Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (34 page)

“We were talking. About vacation places. To rent.”

“I don’t believe you. Shit.” There was another whispered exchange. “I have to go now. But I am going to catch up with you later. So think about it some more. Hard.”

“I sure will. Jaime?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks. For letting me know about all this.”

“I thought I might get some help from you in return. Not that I should expect it. In fact, I have noticed that you turned into a maverick. I thought you said your ambition was to be a big shot in the legal profession way back when we were drinking vending-machine coffee between classes.”

“Well, at least one of us turned out respectable,” Nina said.

Jaime laughed. “You may still hit it big. You may be right about jamming us on prelims. I just hope it doesn’t become a fashion among the defense lawyers.” He paused for a moment and when he began talking again he was serious. “But I think you’re lying about the note, Nina. That’s obstruction of justice.”

“I told you. Britta knew Robert Johnson was an arsonist. He lived out in Arroyo Seco. You know about the Child Welfare warrant. Go get him.”

Jaime said, “Maybe it was her husband.” The thought hadn’t even crossed Nina’s mind. She had experienced that feeling of absolute certainty about Coyote that drove all other thoughts away.

“That’s not my bet,” she said. She laid the phone in its cradle.

Sandy took off her coat. “It’s always a barrel of laughs,” she said.

“I’m hoping I didn’t cause this,” Nina said. “I told Britta that she and maybe her children might be under threat from this guy.”

“Then she would run the other way, if she’s sane. And she is sane,” Paul said.

“She wouldn’t contact him. She’s not stupid. He was after her. Paul, listen. She did know something more.”

“What do you mean? How do you know that Britta knew where Coyote went?”

Nina ran her hand through her hair. “The note,” she said.

“I was going to ask you about that. About taking a vacation,” Sandy said.

“Obviously I don’t need a vacation rental.”

“True. The vacation is obviously over,” Paul said. “It’s obvious to the D.A. too. What does it mean? About the cute artist’s studio?”

“It means we go back to Alma’s and find out where the artist lives. The one who accused you of being a repo man. Britta told me he was listening that night at Alma’s.”

Paul got it instantly. “Ohh,
that
cute artist. It wasn’t the studio that was cute, it was the artist.”

“‘Just in case,’ she said, Paul. She must mean that she thought Coyote went to the artist’s place when he ran off from the camp after we rescued Nate.”

“Why would she think that?”

Nina thought back to her conversation with Britta. “He asked the artist for money one time. The cowboy at Alma’s called him Donnellen or something.”

“What I want to know is why you didn’t explain all this about the artist to the D.A.,” Paul said. “The deputies could be over there by now.”

“I needed to think.”

“You needed to think. Okay. That’s a good idea. Let’s all do some thinking.” Paul went over to his fabulous leather office chair and looked out his window, hands behind his head. Nina scratched her arm. Sandy raised her eyebrows and they stuck up there.

The clock ticked over a minute, then two. Finally, Paul broke the silence. “We can’t, honey,” he said. “The man’s too dangerous.”

“I agree that he’s dangerous. But-”

“We should tell the police about the vacation rental. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know if he will implicate Wish, Paul. I don’t know what he would say. I don’t know if he did anything, or if Britta’s husband finally lost his patience and attacked her. Maybe he won’t be there at all, and we can talk to the artist. If Jaime gets there first, he’ll arrest Coyote and then we won’t get any information out of him.”

“Whew. Sandy, she’s talking rings around me again.”

“She’s very persuasive,” Sandy said. “You have to watch out for her.”

“Paul, you have a gun.”

“This is cowboy stuff.”

“We could be really careful. It’s for Wish.”

“You just can’t resist. Because you know something the D.A. doesn’t.”

“You know you’re going with her,” Sandy said. “So let’s get on with it. I’ll stay here and get organized.”

“I suppose we could visit Alma’s and see what we see,” Paul said. “You know, between the Cat Lady and Nate and the jabbering artist, I feel like we’re having a nuttiness epidemic.”

“Most people are nuts,” Sandy said. “You just have to clue in to their points of nuttiness.”

“Well, Britta Cowan was nuts if she drove back to Cachagua to find the artist.”

“He’s probably sitting at Alma’s right now, coming down from whatever he takes,” Nina said.

