Scenarios

'I don't think that's a good idea-'

'Phooey,' she said, and got out and headed for the cabin.

I caught up with her and we climbed a set of curving limb and-plank stairs to a platform deck. From inside, I could hear the sound of a typewriter rattling away. I knocked on the door. The typewriter kept on going for half a minute; then it stopped, and there were footsteps, and pretty soon the door opened.

The guy who looked out at us was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. He was about five and a half feet tall, he was fat, he had a bulbous nose and misshapen ears and cheeks pitted with acne scars, and he was as bald as an egg. His eyes were small and mean, but there was more pain in them than anything else. He was a man who had lived more than fifty years, I thought, and who had suffered through every one of them.

He looked at Kerry, looked away from her as if embarrassed, and fixed his gaze on me. 'Yes? What is it?'

'Mr. Penrose?'

'Yes?'

Before I could open my mouth again, Kerry said cheerfully, 'We're the Wades, Bill and Kerry. From San Francisco. We're thinking of moving up here-you know, homesteading. I hope you don't mind us calling on you like this.'

'How did you know my name?' Penrose asked. He was still looking at me.

'The fellow at the store in town gave it to us,' Kerry said. 'He told us you were a homesteader and we thought we'd come by and look at your place and see how you liked living here.'

I could have kicked her. It was one of those flimsy, spontaneous stories that sound as phony as they are; there were a half dozen ways Penrose could have caught her out on the lie.

But she got away with it, by God, at least for the time being. All Penrose said was, 'Which fellow at the store?' and he said it without suspicion.

'Mr. Coleclaw.'

'Which Mr. Coleclaw?'

'I didn't know there was more than one. He was in his twenties, I guess, and the only one there.' Kerry glanced at me. 'Did he give you his first name, dear?'

'Gary,' I said. 'Dear.'

'What else did he tell you?' Penrose asked. 'Did he say anything about the Munroe Corporation?'

Kerry simulated a blank look that would have got her thrown out of any acting school in the country. But again,

Penrose didn't notice; he still wasn't looking at her, except in brief sidelong eye-flicks whenever she spoke. 'No,' she said, 'he didn't. What's the Munroe Corporation?'

'Poor young fool,' Penrose said. 'Poor lost lad.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'He has rocks in his head,' Penrose said, and burst out laughing. The laugh went on for maybe three seconds, like the barking of a sea lion, exposing yellowed and badly fitting dentures; then it cut off as if somebody had smacked a hand over his mouth. He looked embarrassed again.

Another fruitcake, I thought. Cooperville was full of them. But Penrose, at least, had my sympathy; the strain of coping with physical deformities like his was enough to unhinge anybody.

'That was a dreadful pun,' he said. 'Gary can't help it if he's retarded; I don't know what makes me so cruel sometimes. I apologize. No one should make fun of others.'

I said, 'You mentioned the Munroe Corporation, Mr. Penrose. Is that something we should know about?'

'Yes, definitely. If they have their way, you won't want to move here.' He paused. 'But I'm forgetting my manners. I haven't many visitors, you see. Would you like to come in?'

'Yes, thanks,' Kerry said. 'That would be nice.'

So Penrose stepped aside and we went in. The interior of the cabin was a spacious single room, furnished sparsely with mismatched secondhand items. Against the back wall was a big table with a typewriter, a bunch of papers, and an unlit candle on it. The candle caught and held my attention. It was fat, it was stuck inside a wooden bowl, and it was purple-the same color purple as the wax I'd found at the burned-out buildings in town.

I went over to the table for a closer look. When Kerry finished declining Penrose's offer of a cup of coffee I said to him, 'That's a nice candle you've got there, Mr. Penrose.'

'Candle?' he said blankly.

'I wouldn't mind having one like it.' I gave Kerry a look. 'We collect candles, don't we, dear?'

'Yes, that's right. We do.'

I asked Penrose where he'd bought it.

'From a widow lady who lives in town. Ella Bloom. She makes them; it's her hobby.'

'Does she just make purple ones?'

'Yes. Purple is her favorite color.'

'Does she also sell them to other residents?'

'I don't know. Why don't you ask her? Gary Coleclaw will tell you which house is hers.'

'We'll do that,' I said. But I was thinking that with that shotgun of hers and her hostile attitude, it would have to be somebody else in Cooperville that I asked. If she sold her purple candles to others, the arsonist could be anybody who lived here. But if it was only herself and Penrose who used them…

I steered Penrose back to the topic of the Munroe Corporation, and this time he managed to stay on it without getting sidetracked. He launched into a two-minute diatribe against the developers and what he called 'the warped values of modern society.' He didn't seem quite as militant as Thatcher and Mrs. Bloom, but then he didn't know I was a detective.

I said, 'Isn't there anything that can be done to stop them, Mr. Penrose?'

'Well, we've hired attorneys, you know-those of us who live here-and they've filed suit to block the sale of the land. But there isn't much hope a judge will rule in our favor once the suit comes to trial.'

'Have you tried appealing to the corporation? To get them to modify their development plans?'

'Oh yes. They wouldn't listen to us. Awful people. The head of Munroe was an insensitive swine.'

'He died last week,' Penrose said, with a hint of relish in his voice. 'In a tragic accident.'

'What sort of accident?'

'He went to blazes,' Penrose said, and did his barking sea-lion number again. This time he did not look quite so embarrassed when the noise stopped. 'One shouldn't speak lightly of the dead, should one?' he said.

'You mean he died in a fire?'

'Yes. In Redding.'

'That's a coincidence, isn't it.'

'Coincidence?'

'You had a fire here recently,' I said. 'We noticed the burned-out buildings in town.'

'Oh, that. It was only four of the ghosts.'

'An accident too?'

He didn't answer the question. Instead he said, 'I told the others they should have let the fire spread, let it purge the rest of the ghosts as well, but they wouldn't listen. A pity.'

Kerry said, 'You wanted the whole town to burn up?'

'No. Just the ghosts.'

'But why?'

'Ashes to ashes,' he said. 'They are long dead; they would be better off cremated.'

'Why do you say that?' I asked. 'Cooperville was once a Gold Rush camp; shouldn't they be preserved for historical reasons?'

'Definitely not. The past is dead; it should be allowed to rest in peace. Resurrection breeds tourists.' He smiled, rubbed his bulbous nose, and repeated the phrase as if he liked the sound of it: 'Resurrection breeds tourists.'

'Does everybody in Cooperville feel the same way?'

'Yes. Leave the ghosts alone, they say. Leave us alone. Let us live and let us die, all in good time.'

'So that's why nobody here ever tried to restore any of the buildings,' Kerry said.

'Just so,' Penrose agreed. 'Natural history is relevant; the history of man is often irrelevant. You see?'