Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

They stopped the car on Esquiline along a fence just before they came to Rosie’s Bridge. Pointing to the narrow lane that ran along the river to their right, a dirty street sign read SIESTA COURT.

“We’ll just put ol’ Hitchcock back on his leash and take him for a sedate walk,” Paul said. “Don’t worry, you are unrecognizable.”

“Oh, why not.” They turned the corner and began walking down Siesta Court, trying not to look conspicuous as they passed the houses.

Nina thought more about the Spanish and Mexican history of the area as they strolled up to the road sign and turned right. Don José Manuel Boronda, Doña Catalina Manzanelli de Munras, and many other figures from the past had lived, loved, and died along the banks of the Carmel River. They built adobe houses, they nurtured pears, grapes, apricots, nectarines, cherries, they raised racehorses… they fought off the wildcats and coyotes, and even, until 1900, the grizzly bears that hunted through these wild lands. Though the grizzlies had gone, the occasional mountain lion still prowled along the riverbanks.

On the river side of Siesta Court a wall of riprap bordered the street, softened by buttercups and shooting stars that managed to root in and beautify the ugly concrete. A path made by owners and their dogs ran along the top, and they walked along it. The riverbed below on their left was at least eighty feet wide, only a streamlet hinting at its winter might. On the far side, a bank overgrown with laurel bushes lay below the scars of the first arson fire.

They reached the shadow of a mighty oak that had been allowed to remain when the riprap was laid down, one of the ubiquitous robles that lent their name to everything around here.

Across the lane, snug under the leaves, a few houses slept in a straggling row. On this hot, still afternoon, the lane was quiet. A couple of golden retrievers came sniffing out from their naps under the trees.

“Imagine what the Green River development will do to this street,” Nina said, looking across the river to the hillside. “These folks will be staring at a hillside of identical roofs instead of greenery. Actually, the people in the condos will be looking down at them. It’ll be like moving from the country to the city without even having to pack.”

Paul pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it. “Let’s start at this corner. That first house, with the chain-link fence around it-that’s owned by a couple named George and Jolene Hill.”

“How do you know that?”

“Went on the Web while you were getting dressed and accessed the county real-estate records. Since we were coming out here.”

“You’re good. I’m impressed.”

“Especially in bed.” He drew a finger down her sleeve. “Ah. I can still make you blush. A hard-nosed legal eagle like you.”

The yard was lush with hollyhocks and roses. A tire swing hung off the tree beside the old white cottage. BEWARE OF DOG, said a metal sign affixed to the fence. Nina saw a dog bowl on the porch. “Gardeners?” she said.

“Let’s see now. George and Jolene have lived here since 1970,” Paul said. “That’s when they bought it, anyway. Paid forty thousand for the property. The house is probably worthless, but they do have a half-acre. The land alone must be worth more than half a million now.”

“That much?”

They were now across from the second house. A bigger contrast could not be imagined. The Hill house on the corner was set modestly back from the road, but this house with its two stories and portico sat right on the street and seemed to fill the whole lot.

“Theodore and Megan Ballard,” Paul said. “Bought six years ago, just before the river flooded. Razed the old house and built this postmodern thing.” A blue BMW convertible sat in the driveway. “Somebody’s a telecommuter,” Paul said. “I can smell the vanilla soy latte from a mile away.”

“No sign of kids,” Nina said. “Big incomes and they collect retro fifties furniture, is my guess.”

“Living the good life. I’m gonna say, a pair of computer analysts.”

“Techies. And the house is all made of ticky-techie.” At a tall laurel that overhung the riprap, they caught up with Hitchcock, who was involved in an investigation of his own.

“Okay. Grass and neat flower beds on Number Three, middle of the block, old house but big and comfortable,” Nina said. “A home-loving woman lives here.”

“You’re such a sexist. Men make better gardeners.”

“Men are good with grass, I agree. But not with these delicate flowers, not with these pretty patterns,” Nina said.

“Well, all I can say is that Sam and Debbie Puglia own this place,” Paul said, consulting his notes.

“Looks like a big new deck out back. I wonder if that is where the party will be.” As Nina spoke, a middle-aged woman in shorts and a halter lumbered out the back door, which they could see at an angle, and disappeared onto a corner of the deck. Paul and Nina turned toward the river and stood together.

“Debbie?”

“The age is right. Sam and Debbie bought the house twenty years ago, and she’s in her mid-forties, I’d guess.”

“Sam’s at work,” Nina guessed. “Debbie doesn’t have a car. She likes Sam to drive anyway and she has plenty to do at home during the day.”

“See how easy it is, this investigating?” Paul said. “You just generalize and stereotype and it all comes together.”

“We could be dead wrong.”

“We probably are. But we can learn something from houses, from the way they’re kept, that sort of thing.”

“My picture of that lady over there doesn’t include sneaking up the hill at night to set fires.” Nina knelt down to give Hitchcock a pat. “Doesn’t it have to be a man, from Wish’s description?”

“No. Recall that he didn’t get that opportunity to ‘grab and twist.’ He just thought about it, right after he went down.”

“It must be a man. He killed Danny with a rock. He attacked Wish. He sets fires.”

“There you go again. I ever tell you about the woman weight lifter from Los Angeles who strangled her boyfriend? It took four cops to subdue her.”

“Come on, Paul. There’s the witness who saw two men in a car-”

“We shall keep our minds open. Now, moving right along. House Number Four.”

A small, well-kept house behind a white picket fence. An old Ford pickup and a beat-up minivan in the driveway, and an open screen door, from which issued the wail of a small child. “Meet Darryl and Tory Eubanks,” Paul said. “Inherited their home from Charles L. Eubanks twelve years ago.”

“A young couple with kids.”

“Couldn’t have afforded to buy it,” Paul went on, keeping up the guessing game.

“No time for the yard.” They looked the place over. A rusty swing set painted blue during some optimistic past was just visible in back.

“Salt of the earth,” Paul said, and they passed by. “Now we come to a place owned by somebody named Rafferty, but that’s got to be Ben Cervantes’s place.” It was the smallest house on the block, set well back on a gravel driveway amid mature trees, a tiny cottage on a narrow lot.

Number Five. So Danny Cervantes had lived there. Wish had sat on that slapdash front porch with the kitchen chairs. Nina would be back there in a few hours, knocking on the door.

“Ben must be renting,” Nina said, starting the ball rolling.

“Saving up his money to get married and buy his own house.”

“There’s no car in the driveway.”

“Ben’s at work. He repairs cars, right? He must have a new job.” Paul flipped to another part of his notebook and read, “Valley European Motors. I guess he must consider that a step up from the place that closed down, where Danny also worked.”