“It’s a country-music song,” Paul said. “I know that one.” He launched into an off-key, twanging tune:

I’m drownin’ my sorrows at Alma’s

I’m drownin’ my kittens at home

I’m drownin’ my paycheck in cash for cocaine

But you’re a good girl-you’ll forgive me again

He gave them a crazy grin and reached his hand under his sport coat and felt around, and Nina realized he’d been wearing the Glock in a shoulder holster the whole time.

26

J OLENE, DEBBIE, AND TORY SAT ON Debbie’s back deck on Monday afternoon. Tory’s kids had just jumped up from the picnic table, leaving a mess of ketchupy hot-dog buns and potato chips strewn from here to kingdom come. They ran down in the woods and Tory screamed a couple of warnings to them, which Jolene sincerely hoped they would pay attention to.

Callie and April, now, they were safe in summer school, learning how to be good citizens in a drug-free America, how to get up when the alarm sounds, how to do their homework every night no matter how tired or distracted they felt. But Tory and Darryl had decided to home-school, which meant Tory was their teacher, which was not working out because Tory’s pregnancy had knocked her for a loop.

The whole neighborhood was knocked for a loop. Jolene sipped her iced tea and considered how many years had gone by without much change. Maybe twenty-five years, before new people started adopting Carmel Valley. The new people weren’t supposed to supplant the old. They were supposed to blend in. Instead they brought in their strange slanted ways of looking at things until you didn’t know which way your head was screwed on anymore.

Today, another hot one, Tory wore a beige T-shirt with sea otters on it. Nobody sewed anymore except Jolene, clothes were so cheap to buy at the Ross Store in Seaside. The huge T-shirt hung like a nightgown on Tory, almost covering the loose shorts that brushed her kneecaps. The girl was a fashion disaster.

And look at Debbie, puffing on a cigarette right close to Tory, who they all knew was pregnant. Debbie in her gardening jeans, busting out of that tight tank top and wearing those hip-hop sunglasses. My.

“I’m not sure I want to go,” Debbie said. “Tell you the truth, I’m scared to death to go see her. What’m I supposed to say? She made a spectacle of herself with my husband a week ago. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.” She got up to bring the plates in and Jolene and Tory got up to help.

“No, you sit and rest,” Debbie told Tory. “Watch the kiddies.”

When the deck was all clean and swept, Jolene and Debbie sat down again.

“So? What about you?” Jolene asked Tory. “Our neighbor just about got killed, somebody has to go see her.”

“I don’t have anybody to watch the kids.”

“I’ll watch ’em,” Debbie volunteered, because she felt guilty, even though Britta was definitely not her favorite person, Jolene could understand that.

“One o’clock, then,” Jolene said to Tory, who nodded reluctantly.

“She must know who did it, but she’s been unconscious,” Tory said. “They’ve had to keep her knocked out so she wouldn’t get brain swelling. Darryl knows one of the deputy sheriffs, that’s how I know. She won’t even know we’re there. But I know we have to go.”

“Maybe she’ll clear all this up when she comes to,” Debbie said, and they all pondered this, sipping her heavy-honeyed mint tea.

“I’m not even sure I want to get it all cleared up. You know how Danny was sort of the handyman around here? How he did all the odd jobs?” Jolene said, choosing her words.

“So?” Tory said.

“It looks like one of us neighbors sure as hell did hire him to set a couple fires. He was used to doing the dirty work. Now, don’t give me that surprised look, Deb, you know it too.”

“I knew as soon as I smelled the smoke from the development across the river,” Debbie said. “Truth to tell.”

“Me too,” Tory said. “So like the lawyer says, all we need to know is who paid out over six thousand dollars a month ago. I’ll go first. I checked our bank account. Darryl paid out some money for his sick dad in Arizona about then, but it was nothing like six thousand. I didn’t want to do it, but it was pay for a nurse or have him come live with us.”

“What about that account of his in the Bahamas?” Jolene said, pointing her finger at Tory.

“Yeah, I should check on that one, shouldn’t I?” Tory said, and they all had a good laugh. “Okay, Debbie. Speak up, that’s what you do best.”

“I didn’t hire Danny. And neither did Sam.”

“And you know this-how?” inquired Jolene.

