A View to Die For E-Book

Carolyn Maddux

• Herausgeber: Carolyn Maddux
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Catalina Island Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 431

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Wealthy, handsome, and totally unscrupulous, developer Warner Hayden has big plans for an over-the-top luxury resort on Mount Ada overlooking Avalon Harbor, and a collection of dark secrets to ensure the cooperation of key community leaders. His plans aren’t what Santa Catalina islanders want, but he seems unstoppable — until he’s found dead on a steep slope below his property. Virtually everyone who’s anyone on the island has a motive for the murder. With a detective inspector borrowed from the mainland determined to pin the crime on visiting butterfly hunter Robert Michael Pyle, and a host of Plein-Air Festival artists underfoot at every turn, it’s up to young Detective Rhys MacFarlane and his islander friends to unravel the tangled webs of intrigue and deception.

Leseprobe

A View to Die For

Carolyn Maddux

Steamer Press

Steamer Press

First Steamer Press Edition October 2022

Copyright 2022 by Carolyn Maddux

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Steamer Press, San Diego.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents, aside from historic content, are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, with the exception of Robert Michael Pyle.

Book design by Bojan Kratofil

Book Cover Art by Lauren Kent

Book Cover Design by Julia Kent

Steamer Press Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-7347719-2-3

eBook ISBN 978-1-7347719-3-0

Library of Congress No. applied for

www.SteamerPress.com

To the Readers:

ThoseofyoufamiliarwithSantaCatalinaIslandwillrealizethatIhavetakensomelibertieswiththeisland’sterrain,andnodoubt with many other details. To those of you who find such liberties annoying, I would echo Samuel Johnson’s response to James Boswell: “I wish you could have looked over my book before the printer, but it could not easily be. I suspect some mistakes; but as I deal, perhaps, more in notions than in facts, thematterisnotgreat.”Asaformerjournalist,I’mnotsureIagree with Johnson’s conclusion; the matter is great, the devil is in the details, and I beg your forbearance.

All the characters in this book are completely and utterly fictional, with the exception of Dr. Robert Michael Pyle, who did visit Catalina in June, 2008, as part of his Butterfly Big Year as chronicled in MariposaRoad,andwhokindlyagreedto make a cameo appearance on the hillside above Avalon in thisbook.

Prologue

Friday, June 6, 2008

Two people stood on a peak high above a brilliant blue harbor on an island that could have been Mediterranean but wasn’t.

A drowsy sun, making its leisurely descent into the Pacific Ocean, shone blandly across the western slopes of Santa Catalina Island. A light wind stirred the grass, still streaked with green after a late spring rain. Swallows chattered overhead. Smudges on the horizon to the east, across the water, marked the urban sprawl of California’s Los Angeles County. The low-slung sun picked out vague golden shapes of the Port of Long Beach cranes and derricks.

“Look at that view!” Warner Kendall Hayden said. It sounded like a command as he gestured around him.

“It’s lovely,” the other said in a guarded voice. From where they stood, they looked across the seaward end of the town of Avalon. At the center pier, glass-bottomed boats and submarines awaited tourists for the evening cruises while yachts, each at its pristine white buoy, rode at anchor on the deep azure waters. Minute figures moved along the promenade above the waterfront. Above them, houses on the hillside appeared like stacked blocks. Zane Grey’s pueblo-style home, long since reworked as a quiet hotel, sprawled among eucalyptus and junipers. Nearby, Chimes Tower looked like something from a Spanish mission. Below it, the last rays of sun made the red-tiled roof of Avalon’s landmark casino glow like coals. Home to the legendary Avalon Ballroom, the Casino served this week as headquarters of the Avalon Plein-Air Festival.

“Lovely,” Hayden echoed, “but going to get lovelier. Imagine you’re sitting on a balcony, drinking in the view and a double martini.” He raised an imaginary glass. Involuntarily, his companion stepped back from the rush of alcohol on his breath. Wavy-haired, well barbered, fit and stylish, Hayden wore a silk jacket and slacks in keeping with the place he described, not the tangle of toyon and lemonberry where he stood gesturing. “Imagine white stucco, wrought iron railings, fountains with Catalina tiles. Like Wrigley did it, with everything highest quality, but up to date. And beautiful, with bougainvillea, giant aloes, palms. Like the best of Avalon, but up here where you can see everything, all the way to Long Beach.”

“I thought you could only build in Avalon. Would the Island Conservancy—”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Hayden interrupted, smiling. “You’d think it was in the Conservancy. Everybody here does. Guy I bought it from thought it was. But it’s a sweet little exception.” He chuckled. “He owned it for decades and didn’t ever check it out, poor fool. Charles Willis. His grandfather was a friend of Wrigley’s. He’d got hold of this piece of ground when Wrigley bought the rest, but he didn’t get moving on it soon enough. The Great Depression hit.” He shrugged. “Still, he got his development plans submitted to the county—and approved. Signed and sealed. And since it’s still in the county, there’s not much can stop me.”

“But the county has its regulations, too.”

Hayden’s smile became a grin. Wolflike, thought his companion, who moved a few steps away. Hayden continued, “Oh, yeah. L.A. County has its regulations. But this—it’s grandfathered in. I’ve had my team of land-use attorneys go over it to make sure. They’re the best, and they all said it’s bulletproof.

“Bulletproof!” he repeated, shading his eyes as he lookedto the west. “If Elbert Willis, Charlie’s old granddad, had gone ahead with things, instead of trying to grow his capital with one more investment in ’29, there’d be some fancy houses up here. Too bad he never finished his subdivision. But as long as I keep the land in one parcel, I can do multiple-occupancy.” Hayden rubbed his hands together as he paced and talked.

