Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean

by Janet Dawson

  I laughed. “That’s why those stories are so popular. They’re familiar, because things like that happen. What did Lacy do when she came back to the city?” We’d finished the sandwiches and had started on the pastries.

  “She worked at a gallery on Union Street, lived in that area, too. I don’t think she made a lot of money. She had a settlement from her first marriage. But Lacy always did have champagne taste, which made it difficult to live on a beer budget. She caused talk, by the way. Had an affair with a married man, whose wife finally used some leverage to rein in her husband.”

  Mrs. Bainbridge paused and spread lemon curd on a tiny scone. Then she continued. “Then I heard Lacy married again, this time to a man from Monterey, Gunter Beckman. She met him while she was down at Pebble one weekend, visiting some friends who have a place down there. I hear he had something to do with boats. I wondered if Mr. Beckman had money, because Lacy’s always been a mercenary creature. Did he?”

  “She may have thought he did.” I popped a miniature eclair into my mouth. “Gunter Beckman and his brother Karl jointly owned a boat repair yard. Gunter died in a car wreck that also killed Karl’s wife.”

  Mrs. Bainbridge raised her eyebrows at this. “What did Lacy inherit?”

  “Gunter’s share of the business, evidently a lot of debts as well. She had to sell their house in Carmel and now she works as office manager for the business. And she transports boats, sails them from port to port.”

  “Goodness, I can’t imagine Lacy working in an office. Boats, yes. I recall seeing her up at Tahoe one summer when she was a teenager, piloting someone’s Chris-Craft as though born to it.”

  I poured another cup of tea. “Have you remembered what happened in Lacy’s senior year at Lowell?”

  Mrs. Bainbridge thought a moment “I believe she was expelled for some prank. She finished at the Wilkins School. That was the school you went to when no other school would take you. I can’t recall what the prank was, though.” She brightened. “Surely my granddaughter knows. She was a year or two behind Lacy at Lowell.”

  My elegant white-haired companion reached for her purse. To my great surprise she pulled out a small mobile phone. “A Christmas gift from one of my gadgety grandsons,” she explained as she flipped through the pages of a leather-bound address book. “I must say, it does come in handy.”

  Mrs. Bainbridge’s granddaughter was a broker who worked for a securities firm in San Francisco’s financial district. Summoned to the phone by her grandmother, she described the incident that got Lacy Standish expelled from Lowell High School at the start of her senior year, an incident that had entered the realm of legend.

  “The principal caught her stealing from someone’s locker and suspended her. It was what she did afterward that got her expelled.”

  “Very ingenious,” I said when the granddaughter recounted the details. “Why would she go to such trouble?”

  “We learned early on never to cross Lacy Standish. She always got even.”

  * * *

  I arrived at Café Marie about four-thirty that afternoon. Back in the kitchen dinner preparations were in full swing. Mother and Julian Surtees stood together, heads bent as they talked, accompanied by the clatter of cooking utensils and the swing music emanating from the radio in the bar. Mother looked up as I planted myself next to the row of stoves, my hands on my hips. A whole range of emotions crossed her face, from apprehension to welcome. I didn’t say anything to her. Instead I focused on her assistant.

  “Julian, you and I are going to have a talk.”

  The black eyebrows in Julian’s saturnine face shot up. “Now? I’m busy.”

  “Get unbusy.” I gestured toward the front of the restaurant. “The office.” He hesitated for a moment. I narrowed my eyes and he decided not to push it. He stepped past me and I turned to follow.

  “You couldn’t say hello?” Mother said, frowning.

  “I think I’ve found your saboteur.”

  “What? Who? Not Julian.”

  I walked toward the office with Mother at my heels. Julian waited in the doorway of the small cubicle, face resentful, hands balled into tight fists as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “This better be good,” he said.

  “We’re going to talk about your relationship with Lacy Beckman, Julian.” The office was so small there wasn’t room for three people, so I stood in the doorway.

