Jonathan Kellerman - Private Eyes

“Too far and too dangerous. Lots of the husbands are against us coming down there, too.”

“We really haven’t had any problems, Nancy. You’d be here during the daylight hours, using the VIP parking lot.”

Silence.

I said, “Patients come and go every day with no problem.”

“Well… you know how it is.”

“Guess so,” I said. “Okay. Be well.”

“I’m sure it sounds silly to you, Dr. Delaware. And to be honest, I think it’s an overreaction- I tried to tell them that. But our charter says we either participate as a group or not at all. We took a vote, Dr. Delaware, and this is the way it turned out. I do apologize if we’ve caused you problems. And we do hope the hospital accepts our gift in the spirit in which it was offered.”

“No doubt the hospital does.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Delaware. Have a nice day.”

Notes on good paper, monetary buy-offs, phone brush-offs. Must be the San Labrador style.

I thought about it all the way to the end of the freeway, onto Arroyo Seco, then east on California Boulevard, past Cal Tech. A quick series of loops through quiet suburban streets, then Cathcart Boulevard appeared and I resumed the eastward trek, into the wilds of San Labrador.

The Farmer Saint.

A canonization that had eluded the Vatican.

The very origins of the place were grounded in a buy-off.

Once the private domain of H. Farmer Cathcart, heir to an East Coast railroad dynasty, San Labrador looked like old money but had been chartered as a city for only fifty years.

Cathcart came to Southern California at the turn of the century in order to scope out commercial possibilities for the family. He liked what he saw, began buying up downtown rail lines and hotels, orange groves, bean farms, and ranch land on the eastern borders of Los Angeles, assembling a four-square-mile fiefdom in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. After building the requisite mansion, he surrounded it with world-class gardens and named the estate San Labrador- a bit of self-aggrandizement that made Episcopal tongues wag.

Then, midway through the Great Depression, he discovered his funds weren’t infinite. Holding on to half a square mile, he subdivided the rest. Parceling the gardens out to other rich men- tycoons of grand but lesser stature who could afford to maintain two- to seven-acre properties. Attaching restrictive covenants to all deed transfers, which ensured his living out the rest of his life in sweet harmony with nature and the finest aspects of Western civilization.

The rest of his life didn’t amount to much- he died in 1937 of influenza, leaving a will bequeathing his estate to the city of San Labrador, should such a city exist within two years. The tycoon tenants acted quickly, setting up a charter and pushing it through the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. Cathcart’s mansion and grounds became a county-owned but privately funded museum-cum-botanical gardens that nobody visited- before the freeways.

During the postwar years the land was subdivided further: half-acre lots for the burgeoning professional class. But the covenants remained in place: no “coloreds,” no Orientals, no Jews, no Mexicans. No multiple dwellings. No alcohol served in public places. No nightclubs or theaters or places of “base entertainment.” Commercial establishments limited to an eight-block segment of Cathcart Boulevard, no commercial structure to exceed two stories, architectural style to be in the Spanish Revival mode, with plans approved by the city council.

State and federal law eventually nullified the racial restrictions, but there were ways to get around that, and San Labrador remained lily-white. The rest of the covenants withstood tests of time and litigation. Perhaps that was due to sound legal basis. Or maybe the fact that lots of judges and at least two district attorneys resided in San Labrador had something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, the district’s immunity to change remained strong. As I cruised down Cathcart, nothing seemed different from the last time I’d been there. How long ago had that been? Three years. A Turner exhibition at the museum, a stroll through the library and grounds. With Robin…

Traffic was sparse but slow-moving. The boulevard was split by a wide greenbelt median. The same mix of shops ran along the south side, ensconced in jewel-box Spanish Revival buildings and dwarfed by the rust-tinged Chinese pistachios H. Farmer Cathcart had planted long ago. Doctors, dentists… lots of orthodontists. Clothiers for both sexes offering styles that made Brooks Brothers seem New Wave. A profusion of dry cleaners, florists, interior decorators, banks, and brokerage houses. Three stationers in two blocks- suddenly that made sense. Plenty of Esq.’s and Ltd.’s and faux -Victorian nomenclature on the signs. Nowhere to eat or drink or stretch. Frequent signs directing the meandering tourist to the museum.

A Hispanic man in blue city-issue coveralls pushed an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner along the sidewalk. A few white-haired figures walked around him. Otherwise the streets were bare.

The haut monde approach to exurbia. Picture-perfect. Except for the sky, soot-streaked and dingy, clouding the foothills. Because money and connections couldn’t buck geography: Ocean winds blew the smog here and, trapped by the hills, it settled in for the long run. San Labrador air was poisonous 120 days a year.

Following Melissa’s directions, I drove six blocks past the commercial area, took the first left-turn break in the median, and got onto Cotswold Drive, a pine-canopied straightaway that began snaking and climbing a half-mile in. Cool shade and post-nuclear silence followed: L.A.’s usual dearth of humanity, but here it seemed more pronounced.

Because of the cars- the lack of them. Not a single vehicle at the curb. The NO PARKING AT ANY TIME enforced with Denver boots and predatory fines. Rising above the empty streets were big tile-roofed houses behind sloping lawns. They got bigger as the grade climbed.

The road split at the top of the hill: Essex Ridge to the west, Sussex Knoll to the east. No homes visible here, just two-story walls of green- eugenia and juniper and red-berried toyon backed by forests of oak, ginkgo, and liquidambar.

I lowered my speed and cruised until I finally saw it. Hand-carved pine gates on thick doweled posts capped with verdigrised iron- the kind of hard, waxed pine you see on Buddhist temples and the counters of sushi bars. The posts sided by iron fencing and twelve-foot hedge. The numeral “1” on the left arm of the gate, “0” on the right. To the left of the “1,” an electric eye and talk box.

I pulled up, reached out the driver’s window, and punched the button on the box.

Melissa’s voice came out of the speaker. “Dr. Delaware?”

“Hi, Melissa.”

“One second.”

A rumble and groan and the gates angled inward. I drove up a steep stone path that had been hosed down so recently the air was misty. Past regimentally planted fifty-foot incense cedars and a vacant guardhouse that could have housed a couple of middle-class families. Then another regiment of trees- a sky-blotting grove of Monterey pines that stretched for several moments before condescending to smaller cousins: gnarled, bonsailike cypress and mountain dogwood ringed with free-form clumps of purple rhododendron, white and pink camellia japonica.

A dark drive. The silence seemed heavier. I thought of Gina Dickinson making her way down here, alone. Gained a new appreciation for her affliction. And her progress.

The trees finally cleared and a stadium-sized lawn came into view- ryegrass so healthy-looking it could have been fresh sod, edged with circular beds of begonia and star jasmine. I saw flashes of light at the far west end, among the cypress. Movement, glints of metal. Two- no, three- khaki-clad men, too distant to be clearly discernible. Hernandez’s sons? I could see why he needed five.