Sunshine Cottage: A Pajaro Bay Mystery

by Lee, Barbara Cool

  "Are you going to open it now?" the woman asked. At Teresa's startled look, she continued, "I would. But I'm the kind of person who eats dessert first."

  Teresa laughed out loud at that. "I'm the kind who saves things until later," she admitted. "In case I need them."

  "Ah," Pamela said. "A planner. I've always admired that. I'm more instinctive, myself. A go with the flow type of gal."

  Easy to go with the flow when you knew you had a roof over your head and family who loved you. No need to plan where the next meal would come from or the best way to keep your Mama from dying in front of you. "Like the song: Let It Go," she said aloud, and Pamela nodded.

  "That's all you can do, in the end." She looked at her yarn. "Good advice. Just look at this knot!" She sat there, still smiling calmly, as she worked to get the yarn untangled.

  Teresa looked out the window again, trying not to think, not to worry about the mess she was leaving behind, about what she was going toward.

  Pamela let out a satisfied sigh. When Teresa turned back toward her, she saw the yarn was neatly rolled up into a ball again. "Congratulations," she said.

  The woman laughed, and the needles began moving again, methodically clicking the pattern to life. "He's worth it. Caleb, I mean. He's cute as a button."

  Teresa smiled politely.

  "I know what you're thinking—of course I would say so. But you wait and see."

  "If I see him I'm sure he'll be the cutest baby ever."

  "Oh, you'll see him if you are going to Pajaro Bay."

  "Really? Is he famous in town?"

  She laughed. "I didn't mean that. I just meant that if you go to Pajaro Bay you'll see everyone. There's no hiding there."

  Teresa dropped the book on the floor again, and had to bend over to pick it back up.

  The woman looked surprised.

  "The seat spring stuck me in the back," Teresa said quickly. "I don't know anyone in Pajaro Bay," she added. "I've never been there."

  "It's a long way from home," the woman said in agreement.

  "Yeah," Teresa said. She looked out the window and whispered, "I hope it's far enough."

  Late in the afternoon, the bus driver announced, "Pajaro Bay," punctuated by the hiss of air brakes as he pulled to a stop.

  Teresa picked up her bag and got to her feet, feeling her legs protesting after so many hours sitting in the cramped bus seat. Her dress was all wrinkled, too, and she probably looked a mess. Felt a mess. Felt totally unsure about all this. But it was too late to choose Bakersfield instead, so she'd have to make the best of this little dump, whatever it was like.

  She had to wait for surfboard dude to go first down the aisle, his swinging board an unwitting menace to them all.

  Then the knitting lady gathered her many bundles and made her way up to the exit. The woman walked effortlessly, not like someone who had sat cross-legged for hours on a cramped bus seat. Maybe there was something to all that tai chi stuff.

  Teresa followed them down the metal steps and onto the parking lot where the bus would make its turnaround to head back out of town.

  "What would you do if you could do anything?" Detective Graham had asked her as he dealt yet another hand of cards during one of the endless evenings in the safe house.

  "I'd be a librarian," she had blurted out without thinking, then laughed, imagining how the parents would clutch their pearls if they found out their little darlings were getting their fairy tale books from a thieving tramp like her.

  "And where would you do it?" he'd asked, not even smirking at her outrageous statement.

  She looked out the window at the smokestacks from the oil refinery behind the safe house. Watched the exhaust belch into the night air with a putrid orange glow. "Somewhere clean," she had said. "Somewhere pretty, and peaceful."

  "I know just the place," he had said.

  The bus let out another big whoosh of air brakes, and with a roar of the engine, took off in the direction of the Coast Highway. The echo of the motor faded away, and the dust settled.

  The bus had dropped them at the top of a little hill, in a big parking lot in front of an ancient mission church. She turned in a full circle to take it in, from the neat little herb garden enclosed by rose bushes on her left, to the long adobe building in front of her with magenta bougainvillea scrambling up the side of it, to the tall pines off to her right showing a glimpse of sparkling blue between the branches.

  In front of the pines stood a squat little tower made from adobe bricks and capped with faded red barrel tiles dusted with crumbly lichen. Through the arched openings of the tower she could see three verdigris bells. As she stood there, they began to toll the hour, and she stayed there, mesmerized, listening to the music, and feeling a chill down her spine at the otherworldliness of the setting. This place, with its aged, verdant serenity, its scent of roses and pine trees, and its music of the bells, felt almost spiritual in its beauty.

  When the bells finished their chiming, the spell broke, and she realized the others had already headed down the hill.

  She followed.

  The road down the hill was lined with blooming flowers, red and purple and white, and the scent of pine trees was mixed with something cool and sharp in the air, a freshness she'd never known before.

  At the bottom of the hill the road intersected with another. Calle Principal, the sign on the corner said. Main Street, but unlike any main street she'd ever seen.

  In the distance she could see the guy with the surfboard striding purposefully, heading toward the turquoise water now visible off in the distance.

  She headed the same direction, not sure which way would lead to her destination. Candy colored cottages lined the narrow little road. Cheerful people in nice clothes smiled and nodded as they passed. There was a little grocery in the middle of the block. The sign in the window said they had carnitas and fishing licenses. And in front, on a wooden bench, three old men sat and waved to everyone who walked by.