  Now he glared at me. “I told you that was none of your damn business.”

  “Lacy was expelled from high school her senior year. The principal caught her stealing. That only earned her a suspension. She got the boot for setting off a stink bomb in the school office. The fire department evacuated the whole damn school. Sound familiar?”

  I watched Julian’s face. The dark eyes widened and his eyebrows drew together. Mother looked stunned, white around the mouth.

  “Lacy was here at Café Marie almost every time something went wrong. The night Karl Beckman got sick, the night Mrs. Grady found the mouse on her plate. Probably the night the salt wound up in the sugar containers and when the oil-can lid came off and you had an oil spill back in the kitchen. As for the rest, the phantom reservations that never showed up and the anonymous calls to the health department, I’ll bet she’s responsible for those as well.”

  Julian’s frown got even deeper until he looked like a hawk about to swoop down on its prey. Mother moved her head slowly, back and forth, trying to negate my words.

  “She must have doctored Karl’s food with something to make him ill,” I said. “Easy enough if he left the table for a moment She could have used anything. Detergent, rhubarb leaves. I saw some growing in the garden near her cottage. Getting the mouse onto Mrs. Grady’s plate was tricky, but there were enough comings and goings at that table that she managed it. But I really want to know how she managed to get that butyric-acid time bomb into the ventilating system.”

  “That bitch,” Julian snarled. Anger boiled into his dark eyes. “She used me. The knives, damn it. I showed her where the knives were kept. Then Marie cut her hand the next day. It could just as easily have been me.”

  I nodded. “Yes, she used you. And she didn’t care who got hurt. If a customer strolled into the kitchen during the evening the staff would notice. But you were dating Lacy, so the staff was accustomed to seeing her. If she popped into the kitchen to say hello, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. If she was hanging around in the bar waiting for you to finish up, well, that’s just Lacy. So how did she get that stink bomb into the ventilating system, Julian? It was rigged to an ordinary twenty-four-hour lamp timer and it was set to go off at eight P.M. Sunday. So it had it to be in place after eight P.M. Saturday, probably before dawn Sunday morning. Did you see Lacy that night?”

  Julian swore, ugly obscene words spilling from the tight line of his lips, one fist smashing into the palm of his hand.

  “I closed up Saturday night. I told Marie to go home, remember? Lacy came back after she and Karl left with the Gradys. We had plans for the evening. She got there just as I was finishing up. Everyone else had gone—the servers, the busboys, the dishwashers. She came into the kitchen from the back door. She was parked in the alley.”

  “She used the Dumpster to climb up on the roof,” I said. “Probably didn’t take her long to remove the metal covering and set up the device. Then she strolled into the kitchen to keep her date.”

  Mother finally found her voice. “But why? Why would Lacy do this to me? She’s always been friendly.”

  “The better to hide what’s under the mask. But you’ve done something to make her angry, Mother. Maybe it’s because you have some things she doesn’t. A successful business. And Karl Beckman.”

  Forty

  I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO CONFRONT KARL BECKMAN on my own but Mother insisted on going with me. She didn’t say much on the way over to Beckman Boat Works. It was just after five when I drove my Toyota into the boatyard and parked to the left of a pickup with the boat logo.


  “Is it Karl’s, or Lacy’s?” I looked over the hood of my own car to the half-open driver’s-side window of the truck.

  “Karl’s.” Mother glanced to her right as she shut the passenger door of the Toyota. “He’s got a leather grip on the steering wheel. Lacy doesn’t.”

  Where was Lacy? I swept my eyes around the yard but her truck was nowhere in sight. Nor did I see Frank Alviso’s flashy new Grand Am.

  Most of the boatyard employees were finishing up their day’s work, ready to head for home. Two men stood near the Marine Travel-Lift. Inside the machine shop I saw a couple of workers, a man and a woman, putting away their tools. A young woman in blue jeans was locking the door to the chandlery.