“Old Charlie—he thought it was just useless land he could never do anything with. Now his grandpa—oh, Elbert had plans. A colony of elegant houses for the movie stars, ballplayers, high rollers. Great plans, but he lost the money he needed to build them. Died of the disappointment.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Typical Depression story. Jumped out the window of his hotel room in San Francisco. And then he only got a couple of paragraphs in the Examiner. Everybody was doing it back then.

“Family thought the deed was like all his other paper: worthless stock. The daughter died and left her share to her brother, Charlie’s dad.” Hayden stooped down, picked at a grass seed that clung to his slacks, and brushed it off. “Charlie’s old man died in Australia, or maybe it was New Zealand, I forget which. And so Charlie inherited it, back in the beginning of the ’60s. The amazing thing is none of them let it go back to the county for taxes. They all just paid them year after year.”

“I wonder why.”

“Sentiment, maybe,” Hayden shrugged. “Family tradition. Inertia. Who knows. Taxes weren’t much, anyhow; somebody at the L.A. County treasurer’s office listed it in conservancy status, along with the rest of the upland. But that’s the joke; it’s not in the Island Conservancy.” He picked a stem of blue lupine absently and plucked away the individual pea-like blossoms as he talked. “I got to know old Charlie through a lawyer friend I swap favors with now and again. He owed me one, and said maybe I should check out this piece of propertyCharlie had. So we did some research, and it looked like a little gold mine.

“Old Charlie, he was hoping to buy his way into one of those assisted living places, and he was short by a good bit. He jumped at the price I offered him, told me he had to be honest and say he didn’t think it would ever be usable, but I said I’d take a risk on it.” He chuckled. “Said I could always donate it to the county and use it as a tax writeoff. Made him feel really good about it—a win-win thing. Sweet, huh?”

“And he had no idea it wasn’t in the Conservancy?”

Hayden laughed. “Not a practical sort, our Charlie. He was an English teacher.”

There was a short silence. “What, English teachers are impractical?”

“Idealists, most of them,” Hayden said dismissively. “I dated one once. Save-the-whales sort of person. Head in the clouds. Sweet girl, pretty too.” He smiled reminiscently. “But not practical. You have to be practical to get on in this world.” His companion studied him for a moment, then turned away and appeared to survey the hilltop where they stood. There was a long silence. “So what is it you’re planning up here? You said multiple occupancy. You mean condos, or a hotel?”

“Oh, yeah.” Hayden grinned. “A luxury hotel. Big. Cantilevered out off the mountaintop in both directions. Avalon Bay below you this way, and Lover’s Cove, and—come over here—Pebbly Beach in that direction. Just think about it. All by itself up top here — solitary splendor. Just like old Elbert planned: big stars, athletes, politicians, big-company CEOs. But just visiting, not living here. Luxury suites, fancy spa, masseuses. A big-name chef, gourmet food, and a totally killer view.”

“But wouldn’t you have a whole lot of opposition?”

Hayden shook his head. “People might whine about it now, the Conservancy folks will make a little fuss, but after a whilethey’ll love the idea of all those people with big money coming in. They’ll find out it’s worth bending a few rules.”

“Bending the rules? You’d do that?”

Hayden frowned. “You one of those whale-savers too?”

“No, I’m just—ah—surprised. That you could.” There was a pause.

Hayden laughed again, a harsh sound the wind carried off quickly. “Oh, I’ve done my homework. I’m not worried about the planning commission or the council. Or the Conservancy. I know the pressure points.” He gave the other a penetrating look. “And some people are beginning to find out what I know. They’re lining up behind it, or will be when—” He stopped himself, switched gears, smiled again. “And there’s that perfect deed: Bulletproof.

“So then,” Hayden said, “the lawyers are going to be coming to me to try to cut a deal. Oh, I’ll make a concession here and there, just to play the game.” There was a warning note in his laugh. “But in the end, I’ll have exactly what I want.”

“Amazing,” said the other. “A view like that in both directions. It’s gorgeous from here. Can we go farther out? See more of Avalon?”

“Yeah. Sure we can. That’s not much of a trail, but it’s walkable if you’re careful. You can see the whole bay. Yeah, it’s an outlook to knock your socks off. But watch your step. You don’t get vertigo, do you?”

“Not that I know of. But what about you?” Hayden still exuded an aura of martini. “Are you okay out here?”

“Oh, hell, yes. I’m fine.” Hayden laughed. “A coupla doubles are nothing.” Picking up his pace, he shouldered ahead. “And I know this piece of ground like the back of my hand. It’s stable enough, but it drops way off. You wouldn’t want to fall off the edge right here. It’s a long way down.”

“I suppose it is.”

“And here we are,” he crowed. “Look at that.”

“Oh!” The curve of the bay, intersected by its docks, the tile-topped casino on its point and the dense little downtown, all appeared below them.

Warner Kendall Hayden moved to the edge, breathed an expansive sigh and gestured wider. “A view to die for, isn’t it?”

Chapter 1

John Katsaros ended most of his evenings with a hike up into one of the hillsides where he could look out over the little city of Avalon. He loved the challenge of the steep streets ashestrolledamongthehomesofhisfriendswhosehousesoverlooked the town. He stood now, as the sun sank behind the western hillside and lights came on one by one, looking out over the curving harbor. With the onset of summer, it was filling with boats of all sizes; he noted a couple of big yachts that hadn’t been there that morning. He gazed at Cabrillo Mole, the rock jetty that served as dock for the passenger boats from San Pedro, Long Beach and Dana Point, and thought about the sea bass he’d caught from the end of the mole the week before. Probably the end of good fishing there until fall, he thought, looking at the cloudless sky.

