Snake in Paradise

By Jackie Pentecost

Nosy Oleta Parker seeks to prove the innocence of a boy accused of murder in Bakersfield while at the same time tracking down the cause of two apparently unrelated deaths occurring in Fresno and Three Rivers. Her attempts to tie the murders together cause her boyfriend, Detective Cantrell and his partner, the irascible Rojas, some indigestion and a great deal of indignation. However, despite threats of incarceration and dealings with a nasty sculptor, a smarmy realtor, a smug builder, a leering ranch boss, two victims of valley fever and the interference of her "Bakersfield Irregulars," Oleta emerges victorious in a surprising denouement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jackie Pentecost
• Release date: Jan 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311967688

Jackie Pentecost

Before graduating from college in California with a Journalism major. Jackie accepted a job with a publicity firm, extolling daily the virtues of local hotels and restaurants without having the inconvenience of actually visiting them. This led to the writing of undisguised fiction which I have pursued ever since. Now living in Florida, she tutors English, teaching the unlettered not to say 'I have went' and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), explaining cheerfully that the usage of vowels in English are incomprehensible to everyone, not just to them.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A dawn mist lingered. Dew continued to drip off the mosses embracing the stands of pine and redwoods even though it was seven o'clock in the morning. Warmth of day comes slowly to Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park.

Dressed in jogging attire, athletic guests from the lodge and cabin sites had already run their chosen footpaths and were converging at the General Sherman tree, trotting in place to conserve body heat as they waited for each other,

The General Sherman tree is the largest living thing in the world and one of the oldest: it stood when Christ carried his cross fashioned from another tree to Golgotha. It is larger than the sequiodendron giganteum that surround it, with a height of 274.9 feet and a trunk volume of 52,508 cubic feet, enough to build a boardwalk to Bakersfield 135 miles to the southwest, as a sign points out. Because the tree commands complete attention and admiration, it was some time before one of the joggers spotted the body lying beyond the protective fencing.

A runner was dispatched to the lodge where a park ranger was alerted. As clusters of curious tourists assembled, the park ranger drove up in a four-wheel drive, climbed over the fence and knelt by the body. Clambering back over the fence, he entered the utility vehicle to call headquarters at Ash Mountain.

The victim is a white male in his early twenties dressed in jeans, a lumberman's plaid shirt and boots, he reported in as steady a voice as he could master. I don't think he's been either shot or stabbed. There's no dried blood on his clothing.

Stay put and don't let anyone touch the body, a voice crackled at him. We're contacting the Tulare County sheriff's department. Wait for them.

The ranger, a white male in his early twenties, himself, stood guard while eying the body with increasing unease. The corpse had a discarded, forlorn look about it that bit at him. His wait was long, as the sheriffs were stationed some 60 miles away from the entrance to the park. There was a deputy available in Three Rivers at the foot of the park, but he was not equipped to handle homicides.

Those onlookers who had not eaten breakfast yet drifted away, but others remained, rooted by the drama. Having breakfasted, most returned in small groups to rejoin the others and formed a small crowd outside the enclosure of the tree. They stopped their chattering when two cars containing deputies arrived, the park ranger relieved to step away from the corpse and join the tourists. Crime scene vehicles followed at short intervals.

Gliding like a balloon loosed above the trees, the distant sun was nearing its zenith before an ambulance carried the victim down the mountain, through the hamlets of Three Rivers and Lemon Cove to the county seat at Visalia. By the contents of his wallet, the victim had been identified as Tyler Hubbard, an employee at Oaklawn Ranch up at the end of Dimely Road in Three Rivers.

Several days later, an apparently unrelated story was being narrated by Oleta Parker to Tex Cantrell as they dined at a popular Mexican restaurant in the heart of Bakersfield.

Random coincidence does occur, I agree, like with two old friends which accidentally meet after they was separated for years, Oleta said, as usual entangled in her New Mexico-Texas border syntax that, although obeying the other traditions of grammar, ignores the nice distinctions between 'who' and 'which' and 'was' and 'were'.

As this was common in Bakersfield, where many were transplanted from farms in the southwest, no one ever bothered to correct her. But this is too suspicious to be random coincidence.

I think you're hunting for another case, 'Leta, Detective Cantrell of the Bakersfield police homicide division said, leaning over his albondigas soup and smiling indulgently at her. It's spring and you're ready for action!

Oleta waved her spoon at Cantrell before dipping it into her own bowl of soup. If I hadn't been informed as to what they was up to, I never would have guessed there was a relationship, not even a remote one. Oliver McGrath and Jamie Lee Mason live poles apart! They don't even know each other!

