Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (48 page)

“Yeah, he would once he had the kids. Nina, would you try to hike kids up that ridge?”

They looked up a steep hillside on the left, moist, loose gravel dotted with thick brush, and looked down to their right into an almost-vertical gully that led up to the ten-thousand-foot peaks of Rose Knob and its neighbor mountains on the ridge. “A waterfall!” Nina pointed. “It’s really rugged here.”

So where would Danny go from here, with two presumably reluctant children and camping gear in tow?

Paul put a finger to the topo map. “There’s the nearest jeep trail, back to the highway, and then no more than two miles before you turn back this way. I’m guessing, but I think he’ll want to stay around here, on familiar ground, but he can’t hike far with gear and those kids, he really can’t. Your car’s four-wheel drive. Let’s get going.”

The day before, just about noon in Carmel Valley, Danny had had no trouble luring Callie into the black Jeep. He knew just where she’d be waiting for her bus home at the school-he used to drive her there for Jolene now and then-and she climbed right in when he said Jolene had sent him.

He cruised with her right down Carmel Valley Road, every nerve on edge, and turned down Esquiline to see if he could find one of Darryl’s kids. And he saw Mikey, his good little buddy, throwing stones off Rosie’s Bridge.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Mikey said. The kid’s hair was so short it made his ears stick out at right angles. His mouth was hanging open in puzzlement and curiosity about the big open vehicle Danny was driving, but he didn’t seem all shocked that the ghost of Siesta Court was back haunting him. He just instantly figured out, hey, it was all some bullshit adult mistake. Danny liked that.

“I got lucky at Vegas. Bought me this Jeep. Wanna drive it?”

No problem. They went back and got on the Los Laureles Grade toward Salinas, Mikey driving like a little champ, just barely hitting the pedals. Danny had let him tool around some nights in his own old car back in the days before it all went wrong. When Danny finally kicked Mikey out of the driver’s seat, Callie begged to drive.

He let her sit in his lap and spin the Jeep around an empty parking lot in North Salinas a few times, then took over. “We gotta get started. We want to make Tahoe today.”

“I can’t go to Tahoe,” Mikey said. “My parents will worry.”

“That’s a long way,” Callie said, “isn’t it?”

“Oh, not so far. Don’t worry. Your parents know all about this. They’re meeting us up there. Yeah, the whole neighborhood’s clearing out because of the fires, taking a Fourth of July holiday. We’re gonna have a big party. I had extra room for the trip so they sent me to pick up you guys, that’s all.”

“What about clothes?” Callie asked. “What about summer school?”

“Well, this fire thing scared ’em, and they all needed a break. I heard-yeah, Callie, your grandma said she called your teacher, didn’t your teacher tell you?”

“No. I guess she forgot.”

“You ever been to Tahoe?”

Mikey said, “It’s cool. Maybe we can swim in the lake.”

“That’s it. There are little lakes high up in the mountains. A place called Ginny Lake like a blue jewel-right, like a jewel…”

They were loving the adventure, and all the good sense in the world went bye-bye temporarily. He played the radio stations they liked, and for a while, they pretended to shoot out the window with cocked fingers aimed at enemies all around. He knew they stood out and the Jeep was a gas hog, so as soon as he could, he switched it for an old Ford Explorer at a rest stop while the kids and the owners were in the bathroom. Luckily, the kids came out first and off they drove. The SUV had leather bucket seats, bottled water, all the conveniences.

Danny felt like laughing, though the money front was pretty dire. He’d killed Donnelly over seventy-five bucks in Donnelly’s wallet. He’d been sure Donnelly would have a lot of cash somewhere at his place, but before he could find out anything Donnelly came at him and-and-

And Donnelly lost. Dumb speed freak, he only weighed about a hundred fifty, what made him think he could take Danny?

“We need something that’ll take the bumps up in Tahoe,” he said. “My friend switched with me for a few days. You ever fished before?” Neither one had fished, and they were both eager to try it. So they accepted what he said the way kids sometimes did, whatever, shrugs, after a few more easy lies.