The last Express had pulled out from the mole as he closed the door on his little house on Descanso Avenue, made his way across the plaza to Metropole Avenue, and climbed the steps to Calle del Sol. Pausing to catch his breath before he took the Burma Trail that zigzagged up the hill to East Whittley, he’d watched late-flying hummingbirds still nectaring among the fragrant shrubs on the steep banks.

Makinghiswayalongthehighwestedgeofthevalley,John strolled past the home his friend Edgar Ruiz had recently completed. He smiled, thinking of how successfully Edgar hadtransformedthesummerhousethathadbelongedtohiswife’s parents, a typical mid-century multi-level cantilevered over the steep slope, into a model of efficiency with nearly invisible solar panels. No lights were on, but John was startled to hear the sound of weeping coming from a window at the back of the house. He scratched his head. Edgar and his wife,Alice Ann, were one of the most loving couples he knew, and over-the-moon happy to be expecting a baby. He shrugged. Perhaps Alice was watching something on television. After all, his beloved Celestina was doing that now, declining a walk in favor of—what was it on Friday nights? DancingwiththeStars?

He continued along, looping back to Whittley. He was just approaching Roger Cameron’s house when he heard a door open and caught a glimpse of Roger, a biologist with the Island Conservancy, emerging. He prepared himself for the usual pleasantries but was surprised to see Roger duck into an alcove at the sound of his approaching footsteps. And then the man disappeared. He pondered that as he continued his walk. In a few minutes, he heard Roger’s golf cart start up. Another mystery, John thought. It wasn’t starting from the Camerons’ driveway, but from a street corner above their home.

And now he was back at the bottom of the Burma Trail. He leaned against the wall at the upper end of Calle del Sol. Something was stirring in the quiet evening air, he thought, and despite the warmth of the evening, he shivered.

He was so lost in thought that he started when he heard his name called and saw his neighbor, Fred Paige, striding up the short end of Beacon Street toward him.

“Evening, Fred.” John waved and half-turned away, but it became apparent that his neighbor was intent on joining him. John wasn’t looking for company, but he knew Fred Paige was lonely. Fred and his wife, Evelyn, had retired a year earlier to their island vacation house, but Evelyn had died in March.

“You walk up here every evening?” Fred asked.

“Most evenings. Tonight I walked up the Burma Trail to East Whittley.” John indicated the narrow sidewalk that zigzagged up the hillside between homes and apartments that cantilevered out from the rocky slope. “Celestina’s watching TV, but—well,” John grinned, “I don’t really like television. When it’s not one of her program nights, Stina and I walk together,butnotusuallythatfar.”

Fred mopped his brow with a rumpled handkerchief. “I’m out of shape. When Evvie was so sick, there wasn’t much chance to get out.”

John clapped his friend on the shoulder. The two stood for a moment, looking out over the harbor and the ocean beyond. “It’s so peaceful when the last boat leaves,” Fred observed. John’s brow furrowed, but he nodded, and the two men descended the stairs, strolled east to Sumner Avenue, turned, andbegantowalktowardtheharbor.

Behind them, from the fire station, a siren sounded. Doors opened and people stepped out onto their porches to peer up into the canyon. The siren stopped short.

“Practice?” Fred asked.

“Hope so,” John said. A year earlier, in the spring of 2007, a huge wildfire in the chaparral had burned to the edge of Avalon, threatening the town and blackening the hills above it. A fire truck rolled by, no lights flashing. “Yep. Looks like everything’sokay.”

John was surprised to realize how his muscles had tightenedatthesoundofthesiren,howeasilyhisinternalalarm sounded. He recalled helping his friend Andrea, a caterer, shuttle food to fire crews and volunteers and Marines who battled the blaze. He remembered the Express boats that ran through the night ferrying terrified residents evacuated from their homes to shelters in Long Beach, and the flames thatturnedthenightskyorangeastheysnakeddownthecanyons toward the town. But he recalled the way everyone had pulled together. Was it the return of fire season that fueled his anxiety? He didn’t think so.

Despite the terror, the fire had united everyone in a common effort. It didn’t feel the same this spring. John shook his head as he thought about conversations half overheard during recent weeks in restaurants and shops, wondering and sometimes worried and angry talk. “Toyon Ridge.” “That bigshot and his big resort.” He thought about how those conversations would stop short any time men in business suits appeared.

“That bigshot from Colorado.” John had met that developer, briefly, at a Rotary gathering. Hayden, his name was. Andrea had summed him up: “Too friendly, too well-groomed, too smooth. Much too smooth,” she said with a shudder. He had mentioned meeting Hayden to Lexi, his granddaughter, only to see her smile disappear. She’d shuddered, too.

He remembered seeing normally friendly people casting uneasylooksatstrangersinatownwherestrangerswerethelocals’ bread and butter. This wasn’t the easy Avalon he’d knownallhislife.

“Hullo! Lovely evening.” Another voice retrieved him from his musings. He and Fred returned the greeting as a couple approached, a man carrying a pair of easels over one shoulder and two backpacks over the other, a woman carefully carrying two canvases.

“Painters? Isn’t it late?” Fred asked as they continued on theirway.

“Catching the evening light on the mole or the casino, probably. The Plein-Air Festival’s starting, and there’ll be painters everywhere for the next week,” John said.

“Plein-Air?”

“Painting on the scene, outdoors. It’s always been big here. There used to be a plein-air event every year. They’d end with an auction of the work the artists did here.”

“Is that where you got that painting by your stairway? It looks like Stagecoach Road.”

