Presumption Of Death

by Perri O'shaughnessy

Paul took the phone from her. The sheet fell off his naked body, but he didn’t notice. “What’s going on?” he asked. And then, uh huh, uh huhs followed many times before he hung up. He jumped from the bed, strode over to the sliding doors, and opened them. Damp air flowed in. He breathed deeply.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “He was supposed to be at Tahoe with his father. Sounds like he never made it.”

  “I said good-bye to him at the office on Tuesday night. Paul… if he’s dead?”

  “We deal with what we have right now. Sandy believes he’s alive.”

  “She’s three thousand miles away,” Nina said.

  “We’re here. Let’s get going.”

  After dressing and a quick bite, they drove to the sheriff’s office in Salinas. Along the road farmworkers were picking late strawberries. The Salinas Valley was one of the richest agricultural areas in the world, lying between the southern coast ranges and the Pacific. Farmers raised lettuce, artichokes, grapes, and thirty other crops in the fields along the river. They were in the land of the California missions, and not too long ago the workers bending over the rows of plants would have been mission Indians, not Latinos.

  The fields ended abruptly and town began. In an old art deco building courtesy of WPA workers in the 1930s, the main offices for the enormous County of Monterey had just opened for business. The deputy on duty sent them along to check with the county arson investigator for details about the fire. “Coroner’s not done with the body yet. You can’t see it.”

  The summer’s usual cool ocean breezes hadn’t made it this far inland yet, leaving a hot sun in charge this early Thursday morning. The heat made Nina sweat, so she peeled off her sweater before going inside the nearby building that housed the fire investigator’s office.

  A young girl at a desk in the entryway had just told them they were out of luck, when in blew David Crockett, a perspiring, huffing man in his late thirties with curly black thinning hair, wearing running shoes and sweats. He gave them a piercing look and took Paul’s ID.

  “Right. I remember you from Monterey Police, Paul. You broke open that warehouse-fraud case in Seaside.” He shook his hand. “You’re on your own now, I hear.”

  “Have been for years. Good to see you again, too, Davy. Thought you were headed to Sacramento.”

  “I’ve been up there for the past two years. Been assigned down here only a few days.”

  Paul looked at him. “Excellent job on that triple homicide in Roseville last year. I’d like to talk some more about that case sometime. The evidence trail your people established was outstanding. Got him what he deserved. Death row’s too kind for bastards like him.”

  “Thanks.” Crockett sat them down to wait in an undecorated wood-paneled office. “Give me five seconds,” he said, and left. They heard the sound of water running somewhere outside.

  “What do you think of him?” Nina asked.

  “He’s dogged. Resourceful. He stays calm.”

  “High praise. Did you two get along?”

  “I was working my way out of the police force by then and not in the best of moods. So let’s put it this way, I hope I have since earned his respect.”

  “Well, any relationship you have, exploit it, okay?”

  “Do what I can,” said Paul.

  Crockett came back, cheeks freshly scrubbed, decked out in creased navy slacks, a dress shirt, and tie.

  “Jane, bring us some coffee,” he said to the young woman at the desk in front.

  “Okay.” Judging by the downturn in her red lips, she did not relish this part of her job.

  “Three sugars,” he commanded.

  A few moments later Jane entered with a water-spattered tray containing a stained thermos, three cups, a bowl gunked with blobs of dried sugar, and a spoon that she picked up and dried with the tail of her blouse before returning to the tray.

  “Now, that’s service, Janie,” Crockett said heartily. When she had closed the door, he said, “She’s a trainee. Some kind of chip on her shoulder. We shall see. Yes, we shall see.” He tapped his pen on the desk, and his eyes seemed to bore through the door Janie had gone through.

  “How’d you end up here?” Paul asked. The small talk was making Nina impatient, but the men needed to establish common grounds and attitudes.

  Crockett poured himself a cup and swallowed it. “After I left Monterey, I worked for the sheriff’s department in Salinas, then went on to Sacramento. I’m with a special arson-investigation unit here in Monterey County. I like it. Good people here.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “How about you? How do you like being out on your own?”

