Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean

by Janet Dawson

  “May I talk with her?”

  “Certainly.” The manager peered into the dining room. “She’s busy with some customers right now. Have a seat in the bar. I’ll send her over as soon as she’s free.”

  I cut through the dining room and took a seat on the nearest stool. “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked. I ordered club soda. A few minutes later a slender dark-haired woman approached the bar.

  “I’m Gina. You wanted something?”

  “Information.”

  I laid my business card and the snapshot on the bar. She didn’t pay any attention to my card. Instead she picked up the snapshot.

  “This again. I talked to some sergeant twice already. He was here again yesterday. What’s your angle?”

  “Just trying to find out what happened.”

  “I did see her,” Gina said, returning the photograph to the bar. “At least I think it was her.”

  “When?” I asked.

  Gina brushed back a strand of hair. “Friday evening. I was out on the terrace having a smoke. I saw her sitting on the hood of a little white car in the lower lot. I thought she was watching the sunset. Then another car drove into the lot. She got off the hood, like maybe she was meeting someone in the other car.”

  “Can you describe the second car?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Gina said. “Couldn’t miss a car like that. My brother had one just like it A classic T-bird, fifty-seven or fifty-eight. Black or dark blue, maybe.”

  I stared at her. Bobby’s car? How many others were mere like it on the peninsula?

  “Did she get into the other car?” I asked when I found my voice.

  “I didn’t see.” Gina shrugged. “I finished my cigarette and came back inside.”

  The bartender had been listening to this exchange with interest. Now he reached out and picked up the snapshot. “This is the girl that was killed? Who are those people with her?”

  “Her parents. Did you see her Friday night?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never seen her,” he said slowly, “but I have seen him. Same night, as a matter of fact.” He pointed at Peter Logan.

  “Friday night? Are you sure?”

  “It’s the same guy. I’m positive. A week ago Friday, same day everybody’s asking about.” The bartender tapped the photograph with his index finger. “He came in just as the sun was going down. Sat in the bar by himself, drank a couple of scotches.”

  “Did he act as though he were meeting someone?”

  The bartender nodded. “Yeah. He sat at that stool over there.” He pointed at the bar stool nearest the door that led to the terrace. “And he kept looking at his watch. I didn’t see what time he left.”

  I slipped off my seat and walked to the bar stool the bartender had indicated, looking out through the glass. From here I could see the lower parking lot. My mind whirled as I thought about a car and a man. Neither of them should have been here that night.

  The T-bird should have been parked in Bobby’s driveway while my cousin slept before taking the fishing boat out later that evening. As for Peter Logan, he and his wife returned from Paris on Sunday. That’s what everyone told me, that’s what everyone thought.

  So why was Peter Logan in the bar of the Rocky Point Restaurant on Friday, the same night his daughter was murdered? He’d been sitting right here at sundown, just a few yards from the last place anyone saw Ariel Logan alive.

  Twenty-six

  I DROVE THE REMAINING MILES NORTH AS QUICKLY AS I dared, given the winding road and the usual traffic bottleneck through Carmel. Finally I sped down the grade of Carmel Hill, with the curving blue sweep of Monterey Bay below. I headed directly for the harbor, where I left my Toyota in a parking slot on Wharf Two and dropped a few coins in the meter.

  Activity was winding down at the end of the commercial wharf, where sea gulls circled the Monterey Fish Company building, hoping for an easy meal. Sea lions who had the same goal crowded the water below the wharf pilings, barking incessantly. Those fishing boats who had gone in pursuit of sardines or anchovies had long since unloaded their holds. I stopped a rugged-looking old man who reeked of fish, salt water, and cigarettes. “Where’s the Nicky II?” I asked. “Has her crew left for the day?”

  For a moment he stared at me wordlessly, a female interloper in a male world. Finally the old man found his tongue. “Already unloaded. Moored out there.” He pointed in the direction of the Coast Guard jetty. “I think that’s the boys coming in now.”

