Ms. Ramirez placed the call and explained about my request to visit Mr. Salazar. She waited for some time while someone on the other end relayed the information. After a minute she said thank you and hung up.
“Immanuel has agreed to see you. But he’s leaving soon for his house in Acapulco. If you want to talk to him you’ll have to travel to Acapulco or else see him shortly.”
“Where does he live?” I asked.
“On an island off Santa Barbara.”
“Is there ferry service?”
“No. It is his private island. You’d have to find a private launch.” Ms. Ramirez looked at her watch. “Even if you could, there is not enough time to catch a flight to Santa Barbara and then catch a boat ride.”
“You’re saying I should plan to see him in Acapulco.”
“Either that or charter a plane and fly directly to the island.”
“There is an airstrip on the island?”
“From what I’ve heard, Mr. Salazar’s island has everything.”
“I don’t suppose,” I said, “that Salazar West has a corporate jet that is about to make an errand run toward Santa Barbara.”
“Actually, we have two jets. But one is somewhere near Moscow with our V.P. of Marketing. And the other is in Singapore. You’ve heard of the Pacific Rim Trade Summit?”
“Of course,” I lied.
After I left the Salazar West building I spent twenty minutes at a pay phone talking to air charter companies. I finally found one that had a plane available. A turbo-charged Cessna 402, the woman said, that would get me wherever I wanted to go faster than anything else available. She politely explained that I would need to put a deposit on file, a figure that would max out one of my platinum cards. She then told me the fee which would max out another one.
I remembered Jennifer’s millions and decided I’d get paid back eventually, so I gave the woman the go-ahead. She said the plane would be waiting by the time I got to the airport.
I found a cab and we raced down 101 to San Francisco International.
An hour later I was the lone passenger in a seven-seat, twin-engine plane with two pilots, one female, one male, both in their middle twenties. The young woman was in the left seat. I heard them file a flight plan as we taxied to the runway.
“We’re cleared for takeoff, sir,” the woman captain said. “Is your belt fastened?” She looked back at me.
I nodded.
They talked into their headset mikes, pushed the throttles forward and we accelerated down the runway. The plane rose at a steep angle.
“This ship seems fast for a prop,” I said to the pilots. “What speed do you rotate?”
“Takeoff around one hundred,” the copilot said.
“Cruise at two-thirty. You a flyer?”
“Did some years ago. Sunday stuff. VFR hops around the Bay Area. You shooting for the majors?”
“Like everyone else,” the captain said, cynicism in her voice. “But even if we get there, it’s not like the old days. Job security went out the window and the pay is nowhere as good as it used to be. An older friend of mine flies left seat on the seven-forty-seven for United. He had the Hawaii route for years. Now they cut him back to domestic flights. Next thing you know, they’ll ask him to fill in right seat on the seven-thirty-seven.”
We made a sweeping turn over the San Francisco peninsula. In a minute the great blue sheet of the Pacific appeared. We arced out over the ocean and turned toward the noon day sun.
The coast was visible to our left as we shot south at an altitude much lower than the airlines fly. I watched intently as we passed Monterey Bay and then the rugged coast of Big Sur. The Hearst Castle at San Simeon stood regally on the green hills, a monument to another era. Soon, I recognized the big rock that sits in Morro Bay. After that the coast veered out and we did a big turn to stay over the water.
“Vandenburg Air Force Base down to the left,” the captain called out to me. “Missile test center, the works.”
I saw runways and military facilities on coastal land so gorgeous the federal government could sell it and buy another planet with the proceeds.
“We’re coming in toward the Channel Islands,” the pilot announced a few minutes later as the plane lost altitude. “Most of them are a national park. The one you want is a bit southwest. Farther out to sea. I’m eager to see it.”
We made another turn. I saw out the starboard window a narrow, green isle maybe three miles long and half a mile wide. Near one end were two rugged peaks. The island’s perimeter was made of rocky cliffs, caressed with the white foam crescents of crashing waves. On both ends of the island were buildings. A winding road connected them. Near the center of the island I could see the landing strip perched on a high plateau.
The plane dropped out of the sky and settled down on a wide, serious runway. We braked quickly and taxied toward an angular building with many tall windows. It looked like a yuppie ski lodge in Wyoming. The pilot braked to a stop next to a Lear Jet. A gentleman in a blue uniform with gold stripes down the pant legs emerged and waved at our plane. He was in his seventies and had a trim white moustache.
“I understand this is a round trip, correct?” the pilot said to me.
“Yes. Only I don’t know how long I’ll be here. Probably an hour or more.”
“No problem,” she said. “I’m sure they explained per hour ground costs.”
