by Leslie Karst
Oops.
But he appeared not to notice the implied criticism of his food choices. “I’ve been spending so much time over here working,” he said, “and when I’d get hungry I didn’t wanna always be eating his stuff, so I got these.” He stared at the microwave and cracked each of his knuckles in turn as he waited for the ding, then pulled the burrito out. Gingerly opening the package so as to not burn himself on the released steam, he dumped the pasty white log onto a plate.
I watched him eat. He still seemed antsy, tapping his foot rapidly and looking down as he chewed, not meeting my eye. But at the same time he seemed comfortable at the old man’s house, slouching against the kitchen counter, then turning to rummage through the condiment cabinet for a bottle of hot sauce. He’d clearly spent a lot of time here.
“You and Gino must have become pretty good friends,” I said, “hanging out as much as you did.”
Bobby swallowed the enormous bite he’d just taken, walked to the sink, and stuck his head down to take a drink of water from the tap. “Yeah, I guess we did,” he finally answered, wiping his face on a dishtowel hanging from the door of the fridge. He had an outbreak of acne to the right of his mouth, I observed. Perhaps a change in diet would help his complexion.
“Gino didn’t talk a whole lot,” Bobby went on, “but I could tell he liked having me around. I think he kinda thought of me as family or something.”
Just what Angelo had said. “Yeah, I could see that,” I replied.
I was trying to get up the nerve to ask Bobby about inheriting Gino’s boat when he wadded up the dish towel, gripped it tightly for a moment in his clenched hands, then threw it onto the counter. “Why’d he have to go and die?” he mumbled, striding from the kitchen back outside. I wasn’t positive, but it looked as if he had tears in his eyes.
Maybe his grief over Gino truly was heartfelt.
Chapter 6
I didn’t have to be at Gauguin on Tuesday until four, so I called my new pal Marta to see if she wanted to go for a bike ride. She’s Italian—from Naples—and super competitive, so I always get a good workout when we ride together. But she didn’t answer either my call or my text, so I went without her. It was too nice a day to spend sitting around indoors.
Jumping onto West Cliff Drive, I cruised down to the Boardwalk and over the railroad trestle, then took East Cliff and Portola out to Capitola Village. After a quick stop at Gayle’s Bakery for an apple-cream cheese Danish, I pedaled down to the water and perched on the cement seawall to enjoy my breakfast.
Today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, but the little seaside town was abustle with activity—locals strolling with dogs along the restaurant-lined Esplanade, surfers rinsing off under the outdoor showers, and out-of-town visitors spreading hibiscus-print towels out on the warm sand. Across the way, Capitola’s row of brightly painted bungalows gleamed in the morning sunlight, and in the shallow lagoon below, the stucco buildings took on the appearance of an impressionist painting as a pair of seagulls floated through their pink, yellow, and turquoise reflection.
I wonder if our plein air class will be coming down here, I mused as I savored my cheese and sugar-filled treat. If not, it would be fun to talk Eric into doing some painting here on our own, especially if the weather kept up like it had been.
After washing down the Danish with a drink of water from the fountain by the public showers, I clipped into the pedals of my Specialized Roubaix and turned my red-and-white steed back toward Santa Cruz. As I pumped up the hill out of Capitola, I thought about my agenda for the rest of the morning. I’d promised my dad I’d investigate the price of veal breast. Oh, and I have to contact Javier about those bolete mushrooms, too.
I was pondering how many pounds of porcini we would need to make enough of Dad’s brown-butter-and-sage pasta dish for a hundred people when the light at 17th Avenue turned red and I had to roll to a halt. An SUV towing a small catamaran pulled up next to me, sending my thoughts back to poor old Gino.
Could he have gone fishing and fallen off his boat? That would explain how his body ended up on Its Beach, something that had been bothering me ever since I’d learned he was last seen on the wharf. Because, it had occurred to me, if he’d fallen into the water right after leaving Solari’s that night, he would have washed up on Cowell’s Beach.
