Mariner's Compass (16 page)

I swatted at his hand. “Stop it. You’re supposed to look like you don’t know me. What did you find out?”

“Found it all out from one talkative little widow who was dying to tell someone what she heard. There’s always one in every group, the one who watches everyone else, getting her thrills out of reporting others’ peccadillos. Apparently your Ms. Tess Briggstone wasn’t the only one expecting a little something extra when Jacob Chandler passed away.”

“Who else?”

“That rather stout man and his sad-looking wife you were talking to.”

“His name’s Beau Franklin. He told me right up front that he and Mr. Chandler had some unfinished business. He’s coming by my house tomorrow at ten to talk about it.”

“That fits with what my chattering little source told me. Your Mr. Chandler had apparently gone into some sort of speculative business with Mr. Franklin, and Mr. Franklin’s investment has yet to be returned.”

“For what?” I asked.

“She didn’t know. Just knew they had a deal going that was supposed to bring in some quick money, which apparently Mr. Franklin is desperate for, though she doesn’t know why. She overheard Chandler and Franklin at one of the senior potlucks a few weeks ago when she was washing dishes in the kitchen. Beau was getting mighty agitated at Jake. Asked him when was he going to get the stuff so Beau could recoup his money.”

“Get the stuff? Wonder what he meant by that.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like the sound of it. Could be anything these days from drugs to black market CDs. Makes me a tad nervous about you stayin’ in that house, that’s a fact.”

I waved my hand impatiently. “Believe me, Gabe’s had that house practically dipped in alcohol. Whatever stuff he’s talking about isn’t inside that house.”

“Nevertheless,” Emory said doubtfully, leaving it at that.

“Ponder on it, cousin, and get back to me if anything bubbles up out of that diabolical brain of yours.”

“I’ll poke around. By the way, what’s Dove got cooking over there at the Historical Museum, anyway?”

“I have no idea. Gabe seems to think something is going to happen at the city council meeting tonight, so you might want to be there.”

“With bells on.” Emory checked his flat, gold watch. “Gotta go. I’m interviewing the mayor at three.”

“Traitor,” I teased.

“No, ma‘am, just doing a little spyin’ for our side.” He flipped a little wave at Rich. “Nice meetin’ you, Mr. Trujillo. You’d best be on full alert hanging around my cousin here. She attracts trouble like a lightnin’ rod on a Kansas silo.”

“Get lost, fashion boy,” I said.

“Your cousin, huh?” Rich commented, watching Emory climb into his shiny black Cadillac Seville. “I do see the family resemblance.”

“We don’t look that much alike,” I said.

“I didn’t mean your looks.”

At the truck he asked, “You ready for lunch now? I sure am.”

I turned the ignition. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll go out to the James Dean Memorial and try to figure out what that number 226 means, but I can drop you off first.”

“I could go with you,” he offered.

“Thanks, but you’ve wasted enough of your day. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

He closed the passenger door and turned to me, his forehead wrinkling. “Like what? Frankly, if I spend another day fishing or just wandering around Morro Bay I’m going to go crazy. I’m enjoying this.” He smiled sheepishly at me. “I mean, not Jake dying, but . . .”

I smiled back. I knew exactly what he meant. How to fill your days and weeks when you’d spent most of your life as a couple and now weren’t anymore. “Well, I certainly don’t mind the company, but first I have a quick errand in Paso Robles. Then we’re off to Cholame.”

At a local stationery store that advertised Federal Express, I paid the overnight price to send the Polaroid picture of Mr. Chandler to his sister in Lubbock, hoping it would give her some sort of closure to the pain of his desertion.

Heading out of Paso Robles on Highway 46, I gave Rich the tourist guide information about Cholame and the James Dean Memorial.

“Like Dove would say, Cholame is a ‘poke and clean’ town. Poke your head out of the window and you’re clean through it.”

Rich laughed. “So what is there?”

“A pretty decent cafe and the James Dean Memorial. It’s right before Highways 41 and 46 split off. One road goes to Fresno, the other Bakersfield.”

“We can have lunch at the cafe, then.”

