“Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet. It’s always good to make a man sweat, Jack. At least until you have something you want from him.”
Lana ignored the call and turned back to the sketch, pointing to the southeastern corner of the ranch by the water and the boundary with the land trust property. “The interesting bit is over here. Last year, Mr. Rhoads leased this little slice of land to Paul. Your boss.”
Jack looked closer. “Mom mentioned something about that to me.”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah . . . I guess it came up when she got burritos with Martin. She told me she might have figured out why Mr. Rhoads had that double kayak in his barn. I guess he leased Paul some land and Paul gave him a kayak in exchange. That’s all I know.”
Lana wanted to ask more, but she turned to the board instead. “Well. Here it is. Technically it’s leased to something called Fruitful LLC, but Paul’s name is on the lease. Do you have any idea what he might be doing there?”
Jack shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it. It’s not like we have a snack stand or keep boats up there. Does it go all the way to the water?”
Jack and Lana looked at the skinny wedge. Paul’s land was small, less than an acre, a tiny Pac-Man mouth opening toward the slough from the vastness of the ranch. Lana wondered for a moment if it could be the seed of the kind of big, bold project referenced in the handwritten note she’d found.
“Judging from satellite images, it’s a field,” Lana said. “Close to the bank, but not right up to it. Probably a lot of those standing pools that fill with salt water too.”
Jack’s eyes darted between the sketch, the map of the slough, and her notes. “I think I know that area. There’s kind of a valley. And a fence. You can’t see much of what’s up there.”
“It’s pretty close to the mud flats.”
“Do you think . . .” Jack wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask. “Do you think I should stop working for him?”
Lana looked at her granddaughter. She wasn’t chewing her pen or ripping tiny holes in her sweatshirt cuffs. She looked calm, steady. Like her mother. “Let’s not rush to any conclusions.” Lana gestured to the piles of paper from the land trust on the bed. “Let’s see what else we can find.”
Jack took the historical documents, and Lana tackled the contracts. She paused again on the letter of intent, carefully reading its brief paragraphs about a wetlands conservation easement. She thought she understood it, though she’d never dealt with a document exactly like it before. And clearly Martin, Diana, and Victor all had different opinions on what it meant. She took out her phone and shot a text to an old friend who would know definitively how to interpret it. But André didn’t get right back to her like he used to. After all this time away, maybe he’d forgotten about her.
At the two-hour mark, Jack got up and left. Lana wondered if the girl was done humoring her. Perhaps Jack had realized this was not a glorious game but an itchy, tiresome hunt through bales of bupkis. Then Jack returned with a Diet Coke for Lana and a big bowl of tortilla chips and salsa. Jack smiled and grabbed a fresh genealogical report from her stack.
It took half the chips and all of the salsa before they found something.
“Finally!” Lana said. She was waving a piece of paper in her hand.
“What is it?”
“An email from Ricardo Cruz to Hal Rhoads about the mystery project they were working on. From the week before he died. Before they both died. Listen to this.”
Dear Hal, The hawks are circling high today. The architect’s office just called. The first sketches for Verdadera Libertad are ready. The architects will mail a set to you, and I’ll bring mine when I come see you Friday. I won’t peek—I want you to have the first view of them. Until then, Ricardo.
Lana looked triumphantly at Jack. “See the date? Ricardo was visiting Mr. Rhoads on February third, the same day he was killed. You found Ricardo’s body two days later, that Sunday.”
“Okay . . .”
“It links them together. Not just in general. But the weekend they both died.”
Jack scanned the document. “This phrase, Verdadera Libertad. It means true liberty. Freedom.”
“I’m glad you’re learning something at high school.”
“No, I saw something about that . . .” Jack started digging through the pile of paper in front of her. “Here. I thought this was kind of nuts when I read it. There’s this history of the ranch from the perspective of one of the descendants of the original owners. I guess this would be Mr. Rhoads’s great-great-great-uncle or something. The name is a little different, but it’s the same ranch. There’s this part about when they were first building it in 1853,” she said, pointing with her finger.
The typewritten history had been xeroxed several times over, tilting the text to the right in a dark, grainy font.
One day as the men were working on the buildings, a band of Mexicans approached to drive them off the land they still considered their own. Mr. Roadhouse, upon seeing their approach in the distance, was known to say, “It looks as if we will have to fight. I wish we had an American flag!” Whereas his father-in-law replied, “I do have one and a big one! It’s in my trunk on the wagon.”
They quickly brought it out and nailed it to a pole, which they pushed through and above a large oak tree. The Mexicans, seeing the flag of the new government and evidently thinking it a US Army installation, changed their minds and went away. Thereafter that particular oak tree came to be known to the family as the “Liberty Tree.”
Lana looked up. “You think the project that Ricardo and Hal were working on has to do with this Liberty Tree?”
“Liberty Tree, True Liberty . . . I don’t know.” Jack shrugged. “Seems kinda weird given the history that they would name it that in Spanish. Maybe it’s just a coincidence?”
“Or a reference we don’t understand yet.”
Jack leaned back against the headboard. “American history is so messed up,” she said. “The white people straight up stole that ranch from Mexicans.”
“The Mexicans likely stole it from the Native people too.”
“Why does land have to belong to anybody?”
“Land is the most precious form of power on this planet. There’s only so much of it. When you buy it—”
“—or steal it—”
Lana nodded. “You stake a claim on its future. If you own the land, you can do what you want. You can plant trees, build skyscrapers, or plan a whole new city. You can shape the future you want for yourself and your family.”
“Sounds like just another way for some people to hoard power over others.”
Lana smiled, thinking of the gleaming white lacquer desk in her old West LA office. “Sometimes that’s true. But owning land isn’t always about power. It’s about rootedness. Stewardship. Like how Mr. Rhoads felt about his ranch. Or how the land trust people feel about the places they care for.”
Jack looked skeptical.
“Think about this place,” Lana continued. “How does it make you feel to know your mom owns this house?”
Jack thought for a moment. “It makes me feel safe. Like no matter what happens, I can come home.”
“Exactly. When you own something, it’s there for you. And in a way, it even owns a bit of you. From the first day you own a piece of property, it gets its hooks into you. You walk around and it whispers to you what it wants to be, who it wants you to be. You feel the need to take care of it, nurture it. I’ve seen it happen again and again with my clients.”
“I still think it isn’t fair.”
Lana snorted. “Real estate never is.”