Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“I’ll go get him,” she said, ignoring the last question. She left them on the porch, closed and locked the front door behind herself, and woke Paul. They returned to the door together.

“We’re looking for Willis Whitefeather. Like to ask you some questions.”

“It’s late,” Nina said. “How about your office, tomorrow morning?”

“Sorry. We need to talk to you right now.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“We just received information from the Las Flores Clinic in San Juan Bautista that Mr. Whitefeather has been hiding there. Mr. Whitefeather gave Mr. van Wagoner’s phone number as an emergency contact. Now please listen carefully. If you have any information as to Mr. Whitefeather’s current whereabouts and don’t tell us what you may know, right now, Detective Crockett is going to consider that an obstruction of justice. I just want to make that very clear to you tonight.”

Paul and Nina stood there. Paul said softly to her, “Your call, Counsel.”

“Am I very clear?” the officer repeated.

Nina held the door open. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Whitefeather is here.”

Wish was not under arrest, Deputy Grace assured them. But the arson investigator sure did want to talk to him. Now. Down at the station. Alone.

Wish, who appeared in wet hair and a towel, freshly covered in gauze and surgical tape, bleary-eyed and confused, went back into the bathroom and came out in Paul’s clothes. The pant legs rode high on his dirty boots. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll be glad to cooperate. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“We’ll come along if you don’t mind,” Paul said.

“We mind,” said Deputy Grace.

“I’m coming,” Nina said.

“Look,” said the second deputy sheriff. The thin bristle on his upper lip in the watery glow of the porch light made him seem to have two upper lips. “He doesn’t need company. We just want to talk to him.”

“I’m his attorney,” she said. She grabbed her briefcase, more to put on the expected official show than because she needed it in this case, since she didn’t have anything inside it except a pad of paper and a pen.

“Take this,” Paul said, sticking her mobile phone into her pocket. “Call me.”

In her rush out the door, she forgot to kiss him good-bye.

The ride through the dark streets to the central police station in Salinas took only minutes in the dead of night. Inside, Crockett waited in his desolate office.

“So, you’re representing Mr. Whitefeather, here,” Crockett said to Nina, turning on his tape recorder without a by-your-leave. Nina noticed for the first time the mirror on the wall, dark on one side only, perhaps. And the video camera mounted in a ceiling corner. “He’s obviously been through some sort of traumatic event. What happened to your eyes, son?”

“Yes, I represent him.”

“You know he hasn’t been charged with a crime? We just want to know what went on up there in the hills above Carmel Valley on Tuesday. That’s where it happened, isn’t it? Where you were injured.”

“I’ve advised my client…” Nina began.

“Yeah. I went up there that day,” Wish said.

Nina punched his arm. “I’ve advised my client not to speak. I know you consider him a suspect for the arson fires. He was Mirandized on the way here.”

“Your client went to a clinic to get treated for burns,” Crockett said. “That’s how we tracked him down. We know he went up there to set fires.”

“Not true!” Wish said. “I went up to the ridge that night because…”

“I told you in the car,” Nina said. “Now are you listening, Wish? Exercise your right to remain silent. Don’t say anything.”

Crockett said, “We have the autopsy report. We know what happened.” He said the words provocatively.

“Autopsy report? Did someone die? Danny? What happened?” Wish cried.

“For the love of… keep quiet, Willis!” Nina said. She couldn’t remember ever saying his formal name out loud before, but circumstances demanded serious measures.

He closed his mouth, but he was stunned by Crockett’s news, already drawing conclusions.

“Massive skull fracture,” David Crockett announced, directing his comments to Nina. Since she had warned Wish to remain silent, Crockett could not, by law, ask him any more direct questions. “The victim, maybe Danny Cervantes, was hit over the head before he was left to sizzle like a piece of shrimp over hot charcoal.”

“What!” Wish said. “Is it Danny?”

“Well,” Crockett backpedaled. Still looking at Nina, he said, “He was up on the ridge with your client setting a fire, wasn’t he?”

Wish jumped up. His metal folding chair clattered to the ground. “No!” he said, and Nina realized he was beyond control.

“Danny wasn’t setting fires!” Wish said. “He was trying to stop the guy!”

“We have a witness,” Crockett said.

“A witness to what?” asked Nina, to keep Wish from opening his mouth again.

“To the arsons. Our witness has ID’d Danny at one of the previous fires.”

Wish stood up. “He would never…”

“We have a witness,” Crockett said. “Oh, and…” he said, directing his comments to Nina, “your client is under arrest.”

“For what?” Nina asked.

“Trespassing.” Crockett smiled. “He was up there running around on private property. He just admitted it.”

And so he had.

“S ANDY’S ON A PLANE TO SAN Francisco,” Paul announced on Friday morning as he spread cream cheese on a bagel. They were out on the deck in the crackling morning cold, both wearing heavy white terry-cloth robes that said CAESARS in looping red embroidery.

Hitchcock ate noisily from his bowl. They had just taken him for a good walk. “She lays over two hours and then flies to the Monterey airport. She’ll get in about six.”

“I heard the phone. Thanks for getting up-I just couldn’t.”

“She became somewhat exercised when she heard her son was spending the night in the clink after coming to us for help. Must have been difficult. First he calls and he’s alive and safe. She calls Joseph and everybody sighs with relief. Then she hears that he’s been arrested.”

“Nothing else we could have done. Is she staying with us?”

“She harrumphed and said no way. She said she’d be fine. But I said I’d meet her and cook her dinner. Her and Wish, if you get him out.”

“Great,” Nina said. “I’ll polish up the silver. Queen Victoria is coming.”

“She won’t care about the place. She just wants to see Wish. What time is the bail hearing?”

“Two o’clock.”

“You going to get him out?”

“If they haven’t added the felony charges.”

“How’s the rash?”

“The rash? Oh, the rash! Well, what d’you know. I didn’t itch all last night.”

“Miracle of modern drugs,” Paul said.

“I’m going to be very careful of poison oak in the future, Paul. I don’t want the rash, and I definitely don’t want the prednisone.”

“You did have your ups and downs. Is all that going to change to tranquility now?”

“Absolutely,” Nina said. Paul laughed.

By nine-thirty they were both dressed and the living room looked acceptable for the formidable company they expected later. They went out on the deck and sat down in the metal chairs. Nina said, “Call the meeting to order.”

“I vote we drive out to Carmel Valley Village and talk to Danny’s uncle.”

“The police may be there.”

“So? That ever stop you before?”

“Why don’t we try calling him one more time?”

This time Nina got a message. It said, “This is Ben. Call me on my cell phone.”