I glanced at Oscar Flynn. He’d been watching Jake and his pantomime. Flynn was unreadable, behind his shades.
Jake edged up to the blond woman and spoke, and she nodded, and then Jake placed one hand over his heart and blew her a kiss with the other, and she smoothed her T-shirt and gave him a half-smile.
The sea lion groaned.
Flynn turned to the sick animal. Hush-a-bye don't you cry, go to sleep little baby. When you wake you shall have, all the pretty little horses.
I wondered how many lullabies the big man knew, whether he’d recalled them from childhood or learned them from a Mother Goose book. Some research project, perhaps, how to soothe distressed animals. Specifically, poisoned sea lions. He was, after all, a scholar, with a double PhD. And one of those degrees was in microbiology.
And beer-guzzling kayak-renting sand-castle-building flirtatious Jake Keasling? He didn’t need a degree in microbiology. All he needed was to listen to Oscar Flynn pontificate and he’d get quite the lesson in neurotoxicology.
CHAPTER 21
Detective Doug Tolliver’s silver Dodge Charger was frighteningly clean. There were no empty coffee cups in the cup holders. There were no sandy flip-flops on the floor. The windshield was unstreaked and the car body spotless — not easy to maintain in a beach town where salt spray left its mark.
We'd ridden with him once before but this time we came from the beach and he asked us to clean off the sand before getting into his car.
“One of the reasons I'm divorced,” he said. “Ever marry again, my best bet is another neatnik.”
We emptied our shoes and boarded, Walter in the back, me in the front.
“Either of you?” Tolliver asked, sliding behind the wheel. “Married?”
“I'm afraid that ship has sailed,” Walter said.
I shook my head. Not even a ship on the horizon.
Walter changed the subject and began to relate the events on the beach.
As we hit the highway, I gazed out my window.
Highway 1 wound inland from Morro Bay, heading southeast. Up ahead and off to the right I spotted a muscular cone of rock rising high above the surrounding low hills. I knew it from the geological map back in our motel lab. This was Hollister Peak, one of a chain of volcanic plugs that ran from the town of Morro Bay to the town of San Luis Obispo, our destination. The volcanic chain began, actually, well out to sea with an underwater seamount. And then came Morro Rock, with which we’d become well acquainted. This peak up ahead could be the Rock’s twin. I thought about the zone of fissures that once produced an eighteen-mile long line of active volcanoes raining molten rock and fire over this land. And beneath the sea.
“So,” Tolliver said, “Oscar Flynn reciting nursery rhymes. Huh.”
I turned from the reminders of ancient mayhem to face Tolliver. “All The Pretty Little Horses.”
He whistled. “You learn something new every day.”
“If you’re paying attention,” Walter said, from the back seat.
Tolliver’s eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror and then snapped back to the road. “Paying attention comes with the territory, in my job. Same with you two, huh?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Then I figure you noticed how Flynn interacted with Jake Keasling back there on the beach?”
I thought for a moment. “He didn’t.”
“Why do you ask?” Walter said. “Are they friends?”
Tolliver snorted. “I wouldn’t use ‘friend’ and ‘Oscar Flynn’ in the same sentence.”
“Then what are you getting at?”
“I’m just surprised to learn — speaking of learning something new every day — about Jake joining the rescue team. Didn’t expect that.”
I said, “We were surprised to see Jake and Oscar on the team.”
“Flynn’s one of those guys who volunteers. Won’t give you the time of day but damned if he doesn’t pitch in at any event involving animals. The rescue team. Fundraiser for the animal shelter. That kind of thing.”
“How long has he lived in Morro Bay?” Walter asked.
“He came to town about ten years ago. Bought that fancy place up in the hills. Keeps to himself — aside from the volunteer stuff.”
“Yeah,” I said, “he’s not real good with people.”
“So you’d think.”
After a moment Walter said, “I’m paying attention, Doug.”
Tolliver grinned.
I said, “Huh?”