So both men fell sick at the same time. What does that prove?

There's sickness and then there's sickness! We're not talking sniffles here! Oleta said, waving her spoon again before putting it down and earnestly trying to convince her dinner partner of the sinister implications of her story. You have met Birdie's husband, Oliver. He's a petroleum engineer, involved with building and maintaining oil refineries all over the world. Jamie Lee's an old coot, retired from the railroad, the type you see shuffling down the street mumbling to himself. He's not crazy, mind you, just eccentric. He takes to me as one of his few friends and invites me in when I come to collect the rent.

Everyone takes to you..., Cantrell cut in, taking advantage of an opportunity for a compliment.

Does that include Detective Ramos? She asked archly. Ramos was Cantrell's partner.

You and Birdie are growing on him, Cantrell said, grinning. Ramos disapproved strongly of Oleta and her best friend interfering in his homicides. Cantrell didn't mind at all. Oleta was smart and round and blonde with not a wrinkle although she was in her early forties, a few years younger than he was. If it weren't for Wade, Oleta's ex-husband, hanging around her like an old basset hound, he would ask her to marry him. But, with Wade's ploys to interfere at his every approach, he knew Oleta would turn him down. Wouldn't she...? Not as much as you have grown on me, though. He added hopefully.

Sidestepping the delicate turn in the conversation, Oleta reentered her recital, recalling the first day of April when Jamie Lee beckoned her inside the bungalow she rented to him, one of a dozen such properties she shrewdly had bought with cash down payments from her divorce settlement. Boots, his Jack Russell terrier, had run wildly around the parlor in his customary ecstasy, pausing only to jump on her and bark before embarking on his circuit again. The dog was as happy to see people as Jamie Lee was usually not. Granting the terrier his lavish ritual of welcome with doting fondness while Oleta good humoredly fended the dog off as best she could, Jamie Lee had said he had something to show her and had asked her to take a drive with him early the next afternoon. Oleta had agreed, mystified by Jamie lee's scarcely concealed excitement to which she was much less accustomed to than Boot's.

When the next day she returned to his home, the rents routinely collected in person and the rest expected in the mail, except, of course, for the Duggans, who were always late, she intended to do the driving. However, Jamie Lee, anticipating her, hurried outside to open his ancient but well preserved R.V.'s rear hatch to admit Boots, who leaped inside and proceeded to pace back and forth between windows, drooling on each in turn. Oleta, considering her spotless new Lexus, changed her mind. With some reservations as to the driving ability of her cantankerous tenant, she allowed herself to be seated beside Jamie Lee.

Where are we going? She asked.

Wait and see, he answered.

Their destination was evident after an hour and a half, when they turned east on 198. Jamie Lee had driven the back way, up Porterville Highway with its adjacent oil wells pumping ritualistically up and down like mutant grasshoppers praying to petroleum gods, through the towns of Porterville and Exeter.

We're going to Sequoia Park! Oleta exclaimed.

Not all the way, Jamie Lee said mysteriously, accelerating to seventy to pass a farm truck, then slowing down to forty five.

Oleta ascertained that his main driving peculiarity was he couldn't abide another vehicle to hold the road in front of him even though he was not a fast driver, himself. This led to a lot of passing and being passed. That was annoying to her, but she held her tongue. She didn't think he would take kindly to her attempt to educate him in his driving habits and didn't want to start a quarrel in his car in the middle of nowhere.

The two lane highway they entered began its climb. After a spell, they rounded a turn and Lake Kaweah, like a pregnant woman just beginning to show, gave evidence that an early spring thaw had occurred on the snowy mountaintops of the Sierras.

Are we going to Three Rivers, then? Oleta asked, impressed by the destination.

Jamie Lee looked at her triumphantly, almost missing a sharp jog in the snaking road.

Three Rivers, the gateway to Sequoia and Mineral King National Parks, is a foothill hideaway of such charm to raise the spirits of any city dweller, a different world to Oleta from the dusty agricultural and oil city that was Bakersfield. Canyon and scrub

oaks, Japanese sycamores and aspens, redbuds and buckeyes began to dot the landscape and then gather in profusion to surround the cottages on Sierra Drive. Bush lupine, wild mustard, some California poppies and other wildflowers colored the hillsides. The gurgle of the middle fork of the Kahweah River feeding into the lake could be glimpsed through the foliage, white water beginning to gallop where the seasonal melt off of snow born high in the sierras skipped over rocky bed.

