“Did you see anyone? Was anyone running away?”
“No, I didn’t see anyone.”
“What about a vehicle? Did you see any cars in the parking lot?”
“No, I’m sorry. It was dark. I went immediately to help Dennis. I didn’t see anyone.”
“As far as you can tell, has anything been disturbed or taken down here?”
“No, everything looks the same here. Like I said, I didn’t see or hear anything on this floor.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“We had some vandalism,” Gina admitted, “graffiti on the outside of the building, broken beer bottles . . . trash. Probably just local kids blowing off steam, but nothing like this.”
“What about security cameras?”
“Yes, Solange was in the process of installing them. The exterior ones should be working. I’ll show you the video.”
The video files turned out to be of only marginal help. They did record two men, dressed in jeans, work shoes, and baggy hooded sweatshirts, but showed only a shadow of their faces. One had a backpack. They approached the building from the parking lot, silhouetted by the lights mounted on the pole. The cameras were not angled properly near the doors, so they did not pick up the actual placement of the explosives or give any clues as to what type were used. And the men had either walked in or parked out of camera range.
Clearly disappointed the video didn’t provide better information, Officer Drummond said, “Could be anybody—they look like any construction worker you’d see around here.”
Still, he said he’d make sure it all got included in the report and put in the file.
He asked a few more questions and took Gina’s contact number and address. Said he’d be in touch tomorrow to give her a case number for their insurance.
Ugh. Insurance.
Filling out insurance claims ranked way down on her personal totem pole of priorities, after Dennis and Otter 1, but she’d do it. It was her job.
After the crime-scene techs did a sweep of the area, Gina obtained permission to remain at the center that night, as long as she limited her access to the lab and tank areas. Once she explained Otter 1’s schedule couldn’t be altered, they gave permission for the volunteers she had just trained to cover their shifts the next day, as long as they, too, remained on level two with her. Officer Drummond got their names, said they’d all have to be interviewed.
Gina was fine with being limited to this floor tonight. She had no desire to go upstairs. Plenty of time for her to deal with that tomorrow. She was no stranger to blood, but she’d never had to clean up a friend’s.
When the officer left, Gina called Solange to fill her in. The police had already contacted her, but she appreciated hearing from Gina. Said she’d be down in the morning and for Gina to get some rest. Police said they’d keep a car there overnight.
Next, Gina contacted Logan McKenna. Apologizing for calling so late, she explained the situation.
Something about the McKenna woman inspired confidence. Gina asked her to contact the other volunteers and get them to the center tomorrow. They could figure out a new schedule then. Logan said she could be there early. Gina would just have to wait until then to go to the hospital. Already 3:00 a.m. Only a few more hours.
Fires put out for now, her mind turned to Dennis. It was her fault. She brought him down here. He’d been one of the best Monterey Bay Aquarium volunteers at the Slough. He didn’t have any family to speak of, so he jumped at the chance to have an actual, full-time, paying job working with otters.
“Eeeeeee!”
In spite of herself, Gina smiled wearily.
Otter 1 was calling.
Nature had a way of pushing all human concerns aside.
13
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Solange disconnected the call and took a long pull on her cigarette, releasing the smoke slowly through deeply lined lips. This must be related.
A lifelong insomniac, she was awake when Gina called. She liked it up here in her father’s studio, sitting in the dark. She still thought of it as his, even though he gave it to her when he died.
Everything was hers. This house, all his art, and several pieces of property. She’d never paid attention to them. She let her accountant keep up with the taxes, make sure someone cleared the brush—whatever it was one did to maintain property. Between the still-successful sales of her own work; a small sum her late husband, Mustafa, left her; and the rest of her inheritance, she could afford to ignore those pieces of land. Until now.
The first letter came in January. When the letters kept coming, she hired an attorney. She thought the whole issue would be resolved by now, but it was already July.
She’d have to tell Gina soon. So many people had put in long hours and donated talent, time, and money to make the Southern Sea Otter Sanctuary a reality. If this violence was related, they deserved to be notified.
She looked toward the large picture windows that took up the wall facing the ocean, and her reflection stared back at her. Short, thinning white hair. Pieces pulled forward. Delicately arched eyebrows framed dark-grey eyes. Chic was a word often used to describe Solange.
She stood and walked to the windows. No more than five five in heels, which she never wore. During her student days, she most often tucked herself into sturdy men’s overalls and work boots. Sculpting was not a dainty art.
Then there was her Moroccan period. Lots of skirts, scarves, and color. The years with Mustafa were good ones. They worked. They loved. And then he got sick. She lost him just before news of her father’s death that same year. When she returned to California, she settled into her work. It cleared her mind. Fewer choices to make.
Suddenly needing oxygen, she pushed the center window open a little farther. Cold sea air moistened and refreshed her eyes. The sound of ocean waves drifted in. Both hands on the windowsill, she leaned out in order to breathe it all in. She loved this view. Organically extended from a granite outcrop at the top of a narrow canyon, her father built a home any modern architect would have loved.
