The Thomas blaze of a few months ago, followed by mudslides churned by a worst-time rain, had been hellish for thousands of people, lives, livestock, the material accumulation of lifetimes demolished in vicious flashes. Months later, Nature had decided to reverse her curse, kissing the gently rising slopes and drawing forth greening and blooming. Still, it felt like a party hat at a funeral.
We drove half an hour beyond the Santa Barbara city limits and pulled over in Solvang, craving Danish pancakes at a touristy place that was always bustling. Hipster snobbery aside, there really is no difference between tourists and travelers and sometimes foot traffic is the ultimate vote.
The wait for a table was extended by holding out for a spot on the patio where Blanche was welcome. She’d enjoyed the drive from the cushy, leather perspective of the Seville’s backseat, serene and observant as ever.
While we feasted, she contented herself with a chlorophyll-laced treat that supposedly helps with dog breath. Plus the occasional “accidentally” fallen shred of hotcake.
The restaurant was situated in a too-cute shopping center that could’ve been designed by Hans Christian Andersen stoned on aquavit. Plenty of cellular interruption but Robin and I didn’t contribute; we’d agreed to switch off for the day.
I’d pretended to embrace the idea but wasn’t fooling Robin. As we got back in the car for a return trip, she grinned and said, “Go ahead.”
“With what?”
“Hey, Blanchie, he thinks he’s being subtle.”
Both of the females in my life grinned. I switched on my phone.
Nothing from Milo.
Good. Bad.
* * *
—
On the return trip we hit the inevitable jams on the 101 when underpowered cars confront the rising grade and start wheezing. Just past Ventura—the origin of the fire—Robin fell asleep and Blanche followed soon after.
I tuned the radio to KJazz. A blues show was on, some high-powered Chicago stuff that felt too upbeat this close to a disaster zone. But then on came Houston Boines’s “Crying in the Courthouse.” Boines had lived to ninety-nine but his wail sounded authentic.
This song, about losing everything, fit just fine.
When we got home, I looked at my phone.
Still nothing.
Crying in the police station.
* * *
—
He called at ten forty p.m.
“Been normal?” he said.
“Better.” I told him about the pancakes.
He growled. “Sadist. For two nights I’ve been eating crap while watching Denny Rapfogel’s house. Nothing happened the first night but on the second his car was gone so I tried Sliva Cardell’s place. No Denny, but another guy showed up, black Bentley convertible. Ran his plates, hotshot mortgage broker. He cruised through the gate just like Denny had, got the same welcome from La Sliva, this time in a filmy nightgown. Maybe even more groin calisthenics than with Denny. So much for true love making her a suspect. Wanna lay odds I keep watching her and other guys don’t show up?”
“Think she’s a pro?”
“Selling another type of real estate? Could be. Anyway, thought you’d want to know. Now I’m heading out for pancakes.”
CHAPTER
19
Monday at eight, just as I was gearing up for a run, my phone rang.
My most frequent caller. “Never got ’em.”
“What?”
“What do you think? Flapjackos con jarabe. The plan was to try this morning, that place near Rancho Park, but something just came up. I’m scanning the daily death list and one from last night caught my eye. Strathmore Drive in Westwood.”
“Amanda’s street.”
“Amanda’s address. DB’s a white male, forty-three years old, named Michael Lotz. No detectives were called so it wasn’t flagged as suspicious. But still. Waiting for a callback from the uniform sergeant who took charge. Figured I’d shortcut it with the coroner by going through our new buddy Lopatinski but she was out…one sec…okay, hold on, that’s her.”
I waited, stretching hamstrings and quads, followed by a couple of deep bends and some work on the hips and the heels. Blanche padded in and I bent again to pet her. She rubbed her head against my ankles. I sat down on the battered leather patient couch, Blanche jumped up beside me and curled close to my chest.
Several more minutes before Milo came back on. “Lotz was sent to the crypt tagged as an O.D. No signs of foul play, paraphernalia near the body. He’s currently stacked in one of those fridge closets they use, Dr. Basia went and had a look. Guy’s arms are a mess of old scars and newer punctures. If nothing iffy comes up, they’re not planning on an autopsy.”
“The same address as Amanda doesn’t qualify as iffy to them. But to you…”
“Maybe it’s nothing but I can’t ignore it. After I talk to Dobbs—the sergeant—I’m taking a look at the scene.”
* * *
—
Two hours and ten minutes later, a text: Going over there. Ten thirty work ok?
I sent him a See you there, got out of my running clothes, took a quick shower, gulped coffee, and left.
* * *
—
Strathmore Drive is a short hilly side street that diagonals toward the U. One end dies at the campus’s western rim; the other bottoms at the shaggy eucalyptus windbreak, manicured grass, and neatly arranged headstones of a vast veterans’ cemetery.
The block was lined with multiple dwellings ranging from apartment buildings dubiously maintained because they housed students so-why-bother? and newer, larger structures.
I arrived before Milo, found the address, and scored the last parking spot, directly across the street.
Amanda Burdette lived in the largest building, a four-story mass that stretched to the sidewalk without aid of landscaping and took up a sizable chunk of the block. The slope of the street created the illusion of a behemoth on the verge of toppling. The complex was gray stucco except where occasional balconies painted blue-black jutted like bruises. Subterranean parking made up the entire ground floor. Three mesh-gated driveways with call boxes, each topped by a CC camera and an equal number of pedestrian doors, unmonitored.
As I sat there, a woman in a sari exited one of the doors pushing a twin stroller. Moments later, an adolescent in a U. sweater, fixated on his phone, stumbled downhill toward the village. Next: a girl in short-shorts distracted by earbuds, wheeling a bike out of one of the pedestrian doors. Then the far door opened and an older, bearded man in a tweed jacket, cardinal-red pants, white socks, and sandals shuffled by.
Not much auto traffic until Milo’s unmarked sped up from the direction of the cemetery. He stopped at the Seville, held up an index finger, and pulled into the nearest of the three driveways. Punching a button on a call box led to metal mesh sliding open. He drove through.
I got out and jogged across the road but didn’t make it before the gate closed. Through the mesh I could see diminishing taillights.
From the far end: “Hold on, I’ll get you in.”
The gate reopened. Passing a No Walking on the Ramp sign, I did just that.
The unmarked was parked in a Reserved for Management slot. Milo stood at the car’s rear end next to a man in dark-blue work clothes.
“This is Mr. Bob Pena,” he said. “He’s the day manager and the guy who runs everything. We’ve already had a nice phone conversation and he’s supplied a photo of last night’s victim for us. Bob, Alex Delaware.”
Pena was slight, fiftyish, and droopy-eyed. The work set was starched and pressed, the pants cuffed and tumbling over polished bubble-toed shoes. The oval patch on his breast pocket was embroidered Robert P.
He said, “If I ran everything, this wouldn’t happen.”
I said, “The overdose last night.”
“Someone dying, it’s not a thing for us,” said Pena. To Milo: “Like I said, we don’t get that, here.”
Milo handed me a black-and-white photocopied license.
Michael Wayne Lotz had died three months after his forty-third birthday. Five-ten, one fifty-two, brown, brown. The photo showed a balding, dark-stubbled, blade-faced man with uncertain eyes.
Pena said, “I mean, once in a blue moon you get a student gets stupid, takes something, the ambulance drives ’em right across the street to the med center. It’s close, so they don’t die.”
I said, “Mr. Lotz wasn’t a student.”
“It’s crazy,” said Pena. “How could I know about him?”