Although cars were parked at the local markets and at the hotels and restaurants, the highway was almost deserted in the middle of town. There was not a red light in the village. The motor traffic was discreet, as if the drivers felt they must blend into the scenery without marring it. Jamie Lee instinctively slowed down further, driving unobtrusively until he turned right at Canyon Oak and made his way to the end of it.

A new road had been laid out in deliberately primitive fashion. There were no curbs or sidewalks, nor were there likely to be. Jamie Lee drove past several roughly cut driveways set at haphazard intervals before turning into one of them. He bumped along a few hundred feet before a concrete slab appeared. He stopped the car and turned off the ignition.

I'll be leaving you in a few months, Oleta, he said. It was Jamie Lee's way of giving notice. He wanted her to share with him his enthusiasm and receive her encouragement.

They had returned to Bakersfield at dusk after strolling the property, admiring the foliage, the frame of mountains rising in the background, the furthest and tallest still bearing white at their tops, the glittering strength of the south fork of the river that ran at the back of the property.

This is paradise, Oleta told Jamie Lee.

A few days later, the tenant came down with valley fever.

CHAPTER 2

Is it catching? Did you have tests for it? Cantrell asked, concerned.

It's not catching and you don't get it by merely walking around where it exists, Oleta replied. Before he could pursue his questioning, she continued, Now, about Oliver...

Oliver, she told Cantrell, became restless when he was home on his annual hiatus from Saudi Arabia. Birdie, a placid soul, was happy to have her husband back for the three months, of course, but his energy had to be channeled. On previous leaves, he had built in unnecessary gadgets in the kitchen, overmodernized their bathrooms and added central air conditioning although Birdie preferred a water cooler as more efficient in the dry climate.

This time, to head him off from other projects, she redirected his attention to the building of a cabin in the mountains. That, she thought, should keep him entertained for more than one leave. This appealed to Oliver and, after viewing sites in Tehachapi, Glennville and Balch Park, they were silkily induced by the local realtor, Harlan Roach, into purchasing a lot in Three Rivers.

Before escrow closed, Oliver was negotiating with the developer for construction of a pad. Before concrete was poured, Oliver was trampling the cabin site, clearing vegetation and planning the proportions of the building. His half acre was three lots down from Jamie Lee's, across the road. Neither man was aware of the presence of the other.

Ten days ago, on April 16, a distraught Birdie, who lived in the middle of the block on Cantaloupe, had knocked at Oleta's door, located at the corner where it met Houston. She had driven Oliver to a doctor that morning after an outbreak in the middle of the night of a high fever accompanied by a wracking cough and the abrupt materialization of a rash on his abdomen. X-rays had disclosed a mass on the upper right quadrant of his left lung. A subsequent bronchoscopy confirmed upon biopsy of infected lung tissue that Oliver had valley fever. That was two days ago on April 26.

How about that for suspicious? Oleta stated rather than asked.

It's caused by some kind of virus? By this time, Cantrell was fingering his after dinner coffee, comfortably full of chicken enchilada, arroz and frijoles. He was a relative newcomer to Bakersfield, arriving there from the Texas police force after his divorce a scant two years ago to serve in Bakersfield and start a new life. It's a rare disease, isn't it?

It’s a rare disease which is common, Oleta said cryptically.

Now, what do you mean by that? Cantrell asked, puzzled to Oleta's satisfaction.

It only occurs in one climate zone in the world, ours. But, within this relatively small climate zone, called the Sonoran, it's common as dirt, which is right and fitting because it's caused by a fungus in the dirt. A person can inhale this fungus if he stirs up infected dust without a mask. That's why you find the seasoned, leathery Mexican farm laborers wearing scarves. They pull the scarves up over their mouths and noses when they bend over the dirt with their short hoes. For those not so smart, the fungus usually makes itself at home in the victim's lungs.

Is it life threatening? Cantrell asked with interest. Oliver was his age and a vigorous man.

A person can have San Joaquin valley fever and contrive to continue working even with the coughing and bouts of fever if he's careful not to tire himself because pneumonia can develop. In time, the body's own immune system will clear it up. Sometimes, though, the fungus finds its way into the nervous system or the brain and then there's big problems, but that's rare.

How is it you know so much about valley fever?

Every farmer in this part of the San Joaquin valley knows about valley fever, Oleta said. There had been cases in Lamont when she was married to Wade and lived with him as a farmer's wife.

