They climbed the stairs to a wooden gate festooned with miniature white lights, which seemed to wrap all around the big deck the Puglias had built for entertaining. Nina felt panicky, and Ben wasn’t going to help much. She reminded herself that this wasn’t her social debut. Nobody should care about her if she kept a low profile. She was there to observe and keep quiet.
She didn’t expect much. Nobody would inadvertently let fall that he was an arsonist. She couldn’t ask many questions.
But if the Cat Lady was right, tonight she might meet an arsonist.
Would she know him when she met him? Keep an open mind, she reminded herself.
“Oh, my poor Ben. Poor, poor Danny. We are so sorry.” A middle-aged woman in a Hawaiian sundress rushed over to greet them, her arms held out. Nina, with Paul, had seen her that afternoon on the deck. The woman pulled Ben to her and held him as tight as a lug nut on a tire, patting his back. When she released him her eyes were wet with tears. “Such a loss,” she said. “I can’t imagine.”
“Thank you,” Ben replied.
He had some dignity, some presence. Nina had already realized that she liked him. Hope it’s not him, she thought to herself, but he was young and strong. He could commit arson. His kindness could be a pose, and his cooperation with her could be a way of defusing the opposition.
“And you brought a date! Introduce us, Ben.”
“Uh, here’s a good friend of mine from high school. Visiting in Monterey this summer. Nina.”
“Hi there, Nina. I’m Debbie Puglia.” Debbie took a small step forward and Nina took a small step back, not wanting to suffer Ben’s fate. Debbie wore a lot of makeup and had one of those faces that exaggerate emotion. Nina thought guiltily of Tammy Faye Bakker. Debbie went on, “You know, Nina, in all these years, Ben has never brought a guest before.”
“Thanks for letting me join you.”
“I’m glad you have company tonight, Ben. Oh, it’s so awful. We stopped by but you weren’t home. Is there anything we can do? We don’t know what to think. Danny-”
“Let ’em in, Debbie. Yo, Ben. Cerveza for you. Let me guess. White wine for your friend.” A short beer-bellied man came up and slipped his arm around Debbie’s waist.
“This is Ben’s friend Nina. Nina, my husband, Sam.”
“Hello, pretty lady. What can I get you?”
“White wine sounds great.”
Sam turned to Ben. “I don’t know what to say about Danny, man. Let’s get drunk first, okay?”
“Sure, I’ll have a beer.” They followed Sam onto the deck. A hundred silver lights twinkled festively along the railing. A cluster of fluttering candles and a red vinyl tablecloth decorated the big table in the center of the deck. Some dishes had already been laid out: a big bowl of tortilla chips, salsa, and guacamole.
Branches hung over the deck and about ten adults stood around in small groups. Off the deck, in the darkening backyard, Nina watched small children flitting in and out of the trees and a pair of older kids jumping on a huge trampoline, yelling as they flipped and bounced.
Sam went over to a blue cooler and Nina saw a bulky young man who looked like a football player standing at the charcoal grill, wearing a garish green-and-red apron. He noticed her looking at him, smiled, and waved.
“That’s Darryl. He’s cooking tonight. The men trade off,” Debbie said beside her.
Ben was shaking hands with a lean young man in shorts and expensive running shoes, his ginger hair cut short. Next to him stood a tall athletic woman, her face all angles, also with short hair brushed back, also glowing with health.
“Meet Ted and Megan. The Ballards.”
“Hi.”
Ted and Megan wore the determined, agreeable look of those who come out of duty. They shook hands with Nina. “Wow,” Megan said to Ben. “We’re just floored. We’re sorry, Ben, we really are. No matter what Danny did, we are really sorry.” She and Ted stood so close they might have been one body. Both had the overdeveloped calves of fanatical bikers, both held diet sodas. They had identical earnest, sympathetic expressions.
“He didn’t do anything,” Ben said. “He was up there with his friend, trying to catch the firebug. The real arsonist murdered him.”
Megan nodded politely, but Nina didn’t think Ben’s words had made any impact on her. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Ted Ballard said. “Did you know him, Nina?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to say he was perfect,” Ben said.
