Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (28 page)

“Yes.”

“What else did you see in that first room?”

“Three gallon cans of kerosene lined up against the far wall. I lifted each of them, again using my shirtsleeve. They were almost empty.”

“Any uses for kerosene you could see there?”

“He did have kerosene lamps, but three gallons constituted overkill for that purpose, in my opinion.”

“Okay. What else?”

“I pushed aside a blanket that separated the two rooms. Looked like the kid lived in front, usually, and Coyote-Robert Johnson-had the back room. Bigger cot, tools and hats and clothes lying around, big trunk at the foot of it.”

“And you felt a compelling need to check the trunk. For explosives or whatever.”

“I felt there was a definite possibility I might find more weapons or hazardous materials.”

“And that was your sole reason in opening the trunk?”

“Yes. I found a suede leather jacket on top. Underneath that I found a brown paper bag containing a quart bottle of whiskey and another smaller paper bag, which I opened. It contained conchos.”

“Conchos?”

“Small silver medallions used in Southwestern jewelry, especially attached to leather belts.”

“Describe them.”

“Tarnished silver, two of them, holes in the center for attaching them to something, chased with fancy filigree designs, about an inch and a half across, round but with an indented pattern around the outside edge.”

“You saw these conchos before?”

“Yes. I recalled that the body found after the most recent arson fire in Carmel Valley wore a belt decorated with conchos. I decided to report this to you as soon as possible as I felt there might be a relationship.”

“Like what? Like he took them off the body?”

“You tell me.”

“What did you do then?”

“I left the tent. There were reinforced holes on the main door flap and holes on the side. A bicycle cable looped through the flap holes and a combination lock was lying on the floor just inside the tent. I attached the cable and lock and pushed the lock shut and spun the dial. I tested the flap. It seemed reasonably secure and there were no openings where a human could get in without cutting through the lock or the tent.”

“And then what did you do?”

“We brought Nate to the sheriff’s field office in Carmel Valley. I took Nina home. Our dog needed veterinary attention. I drove back out to the animal hospital in the Valley.”

Crockett’s eyes closed and a small silence settled around the men. Having said what he needed to say, Paul waited.

“You left those conchos in the tent? You took nothing from the tent but the rifle shells?”

“Correct.”

Crockett repeated the date and time of the interview and turned off the tape. “You are one lucky son of a gun. Because if those conchos match the burned conchos on the belt of the victim, the Cervantes kid-”

Paul smiled.

“If you’d messed with that evidence-”

“Never touched ’em. Used the baggies.”

“They’re gonna match,” Crockett said. “So it was Cervantes and this Coyote fella, this Robert Johnson.”

“I’m with you on the Coyote part,” Paul agreed.

“Come on. Who else is this loner Coyote gonna know on that short street? What’s the name of it?” He shuffled through the reports in front of him. “Siesta Court? We know he was close to Danny Cervantes. We know Cervantes went up the mountain that night with Willis Whitefeather.”

“Yeah, I don’t quite understand the sequence, but I told you before and I’m telling you again, Whitefeather was an innocent bystander.”

Crockett said, “I already told you I’m not gonna talk about those charges with the D.A.’s office. Have your girlfriend talk to Jaime Sandoval about it. I can’t support letting Whitefeather out at all, where we are now.”

“I understand. So go through the tent yourself, pick up Coyote, and see what he says.”

“Come back in a couple of hours after we have your statement typed up. You sure you told me everything the kid brother told you? About kids getting taken?”

“Yes. But don’t forget the other thing,” Paul said, “the other thing that really surprised me, during this phone call that Nate overheard. Coyote was talking to somebody about getting paid for this hit. Now. He couldn’t have been talking to Danny Cervantes, because Danny Cervantes is dead. He couldn’t have been talking to Wish Whitefeather, because I know and you know you monitor those jail calls, and so does Wish. So what that says to me is, there’s another party paying for the party.”

Crockett got up and offered Paul his hand. “Who the hell knows?” he said. “It’s the ramblings of a sick kid, maybe, about something that has nothing to do with the arson fires. Maybe the conchos don’t match.”

“The kerosene cans ought to help. Maybe you’ll find some bank records or something.”