And Oliver and Jamie Lee were both clearing property in Three Rivers!

Exactly! Birdie and I are going to investigate. The developers should have taken samples before they put the building sites up for sale. Birdie is so upset that Oliver's leave is spoiled, she's ready to sue someone!

Shouldn't this be reported to the health department? Cantrell asked.

They would interfere with our investigation, Oleta said with a frown.

Oh! Oh! Cantrell said. Oh, well. At least it will keep you busy and off our case, he added nonchalantly.

What case? Oleta, caught off guard, asked too eagerly.

Cantrell laughed. He was an easy laugher and the inquisitive round blonde delighted him. His ex-wife had disparaged his career as a police officer. Her sister was married to an investment banker in Dallas, she had kept reminding him.

A sleazy guy who owned a second hand shop on Q Street was killed. A homo. We're looking for his lover. We got a photo of him. A creep with women's earrings.

Pretty cut and dried, then? Oleta, who had read about the case in the morning's Californian, asked, anticipating his reply. Cut and dried cases were disappointing.

We think so, Cantrell said, accepting the bill from the Mexican waiter. This Sonoran climate exists only in the San Joaquin Valley? Isn't there a Sonora in Mexico?

The disease is known as San Joaquin Valley fever but it extends throughout the Sonoran zone, including some parts of Mexico. Oleta dug inside her purse for her mirror. Want another cup of coffee as a nightcap, Cantrell? Or something stronger?

Cantrell didn't relish being called by his Christian name of Irwin. Sometimes Oleta used 'Tex' but they both preferred plain 'Cantrell'.

Your place or mine? he asked.

Mine. I don't trust you in yours.

I don't trust Wade in yours.

Honestly, Cantrell, you expect Wade is hiding behind every bush!

He usually is! the detective grumbled.

That wasn't exactly true. Wade had a large farm in neighboring Lamont with all the chores of farm work keeping him occupied there. But he did have a way of butting into her affairs.

It will have to be an early evening. Birdie and I are setting out for Three Rivers tomorrow at 7:00. The developer is playing golf in the afternoon. He presented us with a choice of an early appointment or chasing him around the course.

Has he an inkling of why you want to see him?

I don't believe so. Birdie merely hinted it was about the site. If she told him outright on the phone about the valley fever, he'd likely scheme to avoid us. In investigating a case, Cantrell, sometimes it is wiser to enter sideways.

The police have to conform to rules and regulations, Cantrell said in his own defense. Inform the suspect about his rights, be straightforward. We can't enter 'sideways'.

I'm glad we don't have to contend with that! Oleta said honestly. It would get in our way.

Now, Oleta...! Cantrell began to admonish her about the legal limitations pursuant to meddling civilians in criminal cases even though he knew she wouldn't listen.

CHAPTER 3

Shelby Stephenson's initial reaction was frustration over the developing snags.

A big man of soft flesh, he was third generation Three Rivers stock, attended Three Rivers elementary school before being bussed with other neighborhood kids to upper schools in Woodlake. He worked for his father until the man passed away, then took his place in the big stone house on the North Fork his grandfather had built.

Having planned for a country gentleman's life and not anxious to argue cost overruns with city slickers, Shelby restricted his labor to subdividing local parcels and providing concrete pads. His wife had left him the year before, tired of his adultery with females picked up at the nineteenth hole. Besides playing golf, he raised Morgan horses; two of them could be seen from the picture window of the den that served as his office, grazing in the fenced pasture beyond the house.

Oleta and Birdie found him idly watching the horses through the glass, the north fork of the Kahweah River gliding gracefully down from the mountains behind them. Actually, Three Rivers boasts four forks of the river, the North Fork, the Middle Fork, the South Fork and the East Fork, but the East Fork was overlooked when the village was named.

My husband is home in his easy chair with aspirin and cough medicine for company, Birdie said somberly as soon as she was seated and had his attention. He has valley fever.

Shelby stared at the tall, angular figure with dark hair sitting beside the petite, curvaceous blonde. He guessed at what Mrs. McGrath was insinuating. He had been wondering about that eventuality since the bad news about contaminated fill had filtered down to him from Gardner.

You believe he contracted the infection from the property on the South Fork? he asked without being prompted.

Another buyer, Jamie Lee Mason, has come down with it, Oleta said.

Shelby felt he was being harassed by fate. His lips involuntarily compressed.

Have any other buyers come down with the fever? Birdie asked.

Shelby looked down at his unexpectedly small hands as if expecting their counsel. Their advice