Lana dialed the Central Coast Land Trust, where Ricardo had worked. A perky young woman answered the phone. She expressed a feathery desire to help and an iron unwillingness to do so. No, the director wasn’t available. No, she didn’t know when he would be back in the office. No, she couldn’t discuss the terrible thing that had happened to Ricardo. No, she couldn’t give Lana anyone else’s number. Yes, she could take a message . . . but by then Lana was so exasperated she just hung up.
The sheriff’s office was no better. The number on Detective Ramirez’s business card just rang and rang. The same was true for Nicoletti. Lana tried the main line and reached a clearinghouse of operators who passed her from extension to extension, each voice more doubtful she had useful information to offer. She ended up listening to a prerecorded, gruff-sounding man inviting her to leave a detailed message on the tip line, and if she was playing a prank to PLEASE HANG UP NOW before she did something she would regret because providing false information to police officers was a SERIOUS CRIME for which one could be SEVERELY PUNISHED. When the signal came, Lana politely asked the detectives in the Ricardo Cruz case to please call her back as soon as they could.
They didn’t.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, Lana caught a break.
Beth had to be the only person under seventy with a landline. Lana couldn’t understand it. Her daughter refused to pay to get her eyebrows waxed, but she’d drop fifty dollars a month for the privilege of a direct connection to every robocaller on the West Coast.
Lana shuffled to the kitchen and snatched up the receiver.
“Hello?” she said.
“Is Tiny there?” It was a man’s voice.
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s Paul, from the Kayak Shack.”
Lana felt a flicker of excitement. If anyone had the ability to clear Jack—or make things worse for her—it was her boss.
“Hello, Paul. As you may be aware, it’s ten thirty on a Wednesday morning, so . . .”
Nothing. His brain must be waterlogged.
“She’s in school,” Lana said, enunciating each word.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, who’s this?”
“I’m Jacqueline’s grandmother. Lana Rubicon. From Los Angeles. Are you calling about Ricardo Cruz?”
“What? No. I mean . . . can you just have Tiny call me?” He sounded stressed. Maybe the detectives had squeezed him too, about Jack, or his own involvement. Either way, Lana wanted to know more.
“Paul, you’re asking me to ask a fifteen-year-old girl to call you about a dead body she found wearing your life jacket while working for your kayak hut. I think I’m owed some assurance before I—”
“It’s not a hut.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not a kayak hut. It’s a kayak shack.”
Lana rolled her eyes at the decoupaged cupboards.
“Paul, I don’t care if it’s a kayak jetport. Why do you want to speak with my granddaughter?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it with a stranger over the phone.”
“Then let’s change that.” Lana lowered her voice, her words padding softly over the line. “Let’s have a drink.”
“At ten thirty in the morning?”
“I don’t accept same-day invitations.” There was silence on the line, and Lana caught a whiff of the familiar scent of a man aroused by his own confusion.
“But I can tell you feel some urgency, Paul.” Her voice held his name and stroked a lower part of his brain. “And I’d like to help. Let’s meet in a few hours. For lunch.”
“Uh . . . okay. I’ll meet you at the yacht club.” He paused. “How will I know what you look like?”
“You won’t have to guess.”
Lana didn’t have to see the man to know he was smiling.
“All righty then. Yacht club. One o’clock.”
“Twelve forty-five. Here, at the house. I assume you have the address. You’re picking me up. Until then, Paul.”
Lana fell into the couch, spent but satisfied, the way she used to feel after she landed a big client or crushed the competition at Pilates class. She jotted down a few questions for Paul about Jack, the murder, and how power flowed through Elkhorn Slough. Then she closed her eyes, just for a few minutes. Maybe she could swing this detective stuff after all.
Chapter Fourteen
Lana prepared for her lunch with Paul in the usual way. She pulled out a close-fitting skirt suit, one that made her look like a shark crossed with a kitten. She did her makeup with a subtle, smoky eye, smoothing out ten years without letting anyone think she was trying too hard. She fished out a jet-black wig she’d bought online and spritzed it with perfume. Then she downed her midday pills and grabbed her purse.
When Paul rounded the corner in his battered Mazda, Lana was sitting on the salt-bleached porch swing, back straight, legs crossed, black heels dangling just so.
Paul parked in front of the house. He sat in the car waiting, engine running, staring at her.
Lana didn’t move. She watched as he looked at the faded numbers on the mailbox, then up at her on the porch. She sat serene, a can of Diet Coke in her hand, perched between Beth’s succulent towers as if she were queen of the aloe plants.
Paul rolled down the passenger side window and leaned out to yell.
“Hello? Lana Rubicon?”
She took a sip of soda and ignored him.
She could see Paul weighing his options. His hands fluttered in agitation, pausing over the steering wheel, the horn, his phone. Then he sighed and did exactly what Lana expected of him.
He got out of the car.
He looked halfway decent for a man with an overgrown mullet. Paul was tall and lanky, with bronzed, freckled skin and shaggy blond-gray hair. Lana took in his unshaven scruff, hemp-twine necklace, and cargo pants with a pocket missing on the left side. Some women probably found the lost-puppy look adorable.
As soon as his feet touched the property line, Lana turned on the charm. She hit Paul with a megawatt smile and rose slowly in her four-inch heels. By the time he was up the step, her hand was reaching out to greet him.
“Paul. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She caught him in a handshake that spun him around 180 degrees, sending him back down the stairs with Lana lightly holding his forearm.
“Ms. Rubicon.”
“Call me Lana.” She dropped her voice into a husky register, leaning forward so he could catch a whiff of the perfume she’d applied to her collarbone.
Paul stood up straighter in his flip-flops.
Lana rode his arm down the path like a princess, her jacket crisp, high heels floating over the cracks in the pavement. They did a clumsy dance at the car, her waiting for him to open her door, him opening her door, her looking in the car, her looking at him, him looking in the car, him gathering up beer cans and fast food containers and finding a beach towel to toss over the stains on the seat. Once he’d unfurled the towel and tucked it under the headrest, she threw him another generous smile and lowered herself into the car. As he walked around the hood, Paul spat into his hand and ran it through his hair.
A brief thunderclap of heavy metal shook the car when Paul turned it on. He shut off the radio, and Lana rolled her window down to air out the stench of sweat socks dipped in pine sap. They traveled to the marina in silence, Lana looking out the salt-streaked windshield, Paul sneaking glances at her between stop signs.
“Is there something you’d like to ask me?” Lana said.
“You’re Jack’s grandmother?”
“That’s correct.”
“And she’s fifteen?”
Lana could almost see the wheels turning in his head. She used one manicured finger to smooth down the hem of her skirt where it rode up her thigh.
“Women in my family, Paul,” she said, brushing a speck of nothing off her sheer black stockings, “we have children early. It leaves time for more . . . fulfilling pursuits.”
They arrived at the marina before she had the chance to elaborate.