“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
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
“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?’ ”
“It’s another time-honored technique. It has the virtue of simplicity.”
“Just asking might lead to some action,” Nina said, biting her nail. “We’re throwing a rock into a pond, making unexpected ripples.”