Having spent many a summer as a kid swimming at Cowell’s—which is where the wharf extends out from—I knew that the tide there washed onto the shore, not out and around Lighthouse Point to where Its Beach is. If, on the other hand, Gino had fallen from a boat on the other side of the point, it would make complete sense for Buster to have later sniffed out his kelp-entangled body where he did.
But in this scenario, I immediately realized, Gino’s boat would have been left unmanned out in the bay and would have either been discovered by another boater or run aground somewhere—which would surely have made the news. Someone else must have been with him on the boat, and either pushed him or chosen not to rescue the old man when he fell.
Someone like Bobby. He was the only one I knew of who’d gone out in a boat with Gino.
The light turned green and I fumbled with my right pedal trying to clip back in. Maybe Bobby had learned he was Gino’s beneficiary and had taken the opportunity to hasten his inheritance. If so, though, why did he seem so sad yesterday? He obviously had real affection for the old man and wasn’t acting like someone who was going to inherit any of his estate.
But what if it had been an accident? What if Gino and Bobby had been out fishing that morning and the old man had suddenly gone all crazy on Bobby? Given what Angelo and my dad had said about the fisherman’s behavior of late, this was entirely possible. Bobby could have walloped Gino with an oar or something in self-defense and then, in a panic that he’d killed him, pushed him over the side of the boat.
If this were true, however, Bobby would have come back to the launch ramp alone. Everyone knows Gino’s Monterey clipper. Wouldn’t they have noticed that he wasn’t on the boat with Bobby?
I thought back to the times I’d used the boat launch with my dad and his friends. There’d always been lots of people around, especially at midday and in the early afternoon, when fishermen tended to return from their outings. Plus, there were plenty of live-aboard vessels near the launch, whose residents tended toward the busybody variety, checking out all the comings and goings around the harbor. If Bobby had returned with Gino’s boat and the old man hadn’t been with him, it was a sure thing someone would have noticed and told the police by now.
And then I flashed on the security cameras they’d set up near the boat launch. One afternoon a few years earlier, my dad and I had been coming back after a morning out in the bay, me ready to jump onto the dock and tie off the boat. As we approached the ramp, Dad had held up a massive salmon he’d caught, mugging for the camera and telling me how impressed the guys in the harbor office would be by his big fish.
So if the authorities kept the footage from those cameras, it would be possible to see if Gino’s boat had in fact gone out the morning after he went missing—and whether he was on board when it returned to the dock.
But I’d never get access to that footage; they’d only turn it over to someone like the police. And I was pretty darn certain they wouldn’t be much interested in my theories regarding Gino’s death.
And besides, I wondered as I flew down the East Cliff hill and cruised around Schwan Lake, why—if Bobby were the one who killed Gino—would he have yelled at me about the old man’s death the other day in front of Solari’s? None of it made any sense.
I really needed to take a chill pill and stop worrying about what had happened to the old fisherman. The cops would figure it all out in due course. If there was indeed incriminating footage from those security cameras, they would find it.
Forcing my brain to a cheerier subject, I contemplated the menu for dad’s big dinner. Nothing like food to take your mind off the unpleasantries of life.
Once home, I let Buster outside and took a
quick shower. Next, completely ignoring my own counsel to stop worrying about Gino, I left a message on Eric’s phone asking if he’d heard anything around the DA’s office about his having a will or trust. I knew the only sure way to stop fretting about this whole thing would be to take some sort of action.
Then, after shooting Javier a text about asking his Fungus Federation friend where we could get fresh boletes and how much they’d cost, I grabbed my laptop and sat down at the kitchen table. Pulling up the Quality Meats website, I scrolled down the price list and searched for breast of veal. There it was: $2.85 a pound. We’d need about a pound per person, since at least half the weight would be bone and fat. Not super expensive, but not cheap either, compared to ground beef or chicken.
Of course, it would cost quite a bit more if we were to buy pastured and grass-fed meats for the dinner, but so far I’d been unsuccessful in persuading my father that the ethical concerns outweighed the economics of the matter. But then again, it wasn’t as if “pastured veal” even existed—not the kind with milky-colored flesh I knew my dad would want, anyway. You can get what’s called grass-fed “calf” these days, but its meat is pink and the flavor closer to that of mild beef than to the delicate veal raised in tiny crates and fed only milk.