In Dixon, they stopped for shakes and burgers at the Carl’s Jr. They fought over what channel to listen to on the radio, but after a while, the carbs and fat did their dirty work, putting both the kids out for the rest of the count. By the time they woke up, it was morning. He had already stopped at his mom’s for his fishing gear, some sleeping bags, and traveling money, and they were at the Gerdes cabin, hungry again.

“Best way to catch fish in most of the lakes up here is with Power Bait,” Danny said. “Orange. For some reason, that works.” Maybe the fish up here were deprived of the bright colors fish in warmer waters saw every day. They saw the orange bait as something unique and maybe especially tasty, like candy.

They were sitting by what was really nothing more than a dammed-up part of a stream, but it was big enough to excite Mikey, and Danny needed something to get the kids off his back until he could dope them both up good for the night. He was running on adrenaline, scared, thinking how the whole state would be alarmed by now, thinking about the turning lights on the tops of the sheriffs’ cars. But the kids couldn’t see his fright.

Having them around comforted him. He had always liked stories about mountain men, off in the woods surviving on the land, but always knew he couldn’t stay out for long because he couldn’t stand being alone. Sitting on the damp new ground cover, looking at the mule ears pushing up from the ground the snow had finally left, he could rest for a second. Mikey swished his little pole through the water and Callie wandered around, and Danny wished like hell that none of it had happened.

He should have thought up a better cover story. Like, a kidnapper was after them and their parents wanted them to hide out with Danny for a few days, that would have been so much better. But he never seemed to have time to plan right. He’d get the germ of an idea about how to handle something and the next thing he knew, it blew up into something awful.

They had spent the morning hours finding and setting up a camp. He liked this location, with the tents butted up against the rocky caverns that kept hibernating bears cozy in winter. He got on his dead phone twice and pretended to check in with George and Darryl. “Yeah, we gotta stick it out tonight all by ourselves, something came up,” he had told them.

He’d give old George a real call pretty soon, when it was convenient. Good old George, called him a loser, then begged him to do his dirty work, then stiffed him.

“But we don’t have anything orange,” Mikey was saying, peering into the small fishing kit.

“We got worms, though.” Danny brought out the night crawlers he had picked up in town, and showed Mikey how to thread one up the shank of a hook, leaving some dangling over. “Use a number six hook for this bait, and blow ’em up with a worm blower.” He showed the kids how. “Another trick is using sugar cubes on a bigger hook,” he said. “That’s the method in clear lakes like Emigrant and Margaret. You fix ’em on the line with rubber bands. You got to cast real carefully, but when they melt in the water, the rubber band comes loose and the worm looks real natural. Or you can always try grasshoppers.”

“I’m hungry,” Callie said.

“That’s why we’re catching fish, Callie. To eat. This is Outdoor Camp,” Danny said.

“I’m cold.” She hugged her little sweater tight.

“You can’t be cold. It’s eighty degrees!”

“I am.”

“Well, sit down here in the sun. That’ll warm you up.”

“No.”

“Then go back there in the tent and get your bag to wrap up in,” Danny said, working to keep the meanness he felt out of his voice. “Go on.”

“No.”

“Fine.” He ignored her and worked on getting Mikey set up. After a few minutes, she went back to the tent. She came back wrapped up in an old sweater of his mother’s he had brought along.

You would expect that the one who would be hard would be Mikey. Although he was little, he was nearly thirteen and seemed on the ball, but he bought Danny’s every story. Callie was something else. She doubted every word, and wouldn’t let up, wanting to call Jolene. He let her drive the big black Explorer a few feet up the jeep trail, but even that just scared her. She cried when they came to a big rock and he made her go over it anyway. She had to learn, didn’t she? Fear was no protection. You had to do what you had to do.

He felt sure this time, he would get action. They had food, bait, and plenty of fuel. All the Siesta Court Bunch had to do was pay him what they owed him and he would go to Arizona or Montana and get lost. If it took the kids to get their attention, okay.

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he didn’t get his twenty thousand. He had been stupid, giving the whole down payment to Coyote. But Coyote knew the ridge mountains, Coyote could get the kerosene in a way that wouldn’t point at Danny, and Coyote was company, like the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Coyote turned dangerous with his loose lips, though. The whole thing would have been much more fun with Wish. But he had known early on that Wish wouldn’t follow him anywhere anymore.