  We went up the stairs to the office where I’d first encountered Lacy. There was no one at the desk in the outer office and the door to Lacy’s cubicle was closed. Karl Beckman was behind his wide wooden desk, leaning back in the padded leather chair as he talked on the phone. He chuckled at something the person on the other end of the phone said, then he looked up and saw me standing in the doorway, Mother crowding in at my side.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said, laughter leaving his voice. He hung up the phone and got stiffly to his feet. His eyes fixed on Mother’s face with a mixture of affection and apprehension. “Marie, it’s good to see you. I’ve been meaning to call.” Then he looked at me with no welcome at all. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “You have some explaining to do,” Mother said. Not the best way to phrase it, but she jumped right in before I could speak.

  Karl looked mystified. “About what?”

  “About Lacy.” Mother folded her arms in front of her and stuck out her chin.

  “What about Lacy?” Now Karl’s eyes got that shuttered look I’d seen before. But it was time to open the window and take a look at what was beyond.

  “Lacy is responsible for the incidents at Café Marie. The stink bomb, the mouse on Mrs. Grady’s plate, your getting sick the night you had dinner there, back in August.” I watched his face as my words worked their way in.

  “But why?” His question echoed the one Mother had asked earlier at Café Marie. I noticed that he didn’t deny the accusation I’d lobbed at his sister-in-law.

  “It’s more than pure meanness. Lacy’s a spoiler. If she can’t have something, or it gets in her way, she’ll destroy it. In this case what she can’t have is you. Although she came close.” Karl winced as though I’d slapped him. “I went down to King City on Saturday and had a talk with Charlie Harper. He told me you had an affair with your sister-in-law, two years ago.”

  I heard a sound from my mother, a little indrawn breath that meant she hadn’t suspected this. Karl ran one big hand over his broad face as though he wanted to put the flesh between him and my words.

  “It was a fling,” he said, his voice sounding rusty and subdued. “An aberration, a god-awful mistake.”

  “More than you realized. Your brother Gunter probably didn’t care. But your wife found out about it. She was so angry she changed her will. You didn’t discover that until she and Gunter were killed in that car accident at Hurricane Point. Charlie Harper thinks you had something to do with his sister’s death.”

  Karl slumped back on the edge of his desk. “Somehow I knew that, although he’s never come right out and said anything. I’m not surprised that he’d believe the worst of me. But he’s wrong.”

  “If he dislikes you so much, why did you ask him for money?”

  “He told you about that, too?”

  I waved my hand impatiendy. “I know about Gunter using the boatyard as collateral for a loan. He defaulted. You had to borrow money from Harper to bail yourself out. I also know how you helped Bobby when he was arrested in King City last April. I suspect the reason you were so unavailable the Friday Bobby was looking for you is that you were making the rounds of bankers, probably somewhere other than Monterey. You got turned down. That’s why you went to your brother-in-law with your hat in hand. Come on, Karl, I’ve got most of the pieces but I need some answers from you. Why do you need money?”

  “Because this business is in trouble.” He shook his head slowly, then the words came tumbling out. “Because the recession has eaten this town alive. Even people who can afford boats are deferring maintenance and repairs. The people who have boats and can’t afford the upkeep and the marina fees are getting rid of them. The fishermen are repairing their own craft. The cost of materials keeps going up. I’m not doing the same amount of business I was two, three years ago.”

  He gestured at the empty outer office. “I used to have a secretary working out there but now I don’t because I can’t afford to pay the salary. Had to let some other workers go, too. Damn it, I can’t keep up with my competitor at the other end of the Row. I’m under pressure to sell out to the developers. For the past year, it’s been all I can do to keep my head above water.”

  “Your difficulties are common knowledge around town,” I told him. “Besides, Ariel Logan had someone look into the state of your finances.”

  “Good lord, why would she do that?” Now he looked stunned. “I hardly knew the girl.”