“Sam has the business account, and he keeps all that at the office. I waltzed in there and looked at his bank statement. As usual, too much money going out, but nothing like six thousand.”

“Maybe he’s been squirreling cash on the side,” Jolene said.

“He’s not a crook. Real people don’t keep two sets of books. Sam is too lazy to do that, even if he wanted to. He’s made some payments out too, but same as Darryl, just small amounts, a couple thousand at most.”

Jolene nodded thoughtfully.

“Not that he wasn’t royally pissed about the subdivision,” Debbie added. “Elizabeth reads about all this stuff and she told me the company has now put the project on hold.”

“Until they catch the arsonist,” said Tory.

“Arsonists,” Jolene reminded. “The one who hurt Britta, who I suppose is this man named Coyote. Danny, who’s dead. And whoever paid them.”

“What a mean man,” Debbie said. “Coyote. To chain up his own brother. It’s so sick. He’s the sick one. You know, the boy is really sweet. I brought him some snacks and spent some time with him at the juvenile facility. His eyes are so sad.” She hitched up the tank top. “So, Jolene. You and George do all this?”

Jolene couldn’t resist. She told them about the forty-two-thousand-dollar stash. “Hadn’t been touched for years, except a little over a thousand a few months ago,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known about it till George died.”

“That’s sweet,” Debbie said. “He was going to leave you an inheritance.” Seeing Jolene’s expression, she said, “It wasn’t sweet?”

“We need the money right now,” Jolene said. “So I stole it. Every bit. Withdrew it out of that account and opened a new one at Security Pacific. I had to.”

“Jolene!” Debbie breathed.

Tory said, “You go!”

“What are you going to do with it?” Debbie asked.

“I don’t know yet. But it’ll come to me. It sure will,” said Jolene. “We better get going, Tory. The girls get home from school at two-thirty. Debbie, I’ll leave a note for them to come over to your house if I’m late.”

“I’ll take care of them. But I thought we were going to figure this out. What about Ted and Megan? What about Britta’s husband? And what about Ben?”

Tory said, “At least we narrowed it down.”

“Did we?” said Jolene. “It’s like an octopus, I swear, all wavy tentacles getting into everything.”

Nina and Paul shot through the fog wall at Mid-Valley, where the organic stand sold expensive flowers and tomatoes to the tourists. Golden sun, benevolent, fertile land, bumpy road snaking through the narrow valley along the Carmel River. At Carmel Valley Village Nina got a good look down Esquiline Road toward Siesta Court, past the old buildings at Robles Vista and past the ashy land and black seared trees of the fire.

She was thinking about Coyote’s right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment, which stood in Wish’s way right now. All the amendment said was that a person couldn’t be compelled to bear witness against himself.

The reasoning of the Founding Fathers went something like this-confessions become “confessions,” which become coerced confessions, a euphemistic phrase for confessions obtained by torture. So they decided to make it official-a defendant can’t be made to testify against himself.

Defense lawyers ran all the way for a touchdown with that one. Not only did the defendant have the right not to be tortured into a confession, court decisions gradually extended that right to a right to say nothing at all, to refuse any questioning. And this refusal to speak, even to save a victim’s life, could not be held against the accused in or out of court.

In her work as a criminal-defense attorney, Nina almost never let her clients take the stand or make any statement to the police. She used this powerful impediment to conviction whenever it would benefit her client. So it was ironic that she and Paul should be driving out to a hole in the woods, intent on catching Coyote before he could exercise the same right she exploited to the fullest extent in her work. Wish might sit in jail for months, or be convicted, because no one could make Coyote say anything, if he exercised that right. All anyone would know was that Danny was in on it.

And if Danny was in on it, and Wish was at the fire with him… what jury would believe that Wish wasn’t in on it too?

Her only chance was to find Coyote first, and make him tell his story.

They rode on for an hour along the olive-green ridges with their open views, through the heat, until the road flattened and rolled into the peaceful, sun-baked village of Cachagua. Nina jumped out and slammed the door, kicking up dust as she walked over to the screen door that led into the dark, air-conditioned cool of Alma’s. Paul followed.

Nobody at the bar this time, just the lady bartender behind the counter, her eyes watchful, her cough straight out of a Marlboro carton.