I gazed out over the rolling green meadows, remembering how Jack and I and our friends used to come out here even before the memorial was built in 1977. We’d sprawl across the hoods of our trucks, throw rocks across the road, drink warm Cokes, and spit sunflower seeds at each other. Something wild in us drew us to that spot, the place where James Dean’s own explosive youth was ended so quickly, so irretrievably.

I came here a few times after Jack’s death, sitting in our truck and staring at the steel and concrete monument, trying to discover some answers about why he was taken from me so young. I never came to any great conclusions and eventually relegated this place, like so many others, to a back room in my mind labeled, “Jack.” Now, here it was again, placed before me for some other inexplicable reason.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Hi-Way Cafe. Without speaking, we stepped out of the truck and walked over to the memorial. At this time of day, during the middle of the week, we were the only visitors. Behind us, in the fields full of wild alfalfa, young bull calves playfully butted heads. Yellow-eyed blackbirds flitted through the thin leaves of the Tree of Heaven that grew in the middle of the monument. The sun beat down warm on our shoulders, glinting off the monument’s steel posts. During the hot summer months, this place was unbearable except after sunset. I knew ranchers who loved the desolate, sometimes forbidding Carrizo Plains of San Celina County where the San Andreas Fault meandered through the dry, cracked landscape, but it took a certain toughness to appreciate and tolerate this land’s isolated beauty.

Rich read out loud, “His name was James Byron Dean. He was an actor. He died just before sundown on 9/30/ 55 when his Porsche collided with another car at a fork in the road not 900 yards east of this tree, long known as the Tree of Heaven. He was twenty-four years old.”

He didn’t look up but continued staring at the plaque. “I remember when this happened. He was a year younger than me. I’d been a firefighter for a little over a year. Around the same time, a buddy of mine . . .” He looked at me, his face heavy with grief, but it wasn’t for James Dean. “We were booters in the academy. He died in a house fire. Roof collapsed on him. Left a wife and five-year-old son. The thing was, I couldn’t believe someone my age could die. It’s still hard to believe.”

“I know what you mean. My mom died when she was twenty-five.”

“That’s really rough on a kid. How old were you?”

“Six.”

He shook his head sympathetically. “My friend’s son grew up to be a pharmacist. A real nice kid. He was a big help when my wife needed so much medication that I couldn’t keep it all straight.” We both stared at the monument for a long, silent moment.

“Let’s have lunch,” I suggested, wanting to get off the subject of parents, spouses, and friends dying too young. “We can inspect the monument in detail afterwards and see if anything relates to the number 226.”

“Good idea.”

The cafe smelled of that wonderful flavor combination that could seduce just about any red-blooded American citizen no matter what their race, creed, or color—fresh baked pie and the intoxicating scent of grilling hamburgers. We took a seat in one of the green Naugahyde booths and ordered the hamburger, fries, and cherry pie special from our young, frizzy-headed waitress.

“I’m going to look around,” I told Rich. He nodded and went over to the old fifties jukebox to peruse the music selections.

“No rap,” I called over my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’m more a Frank Sinatra kinda guy.”

Since we were the only customers, I wandered freely about the small room, inspecting the framed black-and-white photographs of James Dean over every booth showing him dressed in everything from Western clothes to a tuxedo to a plaid shirt and nerd glasses holding a white kitten. Different clothes altered his look entirely. They were costumes really—props—the ones he chose, or were chosen for him, determined how we saw him, how we judged him. Who was he really? That was a question that could be asked of any of us: How much of what we show the world truly reveals who we are?

Something about this Mr. Chandler bothered me. It was as if he was trying to reveal himself to me, but it was all so planned, so manipulated, that it seemed like all he was revealing was that he was an insensitive, controlling man who didn’t even remember his lover in his will.

At this point, I was pretty certain I wouldn’t have liked Jacob Chandler very much.

I looked through the James Dean T-shirts, hats, postcards, and key chains, not seeing anything that gave me a hint as to what the number 226 meant. I’d glanced quickly over the memorial when I was outside, though I knew most of it almost by heart and there was no 226 there, either. Was it some kind of latitude/longitude reference? Was there someplace 226 miles from this spot I should go? Was there something in James Dean’s life where that number was significant? If there was, it had to be here somewhere. If nothing else, it appeared that Mr. Chandler was methodical and logical—that number was there for a reason.