“What with one thing and another, I think we have plenty for the search warrant. Then we’ll see. Maybe lots of charges to file.”

“Davy?”

“What?”

“Are you related to the famous Davy Crockett?”

Crockett said, “Do you have any idea how often I hear that?”

“I’d really like to know.”

“Why?”

“I’m interested in heroes.”

Mollified, Crockett answered, “He was my great-great-great-grandfather. I’m a direct descendant; in fact, my family lived in Tennessee until after World War Two.”

“How about that,” Paul said. “He was an Indian fighter, wasn’t he?”

“He kicked Cherokee ass,” Crockett said. “The Cherokee killed his grandparents. Now, I have to get back to work.”

Paul went out back to the parking lot, musing about Davy Crockett’s ancestry and what cosmic impact it might have on Wish’s case. He would talk it over with Sandy.

The interview had gone well. He had a personal strong conviction that Coyote was the outside arsonist. It just couldn’t go any other way. He liked feeling sure about this one thing at last. They were making progress.

Mexican food, definitely. He got into the hot Mustang and entered the Main Street Salinas traffic, thinking about how many times he and Wish had driven around looking for lunch on one of Nina’s Tahoe cases. Wish got such a charge out of their gigs that Paul would find himself appreciating his life all over again.

Wish’s Ray-Bans… he had found some old Ray-Bans somewhere and he had a way of carefully drawing them on and nodding and saying, “Let’s cruise,” that Paul liked a lot. The kid was so uncool he was cool.

Paul found a
taquería
on a side street and went in. A swamp cooler blew noisily in the corner and the place was almost empty. While he waited for his chile colorado he looked through the classifieds in the Salinas
Californian
for a pre-amp for his stereo system.
Nada.

What happens next, he thought to himself as he ate his lunch. He wondered again about that phone call Nate talked about. Somebody new comes out of the shadows, he thought, the Moneyman. He tried to put it together, Coyote and Danny and Wish on the mountain, three fires, the Cat Lady murdered right after the Siesta Court party with all the talk about her.

The Cat Lady. Paul looked at his diver’s watch, good to three hundred meters or fathoms, whatever, he never dove more than six feet down in the pool.

Unnecessary refinements, he thought, and mentally saluted her. The waiter brought his bill and he put the credit card on top without bothering to look.

Coyote dropped somebody off on Siesta Court after the second fire. Danny knew him and went up the mountain just in time for the third fire. So-was it Danny after all who was the inside arsonist?

If so, Coyote must have killed his partner, Danny, for unknown reasons on the mountain, a falling out between thieves. Wish just happened to be there, so Coyote had to go after him too-but why would Danny get Wish involved?

Didn’t make sense. Did not make sense.

He muttered a succinct word to himself and decided to go see how Nina was doing.

The condo fan ran quietly. Nina sat under it at the new iBook, brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, wearing cutoffs and a tank top. She looked about sixteen. She turned those square little shoulders and that kestrel profile he loved so much a little to the side, cocking her head.

“All squared away?” she said as he walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“We did our duty,” Paul said. “I made another pitch that it couldn’t be Wish, but Crockett couldn’t seem to put two squared and three point one four together. He said you’re welcome to talk to Jaime.”

“You gave him enough for the warrant?” The screen she watched showed endless columns of figures.

“He’s going to have that tent vacuumed out by five is my guess.”

“Good. You didn’t mention the checkbook you looked at?”

“That wasn’t my duty. I didn’t take it and there won’t be any prints on it. Crockett will find it and do the same thing we’re doing.”

“Except he won’t have to hack into the bank records,” Nina said, scrolling down rapidly. “Where did you get this software anyway? It’s scary.”

“A Big Brother company on the Net.”

“It went right into the bank’s computers. This is legal?”

Paul didn’t answer.

“Then I hope it’s as good as it seems and nobody ever finds out we’ve been creeping around in one of the accounts. Ugh. I hate sneaks on the Internet. I hate doing this.”

“Even to save a life?”

“I spend all my time worrying with the subtle refinements of morality, but today I’m going for a crude goal, get Wish Whitefeather out of jail.”