  I let him stew about that one a little longer. I had to keep him talking, to determine whether or not he was part of Lacy’s scheme. “What happened after your wife died? Did Lacy wait the usual decent interval?”

  Karl’s face colored and he looked at Mother as though for help. But she wasn’t prepared to offer any. Instead she seated herself in one of the chairs in front of his desk, hands knotted in her lap, her jaw tight as she waited for his response.

  “My daughter was really broken up by Janine’s death,” Karl said. “Kristen wanted to drop out of school for the next term, but I persuaded her to stay.” He stopped and ran his hand over his face again.

  “I’m not avoiding your question, Jeri. What I’m saying is, I concentrated on my daughter. Lacy didn’t make any overtures until late last year. When she did, I ignored them. Finally she came right out with it. Christmas, as a matter of fact, with my daughter at home cooking dinner. Lacy said it had been nearly a year since Gunter and Janine died. Why didn’t we get together?”

  He stopped and his face colored again, reliving the scene. “I told her no. What happened between us was bad judgment. I succumbed to an impulse. I’ve regretted it since it happened. It wasn’t worth it.”

  I could sympathize with his discomfort. I’ve succumbed to more than a few impulses in my time. “And how did Lacy react?”

  “I didn’t give her time to react.” Karl shook his head. “I just walked away.”

  “You turned your back on her,” I said. “Big mistake. Lacy likes to get even.”

  “But she’s been cordial and businesslike ever since,” Karl protested. “I was relieved, since she’s my partner and we have to work together.”

  “She’s very creative in her methods. And her timing.” I glanced to my right, at my mother seated in the chair. “You two met at a party New Year’s Eve. And started dating in January. It probably took some time for Lacy to figure out that you were an item. She decided to get back at Mother by destroying the restaurant. But she waited to play her games in the summer, when the tourists are here and Café Marie is always crowded. By then Mother had hired Julian. Lacy zeroed in on him, and she had an opportunity to be at the restaurant, where she could create some havoc.”

  Karl shook his head, disbelief in his eyes. “Hurt Marie because of me? That’s fairly indirect. If Lacy wanted to get back at me I would think she’d attack me outright.”

  “How about destroying your business? Is that direct enough?”

  “But it’s her business, too,” Karl said.

  “I think she’s found a more lucrative one.” I reached into my bag for the photocopies I’d carried with me for the past two days and handed one page to Karl Beckman, the copy of the wrinkled paint-can label. “Recognize this?”

  He examined the sheet of paper and looked up at me, confusion in h
is hazel eyes. “Paint. Certainly. We buy cases of this product, have for years.”

  “Where is it kept?”

  “In the paint locker next to the chandlery.”

  “Not the storeroom behind the machine shop?”

  “No. There aren’t any supplies back there. Certainly not anything flammable. It’s too close to the welding. Sparks from the torches might set off paint. That’s why paint’s kept in the locker.”

  “What do you do with the containers when they’re empty?”

  “We used to throw them out. But Lacy’s recycling them now. She takes them to a place in Santa Cruz.”

  “Lacy’s recycling program won’t thrill the EPA,” I said. “When did she start transporting boats regularly?”

  “Early summer, June. What’s this about? Where did you get this label?”

  “Ariel Logan found it,” I said, laying out the scenario as I’d pieced it together. “In the surf off Point Pinos. She took samples of the water and sent them to an environmental lab in San Jose. This is their report.”

  Karl took the other pages and read through them. Then he handed the report to Mother, who’d gotten up from her chair.

  “I don’t know what all these chemicals are,” he said slowly. “But I have a feeling they’re bad.”

  “You’re right. They’re solvents used in the manufacture of computer chips. Highly toxic and highly concentrated, according to the man who ran the analysis. Much more serious than pesticide runoff from the Salinas River. Or whatever your workers might spill into the bay here at the boatyard.”

  “How did they get into the water?” Mother asked. “What’s this note in the margin, Jeri?”