  The blue hull of the Nicky II rode high on the waves, midway between the jetty and the wharf. I watched the skiff head toward the marina, counting seven men aboard. The remaining crew members of the purse seiner came up the float first, followed by Bobby. He moved tiredly, head bowed and shoulders slumped. Then he looked up and saw me waiting on the wharf and mustered a grin.

  “Come to sign on my crew, cuz? I’m still short a man.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I’m no fisherman. Couldn’t stand the hours. Much less the nausea.”

  He shut the gate behind him. “Mom says you went down to SLO. You just get back?”

  I took his arm. “Bobby, where did you go after you and Ariel had that argument? Besides looking for Karl Beckman. I know about that. Linda told me.”

  He sighed. “Why do you have to know?”

  “Because a waitress at the Rocky Point Restaurant says she saw Ariel in the parking lot Friday evening. She also saw a classic T-bird drive in, one that looked a lot like yours, one that Ariel may have recognized.”

  Bobby stopped and put his hands on his hips. “Oh, no. That’s impossible.”

  “Details, Bobby. You’ve got to level with me.”

  “Okay, okay.” We walked up the wharf. “First I went over to Linda’s office, to tell her that I couldn’t take Nicky that night. Then I went to the boatyard.”

  “What time?” I interrupted.

  He shrugged. “Four-thirty, quarter to five. I couldn’t find Karl there, so I went to his house. That was about five-thirty. I waited outside for a while but he never came home. I even looked for him over at Café Marie, thinking he might be there. That must have been about six. But he wasn’t there. I grabbed a sandwich at Casa Bodega around six-thirty. By that time I was real frustrated. So I went to a meeting. There’s one every Friday night at seven.”

  “An AA meeting? Then you’re in the clear. Surely one of the people at the meeting...”

  Bobby shook his head. “We take this anonymity stuff seriously. I don’t want to involve any of them. I was there for a couple of hours. After the meeting I went back to the apartment, to bed.”

  “So you were in your car or it was parked nearby.”

  “Yeah. At the church where the meeting was, for about two hours. After that, in the driveway at home.”

  “Does anyone besides you have keys?” I asked.

  Before Bobby could answer, someone loomed in front of us, blocking the afternoon sun. Under his bushy brows Sergeant Magruder’s eyes looked as bleak as they had last week when he showed up at Ravella’s to tell Bobby that Ariel’s body had been found.

  “Robert Ravella.” The sergeant’s voice was low and level, as it had been the day of Ariel’s funeral, when he’d told me to butt out of his murder investigation. There was also a certain official formality in the way he addressed Bobby. I knew what that formality meant.

  “Robert Ravella,” Magruder repeated. “I have a warrant for your arrest, for the murder of Ariel Logan.”

  Nick and Tina Ravella lived in a one-story wood-frame house on Roosevelt Street, high on the pine-covered hill near the Presidio of Monterey. The picture window in front looked down, between two houses across the street, at a sliver of the bay. When I got there at five that afternoon, the driveway and curb were crowded with cars. I knocked but no one answered, so I opened the front door and walked into the fray.

  A family summit was in full swing, the living room crowded with relatives, all of them talking at once. Worry etched lines deep in Ti
na’s face as she sat on the sectional sofa. Aunt Teresa’s wrinkled countenance frowned above her usual sober black dress as she sat next to her daughter-in-law, arm around Tina’s shoulders. On the other side was Sally, Tina’s oldest daughter. In the kitchen I saw Elena, the younger daughter, who had driven down from Santa Cruz. Elena was making coffee and talking over her shoulder with two women whose identities didn’t immediately register. One wore a business suit, the other blue jeans.

  Nick Ravella stood in one corner of the spacious living room, holding the phone in his right hand, his left hand cupped over his ear. Judging from the noise level that assaulted my ears, he must have been having trouble hearing what was being said on the other end of the line. Finally he took the phone, stretching its long cord, and disappeared into the hallway.

  Uncle Dominic moved into view, a scowl on his weathered brown face, gesturing and talking full blast in Italian to Sal, Nick’s older brother. Sal had his own fishing boat, the Bellissima, operated by his two sons, Joe and Leo, who now clustered around the two older men, adding their two cents’ worth to the conversation, in English mostly, with the occasional dash of Italian.