“It is. And no, we didn’t get it at the festival, but the painter—Jill Reinhardt—lives here on the island. In fact, she’s heading up the revival of the festival this year. Back when she was just getting established, she used to have a seconds show every fall. We got it there. To my mind, her seconds are better thanalotofwhatyouseeinthegalleriesnow.Ishouldhavebought more when she was affordable.”

Their companionable walk took them past a small craftsman bungalow Edgar Ruiz used as the office for his construction firm. It was growing dark now, but the “Open” sign still hungin Edgar’s window. Edgar served on the city council, and was still finishing The Arroyo, a small development of eight eco-homes bermed into the hillside above town, homes with grass roofs and solar energy. Of course he would have to work late sometimes. But John thought again of the sound of weeping he had heard at the Ruiz home above them on the hillside.

The porchlight of the bungalow shone through a tangle of red and purple and coral bougainvillea that draped the porch rails. The vine vibrated as the door opened. Ruiz emerged, and reached back to turn the sign in the door’s little window over to read “closed.”

“Buenasnoches,amigo!” John called out.

Ruiz jumped, and the face he turned to the two men was blank. But he mustered a smile. “Oh, bueno, Zorba! Good evening!”

“Cómoestás, Edgar? Do you know my neighbor, Fred Paige?” he asked. “Fred, Edgar Ruiz.” The two men shook hands.

“I’m glad to meet you. You’re on the council, aren’t you?” Fred asked. “I’m just now getting a sense of how the city runs. Ilikedwhatyousaidinthatforumlastweek,aboutbeingasustainable community. We’re so small out here, and with the council on board with that, and the Conservancy controlling development outside the city, we’ve got a good start.”

Fred seemed unaware that the smile had left Edgar Ruiz’s face. Lines John hadn’t noticed before creased Edgar’s forehead, tightened around the mouth in a face John had always thought of as a smooth oval. “Speaking of the Conservancy,” Fred added, “what’s all this we’re hearing about some developer from Colorado building a big fancy resort on the bluff up above the Inn? The city and the Conservancy wouldn’t approve that, would it?”

Edgar Ruiz shut his eyes for a moment, drawing a breath. When he spoke, it was with difficulty. “The problem,” he said, “is that the land in question isn’t in the Conservancy. It isn’t in the city, either, although of course the county will ask our planning commission to weigh in on the environmental reviews. And we hope we will have some effect.”

“I hope so too,” Fred said. “People say it’ll have a spa and a racquetball court and a rooftop swimming pool,” he continued, oblivious to Ruiz’s discomfort. “People say this Colorado guy’s bringing in a gourmet chef. People say it’ll make the Inn look like nothing at all, and put the place up the canyon out of business.”

“People,” John reminded him, “will say anything.”

But Fred was warming to his subject. “Some people are sayingthatbringingintouristswithmoremoneywillbeagoodthing.Andsomearesayingit’llruintheisland.Myself,I think you get big money in here, you get a lot of pressure to change the rules. Don’t you think so?” he asked Ruiz.

“There’s always a danger of that,” Ruiz said carefully. “But we have to keep an open mind until we hear more from this Mr. Hayden.”

“We’re keeping you from your family. We’d better be going,” John prompted. “Good night, Edgar.” After another round of pleasantries and hand-shaking, he and Paige continued their walktowardhome.

“A place like that would change the whole feel of the island, don’t you think?” Fred persisted. John’s thoughts were of the strained look on Edgar Ruiz’s face, the stories that were circulating about the Mount Ada development, the polarizing of opinions around Avalon. Fred went on, “You get a bunch of high-rollers coming in to some big plushy resort and the next thingthey’llwanttobuyhouseshere.”

“There’s an old Greek saying,” John said finally. “God ascends stairs and descends stairs. The island’s always changing.”

“Not all change is good,” Fred said. He tried to laugh at himself. “You know how it is with us newcomers. Last one in pull up the drawbridge! But the people that resort will bring here—” The pitch of his voice rose, and John could hear thefear in it. “They’ll buy up anything that’s for sale, buy it at any price. And that’ll drive taxes up, and then people like us won’t be able to afford to live here.” He shook his head. “Somebody ought to shoot that Hayden.”

John turned to face him, his intake of breath audible. “Just kidding, of course,” Fred said.

“Of course.” John clapped him on the shoulder. “But you are right, my friend. Not all change is good.” John sighed, and then they walked in silence.

Chapter 2

The next block provided a diversion. “Just look at this, Fred.” John paused at a storefront where a discreet hanging sign announced Photography by Yoshimoto. “My granddaughter Alexia’s—Lexi’s—studio.” He beamed, his smile illuminated by the soft lighting in the window full of framed photographs. “The delight of our lives, to have Lexi living here on the island.”

In one of the pictures, a bride and groom posed in front of the Casino. In another, bride and bridesmaids, cheek to cheek in a circle shot from above, formed a bouquet of faces in a close-up whose background was the Wrigley Botanical Garden. In a third, another wedding party stood in silhouette on a high ridge against the intense blue of a clear sky. To one side of the display hung a scenic shot of waves breaking against rocky island cliffs turned molten gold in dawn light. Opposite it hung a stunning portrait of island caterer Andrea Benet with a tray of exquisite fruit tarts.

“Beautiful work,” Fred said. “That tray of desserts looks pretty good too.”

“That’s our friend Andrea.” John smiled proudly. “She came to the island ten or twelve years ago and invested with a friend of hers who ran a little catering shop. After just a couple of months, the friend decamped and left Andrea high and dry with the business. And the bills. She barely knew anyone here, but she was a worker. She got the business going all on her own.”