Walter cleared his throat. “Detective Tolliver has a story to tell us about Oscar Flynn. He’s been leading the line of conversation, angling for our take on Flynn — before he will tell us what he has to tell us.”
Well I sure as shit hadn’t been paying enough attention. I said, “I’m listening.”
Tolliver turned his grin my way.
I said, “Does your Oscar story have something to do with Jake?”
“Wrong Keasling.”
I came alert. I heard Walter, in the back seat, shift forward.
“About five years ago Oscar Flynn saved Lanny Keasling’s life.”
If Tolliver had just tossed a half-eaten cheeseburger onto the spotless floor mat I could not have been more surprised.
“It was at the harbor. Lanny was in the water cleaning gunk off the Sea Spray propeller and he managed to hit his head on the hull. He blacked out. He would have drowned if Flynn hadn’t jumped in and saved him. Fully dressed.”
I said, “Wow.” I added, “So okay, Flynn isn’t inhuman, he did what just about anybody would have done in the situation.”
Walter said, “What was Flynn doing there?”
“Passing by.”
“Nobody else around?”
“A lot of people were there to witness it but they were up on the deck of the shopping area that overlooks the harbor. Too far away to get to Lanny in time.”
“Where was Sandy?”
“Visiting the ladies’ room at the cafe at the end of the dock.”
“So if Flynn hadn’t acted,” Walter said, “Lanny would have drowned.”
“That’s right.”
“Admirable. In fact, if you think about it, his valor in the case of Lanny is of a kind with his actions today on the beach with the sea lion.”
“Good point,” Tolliver said. “In fact, if you think about it, Flynn probably viewed Lanny the same way he views hurt animals.”
I nodded. Vulnerable. No threat to Oscar Flynn. Rather, something to be protected.
Walter said, “Still, valor is valor.”
“Still,” Tolliver said, “it surprises you, right?”
I said, “Doug, what are you getting at, with this story?”
“You think you know somebody. Maybe you don’t.”
I spoke, before Walter could bring it up. “Speaking of which, let me fill you in on what happened last night.”
Tolliver glanced at me.
I explained my kayak trip to the dunes.
Tolliver's face tightened.
“Nothing solid, I know, but I thought it warranted a mention.”
“I'll speak to Lanny and Fred.” Tolliver suddenly released the wheel with one hand and raked his pompadour. “You ever get jaded, doing what you do?” His free hand clamped back onto the wheel. “I live in a small town, a town without much serious crime, but I’ll tell you there are days when I see enough mean-spirited ugliness to ruin my lunch. Hell, just look at the feud between Robbie Donie and Jake Keasling. So here I am with the biggest case since I made detective, and I’m doing my job and looking at my fellow citizens with my goddamn jaded eyes and not liking what I’m seeing. And I wonder if I’m jaded or naïve. Some days I want to think everybody in Morro Bay was given a golden pass, living in this paradise by the ocean, and that deep down they’re all good people and whatever happened to Robbie and Joao Silva were accidents. And so I’m flipping back and forth between wearing my rainbow-colored glasses and following my cop radar. Yesterday on the Keasling beach I suspected that the little blonde girl who grew up to become a tugboat captain and then lost her license and grew bitter has grown into somebody capable of attempted murder. Couple days ago on Jake’s dock I suspected that the little blonde boy — he was blonde before he went green — who grew up to become a goof-off has grown into something much uglier, somebody capable of murdering a rival over a goddamn squid-fishing gig. And then I pick you up at the motel and you tell me about Flynn’s expertise with algae blooms and domoic acid, and I'm suspecting that the oddball who nevertheless saved Lanny Keasling’s life — which gives Flynn a pass into heaven, in my book — now I’m suspecting he had something to do with a poisoned diver who ate toxic anchovies. I’m suspecting that Oscar and Jake turning up together at a sea-lion rescue operation is some kind of conspiracy. And now you tell me about Fred and Lanny out at the dunes and I'm suspecting something hinky is going on with those two. I’m suspecting goddamn everybody I come across.” Tolliver scowled at a dirty pickup zipping by in the fast lane. “And I don’t like it.”