Far below, the Pacific Ocean rippled away to the horizon to meet a navy sky. Shreds of clouds obscured the stars. Moonlight made abstract splotches of a jumble of rooftops collected at the bottom of the canyon. Just beyond the rooftops, a thick black line, broken now and then by clumps of coastal oak, cottonwood, and pine, separated the homes from the beach. A long ribbon of silver sand stretched south, dissolving into the dark. The north end of the beach, a couple of miles away, ended abruptly at the stark black cutout of Devil’s Claw. Blue-white scalloped lace edged the waves slipping up onto the shore.
She heard no otters but knew there was at least one nearby.
And there could be more. There was no reason why this area could not be restored. Now that the law had changed and sea otters were once again allowed to range freely, more and more of them would make it down this far.
After a few more minutes, Solange returned to the drafting table and pulled out the small drawer on the side. In it was the copy of the letter, and several more official items of correspondence regarding her property at Goldenrod and Pacific Coast Highway, otherwise known as lot 429.
She’d been dealing with this for months now, ever since the attorney Mr. Schofield had contacted her. Or his office had. She was sure the letters she’d received were boilerplate ones, full of capital letters and legalese—meant to intimidate. Still, the man was insistent. His client wasn’t giving up.
Well, neither was she.
His client. Someone named Scott, claiming to be her half brother.
They’d even sent her attorney a copy of the letter. Obviously fake.
But maybe he was tired of waiting and was upping the intimidation from simple vandalism to attacking employees at the center. Solange didn’t know if any of the recent attacks on the center were re
lated to the title dispute, but she couldn’t have people’s lives in danger.
She’d have to find a way to settle this once and for all but had no idea how. The thought that someone would stoop so low—not just destroying property, but putting people’s lives in danger. It was beyond her.
If it was just money, she’d give it to him gladly. Money had never meant that much to her.
But the Southern Sea Otter Sanctuary and Education Center wasn’t about making money. It was unique and vitally important to the restoration of not only this one marine mammal, but the whole Southern California coastline.
She couldn’t imagine losing it. Even if she had the money to buy another piece of property, there was no other coastal property as uniquely situated as this one. Even if they could find another land donor, there simply wasn’t another location as perfect as lot 429, and she didn’t know if she could raise the money to rebuild the center somewhere else.
From what her attorney had uncovered, this Scott wasn’t in the position to buy her out, even if he wanted to. So unfortunately, the bottom line was that her land was as essential to him as it was to her. He wanted to build a luxury residential development called Pacific Shores.
Pacific Shores. The thought of covering that beautiful area with more houses and asphalt when it could be used for the good of generations to come lit a fire someplace deep within her.
While on a personal level, she felt sorry for this young man, her supposed half brother, it wouldn’t stop her from fighting him—every step of the way.
Tomorrow, she’d rally the troops. Gina said the volunteers were coming in the morning. She’d talk to everyone then.
14
January 2015
The scenery hadn’t changed for miles.
In a move refined over many hours between job sites, Scott Dekker transferred his Starbucks cup to his left hand, kept his car on the road, and tried to find a good station with his right hand.
So far, it was all Toby Keith and Jesus saves. NPR came in, but some liberal was whining about suburban sprawl. Irritated, he turned it off. Obviously they hadn’t driven down the I-5 lately. Nothing but cows and trucks for miles. America had plenty of room.
Yes, most of the farmland in the San Joaquin Valley was covered in asphalt and concrete, but so what? He’d been instrumental in paving some of it himself.
Scott was that most hated of Californians, a land developer.
Another green sign with white lettering zipped past. Bakersfield. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this far south. Most of his business kept him in the Central Valley. Or used to, when he had business. According to his GPS, Jasper, California, was 162 miles away. Two and a half hours.
He turned his mind to the time he came down here with his mom. She’d surprised him with a trip to Disneyland for his seventh birthday. His favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean—floating in on the boat was like entering another universe. So much going on all around him—they went on it three times so they could take it all in. And the fireflies!
Yep, Disneyland was the real thing.
Nothing before or since ever lived up quite so fully to his expectations. Eating corn dogs, nachos, and ice cream. His mom even went on the Matterhorn with him.
He smiled at the memory of his mother, the prim and proper Janet Dekker, blond hair flying out behind her, laughing and shrieking as they hurtled down and around one steep loop after another. He wondered if the Disneyland trip ever surfaced through the fog that clouded her mind the last few years of her life. Alzheimer’s probably robbed her even of that.
The next day, she drove them through a narrow canyon to a small beach town to “wiggle our toes in the ocean.” Without even waiting to check in to their motel first, they had done just that. Digging in the glove compartment, they found enough quarters for the parking meter, left the Datsun pulled into a narrow space facing the ocean, then went to play in the waves. They even had time to walk down to the tide pools at the end of the beach at the foot of a giant rock. He found two sea stars and a baby octopus.