“You don’t think it was him? I mean, don’t the police have his friend in custody? It said in the paper-” Ted said.
Sam returned, holding an icy bottle for Ben and a tumbler full of wine for Nina. She sipped. Cheap plonk. It tasted like it came out of one of those gallon boxes of wine you could buy at the supermarket, but she didn’t really mind. White wine was like chewing gum for her, a guilty pleasure, and she was glad tonight to feel it building a numbing buffer between her and her tingling nerve ends.
She felt like the target of an eyeball inquisition all around her. Was it so astounding that Ben would bring a date? With her body language, she tried to tell them all, I’m not here. Pay no attention to the woman knocking back the cheap white wine.
Debbie was back. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the Siesta Court Bunch,” she said, leading Nina from her haven at Ben’s side. “It’s a sad occasion tonight, what with Danny and all. But we try to get together whatever the weather. We’re kind of cut off here on the river by ourselves, so we try to be good neighbors. Is Ben really all right?”
“He’s managing. Uh, your house is so nice, and your flowers are sensational,” Nina said, setting her glass down for the moment. A tumbler this size ought to last the evening, if she wanted to last the evening. She noticed that Sam, talking to Darryl at the barbecue, was waving a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He poured himself a healthy dose on ice.
“Oh, I just love puttering around our place,” Debbie said. “Sam goes to his office and now that our kids are at college I have the whole day to myself.”
Hey, thought Nina, maybe Paul and I do have ESP. Debbie had just confirmed exactly the fiction they had invented for the Puglias. Somewhat encouraged by this, she allowed Debbie to shepherd her over to the couple standing at the railing.
“Ben finally brought somebody to the party,” Debbie told the couple. “This is Nina. Nina, this is David Cowan and his wife, Britta. They live on the corner.”
Nina flashed to the big concrete house with “colonnades” next to Ben’s place. The Cowans. Yellow Porsche. Hmm. Pretentious sprang to mind.
“Pleased to meet you,” Britta Cowan said. Her husband held back, smiling slightly. They hadn’t been talking to each other. Like Sam’s glass, Britta’s glass held a cascade of ice cubes, but she was already due for a refill on the whiskey. She shook her empty glass, turning full-face to Nina.
Whoa!
Nina looked back, and found herself staring straight into green eyes shining with suppressed rage. Britta was a knockout, a blond with a lush body straining against the stretch in her black minidress, curving expanses of freckled, fine skin on full display. She kept shaking the ice, swaying slightly, while the others seemed to circle around her.
Her husband was the afterthought. He adjusted his glasses. Nina got an academic impression. He wasn’t wearing a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, but he should have been.
What he wore was baggy shorts and a baggy shirt. And, if she was not mistaken, a gold Piaget Emperador watch on his wrist.
Debbie shifted her weight from one foot to another, clearly not comfortable, while Britta gave Nina the twice-over.
“I didn’t think Ben had it in him,” she said finally. “You’re not bad.”
“Excuse me?” Nina said.
“Britta, behave,” David said.
“Don’t you people recognize a compliment when you hear one?” Britta said. She sidled up so close to Nina, she could practically rub against her, and her
moves suggested she intended exactly that level of invasion. “Where you from?”
“Tahoe. But I’m spending the summer down here.”
“Doing what?”
“Just hanging around for a while.”
“How nice for you. So many of us work for a living.”
“What do you do?”
“I arrange expensive, exotic trips for lazy rich people at Carmel Valley Travel in the Village.”
“Interesting?”
“No, but it gets me out of the house. Once in a while, if the boss isn’t looking and a promotion is heavily discounted, I get to do a preview. Adventure travel. Now, that’s fun.” She paused and licked lasciviously at her glass, then looked at Nina appraisingly again, and said, “You cruise?”
Nina tried to smile, but failed. “No. No,” she said. “I get seasick. And what do you do?” she said to David Cowan. Before he could speak, his wife broke in.
“Oh, he rests on his laurels. You’ll find them down there on his butt.”