  The Doyle side of the family was represented as well. Directly in front of me I saw cousin George, the family stuffed shirt. At the moment George’s florid blond face was even redder than usual. In fact, he looked decidedly uncomfortable, no doubt wishing devoutly to be in a meeting with some of his developer cronies, discussing the construction of yet another hotel on Cannery Row. But he always appeared to be out of place at family gatherings, as though he would like to divorce himself from his lineage, which reeked of fishing boats and sardine canneries.

  My eyes moved to the right and I saw another reason for his discomfort. Kay was there, flamboyant in a fuchsia jumpsuit, a flowered silk scarf tied around her dark curls. George didn’t like that fact that Kay and his sister Donna were a couple. It was ironic, I thought, since all the other people in the family accepted the relationship, even if he didn’t.

  Then I saw another Doyle and it was my turn to feel uncomfortable with someone else’s relationship. Mother had deemed Bobby’s arrest important enough to warrant a temporary absence from Café Marie. She’d brought Karl Beckman with her. I didn’t think he should be at a family gathering. Nor did I like the proprietary way he stood behind the chair where Mother slumped tiredly, his big hands resting on her shoulders.

  Donna swooped down on me like one of the pelicans she spent so much time studying. She opened her mouth to speak but it was so noisy in the living room I shook my head. I led the way through the kitchen, nodding to Elena and the other two women, who I now recalled were married to Joe and Leo.

  “What the hell happened?” Donna demanded when we got out onto the deck.

  “I went straight to the harbor when I got back to Monterey. I had to talk to Bobby about something I’d just found out. We were walking down the wharf when Magruder showed up and arrested Bobby.”

  I filled her in on the rest. While I tried to get the sergeant to tell me something, anything, the deputy accompanying him had shepherded Bobby into a waiting car. Magruder had told me again to stay out of his investigation. When they’d left, I ran to Fisherman’s Wharf to tell Nick and Tina. Magruder and the deputy took Bobby to the Monterey substation, at the courthouse on Aguajito Road, where he was held until he was taken to jail in Salinas.

  “What has Magruder got today that he didn’t have earlier?” Donna asked.

  “He thinks he’s got a witness who saw Bobby’s car and Ariel in the lot at the Rocky Point Restaurant, the same evening Ariel was killed. But I think he’s got a car and a girl, that’s all.”

  I told Donna about stopping at the restaurant this afternoon and the waitress who’d seen a young woman, possibly Ariel, and a T-bird that looked like Bobby’s. The sergeant must have figured he had enough evidence to place Bobby at the scene. It was still circumstantial, as far as I was concerned. There must be more than one ‘57 T-bird on the peninsula. Even if the waitress did see Ariel in the lot, it didn’t have to be the combination the sergeant wanted. The DA’s office had forty-eight hours to review the file and charge Bobby with murder. At that point he would be arraigned and bail set.

  When Donna and I went back inside, Nick was off the phone. The roar of talk subsided as the people gathered in the living room listened to what Nick had to say. He’d been talking with a criminal lawyer who told him that if the DA charged Bobby with Ariel’s murder, bail would be high, maybe half a million dollars.

  “Where are we going to come up with that kind of money?” Tina asked, anguish coloring her voice.

  “We could mortgage this place.” Nick swept his hand around the living room of the home he and Tina had worked so hard to buy. It was more than just a house. It represented many hours spent on a fishing boat or behind the counter of the fish market, a home where they’d raised their children and cared for grandchildren.

  “Not a good idea,” George said, straightening his tie. “The real-estate market is down, what with the closure of Fort Ord.”

  Donna scowled at him. “You’re the big-time financier. Have you got a better idea?”

  “We all got money in the bank,” Uncle Dom insisted in his gravelly voice, moving into the role of family patriarch. “We’re all family, we all kick in.” He reached for a pad of paper and a pen near the phone. He wrote something on the paper and showed it to Aunt Teresa, who nodded.

  Voices chimed in agreement as Sal Ravella took the paper and pen and consulted with his sons and their wives. Finally they agreed on an amount, which they wrote on the paper and passed to one of the cousins whose face didn’t click in my memory.

