The Deepest Cut (19 page)

He pulled off the highway and followed the frontage road to the outskirts of town, turning into the parking lot of Taco Temple. Several motorcycles were parked in front. Starving and stiff after making the four-hour drive without stopping, he unfolded himself from the Crown Vic, laced his hands over his head, and stretched, breathing deeply of the ocean-kissed air. It was free of the ash that still lingered in the air down south from the horrible round of brush fires that had been barely extinguished. It was sunny, but the temperature was mild. It was perfect. It had been a hard summer for the Southland, the Pasadena P.D., and for him and Vining. It would end eventually. These things always did. There was no guarantee that the ending would be happy.

Inside the plain, white wood-frame building, he was delighted to see that soft-shell crab tacos were among the specials listed on the handwritten whiteboard. He placed his order and eschewed the indoor dining area for the picnic tables outside.

A few young men and women, probably students from nearby Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, were sitting on top of the wooden tables, with their dirty tennis shoes or flip-flops on the benches. They were smoking and discussing some “he said, she said” story with such fervor, they had to be on the cusp of solving the world’s problems. They had long, shaggy hair, nouveau hippie clothing, and were trying hard to look alienated. They seemed oblivious of the perfect weather. Different day, same gorgeous environs.

A server brought Kissick his food and a glass-and-chrome condiment dispenser that held four different types of salsa. He dug in, unable to avoid overhearing the college kids. They made him think of his own boys, Cal and Jimmy, thirteen and sixteen.
James,
he mentally corrected himself, hearing his older son’s admonition that he wanted to drop the nickname of his youth.

He knew that in a blink of his eye, they would both be through college and on their own. Nan’s Emily would be grown, too. As he ate, he thought of the future. He envisioned a time not far away when he and Nan would both have more than twenty years with the PPD. They could cash out the equity in their homes and buy something out of L.A. Even up here. He’d always loved the Central Coast. He could work part-time for the Morro Bay PD. or for the Cal Poly Campus Police. He couldn’t see giving up entirely the profession he loved so dearly, not until he was much older. Maybe in his spare time he’d build a sailboat or buy a neglected jewel and restore her to her former glory. As for Nan, he couldn’t imagine another career for her either. She never spoke of wanting to get out. Not yet, anyway. Still, what wasn’t there to like about moving to someplace with a slower pace and clean ocean air?

Nan and he would both be free to pursue the rest of their lives. Their second act. A clear horizon.

He took the plastic lid off his Coke, stabbed the ice with the straw, and drank the last of it. He closed his eyes and tilted back his head to soak up the sun.

The brightness against his closed eyes dimmed as if a shadowy figure had stepped into the path of his happily ever after. Letting his eyes drift open, he saw a white, puffy cloud had appeared out of nowhere and had nearly blocked the sun. A chilly breeze whipped through the air, bringing more and darker clouds that had been hanging back in the sky but were now moving quickly.

The college girls in their thin tops complained and the group broke up, cramming into an old Volkswagen hatchback with surfboards in a rack on top.

Kissick gathered his garbage and stood. He again looked at the sky. The sun was completely obscured by clouds.

NINETEEN

K
ISSICK TOOK A DETOUR THROUGH THE BAY FRONT TOURISTY
stores and did a little shopping before heading to Montaña de Oro State Park. On the way, he passed the estuary, hearing through his open car windows a cacophony of bird songs from the cormorants, herons, and egrets. The eucalyptus tree branches were clogged with nests. Farther off, through clutches of trees, he glimpsed the bay where birds soared and moored boats rocked.

Passing through Los Osos, he entered the state park. The road meandered across the bluffs above the dunes, giving a vista of the miles-long, wide unspoiled beach. The road then ducked inland, and he drove in speckled sunlight beneath the canopy of a dense eucalyptus grove. His tires crunched the brittle acorns that had rolled onto the road. Through the open car windows, he drank in the eucalyptus’s dusty pungent odor.

At Spooner’s Cove, waves crashed against the rocks that sheltered the small beach there. He turned onto a path between Monterey pines that led to the white clapboard Spooner Ranch House, circa 1892, where the visitor’s center and Park Service headquarters were located.