“Your money back if you’re convicted of a felony.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

Paul had started massaging her shoulders. He leaned down now to look at the numbers scrolling down the screen. “Coyote’s checks?”

“For the past year. What I expected. A Social Security disability check for Nate comes in each month. He cashes it and mostly lives on the cash. He writes a check to Susie Johnson for fifty bucks each month. He’s late this month.”

“Susie Johnson. His mother in Markleeville.”

“He also receives money from odd jobs. The total income from the two sources is around fourteen hundred a month.”

“They weren’t starving, then. Did you get some lunch?”

“A tuna sandwich.” She pulled on his sleeve. “Bend down.” She put her arm around his neck and gave him a long, deep, thrilling kiss. “I found something else,” she whispered.

“What?” His hands were under her shirt.

“Six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, deposited a month ago into Coyote’s checking account. Don’t stop.”

“You are such a sexy woman. I think you need a nap.”

“A half-hour nap would be nice. Oh. Look at you. You want a nap too.”

By three o’clock they had gotten back to business.

“Cash deposit,” Paul said. “Crockett will send somebody to the bank to see if the teller remembers the depositor.”

“Except the depositor is probably Coyote. The Moneyman gave him the cash and he deposited it.”

“Thus ending the money trail,” said Paul.

Nina thought about it. “We could work this from the other end,” she said. “The Moneyman probably took that money out of his bank account a day or two before Coyote made his deposit. Cashed out on some stocks, maybe.”

“Yeah, but we can’t check every transaction like that in the U.S.”

“Think about it, Paul,” Nina said. “I keep coming back to the Cat Lady’s report. Coyote, I assume it was Coyote, dropped someone off on Siesta Court.”

“Right.”

“We seem to be down to a couple of scenarios. First, maybe Danny was the second arsonist and Coyote dropped him off. Danny couldn’t be the Moneyman, he was broke, but he clearly knew the Moneyman. So the question is, who did Danny know? He was new to Monterey County and a loner like Coyote. He knew Wish, and he knew the people in his neighborhood. So we could hack into the bank accounts of the neighbors on Siesta Court.”

“We could.”

Nina said, “I shudder to think what we might find out about these people.”

“Ordinary citizens,” Paul said. “Right?”

“We would be committing multiple felonies and with different banks your hacking program might not work so well.”

“What’s the second scenario?”

“Okay. Danny was
not
the second arsonist, but the second arsonist met Coyote through Danny. I say that because Coyote lived a long way away and was a loner.”

“Which explains how Danny had inside information, and which makes what Danny told Wish, about trying to take a photo and collect the reward, the plain truth.”

“Right. And again, who did Danny know? Same group of people.”

“It’s the same outcome,” Paul said. “Except then the Moneyman and the second arsonist are one and the same.”

“No matter what, somebody on Siesta Court is involved. Paul, I just realized something.”

“What?”

“If it’s Scenario One and Danny was the second arsonist and the Moneyman is a separate person, then-”

“Then?”

“The Moneyman could be anybody with access to money. A woman.” Nina pushed aside the laptop and opened her notebook. “That means the whole Siesta Court Bunch,” she said. “Eleven adults. And I think we need to include Elizabeth Gold, who is Debbie Puglia’s sister and who knew Danny too. That makes an even dozen.”

“Actually, didn’t we already establish a woman could be the arsonist? Wish was hit on the head with a stone. Anyone could do that. In my mind, Ben Cervantes is still the obvious one, just because he was closest to Danny. But if someone hired the arsonist, that someone could easily be a woman. Or even the disabled guy, George whatshisname.”

“George Hill. The guitar player at the party. So check the bank accounts on all of them,” Nina muttered. “How are we going to find out where they bank?”

“Check their mailboxes for a month?” Paul said. “It’s the time-honored way.”

“We don’t have a month. Not with Wish in custody and the prelim coming up. And that’s a felony too, Paul. And somebody’s going to notice in that neighborhood.”

“How about we ask them?”

“Just ask them? ‘Hi, there, have you or a loved one recently withdrawn six thousand bucks for any purpose? Like, oh, say, murder and arson?’ ”