The plan had been to go back again in the morning at low tide—around nine—but the phone rang at seven, and after she talked with whoever was on the other end, his mom said they needed to go. He didn’t understand why they had to leave early or why she was so quiet on the ride home. But for once, he didn’t pester her with questions. Somehow, he knew better than to ask.
If he had asked, he would have learned that his biological father had just rejected him, and his mother…again.
Other than a short vacation to Maui he’d taken with his girlfriend, Scott hadn’t left the area since. For college, he commuted to San Jose State. His mom’s tiny stucco house in Gilroy was only thirty-five minutes away, without traffic.
Mom was fine back then. It wasn’t until after he started working that she began forgetting things. Seven years ago, after several frantic phone calls and late-night emergencies, he started looking into long-term care. The last call he got was from the police. Forgetting something on the stove, his mom then started walking down the street in her nightgown. At some point, she walked into a neighbor’s home, thinking it was her own, and became belligerent when they tried to get her to leave.
Facilities that would accept Alzheimer’s patients were almost nonexistent, and very expensive. In his prerecession heydays, he could handle the cost and was happy to, after all she’d done for him.
At first, he didn’t even notice the extra expense. But when $5,780 a month turned into $9,300 on the Serenity Village bill and the bottom fell out of the market, he wasn’t sure how he was going to keep her there. State-run places were out of the question. He’d seen them. And smelled them.
The last five years had been a nightmare. What didn’t get wiped out in the crash, he’d used to pay back investors as fairly as possible, before declaring bankruptcy. His partners, older and wiser in the ways of cutthroat capitalism, told him he was a fool. They had long since bailed, leaving him holding the bag. Jodi, the girlfriend he’d taken to Maui, walked out as soon as the money dried up.
Then, last Christmas, his mom died.
A Japanese investor snapped up the Gilroy house, sight unseen. The proceeds were just enough to cover the remainder of the bill at Serenity Village.
Almost rear-ending the BMW in front of him, Scott pulled his attention back to the present and refocused on the road. He spent the next three hours fighting his way through Los Angeles traffic. Around 7:30 p.m., he pulled off at a freeway motel. The rooms were almost as depressing as the exterior. If all went well, this was the last time he’d have to stay in a dump like this.
There was a Denny’s across the street, but he was too tired to go back out. Polishing off the last of the bag of corn nuts he bought at the gas station, he turned on the TV. He flipped channels for a while but turned it off and stretched out on the bed.
Scott’s mind drifted back to the day he went to clear out his mom’s house. The day he made the big discovery. He still couldn’t believe it. One piece of paper. And it had been there for all those years.
For the seven years his mom was in the home, his property-management people took care of her house for him. Made sure the lawn was mowed, hedges trimmed, and the lights were on a schedule to make it look lived in. False hope or laziness, he wasn’t sure which, prevented him from putting it on the market while she was alive.
The night before he had to go through his childhood home, he got good and drunk. He wasn’t exactly in great shape that morning. He’d handled huge land deals, managed millions, but this one task overwhelmed him.
To make it easier, he’d given himself a schedule. Trash dumpster in position outside, he’d hired some day laborers to haul everything out. They’d been instructed to show up at 1:00 p.m.
He brought boxes, although he really didn’t have room to keep very much, even if he wanted to. The living room was easy.
He wasn’t into knickknacks, books, or artificial plants. He left all those.
There was a photo wall. His mom had every picture of him since kindergarten up there. Old-school, she displayed her maternal pride on an actual wall, not a virtual one. She was in the home before Facebook became a thing.
He looked at the framed pictures. A baseball game he’d won. Christmas. The first fish he ever caught. A friend’s dad had taken him along on a camping trip. He’d been so proud of that fish, a twelve-inch rainbow trout. His mom cleaned and cooked it right then, even though it must have been nine or ten o’clock when he burst in the front door with his prize.
Two rooms later, he hadn’t even filled up a third of one box. About noon, he was down to his mom’s old, beat-up desk in the corner of her bedroom.
He’d have lunch after this.
Wanting to get through everything as quickly as possible, he opened the solitary file drawer and skimmed the still-brightly-colored labels neatly topping each hanging folder. Mortgage. Utilities. Medical. Taxes. Receipts. Warranties. Manuals. Who kept warranties and manuals? He always threw those out. A quick check of each file yielded old bills, receipts. Nothing he needed to keep.
The last folder was simply labeled “R.”
R?
It contained one item, a handwritten letter, addressed to his mother. He read it several times to make sure. Then he just sat there.
He couldn’t believe it.
The letter gave him two things: a father and hope for the future. Through guilt or love, a man named Robert not only claimed Scott as his son, but left him a three-mile stretch of pristine oceanfront property in Jasper, California.
Tomorrow, he would see it for the first time.
15
February 2015
In the last four weeks, Scott hadn’t gotten more than five hours of sleep a night, but he’d never felt better. Finally, things were going his way.
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