And then, the more I thought about it, the more agitated I became over the concept of serving veal at all at the sister-cities dinner. Why had I ever suggested it? Veal is pale in color only because the animals are not allowed to eat grass, which would provide iron to their diet and thereby turn their flesh red. To ensure white meat, the calves are kept anemic by feeding them only milk. Or, rather, “milk substitute,” a mixture of formula and antibiotics made necessary by their anemia.
Plus, there was that whole crate thing, which was pretty horrible to even imagine.
Closing my computer with a snap, I stood up and crossed the living room to where Buster’s leash hung from its hook. How can people allow such treatment of animals? The dog jumped up in response and followed me, tail wagging, to the front door. But I knew the answer: it’s easy if you simply choose not to think about it.
Since I’d already raised my concerns over the mistreatment of farm animals with Dad on more than one occasion, I didn’t think I’d get very far trying again. But he wouldn’t question me if I simply told him I’d learned veal breast was hard to find or, better yet, too expensive.
* * *
When I got to Gauguin, Javier put me straight to work parting out the case of ducks that had been delivered that afternoon. We’d be using the leg and thigh quarters for a confit and the breasts for a new dish we were calling Duck à la Lilikoi—seared rare, like steak, then thinly sliced and topped with a passion fruit glaze (lilikoi is Hawaiian for that tasty, tart fruit). We’d make a stock from the wings and bones, which would be reduced down to a glace de viande for the lilikoi glaze, and the fat from the backs and wings would be rendered to use for the confit. All very resourceful and economical.
As I was wrestling with one of the duck carcasses, pulling the thigh away from the back and poking my filleting knife inside in an effort to locate the ligament separating the bones, Brandon pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.
“You seen Javier?” the waiter asked. “Gloria said he wanted to talk to me.”
“Right. I think he wants to tell you about a change in tonight’s seafood special. They didn’t have any rockfish, so we’re doing the lingcod instead. But you can talk to him about it to see if it’s a different preparation. He’s in the garde manger.”
“Great. Thanks.” Brandon started across the kitchen but then stopped. “Oh, by the way,” he said, turning back toward me. “There was a guy who called earlier to make a reservation and he asked about you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. He wanted to know if it was true that you really found that fisherman’s body on the beach. And I gotta admit, I’m kind of curious, too.”
I set the knife down and wiped my hands on the side towel tucked into the ties of my white apron. “Yes, it’s true. Actually, my dog found him first, but then I realized what it was he was sniffing at.”
Brandon wrinkled his nose and swallowed.
“Sorry. It’s not a very pretty image. So, was this customer … how did he sound when you talked to him?”
“Well, he kind of laughed when he asked the question, but I got the feeling it was mostly from embarrassment or something. I think he might have actually been a little freaked out by the idea of you finding the body. But I told him I didn’t know anything about it except what was in the newspaper, and he did make the reservation—for Friday night at seven, in case you’re curious. Party of two.”
“Is he a customer you know?”
“I didn’t recognize the name. I got the feeling he hasn’t been in before.” Brandon grinned. “Hey, who knows? Maybe we’ll get a bunch of new customers hoping to meet the woman who found the body on the beach.”
Or maybe they’ll stay away instead, creeped out by the angel of death who owns the place.
* * *
One of the perks of being an ex-lawyer is that you no longer have to show up for work at eight am to commence the daily grind of cranking out those precious billable hours. Of course, the life of a restaurateur comes with the opposite problem: not finishing work until the grills are scrubbed, the range top is gleaming, and all the food is wrapped in plastic and stowed away in the walk-in fridge. Most nights it’s well after midnight before I make it home.
But the new hours seemed to suit me—sleeping in till woken by the sunlight streaming through my green-and-white striped curtains, then getting to laze a while in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, pondering the abstract mysteries of the universe.
