by Susan Kandel
“Stop, miss!”
Do killers yell “Stop, miss”? Slowly, I turned around.
The kid from the copy shop was grinning at me. “You forgot the last page of your fax. Here.”
Back in my room, I dumped the complimentary bottle of bath oil into the tub and soaked for a while. I needed to relax. Desperately. I tried to think calming thoughts, but that never did any good, so I gave in and thought hysterical ones. How was Annie? I hadn’t spoken to her in a few days and I was worried. I called her from the tub, but got the machine and hung up without leaving a message. It was all my fault, this Vincent thing. That’s what my mother had said when I made the colossal error of calling her yesterday for advice. It was my fault because I had gotten a divorce and set a bad example. My mother had stayed married for twenty-five years, though my father, god bless his soul, was no Ward Cleaver.
What about Mrs. Flynn’s missing son? Had they found him? Maybe he knew something. Maybe he’d done something. I wondered if Gambino had found out anything else. I wanted Gambino. I was relieved to have at least that much figured out. I ordered a pepperoni and anchovy pizza in the man’s honor and ate the entire thing, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have. Then I found a Joan Crawford movie on cable. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was her stomping all over her wedding dress. Did anybody ever give that woman a break?
When I woke up in the morning, my jaw ached. I must’ve been grinding my teeth again. My dentist keeps suggesting a night guard. “Cut the euphemisms,” I keep telling him. “You’re talking about a retainer.”
I performed my morning hair depoufing and pulled on my black capri pants and a skinny white tee, a sensible choice given the powdered-sugar doughnut I planned to eat for breakfast. I needed to erase the memory of that pizza. I slung my purse over my shoulder and headed for the Busy Bee. They know food over there. Doughnuts. Coffee. None of that cappuccino nonsense. I had three cups while I went over the plan for the day.
#1. I scribbled on my legal pad, Visit to the historical society. Mr. Grandy was sure to have some ideas about how I could research the history of oil in Ventura. Like Meredith Allan, I couldn’t get away from the stink of oil. It seemed to be everywhere, but I didn’t understand why.
#2. Well, maybe I’d just start with #1.
Mr. Grandy was delighted to see me.
“Cece, Cece! I knew you’d reconsider! You made such a hasty decision about those Erle Stanley Gardner files. A treasure trove, I guarantee it! Mrs. Murphy, she’s the big kahuna around here, she’ll be thrilled! Why, you’re better than a cataloger, Cece! And we don’t even have to pay you!”
My ex-husband used to say things like that. But I suppose I have his cheapness to thank for my current vocation. Back when he was an assistant professor up for tenure at the University of Chicago, he was given the ignominious task of teaching Genre Fiction, affectionately know as Shit Lit. Too tight to spring for a teaching assistant, and convinced the entire subject was beneath his dignity anyway, he had me do the research for his lecture on police procedurals. I’d had nothing else to do, what with raising our daughter and waitressing thirty hours a week at the faculty club. By the time I’d composed more than a hundred pages on Ed McBain, however, we both understood that something had happened that was going to change our lives forever. My first book was published eighteen months later.
Now I was stalled on my sixth book, ESG was a mystery to me, and the only thing that could fix things, it seemed, was figuring out who killed Jean Albacco and her sister, Theresa Flynn. But, as I said, I have my limits. Mr. Grandy was disappointed I would still have nothing to do with his boxes. Nonetheless, he went into the back and came back with an armful of books he thought would help with my query about oil in Ventura.
“Remember, Cece, pencils only, please!”
Three hours later, I came up for air. My back was sore from sitting in the same position for so long. I stretched my legs, got a drink of water, sharpened my pencil, which I’d worn into a sad nub, then sat back down to try to make sense of the reams of notes I had taken.
Up until 1865, the main oil interest in California had been in whaling. No one had much thought it could be otherwise until a Yale geologist reported that California had more oil in and around its soil than all the whales in the Pacific Ocean. Most everyone thought this guy was out of his mind, except the vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Just after the Civil War, he snapped up seven ranchos in Ventura County for the purpose of constructing shipping facilities for the crude oil he expected to flow. He and his nephews hauled the latest in steam-powered drilling equipment across the country, opened a bank account, and prepared to get richer.
The first California oil boom went bust a few years later. Seventy oil companies had drilled sixty wells, but it had cost them a million bucks to net $10,000. Even I could tell you this was not a good return on your investment. Still, oil had changed the area forever.
The 1870s brought the formation of a new Ventura County, with San Buenaventura as the county seat. Saloons, dance halls, and hookers sprang up to take the money of speculators, tool-dressers, and other susceptible types. In 1885, an oil pipeline was constructed. By 1890, three of the dominant companies merged to form the Union Oil Company of California.
World War I was the first real turning point. Gasoline, fuel oil, and lubricants were needed in large quantities for tanks, airplanes, and ships. The key technological breakthrough was the development of rotary drills, which replaced the older cable-tool rigs. In 1925, the first major strike was made when Lloyd No. 9A and Lloyd No. 16A in the Ventura Avenue oil field each yielded close to five thousand barrels a day. Within five years, companies like Shell Oil were bringing in fifteen thousand barrels a day. The hills and flatlands of the Ventura River plain, once covered with apricot and walnut trees, were studded with oil derricks, like spines on a porcupine’s back.