“They did indeed,” I said.
We stepped out into warm sunshine and cool ocean breeze.
“Good day, sir,” the older man in the blue suit said to me, quickly divining that I was the featured passenger. “My name is Jaspar Lawrence.” As he spoke he was looking at the woman pilot, checking the patches on her sleeve. He didn’t seem pleased.
“Owen McKenna.” I shook his hand. “Ms. Ramirez from Salazar West talked to somebody here and explained that I’d be calling on Immanuel Salazar. By request of his grand niece, Jennifer Salazar.”
“So I’ve been informed. I’m to take you to the house.” He turned to the pilots. “You’ll find everything you need in the flight building.” He pointed toward the lodge. “To the left as you go in the door are the lounge and kitchen. Help yourself to whatever food you like. And you might like to check out the room to the right. You’ll be amused at our electronics. We are,” he said with emphasis, “a fully equipped international airport.”
“You have a customs station?” the captain asked.
Jaspar grinned. It appeared that if he had to confront women pilots, at least he could impress them. “Mr. Salazar has a special arrangement with those boys.” He pointed to the Lear jet. “If you’d like to check out my plane, it’s unlocked. But please don’t take it for a spin.” He gave them a dapper grin. “Mr. Salazar doesn’t allow anyone but me to fly it.” He turned to me. “Come along now, Mr. McKenna.”
“You’ve got them green with envy,” I said.
“Fun, isn’t it,” he said. “They always dismiss old guys.”
“Until,” I said, “they find out you own the earth.”
I followed him to a gleaming silver Audi Quattro. “How many roads are there on this island?” I asked as we got in.
“Just the one from the house on the south end to the observatory on the north end.” He shifted into first gear and pulled away.
“Observatory?”
“Mr. Salazar is an amateur astronomer of some repute. He has discovered and named three comets. Immanuel Eins, Zwei, and Drei.”
We drove along the black-topped road that followed the ridgeline toward the south. Jaspar never shifted above third gear. The twisting road was high and often bare of roadside trees, making the ocean visible on both sides of the island.
After a mile, Jaspar slowed. We rounded a bend and came upon a drive lined with Cypress trees misshapen by the buffeting of high winds. Jaspar turned in. After a quarter mile the column of Cypress opened and the drive turned around in a big circle.
Jaspar pulled to a stop and got out.
&
nbsp; “Please come with me, sir,” he said.
There was an elaborate fountain in front of the house. The artist who designed it had done for flowing water what Escher did to architectural principles. The water tumbled over marble pedestals and landed in pools. The pools were connected at odd angles by marble channels that were cleverly shaped so that it appeared as if the water flowed in an endless perpetual circle, sometimes falling down, sometimes flowing uphill against gravity.
Around the fountains were gardens overflowing with cala lilies. Lounging in one bed of flowers was an amorphous bronze sculpture by Henry Moore. Knowing what most artists are up to, I wasn’t fooled. I knew it was another female figure.
Immanuel Salazar’s residence was a second cousin to the Sydney Opera House. It sat on a bluff above the sea. It had a bright white roof that curved and swooped up to points that jutted out over the edge of the cliffs.
We walked past the fountain down a path of crushed white stone and entered the house through a glass door that was nearly indistinguishable from the glass wall in which it hung.
Inside was an entry room that looked like a lobby to a modern art museum. On one tall, white wall was a huge Diebenkorn painting from his Ocean Park series. In the center of the flagstone floor grazed a Debra Butterfield horse. The animal was a version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s test. Was I sharp enough to entertain at the same time the two mutually-exclusive concepts in front of me, that the sculpture was as beautiful and graceful as a real horse, and that it was made of ugly rough scraps of junk metal?
Jaspar was part way down a hall when he turned to see what was taking me.
“Coming,” I said.
In the corridor I was introduced to a young Vietnamese housekeeper.
We went past a living room with a wall of glass that overlooked the blue Pacific. The other walls were painted a buttery yellow and were adorned with paintings. In one corner stood a black grand piano.
At the end of the corridor was a bedroom with another wall of glass and another grand view. In front of the glass, propped up on an articulated hospital bed, lay Immanuel Salazar.
Jaspar announced our entrance. “Good afternoon, sir. Your guest Mr. McKenna has arrived.”
A thin hand, yellow white, reached out from under the covers and waved us over.
We walked to the front of the bed. Jaspar introduced me and then withdrew from the room.
The man before me looked like a ghost. He was well into his nineties. His skin was so translucent I thought one might hold him up to the light and see the silhouette of his bones. Only his neck and head and left hand emerged from the covers. He was hairless, whether from age or from drug treatments I could not tell. But despite his shriveled body, he had eyes that were bluer than the Pacific. I imagined that little escaped their attention.
