And maybe they’d even hold onto this day.
“Sandy!” Lanny pointed. “Tide’s turning.”
She looked. He got that right. “Tide’s turning,” she echoed. She almost sang it out. She went around to the castle’s seafront side to check out Jake’s gargoyle and it was the finest gargoyle he’d ever done. Nothing was going to get past that gargoyle. Not sand crabs, not dogs on the loose, not marauding seagulls. The Sea Urchin castle would stand. Only the sea would be allowed to claim it.
She’d just turned to start carving windows in the towers when she saw them at the cliff top on the public stairway — Walter-Something and Cassie-Something.
CHAPTER 16
We did not know what to do.
Planted on the bluff top, we stared down at the astonishing scene.
Not astonishing, really, to see Lanny Keasling down there working on a sand castle. But gruff Captain Sandy Keasling? The mind boggled. And green-haired Captain Kayak, on his belly in the sand, arm thrust into what looked like a tunnel.
This morning out at Morro Rock Fred Stavis had mentioned a Keasling family get-together but Walter and I had envisioned something like a barbecue.
Well, we'd come in search of Lanny, and here he was.
Maybe he'd dug a hole in the sand and buried the red float.
Very funny. I had floats on the brain. Long day. This morning we'd left Morro Rock and gone by the cop house to update Tolliver and give him the yellow float and then we'd returned to our motel lab and worked the new evidence. The volcanic grains in the braided rope were basalt of the Franciscan Complex, just like the pebble from the holdfast caught in the Outcast anchor, which meant the yellow float might have originated at the same place — somewhere on one of those targets we'd identified on Cochrane Bank. The other grains of evidence from the rope — which indeed turned out to be coral — would, we dearly hoped, narrow the neighborhood.
Walter had said, irritably, “I know next to nothing about coral.”
We'd phoned Tolliver and asked if that marine scientist he'd located might be available.
And then we sat back and talked over what we had.
And we came to the conclusion that the red float — if indeed it was a float, a cousin to the yellow float — might very well have telling grains of evidence caught in its rope. Evidence that might narrow the neighborhood even further.
And that sent us hunting Lanny Keasling.
We got directions from Tolliver and headed out of town, along the highway, onto the windy drive that led to the simply astonishing house on the bluffs. We had swallowed our surprise, and knocked. When nobody answered we had nosed around and spotted the stairway down to the beach.
And now here we stood, gaping.
Walter said. “I believe we’ve been spotted.”
We had. Sandy Keasling’s head tipped back. She wore a ball cap whose bill shadowed her face but there was no doubt where she looked — directly up at us.
Walter waved.
Her hands went to her hips. She stood her ground, watching us descend the stairway.
Now Jake Keasling saw us. He pushed up from his belly and sat cross-legged. Arms folded. Head cocked.
The only welcoming Keasling was the man we’d come to see. Lanny waved both arms over his head like he was guiding a ship into its berth. When our feet hit the sand he was there to meet us and he shepherded us back to the castle, confiding, “We made this.”
“It’s magnificent,” Walter said.
I nodded. It was.
Lanny spread his arms, encompassing the lot of us. “This is Walter and this is Cassie and this is my sister Sandy and this is my brother Jake.”
I realized that Lanny did not know we had already learned they were siblings. Sandy was glaring at Lanny, as if he’d shared too much information. Jake was frankly frowning. It seemed he’d had enough of us day before yesterday taking samples at his beach.
“And I’m Lanny. You can call us all Lanny and Sandy and Jake, and we can call you Cassie and Walter.” Lanny hesitated. “Is that good?”
I gave Lanny a smile. “Certainly. It’s nice to meet the Keasling family all together. Lanny and Sandy and Jake.”
Walter said, “Yes indeed.”
“Yes indeed,” Lanny said, “we’re the Sea Urchins!”
“Lanny.” Sandy’s voice was low and threatening.
Lanny blinked. “But we are.”
“Sea Urchins?” I asked.
“A childhood affectation,” Jake said. “We’re the Keaslings. Salt water runs in our veins.” He uncrossed his legs, bent his knees, leaned back on his elbows, gazing up at Walter and me. “But enough about us. Let’s talk about you. I know you went to sea with my siblings because I saw you on their boat, but I don’t believe they know you’ve met me. Sister dear, brother mine, our visitors are geologists, doing some sleuthing for Doug Tolliver. In the matter of Robbie's disappearance.” Jake shot Sandy a glance. “Silly me, I guess you already know that. Seeing as how they were doing their thing on your boat.”
There was a silence. Lanny lost his smile. Jake found one. Sandy cast a look at the incoming tide. The water lapped up to the long trench in front of the sand castle.
“What do you want?” Sandy said. “We’re busy.”
“Not really,” Jake said. “We’re playing.”
Sandy gave a little jerk, as if she’d been slapped.
Lanny said, “It’s okay. We can finish after. We can talk to them. It’s sad about Robbie. We should help.”
I hoped Lanny would still feel helpful when we explained why we’d come.
I said, “Thanks Lanny. I have something to show you.” I took out my cell phone and displayed the closeup photo of the sulfur-yellow float from the shrine.
Lanny gaped.
I moved to hand the phone to him for a better look.
“I don’t want it,” he said.
Sandy seemed to go on alert. Watching Lanny, then turning to my cell phone. Jutting her head for a look.
Jake got to his feet and came over to see. “It’s a marker float,” he said. “Big wow.”
“What’s it got to do with us?” Sandy demanded.
Walter said, “We found it in a place… We believe it was put there by Robbie Donie.”
“Yeah? So?”
Walter and I had discussed this, the fact that to learn something we were going to have to explain something. He was leaving it to me, now, to explain my logic.
“On the Sea Spray,” I said, “that diver you rescued had a dive bag, and I believe it contained a similar float, only red, and…”
Lanny made a gasping sound.
Sandy abruptly snatched up a trowel and thrust it at Lanny. “Go dig.”
Lanny looked at the trowel. At me. Frozen.
There came a big wave and seawater flooded the trench.
“Goddamn it Lanny protect the castle.”
Lanny was rooted.
I said, “This will just take a minute.”
Sandy whirled on me. “Whatever you think you’re doing, leave Lanny out of it. He has nothing to do with your business.”
Walter stepped in. “He might.”
Sandy slapped the trowel into Lanny’s hand.
“This is getting good,” Jake said. “Anybody bring popcorn?”
Very slowly, Sandy turned to Jake. “Deal’s off, brother,” she said softly. She circled the castle, to the seaward side. She stepped over the trench and stood in front of a creature carved in sand.