The Tustin Chronicles: A Detective Santy Mystery Read online

  The Tustin Chronicles: A Detective Santy Mystery

  Title Page

  Part 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 1 1

  Chapter 1 2

  Chapter 1 3

  Chapter 1 4

  Chapter 1 5

  Chapter 1 6

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  C hapter 20

  Chapter 2 1

  Chapter 2 2

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  C hapter 2

  Chap ter 3

  C hapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chap ter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 2 0

  Chapter 2 1

  Chapter 2 2

  Chapter 2 3

  Chapter 2 4

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 2 6

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 3 6

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter One

  The Tustin Chronicles

  A Detective Santy Mystery

  Louise Hathaway

  Copyright Louise Hathaway 2014

  Smashwords Edition

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  It’s a beautiful Saturday spring morning and Phil is feeling nostalgic about old Orange County. He drives his old Ford truck down Red Hill passing the vast Lighter-Than-Air military base and its iconic blimp hangars. It always brings a smile to his face when he drives out here. He feels like he is near something historic in this land of so much newness.

  The area is still farmed and agrarian. So much of Orange County is being developed into suburban tract homes any more. He can smell the fragrant scent of strawberries just coming into ripeness. Cantaloupes and beans are being put in by masses of farm hands that no grower can do without.

  He is full of energy and is on his way to get a truckload of compost to get his spring garden going the right way this year. He had read about this place, Green Gardens, and how they could sell you a truckload of compost for almost nothing. He is excited in the same way he used to be as a kid when something fun was about to happen. Like going to Disneyland.

  He follows the old road around the base at a leisurely clip so he can watch the helicopters slowly rising off the tarmac and heading east towards Saddleback Mountain. Oh what graceful things those machines are, he thinks. At one point he pulls off the road to watch the descent of one large helicopter coming in right over the road above him. Wow, he thinks: that must be something to drive! His truck radio buzzes back into existence out of its deadness, as if the force of the helicopter kicked some wire the right way for once. The Eagles blare out of the truck’s speakers urging Phil to take it easy. Yeah sure, must be nice, he thinks. The sound of my own wheels could use a tune-up.

  At the southern end of the air base, Phil pulls off the road into Green Gardens where he squeezes his truck into a parking lot stuffed with landscaping vehicles of all kinds. Green Gardens is on a smallish lot, and is shaped like an oval. There are more bins of all kinds of mulch, compost, and bark than you could possibly imagine lining the edges of the oval lot. Phil gets out of his truck and makes his way to the office, up some stairs passing a sleeping Chihuahua completely oblivious of who might pass.

  Inside, there are a few much-worn desks and even more worn-looking employees. These people have spent some time in the sun, Phil thinks. The walls are lined with shelves holding small plastic bags full of mulch and compost samples.

  “What can we do for you?” the desk clerk asks.

  I’m looking for some compost or mulch for my garden. I’ve got a Ford truck—that one out there—that I’d like to get filled up. What’s that going to cost me?”

  “What are you going to do with the compost?”

  “I want to add it to my garden to help my flowers and vegetables get a good start this spring.”

  “OK. I think I have what you’re looking for. Take a look at our GG compost series here in these bags. We’ve got GG1, GG2 or GG3. These are all pretty much the same except for size. I think the GG2 is what you’re looking for.”

  Phil sticks his hand into the plastic sample bag and feels the cool, soft touch of fresh compost. Wow--three kinds of compost--these guys are serious, Phil thinks. This is quite a bit different from buying a bag of soil from Green Thumb.

  “You can use GG2 in your soil and on your soil. You can’t go wrong. Look at some of those letters behind you. That’s what some of our customers think.”

  These guys really are into soil. Man. What’s next, Phil thought, a tip jar? Good advice and a pretty good product to boot. Phil feels like he is a soil guru now and counts himself among the group of real gardeners who know where to go to get their soil.

  Phil pays up and heads back outside to his truck. A workman takes his order sheet and tells him to get in line behind the other trucks in the oval. One by one, the skip loader scoops up a large volume of soil and dumps it into each waiting truck. Phil thinks this is just like being a kid and playing in the dirt, only bigger. When it is his turn, the driver of the skip loader motions for him to close his windows and stand back. He drops two large loads of soil into his truck that make large whump sounds as they hit the truck bed. Large clouds of dust rise into the air infused with a sweet, composted soil smell. This is a good start for a Saturday, Phil thinks.

