“You aren’t driving with the top down,” Sandy said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Of course not.” Nina raised the Mustang’s roof and clamped it into place. “Good flight?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
Uh-oh. Sandy was not going to be conventionally polite. She was, perhaps, in a mood of towering fury. Nina braced herself. “You’ll like Paul’s condo,” she said. “View of the ocean, up high on a hill. Private.” She was trying for conventional politeness just in case.
Sandy swatted this small talk away. “Have you seen Wish?”
“Yes. This afternoon. He’s okay, Sandy. Says it’ll be a learning experience, being in jail.”
“In jail,” she repeated. “You call that okay.” She folded her arms and looked out at the scenery for the rest of the ride without further comment.
Although they had invited her to stay at the condo, Sandy had decided to spend the night at a motel in Seaside. She had lined up a rental car and would be doing a blitz trip to Tahoe to see Joseph Whitefeather, Wish’s father, before returning east, so she needed to leave early.
Sitting at the dinner table, she eyed the meal Paul had made especially for her, turned her obsidian gaze on Paul and Nina, and said, “I knew nothing good would come of this.”
“I thought you liked meat loaf,” Paul said.
The glare intensified. “Closing the office. Running away. Bringing Willis down here.” She had a sip of ice water.
“I thought you were glad to go to Washington,” Nina said, feeling defensive. “How’s your work going?”
“Ever been there?” Sandy asked.
“No,” Nina said.
“You never saw so many pink-cheeked little old men in one place at one time before in your life.”
“I’ve heard,” Nina said, “you’re doing good work up there, Sandy. The people in Tahoe are really proud of you. I saved an article from the Mirror about how much you’ve already improved the visibility of the Washoe tribe. ‘An effective and vigorous presence in Washington,’ they called you.”
“What do they know?” Sandy said, although Nina thought she detected a minuscule relaxation of the stern crease between her eyebrows.
“How long will you be working there?” Paul asked. “Must be hard on Joseph, you working on the East Coast.”
“Maybe a couple of months, if these people working with me are ready to take over then. Then I’m back at the ranch with Joseph at Tahoe. And visiting my son, the convict, the way things look.”
“Is Joseph coming down?”
“He’s laid up for a month. He had a little accident and can’t get around.”
“Don’t worry,” Nina said. “We’ll find a way out of this.”
“At least he came to you as soon as he could.”
“He’s feeling very bad about his poor judgment in following Danny. And he’s lost a friend. Don’t be too hard on him.”
“I won’t be hard on him. Joseph’s the one who’s gonna be hard on him. Joseph was so proud of Willis. He was going to be the first one in our family with a college degree.”
Shocked, Nina said, “Wait a minute, Sandy. Wish isn’t going to be convicted of anything. Maybe you have the wrong impression. He didn’t do anything.”
Sandy picked up her fork. “Well, bon appétit,” she said. “He did something, all right. Got himself in legal trouble.”
Nina couldn’t deny that. After a moment she went on, “There’s something I need to ask you about. This arson investigator, David Crockett…”
Her mouth opened slightly, an expression tantamount to astonishment in her. “Who? Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all.”
“Davy Crockett? That’s not a good sign. Oh, boy. You know who he was?” Sandy asked.
“The historic Davy? Sure. He was the king of the wild frontier, the buckskin buccaneer. Kilt him a bear when he was only three,” Paul said.
“His grandparents were killed by the Creek and Cherokees when the grandparents tried to steal tribal land in eastern Tennessee,” Sandy said.
“I didn’t know that,” Nina said.
“No friend to the Indians. Killed as many as he could. Commanded a battalion in the war to bring down the Creek Indians in 1813.”
“This guy’s name is just a fluke,” Nina said. “I’m sure his politics aren’t affected by anything so remote.”
“Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know? It’s too much of a coincidence. It must mean something.”
“Anyway,” Nina said. “If I may return to my point, Detective Crockett told us that Wish was arrested as a juvenile for some kind of arson.”
