At Cotton Point Estates, I had to explain to a tough American Response guard that a homeowner confined to her house with disabilities had requested city building code requirements and fees and didn’t want her name on the guest list. Worried about the neighbors, I noted. The guard was a woman. Ruthven. She squinted at me skeptically, the morning sun in her eyes. I lifted my aluminum citation keeper clipboard for her to see — a souvenir from my days in traffic control, many moons ago. The gate rolled open.
Sixteen estates. Sixteen chances to discover if one of them might be Daley Rideout’s plush prison. My most recent visits to IvarDuggans, just hours earlier, had once again yielded no clue as to which mansion might belong to Marie Knippermeir, if any actually did at all. I clung to the hope that she had amplified the Cotton Point development to “where a cotton field used to be, up in San Clemente.”
If Melinda Day was right, and luck was just an invisible hole into which you might or might not step, then my chances of seeing Daley, or any solid link to Daley, were poor. But if luck is something you make, as I have come to believe, and I could find a way to keep from drawing attention to myself, I might be able to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to find her place of luxury internment.
So I hid in plain sight, with the zoom Olympus under my blazer on the passenger seat, just in case. Toured the ’hood, as if looking for an address, working east to west, starting with Via Calandria. My computer search had given me three estates offered for sale that I could likely cross off the list. Price range $5 million to $44 million.
Down to thirteen, just like that.
On Calle Isabella, a dashing redhead in a Porsche convertible swept out of the circular driveway of a Neopolitanesque mansion. Justine had been a dashing redhead once, and had driven a Porsche, too. I pulled over and watched the woman and the car, a painful knot in my throat. Waved politely, as did she. Thought about Justine. Four years and five months. It’s harder to picture her now. Not that the images fade, but there are fewer of them to choose from. Some stay. Some go. They vanish slowly, like snapshots left in the sun. It’s how you move forward.
Down to twelve.
From another Calle Isabella home, an older couple walked arm-in-arm under the porte cochere, supporting each other equally toward a black Lincoln Navigator.
Beside a French country extravaganza on Calle Lisa was a blue tennis court surrounded by languorous palms. An instructor fed volleys to a woman at the net. The pro stopped to demonstrate a proper split step, racquet up and out and ready to carve, knees bent. The woman tried, seemed to be getting it.
Ten. Probably.
A young mom ran a stroller down a driveway on Calle Louisa.
Squads of gardeners, rakes raking and blowers blowing. Pool cleaners. A laundry-service van.
On Calle Marlena, two boys flipped a white lacrosse ball back and forth on a big green lawn.
Onward to Calle Ariana, back up to Via Calandrai, then onto Calle Isabella again.
By eleven o’clock I had eliminated two more estates, leaving me with six.
I pulled into the shade of a huge coral tree outside one of them, set my lunch bag on the passenger seat, and cracked an energy drink. I set my phone in the cup holder, hoping for wasp-cam action. The less activity we saw at Paradise Date Farm, the more it bothered me.
A text message from Penelope:
Dreamed of you last night. Actually
a rhinoceros in Armani, kind of a
swanky wild-animal thing, but the
rhino was you and we danced and we
were quite good together in spite of
the horn, which at the end of the dance
I swung on like on a jungle gym when I
was a happy girl all those light-years
ago. Don’t worry. Freud was right.
Sometimes a rhino horn is just a rhino
horn. Get it? Where is my girl?
Please bring her to me now. Been too
long. I miss her. Make her be here, Roland Ford.
The silver SNR Expedition approached from behind me at 11:48 a.m. I saw it coming in the rearview and faced away as it went by. When it turned onto Calle Marlena I started up my Malibu and slowly followed. Entries and exits are what cook you as a follower. As I eased onto Calle Marlena I saw the SUV pull into the circular drive of a formidable two-story block mansion, headed for the porte cochere. The porte cochere was laced by mandevilla vines, abundant with pink blooms.
I couldn’t sit there in the middle of the street, so I crept along, riding the brakes with my clipboard up, looking around as if lost. The Expedition parked. Connor Donald and Eric Glassen headed toward the front porch and an enormous wood-and-iron door. Donald pushed a ringer, and a long moment later Adam Revell pulled open the big door and let his compatriots inside. I caught a glimpse of the foyer, a rustic iron chandelier and a stone wall with sconces leading toward sunlight. Noted the address as I drove by.
I circled back to the shade of the coral tree and finished my lunch.
Stayed as long as I thought I could without drawing unwanted attention from the residents.
Without worrying Ruthven.
Feeling the luck. Whether I’d made it or fallen into it didn’t matter. I believed I was onto something good.
Believed for a few more fruitless hours.
Back the next morning. The same guards believed the same story but gave me different looks. Ruthven looked ready to challenge me but stood down. I was pressing my luck, but it would have been worse to show up with my third version in five days.
I passed by Marie Knippermeir’s stone-block mansion and parked in a shaded parklike border between a Venetian canal house and a Castilian manse. I had a good view of Marie’s place, where two SNR vehicles waited under the porte cochere.
Sipped my coffee and kept an eye on the house, and on my phone in the cup holder. Cameras one and two picked up a Paradise Date Farm truck as it lumbered through the barnyard. Then, after the requisite sixty seconds of inactivity, went black. But when nine o’clock rolled around — the time when the SNR “school” was usually busy with students, moms, and dads — there was no streaming video at all. Had the wasp-cams been discovered? Run out of power? Had SNR shut the school down? Why?
Over the next two hours I moved my bogus City of San Clemente vehicle to three different locations, keeping Marie’s estate in view and trying not to draw the attention of the locals.
Saw the same landscape workers and pool cleaners I’d seen the day before but working at different properties. The woman hit with her tennis pro. No lacrosse boys on the big green lawn.
At about noon a brightly colored pizza truck brought lunch to an estate just south of Marie’s on Calle Marlena. A few minutes later the redhead in her Porsche headed up Via Calandria on her way out of Cotton Point Estates.
It was one o’clock when a shiny black Mercedes AMG sedan swept into Marie’s driveway and parked in the shade. Reggie Atlas sprang out and headed for the door. He was dressed in his preaching duds: jeans and white running shoes and a white open-collared shirt. I shot him with the Olympus, shutter sound off. He rang the doorbell and ran a hand through his thatch of heavy blond hair. Waited awhile, checked his watch. Adam Revell finally opened the door and Atlas went inside without conversation. The chandelier and the foyer leading to sunlight flashed briefly, then vanished behind the door of wood and iron.
Alfred Battle arrived less than five minutes later in his Caddy, parked behind the black sedan, and hoisted his tall, thin body from the car with the help of a handle. I took a shot of him as well. He straightened, buttoned his brown suit coat over his shirt and tie. Strode to the door in well-shined wingtips. The door opened and Connor Donald was at his service. I took a shot of him, too.