Wipe Out

by Jeff Shelby

  He made a face. “Think that's bothering her way more than the motel. I'm gonna go back over in a little bit. I stayed over there pretty late last night and she finally told me to go, she'd be fine.” He paused. “Stayed down the block until about four this morning.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” he said. “Totally boring. Was hoping I'd get to break someone's neck.”

  “Of course you were,” I said, sipping the water. “Well. Shit.”

  “Pretty much,” he said. “Pretty much.”

  I wondered how Mitchell had gotten himself so far in debt. Had the motel been suffering that much? Could he really not get people in the door? I wondered how he'd swung it as long as he had if that had been the case.

  My phone buzzed on the kitchen table, breaking my train of thought. I got up and went around the couch to answer it. I didn't recognize the number, but answered.

  “Mr. Braddock,” a woman's voice said. “This is Rose Henderson.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. “Hello.”

  “Is it your new girlfriend?” Carter whispered. “Ask her to come over.”

  I gave him the finger.

  “I was wondering if you might have some time available to meet with me today,” Rose said.

  “To meet with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  She cleared her throat. “I promise that it won't take long, and I'm happy to buy lunch since I'm asking to meet. Would that be agreeable?”

  I didn't really want to meet with her, but I didn't see why it wouldn't be agreeable. I figured I also might be able to get some answers about the financial state of the motel from her.

  “Sure,” I said. “When and where?”

  “Are you familiar with Harry's in La Jolla?”

  I had yet to meet a person in San Diego who wasn't familiar with Harry's, as it had been a La Jolla landmark for almost 60 years.

  “Yep,” I said. “I know Harry's.”

  “Very good,” Rose said. “Shall we say 11:30?”

  “I'll be there,” I said and hung up.

  “Who the hell was that?” Carter asked.

  “Rose Henderson,” I told him. “She wants to meet with me.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Look at you. First that redheaded smoke show, now the crusty old widow. Someone's back in the game.”

  I fired the empty water bottle at him and went to change for my meeting with Rose Henderson.

  NINETEEN

  “I know this is awkward, but I do appreciate you meeting with me,” Rose Henderson said.

  We were sitting in a booth near the front of Harry's. The restaurant was bustling, with a group of about ten people standing near the door, waiting for tables to open up. I'd ordered the bacon oatmeal pancakes because they served breakfast all the time. Rose ordered a turkey club. I was a quarter of the way through my pancakes and she'd barely touched her sandwich. The pile of French fries sitting on her plate were also untouched.

  I nodded while I cut off another hunk of pancake. “It is a little awkward.”

  She pursed her lips. Her makeup was just as severe as the last time I’d seen her. “Yes. But I hope you'll listen to me.”

  “I think I am.”

  She took a sip from her water glass and set it down carefully. “I'm hoping that you can be of assistance in my dealings with Anne Sullivan.”

  I set my fork down. “Assistance?”

  “I would just like her to see that her taking on the burden of owning the motel would be a mistake,” she said.

  “You do understand that I'm a friend of hers, correct?” I asked.

  “I do. And that's why I'm hoping you might have some influence over her decision-making.”

  “I don't.”

  “But perhaps you might,” Rose said, lifting her chin slightly.

  “This is even more awkward now,” I told her. “Even if I had that ability, I wouldn't use it. Anne's a friend and the motel is hers.” I shook my head and lifted the napkin positioned in my lap. “I think this may have been a wasted meeting on your part.”

  “Just hear me out,” Rose said, holding up a hand. “Let me explain to you my point of view and then you can make your decision as to whether or not this was a waste of your time.”

  I stared at her for a minute before I picked up my fork. “I'll listen while I eat. When I'm done, I'm leaving.” I gave her a pointed look. “And I eat fast.”

  She cleared her throat. “I won't pretend that Mitchell's leaving the motel to Anne wasn't a surprise. We'd never discussed it, and it was a complete and total shock to learn the property was being left to someone else.”

  “I'm sure,” I said, in between bites.

  “But I am also trying to believe that Mitchell had a cogent reason for leaving the business to her. Maybe you don't believe me, but I am trying to believe that.”

  “Doesn't matter what I believe,” I said with a shrug. “The property is hers.”

  Rose nodded curtly. “Agreed. Trying to figure out the past is fruitless. So I'm attempting to move forward.”

  I took a drink of water.

  “But I want you to understand why I'm upset about the hotel not being left to me,” Rose said. “I want to be very clear. I have no ill will toward Anne. She's a lovely woman. This isn't about her.”

  It felt very much like it was about her, but I let it go for the moment.

  “I'm not sure she really understands what she might be getting herself into,” Rose continued. “But there is debt attached to the motel. There is debt from the motel that is attached to my life. My main reason for assuming the motel was going to be left to me was so that I'd be able to pay off those debts.”

  The server came and brought us both more water. Rose waited for her to leave before she continued.

