I slumped against the golf cart. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Mary Beth meant the word casino instead of the building here,” I said. I pulled the multicolored panel piece out and laid it on the backseat.
“But she mentioned the island in the diary entry, remember?” Dinah said, smoothing out the piece. “And missing Catalina.”
“I guess that eliminates Las Vegas,” I said.
“I think if that’s what Mary Beth had been trying to depict, she would have done a motif of Elvis Presley,” Dinah said with a chuckle. “Let’s not give up on here yet. We have the golf cart for another half hour. We might as well finish exploring.” We got back in and followed the map as the road wound around the top of the town. Dinah continued driving while I did the looking. We were clearly in the super-high-rent district. The houses were built into the hill, and some of them were huge.
As we began our descent, we followed the scenic route signs.
“You might as well enjoy the ride, as long as we’re here,” Dinah urged. She pointed toward the Zane Grey-Pueblo Hotel, which stood out from the design of the other buildings. “It’s supposed to look like a Hopi Indian pueblo,” Dinah explained, going on to say it had originally been the famous writer’s home. She threw out other tidbits about the island as we drove back into the heart of town. At one time the Wrigley’s Gum family had owned the island, but now almost everything outside Avalon was part of the Catalina Island Conservancy and was maintained as a natural preserve.
“Oh, and the other town, Two Harbors, is located on an isthmus, hence the name,” Dinah said. “Two Harbors sounds pretty small—one lodge and campgrounds.” I guess my face must have registered surprise because Dinah laughed. “What can I say? When I knew we were coming I did a little reading.” She steered the golf cart back toward the drive along the water.
“Did I tell you about the buffalos?” she said. “They brought some over for some Zane Grey western filmed here in the thirties, and they’ve just kept having little buffalos ever since. Too bad we don’t have more time. We could take one of the tours that goes into the interior and see them.”
The road ran toward the Casino Building. As we passed it, Dinah suggested we stop and check it out on the way back. We zoomed past a diver’s beach after which the road seemed to disappear around a curve and go inland. Dinah pulled over so we could check the map to see what was up ahead.
“I guess this is it,” Dinah said, pointing at the map. “The road goes only a short distance past the curve before it’s marked Hamilton Cove Condominium Residents Only.”
“Maybe the house is part of the condos,” I suggested, but Dinah shook her head. During her pretrip research she’d seen a picture of the condos, and she assured me they didn’t resemble anything on the crochet piece.
“It makes me glad Adele didn’t come with us. I can hear her saying, ‘Well, Nancy Jessica Drew Fletcher Marple, you’re some detective.’ ”
I was about to tell Dinah to turn around when I saw a cat run across the road just where it curved. And then another cat, and another.
“Let’s see what’s around the bend,” I said as Dinah turned the golf cart back on. We drove ahead to the spot where the road curved, and Dinah slowed down as we went around the base of the hill.
At first I saw only a grassy spot with a stand of trees. But when I studied it a little more, I saw the cats. Dinah pulled up a little farther. Now I saw there were cats everywhere, along with a bunch of food bowls. That’s when I saw the house.
“Dinah, look,” I said, my voice shaking. She followed my finger and gasped. I took out the crochet piece, and we looked from it to the house and back again. There was no mistaking it: This was the house. I pointed at the two panels with cat images. “They’re a clue, too.”
Unlike most of the houses we’d seen in Avalon, this one was off by itself. It was well shaded and had a clear view down to the water. I moved closer and got a good look at the structure. The crochet image had broken it down to its geometric basics, but the real house was intriguing. I realized we were looking at the back of it, and we walked through the grass to the front. The cats ignored us and went about their business.
A small porch led up to the door of the white wood-frame house. The front featured a bay window, probably perfect for admiring the great view. But it was the top portion that stood out. I had thought the roof resembled an inverted ice cream cone, but now I saw it was wider—more like a snow-cone holder. Just below it was a round porch.
Bravely, I walked up the steps to the door and knocked, though I had no idea what I was going to say if someone answered. It turned out not to be a problem because no one did. The fact that no one was home meant I was free to look in the windows. Or try to. The view was blocked by window coverings that I realized, on closer examination, were made out of filet crochet. Someone had had a lot of time on their hands.
“We have to find out about this place,” I said, walking quickly back to the golf cart.
“But first we have to return the golf cart,” Dinah said, holding her arm up to show me her watch. “Our two hours are up.”
A few minutes later, we pulled into the rental lot and left the golf cart. Before I could work out a plan to find out about the house, I was distracted by throngs of people coming from various directions and all going into a large doorway.
“What’s going on?” I asked a woman wearing a ruby red poncho.
“Mail call. This time of year it’s the event of the day.” She explained that there was no mail delivery on Catalina. The mail came by plane to the Airport in the Sky and was driven down to town and then put into the mailboxes that lined the wall of the Atwater Arcade.
Curious, Dinah and I followed her into a dark walkway on the ground floor of an old hotel. Along one wall people were eagerly opening their mailboxes. On the opposite side a window looked in on a hardware store and down the way a door was open with a sign proclaiming, “Vacation Rentals.”
“That’s just what we need,” I said as a plan began to form.
“We do?” Dinah said, following me in.
“I have an idea. Just go along with anything I say.”
“Okay, captain,” Dinah said with a nod.
Inside a woman sat behind a desk reading a book. We set off some kind of bell when we walked in and she looked up. It took a moment for her to focus, and then she took off her glasses and let them hang from the chain around her neck.
“Renata Baker at your service,” she said. “Can I help you with something?”
“My friend and I just came for the day, but we’ve fallen in love with the island and we’re interested in renting a place.”
Renata pointed to a couple of chairs and invited us to sit. “You ladies came at just the right time. You can have your choice of rentals and such a bargain price—luxury accommodations at the bare basic rate. How long are we looking for?” She was already pulling out an album and thumbing through the plastic-coated pictures.
“Actually, I saw the house I want to rent,” I said and described the place, but before I could get to the cats, she was already shaking her head.
“That’s the Wells place. They don’t rent it. Well, actually I don’t know what’s going to happen to it now.” Her expression dimmed. “There’s been a death in the family.”
Undaunted, I didn’t give up. “I’d really like to see the inside. If you think it’s going to be for sale soon.” I let it hang, implying I’d be interested in buying it, hoping she’d have visions of a giant commission and find a way to show it to me.
“It belongs to the Lance Wells estate, and I don’t expect it to be for sale,” she said, obviously trying to dismiss it as a possibility. She pointed to a photo of one of the houses we’d passed in the Flats. “This place is just darling. I can show it to you now.”