Fifty minutes to Camarillo, courtesy Milo’s leaden foot.
The same exit off the 101, the same winding road through old, dense trees.
The same feeling of arriving at a strange place, untested, unsure, ready to be surprised.
What had once been an open field of wildflowers was planted with lemon trees, hundreds of them arranged in rows, the ground cleared of stray fruit. The logo of a citrus collective graced several signs on the borders of the grove. The sky was a perfect, improbable, crayon blue.
Milo sped past the grove. I peered through each row, looking for errant human presence.
Just a tractor, unmanned, at the far end. The next sign appeared half a mile later, lettered in aqua and topped by a rendering of three intense-looking gulls. SEABIRD ESTATES A Planned Community
A few yards up, shoulder-high blue gates were hinged to cream-colored stucco posts. Superficially reassuring but a whole different level of security from V-State’s twenty-foot blood-red barrier.
Keeping them out was different from keeping them in.
A guard inside a tiny booth was texting. Milo tooted his horn. The guard looked over but his fingers kept working. He slid a window open. Milo’s badge pretzeled the guard’s lips. “We didn’t call in no problem.”
“No, you didn’t. Can we come in, please?”
The guard pondered that. Resuming texting, he stabbed at a button on a built-in console, missed the first time, got it right on the second. The gates swung open.
The main street was Sea Bird Lane. It snaked up a slope that picked up as it climbed. Condos appeared on both sides of the road. Landscaping consisted of predictably placed date palms, red-leaf plum trees, beds of low- maintenance succulents that clung to each curve like green cashmere.
Every building was styled identically: neo-Spanish, cream like the gateposts, red composite roofs trying to pass themselves off as genuine tile.
Superficial resemblance to the old V-State buildings. No bars on these windows. No foot traffic to speak of. During the hospital’s tenure, staff and low-risk patients had strolled freely, creating an easy energy. Strangely enough, SeaBird Estates felt more custodial.
Milo drove fifty yards in with a light foot before I spotted an original structure: the mammoth reception hall where I’d been oriented. A sign staked near the entry read Sea Horse Club House. As we continued to explore, other hospital structures appeared. Sea Breeze Card Room. Sea Foam: A Meeting Place. Former wards and treatment centers and who-knew-what coexisting with new construction. Transplanted smoothly, a wonder of cosmetic surgery.
Finally, a few people showed themselves: white-haired couples, strolling, casually dressed, tan, relaxed. I was wondering if they had any idea of their neighborhood’s origins when a red-haired man in a blue poly blazer one size too large, baggy khakis, and ripple-soled shoes stepped into the middle of the road and blocked our progress.
Milo braked. Blazer examined us, then came around to the driver’s side. “Rudy Borchard, head of security. What can I do for you?”
“Milo Sturgis, LAPD. Please to meet you, Rudy.”
Mutual badge-flashes. Borchard’s was significantly larger than Milo’s, a gold-plated star that evoked the OK Corral. Probably larger than anything Earp had worn because why offer a generous target?
“So,” said Borchard. Tentative, as if he’d only memorized the script this far. He placed a protective finger on the knot of his clip-on tie. His hair was too long in places, too short in others, dyed the color of overcooked pumpkin. A one-week mustache was a sprinkle of cayenne on a puffy upper lip. “L.A. police, huh? This ain’t L.A.”
“Neither is it Kansas,” said Milo.
Borchard’s eyes tilted in confusion. He puffed his chest to compensate. “We didn’t call in any problem.”
“We know, but-”
“It’s like this,” Borchard cut in. “Residents’ privacy is real important. I’m talking affluent senior retirees, they want to feel private and safe.”
“Safety’s our goal, too, Rudy. That’s why we’re inquiring about a suspect who might be in the area.”
“A suspect? Here? I don’t think so, guys.”
“Hope you’re right.”
“ In the area or just close to the area?”
“Could go either way.”
“Naw, I don’t think so,” said Borchard. “No one gets in here without my say-so.”
Our easy entry put the lie to that. Milo said, “That’s excellent, but we’d still like to have a look.”
Borchard said, “Who’s this suspect?”
Milo showed him the drawing of Huggler.
Borchard said, “Nope, not here, never been here.”
Milo kept the drawing in Borchard’s face. Borchard stepped back. “I’m telling you nope. Looks like your basic lowlife. Wouldn’t last two seconds, here. Do me a favor and put that away, okay? I don’t want some resident getting their undies all scrunched.”
“Keep it, Rudy. Should you want to post it, that would be fine.”
Borchard took the drawing, folded, slipped it into his pocket. “What exactly this lowlife do?”
“Killed a bunch of people.”
The red dots atop Borchard’s lip bounced as he chewed air. “You kidding? No way I’m posting that picture. The residents hear killed, someone’ll have a heart attack for sure.”
“Rudy,” said Milo, “if Grant Huggler gets in here, it’s gonna be a lot worse than a heart attack.”
“Trust me, he won’t.”
“You guys keep it that tight?”
“Tighter than a virgin’s-real tight, trust me on that.”
“How many ways are there to get in here?”
“You just saw it.”
“The front gate is all?”
“Basically.”
“Basically but not completely?”
“There’s a service entry around the back,” said Borchard, hooking a thumb eastward. “But that’s just deliveries and it’s locked twenty-four seven and it’s monitored by c-circuit and we know exactly who ingresses and egresses.”
“What comes in that way?”
“Deliveries. Large-scale. Small-scale come through the front, every parcel is checked out before it’s delivered.”
“Checked out how?”
“The residents give us authorization to sign for UPS and FedEx and we verify addresses and hand-deliver. That way no one gets bothered, it’s all part of the service.”
A honk from behind made us turn. Elderly couple in a white Mercedes itching to proceed. The woman was stoic but the man’s mouth worked.
“You better move over,” said Borchard.
Milo pulled to the curb and we got out. The Mercedes passed and Borchard favored the occupants with a wide wave. They ignored him, tooled to the next street, turned left. Sea Cloud Road.
Rudy Borchard said, “Have a nice day, guys.”
Milo said, “What constitutes large-scale deliveries?”
“You know, bulk stuff. We’re like a town, supplies for the clubhouse and the restaurants-we got two, the formal and the informal-come in all the time. We got nearly eight hundred residents.”
I said, “The clubhouse is back there. So there’s a way for the trucks to approach it from the back and drive straight to the loading dock.”
“ ’Zactly,” said Borchard. “We can’t have semis rumbling through, messing up the pavement, creating a ruckus.”
“Where does the service road connect from?”
“Cuts through the middle.”
