Those bushes grew and flourished and flowered no matter how much we neglected the garden. And when Chloe moved to Hollywood after high school to try her luck in showbiz, she rented a funky but charming duplex near Venice Beach. The first thing Dad and Jesse did after they moved her stuff in was plant a white and a red rosebush in the tiny side yard to remind her of Mom. Those roses grew like crazy as well, and everyone in her neighborhood came by for cuttings.
I would have to remember to call Chloe tonight to let her know about Jesse. There would be more tears.
I tried to lighten the conversation. “Remember when Jesse started that betting pool at the pub over whether I’d go home with my blind date or not?”
“Yeah, he bet you’d kick him in the . . . you know.”
“That did not end well,” I muttered.
“Maybe not for your date, but Jesse won the bet.”
True, I thought, but my blind date ended up dead. So much for lightening up the conversation.
Jane sighed. “Remember how he used to talk like a pirate?”
“Aye, matey,” I said, and we both smiled.
Jesse had always been a little rough around the edges and his speech could be a bit salty. Maybe because of all his years in the navy, he had perfected the pirate routine. He liked to put on a tough-guy act, but he had a heart of gold and was always looking out for me and Jane.
My dad once told me that the day Jesse graduated from high school, he ran away to join the navy. He’d grown up here on the coast, so he’d been surfing, swimming, sailing, and diving his whole life. The navy made good use of his abilities, assigning him first to the Underwater Demolition Teams that were beginning to operate in Southeast Asia, then transferring him to the newly established SEAL Team One in the early ’sixties. He was deployed to Vietnam, first to train their soldiers and later to conduct unconventional warfare in the rivers and deltas of the country. After Vietnam, Jesse moved to Coronado and became a SEAL team trainer until he retired and moved back to Lighthouse Cove to reconnect with his family. Three years later, Jane’s parents died and that was when Jesse stepped in to raise her himself.
Jane smiled. “I think that scuba weekend was one of the highlights of his life—not counting all his years in the navy.”
“I think so, too. If he wasn’t reminiscing about the good old navy days, he was talking about that trip. Those guys had a blast.”
Jesse and his two friends had scuba dived for three days straight and camped out on the Sandpiper Islands at night. He still talked blissfully about the fish they fried each night, how it tasted better than any fish he’d had since.
Jane’s expression fell. “I hate the thought of calling Bob and Ned.”
I grimaced. His two best navy buddies were going to be heartbroken when they heard the news.
“If you’d like, I can be with you when you make the calls.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll think about it.” She sat back in her chair. She looked exhausted and it was barely ten o’clock in the morning.
I was glad Jane hadn’t yet seen the worst of the destruction inside the house. It would only upset her more.
If all that damage had been caused by Jesse, I hoped he’d found what he was looking for. But if someone else had broken into his house looking for valuables, then I hoped the police would track them down to the ends of the earth. Because somehow something had gone terribly, tragically wrong.
I couldn’t think of anything of real value in the house, nothing worth tearing it apart. A crook might’ve taken the television set and the few electronics Jesse owned. But the television had still been there.
Whoever had broken into Jesse’s house wasn’t a conventional burglar. So who was it? And what were they looking for? If Jesse had died because of it, I called that murder.
*
While Jane met with Eric to answer some questions about Jesse, I waited on the porch with too much time to think. I had convinced Jane to spend the night at my house and had contacted Emily and Lizzie and Marigold to come for dinner. Jane wanted to be around people and I knew the girls would want to be with her. And I wanted a chance to talk about Jesse’s mysterious death.
After watching the coroner take Jesse away, I was overwhelmed with sadness again. I had more questions than answers and kept trying to recall if I’d seen Jesse at all over the last week or two. Was there really a hottie girlfriend? And if so, why had I never met her before? And when had Jesse stopped visiting Mrs. Higgins? It was his regular habit to walk across the street to kibbitz with her whenever she was in her garden, which was daily. They had been friends forever and enjoyed catching each other up on the latest gossip. They were a neighborhood staple. What had happened to change that?