Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“Led him straight into trouble,” Sandy said, “that time they set the tree on fire.”

Nina bit her lip. So Danny had been with Wish during that first prank involving the stump of a tree. She should have known!

Connie did not look offended at the comment, taking it as Sandy offered it, as fact, not as criticism. She played with the fringe of her shawl and said, “Normal life never seemed exciting enough. He started playing with explosives and fire, always getting up to something he shouldn’t. I tried to keep better track, to stay through one entire school year in the same area, but there’s a time with kids, a right time, and I had missed it being busy, working all the time, trying to keep us in food. He wouldn’t talk to me anymore.

“Ben found that job for him at the car-repair shop in Carmel Valley. He was good at that. He loved cars. I really thought things were looking hopeful for him finally.”

“I hear he was good at it,” Sandy said. Her calm kept them all calm, especially Connie.

“Then the business got sold. But Wish had come to town by then, and Ben says he was happy to have a buddy again. But then Ben says Wish decided to part ways with Danny.”

“He did. I won’t say he didn’t.”

“Another time things that could have gone good went bad,” Connie said half-angrily. “Danny made me promise not to tell anybody he came here, and now look at me, I’m breaking my promise to him. His whole life is one broken promise.”

“Stop. Stop it. You took the best care of him you could. You’re still taking care of him by helping us get ahold of him. That’s being a good mother. You know it.”

“He’ll hate me.”

“Don’t-”

“It’s all right. He will hate me, because he’s got a soul-sickness, but that’s how it has to be. You know, we had a funeral for him. Flowers and speeches. Twenty-one years old, and we thought he was dead. We laid him in the ground. I suffered through my boy’s death. I can’t quite believe he’s still alive. But seein’ as how he is, I want your word that you won’t bring in the police if I tell you what I know.”

“I can’t swear that, he’s so far gone,” Sandy said. “But tell me anyway.”

After a long silence, Connie said, “He needed money.”

“How much did you give him?”

“Everything I had. Three hundred dollars.”

“What was he driving?”

She thought. “I thought he came in his car. It was overcast, and he must not have parked right out front.”

“You didn’t see any children with him?”

“I guarantee when you find him, you won’t find any kids with him. Not unless they wanted to go along,” she added, in a testament to her own uncertainty.

“Did he take anything besides money?”

“He keeps a lot in that closet.” Connie pointed to a painted cupboard. “He grabbed a few things.”

Paul got up quietly. “Mind?” he asked as he opened the door to the cupboard. Clothes and bed linens were wadded and stuffed into every shelf. Paul searched for a few minutes while the women watched. He emerged with a lantern and a ball of netting. “Camping gear,” he said.

Connie examined the closet. “A couple of sleeping bags are gone. And a pup tent he used when he was a boy. Lamp fuel.”

“Kerosene?” Nina asked.

Connie nodded.

“How much?”

“Half a gallon.”

“Mrs. Cervantes,” Paul said, “where is he?”

She didn’t resist the entreaty in his voice any longer, but pulled out a creased map and showed them Danny’s favorite camping spot. “I think maybe in the mountains above Incline Village, an area near Rose Knob. He loves it there, and we have some old family friends with a cabin they loaned us a few times in that area, so it’s familiar.”

Paul got the address for the cabin.

“You think that’s where he’s gone?” Nina said.

“He wouldn’t stay in the cabin. He never liked being inside when he could be outside. Also, he talked like he was going camping. Took wood from the stack behind the house for campfires. I really don’t know. I’m guessing where he might be. He also likes to camp above Cave Rock, and over by Spooner Lake.” She showed them two other spots. “Go ahead,” she said, “track him down like an animal.” Now Nina could hear the anger coming up in her, the anger at herself and Danny and her husband and Sandy for pressing her.

“Are you coming with us?” Sandy asked, standing stolidly in front of her. Nina hadn’t thought of that possibility.

“No.”

“It might help.”

“Oh, I know I should. Just leave me alone. Go get him if you have to. I still can’t figure out if he’s really alive, if I really saw him.” Nina and Paul exchanged worried glances.

“Okay, then.” Sandy opened her bag, pulled out a box of doughnuts, and set them in front of Connie. “Chocolate-covered,” she said. “Remember how we used to eat them back when the boys were little? Those were good times, and none of us are going to forget them. Nina, why don’t you and Paul wait in the car.”

Nina took Paul’s hand and led him outside, Paul grabbing the map as they passed the table. Lying back against the seat as Paul started the motor, she closed her eyes and thought that Bob would be passing through this dangerous transition to adulthood in a few years. She hadn’t cared about Danny Cervantes as a person until this moment, the slow-burning match who had found only dried-up tinder in his search for a life, and had become a conflagration. Now she hoped that somehow he could be saved. But Callie and Mikey came first.

In a few minutes Sandy came out to the car and opened the door. When they were moving again, she said, “Danny took a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet before he left. Thirty pills. Ambien.”

“It’s a very powerful sleeping aid,” Nina said. “My God! We have to find him.”

“He let her think he was dead. He was already a ghost, all the ties with this world cut. I don’t think he can come back. She knows that.”

B ACK IN THE CAR, THEY REGROUPED. “Do we call the sheriff’s office now?” Nina asked. “Shouldn’t we tell them where we think Danny Cervantes might be? What’s he going to do with those pills?”

“We still don’t know he’s there, Nina,” Paul said. “I wish we had more to report. Give Crockett a buzz. See what he says.” He knew what he wanted to do: Go to Rose Knob Mountain. He knew it well. He had hiked that section of the Tahoe Rim Trail traversing the summit the day the trail opened a year ago. But he was willing to let Crockett make the decisions.

She called Crockett, who sounded very anxious at the news, especially when she told him about the pills. “He’s frustrated, Paul. He wants us to keep in close touch,” Nina said, closing her phone. “He’s going to talk with the local police and get back to us.”

They drove for a few minutes more before Nina’s phone rang. She talked briefly, then hung up. “They don’t feel they can do anything with Connie’s information yet. They are sending someone out to talk to her right away. Apparently, Crockett is also pursuing a credible report that Danny’s hiding out with the kids south of Cachagua in the mountains near Big Sur.”

Paul took a deep breath. “Damn. Those kids… do you think Danny’s mother told us the truth?”

“I do.”

“Drop me at the TART stop in King’s Beach,” Sandy told Paul as he swung back toward the road that ringed the lake.

“Say what?” Paul stole a glance into the back seat at Sandy, who was looking out the window, hands tight on her bag. He refrained from making a wise-ass addition to the question, terrified he would laugh and alienate her forever.

“Tahoe Area Rapid Transit,” Nina explained. “The bus goes around the lake to South Lake Tahoe.”