that the garden cottage was occupied. Light glowed in the single window facing the road. I pulled my field glasses from my messenger bag and trained them on the window. All I could make out was a blank interior wall.

  I continued on up the road to the parking area near Staffen Brill’s office. A vehicle I didn’t recognize, an old beige Honda Civic, was parked in one of the spaces.

  The office windows weren’t visible from the road. But I could see light emanating from this building, too: the skylight in Brill’s office glowed in the dusk.

  I needed a better vantage point. I moved along the path to the spot where I’d looked through the wall of bamboo and noticedthe maid. Now I could see into the garden cottage window from a wider angle. Just as I raised my left hand to refocus the binoculars, I heard voices.

  Someone was leaving Brill’s office, saying goodbye. I retreated back along the path, up to the road, and stepped back into a big ceanothus bush.

  A slim woman entered the parking area from the path. Her long silver braid glowed in the dusk. My breath caught in surprise.

  Sister Laura climbed into the Honda and closed the door. She sat there for at least a minute, her head bowed. Then she turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the space.

  The Honda swung around. The headlights caught me full in the face. The lacy ceanothus provided little cover, and the driver stepped on the brakes as her eyes met my own.

  After a long minute the Honda continued in its arc and moved off down the road. But then it stopped, and backed up.

  Laura lowered her window. She looked sad. ‘Hello, Jaymie. Can I give you a ride?’

  I walked around the Civic, climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. A fresh sprig of orange blossoms was tucked into a small vase hot-glued to the dash. The car interior was filled with the sweet citrus scent.

  We looked at one another. Finally, I spoke. ‘We’d better move on. Brill – or whoever you were meeting with – might come out to see what’s going on.’

  Laura nodded. She slipped the car out of park and steered it back down the hill. ‘Do you have your bike, Jaymie? Or a car?’

  ‘I left my car at Arroyo Burro and walked in from the beach. Never mind about that. I have some questions for you.’

  She nodded and stared straight ahead. ‘I know you do. And you deserve answers.’

  Laura pulled over at the top of Marina Drive. The ocean spread out far below us. The night was dark now. If there was a moon, it was hidden behind a cover of low cloud.

  We sat close together in the small car. Too close: I rolled down my window. For a time we were silent, listening to the boom of the foghorn.

  I wasn’t sure how to start. After a while I just said what came to my mind. ‘A close friend of mine is an attorney. He knows everything and everybody. He has a long memory, too.’

  ‘Ah.’ Laura let out a sigh. ‘I suppose I knew you’d hear about it eventually. That day you came around to talk to Bernie and I, I re
alized you’re too good an investigator not to figure it out.’

  ‘Don’t try to flatter me, Laura.’

  ‘If you knew me better, you’d understand I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Maybe not. But that’s what I don’t get. You of all people, involved in this mess!’

  She turned in her seat and looked at me. But I stared straight ahead into the dark. Laura, the priest. I felt angry, even betrayed.

  ‘Jaymie. What are you saying?’

  ‘Do me a favor, Laura. Don’t play dumb. Brill, your old partner in kidnapping. She has Rosie there at Agua Azul. Don’t try and tell me you don’t know!’

  ‘What!’

  Now I did turn to face the woman. I snarled in her face. ‘I can’t prove it. But I’m pretty sure Brill’s smuggling kids into the country for illegal adoptions. I don’t know how you’re involved, not yet. But I swear to God, Ms Brautigan, I’ll figure it out.’

  Laura’s mouth opened, then shut. Her voice shook when she spoke.

  ‘I have to take your word for it, that what you say about Staffen is true! But how could you think …’ Her voice faltered. ‘No. I do understand. How could you not think I had something to do with this? How could you not!’

  ‘I just saw you, Laura. Coming out of Brill’s office.’ But a tiny worm of doubt squirmed in my brain.

  ‘Jaymie, please let me explain. Staffen asked me to come out and meet with her. She wanted to talk about Darren. She said she had a way to help him at last.’

  ‘Darren?’ The same Darren, of More Mesa?

  ‘Darren Hartek. He was … well … I might as well say it. He was the boy I tried to help. He was the reason I was arrested.’

  So it was the same Darren. This I hadn’t foreseen. ‘I’m listening. What did Brill have in mind?’

  ‘Not much, as it turned out. She claims she wants to get him into some program in Bakersfield. To be honest, I didn’t like the sound of it. Oh, and she asked me if I knew where he was. I think that was the real reason Staffen wanted to talk to me. To help her find Darren, I mean.’

  ‘And do you know where he is?’

  ‘No. I hand out sandwiches every weekday to the homeless, in different locations. But I haven’t seen Darren for months now. He’s homeless himself, you see. I’ve tried again and again to help him over the years, but never succeeded. He has schizophrenia, poor man.’