In fact, John and Celestina had taken to the tall, intense young woman and lent a hand and a bit of capital to help her salvage the faltering enterprise. “Oh, we introduced her to a couple good suppliers we knew, a cheese importer and a littlenetwork of family farms,” John said. “Now she’s the go-to caterer, and she has a beautiful gourmet shop, just moved to the front street. She’s got the best location, right on Crescent where everybody’s walking by. Does a nice latte in there too, if you ever get tired of the coffee at Chuck’s.” Andrea’s catering company, Insula, had thrived, and her gourmet shop, La Cucina, drew well-heeled tourists to its imported pastas and cheeses, California organic olive oils and tapenades, and upscale corkscrews, whisks, zesters and other gadgets.

“Andrea’s like family,” John continued. “And four years ago, when our granddaughter moved out here, Andrea took Lexi under her wing. She introduced her to some other business owners who hired her to do publicity shots, and when Andrea got booked to cater weddings, she recommended Lexi for the wedding photography. So our little Lexi is doing very well.”

“She’s good,” Fred said, nodding at the display. “You must be proud of her.”

John nodded. “She finished school in Santa Barbara, then paid her own way to get her Master of Fine Arts at the Art Institute in Chicago. She’d like to do fine-art photography but weddings are building her reputation right now—and her bank account.” He grinned.

“She grow up here on the island?”

“Nope. Her mom—our daughter Sofia—hated our trips out here when the kids were growing up. Our boys would head for the boat at the drop of a hat, but poor Sofie got seasick. And once we’d get here, she’d be miserable the whole time, dreading the trip back.

“But the funny thing,” he mused, as much to himself as to his companion, “is that she loved the family business. She had to divide her summers between working in our markets on the mainland and coming to our place on the island, and she was mostly in the markets. And happy to be there. The boys hated the business. They hated hauling produce, they hated stocking shelves, they hated waiting on customers. Even as a youngster, Sofie hung out in the markets and couldn’t wait to be old enough to work in them. By then we’d morphed intomore specialty markets than grocery stores. She got her degree in business and has been with the chain ever since college. When we opened the first deli, it was Sofie that came up with the name Zorba’s.”

“Oh, my gosh. So that’s why people call you Zorba. I thought it was just ‘cause you were Greek.”

“That, too.”

“Oh, man, there’s a lot of those places. I used to go to one in Lancaster. So that was yours! Great gyros, I remember. And what do you call that marinated lamb on skewers?”

“Souvlakia.”

“That. Yeah. Great stuff. No wonder all those meals you and Celestina brought over for Evvie and me were so good.”

“Stina loves to cook,” John said.

“I hope you know how much we appreciated that. We were still so new here when Evvie got sick, and you treated us as if we’d been neighbors for years.”

“Neighbors are neighbors. We were just sorry we didn’t have time to get to know Evvie better. She was a brave lady.”

Fred nodded. They walked in companionable silence for a moment. Then he returned to the earlier subject. “So now your daughter runs the whole Zorba’s chain?”

“Sofie and her husband. He’s been the force that grew it, actually.”

“How come there’s not a Zorba’s out here? Is there a rule against franchises?”

“Actually, Terry—my son-in-law—and I ran the numbers on one. Wouldn’t fly. Not enough people year-round, too small a niche.”

“Darn. Would have been nice.”

“Yep. Greek delis run by a Nisei named Teruo Yoshimoto.” John chuckled. “And Lexi’s their daughter. Lucky they got to the point they could come to the island by helicopter, or we wouldn’t have seen much of Sofie. Now Lexi, she loves the boats, loves the island, always has. It’s wonderful to have her here.”

They were just turning away from the window when a young man sauntered up. “Great photos, huh?” the slight, dark- haired youngster observed.

“Hello, Rhys. Just now getting off duty?” John greeted him.

“Yeah. Bunch of petty stuff, bunch of dumb reports to write.” The slender young detective looked inquiringly at Fred. “I haven’t met you,” he said, extending his hand. “Rhys MacFarlane.”

“Fred Paige. Glad to meet you, Mr. MacFarlane.” They shook hands.

“Officer MacFarlane. Detective MacFarlane,” John interposed.

“Just Rhys will do fine. Since you’re a friend of Zorba’s.”

“So congratulations are in order,” John said, clapping Rhys on the shoulder. “Rhys here,” he added, turning to John, “just got his promotion to detective.” And to Rhys, he said, “Fred’s our neighbor. Moved here last fall.”

“Well, if you’ve been here that long and I haven’t met you, that’s a good thing, I guess,” Rhys said with a laugh that he choked off abruptly. “Oh, wait. Didn’t I see an obituary? Your wife?” Fred nodded. “I’m so sorry,” the officer added.

“Yes. Well.” Fred looked awkward. “I haven’t been out much. Until this last little while.” He smiled. “I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”

“And I’ll try to keep my foot out of my mouth, but I doubt I’ll have much luck. It’s nice to meet you, Fred. G’night, John.” Followed by the sounds of their echoed “Good night,” Detective MacFarlane ambled off down a side street.

“Nice youngster,” John said to Fred. “Friend of Lexi’s. Might be a little more than a friend, I’m thinking. Trouble with a half-Japanese granddaughter, you know? Inscrutable.”

“Ah, kids these days. They don’t commit themselves.” They proceeded along, now and again meeting friends ofJohn’s who were introduced to Fred. “You know everyone,” Fred commented.

“A place this small, it’s family,” John told him.

“You love it, don’t you?”

