He fingers out and unfolds the scrap. Roughly the shape of Virginia, he sees — a flat bottom with a torn, hilly top. Heavy white stock that’s been quickly or sloppily torn out.
The numbers are written in a neat, forward-slanting, draftsman-like hand that reminds Gale of his own, and of his father’s. Ten digits, spaced and hyphenated like phone numbers.
He holds it out for Mendez to see.
She looks up from the messily repacked glove compartment.
A beat of silence between them, both detectives trying to figure this.
Gale names the number Tarlow Suburban in his contacts, then dials.
His call goes to voicemaiclass="underline"
“Hi, it’s Patti. Leave a message and a callback number please.”
To Gale, Patti sounds assured and pleasant. Professional. Thirtysomething? Hard to tell age from voice.
He leaves his name and work number, which will lead Patti to his own voicemail greeting, which is brief and makes no mention of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
He calls Glen Osaka in the crime lab to see if they found a personal calendar/planner in his leather briefcase from the Suburban. No dice, says the Cybercrimes technician.
“And no phone, I take it.”
“No, Detective, no magic bullet like that.”
“CSIs will be bringing you a camera we found here at the kill site,” says Gale.
“How’d we miss it the first time through?”
“Wrong site. Either the cat or the killer moved him. I want to know what’s on it.”
“I’ll hustle it through.”
Gale rings off and hears the low buzz of Mendez’s phone. She opens her door and turns her back to him.
“You know you’re not supposed to—”
Gale catches a few words: “I’m not coming home... tonight... maybe... don’t worry, Mom.”
Then silence as the call ends.
Mendez slams the door shut, turning to Gale. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Jesse. Everything’s fine. His girlfriend leads him around sometimes.”
“Eighteen, I think you said?”
She nods. Stares at her phone like it will get Jesse back on.
“Senior at Tustin High,” she says. “All work experience this semester, with only two classes — auto shop and gaming. Twenty hours a week at Bowl Me Over in Santa Ana. Started out bussing dishes two years ago and he’s up to assistant manager now. Of the kitchen, not the whole alley. Inward and quiet, but basically a good kid. No, a great kid. Never knew his late father but don’t get me started on him. Tell me to shut up, Lew.”
“Shut up, Daniela.”
A look in her hard eyes, half a smile.
Now Lew Gale’s phone throbs, and Tarlow Suburban appears above the number.
“Hello, Patti,” he says.
“How can I help you?”
“My partner and I are investigating the murder of Bennet Tarlow. He had your number in his SUV and that’s where I’m calling from. Can you talk?”
“Are you a private detective or law enforcement?”
“Orange County Sheriff’s deputy.”
She pauses. “I’d rather not talk by phone. I can meet you in half an hour.”
She gives Gale her office address on Coast Highway in Newport Beach and hangs up.
8
Patti DiMeo is a Realtor with Lido Estates in Newport Beach. Her office is in Lido Marina Village, part of a row of quaint shops looking out on Newport Bay. Good views of the yachts at anchor and those moving slowly along Lido Channel. Some of the vessels look huge. The midafternoon sunlight seems to part for them.
Gale looks out at all this. To his mind, Newport Beach is still true to its roots: white, wealthy, conservative, and proud. Its favorite son is John Wayne. In many ways Newport is the opposite of Gale’s birth town of San Juan Capistrano, seventeen miles southeast, near Caspers Wilderness Park.
Patti is abundantly blond, blue-eyed, slender, and suntanned. A black knit suit, a white blouse, and a pearl-and-emerald choker. Gale guesses midthirties and sees no wedding ring. She’s square-jawed, with a pretty smile, and, to Gale, intelligent-looking hands.
He scans the Lido Estates listings on one wall. A few of the homes for sale look small, slightly Cape Cod — ish, with white picket fences and little green lawns. Some look to have been built in the 1950s and 1960s. Some are extravagant contemporaries of stone and glass. The lots are small and the homes look crowded together. The cheapest one Gale sees is listed for $6.5 million; the most expensive is $27.5 million.
First, some small talk about the south Orange County real estate market, which Patti says is trending up again as the holidays approach. Corona del Mar and the Irvine Coast are quite hot right now. Lots of value down on the peninsula if you don’t mind the traffic. The beach is what you’re really buying.
“When did you last see Mr. Tarlow?” Gale asks.
“The week before they... found him. The Tarlow Company hosted an invite-only preview for a handful of the top OC Realtors. I got the call for Lido Estates. Tarlow was introducing Wildcoast — their proposed development outside of San Juan Capistrano, near Caspers Park. We Realtors were one of his focus groups. Tarlow Company showed artist renderings and videos of other developments from, well, across half the globe, actually.”
“Must have been an impressive show,” says Mendez.
“It really was,” says DiMeo. “Wildcoast isn’t a traditional development at all. It’s designed to be chartered as a full civic entity — a city. Five square miles. That’s half the size of the city of Laguna Beach. Single-family homes, condos, and apartments. Affordable housing. Not token affordable, but one-quarter of all the units, built into the pricing by Tarlow Company and the city of Wildcoast. Schools, churches, two synagogues, two mosques. Two shopping centers, anchored by upscale retailers. A downtown Main Street made of solar-generating cobblestones. With city hall, a monster library, two public pools, shopping and dining with high-ratio pedestrian circulation. An equestrian center and trails into the beautiful mountains near Caspers Park. A small airstrip for private craft only. Every single rooftop — residential and commercial — made with solar tiles. A small wind farm tucked back in the foothills. Parks and big public gardens where people can grow flowers and food to eat. They’re calling them ‘victory gardens.’ Isn’t that all, just, well, the coolest?”
“I know a little about it,” says Gale. “The local governments and environmentalists aren’t happy. The Natives, even less so.”
His mother, for example, one of the official spokespersons for the Acjacheme nation of San Juan Capistrano, isn’t exactly happy about a small utopian city built on land that once belonged to her ancestors. A nation that remains unrecognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, on technical grounds. Thus, no sovereign land and mineral rights, no federal aid, no casinos.
“Oh, lots of people are livid,” says Patti DiMeo. “A small group of protestors picket outside the Tarlow building every afternoon, then the Newport cops run them out or arrest them. Natives. Non-Native locals. Everybody wants to hold on to what they have. Not build a new city! Keep the demand high and the supply small and the prices up. To them, Wildcoast’s a NIMBY but not like homeless shelters or halfway houses or fulfillment centers. They’re talking about something that, when you learn about it, sounds more like paradise. Beautiful architecture in a beautiful setting. Tarlow Company has a reputation for high-end excellence. They’re outdoing themselves on this one.”