Wild Instinct

25

Gale climbs vertiginous switchbacks on his way up to the Tarlow family villa above Crystal Cove, built by Bennet Evans Tarlow between 1949 and 1953. The buildings are late Roman in style, created with travertine from the quarry that supplied Rome’s Colosseum and Michelangelo’s dome ribs of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The steepness of the road, and the way it seems to end in blue sky, stirs Gale’s unease with heights. Three hundred feet below him, waves crash out of sight.

He briefly takes his eyes off the road to glimpse the two mansions high above him, clinging to a massive promontory shaped somewhat like Gibraltar, overlooking the vast Pacific.

He’s never set foot on this property, but Gale knows that this compound is home to the patriarch Bennet Evans Tarlow and his wife, Jean — both in their nineties — and to their son Bennett Evans Tarlow II and his second wife, Camile, parents of the late Bennet Tarlow III.

A mansion for each Tarlow, into which Bennet would have moved upon the death of either couple.

To Gale’s left is a wall of white oleander, to his right a rock wall beyond which the Pacific Ocean twinkles and the waves roll onto the pale sand of Crystal Cove State Park. The mansions wait above and beyond, high, eastern windows reflecting the morning sun.

Gale remembers that this dramatic bluff and the Romanesque extravagance before him were the Tarlow family’s holdback for ceding Crystal Cove beach to the state. And that the Tarlow Company was given the state’s incalculable gift to develop the pristine hills overlooking the surrounding coast. The adjoining palatial homes, retail, business centers, and restaurants are here, now a part of Newport Beach.

The road levels off and Gale pulls up to a gated guardhouse, from which steps a broad Latino in a black suit.

Gale rolls down his window and badges him, notes the security camera on the guardhouse wall, aimed his way.

“Lew Gale to see the Tarlows.”

“Your partner is already here, Detective. Park beside her. You are meeting in the boss’s and Jean’s home — it will be on your right.”

He goes back into the guardhouse and the gate rolls open and Gale watches the camera track him.

An elegant Black man in a black suit introduces himself as Davis and leads Gale up the steps and into Bennet and Jean Tarlow’s limestone palace on the bluff. The marble foyer is large and filigreed with gold. Following Davis through a domed great room, Gale hears the sound of his heavy wingtips on stone. The room is bracingly cold.

An elevator lined in dark, stately oak brings them to the third floor, a spacious open-air piazza surrounded by chest-high limestone columns. Seagulls circle above in the blue, and between the columns Gale sees the ocean spangled and silver on this fall morning.

Five people are seated around a circular stone table in the center of the piazza.

Davis deposits Gale next to Daniela. Tarlow II and Camile stand briefly and sit without speaking or offering to shake hands.

Old Bennet and Jean sit back from the table, upright in motorized wheelchairs with steering columns and aggressive, off-road tires. The patriarch’s is blue, his wife’s is red. The couple is snug within tube jackets and both wear gloves and scarves. Their long gray hair lifts and shifts in the cold, incoming westerlies. They have smooth, pale skin. To Gale they look startlingly alike.

Daniela gives him an underfunded smile.

Gale, still standing, looks at each Tarlow in turn, then sits.

“I’m sorry for your—”

“We know that,” says Bennet II. “But this is not a social call. It’s an investigation into the murder of my son. Get to the point, if you have one in you.”

Gale looks at Camile, and Camile continues to look at Gale. Her face is big and strong-jawed, her eyes green, as is her pantsuit. Her platinum hair is cut short. She looks like a contemporary statue of the glamorous, big-haired society maven that he remembers from The Orange County Register society pages of his childhood.

From this, Gale tries to extrapolate how she looked when she seduced her stepson at age seventeen, three decades ago. She would have been thirty-nine. This hearsay, courtesy of solitary witness Norris Kennedy, and as yet corroborated by no one.

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.

“Deputies, get off the property,” says his son.

“Mr. Tarlow,” says Gale. “I was out at the Wildcoast property not long ago and I talked to one of the men digging the perc test. It seemed awfully soon in the process to be figuring septic or sewer. I mean, with neither the feds, the state, or the county having signed off on the development.”

“Of course it’s early,” says Tarlow II. “You want to build a city, you start early.”

“The shovel man said he was hoping to find crystals. Big crystals worth a lot of money.”

“There are thousands of different crystals found in nature,” says Tarlow.

“But what kind did he mean?”

Tarlow opens his hands in a palms-up, how-the-hell-would-I-know signal. “No idea, none at all. Again, Deputies, time for you to waddle off and write some tickets.”

“I take it that Empire Excavators works for you?”

“And a hundred other subcontractors in California alone.”

“Tell Hal Teller we need to talk to him,” says Gale.

He sees Davis and his ally drawing near, and the elder Tarlow reversing in his wheelchair to watch them approach.

“Detective Gale,” says Tarlow. “I want my son’s killer on death row. Or laid out on a morgue slab, if he resists your arrest.”

“We’d like to see that, too,” says Mendez.

Gale and Mendez huddle at Bamboo restaurant on Coast Highway in Corona del Mar.

The waiter brings them menus and takes their drink orders.

“I get where you were going with Camile, but I don’t see why,” says Gale.

“Because I believe Norris Kennedy.”

