“Of course.” She watched the jay. “I just wondered, because you seem to be asking a lot of questions for somebody simply out here on vacation.”
“I’m trying to track down what really happened to my mom. That’s all.” The bird sat hunched over, intent. Its raspy, questioning chee seemed like a warning, as if it was cautioning me to be careful. Not the first to do so this week.
“Right.” Katherine drew out the word as if she didn’t believe me.
The jay, its blue tail a thing of beauty, regarded me out of a beady black eye, like it might not believe me, either.
Chapter 26
Katherine and I ran out of things to say to each other by eleven thirty. Despite her four vodkas, she said she had to get to work. I wandered around downtown at loose ends for a while. I had nothing I really needed to shop for, and I’d decided to order those heavy glasses online so I wouldn’t have to haul them home in my suitcase. I supposed I could check out the historical museum, but it was some blocks away.
On a whim I texted Liz.
Send me Paul’s apartment address?
I hit Send. I knew I should probably leave talking with Paul’s neighbors to the police, but it couldn’t hurt to go have a look at the neighborhood.
Liz’s response, the address and nothing more, came back in moments. I stared at the message. Paul’s place was a couple of blocks from the house I’d grown up in, which I’d sold after Mom died. Could I handle going by for a peek on the way to Paul’s? What if the new owners had cut down the gardenia, with its lovely waxy white blossoms, and the orange trees? Suppose they’d done some ugly remodel to the sweet bungalow I’d shared with Mom the entire time I lived in California? I shook my head. I needed to see the house and put it behind me, no matter its current state.
Ten minutes later I turned onto Golden West Street. The neighborhood was a quiet one of modest two- and three-bedroom cottages built right after World War II. Some were of stucco, some wood-framed, all with wide, shaded front porches that would have looked at home back in Brown County. A few houses now had had second floors added, or a monstrous addition in the back. Many remained as I remembered, with tidy front yards and eucalyptus and sycamore trees shading the properties.
I rolled slowly by, braking to a stop opposite number 5031. I let out a breath. The shingled cottage with its peaked roof and porch overhang looked as I remembered it, unaltered structurally. The front lawn, though, had been dug up and replaced with native cacti and other plants that could survive on little water. Colorful small figures were tucked in here and there. A foot-tall red-and-white mushroom. A blue-and-yellow roadrunner. An orange grinning fish with black stripes. A gnome wearing a serape. And several fanciful wire creations, including one of a person on a bike and one of a humpbacked Kokopeli dancer blowing its flute. The breeze through a set of wooden wind chimes hanging from the porch played rich, resonant sounds like a marimba. Two small bikes had been dropped in the driveway.
Inching the car farther a few yards, I peered into the side yard, smiling when I saw the shiny green of the gardenia bush next to the window and a few splotches of orange against dark green leaves in the backyard. All was well with my old house. I approved of the xeriscaping in the front. From all appearances, the house had a family living in it who was benefiting from the scents and the fruits. I could move on.
Paul’s address was a two-story house on Santa Catalina. The building looked a century old, with ornate woodwork, a wraparound covered front porch, and big windows. Even if I hadn’t seen the four mailboxes on the front porch and four gas meters on the side, I would have said it was a rental property. The clapboards hadn’t been painted in a long time, and some of the trim was either rotting or missing, which was a shame on a historic building. At least nobody had cut down a big old camellia bush, which was covered with fat pink blooms. Nope, I wasn’t in Indiana, where nothing would bloom until at least April.
I parked across the street. On the porch I peered at the names on the mailboxes. Apartment 1B, which bore Paul’s name, also had Grace Fujiyama neatly printed on the same small white rectangle. His roommate, obviously. Also a girlfriend? I hadn’t heard about him having a sweetheart, but I’d barely known him. Units 1A and 2A appeared to be occupied by single men, 2B by a woman.
I pressed the doorbell with Paul’s name on it. Two minutes later with no answer, I pressed 1A. Nada. I also tried 2A, also zilch. But 2B was actually home. Someone clattered down the stairs inside and pulled open the front door. A woman wearing an oversized shirt covered with paint smears in all colors raised light eyebrows, a smudge of blue on her cheek.
“You’re not UPS,” she said.
I laughed. “No, I’m not.” I pulled out the slightly shaky story I’d come up with. “I’m investigating your neighbor Paul’s death, though. I wonder what you can tell me about any visitors he had on Tuesday.”
Her mouth pulled down. “Poor Paul. But . . . investigating?” Her voice went up. “I thought they said he simply died. What’s there to investigate?” She peered at me as if the answer might be written on my person somewhere.
“His family asked me to look into it. To make sure his was a natural death, as they say.” I smiled politely.
“Taylor did?”
Taylor must be a relative,