“Now, how would he know that?”
“Was he?”
“You know how many boys take fireworks out into a field and try to blow things up?” Sandy asked.
“Yeah, we had some fun,” Paul said.
“They sure made a big deal of a pile of kids blasting out a dead stump,” Sandy said. “Too bad they don’t put as much energy into saving the live ones. And aren’t those records supposed to be sealed?”
“Yes,” Nina said, “but you can’t always depend on the rules working properly. People…”
“Bend them,” Sandy said. “Davy Crockett. Oh, boy.” She took a bite of meat loaf, chewed slowly, tried some more, and then ate down to the bare plate.
“Now then,” she said. “Let’s get the money straight.” She opened her purse and took out her checkbook. “I’m retaining you both.”
“I knew it. You do love my meat loaf,” Paul said. “Consider that my payment.”
“It was good. Lots of ketchup, and the crumbs were toasted right.”
“There you have it,” Paul told Nina. “Now for some strawberry shortcake.”
“But I want to hire you. Now, don’t turn this into something mushy. Joseph and I are giving you this check.” She tried to hand Nina a check for a thousand dollars. Nina wouldn’t take it.
“We insist,” Sandy said. “And there’s more available when you need it.”
“I can’t take your money, Sandy,” Nina said.
“Why not? My money’s not good enough for you? My boy’s a charity case?”
“Of course not-”
“I’ll write out the receipt for myself. And watch out for that Crockett man.”
Nina let the check lie on the table. For now.
They finished the meal quickly, then Nina and Paul dropped Sandy off at the jail to talk with Wish. Before she got out of the car, Sandy said to Nina, “When you coming home?”
“You mean to Tahoe? I just got here.”
“Seen your dad?”
“Not yet.”
“You should do that.”
“What is bothering you about me being here?”
“Look around you.” Sandy waved her arm with its silver bracelets. “See any mountains here? And what about this gray cloud you live in?”
“I’m glad she’s here,” Paul told her, squeezing Nina’s hand, “and I’m glad Wish came down. In spite of everything.” He seemed to remember something and withdrew his hand hastily. Nina knew it was their argument he had remembered. She let him move away.
Stepping away from the car, Sandy smoothed her coat, working up to something. Finally, she said, “Find out who’s behind this, Paul. I’m trusting you.”
“Wish is in good hands,” Paul said. “Hard, craggy, experienced hands.”
“Hmph.” She went into the jail building.
“Have a good flight back,” Paul called to her. Nina got into the front passenger seat and threw her arms around him before he could turn the key in the ignition.
“Paul, I’m exhausted. I forgot how she is.”
His body felt stiff, but she held on anyway and pressed her face into his collar, because she needed him and didn’t care about the stupid argument anymore.
“Ah, Nina,” he said finally, and kissed her.
“Let’s get home
,” she said. “That Sandy.”
“She’s stressed out. She’ll get her sense of humor back. I’ll send her a coonskin cap to wear in Washington.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I sure wouldn’t.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. Let’s go have a look at the Robles Ridge fire site.”
“Not early.”
“Not early.”
8
“I’ M JUST GETTING OVER POISON OAK. I’m not bushwhacking. Promise we’ll stay strictly on a trail. And we can’t take Hitchcock.”
“You won’t have to touch him. We’ll take the Bronco and keep him in back on the way home, and I’ll give him the bath of his life.”
“We ought to see it,” Nina said. “I agree.”
“Notice how well we work together this morning.”
“Two peas in a pod,” Nina said. She changed the shorts to long pants, pulled on knee-high cotton socks and her hiking boots, and stuffed cotton gloves in her pocket. How to protect her hair and face from brushing against the evil leaves? A scarf.
“You make a charming babushka,” Paul said.