“I do. It’s usually so peaceful, so removed from everything. It doesn’t feel that way now, though. And when something is worrying people, that worries me, too. Something, my friend, is not quite right.”

“What do you mean?”

“People are worrying. Edgar is; I’ve never seen him tightened up like that. Our friend Andrea was, too, when I saw her this morning. There is something—a tension in the air. Don’t you feel it?”

“Perhaps I’m too new here,” Fred said. “But now that you mention it, Mr. Ruiz seemed pretty uptight, especially when I mentioned that Mount Ada project.”

“Exactly.” John put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “And perhaps I am an old man with too much time and too much imagination,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Their walk quickly brought them to the Katsaros house, a white-stuccoed two-story home. Like the other houses on Descanso Avenue, it had originally been one of the tourist cottages William Wrigley had built after he acquired the Catalina Island Company, and the island itself, in 1919. Like most of the others, it had been expanded, then rebuilt. John indicated a pair of chairs in the tiny side garden. “Want a sit and a cup of decaf?” he asked, knowing Fred dreaded going back to an empty house.

“Thanks.”

When John emerged from the house with two steaming mugs of coffee, Fred was prowling the little patio illuminated by lanterns in the trellis overhead, looking at the tiles that bordered it. “These look like the real thing,” he said.

“Oh, yeah. At one point my grandfather did some work forthe tile factory that Wrigley had down on Pebbly Beach. He got seconds for next to nothing, still had a couple of boxes of them in the house when he died. I used some of those when I built the patio here.”

“Wow,” Fred said, looking up at the bougainvillea-covered trellis. “This is really beautiful.”

“Thanks.” John smiled. “I love bougainvillea. You know, I used to think it was native to California. But it’s not. Explorers found it in Brazil and Peru. Now it’s everywhere. About ten years back, Stina and I visited Zakynthos, the island where my grandfather had lived. We stayed at a little hotel on a hillside that was covered with it.”

“Tell me about your grandfather.”

Nothing could have pleased John more. “His name was Pero Katsaros. He came to California in 1899. There was a huge exodus from Eastern Europe at the turn of the century. At first he worked on a railroad crew. It was probably there that he met a couple of other young men from the Peloponnesus who introduced him to Catalina.”

“Peloponnesus.” Fred chewed on the word. “That’s a part of Greece, right?”

“The southern peninsula of Greece,” John explained. “And you know, when we got there we could see why he felt at home here. Los Angeles County is a lot like the mainland he had known growing up, those few times he went there. He grew up on an island off the coast, a small fishing village. It was a place that had gotten poorer and more isolated over the years. So he managed to get passage to America. And then war broke out in 1912, and he’d made just enough to get back home again.”

“That was the war in the Balkans?”

“You know your history.” John smiled. “It was the end of the Ottoman Empire. So many of the Greeks who came here went back there to fight. When Pero came back to California, he brought a wife, Iola, and a child.”

“They had a baby? That was fast.”

“No. Peter was four. Iola was a widow. Her husband was afriend of Pero’s from the village where they were born. In fact, they fought together, and Pero was with him when he took a bullet and died. Promised him he’d take care of Iola and the boy.” He put his coffee cup down. “Pero adopted her son. That was my Dad, Peter. He adored his new father; that part of things went well. But Iola wasn’t impressed with the shack my pappoús—my grandfather—lived in. That fall, there was a bad fire, and his place burned up, along with about half of Avalon. She persuaded him to move to the mainland and even found herself a job in a laundry run by a Greek family. Pero drove truck for them that winter. But he couldn’t settle into city life.”

“They moved back here?”

John shook his head. “No. Iola wanted good schools for my dad, and she liked being in touch with other people from Greece. So she stayed in Long Beach, and my pappoús built another cabin here, and they lived apart for most of the year. My dad spent his summers on the island with him. She’d come too, for a while, but she was sick. She didn’t tell anyone, not until she couldn’t hide how she was coughing blood. Then they both—my dad and his father—blamed themselves for not staying with her.”

“Oh.” Fred’s voice reflected his own sorrow. “But there’s no telling, really, when it comes to blame, is there?”

“No, my friend. There is not.”

Chapter 3

Saturday, June 7

Morning shadows and patches of bright sunlight played across the broad shoulders of Avalon Planning Commissioner Andrew Martin, who sat hunched at a glass table on his patio, headinhishands.

Before him was a letter on gray vellum stationery with a silver gilt letterhead: Hayden Development LLC. It had arrivedthreedaysearlier,andbynowitmightaswellhavebeen etched in his brain. Nevertheless he read, once more, the last two lines of a letter whose opening paragraphs described an upscale resort, lavish in its conception, on a promontory in what Andrew Martin had assumed was part of the Island Conservancy at the upper edge of Avalon.

Bynowyouhaveprobablyheardoftheplansforthisproperty.ThatthelandproposedforthisprojectisnotintheConservancymayhavecomeassomethingofasurprisetoyou,asithastomany.

And then that final, damning, damned paragraph, clearly noafterthought:

ButyoumayalsobesurprisedbythepossibilitythatICEcouldarrestanynon-citizensinyouremploywhosedocumentationcannotbeauthenticated.

That was all. It was enough. Non-sequitur and not. A threat, not even veiled. He folded the letter and looked away. He didn’t see how the sun dappled the deck of the elegant eco-home with shadows of eucalyptus boughs that danced in thelightbreeze,orgazeattheraked-gravelwalkwaybetween rows of aloes and deep-red euphorbias that led away from the deck and patio.

