If true, does Bennet II know?
If not?
Floating upon this dark current, Gale now recalls more hearsay from the Grove bartender John Velasquez.
“...the basic plot is, Tarlow III loved the homes he built and doesn’t cut corners. But his father prefers the office towers and warehouses — the monsters, the ‘fulfillment centers’ — out in the Inland Empire. Most of which — again, rumors — Bennet Tarlow II lowballs on cost and highballs on rents. The Tarlow Company owns those towers and commercial centers outright. But the homes that III loved to build, Tarlow Company does not own. They get sold, right? Home ownership. American dream... These are rumors a bartender picks up, but from what I overhear in my bar, they’re right on...”
“We’re aware of the controversy within the Tarlow Company regarding Wildcoast,” says Gale. “We know that enormous sums of money are involved and that your son’s death may have a huge impact on Wildcoast and the Tarlow Company itself. We wonder how the powers within the company are reacting to Bennet’s death.”
“Killed him?” asks Camile. “My god.”
“Maybe indirectly,” says Gale. “Set the stage for his demise. Or did nothing to prevent it.”
“Tarlow Company is family,” says Tarlow II. “Ben was my son. You’re fools to be accusing us of something so preposterous.”
“No accusation at all, sir,” says Gale. “But the Tarlow Company is not all family. What’s preposterous about infighting in a powerful company? The egos. The competition. Are you denying such things exist in the Tarlow Company, in regard to Wildcoast?”
Camile swings one long leg over the other, leaning back in her chair. “We build homes for wealthy people. Good, sturdy, beautiful homes. We do commercial, industrial, and resorts, too. We build fulfillment and data centers.”
“And we saw from the beginning, twenty-five years ago, that Wildcoast was risky,” says Tarlow II. “My son was eighteen years old when he first dreamed it up. A boy’s fantasy.”
Again the bartender’s words come to Gale.
“Grove gossip casts you, sir, as a high-profit, bottom-line commercial and industrial builder,” says Gale. “The gossip is that you were contemptuous of your son, an American dreamer taking out huge construction loans, then selling Tarlow Company land and homes to pay them back.”
“Mostly true,” says Tarlow. “But ‘contemptuous’ is wrong. I loved my son. I love him now. I love so many things about him. Things that transcend me and Camile. His soul. His mind. His energy. But his naivete was contemptuous to me. His misplaced idealism.”
Tarlow stands. “Let me be clear. Wildcoast was doomed from the start, and still is. The Tarlow Company doesn’t build cities. It cannot be done profitably. Working with government is not in our DNA. Becoming government will never be. Bennet Tarlow III for mayor. That was Ben’s dream, not mine. Not the Tarlow Company’s.”
Tarlow II’s eyes bore ferociously into Daniela.
Then into Gale. Ferocious grief, he sees.
“Sit down, you little bean counter,” says the patriarch.
With this, Bennet Evans Tarlow suddenly reverses in his wheelchair and, hair bobbing, carves a semicircle around the big stone table and pulls up close beside his seated son.
“Tell them about Hal,” he says. “And Rich.”
“Rich has been dead for almost twenty years, Dad.”
“Of course he has.”
“And don’t forget Tony Naster,” says Jean, her voice high-pitched and frail in the breeze.
She cranks backward and steers around the table to flank her son.
“Right, Mom,” he says.
Tarlow II gives Gale a flat stare. “Hal Teller is a managing partner. Sees the big picture and runs the show accordingly. A mentor to me and my boy. However, Hal has been a not-so-subtle enemy of Ben’s Wildcoast from the very start. Ben wanted him fired but I wouldn’t. It didn’t quite get ugly, but almost.”
Daniela gives Gale a look, then Tarlow II. “Will you arrange a meeting?”
“Of course. I’m always happy to help law enforcement waste its time.”
“Very gracious of you,” says Mendez. “So who’s Rich?”
“Simpson,” says Camile. “Resorts Division, long gone.”
“I knew him some years ago,” says Jean. “It’s more important you know how I miss my grandson. I loved him.”
Tarlow the patriarch nods, staring at his wife of seventy-plus years.
Gale notes the lovely smile blooming on Jean’s pure white face.
“Camile, what do you think of Norris Kennedy?” Mendez asks.
“I don’t think of her at all. I was pleased when Ben put her in her place.”
“Apparently she loved him,” says Gale.
“She’s a climber is all.”
“He put her in his will,” says Mendez.
“Foolish.”
“Did he write in any other friends, partners, lovers?”
“As far as I know he was foolish just that once,” says Tarlow II.
“Camile?” asks Mendez. “Did something happen between you and Ben to make you hate him?”
“Not that I can conceive. Such as?”
“Enough of this nonsense,” says Tarlow II.
“Wait,” says Mendez, “did something happen between you and Ben that would make your husband hate him?”
“I loved that boy,” Camile says. “So did his father.”
“There’s not enough love in the world,” says Jean.
“Better than too much,” says the patriarch, smiling at Camile. His face and teeth are white. “It can retard your progress.”
“What do you say to that?” Mendez asks Tarlow II.
“To what?”
“Did something happen between your wife and son that could turn you against Ben? Maybe against them both?”
“I see we’re dealing with ignorance here,” says Camile.
Tarlow II, lips tight and face flushed, again stands. “Off the property,” he says.
Camile pulls herself up by his coat sleeve.
Gale notes for the first time that she’s taller than her husband.
“No sherbet?” asks Jean.
Tarlow II raises his hand toward the house. Davis and another man in black emerge from a shaded doorway.
Camile’s face is a mask of offense taken, but her tone of voice is smooth and firm in the breeze.
“Detective Mendez, what did you do to make your son, Jesse, hate you?” she asks.
The silence is heavy.
“My turn to say preposterous,” says Mendez. “How do you know of Jesse?”
Her hard face is flushed, and Gale catches the spite in her voice.
“I have sources, Detective,” says Camile. “Quite good ones. In your department. Who led me to the Orange County Diocese. Which pointed me to the Los Angeles Diocese and Church of the Holy Martyr in Azusa. You are not as unknown as you think you are. You are a small island and I am the sea that you hear, way down there. I control everything.”
“You have no facts and you have no power,” says Mendez. “My son is off-limits to you. Stay away from him. I’m protective when it comes to Jesse.”
“You know how it feels to have a son,” Camile says. “And it’s good to know we can communicate, woman to woman. Mother to mother. I feel that I’m coming to know you very well.”
Mendez gives Camile a drop-dead stare, but says nothing.
“You are remembered fondly at the Church of the Holy Martyr in Azusa,” says Camile.
“Good people,” says Mendez with a rigid smile and, if Gale is reading her right, her stomach in a knot. “It’s been decades.”
“Two, actually,” says Camile.
“The soldiers have arrived,” says Tarlow the original.