  “I’ll talk to the guys on the wharf,” Leo added. “And the fishermen’s union. Maybe we can get some kind of a fund going.”

  The voices got louder as the paper went from person to person. I heard Sally and Elena, Bobby’s sisters, say they’d have to discuss money with their husbands. Kay and Donna added to the line of figures on the paper. Then my mother reached for it and I heard her say she felt sure she could spare several thousand.

  “Is business back to normal?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “Still way down. Thanks to the mouse and what happened Sunday.”

  So Mother didn’t really have much to spare. She had salaries to pay but few paying customers. I could see the same thought on Karl Beckman’s face as the boatyard owner leaned forward and intercepted the paper, adding his own pledge to Bobby’s bail fund. Again I wondered at his relationship with my cousin, the much younger fisherman, remembering Bobby’s statement that he owed Karl Beckman a favor, something he wouldn’t discuss with me.

  Karl handed the paper to Cousin George, who held it gingerly between two fingers and gazed at it as though it were radioactive. “So how much are you good for, George?” Kay asked, a wicked smile curving her lips.

  George glowered at his sister’s partner and took refuge in the same phrase Sally and Elena had used, except I knew they were sincere and George wasn’t. “I really can’t commit to this until I discuss it with Marilyn.”

  “Come on, George,” Donna gibed. “You’ve got pots of money. If the rest of us can scrape up a few thousand you can probably spare three times that. I know how much you made off that last hotel deal. Marilyn was bragging about your take at the Labor Day picnic.”

  Her brother’s face reddened. “My money’s tied up right now. Besides, what if Bobby’s guilty?”

  He couldn’t have gotten more attention if he’d suddenly started to disrobe. All conversation stopped and every eye in the room turned to gaze at George with varying degrees of consternation and hostility.

  “What are you, crazy?” Nick bellowed. “My son didn’t kill that girl. This is all some damn mistake.”

  Silence gave way to a mutter of censure. Then Uncle Dom snorted and said something in Italian that caused several of the assembled Ravellas to snicker. This lessened the tension George had created with his ill-timed que
stion, but not by much. Tina glared at George. Nick looked as though he’d like to deck this particular Doyle cousin.

  Kay leaned back and tugged the scarf tied around her head. “You’d better put your money where your mouth is, George. Either that, or your foot.”

  Her remark caused a titter of laughter that swept around the room, defusing the situation even more. The buzz began again and soon escalated into a roar. Suddenly I wanted out of this crowded room. I took my car keys from my pocket and made a quick exit out the front door. I don’t think anyone missed me.

  I liked my relatives, I told myself as I pointed my Toyota down the hill. In small doses. Too many of them at once caused my stress level to overwhelm the warmth of being in the family bosom.

  Can’t live with them, I thought, or without them. Especially if you’re in jail and your relatives are passing the hat.

  Twenty-seven

  AFTER THE NOISE THAT ENVELOPED THE RAVELLA house, the garden of the Sevilles’ whitewashed cottage seemed to be a quiet oasis. We sat on the flagstone patio, where two white-painted Adirondack chairs and a bench were arrayed around a low ceramic planter full of late-blooming asters and fall lilies. As the evening sun splashed across the garden one last time before sinking into the Pacific Ocean, we sipped sherry and talked, accompanied by the rush of waves breaking on Carmel Beach.

  “When I left,” I told Errol and Minna, “Uncle Dom was vowing to take the Nicky II out after squid tonight. He’s spry for eighty, but not that spry. Aunt Teresa was giving him the evil eye. Trouble is, Bobby’s shorthanded anyway. He fired someone this summer, a guy named Frank. With Bobby in jail, the crew is two men short.”

  “Will they be able to fish?” Minna asked. Stinkpot sprawled on her lap, his long tail pluming down her leg. Minna stroked the big cat and he stretched pleasurably, flexing his paws.

  “They’ll have to. No one in this business can afford to miss a night’s fishing. Sal may skipper the Nicky II tonight while Joe and Leo take out the Bellissima. They said they’d see if they could come up with some extra men.”