“Hence the need to get away.”
“You guys grew up around here,” I said.
“Born and raised,” DJ said.
“They’ll have to take me out feetfirst,” Beau said.
The older man set down his glass with a clack. “Let’s go.”
I thought he was talking to himself. But DJ shotgunned his beer and followed the older man toward the exit. I noticed then the family resemblance.
“See ya, Beau,” DJ said.
“Take it easy, gents.”
They left, jangling the bell.
“Anyway,” Beau said to me, “I should get a move on, myself. I’ll leave you my number.”
He motioned to Jenelle. There was something patronizing about the gesture — as if she were a hired hand. She looked none too pleased, but she complied, setting out a napkin and giving him the pencil.
“You need anything,” Beau said, scribbling, “don’t hesitate.”
“Appreciate it.”
“You have yourself a delightful day. Jenelle.”
She nodded, and he went out.
I pocketed the napkin and started for the stairs.
She said, “Hungry?”
“Maybe later, thanks.”
“Kitchen closes at seven.”
“Okay. Can I ask you something? How’s Beau, as a tour guide?”
She dumped ice into the sink. “He’s the only show in town.”
I used the landline to leave Amy a voicemail, letting her know that I’d arrived safely.
“There’s no cell service,” I said, reciting the number taped to the phone. “I’m stepping out soon but I’ll try again later. Love you.”
I put my bag on the bed and unlocked it.
Clothes for four days. Laptop. My fieldwork camera, a Canon EOS. Ballistic vest.
Gun case with two firearms: my SIG Sauer P320 and a smaller model, the P365, that I prefer for concealed carry.
After a moment’s contemplation, I took the Canon and left the rest.
Downstairs Jenelle Counts was clattering around in the kitchen. I photographed the developer’s map, checking it against my list of addresses and plotting a route.
First stop: Swann’s Flat Resort Area and ML Corporate Solutions.
Monkeyflower Drive was way over on the northeast side of the peninsula, catercorner to the marina. Even so, at a total distance of less than five miles, it shouldn’t have taken me more than ten minutes to get there. It took twenty-five.
The map, it turned out, was a fantasy. At least half the lots and streets had been redrawn or renamed. Other streets were unfinished and died without warning. The missing amenities had been filled in with other lots and other streets, and the sadist who’d done the urban planning had an unhealthy fondness for claustrophobic cul-de-sacs. I had to keep switching my attention from the road to the camera. Once I almost drove into a culvert.
I was already feeling put out as I turned onto Monkeyflower Drive and began counting lot markers. Toward the end of the block, genuine anger began to curdle.
Number 134 — home to Swann’s Flat Resort Area, the entity responsible for trail grooming, that had accepted fifty thousand dollars from Marisol Santos Salvador and six thousand dollars from Elvira Dela Cruz and God knew how much else from God knew how many other people — was an empty lot.
Number 136, home to ML Corporate Solutions, was almost as empty. But not quite.
There was a mailbox.
In the middle of a field of waist-high grass.
Surrounded by a chain-link fence.
Padlocked.
I walked the length and breadth of both properties, shooting photos and video. This far inland, wind was less of a presence, and the dominant sound came from cicadas.
Ordinarily I would have canvassed the neighbors. There weren’t any.
While it felt a bit absurd to be documenting nothing and nobody, the absence was itself evidence. It’s a peculiar feature of our legal system that you have to hand someone a document in order to serve them.
There was no one here to accept papers.
What process server in his right mind would drive out here to begin with?
I hopped the fence at 136 and waded through the grass, swinging at gnats. The earth was pitted with gopher holes, and I went carefully, leery of stepping on a snake or tripping and injuring my bum knee.
The mailbox was a standard-issue size, made of galvanized steel and affixed to a wooden post. Peel-and-stick lettering read 136 MLCS. They hadn’t bothered to sink the post into the ground; it stood crookedly in a plastic bucket filled with cement.
I opened the box. Spiders.
Footsteps behind me.
I spun, reaching for the gun I’d left behind.
In the road stood a mule deer and two fawns.
I raised the camera to take a photo for Charlotte, but the animals bounded into the brush and vanished.
Next stop was Elvira Dela Cruz’s lot at 71 Sea Otter Lane.
It was a disaster. Worse than she’d described. The hole was more like a ravine, crumbling and filled with boulders.
I further made explicit to Ms. Dela Cruz that those images are meant to give a sense of the geology and biodiversity of the region as a whole, rather than referring to any plot in particular.
I couldn’t see the ocean. I couldn’t see a sunset or any jumping dolphins, either.
Abalone Court lay near the middle of the peninsula, and Marisol Santos Salvador’s lot at number 8 was wooded but flattish, with a partial view of the bluffs. Far better than Elvira’s. Marisol might never have realized her dream, but she hadn’t been a complete sucker.
I doubted Chris Villareal would find any comfort in that.
I spent the afternoon zigzagging to addresses associated with ML. At every one I found the same setup: mailbox on a post, chain link prohibiting access. The pattern of flagrant disregard gave me hope that I could build a case, and I recorded each location dutifully in images and words.
Occasionally I passed a house. Cupping my eyes to windows, I saw unlit rooms with scant or no furniture.
A car was parked outside 31 Quail Lane.
Acura MDX. Arizona plates.
I knocked.
The curtains stirred, and a woman peered out.
I smiled and waved.
She withdrew. Moments later, a man opened the door. The woman stood behind him, looking tense. They were both Asian, in their late twenties, dressed in outdoors gear.
“Yes?” the man said.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “I just got to town. Do you live here?”
“Airbnb,” the woman said.
“Any chance I can get contact info for the person you’re renting from? I need a place to stay.”
“I don’t have it on hand,” the man said.
“Would you mind checking the reservation?”
“Sorry,” the man said. “We have to go.”
He shut the door.
The sun was low as I headed toward my final stop. I felt ready to throw in the towel. I’d been up since four, was tired and hungry, and I wanted to speak to Amy before she got sucked into the chaos of evening routine.
Number 22 Black Sand Court, located in the peninsula’s heavily forested southeastern quadrant, had the distinction of being the one and only finished home for sale in Swann’s Flat. It was also unique in that the seller was an individual rather than a corporation. His name was Albert Bock, and I figured that he might be able to provide an insider’s perspective on what it was like to buy, build, live, and sell in Swann’s Flat.
I turned onto his block.
The place was a fortress.
To the extent that I could see it. Which wasn’t much. The sharp peak of a roofline rose behind a solid wooden fence, ten feet high and topped by two more feet of lattice densely woven with vines. Crowning that, rusty razor wire. And behind it all, even higher bamboo.