A chill settled over the stream and around them. Callie went a little way away to pick wildflowers. “Remember what I told you about the bears. Stay in sight,” he reminded her. Working bait on a hook, with Mikey happy beside him, butt firmly embedded in the loose dirt, Nikes kicked off, Danny couldn’t help thinking about when he first arrived in Carmel Valley to live with his
tío
Ben. Why, he had been happy, it was incredible to think that now. He had loved the parties, hanging with the guys on the deck, shooting the shit, even taking his turn with Britta, a kind of initiation rite.

You did everything right, you tried to be a friend to people, someone they could call on for help. In return, you got cheated and put down. Those chiselers on Siesta Court had reeled him in with their grand plans, acting like his good buddies, not a single one with the balls to see the thing through except him!

And then they turned on him. Stiffed him. Whined, Oh, we never asked you to set those other fires! We never meant you to kill anyone!

Well, they had put toes over the line when they had hired him to burn across the river and decided to break the law. They went from being respectable to being criminal, and there was no way to go back ever again. You couldn’t wipe the slate clean once you took that first little step over.

Not that they understood that at first. Those developers made these guys feel little, and they didn’t like the feeling so they broke the law and felt like big shots all of a sudden. There was plenty of celebrating about that!

But when things got tough, and one crime led to another, then everything was Danny’s fault, right? They had wives, kids, jobs. No need to pay what they owed! No, they were just bastards and hypocrites.

His dad used to say people were no damn good. Danny never believed it when he was a dumb kid. Well, he didn’t have enough experience with friendship then to understand how right his dad was.

That was before Wish turned up in Carmel. For a few weeks Danny was happy. They did everything together.

This thought made him clear his throat and spit. Wish turned against him like everybody did and tried to leave him flat in the dust, more alone than ever.

Wish was always bragging about his classes, how hard they were, or his great job working with a detective. He could never understand that Danny’s life was different, and headed somewhere different. School was not for him. A long, slow drudge life working at the auto shop wasn’t going to cut it either.

And then suddenly, one day, no auto-repair shop job.

While he was still looking for a job, he would see ads in the paper sometimes and would think, That job’s perfect for me. Well, this job was perfect.

Set a fire.

He knew something about that. He liked the work.

Tell that to smug Wishy-washy, who didn’t want to talk to him anymore. Or don’t tell it, a smart decision after all. Danny had wanted to call him a few times and let him know he had it in the bag. He had worked things out. Great things were in store, etc. But something made him hesitate, maybe a sense of self-preservation. Wish wouldn’t approve. Danny knew that. He didn’t like thinking he cared about Wish’s approval, but he did think about how good he would feel showing up with a new car and a pretty girl beside him someday at that run-down old house Wish lived in in Pacific Grove.

“Go get another job, Danny,” Wish had said, after the repair shop closed. Same old conversation a hundred times until one day Danny looked into the eyes of his old friend and former admirer and saw-

Disgust. Yeah, disrespect and contempt for everything he was. Old Wish couldn’t hide his feelings from Danny.

That was when Danny got the idea that Wish could die in his place up on Robles Ridge. He would lure Coyote up there the same day, two birds, one can of kerosene.

Okay, a couple cans.

Wish looked enough like him to pass for a few days so he could stay off the scope until he made the men pay his money, and Wish was handy, and Wish wasn’t a friend, not anymore. He had entered the world of Danny’s enemies.

What did Wish know, with his cushy existence, that mother of his always there to back him up instead of dying slowly in a rotting cabin with her wasted husband? In real life, Danny didn’t waste his time pointing unloaded fingers at his enemies. When old friends turn on you, that’s such a big hurt, you do stupid things.

In real life, when George and the rest announced after he set the second fire all by himself, Hey, you’ve gone too far, blah blah blah, and said they wouldn’t pay him, he put on the pressure, real pressure.

When he heard Wish survived the fire, he got anxious and confused. He had set things up right and it should have worked. The police, finding the two bodies, would be satisfied that they had their two arsonists. He thought back to that day, convincing Wish to go when he didn’t want to go, getting that drunk, Coyote, up there so he could shut his big mouth at the same time.