Okay, this was all very interesting, but what I wanted to know about were the tidelands. I pulled another book from the stack and flipped to the index. Offshore drilling. Here it was.
By the early 1920s, the state of California had begun to grant exploration leases to prospect for oil in the tide-and submerged lands. Less than a decade later, some 350 wells had been drilled under the sea. In 1929, a worried legislature called an emergency moratorium on further leases, and a few months later it repealed the Lease Act of 1921. Hello—this was starting to ring a few bells. The repeal rendered further exploitation of the tidelands unprofitable. Here we go. This was what the letter in Jean’s lockbox had been about.
Someone at the state legislature had warned Morgan Allan that the Lease Act was going to be repealed and that if he didn’t get rid of his tidelands in a hurry, he’d be stuck. That letter was proof that Morgan Allan had a politician in his pocket. But so what? What businessman didn’t? Was it illegal to sell your own property? I didn’t see why it would be.
I kept reading. After World War II, new breakthroughs in petroleum technology encouraged several of the major oil companies to recommence geological exploration of offshore sites. I slammed the book shut. So Morgan Allan was in on that, too, long before everybody else. He bought a tidelands parcel from Ava Albacco for next to nothing, in 1944, just in time to make a mint. How convenient.
But again, so what? Ava didn’t know what she had. And even if she did, she wasn’t in a position to do any wildcat drilling, was she? In any case, Jean didn’t necessarily know Morgan Allan had been the buyer of the parcel Ava sold. I didn’t even know if Jean knew the parcel existed. All I knew that Jean knew of was the existence of a letter written in 1928. And what did that letter really prove?
31
Burnett was up on a ladder, painting wings on fallen angels.
“I don’t know a thing about you,” I said, to get a reaction and also because it was true.
“Sure you do,” he said, smiling. God, that smile. “Hand me pale blue, will you? It’s over by the closet.”
It turned out
that our getaways had coincided, Burnett’s and mine. I was in Ventura, trying to go in a straight line instead of circles, and he was in Montecito, restoring a fresco in his mother’s bedroom.
Painted in the style of François Boucher, the fresco depicted a pair of lascivious rococo cherubs enjoying some après-midi delight amongst the sugarplums. I could practically feel the thing rotting my teeth. But it could have been my mood. Or being in that woman’s bedroom. At least she was out of town and wouldn’t suddenly appear, offering flavored iced teas all around.
“I keep wondering if I should just let the paint peel,” Burnett said, chewing thoughtfully on the back of his paint-brush. “It works with the theme, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it literalizes the notion of striptease.”
He turned and gave me a look. Smoldering would be the proper adjective. “Could I interest you in literalizing the notion of striptease?”
“Not with those little chubbies watching.”
“Paranoid.”
“Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean I’m being watched.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly how it goes.”
“Nothing wrong with a malapropism.”
“I need eggshell, do you see it over there?”
I picked up a small can. “Number Thirty-three?”
“That’s it. Thanks,” he said, stretching his arm down to grab it from me.
I picked up an embroidered pillow from the bed and tried pushing some threads back from where they had come loose.
“So,” I asked, “is your father coming to your birthday party?”
“My father? Where did that come from?” Burnett looked up from his work. With a few quick strokes of paint, he had made two pairs of angel eyes glisten.
“I told you, I don’t know anything about you.”
Turning his back to me, Burnett said that his father had come in from England early last week to celebrate the grand event. Those were his words, and they got a little stuck coming out.
“How does your mother feel about that?”
“They’re on speaking terms, if that’s what you mean. They actually like each other these days.”
“Was that not always the case?”
“Not always.”
“Why?”
“She’d never admit it, but she grew up pretty rough-and-tumble. My father’s family has been rolling in dough for generations. They’ve got that aristocratic thing going, the cultivated pallor, bad teeth. They never much liked her.”
“When did your parents meet? I’ve never heard that story.”
He gave me a hard stare. “Why are you asking so many questions today, Cece?”
“I don’t know. You ask me something.”
“How’s your book coming?”
He knew how to hurt a girl. “Fine, though I’ve been diverted, as you know.”
“I need persimmon. Can you pass it up? Sorry. Go ahead. What’s going on with the case?”
“Actually, it’s kind of interesting,” I said carefully. “Did you know your grandfather was involved?”
He didn’t look too surprised. “My grandfather was involved in everything. Tentacles everywhere, like an octopus. What’d he do this time?”
“It’s oil. These people owned some tidelands property. Your grandfather bought it.”
“‘Yes it’s oil, oil, oil/that makes our town boil.’ That was an old drinking song.” Burnett ran his fingers through his hair even though there was paint all over them. “Oil, oil, oil, that’s why I never had to toil.”
“Come on,” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t as if I started from nothing, like my grandfather did. Man, I need a break,” he said, climbing down the ladder. He flopped onto the bed and patted the spot next to him. I lay down.
