Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“Without her noticing?”

“She was sleeping. And she slept on. After a while, he removed the hose.”

“Oh, Paul. That poor woman.” Nina pictured her long hair, the heap her body made on the pavement.

“Someone got to her before she died.”

“Was she hit? Did you see a bruise?”

“Nothing so definite. But there was something off about the whole thing. Maybe a hot drink put her to sleep first. Maybe a knock upside the head, then the hose inserted into a window, was the final scenario.”

Nina rubbed her forehead. “You believe she was murdered.”

“She was the only witness to the arsons. You realize that? Remember what you said happened at that party just a few hours before?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. There was jokey talk,” she said, “about doing a lineup for Ruthie, making her pick out who she saw fleeing the arson. I guess if our Siesta Court arsonist happened to be within earshot, he heard that. Maybe he took it seriously.”

“Maybe that got her killed.”

“I’m thinking, how does this help Wish? I hate to be so cold, but his arraignment’s in the morning. And it does help Wish, but we have to prove it was a murder. The theory currently is that Danny was the Siesta Court arsonist and Wish was the outside man. But Danny’s dead and Wish was sleeping on a state-issue mattress.”

“Right. So-” She let Paul say it.

“Who killed the Cat Lady?”

“H EY, WISH,” NINA SAID. “WHAT’S WITH your hair?”

“Nobody wears long hair anymore. It’s a symbol of the Res.” Wish looked scalped, there was no other way to put it, and Nina’s heart went out to him. He was giving way to the peer pressure of the other inmates herded together into their seats in the jury box of the courtroom.

These tough guys wore the haircuts of male Marines and indifferent expressions, but they didn’t look tough to Nina. To her these kids, minority kids mostly, looked like inmates of any gulag or concentration camp, right down to being tattooed.

“How are you?”

“Tired of this, since I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

“I made an appointment to talk to Jaime Sandoval-the D.A.”

“So I don’t get out today?” Her expression answered him and his face twisted. Nina checked her watch. Monday-morning arraignments started in five minutes.

“Soon, Wish, I promise you. Something important has happened. The main witness linking Danny to the previous fires is dead. The lady who fed cats, Ruth Frost. Carbon-monoxide poisoning when she ran the heat in her car night before last. An accident, they say.”

Wish’s back straightened. He took hold of his lip with his fingers and started worrying it, a habit he shared with his mother, and she saw with joy that the law-enforcement student had come to the foreground.

“That’s suspicious,” he said. “Paul doesn’t believe it, does he?”

“He’s getting the autopsy report right now,” Nina told him. “He believes someone may have incapacitated her before turning on the heat.”

“Somebody killed a woman who fed hungry cats,” Wish said. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I went to a block party on Danny’s street. The neighbors talked about her report.”

“One of the neighbors. Who, Nina? Someone strong who smelled burnt. That doesn’t help. Something sharp digging into my back.”

“Like what?” Nina said, latching on to a new thought. “Where on your back?”

Wish rubbed his hand on the small of his back. “I don’t know what. How many people on that street with strong arms?”

“Four. Danny’s uncle, Ben-”

“He’s got no reason. He’s cool.”

“David Cowan.”

“Danny’s neighbor on the left. He paid Danny to do odd jobs for him, but he didn’t treat Danny very well.”

“I doubt anyone likes Mr. Cowan much,” Nina said.

“What motive would he have?”

“He’s odd. I don’t understand him.”

“Danny had a thing with his wife. Mr. Cowan knew about it, but he never said a word.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Who else?”

“Ted Ballard. The Ballards live three doors down on the Rosie’s Bridge side. They ride bikes, hike, go kayaking. They both make a lot of money, I think. Right now, they’re building a new house on Robles Ridge, not far from the fire locations.”

“Burn it down for insurance?” Wish said.

“The construction is still at the framing stage. But Paul is looking into their finances.”

“I can’t see why he’d set fires.”

“Another possibility is Darryl Eubanks, Danny’s neighbor on the Rosie’s Bridge side.” The clerk came in and Nina realized they were running out of time. “He’s a volunteer firefighter. Did Danny ever talk about him?”

Wish shook his head.

“Wish, there’s another possibility. Remember the driver of the car the Cat Lady saw? The one who dropped off somebody on Siesta Court?”

“You got a line on him?” Wish said, hope in every bone.

“Ever heard Danny talk about a man named Coyote?”

“Sure!”

“I met him. He drives a minivan like the one Ruth Frost described. Danny had to get his tip from somewhere. Who else did he see regularly?”

“That’s a very good line of thought, Nina. Coyote-they were drinking buddies.”

“All rise,” the bailiff said. Wish got up with some difficulty. Nina saw with anger that he was shackled.

He whispered amid the general shuffle, “I almost forgot. Tell Paul I left his bank statements in the file marked ‘Dough,’ like he said.”

“Dough?”

Wish nodded. “Tell him to eat the cottage cheese I left in the office fridge before the expiration date.”

Nina walked swiftly to the attorney’s section and sat down with her briefcase in her lap. Wish didn’t seem to think anyone on Siesta Court had done it. And she hadn’t even had time to ask him about Sam Puglia.

This time she had to sit through an hour of other cases. Jaime and Judge Salas processed them efficiently, but there were thirty or forty of them. Resigning herself to a long wait, she observed the process. Just like old times, the first break came up at 10:15. Maintenance had left the heaters on and the courtroom felt like the Sahara on this June morning, the first record-breaking day of another California summer. If they were lucky, later the usual foggy breeze would snake its way up the river from the Pacific, but right now the lawyers sweated in their jackets and the clerk whispered urgently into the phone trying to get them some relief.

Outside Courtroom Number Three of the old Salinas Courthouse, the town had come to life after the weekend. A few blocks away at the Steinbeck Center, the staff would be holding a meeting to figure out a way to dredge up more money. Closer by, red beans would be frying in steaming metal skillets at Rosita’s. Young mothers pushed their strollers toward the thrift stores on Main. The Hartnell College students hurried to class. All around the town the early-summer lettuce and strawberry pickers would be bending over in the fertile fields, faces covered to keep out the pesticides.

Fifteen miles west of Salinas, on the coast, weekday life would be picking up. Nina imagined the denizens of Carmel: rugged retiree ladies throwing sticks into the water for their purebred retrievers at Carmel Beach, athletic graybeards chatting with each other at the post office, the chic tourists unloading their hard-earned money. In Monterey, there would be lawyers and insurance types clicking their pens in preparation for another week of rooking people out of this and that; and in Pebble Beach, Japanese golfers already finishing their eighteen holes, looking forward to sipping mimosas at Club XIX.