Outside in the mist, she tossed the day pack with the water bottles into the back seat with Hitchcock, who stood on the bench seat, tongue hanging out the window, ready for anything. The oak trees were dripping and they might as well be underwater. She looked from Hitchcock to Paul, already strapped in, studying a map, leaning forward eagerly. “Two peas in a pod,” she said.
They drove out of the fog bank in five minutes and blinked into brilliant sunshine. Carmel Valley Road followed the river, although you never saw it, just the fields and oak forests and houses and golf courses it irrigated. The river was actually only a trickle now that summer had arrived.
“Did you know that Sebastian Vizcaíno discovered this river in 1602?” Nina asked Paul. “Four hundred years ago. I mean, Plymouth was still a gleam in English eyes back then. When I studied American history they never mentioned how old the European presence really is in California.”
“And why do you think that is?” Paul asked.
“American historians are Anglophiles?”
“They do all have those Waspy surnames.”
“And they all come from the East Coast.”
“Although we did study the California missions,” Paul reminded her.
“Hmm. We did. I think you just blew my theory. But this happened before Junípero Serra. It was the winter of 1602, and Vizcaíno came limping into Carmel Bay in his little wooden ship. And he found a torrent. A white-water torrent. The Carmel River gets very high during wet winters, Paul.”
“So?” Hitchcock saw a black Scottie in the next car as they sat at a traffic light, and barked and hung his paws over the edge of the window. Paul pressed on the electric window switch and it started up, causing Hitchcock to give a yelp of consternation and fall back into the car.
“You didn’t have to scare him like that,” Nina said.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Grr. He’s my dog. He is not your dog to correct.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. He’s your dog. So. About Vizcaíno.”
“So Vizcaíno reported to his superiors about this glorious bay he had found with all the fresh water anyone could ever want. He said to look for a cataract pouring into the ocean on a white-sand beach. So the next expedition looked for it and couldn’t find it, and the next, and the next. Because the ships came in the summer and there wasn’t any river. As a result, the Carmel River wasn’t discovered again for a hundred more years, by which time San Francisco had already become the main commercial center in California.”
“And your point is?”
“Well, this road would be wall-to-wall skyscrapers. The equivalent of the Financial District in downtown S.F.”
“So we lucked out? That’s your point?”
“Or maybe the river just delayed the inevitable with that little disappearing act,” Nina said. “There sure is a lot of new development along here, Paul.”
About fifteen miles inland the hills around them came closer and closer as the valley narrowed. They came to Carmel Valley Village, entryway to the enormous Los Padres National Forest. Stopping for coffee at the River Deli, they sat outside at a rickety plastic table to take in the rays, Hitchcock at Nina’s feet. Across the empty street, a woman in a wheelchair, a tissue clutched between her teeth, led by a stalwart dog, rolled peacefully down the sidewalk toward the Village Market.
“I remember her,” Nina said. “I’m glad to see she’s still shopping on her own. I wonder if she still lives at Robles Vista.”
“I thought Crockett said it was being torn down for the subdivision that got torched in the first fire. Green River, that was the name of it.”
“But, remember, he said that some of the Robles Vista tenants refused to be relocated. I don’t think they have torn Robles Vista down yet. It’ll be a shame when they do. The Village won’t be the same without them. They were always part of the scene, the blind guy with the beard tapping his way across the road to the deli, the people in wheelchairs checking out books at the library.”
“Maybe one of them agreed with you enough to pour out some kerosene farther down the hill toward the river and take out the model home,” Paul said.
“I suppose we should check Robles Vista out. Where in the world will they go? Salinas?”
Paul shook his head and said, “Salinas is cheaper than here, but it is getting expensive. Look around the Village and you’ll find some spiffy new restaurants. Older businesses can’t pay the big rents. Lots of wealthy retirees have been moving out here instead of Carmel or Pebble Beach. It’s gotten as upscale as Carmel.”
“Ben Cervantes is no rich retiree, and he lives in the Village.”