Kissick parked beneath a sprawling Monterey cypress. A Park Service jeep was the only other vehicle in the packed-dirt lot. The wind
had whipped up a dust devil. He grabbed his manila folder and headed for the house’s wooden wraparound porch. A sign posted beside the screen door said the visitor’s center was closed. Pamphlets about the park were stuck inside the screen door’s frame.

He tried the screen door and found it unlocked, as was the heavy wooden door behind it. When he stepped inside onto a wood-plank floor, he was surprised by a sharp, loud sound. He jerked his head around to see that he’d startled a ruddy-faced older man.

“Zeke Denver?”

He’d apparently been catching a nap in a rocking chair in front of a stone fireplace. The loud retort had come from a hardcover book that had slid from his lap onto the floor when Kissick had jolted him awake.

“Yessir.” He pushed himself up with the assistance of the chair arms. He was tall. “You must be Detective Kissick.”

Kissick took the gnarled hand he offered. “Call me, Jim, please.”

“Everyone here calls me Zeke. Nice to meet you. Welcome.” His big head was crowned by a mass of wavy silver hair that he wore parted on one side and combed back. A well-trimmed mustache was the same burnished silver as his hair. Bright blue eyes stood out dramatically. His barrel chest and round belly tested the shirt buttons of his moss green uniform. His long legs were slender in comparison. His eyelids were still at half-mast. He blinked as he struggled to wake up all the way.

Kissick would never have matched Denver’s soft telephone voice with a man of this stature. The ranger was also older than Kissick had anticipated. Judging by his crow’s feet and the texture of his skin, Kissick guessed he was at least sixty.

“Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Zeke.”

“Anything for Marilu. We still haven’t gotten over what happened to her. Can I offer you some coffee? I’ve got a fresh pot. Sorta fresh.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

“I’ll be back in two shakes.” The clomp-clomp of his footsteps drew Kissick’s eyes to the ranger’s ornately tooled cowboy boots. At a
doorway into another room, he turned back and asked, “How do you take it?”

“A little sugar and cream.”

Kissick set his file folder on top of a small counter in the corner. He wandered around looking at the historic photos on the walls, and then meandered into the back room where Denver had gone. He didn’t see the ranger, but heard him rustling in yet another room in the far back. The middle room had displays about the local flora and fauna, with taxidermic specimens of a mountain lion, lynx, raccoon, rat-tlesnake, and sea otter on display in glass cases decorated to mimic their natural habitat. A stuffed hawk was suspended from the ceiling, wings spread. Windows on the two outside walls were furnished with aged Venetian blinds.

“How much sugar?” Denver stepped into the doorway, holding a cardboard box of sugar.

“About a teaspoon.” Kissick walked over to him and observed as Denver poured sugar into a dark green mug of coffee.

“That’s good. Thanks.”

As Denver stirred the two coffees, Kissick looked around the room that was crammed with old furniture and office equipment. Above the table with the coffeemaker were two framed photos of Marilu Feathers. One was her official photo. The Park Service headquarters had faxed this to the PPD. The second photo was new to Kissick. It showed Marilu from the waist up, wearing a short-sleeved uniform shirt. An official patch on her shirt had a California grizzly bear on it. Binoculars hung from a strap around her neck and she was wearing a heavy backpack. The sun was harsh as her Ranger Stetson cast a shadow across half her face and she was still squinting. Her right arm was raised and bent, her forearm protected by a leather sleeve on which a falcon was perched. Her mouth was open as if caught in mid-sentence. She was turned slightly away from the camera, showing her sharp jaw and square chin.

On the table beneath the photos was a glass vase of blue wildflow-ers and sprigs of woody stalks with small grayish leaves. They looked freshly cut.

Denver handed Kissick a mug. “Marilu loved the park’s wildflowers. Loved everything about it, but especially the flowers. The park was named Montaña de Oro because of the poppies and wild mustard that turn the hills golden during springtime. Marilu used to say that being here was like living inside a potpourri bag.”

He pinched a few leaves from the woody stalks, rolled them between his thumb and fingers, held them to his nose and sniffed. He held the crushed leaves up for Kissick. “That’s sage.”

Denver led the way to the front room. He set his mug on the fireplace mantel, rolled over a wooden desk chair from behind the counter, and placed it in front of the unlit fireplace.