Until a brown lump of a dog would jump onto my chest, that is, and stand staring at me, his hot breath smelling of kibble and dirt. Like this morning.
“Okay, okay,” I said, grabbing Buster’s neck in a wrestling hold and throwing him to the bed. The dog squirmed out of my half nelson lock and leaped up, assuming the downward dog, “oh, goodie—let’s play!” position, tail wagging furiously. We tumbled about the bedclothes a few minutes, me trying to grab his paws as he artfully danced away and mock bit at my outreached hands, until I finally collapsed on my pillow, panting.
“All right, Buster. You win. Again.” I rolled over to look at the clock on my nightstand and then fell back onto the pillow. Seven fifteen. Way too early to be woken when I hadn’t gotten to sleep last night until almost one. Closing my eyes, I stroked the bristly fur behind the dog’s shoulder, hoping to lull him back to sleep. It was starting to work—for me, at least—when a piercing bark made me flinch, banishing all hope of further shut-eye. He clearly needed his morning walk.
But not till I brewed some coffee. While the water heated and dripped through the grounds, sending a heavenly aroma through the house, Buster and I went out front to retrieve the morning newspaper from its usual place under the sprawling Mexican sage my Aunt Letta had planted years ago. Sliding the paper from its plastic bag, I smoothed it out on the breakfast table and did a quick scan of the headlines. Nothing more about Gino—or me—thank heavens.
My java wasn’t yet done, so, ignoring Buster’s pleading eyes and thumping tail, I sat down to flip through the front section. I was about to fold it back up when my eye was caught by the name “Solari’s” in one of the letters to the editor on the opinion page:
A week ago, my wife and I had dinner at one of our favorite spots out on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. After finishing our meal, as we were leaving the restaurant, we saw an older man who seemed rather intoxicated. I have now learned that this gentleman was Gino Barbieri, who had dined that evening at the same place as us, and whose body was found on the beach last weekend. No doubt he ended up drowning as a result of his drunkenness that same night.
So my question is, how could a restaurant justify serving liquor to an old man they knew to be in such a state of inebriation, and how could they all
ow him to leave in such a sorry condition? It seems like a clear case of negligence to me. I will now tell you that the establishment was Solari’s, and I for one will from now on be taking my business elsewhere.
The letter was signed “Marvin Blanco.” I knew the guy. He’d been one of our regulars for going on ten years. Oh, lord … This was precisely the sort of thing I’d feared.
My mood significantly altered from two minutes earlier, I poured coffee into my travel mug and headed for the front door, followed closely by the still near-manic Buster. Now I, as much as the dog, really needed some exercise to let off steam.
“Wanna go to Lighthouse Field?” I asked as I clipped on his leash. He knew the name well and responded with a series of sharp barks culminating in an excited whine.
Lighthouse Field is a thirty-seven-acre open space a few blocks from my house teeming with ground squirrels, gophers, lizards, and other scurrying critters. Doggie paradise, in other words.
The land is a potent environmental symbol in Santa Cruz, as the success in saving it from development in the mid-1970s emboldened the community and gave rise to the creation of numerous other green spaces around the county. But it isn’t all that much to look at—just a swath of wild oats and other tall grasses, dotted here and there with unruly cypress trees. And for most of the year the parcel is far more brown than green, especially at the beginning of autumn, as it was right now.
Once at the field, I unhooked Buster and he set to work sniffing the scraggly vegetation lining the dirt path. Countless dogs frequent this park, all leaving their scent-laden calling cards along the way. After making his own mark on a series of shrubs, Buster trotted over to investigate an enticing collection of holes. Shoving his snout down each one in succession, he ensured that any animal lurking inside would immediately skedaddle down its tunnel to a location far away. Patience is not one of his strongest assets.
Bush by bush and hole by hole, Buster and I ambled across the park, me brooding about Marvin’s letter to the editor and trying to decide what, if anything, could be done to put a cork in this whole fracas. Because that first letter was bound to result in a series of others. Nothing stirs folks up more than the chance to express their moral outrage about something.