  When she went past, they waved at her, and she waved back, feeling awkward, but hoping she fit in. They seemed to think so, because they smiled at her, and one took off his fisherman's hat and tipped it to her like she was a lady.

  She walked on, glad she had worn her flats and not the low heels in her bag. At the end of the street, in the distance, the blue of the ocean sparkled and beckoned. A tiny lighthouse on an island in the bay looked like a mirage.

  She took a breath of the cool air, filled her lungs with it, reveled in it. The sky was more blue here than she had ever seen. The sun more golden.

  The water was bigger and brighter than she had imagined it would be. It stretched endlessly off to the horizon. Rationally speaking, she of course knew it was big. The Pacific Ocean was the largest body of water in the world; she'd learned that in an old encyclopedia she'd read. But in person, up close, seeing the expanse of water was much different than she'd imagined. She felt very tiny and fragile in the face of it, with the power of all that water, a mile deep and endless miles wide, shifting to blue and aqua and turquoise in turns as the wind ruffled it and the churning power of the currents created rivers of movement within it.

  She found herself walking toward it, as if drawn to a magnet. But then she realized there was a tall cliff at the end of Calle Principal, and she would have to walk downhill a long way to get to the actual water.

  So she stopped and looked around. She had other things to do than wander down to the beach.

  There were buildings all along the street, and little alleys heading off to each side. But none of the streets were marked, and she wasn't really sure how to get the layout of the village.

  She stopped walking. To her left was an arched entrance with a miniature version of a mission bell hanging from it. LOS COLORES, the sign said, and she could see a courtyard within, with a fountain bubbling over tiles.

  She didn't know which way to go. She would need to ask directions. No one seemed to be around at the moment, so she turned away from the beckoning ocean.
She was sure her destination would be somewhere on this street.

  She crossed to the other side and started walking back in the opposite direction, passing cottages and little side streets on that side of the road.

  Almost immediately, she came upon a big cottage, set back from the street. A large lawn in front was green as an emerald. The lawn was enclosed by a yellow picket fence, with a path of cobblestones meandering through it toward the cottage itself. Oddly, though the cobblestones looked like they'd been there for ages, the path stopped abruptly halfway through the lawn, and then bare dirt marked the rest of the way to the front door.

  The house, though it appeared much like the colorful little cottages she had been seeing up and down Calle Principal, was much bigger than the rest. And yellower.

  Much yellower.

  What a funny place.

  Detective Graham had told her to look for a yellow house, but she hadn't expected this.

  The building itself wasn't actually yellow. It was made of pale stucco, and seemed like something out of a Beatrix Potter illustration, shaped by a quirky hand into a fantasy of pointy rooflines, little arches, and bumped-out sections for window seats and inglenooks. Each window was framed by bright yellow shutters with sun shapes cut into them, and it was all topped with a surprising roof of Spanish-style barrel tiles in a glossy yellow that glowed like sunshine. Several chimneys burst through the roofline and soared up in the air, each one made of crooked old bricks, and each appearing so unstable it might crash down at any time.

  On one end there was a round turret, and it gave the building a staired look, with the turret soaring up three stories high, a middle section two stories high, and then a low section at the other end that was only one story. The windows were all of leaded glass, and some had panes of colored glass in gold and orange tones that created a summery glow. The top of the round turret had windows like a lighthouse, in little panes that shimmered as they reflected the blue of the sky.

  There was a big front porch with a yellow railing, the kind of porch that should have people sitting in rocking chairs on it, sipping lemonade in the shade. Right now the porch held ladders and paint buckets, toolboxes and scraps of lumber, all jumbled about and making it clear the place was under construction.

  "Tough as Slick," somebody mumbled nearby.

  She looked up and noticed there was a skinny old man in overalls working on a light post near the front gate. The light echoed the shape of the turret, with a round casing of glass prisms surrounding an old-fashioned Edison bulb. The man was trying to unscrew the top, a black-iron affair that looked heavily rusted from the salt air.

  "Excuse me?" she said to him, sure she must have mis-heard.

  He stopped what he was doing, and very slowly, painfully, climbed down the step ladder. When he got to the ground, he rubbed his knee. "Old football injury," he said with a grimace. He took off thick eyeglasses with cheap black plastic frames and rubbed his palm over his bearded face. Then he put the glasses back on.

  "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't meant to interrupt you. But—"

  "What's 'tough as Slick' mean?" His grin widened to show a missing tooth.

  That hadn't been the question she was going to ask, but she was curious, so she just nodded.

  "You're not a local," he said. "Or you'd know. It just means something's hard as nails, unbreakable." He took off his cap and rubbed at his balding head. "But that's not what you wanted to ask. You lost?"

  "I don't think so," she said. "This is the community center, isn't it?"

  "This is it," he said.

  "I figured. So, I'm looking for the director of the community center." She pulled out the note Detective Graham had given her, though it wasn't like she could forget the name. "Logan King Rios? Is that a real name?"