  “It’s a lonely old world, working alone, but there are compensations.”

  “I see that there are,” Crockett said, inclining his head toward Nina, who was scratching her ankle. “This your secretary?”

  “My name is Nina Reilly. I’m an attorney,” Nina said. “Excuse me for interrupting, but we don’t have time to chat. As you know, Mr. van Wagoner is an investigator. We understand you have a victim in the Tuesday fire and a tentative ID on a young man named Willis Whitefeather. We’re friends, we’re worried, and we’d like to see the victim.”

  Crockett had turned his whole body toward her in the chair. “I see. You’re an attorney, are you?”

  “Mr. Whitefeather’s mother is out of state and can’t get here today. She asked us to come in and talk with you. Apparently she was told… a victim of the Tuesday-night Robles Ridge fire might be her son.”

  Crockett studied her some more, then rustled around on his desk for some papers. “Yes. I talked with Mrs. Whitefeather last night. She’s still planning to fly in?”

  “Yes, but maybe we can clear things up immediately if we see the victim, although I understand that isn’t possible at the moment?” Nina said.

  Crockett nodded. “Seeing the body may not clear things up. It was badly burned.”

  “What’s the basis of the ID?”

  “Simple logic. He’s been missing since Tuesday night, and the last people to see him, his roommates, called in yesterday to report him missing. They heard the news reports and got alarmed because the last time they saw him was Tuesday night, and he was on his way with a friend into the hills above Carmel Valley Village. They read about the fire and decided to report it. The body was found by the sheriff’s posse, a mounted patrol out of the Salinas station on Wednesday about noon. They do rescues up there in the backwoods, get into places cars won’t go. Some of the area was still too hot to search as of yesterday.”

  “You went up there too?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll be going back up this afternoon.”

  “What about the friend who went up there with Wish? Why aren’t you assuming it’s him?” Nina said. Paul put his hand on her arm, lightly, but she knew what he meant. He was warning her not to be so intense. Crockett had seen Paul’s movement. His eyes missed nothing.

  Just as lightly, just as definitely, Nina shrugged off Paul’s hand.

  “Could be him,” Crockett said. “But we don’t have a missing-persons report on him. That’s the difference. The friend’s name is Daniel Cervantes. Mrs. Whitefeather gave us the name after she heard the roommates said it was a young man named Danny. We’re still trying to get a local address on him. Ring any bells? Danny Cervantes?”

  Nina and Paul shook their heads.

  “Childhood friends, Mrs. Whitefeather said. Guess they’re both Native Americans from the Tahoe area.”

  “Wish is a member of the Washoe tribe. He was raised near Lake Tahoe.”

  “He’s, what, twenty-one?”

  “Yes,” Nina said.

  “Going to college up there, I understand. And working for you this summer, Paul, am I right?”

  “Right.”

  “Was he working on a case on Tuesday night? Anything to do with the fires?”

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m s
ure. What are you getting at, Davy?”

  Crockett shifted again in his black chair, which looked like a standard-issue back-torture instrument. “Because the roommates told me he took a backpack, camera, water, that sort of thing. Just wondering if you might know why he would go up the mountain there, since you worked with him.”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said. Nina was getting nervous.

  She said, giving Paul a warning look, “We understand this fire might have been set, that there have been a couple of suspicious fires in that area.”

  “That’s right. Clear arsons. Kerosene all over the place. The local officials decided they needed someone to coordinate all the information coming in. I’m the liaison. I work with the agencies that are involved, and that can be a lot of bureaucracies, the police, the fire department, the sheriff’s department, the state, the park service, the FBI… you familiar with the crime of arson?”

  “We’d like to hear whatever you can tell us,” Paul said.

  “I can tell you generally that one of the first things we look for is motive.”

  Crockett stood up and pointed to a huge aerial photograph of Monterey County on the wall beside his desk.

