Hairl Tanner’s will was the eye-popper. He’d apparently drawn up a new one on July 6, 1953, thereby revoking all previous wills and codicils. He named a trust officer at his bank to be executor and established two trusts, one for Steve Ottweiler and one for Tannie. The trusts were to accumulate all income, with no distributions whatsoever, until the two reached twenty-five years of age. He further specified that his tangible personal property was to be similarly held in trust until each was twenty-five years old. I had to go back and read that provision again. Essentially what he was saying was that Steve wouldn’t have access to the money in his trust until 1962 and Tannie wouldn’t be eligible for her portion until 1969. The valuation of his personal property-art, silver, and antiques-was estimated at six hundred thousand dollars, but neither grandchild could sell, borrow against, or enjoy ownership for years. What was that about? At first I thought he was being punitive toward his two grandchildren, but then it occurred to me that Jake Ottweiler was the object of his wrath. Old man Tanner apparently wanted to make sure Jake couldn’t collect one red cent of his money even in support of his own two kids. Given the terms of Tanner’s will, Jake would have been forced to dig into his own pockets to cover his children’s expenses in addition to his own. Had Hairl made Jake the executor or a trustee, he might have at least petitioned for reasonable sums of money related to their health, welfare, and education. So how had Jake come up with his share of the purchase price of the Blue Moon?
While I was at the courthouse, I asked about DBAs, those being a record of applications for fictitious business names, hoping to pick up a tidbit or two about how they’d taken ownership. Unfortunately, an application expires five years from the date it’s filed and those files are purged after ten years; 1953 had long been relegated to the shredder. I tried the tax assessor’s office across the street, again hoping for information related to the Blue Moon, but the clerk told me the basement of the courthouse had flooded and any records prior to 1962 were lost. Some guys have all the luck. Here I was trying to pry into Jake’s business and I was having no success.
I left the courthouse and returned to the title company, where I picked up a manila envelope full of photocopied documents. I went back to my car and sat in the parking lot, leafing through my little pile of treasures. I started with the information related to Tom Padgett. There was an Affidavit-Death of Joint Tenant, in which Cora’s name was removed from the deed to the house. Over the next several years, Tom Padgett had bought numerous properties on money borrowed from a Santa Maria bank, but most had been paid off according to the Full Reconveyances on file.
I gave a cursory look at the grant deeds in the names of Calvin and Rachel Wilcox, all of which seemed unremarkable, and then moved on to Jake Ottweiler. He and BW McPhee had purchased the property on which the Blue Moon was situated on December 12, 1953, for the sum of twenty-two thousand dollars, a figure I calculated from the line of tax stamps pasted along the left margin. I remembered BW mentioning the “couple thousand dollars” he’d thrown into the pot, which meant that Jake had come up with roughly twenty thousand dollars. There had to have been a hefty additional sum to cover the liquor license, expansion, and remodeling they’d done.
I sat and thought about what I’d found, then started the car and backed out of the slot. Time to hit the road.
29
As soon as I reached Santa Maria, I pulled into a gas station and filled my tank, then parked to one side of the service bay and used the pay phone. I put a call through to the hospital where Daisy worked and asked for the Medical Records Department. Once she was on the line, I told her I was back in town. “Is there any way I can park myself at your place? I’ve got notes to type up and some calls I want to make.”
“Sure, no problem. There’s a house key hidden under the flowerpot sitting on the porch.”
“That’s not such a keen idea, Daisy. Everyone hides the key under a flowerpot. Burglars know that and it’s the first place they look.”
“Well, goody. I’m happy to hear. Frustrate a burglar and next thing you know he’s busting your windows or gouging at the locks. Oh, and as long as you’re there, would you mind switching the clothes out of the washer and into the dryer?”
“You just ran a load. Is that all you do?”
“Hey, it’s a harmless vice,” she replied.
At Daisy’s, I let myself in and then did as she’d asked, after which I set my typewriter on the dining room table and assembled my notes. I picked my way through my index cards, looking for loose ends. I knew I’d missed something, but it wasn’t immediately obvious going over my notes. Or possibly it was so obvious I couldn’t catch sight of it. In the process of collating the bits and pieces, I came across Ty Edding’s name. He’d been at the Tanner property with Liza on Friday night, and while she remembered nothing of the car that had pulled up in front, he might make a better witness.
I put a call through to Liza. “Hey, this is Kinsey. I’m sitting here squinting at my notes and thinking it might be helpful if I could talk to Ty Eddings.”
“Why?”
“To ask about the guy you spotted at the Tanner property that night. You have any idea where Ty is at this point?”
“No.”
I waited and then tried a prompt. “Not even a guess?”
“I told you I never heard from him again so how would I know? Dead or in jail for all I care.”
“What about his aunt? What was her name?”
“York. Dahlia. She left town when her husband died and I don’t know where she went.”
“What about kids? Someone told me Ty had a cousin named Kyle. Is York his last name?”
“Yes.”
“Liza, why are you making this so difficult? Are you mad at me?”
There was a silence. Finally, frostily: “Not to chide you for your lack of sensitivity, Kinsey, but did it occur to you I might be upset about Violet’s death? You treat it like ‘Ho-hum, oh well. One down and on to the next.’”
I could feel myself wince. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that. You’re right and I apologize. I get focused on what I’m doing and I forget about the emotional end of things.”
Silence.
“You want to talk about it?” I asked. The question felt lame in the wake of her criticism. If you have to be told how to behave, it doesn’t count.
“Not particularly. I’d like time to grieve in private, if it’s all right with you.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to intrude. Look, I’m hanging out at Daisy’s. Why don’t you call me later if you feel like conversation.”
Silence. I could hear her breathing. Finally, she said, “Kyle York lives in San Luis Obispo. He’s an allergist.” She hung up abruptly, leaving me to deliver my penitent “Thank you” to dead air.
I tried Directory Assistance, asking for a listing for Kyle York, M.D. I expected an office number, but surprisingly the operator offered me a choice. “You want the office or his home?”
“I might as well take both.”
She gave me the numbers, which I jotted on a card. I knew if I called the office, I’d either be left on terminal hold, listening to shitty music, or some officious receptionist would quiz me at length about my need to speak to him. I was thinking I’d wait until the end of the day and try his home phone, but on impulse I dialed. After five rings, a woman picked up. I said, “Mrs. York?”