I went back to our table when the food arrived and ate my hamburger and fries absentmindedly. Rich, taking my cue, didn’t press me for conversation. We listened to his selections: “Fly Me to the Moon,” “A Hundred Pounds of Clay,” “Peggy Sue,” “Something to Talk About.”

“Bonnie Raitt?” I asked, putting more catsup on my fries. “Kinda wild. I’d never have guessed that about you, Rich.”

His chin jutted out slightly in defiance. “I have my cooler moments.” Then he softened his stance with a sheepish smile. “Besides, I’ve always had a weakness for redheads with attitude.”

We were halfway through our pie when the music ran out.

“My turn,” I said, scooting out of the booth. Leaning over the jukebox, I perused the selections—a combination of big band, fifties tunes, and country/western classics. “Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” I exclaimed.

The teenage waitress, coming by with a pot of coffee to refill Rich’s cup, asked, “What’s wrong?”

I turned to her. “Do these records get changed often?”

A look of disdain crowded her face. “Not often enough for me. Isn’t it gross? My mom owns this place. I’m working on her getting some singers from this decade, and she’s considering it. She said she’d consider giving up anyone except Carole King. She refuses to get rid of old Carole.”She rolled her kohl-blackened eyes. “She’s the
queen
in my mom’s eyes.”

“Rich, get over here and look at this.”

He stood next to me and looked at where I was pointing.

Number 226. Carole King. “I Feel the Earth Move.”

Rich’s brown face clouded with confusion. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s because you’re not from around here. But he knew I would.”

“So, what does it mean?”

“Our next stop is Parkfield.”

“Where and what is Parkfield?”

“You think this is the boonies, wait’ll you see Parkfield.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Earthquake capital of the world,” our young waitress filled in. “The people who live out there are crazy. When the big one hits, they are moose meat.”

Rich turned to me and grinned. “Sounds like fun. Let’s go.”

8

“YOU WEREN’T KIDDING,” Rich said as we bumped along the gravel road toward Parkfield. It was open range, and I had to stop more than once for a lazy heifer or bull wandering across the road to where the alfalfa was undoubtedly greener. Above us, turkey vultures swooped low in the sweet-tasting air, so close we could almost count their wing feathers.

I laughed. “I guarantee that Parkfield isn’t a tourist trap on the level of Morro Bay and I doubt that it ever will be. In the summer, it can get up to 110 degrees out here. The people who live and ranch out here are tougher than me by a long shot. Tough as baked-in-the-sun bull hide.”

He looked out the window, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Somehow, I think you might give them a run for their money, Benni Harper.”

“You’re just being flattering ’cause I know the way back.”

“Could be,” he said with a chuckle.

In a half hour we pulled into the tiny town of Parkfield—population 34—with more earthquake-predicting gizmos than could be found even at Cal Tech. We parked in front of the Parkfield Inn, where, painted across a rusty old water tank, an advertisement welcomed visitors to the “Earthquake Capital of the World—Sleep Here When It Happens.” The inn was a pleasant, rustic building next to an old guntower-like structure colored a faded yellow with Shell Products still visible in weathered red. Across the street was a log cabin cafe and farther down a gift shop in a real caboose and freight car called appropriately the Parkfield Caboose.

We climbed out of the truck and looked around. A golden retriever trotted by, not giving us a second glance. The absence of human voices was so apparent, the chirping of the birds and hum of the insects so loud, it caused both of us to stand quietly for a moment, enjoying the peace.

“Not much here,” Rich finally said in a lower than normal voice. “Shouldn’t take us too long to question all thirty-four people.”

I hitched my purse over my shoulder. “Guess the cafe would be the logical place to start. How about something to drink?”

“Sounds great.”

After buying two Cokes from the woman behind the counter, Rich walked around the cafe, reading the framed newspaper articles about the town while I chatted casually with the waitress, finally getting up enough nerve to show her Jacob Chandler’s driver’s license and ask her if she knew him.

“He doesn’t look familiar,” she said, wiping down the counter with slow circles. “Why are you looking for him?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “He’s not a criminal or anything. Actually, he passed away last week. I’m just kind of trying to figure out who he was.”