  “Here, here, and here,” he said thoughtfully, pointing with his pencil to three spots on the map about fifteen miles inland from Carmel. “Those are the sites. You familiar with Carmel Valley Village?”

  “I grew up here on the coast,” Nina said. “When I think of the Village, I think of flies buzzing, yellow grass, open spaces. Old cottages along the river.”

  “Those old cottages are going fast, replaced by million-dollar mansions. Carmel Valley’s a hot real-estate market these days. Really hot. So we have to consider what the fires are aimed at, as I said. The first one took out a model home and some construction equipment on a subdivision site near the Carmel River. Twelve homes and a big condo unit were planned for that one.”

  “I think I read about that project,” Nina said. “Didn’t they evict some handicapped people from the site?”

  “Evict, that’s not really the word. There’s an old converted motel at the top of the site called Robles Vista. Used now as a state handicapped facility. Has to be torn down anyway, the place is falling apart. The occupants have been offered alternate housing. Most of them haven’t moved yet.

  “The second fire occurred at the new café right in the Village. It almost got away from the firefighters, and the elementary school next door would have gone up fast. A local character, a woman named Ruthie, was sleeping in the lot outside in her car about three A.M. and smelled it. She may have seen the arsonists. Two people in a car. Dangerous fire, could have burned down half the Village. The shop was gutted.

  “The third fire, on Tuesday night, burned fifteen acres above the Village on Robles Ridge, all woods, and came within a hair of several brand-new homes up there. Big homes, spectacular views of the Valley.”

  “So you think the motive had to do with stopping new development in the Village?”

  Crockett shrugged. “It’s an obvious starting point. It could still be something else, revenge, insurance, punk kids playing nasty games. But the targets look like new homes and businesses.”

  “Wish wouldn’t be involved in anything like that,” Nina said.

  “Did you know Mr. Whitefeather was antidevelopment?”

  “What? You are way off base. He’s not involved. He’s not a local. He’s not an ecoterrorist. He wants to be a cop!”

  “How well did you know him, Ms. Reilly?”

  “I know him extremely well, Mr. Crockett.” The friendly conversation between Paul and Davy had moved into Mr. Crockett and Ms. Reilly.

  “Then you know he participated in the protest last weekend against development interests in the Valley with some local Native Americans?”

  Nina remembered Wish leaving Paul’s office a few days earlier. “I gotta go early, Paul,” he had said. “I promised to drive. People are depending on me.”

  “There were hundreds of people at that rally,” she said, “plus free food.”

  Crockett shrugged.

  “So he was out there exercising his constitutional rights,” Nina went on. “It’s a big leap from a rally to three rural arson fires in a place he’s visiting, where he has no vested interest. What did the police do at that rally, film it and run people’s IDs? I thought that went out with the Cold War.”

  “Well, there’s his arrest at age thirteen for arson, that makes us sit up straight. The charges were dropped and the whole thing was put down to a prank. Still, that’s not something we can overlook.”

  “But how would you know that? Records on juvenile offenders are sealed in California,” Nina said, trying to hide her dismay at hearing this information.

  “I know a few people,” Crockett said, looking first at Paul, then staring at the map on the wall. “We don’t miss much.”

  “But that’s illegal,” Nina said, leaning forward.

  She felt like getting into it with Crockett. But before she could, he said casually, “And as I said, he told his roommates he was going up Robles Ridge. That conversation took place about three hours before the first 911 call about the fire. He and the other young man headed up there. Two people, like the witness saw before. Happens sometimes that during the course of a felony one of the perpetrators gets hurt. Makes even a lawyer think, doesn’t it?”

  “I just hate to see you wasting time and taxpayer money, Mr. Crockett.” But she was shaken.

  “You have a card to give me, Ms. Reilly? Where’s your office?”

  While Nina was trying to figure out how to respond to this, Crockett’s phone buzzed, and Crockett raised a hand and picked it up. Hanging up, he told them, “The autopsy should be completed by three this afternoon. I told the coroner’s office you could go in and attempt an ID. If you promise me you’ll call me right after and let me know how it went.”

