The Tropics of Blythe raises some mysteries. No such place exists today, and that’s hardly a surprise; your chance of coming across a motel with a big A-frame lobby AND and an adjacent Sambo’s are as likely as finding a two-headed jackelope.

Then there's that little elfin fellow. That's Ken Kimes, motel developer. Therein hangs a tale. New York Times:

While living in Mexico City in 1985, Ms. Kimes and her husband were arrested on slavery charges after several of their maids complained to the Mexican authorities that they had been beaten and imprisoned in the Kimes’s house. Ms. Kimes served five years on the charge (Mr. Kimes served three), and when the couple was reunited with Kenneth Jr., the family embarked on itinerant journeys to Hawaii, Europe and the Bahamas.

It was not long after the senior Mr. Kimes died — of natural causes — in 1994 that people in the orbit of Ms. Kimes and her son started disappearing.

Murder followed. Read it all here.