He saw the faces of his friends, his crew who tended the plants and worked on his landscaping projects: Armando. Juan. Santiago. Brothers. They had lived in Orange County for years, worked for his friend Jerry Bruce in Jerry’s avocado orchard. When Jerry sold the orchard in 1999, and Andy bought a nursery on Catalina, the Lopez brothers were happy tohireonwithhim.Theyworkedhard,hadfamilies,attendedchurch, coached kids’ soccer at school. They had Social Security numbers, absolutely clean records: not so much as a drunk-driving arrest among them. He didn’t know whether they were legal or not. In 1999, nobody asked.

Of course, he supposed, he had known. What he didn’t know was whether he had acted in time.

Had that bastard Hayden already contacted the feds?

Was everything he’d tried to do to prevent Hayden blowing the whistle a waste of effort? He could only hope he had been in time, but hope was such a frail thing.

In his mind, he saw gray concrete walls and tiny cells. He breathed their aura of despondency and hopelessness. ICE: the perfect acronym, he reflected: the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even more hopelessly bureaucratic than its predecessor agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service. He recalled visits with his parish priest to Mira Loma, the detention center in Lancaster, when members of the parish had been arrested: the despairing eyes, the endless questions about wives and children left without support, the hopelessness where there had been hope and determination, a modest living, even the possibility of another amnesty and a way to become a new U.S. citizen.

“Andy?”

“Out here.” Quickly, he shuffled a pile of papers, shoving the gray envelope into a manila folder marked “April minutes.” Not that the letter with the Denver return address had anything to do with the minutes of the planning commission. Nothing andeverything.The smell of coffee wafted onto the morning air through the sliding door. So did his wife’s voice. “Shall I bring breakfast out?” Andy blotted his face quickly with a handkerchief, pressed fingertips to his temples, and shook his head to clear it. He took a deep breath.

“Sure, sweetheart.”

Sarah Martin emerged from the kitchen, casual in jeans and a gauzy blouse, her long russet hair pulled into a knot at the back of her neck. She carried a tray with a carafe, a bowl of strawberries, and a plate of pecan-caramel rolls from Fibonacci, his favorite bakery. “You don’t even have a coffee mug,”sheobserved.

She gave Andy a long, appraising look. He could use a haircut. His dark hair was rumpled as if he’d been running his hands through it. His face looked bruised. She loved the broad planes of his cheekbones, the square of his high forehead. But there were shadows under the eyes, and a slackness along his jaw. Suddenly she could see him as he might look ten years fromnow.Twenty.Shesmiledathim.

“Not yet. I’ll get one.” Andy moved past her into the house. Sarah looked after him and sighed. She moved the stack of papers onto a chair, set out plates, and sipped from her own mug,Fiestaware,tangerine.ShegazedsteadilyatAndyashereturned from the kitchen with his coffee mug. He avoided her eyes.

Sarah put strawberries and a roll onto a plate and passed it to him. “Tough night?”

“Yeah.”

“You were pretty late.”

“Yeah.”

“You look shot. Stressed.”

“Yeah.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Not much to tell you.” Andy pulled the syrupy roll apart, dropped the pieces back to the plate, licked his fingers. “Had to meetwithRoger,talkaboutanissuethat’sonthenextagendafor the commission, and deal with some messy details.” He shook his head again. “It’s too complicated.” He bit into a strawberry, nibbled the tip off, put the stem end back onto his plate.

“Complicated how? Is it that developer you’ve been worrying about?”

“Oh, hell. Yes, it’s him. And now—he—” He stopped himself. “I really can’t talk about it now, Sarah. Forgive me, darling. I’ve just got to think things through.” Andy played with the half-eaten berry, picked it up, let it fall back onto the plate.

“He can’t get his project past the planning commission,” she said with certainty. “And certainly not past the city council.”

“That’s not the problem, Sarah! He—” Again, Andy stopped himself in mid-sentence. He stood. It seemed to Sarah that he shook himself mentally, pulling away from their talk, from her. “I’ve got to get over to the nursery. I need to meet with the planting crew first thing.”

“You haven’t eaten.”

“I can’t. No time. Sorry, darling.”

Andy wiped his fingers on a flowered napkin, picked up a leather case, stuffed papers into it. He kissed the top of her head,grazedtheslidingglassdoorwithhisshoulderandmoved quickly through the kitchen. In a moment Sarah heard the door close. Heard the garage door whine itself open. Heard wheels crunch on gravel as Andy urged his electric cart up the driveandaway.

Sarah picked up the abandoned breakfast and carried it to the kitchen. She tossed the picked-apart bun into the trash can and tipped the strawberries into her compost container before returning to the deck with her cooling coffee. She foldedtheblanketthatlaytossedasideonthebigloungeonthe deck. He’d obviously awakened early. She’d heard him drive in sometime after midnight, heard the sigh of his sleep- apnea machine start up. She had meant to go in to him then, but decided not to; her sense of guilt was too great, her sense oflossevengreater.

She had not slept, and heard him rise and prowl the deck at dawn.SarahwonderedwhereAndyhadreallybeen,wonderedwhom he had spent the long evening with, wondered what drove him, after such a late night, to rise so early.

She knew he hadn’t been in the Conservancy office with RogerCameron.

It was she who had spent the evening with Roger.

Chapter 4

The phone in his office in the Conservancy headquarters rang. Two rings, then silence. Roger Cameron lifted his head and glared at it. He hadn’t expected to hear that signal again. It was over;they’dagreedonthat.Partedastheybegan,asfriends.About that part of last night, Roger felt good.