  “You got it,” Paul said. They got up to leave.

  “You do have a card?” Crockett said, standing up with them, his impassive face looking down at Nina.

  She gave him the poker face right back. “Not on me,” she said. “Call Mr. van Wagoner if you need to get in touch with me.”

  “Good to see you again, Paul,” Crockett said, and the two men shook hands. “I’ll be waiting to hear.”

  She had been rendered invisible. She slunk into the passenger seat of Paul’s Mustang and they cruised out of the parking lot. She was thinking, when an attorney has no office and no card, no staff and no clients, maybe she’d better not announce that she’s an attorney.

  But then, what was she?

  “What’s the sound of a lawyer falling in the forest?” she asked Paul. “If there’s no one there to hear it?”

  Paul neatly turned north onto the on-ramp to Highway 1.

  “It sounds like a long argument slowly dying out,” he said.

  Nina laughed.

  “So where’s your aunt Helen’s place?”

  “Not far. Over the hill, just past the Pebble Beach turnoff.”

  “Maybe he’ll be there,” Paul said, as if to himself. Cypresses and pines pressed against the highway. They turned onto 68 and wound through the views of golf courses and ocean, the fog bank ragged off the distant horizon, like cotton batting leaking from the edge of a faded blue quilt.

  3

  N INA AND PAUL BUMPED ONTO THE cracked asphalt driveway of the wooden bungalow in Pacific Grove on Pine Avenue. Aunt Helen had died years earlier and left the place to Nina, and the welcome mat in front and the rhododendron bushes on either side of the entryway dated from Aunt Helen’s time, along with one of the few pines left on Pine, an eighty-foot listing Norfolk pine that someday soon would fall on the neighbors’ roof and bankrupt Nina. But she couldn’t bear to cut it down yet.

  Pacific Grove lay at the tip of the Monterey Peninsula, jutting right out into the Pacific, and never got hot. The sea breeze produced clean, tangy air.

  Through the open shutters Nina could see someone w
alking back and forth, and her heart gave a lurch: Wish? Or one of the roommates?

  To herself she called the twins who had originally leased the house from her the Boyz in the Hood. Dustin and Tustin Quinn both studied computer science at the California State University at the old Fort Ord and no doubt had a promising future, but after all, what she cared about was the present, and when they had come to Paul’s condo to talk to Nina about the rental ad, she had almost turned them down. She didn’t want a couple of scruffy male students, she wanted a sweet lady who looked like Aunt Helen, would cultivate an herb garden, and scrub the floor each morning in the predawn.

  Unfortunately, only students wanted to rent the place. Built in the twenties, the whole house was heated by a single wall fixture in the living room. The stove had been old in Aunt Helen’s time, and there were no hookups for a washer or dryer. You had to cart the dirty clothes to the Washeteria in town. Apparently, elderly gardening ladies chose to live in more modern digs because none applied.

  The Boyz had rented the place in May, hoping to stay through the summer and possibly fall. In early June Wish had moved in with them for the summer. Nina had suggested it, knowing the twins would welcome the help with the rent. Wish seemed to like them.

  One of the Boyz now trotted out to meet them, shirtless, wearing baggy shorts and fat-tongued athletic shoes, no socks, a backward baseball hat on his head, a bottle of Gatorade in his hand. “My tenant,” Nina told Paul as he slammed the front door.

  “Hey.” The young man nodded to them and blocked their way. He was stocky, buzz cut, and earnest, with a round pink face and round mouth. “How’s it going, Nina? Dus is just finishing up the sweeping. We wanted to clean up before you got here.”

  So Dusty was dusting. “Hi, Tustin,” she said. “This is Paul van Wagoner.”

  “Good to meet you. Any word about Wish?”

  “No sign of him.” The fast swish of a broom mixed with the yelp of Eminem’s 2002 CD drifted through the open window. When Nina had lived there, right after Aunt Helen had passed on, it had been sea lions yelping from the kelp beds a few hundred yards off that she heard, but new millennia bring new kinds of song.