“What? That’s terrible!” Concern flooded Martin’s eyes. “My sister mentioned someone had died nearby, but I had no idea . . .”
“It was the Sunday before last. Just nine days ago.” Beth suddenly realized Ricardo Cruz had been found the day before Mr. Rhoads passed away. No wonder Martin hadn’t gotten the full story.
“What happened?”
“The body of a young man was found up by the mud flats on one of Jack’s kayak tours. She thought he was a guest who’d fallen in. But when she rolled him over . . .” Beth squeezed the tinfoil ball tight in her hand.
“Heart attack?”
“That’s what I thought too. But no. Worse. They say he was murdered. And Paul Hanley might be a suspect.”
“Whoa.”
Beth looked down. She hadn’t meant to turn the conversation toward gruesome gossip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re here to talk about your father. Not this.”
“It’s okay. Dad would have wanted to know about everything going on around the ranch. I guess I should too.”
It took Beth a minute to understand what he meant. “The ranch is yours now, isn’t it?”
“And my sister’s.”
“Are you planning to keep it?”
“I don’t think so. Di has her life in Carmel, and mine is up in the city. Dad’s memories I want. His land, not so much.” He took a swig of beer. “And it wouldn’t hurt for my start-up to have a fresh source of capital without investor strings attached. I’ve actually already heard from a potential buyer. I just have to get on the same page with Di about it. And Victor Morales.”
“The land trust director?”
“He’s been calling the house, claiming Dad intended to donate the development rights to the land trust.”
“It is a beautiful place,” Beth said.
“True. One I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from.”
Beth tried to imagine Martin in a cowboy hat and a worn pair of chaps, his smooth skin growing leathery grooves like his father’s. It was a stretch.
“Well,” she said, “if Victor Morales is up to something, my mother will probably sniff it out.”
“Your mother?”
“She met Victor at your father’s wake and strong-armed him into giving her a tour tomorrow.”
“Is she a . . . conservationist?”
“Not exactly.” Beth considered whether there was any sensible way to explain what Lana was doing. But there wasn’t. So she just stuck with the truth.
“When my daughter found the dead man, the sheriffs started pressuring her about it. Treating her like a suspect. That prompted my mother to decide to swoop in and solve the case.”
“So your mother’s a detective.”
“Well . . .” Beth glanced over at the makeshift bar in the corner. “You want another beer?”
Over sweaty Modelos and hot churros, Beth told Martin all about her glamorous mother. Her real estate career. The collapse. The rushed occupation of Beth’s back bedroom. And Lana’s insistence on driving her completely up the wall.
“She can’t accept that she isn’t the center of the universe anymore, sending up skyscrapers with the flick of her pen. She can’t pay a demolition crew to pummel her cancer into submission, so she’s put all that energy into bulldozing my life instead. Roping my daughter into her fantasies. And figuring out who killed the dead man in the slough.”
“And she’s doing it because . . . ?”
Beth rolled her eyes. “She wants to help, supposedly. To feel important, more likely.”
“Sounds like it’s bringing her closer to your daughter.”
Beth considered, for a moment, what Lana might not be telling her about her motivations. But she knew her mother. It was all about the hunt, all about herself.
“The sheriffs have gotten interested in Paul Hanley as a suspect. But she’s hot on the trail of that land trust director.”
“Why?”
“The man who died was working for him as a naturalist.”
“Victor Morales.” Martin repeated the name slowly, rolling it around in his mouth like a slug. “I don’t trust him. Sweet-talking old people into giving away their land.”
“He tried that with your father?”
“A couple months ago, Victor showed me and my sister a document Dad signed about possibly donating our development rights to the land trust. But it’s meaningless. It isn’t binding. Dad never even mentioned it to us. He probably signed it just to get Victor off his back.”