Too sudden for fear, bitterness, or regret.
The same surprise he had sprung on nine men in Afghanistan, utterly unaware of their pasts or futures.
He rises and uses his phone to shoot all twelve months of the calendar’s year.
Standing beside Daniela now, he looks down on the brightly lit drafting table, which holds not drawings at all, but a miniaturized model of Wildcoast, complete with tiny adobe homes, handsome beam-and-stone retail buildings, and a city hall promenade and parking lot shaded by solar panels framed by drought-tolerant cacti and succulents. Beyond are groves of oranges and avocados. The streets are pale gray; the green street signs look hand-painted.
Gale is struck by the craftsmanship, the construction of this thing. The patience that went into it.
“All built by Tarlow’s own hand, I assume,” says Mendez. “Think of all the hours. I’m surprised he did his drafting and model building at home. Isn’t that what a high-rise office is for? All that good natural light?”
From a heavy black notebook chained to the model table, Gale reads the introductory text, lets his eyes roam the model town. Notes the wood-and-glass civic center on Main, the dozens of cul-de-sacs in the rolling hills studded with adobe houses, the fashionable Craftsman homes, the pale blue community pools, the solar-tile roofing on the industrial buildings, the big greenbelts left to native plants and grasses and trees — all faithfully created by hand, Gale thinks.
I build bows and arrows by hand, Gale thinks. Baskets. Bennet Tarlow builds a miniature city by hand. And is getting ready to build the real thing...
There’s even a centerpiece lake in a very large public park, marked by a pin in its center, which the heavy notebook tells him will be filled with on-site natural groundwater.
“Okay, Lew,” says Mendez. “It’s time for the Thursday calendar reveal.”
“A haircut and a guy named Vern,” he says.
An almost pitying look brushes Mendez’s hard, trim face. “Nothing with one of his hotties?”
“Unless her name is Vern,” Gale says.
“Vern sounds like a guy who drives an old white Econoline,” says Mendez.
A beat of silence.
“Some things you don’t put on your calendar,” says Gale. “You’re looking so forward to it, you don’t need to write it down. You’ve done it before. You wouldn’t forget.”
Tarlow’s computer comes to life when Gale hits the space bar. He’s surprised that a developer of multibillion projects is lax enough to leave his home computer asleep and password unprotected.
He reads Bennet Tarlow’s latest emails; calls up his printer history — nothing catches his interest; then scrolls down through Tarlow’s Google favorites: National Weather Service; Los Angeles Times and New York Times; Amazon; United Bank Swiss; Wells Fargo; Orangecounty.gov; California.gov; his district’s house representative; both California senators.
He shuts down the computer and peripherals, then loads them into his white take-home Explorer, bound for the OCSD property room.
The blinds in Tarlow’s master bedroom are open, and Gale looks out at the orange trees and the empty birdbaths and seed feeders and the bright hummingbird stations without sugar water. A few hummingbirds cruise the empty feeders. Two doves and a towhee peck the ground for spillage; finches on the spent seed feeders look annoyed.
Bennet Tarlow and his birds, thinks Gale.
Here in the bedroom, there’s a musty, sheets-might-need-to-be-washed scent. The bed is unmade and appears to have hosted a fitful sleeper. Or two?
Gale dials Tarlow’s cell number again but gets the same silence.
The en suite bath, open through a wide barn door, exhales the light of pale green tile inside.
Gale turns on the lights.
The detectives stand in the cool room, just looking.
Gale notes the nightstands on either side of the king bed: a clock on one, lamps and books on both, no cell phone.
He really wants the damned cell phone.
But he’s pretty sure the killer took it, because the killer is in that phone. Somewhere in all those bits and bytes, he’s in there. And he knows it.
There’s a robe thrown over a leather armchair and Gale checks the two deep, empty pockets.
He takes pictures. Macro shots, just to give him the general shape of things he might need to know later.
Mendez, too, video.
The high but narrow cedar dresser is dusty. Gale wonders why a billionaire doesn’t have a cleaning service.
No pictures on the dresser. Gale opens the drawers, top to bottom: socks top, underpants next, T-shirts, then sweaters.
The built-in closets have the suits, dress shirts, trousers, jeans, neckties, belts, outerwear, boots, and shoes. It seems like a modest enough wardrobe for a rich and single young man who likes the ladies.
The bathroom suite has dark blue tile walls with tropical birds in reds and yellows and greens. A big shower with nozzles at both ends and a black bath towel slung over the sliding door.
There’s a dated oak countertop and twin sinks.
Mendez opens the four under-sink cabinets one at a time, says nothing.
Gale smells the familiar, high-pitched scent of Irish Spring soap and notes the bar in the dish. His dad used it when Gale was a boy, probably still does. Gale wonders why a billionaire doesn’t have upscale soap. Hell, he thinks: Maybe he just likes Irish Spring.
One neighbor saw Tarlow getting into his new Suburban the last morning of his life, around seven. She was walking her dog. No, she’d never seen an old white Econoline van in Tarlow’s driveway or on the street by his house. This is just horrible. Do you have the suspect yet?
Another neighbor says he’d only seen Tarlow a few times since moving here, six months ago. The morning they met, Tarlow was out in his front yard in an Adirondack chair, reading a real paper newspaper, not his phone. Last time? Couldn’t say. White Econoline? Nope.
A third neighbor would see Tarlow coming and going now and then, early mornings and evenings. Not on the evening in question. No white Econoline van. This neighbor had thrown a Fourth of July party two years ago and “the developer” had come and stayed just long enough to watch the fireworks show off Main Beach. Tarlow was with a pretty redhead in a white dress and a white floppy hat. Didn’t introduce us.
Norris strikes again?
Gale still can’t remember her last name, if he ever knew it to begin with.
Maybe in the emails, he hopes.
“Let’s get our loot to the lab,” says Mendez. “Then we can ransack Tarlow’s Newport Beach palace.”
13
Mendez is right about the Newport Beach palace.
It’s a two-story contemporary extravaganza of rock, steel, and glass, overlooking Corona del Mar State Beach. Nothing like the Laguna cottage, Gale notes. A wall of Italian cypress trees, trimmed flat on their tops, surround it on three sides. Gale has gotten the code from Bennet Tarlow’s father.
He parks in the porte cochere, leaving room for Mendez. Steps out of the vehicle and sees how different the grounds are here, compared with Tarlow’s Laguna cottage: cactus and succulents and decorative reeds, a rectangular pit of aqua-colored glass globes.
He waits for Mendez, who is still in her black Explorer, looking down at her phone, thumbs moving.
Inside, this home looks less lived-in than the cottage. Neat and minimal living room. Hard angles. Gray, black, and white. No clutter, few accent pieces or works of art. Sunlight floods in. It’s already warm in here, and Gale wonders idly what the air conditioner must cost to run in the summer.