“But how does a thirty-nine-year-old stepmother lead us to the killer?” asks Gale.

“Your eyes are wide shut, Lew — Tarlow II.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because a father doesn’t kill his son. Neither does a mother.”

“But you saw his face when I asked if something had turned him against his wife and son. That hit him like an uppercut.”

“I did see that. I also saw his expression when he talked about his boy. He’s either grieving or a good actor.”

“He knows what Camile did,” says Daniela.

“Maybe,” says Gale. “But he still wouldn’t kill Ben. No more than you would kill Jesse. You’d die for him. I think you’re jumping to wrong conclusions.”

The waiter brings the iced teas, extra mint for Mendez.

“That’s all for us,” she says to him, handing back the menus.

“Listen to me, Lew. The father could have helped set the stage indirectly. Or simply did nothing to protect his son — exactly as you said back there. He finally snapped after thirty years. Allowed Camile’s betrayal and the damage to his son finally carry him away. Folded them into a simple business disagreement. Looked the other way.”

“I see Tarlow Company,” says Gale. “Not the Tarlow family.”

“Boardroom coconspirators?” asks Mendez.

“I like it. Why not?”

Mendez looks at him in differing silence, her phone suddenly throbbing on the tabletop. She takes it up and taps the screen with slender, black-polished fingernails.

Frowns, taps again, and sets it down.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Jesse?”

“I track him through TeenShield.”

“Mutual agreement or secret?”

“Secret Agent Dani. Good news: He’s where he’s supposed to be at this moment.”

“How’s the bossy girlfriend working out?”

“I wish she’d go away. Jesse doesn’t.”

“How does Camile know of him?” asks Gale.

“Her ‘sources,’ apparently.”

“Did her knowing about Jesse surprise you?”

“God, yes. It pissed me off, then it kind of scared me.”

“Contacts in our own department?”

“So she says.”

“The Orange County Diocese?”

“I’ve never gone to Mass in Orange County.”

“Azusa?”

Her eyes flicker with menace. “Long ago, Lew. We’re partners, and I like you, but don’t barge in.”

He takes a sip of the tea. “I thought you handled it well. You were calm but you didn’t back down or heat up. Whatever buttons Camile was trying to push, she didn’t faze you.”

“I draw a line at Jesse. And a line around him. He’s safe there and nothing can touch him.”

“That’s good, Daniela. You should do that.”

“I love him so much, Lew. He is so very alone.”

“What does Camile want from you?” asks Gale.

“I don’t know. It infuriates me to be investigated. Especially by an immoral billionaire who doesn’t seem to be grieving the death of her stepson. Using people in our department.”

“We’ve got four thousand eyes and ears,” says Gale. “Some of them know you, or know of you. And Jesse. Tarlow Company’s PAC helped elect Sheriff Kersey, so, favors done and returned.”

The waiter brings the check, and Mendez takes it.

“I don’t see Amanda Cho.”

The waiter looks at Gale with placid suspicion.

“She doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t say. Just stopped coming in. Didn’t return calls. People get better jobs and leave with no notice.”

“When did this happen?”

A shrug.

Gale holds up a finger, gets out his phone, and finds Vernon Jeffs’s recent State of California mug shot.

Holds it up to the waiter, who nods without hesitation.

“He was here three days ago.”

“Was Amanda here when he came in?”

“She left through the kitchen door, and that was the last time we saw her.”

“Did he follow her out?”

“He had lunch and left.”

“Did you wait on him?”

“He had two lunches, three beers. Big man.”

No answer on Amanda’s phone, but Gale leaves a voicemail.

No answer on Jeffs’s phone either, nor at the home number of the Huntington Beach home he shares with Mindy Jeffs.

Gale and Mendez wait for the Bear Cave to open at two, when the manager says Jeffs and Mindy are on a two-week ride on their bikes.

Don’t ask me where, he says: no idea.

Now, parked in the quivering shade of the queen palms across the street from the Jeffs house — on a hunch that Vern and Mindy have gone to the mattresses and not on a well-earned vacation — Gale and Mendez lean against Gale’s white SUV.

Gale takes in the warm, salty, oil-rich air of Surf City, watches the oil pump rise and fall, the oblong joint keeping time.

Wordless minutes pass.

Then, “This is when I wish I still smoked,” says Mendez.

“Me, too.”

“I do get the feeling we could be here a long time.”

“I think they’re still in town,” says Gale. “They’ve either run off Amanda Cho, or reported her to ICE, or worse. Then there’s the murder to consider. If they run, they attract attention. Better to hide in plain sight.”

“I like your optimism, Lew.”

“In the war I learned to wait. Hour after hour. Waiting is an art form. It messes up your sense of time, but then you learn to use it. Hours of boredom, then wham, there he is. All those hours brought him to you. Lured him in. He couldn’t resist you.”

“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” says Mendez. “I teach small arms at the LA Academy, Saturday mornings, once a week. And I’m always trying to get them to slow down, control your breath, control your time. Make it yours. Wyatt Earp was right: Fast is good but slow is deadly. In a gunfight, you need to take your time in a hurry.”

“Sweet,” says Gale.

Which is when the rumbling farts of Harleys come up the street, Vernon Jeffs chugging toward them on his chopped black Softail, Mindy abreast of him on her Mary Kay pink Sportster.