“Take a load off, Jim.”

Denver bent over to pick up the book that had slid from his lap. It was a well-worn hardcover edition
of Lonesome Dove.
He also picked up a bookmark printed with a photo of California golden poppies, found his page, about a quarter of the way in, and slipped in the marker. He set the book on the mantel.

Kissick inclined his head to indicate the book. “You a McMurtry fan?”

“Oh, yes. I must have read
Lonesome Dove
ten times by now.” Denver retrieved his coffee mug and slowly lowered himself onto the rocker that released an almost welcoming creak beneath his weight. “How about you?”

“It’s possibly my favorite book. That and
Moby-Dick.
”

As Denver rocked the chair, it sent forth a different chorus of creaks. He plunked his boots on top of a crate that was standing on its end. “Of course. Ahab and the white whale. Another tale of an obsessive quest that eventually destroys the hero even though, at the end, he achieves his heart’s desire.”

Kissick got the file folder from the counter and sat on the desk chair. He sipped the coffee. The brew was much better than he’d expected.

“This is a theme that perhaps resonates with you, Detective.”

Kissick nodded. “I like the epic aspects of those two books. The male bonding. They’re classic buddy stories.”

“They are that, but we can’t discount their larger themes.”

“Absolutely, but being a bit narrow-minded myself, I like to focus on the journey and not the end.”

The ranger’s eyes brightened. “I suspect you’re anything but narrow-minded, Jim.”

“My ex-wife would probably disagree with you on that last point.”

Denver chuckled heartily.

Kissick changed the subject. “What can you tell me about Ranger Feathers?”

His boots on the crate, Denver rocked the chair, tipping the crate as well. He held the mug between both hands against his belly and gazed out a dirty window. His mood grew heavy. The room was silent other than the creaking of his chair.

Kissick didn’t even hear a car pass outside.

“Marilu … Where do I begin? Horsewoman. Nature lover. No. Stronger than that. She
revered
nature. Markswoman. Loved children. Loved animals. Loved to laugh. Loved everything that was simple and pure. She was simple and pure. The purest soul on God’s green earth that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. That’s a peregrine falcon perched on her hand in that picture in there. Morro Rock is a protected falcon reserve.”

“I didn’t know that. I used to climb it years ago.”

“No more. Now it belongs to the falcons. Marilu loved those falcons.”

His blue eyes that had sparkled with amusement a minute before grew dark. He stopped rocking.

Outside, Kissick heard the screech of a bird.

“I’ll never get over it,” Denver began. “It happened on Christmas Eve, you know. The timing was what made me think he’d planned it. He knew the park would be empty. He knew a campfire on the beach would draw a ranger’s attention, especially in the snowy plover habitat. I’ve always wondered. Did he target her or was he gunning for any ranger who showed up? Guess we’ll never know.

“That Christmas Eve, I was home with my wife. My kids and the grandkids were over. Marilu lived in the ranger residence in the park. Ten years ago, ranger staffing was thin. It’s even worse now, with the budget cuts, but don’t get me started. We usually patrol the sandspit by
Jeep, but when it was quiet, Marilu liked to take out her horse Gypsy. The most she’d expect on an evening like that was to cite someone for walking their dogs on the beach.”

“Horses are allowed but dogs aren’t?”

“That’s right. Again, don’t get me started. So, Marilu was planning on spending Christmas Eve with her parents, brother, and his family. Nice people. Her father’s dead now. Must be six years. I think what happened to Marilu killed him. Mother still lives up in Cambria. She’s a retired professor. Taught sociology over at Cal Poly.”

While Denver talked, Kissick slipped his hand inside his jacket pocket and felt for Vining’s necklace. He rolled the pearls between his thumb and index finger.

“Round about six-thirty that evening, the gal that runs the private stable where Marilu kept her horse called me and said that Gypsy had come back, but without Marilu. This is a small community. We all know each other. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I knew something was wrong. I called Ranger Dispatch and Marilu hadn’t reported that she was off-duty. Course I thought Gypsy had thrown her someplace. I checked with her parents. They hadn’t seen her. Then I called the county sheriff’s. They offered to put their bird in the air and start looking for her. I came out. Thought I’d take the Jeep along Mar-ilu’s usual route across the dunes and onto the spit.