“So why do I feel like we’re in high school?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling.
“Because my mother’s not home and we’re lying on her bed fully clothed. When’s the last time you did something like that?”
“The time I swore I’d never do it again.” I sat up and adjusted my T-shirt before I made another big mistake. Still, I had work to do here.
“So tell me about your grandfather.”
Now he was staring at the ceiling.
“Old Morgan came from Ohio. Came to Los Angeles in the teens, I guess. Looking for Oil-do-rado.” He dragged out the syllables.
“Go on.”
“He followed the cries of the pitchmen. They set up circus tents along the highway and promised the world to every sucker who happened by. In L.A., there was an oil derrick for every palm tree. You’d go to the beach and people would be sunbathing next to derricks planted right there in the sand. My grandfather operated a rig for Shell Oil at Signal Hill. I’ll never forget something he used to say. When the oil starts to flow, he’d say, you’d hear a growl below like waves roaring through a sea cave.”
“How did he wind up in Ventura?”
“He followed the oil.” Burnett took a breath and blew hard, like he was trying to expel a couple generations’ worth of hot air.
“It was beautiful at night. He’d take me when I was a kid. The natural gas illuminated the sky. There were flares and shadows and machines pumping away. The old man was a real wildcatter. All those guys were gamblers, making crazy bets on what lay hidden beneath the dirt. Everybody had a system. But nobody’s could beat his. He knew where there’d be a strike. And he was never wrong.”
“So what was the big secret?”
“You had to be patient. You had to wait for late summer, when the seedpod was good and sunburnt. In the sunshine, grass over oil will turn red. Look for the red grass, my grandfather said, but don’t tell a soul what you’re looking for.”
I hadn’t thought of Burnett before as someone who’d been circumscribed by his family, by who they were, what they’d accomplished, what they expected of him. He was the classic poor little rich kid. And I knew that no matter how much sympathy I had for him, I could never pity him as much as he pitied himself.
As if he could read my mind, he sprang up from the bed, uncomfortable. “I’ve got to go down the hall and check on the balcony. It needs some repair work. Come find me when you’re ready. You look happy stretched out there. Why don’t you take a catnap or something?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t very tired. I watched him walk down the hall. When the coast was clear, I tiptoed over to his mother’s closet. I owed that much to Bridget.
Closetry, she had once explained to me, is a dying art. True connoisseurs are few and far between. In these days of disposable everything, few can be bothered with matching padded hangers, acid-free paper, customized double rods, and Polaroid-enhanced shoeboxes for identificatory purposes. An innocent in such matters, I could only nod dumbly. Perhaps someday I’d try to arrange my sweaters according to tonal gradations. Things being what they are, however, my sweaters, acrylic and cashmere alike, have been smashed into my bad joke of a closet along with everything else I own. As for my shoe collection, those beauties live with my surplus toilet paper, napkins, and trash bags in the ignominious netherworld of my service porch. I don’t know where anything is. If you asked me to produce my lavender twin set, I’d have to kill you.
I approached Meredith Allan’s closet with reverence. People made pilgrimages to lesser sites. I knew it would smell like roses. Except it didn’t. It smelled musty. And it looked as bad as my closet. Only a thousand times bigger.
There were chiffon scarves strewn around like crepe paper. Evening dresses thrown over chairs. Beautiful mohair sweaters popping out of drawers like jack-in-the-boxes. I touched a real Fortuny dress, which was falling off a bent wire hanger. And I saw something that would’ve made Bridget’s skin crawl: a champagne-colored Norell suit, lying on the floor, turned inside out.
There was a big oak desk at the far end of the closet that the woman had transformed into a monster jewelry box. A gold necklace with a moonstone as big as a baby’s fist was lying on top.
Next to it were a couple of chunky coral rings and an onyx brooch encrusted with silver. The top drawer was open. There were bracelets inside—three or four turquoise ones perfect for a Navajo princess, a deco piece with diamonds sprinkled across the surface like fairy dust, a spiny silver thing that looked like something James Bond would deploy under water.
Without even thinking about it, I slipped a large gold filigree cuff onto my wrist. Well, I didn’t exactly slip it on—I broke a sweat trying to work it over my knuckles. It was part of a pair, so I had to put the other one on, too. Then I held my hands up to the mirror. They were beautiful things, those bracelets, but I think I looked less like an oil heiress than Wonder Woman.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous crash from down the hall. What had happened? The balcony? It needed fixing, Burnett had said. Could it have given way? I rushed into the guest room and toward the open French doors. I stopped short. The spindly wooden railing was smashed to bits, and I didn’t see Burnett anywhere.
“Burnett!” I cried. “Where are you?” There was no answer. My heart started to pound. Oh, god, maybe he was down there, in the garden, unconscious or worse. Slowly, I stepped onto the balcony. It seemed secure enough. I walked over to the edge and peered down. Nothing out of the ordinary. The grass below was spread out before me like a bolt of green velvet. So where was Burnett? I turned to go and all of a sudden the floor shifted beneath my feet, then fell away. And I was falling, too, down, down, down, through the pale blue sky.