Debbie let out a nervous laugh.
David Cowan’s expression didn’t change. Nina picked up her wine and took a slug. He did the same. “Actually, I’m an astronomer,” he said mildly.
“Really.”
“With the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy.”
Paul had mentioned that. Smart and detached, Nina thought. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“His head’s in the clouds,” Britta said, laughing gaily. She put her arm around Nina’s shoulder. “Tell me, how is Ben?”
“He’s all right. He’s had trouble sleeping. He misses-”
Britta frowned. “No, no. Forget Danny. I mean, how is Ben? How is he in bed, you know? Do you and he actually do it? Because he’s so good-looking and he lives like a eunuch.” She leaned over and whispered into Nina’s ear. “I wondered if maybe he was a-”
“God, Britta,” David Cowan said, no inflection in his voice except maybe fatigue.
Britta’s arm dropped from Nina. Her eyes swept the yard. “Wonder what Sam’s up to over there with Darryl? Ooh. I see he’s got the bottle.” She whirled around and left them.
The three left behind each took another sip.
11
“S O,” DEBBIE SAID, WIPING HER MOUTH with her hand. “Look, it’s Tory! Honey, you’re late.” She gave the other woman a hug. “Oh, goody, deviled eggs! Don’t they look scrumptious!”
“Poor Ben, I’m so glad he came,” Tory Eubanks said over Debbie’s shoulder.
Nina looked past them, eyes drawn back to Britta, who continued her campaign to raid the personal space of every man and woman at the party. She snuggled up, whispered, got a rise out of them, and moved on, abrupt and capricious. She had already nipped at Sam and was trying now to get Darryl’s glass from him.
Tory Eubanks looked in the same direction.
“Darryl’s Tory’s husband,” Debbie told Nina brightly, waving toward the young man in the chef’s apron.
“That bitch,” Tory said, watching Britta fawn, feint, and paw. “The kids were at the movies and got home late, so I sent Darryl over to get started.” She noticed Nina. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’m Nina. Ben’s friend.”
“He told me you were coming. Nice to meet an old friend of Ben’s. Did you go to the funeral?”
“No, I got here too late.”
“We weren’t invited either,” Debbie said. “I would have been more than happy to have a get-together at Ben’s house for his family. But they came and went so fast.”
“Hello, David. How are you?”
“Tory,” Cowan said.
There was no heat between these two, but did David Cowan actually have any heat at all? He seemed to be one of those acutely self-conscious people who make everybody feel awkward. Maybe living with Britta had done it to him. Nina couldn’t think of anything else to say to him.
“Elizabeth here yet?” Tory asked Debbie. These two seemed to be good friends. Tory Eubanks was a lot younger, maybe thirty, a natural blond with blond eyebrows, no makeup, and lashless Sissy Spacek eyes. She wore a denim jumper and Birkenstocks.
“No,” Debbie said. “But she said she’s coming. Elizabeth’s my sister,” she explained, turning to Nina. “She lives way up on the hill in a house she designed herself, the lucky duck. She’s so isolated up there. I try to get her down here to join our get-togethers.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go see what my husband is charring tonight.” Tory looked over the railing. “Hey! Justin! Don’t jump so hard with your little sister on that thing! Careful, now!” She wandered over to the table with her big plate of plastic-wrapped eggs, pushed a few things out of the way, and set them down.
Another couple appeared at the gate. More people! How would she ever remember them all! Debbie took Nina’s arm and led her toward them and away from David Cowan. Just in time, Nina thought. She had almost gotten sucked into Cowan’s vacuum back there, where you existed only as a personality-free blob of nonmatter.
“Oh, Jolene, what in the world?” Debbie asked. Jolene carried at least four dishes on a huge pewter tray. Debbie sniffed at the wrapped platters. “Yummy!” she said. To Nina she said, “Jolene’s such a magnificent cook. She makes the party.”
“It’s nothing,” Jolene said. Okay, Nina told herself, George and Jolene… Hill. Yes. The old cottage on the corner nearest Rosie’s Bridge with the great garden and the chain-link fence.