“The woman at Salazar West told me your first name, Mr. McKenna.” Salazar said in a withered voice. “But I forget.”
“Owen,” I said.
“Owen,” he said, nodding. “A good name. Welsh antecedents, I suppose.” Salazar struggled to clear his throat. “I recall that the term Owenism was used to describe the socialistic philosophy of Robert Owen, a Welsh social reformer in the early Nineteenth Century. There was Wilfred Owen, too. The English poet. And of course you know the exploits of Sir Richard Owen.”
I grinned at him. “Mr. Salazar, you greatly over-estimate me.”
“So they started using Owen as a first name, huh? Now, take Immanuel.” The old man coughed several times, then paused to catch his breath. “Imagine being saddled with such a Biblical extravagance. It’s a wonder I didn’t grow up to be a monk.” He gazed off into the Pacific. “Although the work wouldn’t have been bad. And I do like illuminated manuscripts.”
“Mr. Salazar,” I said after a long moment of wondering how much he could be trusted. “I’m a private detective working for Jennifer Salazar. I believe she is in danger and I wonder if I might ask you a few questions about your family. Specifically, the events around the time of Melissa’s death.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. I thought that bit about writing a biography sounded like a ruse. Sent by the little Jennifer, are you? Haven’t seen her for years. I always liked that little fireball.” Immanuel Salazar dissolved into a fit of coughing. I was about to run out of the room and call for Jaspar when the old man picked up an inhaler by his bedside and took several breaths. The coughing subsided. He set the inhaler down and groped for an oxygen mask that was connected to a clear plastic tube. He sucked on it before he spoke. “I know her grandmother wondered if Jennifer pushed her sister off the cliff. Don’t blame her if she did. Melissa was a twerp, if you don’t mind my vernacular. A regular preening princess. Too smart for her own good. If I were Jennifer, I would have pushed her first chance I got. Jennifer might not have been the genius of her sister, but she was smart enough at six to know she could never be punished for murder, never mind that she couldn’t be caught. Masterful plan, that cliff stuff. Always looks like an accident.”
“So you still think Jennifer pushed her?”
“Probably not. I think it was an accident. But how can you tell?”
“I have reason to believe that the climber who found Melissa’s body on the cliff eventually ended up working as their caretaker. His name was Samuel Sommers. Do you know anything about that?”
Immanuel Salazar started laughing. At first it was a high, weak giggle. Then it grew into a hearty laugh from deep within his frail chest. The laugh transformed into another coughing fit and this time he was slower to grab for the oxygen mask. His body shook with great, wracking, phlegm-choked coughs, and I was about to force the inhaler on him when he finally picked it up and sucked on it between his coughs. Eventually, he calmed and he let it drop to the bed sheets. I saw a distinct smirk on his face.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
He slowly raised up his arm and pointed over to a dresser.
“Excuse me, sir. Something about the dresser?”
He continued to point. He mouthed some words but the air to vocalize them wouldn’t come.
I walked over to the dresser. It was ordinary, with several drawers and a top covered with mementos. Perhaps he was pointing at the view beyond, something out on the Pacific.
“The picture, damn it!” he suddenly said.
In a gold photo frame was a faded group shot of several people. I picked it up and waved it toward Immanuel Salazar. “This?” I said.
He nodded vigorously.
I took a closer look at the photo. Women with beehive hairdos and men in plaid suits stood precariously in a boat with the shore of Lake Tahoe as the backdrop. The photographer must have been in another boat.
“Bring it here,” the old man wheezed.
I sat on the edge of his bed and held it out.
Immanuel Salazar pointed at the various people. “This is my brother Abraham, and this is his son Joseph. They both died in a plane crash, but you probably know that. This is Abraham’s wife. You probably know of her as Gramma. And this distinguished-looking man,” he said with emphasis, “is me.”
“Of course,” I said. I was looking at another woman next to Abraham. She was quite young, with a spectacular smile and large, wide-set eyes. Her hair was tied up behind her head. A few curls trickled down her neck which was so thin and graceful it begged nibbling. She had a tiny waist, a big bosom and shapely hips. Hers was the kind of beauty that rivets the attention of all who see her. I pointed to her. “Who’s this?” I asked.
Immanuel didn’t respond immediately.
I looked at him.
“You asked about the caretaker, a Mr. Samuel Sommers? That, my good man, is his mother.” He waited, pleased for the effect his announcement had on me.
“And her name?”
He gave me a grin wide enough to reveal the too-white coloring of ill-chosen false teeth. “Helga.”
TWENTY-FIVE