Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“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.”

Paul tapped his noggin and said, “That’s why you’re a lawyer and not an arson investigator.”

“Huh?”

“The forest was on fire. He had more light than we do.”

“Oh, right. Look, there’s a hawk.” It flew high above them, riding the currents, circling like a news helicopter over the story of devastation.

They walked the entire extent of the fire, all the way to the top of the hill. Nina saw no sign of the spot where Danny’s body had been found. She wouldn’t even have the police reports to look at until after the arraignment. She tried to imagine it, Wish lost in that crackling hell, Danny disappearing, and then the hand with the rock.

What kind of person had done this?

Looking around them from the top of the ridge, they could see several hundred feet below. This fire had been set with no regard for human life, as there were homes directly below-or maybe the homes had been the targets? “We should find out who lives in all the homes that were threatened,” she said.

“We have to prioritize,” Paul told her. “I’ll get on that soon, but right now, I think we better concentrate on the sure thing we do know-that one of the arsonists seems to live on Siesta Court. Look down. See the river we crossed to get onto Southbank? The riverbed, anyway. It’s almost dry. Siesta Court’s hidden in the oaks down there. Let’s go down and take a look at it.”

“I don’t want to blow my cover for tonight,” Nina said. “What if some of the neighbors are out?”

“Well, I’d like to see, since I wasn’t invited to the party. You keep wearing that scarf and the sunglasses. They’ll think you’re Winona Ryder on a shopping spree.”

They walked back down and Hitchcock drank some water, and then wound down Hitchcock Canyon in the Bronco. At the bottom of the Robles hill they came back to the substantial steel bridge over the river, which Nina remembered was called Rosie’s Bridge. Across the bridge, Esquiline Road and the hill sloped up again toward the Village, and halfway up they could see the remains of the model home that had burned down in the first fire. Tractors and forklifts and stacks of materials were parked along Esquiline, indicating that a cleanup had commenced. At the top of the slope, where Carmel Valley Road ran, they could just see the handicapped facility of Robles Vista through what remained of the grasses and trees.