“Tell,” Debbie said, trying to peek under the foil. “What did you bring this time?”
“I tried a few new things, a spinach pie with a fancy Greek name I forget, a shrimp dish from Thailand, that mac and cheese George likes so much, and goulash,” Jolene said. She was a sprightly woman in her sixties, wearing bright earrings and a well-cut pair of slacks.
Debbie and Nina helped her unload the food on the table. They removed the foil and found serving spoons for each dish. From the smell and look of these dishes, Jolene was more than a good cook.
“Well, just look at you,” the elderly man named George said, coming up to them. “Miss Aloha 1982.” Debbie blushed like a girl.
George Hill had gone straight over to greet a couple of the men. He was carrying a black musical-instrument case. About sixty-five, he was still puffing from climbing the short stairway up to the deck. His florid face told Nina that he wasn’t well.
Sitting down on the redwood bench that ran along the railing with the case on his lap, he clicked it open and extracted a gleaming Spanish guitar. He swung it around his neck on its leather strap and let it rest on his paunch, then ran long, surprisingly graceful fingers across the strings.
He played a few chords, warming up, grinning at Debbie.
“George, this is Ben’s guest, Nina-what was your last name, honey?”
“Balzac,” Nina said, then bit her lip.
“Balzac? What kind of name is that? Hungarian or something?” George said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Maybe you could play us a Gypsy tune,” George said. “I only play country myself.”
“I can’t wait to hear you,” Nina said, smiling. She heard a crash behind her and they all turned around to see that at the other end of the deck near the grill, Britta had dropped her glass on the deck. She was barefoot, laughing, standing in the middle of the glass.
“Sam! Rescue me!” she cried. Sam Puglia stepped over the glass in his moccasins. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her a few steps, and set her down in safety.
Debbie ran into the house. She emerged moments later with a broom and began the cleanup. Darryl stooped down to pick up glass shards, putting them delicately into a plastic bag.
“Britta’s lit,” George told his wife. He looked at his watch. “Seven o’clock. Not even dark yet. This could be a record.”
“The kids are having a great time in the yard, though, aren’t they?” the woman said. “Hi there,” she said to Nina. “I’m Jolene. I’m glad you’re here. Ben needs a good friend right now. Ge
orge and I have two granddaughters out there running wild in the woods tonight, Callie and April.”
“Ah,” Nina said.
“So how do you come to know Ben?” George asked. “You bein’ a Hungarian and all.”
“We went to high school together,” Nina said.
“Where? In Tijuana?” He started laughing. “They have Hungarians down there?” He started to strum. “I know a Mex song. Marty Robbins. The best country song ever written. I dedicate this to Danny, rest in peace. He used to bring his flute over and play this with me sometimes. Good old Danny. Right, everybody? Let that boy rest now.” He played a few chords, started fingerpicking surely and nimbly, then opened his mouth and started to sing in a startlingly beautiful baritone,
One little kiss and Felina, good-bye…
“‘El Paso.’ Gave away the best part,” he said. “It’s a tragic ending. Felina, sounds like a cat.”
“I never thought of that,” Jolene said. “Shall I get us something to drink?”
“And a couple of those deviled eggs Tory always brings. Save me some of your mac and cheese, don’t forget. And don’t even think about bringing me any of that crazy yuppie guacamole Megan makes, with all that spicy shit she puts in there.”
“Well, I’m sure gonna have some,” Jolene said. She winked at Nina. George started singing about how he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. To Nina’s surprise and delight, he was a terrific singer, gravelly and expressive.
Hearing the music, the liveliest thing happening in the yard, Britta came over to give him a kiss and flash her green eyes at him. He squeezed her waist. “Why does a blond wear her pants around her ankles?” he asked her.
“Tell me why.”
“To keep her ankles warm.”
Ted and Megan, who had also been drawn by the music, cringed.
“Why are men like linoleum?” Britta retaliated. “Because all you have to do is lay ’em, then you get to walk all over them for life.”
“Come on, Nina,” Jolene said. “I see you need a refill.”
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