He wasn’t sure how it had started, that thing with Sarah Martin. Some sort of insane magnetism. He loved his wife, had no intention of leaving her, couldn’t bear the idea of how hurt she would be if she discovered his infidelity. He cringed as he thought how he had rationalized the affair: Margaret, who had for years responded to his every whim, seemed to havelostinterestinhim.Shehadseemeddistantattimes,lostinthought,bringingmoreworkhome.Thereweremoreandmore nights when she said she was too tired for sex. But of course he loved her. And respected her. Everyone did.

He liked Andrew Martin, for Christ’s sake; liked and respected him, too. He’d worked with Andy on every project the city and the Conservancy and the Island Company took on. He would never have set out to betray his Margaret, or Andy.

But somehow he and Sarah had taken to meeting, first just for walks, identifying some of the plants that grew only on Catalina, watching the hummingbirds, recording the emergence of the butterflies. He was flattered by her interest in the native plants and animals, and her admiration of his expertise as he pointed out the difference between species of grasses, the host plants for the indigenous butterflies. How often had he heard the trite phrase about one thing leading to another? That was about the size of it.OnethingandanotherhadledhimandSarah,threeweeksearlier,tomanageaguiltyweekendinMontereyataconference on ecotourism. They had booked separate rooms but hadn’t planned on using one of them much. And when the one colleague of Roger’s who’d planned to attend had come down with flu and cancelled, they had thought they wouldn’t evenworry,buttheyhadworriedallthesame.

It was after that conference that they had come to their senses, realizing that what they had couldn’t last, acknowledging the risks they took, but still reluctant to give up their stolen time together. Each tryst was one last time. Last night, walking the paths around the conservancy office, they had finally pledged to stop seeing each other.

He hadn’t told her about the letter, and was relieved that she hadn’t argued when he suggested they break off the affair now, once and for all. It had been his suggestion, hadn’t it?

Better, he thought, to let her believe he felt the way she’d told him she did: in love or whatever it was, but still committed to their marriages. Thrilling at the prospect of being together whenever they could, but terrified at the prospect of discovery. Unwilling to face the thought of divorce, hurting her husband, his wife. And in the end, tired of the constant watchfulness, tiredofthefearthatsomeonewouldbegintotalk.

Roger and Sarah had parted without even a last kiss, a kiss which might have erased their resolve. His resolve.

Of course, Roger admitted to himself, there was also fear: terror of the threat posed by Warner Kendall Hayden. Hayden, whose intrusive resort must be stopped at any cost, and who wanted Roger’s support.

Thereweretheletters.

Hayden’s letters. Gray vellum, engraved, Hayden Development LLC letterhead. At first glance the first was an overview of a proposed resort above the Wrigley mansion, above the city limits, on the second summit of Mount Ada, overlooking the bay. He knew the site, and he’d heard about the project from a city planner and a couple of the countyplanning commission members. He didn’t think it would make it through the planning process. Too big, too intrusive, out of scale for the island. Too likely to impact sensitive habitat.

His hackles had risen at the penultimate paragraph.

Hayden was going too far:

WewillappreciatethesupportoftheConservancyaswegoforwardwiththisproject,andperhapswecancontinueinseveralcooperativeventurestobringadditionaltourismandrevenuetotheisland:anewheliport,outbackcampingareaswithcabinsandspafacilities,four-wheeltrails,adventuresitesintheundevelopedinterior,andmore.

Support of the Conservancy. Why should he think he’d get their support? Presumptuous and portentous as that statement was, it was the conclusion of that letter that got Roger Cameron’s attention, the conclusion that arrested his breathing, the conclusion that he had been rereading in his mind every waking moment since.

Iwouldliketomeetwithyou.Icanshowyouphotographsoftheresortsiteanddevelopmentplan,picturesofseveralofour finished projects, and perhaps most interesting to you, a photographthatafriendofminetooklastmonthattheCasadelMarinMonterey.

At their first meeting, Hayden had smoothly intimated that an extramarital affair was nothing out of the ordinary, but immediatelymovedtotheassertionthathehadbeenunableto bring his all-terrain vehicle to the island—silly regulation, that. He was sure, he’d said, that Roger would loan him one of the Conservancy’s four-wheel-drive pickups. And Roger had loaned his pickup.

But of course it didn’t stop there; Hayden had sent a second letter asking for a statement from Roger, representing the Conservancy, in support of his project.

Outright blackmail. Roger was dismayed at the intensity of hisownrage.Iwilllookforwardtomeetingyouagainsoon,Hayden had written. Oh, yes. Wouldn’t he just.

The telephone repeated: Two rings, silence, and then the usual progression of double rings.Roger glanced toward the conference room where visiting biologists were assembling the week’s phenology report: Two observers from the Institute for Wildlife Study watching two eagles’ nests on the west end were sure both chicks were thriving.AfemaleAllen’shummingbirdwasmakinganestin a young scrub oak near the parking lot, either an early start on a second brood or because her first brood had failed. Staff members counting butterflies had left word that the population of the endemic Avalon hairstreak butterfly looked strong in spite of habitat lost to last year’s fire.

“Back in a minute,” he mumbled in their general direction as he walked quickly out the back door and onto the trail that ran diagonally away from the building and parking area. He pulled his cell from his pocket and tapped a key. She answered instantly.

“Roger? I’m so glad you phoned back.”

“Sarah. I’m surprised to hear from you.”

“I know. I know, Rog.” The words came in a rush. “I know we said we wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t have called, but I had to talk to you. Something’s happening, Roger, something about a development plan for property up beyond the Inn. It might be in the Conservancy, or maybe even in the city. Something’s going on with it that’s got Andy really upset.”

Tellmeaboutit,Rogerthoughtgrimly.

“And he’s not telling me the truth about where he was last night. He said he was with you.”