Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“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.”

“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.