“It’s hard to believe that the Tarlow Company could be divided on Wildcoast,” he says.
“There’s something at stake there that I don’t understand,” says Norris. “I tried to talk to Bennet about it, straight on. More than once. But I didn’t really know what questions to ask. I didn’t have a place to begin, other than his constant agitation, and the phone calls he wouldn’t let me hear. He deflected. Evaded.”
“Which of the Orange County supervisors are opposed to Wildcoast?”
“Kevin Elder, Seventh District, is concerned. That’s where Wildcoast would be.”
“Grant Hudson’s boss and idol,” says Mendez.
“Grant is insufferable,” says Norris. “Ben could hardly be in the same room with him. Kevin, on the other hand, is a decent man. Liberal and left, for an Orange County pol. Like Bennet. Environmentally aware, like Bennet. A single guy, enjoying it. Like Bennet. Tell him hello from me.”
“Do you know Vernon Jeffs?” asks Gale.
“Never heard that name,” says Norris Kennedy. “Your interesting person?”
“Big guy,” says Gale. “Bodybuilder. Tends bar, up in Huntington.”
“Doesn’t sound like Tarlow material,” she says.
Another silent bump, then:
“I do think Bennet was killed over something in his work,” says Norris. “We’re talking about billion-dollar rivers of money rolling through the Tarlow Company every year, for years to come. Billions of dollars and some very headstrong people.”
“Family?” asks Mendez.
“Certainly not,” says Norris, dismissively. “But someone close, outer circle. Someone with a lot at stake in Wildcoast, the many-billion-dollar city he wanted to build.”
“Like who?” asks Mendez.
“No, don’t be crude. I have no idea who. I hope you weren’t expecting any.”
“An investigation like this is never that easy,” Gale says.
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
“The opposite of crude.”
“Okay, but I can’t see the Tarlows opening up to you about their company or their golden boy.”
Gale, from the start, has seen this as a killing for money or revenge. Which might very easily involve a gun for hire. The gun being a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, easily concealed from Tarlow and fired point-blank, twice, into the back of his head. The barrel of which will have left unique tool marks on the bullets they’ve recovered. If they can find the gun, that is. Not likely, if the shooter is a pro, or even just reasonably careful.
Norris Kennedy casts a glance at the nearest diners, then leans forward and speaks softly, her West Texan accent drifting through the voices and the clinking of dishes.
“There are secrets, Mr. Gale.”
“Such as?” asks Mendez.
“Bennet’s stepmother, Camile, seduced him as a boy. He was seventeen. She groomed him. One time, one night. On an Amazon birdwatching trip she planned for them. It scarred him terribly.”
“In what ways?” asks Mendez.
“He grew up emotionally remote. Almost hidden. Sweet and doting, like the boy she destroyed. He surrounded himself with women not so much for love, or even company, but for protection. He couldn’t get close to us. He didn’t trust us because he didn’t trust her.”
Camile Tarlow, thinks Gale. From his boyhood he has only scattered and dim memories of her, a blond bombshell who had exploded and disappeared.
Once a fixture in the Southern California media, now reclusive, seldom photographed, never interviewed.
Norris glances at arriving customers, who are choosing a table adjacent.
She stands and asks them, “Would you mind sitting over there? We need privacy and it’s a better table anyhow.”
The dad is a young surfer still in his half-john wet suit and flip-flops. His wife is clad likewise, as are two children, a boy and a girl, twins by the look of them.
“Sure,” says the dad. “Cool.”
The mom stares at Norris.
“Thank you! You’re a prince,” Norris says, sitting back down. “Where was I?”
“Tarlow hid behind women but didn’t trust them,” says Gale.
“I didn’t feel hidden behind at first,” says Norris. “He was sweet and attentive and deferential. Eager to please. Always in touch when one of us was out of town. Thoughtful gifts. Wonderful travel, though I always paid my own way. We chased beautiful birds all over the world, all so Benny could photograph them. I’m sure you saw the pictures in his Laguna home. But... over time, we didn’t go further. He couldn’t. He was guilty about what he’d done. The more he tried to bury his guilt with abstinence and gifts, the more angry and depressed he became. We broke up a year ago. A mutual decision.”
Norris sets her napkin on her chair and heads into the café proper, restroom-bound is Gale’s guess.
Mendez shakes her head. “Maybe I believe this chick and maybe I don’t. What’s her motivation? Why wait until now? Hmmm. Why was she on Tarlow’s calendar the week before he died, if they’d broken up a year before?”
Norris is back five minutes later. Lipstick fresh and hair brushed. She sits down, works her sunglasses from her purse and puts them on.
“No, Detectives, Benny didn’t hide what happened, but it was pretty much the last thing we talked about before he moved on. He was emotionally and physically absent long before I learned that ugly truth. He said I was the first and only person he’d told. Said nobody else in the world knew, not even his father. I don’t necessarily believe that, but I choose to. Out of respect for his beautiful nature and his scars.”
“Why tell you the secret he couldn’t tell anyone else?” asks Mendez.
“He loved and trusted me.”
Norris Kennedy takes a sip of her bubbling water and nods. “And I’m telling it to you so you can more accurately understand your... victim.”
“What was their relationship after?” asks Gale. “Camile and stepson Bennet?”
“Ben said very little about her. Mostly casual references and factoids. ‘Camile’s great. Haven’t seen much of her lately. Dinner with Dad and maybe Cam on Saturday. She’s always a maybe. Sorry I can’t invite you but I’m protecting you, believe me. Maybe later.’ Now I sound like her! What he actually sounded like was a twelve-year-old boy. Before the fall. He told me she’d went MIA from his life, after that fall. Liked to travel with friends. Liked buying European art. Not clothes, though, because as a newly minted recluse, she almost never went out. She day-traded on her computer, up in her private suite. Made and lost fortunes. Then off to buy more art. Opened a gallery for it in Newport Beach, but never even went in except on Sundays and Mondays when it was closed. It’s still there.”
“Why were you on Bennet’s calendar the week before he died?” asks Mendez.
“You people are thorough,” says Norris. “The truth is, since we’d parted ways, I occasionally chased him down and forced my way into his life for an hour. Lunch here or coffee or a walk on the beach.”
Gale thinks of Tarlow’s calendared date with Patti DiMeo, right here in this café, the morning after he died.
“Do you know Patti DiMeo?” Gale asks.
“No. Should I?”
“She’s a real estate broker on Lido,” says Gale. “Bennet had a coffee date with her, set for the morning after he died. Right here, where we sit.”
Norris looks away from Gale, then quickly back.
“Pretty?”
“Yes,” says Mendez.
“Well, maybe she was to be his next woman to hide behind. I met others when I was with him, and others since we broke up. And, of course, there were more, down the years before we met.”
“I’m sorry to bring back unpleasant memories,” says Gale.
“It’s part of the job,” says Mendez.