“My daughter works at his Kayak Shack,” Beth said. “As a tour guide. She saw one of his kayaks in the barn at your father’s wake.”
“You don’t seem old enough to have a daughter who is employed.”
“She’s fifteen. Mature for her age.” Beth started picking at the empty foil wrapper in front of her, rolling it into a ball. “What’s your impression of Paul?”
“He seems like the kind of guy who always has a hustle going.”
“What’s he doing on the land he leases from you?”
“He says he’s growing strawberries.” It was clear from Martin’s tone that he didn’t entirely believe this.
Neither did Beth. The Paul Hanley she knew definitely wasn’t a berry farmer. “I’m surprised to hear he has another business besides the Kayak Shack. It must be quite the juggling act, especially now, with everything going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“The slough . . . it was shut down by the sheriffs last week. Two tourists on a kayak tour found a dead body. My daughter, Jack, was the one guiding them.”
“What? That’s terrible!” Concern flooded Martin’s eyes. “My sister mentioned someone had died nearby, but I had no idea . . .”
“It was the Sunday before last. Just nine days ago.” Beth suddenly realized Ricardo Cruz had been found the day before Mr. Rhoads passed away. No wonder Martin hadn’t gotten the full story.
“What happened?”
“The body of a young man was found up by the mud flats on one of Jack’s kayak tours. She thought he was a guest who’d fallen in. But when she rolled him over . . .” Beth squeezed the tinfoil ball tight in her hand.
“Heart attack?”
“That’s what I thought too. But no. Worse. They say he was murdered. And Paul Hanley might be a suspect.”
“Whoa.”
Beth looked down. She hadn’t meant to turn the conversation toward gruesome gossip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re here to talk about your father. Not this.”
“It’s okay. Dad would have wanted to know about everything going on around the ranch. I guess I should too.”
It took Beth a minute to understand what he meant. “The ranch is yours now, isn’t it?”
“And my sister’s.”
“Are you planning to keep it?”
“I don’t think so. Di has her life in Carmel, and mine is up in the city. Dad’s memories I want. His land, not so much.” He took a swig of beer. “And it wouldn’t hurt for my start-up to have a fresh source of capital without investor strings attached. I’ve actually already heard from a potential buyer. I just have to get on the same page with Di about it. And Victor Morales.”
“The land trust director?”
“He’s been calling the house, claiming Dad intended to donate the development rights to the land trust.”
“It is a beautiful place,” Beth said.
“True. One I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from.”
Beth tried to imagine Martin in a cowboy hat and a worn pair of chaps, his smooth skin growing leathery grooves like his father’s. It was a stretch.
“Well,” she said, “if Victor Morales is up to something, my mother will probably sniff it out.”
“Your mother?”
“She met Victor at your father’s wake and strong-armed him into giving her a tour tomorrow.”
“Is she a . . . conservationist?”
“Not exactly.” Beth considered whether there was any sensible way to explain what Lana was doing. But there wasn’t. So she just stuck with the truth.
“When my daughter found the dead man, the sheriffs started pressuring her about it. Treating her like a suspect. That prompted my mother to decide to swoop in and solve the case.”
“So your mother’s a detective.”
“Well . . .” Beth glanced over at the makeshift bar in the corner. “You want another beer?”
Over sweaty Modelos and hot churros, Beth told Martin all about her glamorous mother. Her real estate career. The collapse. The rushed occupation of Beth’s back bedroom. And Lana’s insistence on driving her completely up the wall.
“She can’t accept that she isn’t the center of the universe anymore, sending up skyscrapers with the flick of her pen. She can’t pay a demolition crew to pummel her cancer into submission, so she’s put all that energy into bulldozing my life instead. Roping my daughter into her fantasies. And figuring out who killed the dead man in the slough.”
“And she’s doing it because . . . ?”
Beth rolled her eyes. “She wants to help, supposedly. To feel important, more likely.”
“Sounds like it’s bringing her closer to your daughter.”
Beth considered, for a moment, what Lana might not be telling her about her motivations. But she knew her mother. It was all about the hunt, all about herself.
“The sheriffs have gotten interested in Paul Hanley as a suspect. But she’s hot on the trail of that land trust director.”
“Why?”
“The man who died was working for him as a naturalist.”
“Victor Morales.” Martin repeated the name slowly, rolling it around in his mouth like a slug. “I don’t trust him. Sweet-talking old people into giving away their land.”
“He tried that with your father?”
“A couple months ago, Victor showed me and my sister a document Dad signed about possibly donating our development rights to the land trust. But it’s meaningless. It isn’t binding. Dad never even mentioned it to us. He probably signed it just to get Victor off his back.”
“He’d do that?” Beth always thought of Hal Rhoads as the kind of man who lived and died by his word.
“Dad was a pretty wily businessman when he wanted to be. He said sometimes you gotta get close to your enemy to get rid of him.” Martin smiled. “I saw him catch a rattler once. He scooped it up and slammed its head in the dirt in one continuous motion, all before I even got a good look at it. Three months later, he had a new hatband. Dad knew how to handle a snake.”
“I’ll tell my mom to avoid getting bit.” Beth smiled back at him. “You know, she’ll probably grill me about any juicy clues you might have to offer.”
“I did see an otter signaling suspiciously at a harbor seal yesterday.” He raised the stub of his churro into the air. “To maddening parents!”
Beth lifted her last bite in his direction. “Amen to that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Late at night, the bungalow’s kitchen bore an unfortunate resemblance to an interrogation room. Beth had never registered the similarity until she walked in and found her mother at the table in her bathrobe, back straight, dark shadows under her eyes accentuated by the glow of the single light bulb. Lana had removed Beth’s homemade lampshade two weeks earlier, when it dumped a palm frond in one of her protein shakes.
“How was your date?” Lana asked. She had Beth’s glue gun in one hand, twirling it around her finger. Beth hoped it wasn’t plugged in.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Fine. How was it?” Lana was sipping something, jet fuel probably, and speaking in a familiar clipped tone.
“Good.”
“How good?”
“About as good as you can expect when you’re having burritos with a guy whose father just died.” Beth stared at her mother. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
Jack stood up from the couch. “Prima, tell her.”
Lana put the glue gun on the table. She ran a hand through her patchy, close-cropped hair. “I’m concerned Martin might be involved in the murder. Murders.”
“Really.” Beth felt her frustration building. “You’re concerned that a man whose father just died, who wasn’t even in town when Ricardo died, may have killed them both?”
“Did he know Ricardo?”
“I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter. He was in San Francisco the Friday Ricardo died. He didn’t get here until Saturday. He’d barely even heard about it. It was awkward to bring it up, and I didn’t want to get too weird. But I did it. For you.”
“Where exactly was he?”
“Where was he when?”
“That Friday.”
Beth stared at her mother. “He was at a nanotech pitch event. For investors. His start-up builds robots that assemble circuit boards. Microscopic ones.” She frowned. “I think I have that right.”