“No, and he’s struggling too, I bet,” Paul said. “Off we go. A dirt road turns into a trail above Hitchcock Canyon”-the dog’s ears perked up-“which was the jumping-off place for the third fire.”
Nina picked up Paul’s camera. “Wish told me exactly where he and Danny parked. Let’s do it.”
“Good thing they caught it fast,” Paul said as they drove down a hill, over a bridge, and up winding roads through neighborhoods of homes with wood-shingle roofs sheltered in the oaks. The road narrowed to a shady lane and they crept along over a series of small bridges across a meandering creek. The oaks shaded them but the day felt even hotter because the air was so still.
Each house had a unique character. The flowers and rocky cliffs behind were as beautiful as Nina remembered, but she could see that gentrification had changed Hitchcock Canyon. The expensive new glassy geometrical homes perched here and there just didn’t fit the weathered older, more modest places.
A couple of miles in, Southbank Road forked. They followed the right fork and continued uphill in the dirt. Paul adjusted the gears of the Bronco into four-wheel drive and they powered on, raising a plume of dust behind. Soon they came to a last group of new and expensive homes with glorious views, the end of the road. A trail continued up toward the crest of the hill, and they saw what the fire had wrought.
A black, still-smoky swath of forest stretched above them. They got out, not bothering to leash Hitchcock, and Nina swung the pack on her back, tied on the scarf, and pulled on her gloves. As hot as she was, she’d probably die of heat prostration, but she preferred that to dying of itching from poison oak.
“C’mon, mutt,” Paul said. Nina, gratified, saw that Hitchcock looked her way for a nod, then waited for her to attach the leash to his collar.
They hiked up the trail where Wish and Danny had gone, Hitchcock pulling hard on the leash. Black tree trunks and fallen charred limbs littered the ground. Hollows and habitats lay exposed. No birds, no squirrels. No green anymore, not even the dry olive-green of central California.
“A lot of acreage burned,” Paul said, walking along with his eyes on the trail. “There might have been footprints, but the firefighters had to come through here to fight the fire. It’s all scuffed up. Stinks, doesn’t it
?”
“Guess it even burned up my favorite plant,” Nina said. But she kept the scarf on.
Paul took photos of the trail, the skyline, the devastation. “Wish asked me what kind of camera to get, so I told him about my Canon,” he said, stopping just ahead to look at a tree branch that held a torn piece of yellow cloth. “He was doing so well at the office. I had him working a special detail with the security staff at the La Playa Hotel. They liked him and asked me if he might want full-time work. He was helping me with the paperwork on a divorce case I’m handling too.”
“I remember when he first came into my office in South Lake Tahoe,” Nina said. “He came to pick Sandy up, and he looked around the office like it was the most glamorous thing on earth.”
“What I always liked about Wish is, he’s enthusiastic.”
“We’ll get him out,” Nina said.
“Maybe Sandy can scare up the bail money from one of her pink-cheeked fellows. She’s in Washington, after all.”
“It’s a ridiculous amount. But if I go in again and ask for a reduction, this judge might make it a no-bail instead.”
“Salas? I’ve heard he’s erratic.”
“Well, you’ll hear a lot of rumors,” Nina said. “Just because he happens to be a Latino.”
“You’re standing up for him? I thought you said he called you a smart-mouth in open court.”
“It’s kind of refreshing. I was being slightly, uh-”
“Mouthy?”
“Forthright. Perhaps unduly forthright. Anyway, he’s got to be under a lot of pressure. So what have you got there?”
“A piece of cloth.”
“I know that. I’ve got eyes.”
Paul whipped out a Ziploc bag and put the cloth in it. Then he wrote a note in his black notebook. “I wonder why the arson investigator didn’t take it.”
“It’s probably his.” They continued up, Hitchcock close behind. He didn’t seem to want to get out in these woods.
Nina went on, “It’s getting damn steep. Imagine how frightening it must have been, late at night. I wonder how Wish could see to run down.”
Presumption Of Death Page 9