  After the second load fills his truck, Phil realizes he didn’t bring a tarp or anything to cover the soil. The drive home, he thinks, is going to be quite a slow and dusty one. Oh well, he thinks. Next time. I’ve learned the ropes now. He smoothes the load of soil as low as he can around the edges of the truck bed to keep it from escaping onto cars behind him when he drives home. As he pushes the soil down, compacting it on all sides, he catches a glint of sunlight on something in the pile: a reflection. What the heck, he thinks: do I have something on my glasses? He presses down on the area where he saw the reflection and feels a solid piece of something. Great. They’ve ripped me off and filled my truck with large rocks instead of soil. He digs his hand down into the pile and grabs ahold of something solid and pulls on it. His face turns ashen as he realizes he’s holding on to a human hand and see’s that it’s attached to a body. A dead body. He drops the hand as if it’s radioactive. “Holy shit!” he yells and starts running around, looking for someone to tell. “There’s a dead body in my truck!” he yells.

  The driver of the skip loader comes running, saying something underneath his breath in Spanish, and crosses himself. The driver frantically motions towards the office while other employees and customers come running. Phil asks himself, Why didn’t I just go to the nursery?

  Chapter 2

  One Month Earlier

  “He shoots and scores!” the TV screams out. The Lakers are on a tear now. Detective Santy is a die-hard, rabid Laker fan. “Yes!” he screams back, sh
aking his fist skyward. The television reception is awful, Santy thinks. Every time a car goes by, his screen wiggles in time to the noise of the car. Between his TV and his dog, all he gets is static this afternoon. Each time a plane goes over, Bert, Santy’s Jack Russell, goes into a paroxysm of barking. Spinning like a top, he launches himself off the couch and tears off towards the back door, sliding dangerously on the kitchen linoleum. “You can’t do anything Bert. They’re planes!” Santy yells, as if Bert is actually listening to him. Bert circles the yard several times and soon returns back into the house. He slurps some water in the kitchen and wanders back to the couch with a look like “what the heck am I doing?” on his face. Bert settles down next to Santy, getting a good portion of dog drool on his pant leg.

  “Why do I love you so much, Bert? All you do is bark, drool, and shed all the time. You make the house a mess and jump all over anyone who comes over.”

  Bert gives Santy one of his sweet, melting looks that make everything worth it. Those little brown eyes have always tugged at his heart.

  “Oh Bert, you know you’re the best dog in the world.”

  Detective Dick Santy is an Orange County native son. Born in Tustin in 1941, he was raised by parents newly-arrived in California from Ohio. They were drawn to California for the weather and the promise of work in the aerospace industry. Dick’s father, Paul, spent several years away in the Navy during World War II. His mother raised him and his brothers for three long years on her own. They didn’t have much money back then, only what his father could send home, and any money his mother could earn selling vegetables she had canned from the garden. Their house was small—only two bedrooms. Four brothers in one room and his parents in the other. They didn’t feel crowded at the time; everyone else was living the same way, he remembered.

  Their small house was on the edge of the Irvine Company’s vast property. It was off of what is now Irvine Boulevard. It was very rural then: only a few houses and acres of farmland all around. Dick could remember walking home from school through the orange groves and bean fields. The aroma of a fresh-peeled orange still brings back all those memories.

  After his father returned from the war, the family moved to a bigger home in Tustin, nearer to what you’d call the downtown area. Dick’s father (like so many other returning vets) built his own home. The family would stay with Dick’s mother’s sister in Santa Ana while his father built the new homestead. The day they moved in was special one. Dick’s mother had gone into the hospital with an appendicitis and almost died from some complications. Dick remembered his father gently lifting his mother out of their station wagon and carrying her over the threshold, as if they were newlyweds. It was an image that would always stick with him. That was the last time he saw such love between his mother and father.

  Home life began to get strained after they moved to the new house. Dick’s father became more distant and spent less and less time at home. After the war, he joined with a buddy to invest in some south County property to grow Italian wine grapes. They were convinced that they could turn the area into a California wine mecca. The land turned out to be tainted with waste from a World War II marine air base. Jet fuel had leaked into the ground water and everything that Dick’s father grew died the first year. The entire scheme collapsed and all his life savings were lost in the venture. The experience changed Dick’s father forever. Dick thought that his father felt he had let everyone down and no amount of his mother’s reassurances could bring his father out of his depression. His father then got job as a letter carrier and spent the remaining years of his life delivering mail until he died of a heart attack in 1970. The family was immensely sad, although Dick felt everyone saw this coming.

  Dick longed to see the world and joined the Marine Corps when he turned 18. Growing up around the Santa Ana Naval Air Station in Costa Mesa, he had seen Army Air Cadets flood into the area during World War II. He was always infatuated with the military. He signed up for a five year stint and spent most of that in Okinawa. He excelled in the military police, earning the nickname “the stone” for his ability to appear cool and unmoved when faced with any problems. When Dick left the military in 1965, he found a job with the Santa Ana Police Department and quickly moved up the ranks. He just was promoted to detective a few years ago and was eager to get his teeth into something solid.

