“Come on, Paul. There’s the witness who saw two men in a car-”
“We shall keep our minds open. Now, moving right along. House Number Four.”
A small, well-kept house behind a white picket fence. An old Ford pickup and a beat-up minivan in the driveway, and an open screen door, from which issued the wail of a small child. “Meet Darryl and Tory Eubanks,” Paul said. “Inherited their home from Charles L. Eubanks twelve years ago.”
“A young couple with kids.”
“Couldn’t have afforded to buy it,” Paul went on, keeping up the guessing game.
“No time for the yard.” They looked the place over. A rusty swing set painted blue during some optimistic past was just visible in back.
“Salt of the earth,” Paul said, and they passed by. “Now we come to a place owned by somebody named Rafferty, but that’s got to be Ben Cervantes’s place.” It was the smallest house on the block, set well back on a gravel driveway amid mature trees, a tiny cottage on a narrow lot.
Number Five. So Danny Cervantes had lived there. Wish had sat on that slapdash front porch with the kitchen chairs. Nina would be back there in a few hours, knocking on the door.
“Ben must be renting,” Nina said, starting the ball rolling.
“Saving up his money to get married and buy his own house.”
“There’s no car in the driveway.”
“Ben’s at work. He repairs cars, right? He must have a new job.” Paul flipped to another part of his notebook and read, “Valley European Motors. I guess he must consider that a step up from the place that closed down, where Danny also worked.”
“Here we are. Last house on the street. Number Six. What a contrast.” Another enormous two-story house, with a balcony that looked unused, Mediterranean style, the brick driveway lined with urns full of geraniums.
“That’s a big house,” Nina said. “Bigger than the techie house.”
“Our hosts, David and Britta Cowan,” Paul said. “Paid three-fifty four years ago, and, like the techies, tore down the old place and raised up this monstrosity that’s probably worth a million now.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s just pretentious. Very pretentious.”
“It’s pink.”
“Terra-cotta.”
“It has colonnades.”
“You mean those pillars by the front door?”
“I hope David is a colonel. To match his colonnades. But this doesn’t look like the home of a military man.”
“Or a man on a military pension,” Nina agreed. “Look at the yellow car. Someone is home.”
“A Porsche 944 convertible,” Paul said. “It’s a safe guess that they don’t have kids.”
“I hate Porsches,” Nina said. “They look like roaches to me, scuttling down the road.”
“I love Porsches. I think they’re hot. But I think we have the Cowans pegged,” Paul said. “Hmm. David Cowan. I’ve heard that name. He’s an astronomer, I believe. Connected with MIRA, the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy. The institute was just a fabulous dream for about twenty years. They finally got their funds and built a telescope up on Chews Ridge.”
“Sounds interesting,” Nina said. “But it doesn’t sound like the right resume or look like the car of an arsonist.”
“We shall see,” Paul said.
They had completed their tour of the street. “Can we go back to the car?” Nina asked. They walked back along the riprap trail.
And lo and behold, an old white Cutlass, dented and dirty, had just parked across Esquiline Street. Cats were running toward it from everywhere.
“She’s here!” Nina said. “The Cat Lady!”
PART TWO
9
U NDER A SPREADING OAK TREE IN the parking lot across the street, in deep shade, a woman got out and crouched. But she was not alone. Out of the woods the cats came tumbling.
Cats! Not quiet kitties, but yowlers, crowders, squeakers, meowers, pushing at each other, expressing their wild joy in fifty different sharps and flats, which ecstatic yet contentious sounds were accompanied by the scrape of many small cans being set down and pushed around on asphalt.
The woman didn’t notice Paul and Nina, watching openmouthed. All they could see of her was straight gray hair and a baggy black sweatshirt.
The Cat Lady! Nina could hardly believe their luck. Pulling Paul behind a tree, she said, “How do we approach her? Make something up? I could be looking for my lost tabby and-”
“Relax,” Paul said. “Let’s just be honest. It’s more efficient.”
“Then how come I’m going to the party undercover tonight?”
“Because an arsonist will probably be there, who doesn’t want to be discovered. The Cat Lady, well, she’s a cat lady, a special breed. Stop it, Hitchcock! Let’s get that mutt in the Bronco before he rips your arm off.”
“Anything like the sound of a cat makes his heart go pit-a-pat,” Nina said, misquoting the great Robert Browning.
Paul opened the back and patted the floor. Hitchcock gave a last yearning look and then jumped neatly in. Nina saw him press his nose against the back window and heard him sob like a puppy when he realized they were going over there without him.
“You know, I’m starting to get attached to your mutt,” Paul said as they crossed the carless street. “Hmm. How come everything I say to you sounds obscene?”
“He’s not a mutt.”
“He is a mutt. Malamutes don’t bark much, and Hitchcock does. He’s got the hair of a black Lab, the slobber of a golden retriever, and the courage of a Chihuahua.”
“Stop maligning my dog. He loves me and he brings me my paper,” Nina said. “Which is more than I can say about most-”
The cats were taking notice of them. Several fled into the woods. More stayed right at the food cans. The woman stood up. She was tall and thin, like the Pied Piper, but she had forgotten her red-and-yellow scarf. The sweatshirt said IRON MAIDEN WORLD PIECE TOUR 1983 and featured some menacing grimacing from the band’s notorious rotting mascot, Eddie.
“Did you have to do that?” she demanded. “They were trying to eat.”
“Sorry. My name is van Wagoner. I’m investigating the arson fires in this area.” Paul opened his wallet and flashed what looked like a badge, and Nina thought, Uh huh, let’s just be honest. “This is Nina,” Paul went on offhandedly. Nina shrank into the obscurity of Just the Girlfriend.
Saying nothing, the Cat Lady folded her arms. She would have been nondescript, pale, no makeup, a plain, early-wizening face, specs, stringy hair with long straight bangs, but for the fact that she was almost as tall as Paul. She bent, though, as though all her life she had been trying to hide it.
“I’m sorry, your name was smudged in the report I was given about the car you witnessed driving from the second arson scene,” Paul said in an official tone.
She peered at him and said, “Ruth Frost.” Her voice was quite certain of itself.
“Of course.”
“You could have made an appointment, and not disturbed the little ones. Some of them won’t want to come back. You scared them.”
“Can’t they catch mice or crayfish around here?” Nina said.
“Not if they grew up in a nice warm house with cat food in the kitchen.”
“It’s nice of you,” Nina said.
“They’re starving. I have to do something.” They all watched the cats as they polished off the tins of cat food. These cats were thin, unkempt, and suspicious. Nina tried not to generalize as she looked back at Ruth Frost.
“It must get expensive,” Paul said.
“I would be happy to accept a contribution.” This lady was smarter than she looked. Paul raised his eyebrows, said “It’s a good cause,” got his wallet, and gave her a twenty. She tucked it in her pocket.
“May I have five minutes of your time?” he went on.
“We can sit right here at the boathouse.” They sat on a concrete step in the sunshine. Across the street to the east the Siesta Court sign hung disreputably from its pole, and Nina could just see the riprap. Rosie’s Bridge crossed the river just in front of them.
“Your address?” Paul said.
“I live with various friends around here. I sleep in my car sometimes.” Nina glanced at the Cutlass and thought she saw a mattress in the back seat.
“Do you have a phone number where I could reach you?”
“No. I’m usually here in the middle of the afternoon. If you need to talk to me again.” She kept her eye on the cats, who were beginning to melt into the surrounding trees. “Bye, dearies,” she said.
“Where are you from, Ms. Frost?”
“Ruthie. I’ve been here forever. When I was young we lived in Milwaukee.”