  “I'll assume you find me unsentimental in my willingness to part with my husband's motel so easily,” she said. “That would be partially accurate. Where Mitchell was the dreamer, I was the pragmatic person in our marriage. I was the one who had to make the hard decisions when it came to money. And Mitchell needed that. He asked me to play that role.” She paused. “But to say I have no attachment to some place that meant so much to Mitchell would be incorrect. And insulting.”

  “I never said that,” I told her. “I don't know you well enough to say one way or another.”

  “But I can tell that you thought it,” she said. Her tone held a note of bitterness. “I want that to be very clear. I know how much it meant to Mitchell. I know how much hard work he put into it. And I know how much money he put into it. I am aware of all of those things.”

  I moved the pancakes around on my plate. I hadn’t eaten there in quite some time and I'd forgotten how good the food was. Carter was going to be irritated that I'd gone without him.

  “But I am now a widow,” Rose continued. “No one will take care of me. That's a fact. I am responsible for myself. That is something new for me.” She took a deep breath. “No matter how unhappy I am with that fact, it's not going away. It is my reality.”

  I was halfway through the pancakes. I felt a pang of sympathy for her. I knew what it was like to be a part of a relationship and then to suddenly be alone.

  I pushed the plate to the side. I’d lost my appetite. “I'm sorry. I know you must miss him, and I'm sure it's difficult.”

  “It is,” she said, again lifting her chin slightly. “But I will manage. I can promise you that.”

  I didn't doubt her. I wasn't sure that I could say that I liked her, but she did seem very tough.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a large manila envelope. Nothing was written on it and I could see that it wasn't sealed.

  She laid her hand on top of it. “Here's what I'm asking of you. Take these to Anne. Let her look at them. Let her get a good look at the state of the motel.”

  “I think she's working on that,” I told her.

  “That's good,” she said, then patted the envelo
pe. “These are the records that I've kept over the years. They are meticulous. Every transaction. Every loan. Every dollar that has come through The Blue Wave. It isn't complicated. She'll be able to see where the motel stands.”

  I couldn't imagine that her records would be any different than the ones Anne had gotten from Renfroe, but I didn't say anything.

  “There are also offers in there,” Rose said.

  “Offers?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Two legitimate offers that we'd received over the last month. They were both pursuing the property with serious interest. I know this because I asked Mitchell to consider them.”

  I wadded up the napkin I’d dropped back into my lap. “Did he?”

  She thought for a moment. “To the degree he was capable. I think it was hard for him to envision no longer owning the motel. And I understand why. But it was important to me that he at least consider it. The money involved was significant.”

  “I'd imagine so.”

  She pushed the envelope across the table toward me. “Just take it to her.”

  I didn't reach for the envelope. “Can I ask what kind of outcome you're hoping for here?”

  For the first time, she looked unsure of herself. She averted her eyes, staring at her mostly uneaten sandwich. She cleared her throat again and folded her hands into a tight knot on the table before she leveled her eyes with mine.

  “I don't have an honest answer for that,” she finally said. “I'm not sure what outcome I'm hoping for. Do I feel I deserve some piece of the property?” She nodded. “Yes, I do. And the financial records that I've given you will demonstrate why.” She paused. “But I know that isn't terribly realistic at this point. Legally, the point is moot. It doesn't belong to me.”

  “Right,” I said. “So what is the point then?”

  Rose held up her hand and got the attention of our server, who swerved to the table and dropped off the check. Rose looked at the tab, reached into her purse, and carefully laid cash on top of the bill. She hitched the purse over her shoulder and slid out of the booth.

  “The point is that I don't want to see someone get in over their head,” she said. “I don't want Anne to feel as if she has to continue running the motel simply to honor Mitchell's legacy. He wouldn't want her to do that if it was untenable for her. You may think I'm doing this simply for me, Mr. Braddock, but I'm not. I'm truly not.” She nodded coolly at me. “I appreciate your time and I hope you'll share those papers with Anne.”

  I watched Rose Henderson walk away from the table, her head held high, not looking back, as she pushed through the glass doors and out into the afternoon sun.

  TWENTY

  I stayed at the table in Harry's for a while after Rose left, paging quickly through the envelope she'd left with me. I was mostly curious about the offers Mitchell had received to buy the motel, and I found them both beneath the stack of bank statements and other spreadsheets she'd compiled. I looked mainly for numbers and found them.

  They were not small.

  I hadn't dug into the actual financial numbers, but I found it hard to believe that the debt on the motel was even close to what was being offered. The offers were clearly for the land, with the intention, I assumed, to tear down The Blue Wave and then build something new on top of it that would generate far more revenue than the motel was capable of. It made sense from a business perspective.

  But those kinds of dollar amounts made me think some more about the vandalism at Anne's house and who had called her. The possibility that they were connected still seemed a bit loose to me, but my antennae were up. If those were the stakes, it was hard to rule out anything until I knew it for certain.

  I left a few extra dollars on the table for the server, a sort of thank you for the extra time I’d spent at the table, and then walked outside and got in my car.