  Dick’s house is old but comfortable. Situated just outside the Tustin line between the cities of Orange and Tustin, his home is considered to be in the County of Orange. He gets his mail from the post office in Tustin; however, he likes the idea of being out of any city jurisdiction.

  He’s decorated his house sparsely, without concern for fashion. When he moved in, he went out and bought all the furniture he needed at one time and hasn’t added much since then, except for the occasional photo of relatives. A single, brown couch, a recliner and a TV stand with a few side tables. Dated lamps adorn the tables and everything is in the same light brown fake-wood color. The bedroom is very basic as well: a simple double bed and a night table with a small dresser. Each room still has the Navaho White painted walls that were present when he moved in. The house is a one-bedroom home, with a living room, dining room, den and small kitchen. Dick loved the feel of the house when he moved in. The home was built in the twenties and still had the same owner when he bought it. All of the fixtures and tile in the kitchen and bathroom were original. Dick’s brothers were always in awe of his house. They loved the original condition it was in and were always encouraging him to refinish the hardwood floors and touch up the tile grout. He was happy the way it was. It worked for him and the neighborhood was quiet. It was small, but he didn’t have a wife or kids. It was just enough room for himself and Bert.

  As the Lakers take the ball in and head down court, the television station cuts to a “Special Report”. Oh god. What now? Santy thinks. Elvis Presley just died. What next! Maybe gas is going up to seventy cents a gallon. Always getting ripped off.

  The local TV announcer breaks in to say:

  “Some prisoners have just escaped from the Orange County jail in Santa Ana.”

  Santy thinks, Now, you’ve got my attention.

  “Three prisoners overpowered their guards, handcuffing them to the fence. They escaped by sliding down the side of the building using bed sheets and wire cabling. Authorities have no leads at this current time and strongly encourage all citizens living near the Orange County jail to stay inside and keep their doors locked. The prisoners are considered extremely dangerous.”

  Santy sits up in his recliner to get a better look at the news. Bert slides slowly down the chair cushion onto the floor. He seems to sense Santy’s tenseness. The television broadcasts pictures of the escapees and shows that they are all convicted felons. All murder convictions.

  The newsman goes over, in excruciating detail, each of the felons’ crimes. Murder with a rifle, murder with a hammer, no two hammers, and murder with an ax. Wow, Santy thinks, these are some bad, bad guys.

  Chapter 3

  Christine is making dinner for her husband in their home in the high-end Newport Coast area. She is in her mid-twenties and is a beautiful woman with luxurious red hair that she wears pinned up in a “Gibson Girl” style. Her husband has told her that she looks like Lily Langtry, a woman known as a “professional beauty” in the Victorian age, who’d had an affair with the future King of England.

  While she is putting chicken in the oven of her Viking range, her doorbell chimes.

  When she opens the door, she sees a man she’s hired in his mid-forties, whom she views as a “necessary evil.” She is a woman of many secrets.

  “Hello, Jay. Come in. Do you have some new pictures for me?”

  “Yeah. Steve took Clarissa to Prentice Park to see the monkeys.”

  “Let me see. Oh, this is so sweet! I love the little prairie-girl-hat with the ruffles around her face. So precious! Did Steve notice you taking a picture of her?”

  “Of course not! I made myself practically
invisible.”

  “Here you are,” Christine says handing Jay a large envelope stuffed with cash.

  “Christine, there’s something I really need to talk to you about.”

  “Well, it’s going to have to wait because my husband will be home any minute now.”

  “Okay. You’re the boss.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  *******

  After Jay leaves, Christine feels like her head is spinning. She’s never completely trusted Jay. She first met him when he came to a work party at their house. He was quite the smooth operator and a really snappy dresser with his expensive Italian suit and Rolex watch. Where does he get his money from? Christine had wondered. Investigators from the District Attorney’s Office don’t make that kind of money. Maybe he’s moonlighting somewhere else, she thought at the time. He is also quite the lady’s man, even when his wife was with him at various work functions.

  At one party, he came over to Christine and told her how beautiful she looked that night. His eyes couldn’t stop looking at her breasts in her low-necked dress while he was talking to her. He made her feel dirty. She had wished she’d worn a different dress.

  He told her that, “if she ever needed anything”, she was to give him a call. I’m here to support the District Attorney’s office in any way I can. She felt really creepy when he winked at her and handed her his card.

  A few days later, she was leaving her “Introduction to Ecology” class at Santa Ana College, and going over to Newberry’s across the street from the campus. As she was pulling into the parking lot, she noticed him coming out of “Mitchell Brothers Theatre”, a pornographic movie house. She rolled down her car window and said to him, “So; I see you’re taking a little break from your workday at the D.A.’s office and coming over here to see ‘Deep Throat’. Is your wife freshening up in the powder room back at the theater? Is that why I don’t see her here with you?”