  The old man laughed. "Yup. That's a real name. He's inside."

  "Thank you."

  He reached out a hand to shake hers. "Jack Payson."

  "I'm Teri Forest," she said. "Thanks for your help, Mr. Payson."

  She made her way up the cobblestoned walk toward the yellow house with the sunshine roof tiles.

  As she got closer she heard someone working out a melody on a guitar inside the house, and there was a murmur of voices, punctuated with laughter.

  When she got to the door itself, she saw that this was bright yellow, too. It was a Dutch door, with black iron hinges and a rounded top, and the top half was open to let in the breeze. There was a little ledge on the bottom section, where you could rest your elbows and chat with someone coming to visit you. A small bell hanging to one side, of brass gone to verdigris, matched the design of the mission bells she'd already seen. There was a pull string on it.

  Next to it was an old brass sign stating that ROI SOLEIL was on the village registry of STOCKDALE buildings. A handwritten note was tacked up beneath. COMMUNITY CENTER. COME ON IN.

  So she did.

  Chapter Three

  She stepped into a formal front hallway that had several doorways opening off of it. The floor was of highly polished oak, inlaid with a teak sun pattern, and the walls were all creamy plaster the color of new-churned butter. Bulletin boards had been put up on the walls, with schedules of classes (Learn To Salsa!), announcements of events (Don't miss the One-Minute Shakespeare Players), and miscellaneous flyers (Cat Sitter Needed Tuesday to Thursday All Month).

  It still looked more like a fairy tale cottage than a community center, but there were signs of changes in progress everywhere. The nearest narrow little doorway had part of the framing removed, apparently to widen it, and inside was a bathroom, with a hole where a tub had been, and a new tile floor being installed.

  The source of all the voices and music was on the left up ahead, so she went that way, and found herself in a huge space that must have been a formal ballroom, with oak flooring varnished as glossy as a basketball court, a high ceiling with oak beams, and a bank of tall windows looking out to the back yard, a lush garden that faced an alley where cars were parked.

  The music she had been hearing turned out to be coming from a boy in a window seat tucked near the doorway where she stood. The boy was very thin, somewhere in his teens, and had unkempt brown hair that badly needed a haircut. The slender wrists that poked out from his worn flannel shirtsleeves looked like bleached bones, giving her the sudden urge to buy him a sandwich.

  His guitar, on the other hand, was obviously a prized possession. It was dark mahogany, with a rich, mellow tone. The boy was hunched over his instrument, his hair falling across his face like a protective curtain. He was strumming out a hauntingly beautiful melody.

  He kept his head down, as if ignoring what was going on with the group on the other side of the room, but she got the impression he was listening intently, as if he wanted very much to join in, but felt safer hidden behind his guitar.

  The other side of the room was where all the action was.

  There was a big group of kids struggling to put together a ping-pong table. A couple of teen girls were taking turns reading the directions aloud, and several people were working on the table at once, each getting in each others' way and making a mess of the thing.

  At the center of the chaos was a man.

  The man was only a few years older than her. He was dressed in jeans and a yellow polo shirt, and was working hard to ingratiate himself with the kids. Trying a bit too hard for the cynical kids, though the fresh-scrubbed crowd really seemed to take to him as he joked about his clumsiness while he worked on the table.

  He didn't look clumsy, except for a bad limp that showed when he came around to the other side of the table to fasten a screw into the base. He moved like an athlete, with lithe, graceful movements that made her wonder if he'd played sports as a kid.

  She'd read about kids who played sports in all those library books. Kids who had a stable-enough home to not be exhausted by the end of a school day. Kids with parents who weren't dead on their feet from working three jobs, or too drunk to work at all. Pare
nts who took the time to drive their sons and daughters to practice. Kids whose families had enough money to pay for uniforms and coaches and road trips to games against their arch-rival teams. A world of normalcy and good health and happy families that she had always figured was fiction.

  But here were these kids looking like the ones she'd read about: healthy and vibrant, with clean clothes that must have been bought this year, and an eerie sense of trust toward the man talking to them.

  And the man was like them. A tall, rangy guy, well over six feet, with golden blond hair worn a bit shaggy, and vivid eyes filled with humor. Good looking. Not in a movie star way, but in a wholesome and friendly way. With a face that was open and trusting. A face that made you think if you were lost, you could ask him for directions and he would help you without demanding anything in return. A Nice Guy—again, like something out of the books she'd read, stories of a world where people liked and trusted each other, and crime and dirt and danger were not anywhere on the page.

  Most of the kids looked like him: fresh-scrubbed, wholesome, brimming with energy and taking everything at face value. But she recognized a few with what felt like more normal faces. These ones hung back, on the edge of the group. They were reluctant to step forward, suspicious. What was the catch? Why was this man being so nice? They scowled at him. Adults had neglected them, abandoned them, hurt them before. They weren't falling for some shallow sunshine and flowers story from a clean-cut young man with wide, guileless eyes. They knew better.

  Or thought they did.

  Yet here she was, like them, staring at this golden young man and wanting, desperately, to believe. There were good men. There were good people. There was such a thing as openness and trust. It was possible to have faith in her fellow human beings.