  The first offer that I'd come across was from a company called LaPlaya Development with an address on a plain business card listed in Kearney Mesa. It was an area that seemed to exist solely to provide a base for development and real estate companies, mixed in with chain restaurants, small family businesses, and an old airport. It was east of Clairemont, situated on a parcel of land between the 805 and the 15, and it took me about half an hour to reach the office building that LaPlaya Development was located in. The building itself was four stories tall and made of glass that reflected all of the other similar looking buildings around it. I checked the suite listings on the board near the elevator in the small lobby and saw that LaPlaya Development was on the first floor, just around the corner from the board. I found the door displaying a plain laminate badge with the company name on it and went inside.

  A young woman was scrolling through her phone behind a metal desk. A computer sat on top of the desk to her left and several filing trays to her right. Her blonde hair was pinned up at the back of her head, and she wore a gray sweater over a light pink top.

  She looked up from her phone. “Can I help you?” Her tone indicated she really hoped I’d answer in the negative.

  I held up the business card I'd taken from the file Rose had given me. “I'm looking for Henry Nixon. Am I in the right place?”

  She set her phone down. “You are. Do you have an appointment?”

  “I don't,” I said. “I was in the area and thought I might be able to catch him. Could you let him know that I'm here about his offer on The Blue Wave motel?”

  She looked confused for a moment, then shrugged and stood up. “Be right back.” She turned and disappeared down a short, narrow hallway. I heard her footsteps stop not far from where I'd last seen her, then muffled voices. The footsteps came back toward me and then she was in the doorway. She waved to me. “You can come on back.”

  I nodded and followed her to the second door on the left of the small hallway. There were no doors on the right and the hallway ended just past the second door.

  “You can go in,” she said, stepping aside so I could pass. “You want anything to drink?”

  “I'm okay, thanks,” I told her.

  She smiled and returned to her post.

  A man was standing next to the desk in the small square office, his hands settled on his hips. He was just under six feet, with thinning brown hair and wire-rimmed eyeglasses. He wore a light blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, the fabric straining against the extra twenty pounds or so he was carrying around his mid-section. Tan khakis were belted tightly under his gut and burgundy loafers gleamed on his feet.

  He held out his hand. “I'm Henry.”

  “Noah Braddock,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Absolutely.” He nodded at the chair across the desk from his. “Have a seat.”

  The office wasn't much. His desk, the two chairs, several filing cabinets. The desktop housed a laptop computer, a phone, and multiple expandable files. Paintings with beach themes hung on the walls, the kind that were mass-produced and sold at discount furniture stores. The small wastebasket was overflowing with fast food bags and candy bar wrappers.

  “So,” Nixon said, leaning back in his chair and adjusting his glasses. “I assume you're here about the offer.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Are you representing the estate?” he asked.

  I hesitated, then nodded. It wasn't entirely untrue. “Yes. You obviously know then about Mr. Henderson's death?”

  Nixon nodded, frowning. “Yes. I read about it the newspaper and we sent flowers to the service. I left a message for Mrs. Henderson, though I didn't expect her to call me back.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Henderson?” I asked.

  “Not well enough to have her return a phone call after her husband's death,” he said. “We've met one time. When I presented them with an offer for their property.”

  “So you met Mitchell as well,” I said.

  He nodded. “Several times. I think I met him the first time I saw his motel. I stopped in to introduce myself.”

  “How did the property come to your
attention?”

  He pushed up the rolled up shirtsleeves so they sat closer to his elbows. “I was driving by, actually. Think I was going to get lunch? Don't completely recall. But I hadn't been down in that part of Pacific Beach for quite some time. I saw the motel. It's a bit of an...outlier, I'll call it. It stands out.” He shrugged. “So I went in and introduced myself. Told him who I was, what I do. Told him if he was ever in the market to sell his property, he should call me first.”

  I nodded. I didn't think that was all that unusual. The Southern California real estate market was competitive and moved fast. Homes cycled through bubbles and bursts, but the coastal region stayed fairly recession proof. Any land near the ocean was always going to be in demand and you couldn't wait around for a For Sale sign to go up if you wanted in.

  “We're a small outfit,” Nixon continued, waving his hand toward the door. “That's my niece, Carrie, who greeted you. She works here part time. I've got four other people who work for me and we work our tails off. I've been doing it since I got out of college. I've been lucky to work with some great people who have referred us to other great people. We've grown from me pretending to be a business out of a one-bedroom apartment to this.” He paused. “But it hasn't happened by being passive. I've had to be active, to look for what I want, and then to try and make it happen. Doesn't always work out that way, but for the most part, it has paid off.”

  “Totally fair,” I said. “Do you specialize in any particular area of development?”

  “We do a little bit of everything,” he said. “Some multi-family housing, some residential. I look for pieces of land that will hold and expand their value over time and then try to figure out what would work best there. Not just for me, but for the community the land sits in.”

  I didn't know very much about real estate and development, but that all sounded right to me. He wasn't trying to take over the world or push more McMansions onto the housing landscape. He was looking to make money, but in a responsible way.

  “So what would your plans be for The Blue Wave site?” I asked.

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, then exhaled. “That's a little hard to say. Building right on top of the beach is tricky. You have a labyrinth of regulations and zoning issues that you have to navigate.”