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I left the porch, intending to circle the premises. Sutton must have been clued in to the fact that the house was vacant because he emerged from the Mustang and crossed the road as I had. I waited while he climbed the drive and then the two of us traced a path around the house to the rear. Below, on a wide concrete apron, there was a swimming pool and cabana surrounded on two sides by a plain concrete wall with an outdoor fireplace and built-in barbecue pit. Sutton turned and looked at the rear elevation. From this vantage point, the two-story construction was evident. The house had been tucked in against the steep hill and a series of windows looked out on the view. Beyond the patio, the property sloped down again sharply and thick railroad ties had been cut into the hillside to form a crude staircase. The neighbors’ rooftops floated like rafts on a lake of dark green treetops.
“Look familiar?”
“I guess. I thought the house was much bigger.”
“A lot of things look bigger when you’re six.”
“There wasn’t a swimming pool. I’d have remembered it.”
“I’ve done the research and this is where you were. The pool and barbecue could have been added later,” I said. “Let’s take a walk down the hill. If you wandered, that would have been your only choice.”
The brush had been cleared within a twenty-foot radius along the slope, probably by order of the fire department. Sutton followed me reluctantly as I crossed the grass and made my descent. There was no handrail and the steps themselves were deep, with ten-inch risers that forced us to descend the stairs like toddlers, putting both feet on every step before moving to the next. This portion of the lot was useless to all intents and purposes. A series of terraces had been carved out of the hill. The first level was planted with dwarf fruit trees. The second offered shelter in a weathered wood pagoda lined with benches and bleached by the elements to a soft silver gray. The third was given over to rose beds that, at this point, were sadly neglected.
After that, the land fell away gradually. The bottom of the hill butted into a grove of trees that stretched out on either side, in varying degrees of density. I counted three large oaks and six mature black acacias. Clusters of pittosporum and eucalyptus were intermingled with saplings. I wouldn’t have called this “the woods,” but to Sutton, at the age of six, it might have looked like one. Where the undergrowth was thin, I could see sections of a paved road that must have been Via Juliana, one of the primary arteries through Horton Ravine. If I’d been searching for a secluded location to serve as a grave site, I wouldn’t have picked this. From above, the hillside was open to view. Given the staggered pattern of trees below, the area would have been visible from the road as well.
Sutton stood there, his hands in his pants pockets, his gaze moving across the landscape as he struggled to get his bearings. I could see his confusion now that he was faced with a scene that had seemed so vivid in his mind. He moved to his right, traipsing through knee-high weeds before he came to a standstill. A fence blocked his path, the chicken wire sagging under a swarm of morning glory vines. The sign affixed to the fence post read:
DO NOT TRESPASS
Private Property Keep Out
No Access to Bridle Trail
THIS MEANS YOU!!
He walked up the hill for a distance, peering at the trees in range of him. He stopped again and shook his head. “This is all wrong. I don’t see the tree I used as a hideout and I don’t see the oak I hid behind when I was spying on the guys.”
“Maybe the oak was cut down.”
“But the fence is wrong, too. Where did that come from? I didn’t climb a fence. I’m sure of it. This is all screwed up.”
“Sutton, it’s been years. Take your time.”
He shook his head in frustration.
“Would you quit being so negative?” I said.
“I’m not negative.”
“You are, too. You should listen to yourself.”
He turned and sca
Below and to my right, I caught a glimpse of the rear of a house: patio doors, a deck, an outdoor table and chairs. Since I wasn’t well acquainted with the neighborhood, I couldn’t judge the relationships between properties. The irregular course the fence had taken suggested it had been erected in conformity with a meandering lot line, separating the parcel that fronted Ramona Road from the one that faced the secondary road below. Dimly I remembered the fork where a smaller tributary split off from Via Juliana. From where I stood, only the one house was visible, but there were doubtless others on that same street.
Sutton whistled, a shrill, piercing note forced from between taut lips and teeth. For years I’d worked to master the technique, but usually managed little more than an asthmatic wheeze and the risk of hyperventilation. I set off, trudging down the hill in his general direction. He emerged to the left of me and waved. I picked my way across the uneven ground, trying to avoid the numerous holes housing god knows what assortment of rodents.
I followed Sutton into a clearing shaded by a canopy of trees. Here the temperature was ten degrees cooler than the sun-drenched hill. The far side of the glade was open to Via Juliana. A riding trail angled across the open space, its muddy surface punctuated by hoofprints. The trail was clearly well used, dotted with fresh horse manure as well as desiccated mounds of previous equine BMs. In the center of the clearing there was a stone horse trough, three feet by six. The water was fed through a pipe linked to a circulating pump that kept the depths aerated and algae-free. The stone was darkened with age and the shimmering pool looked cold and black.
Sutton said, “I’d forgotten about this. The Horton Ravine Riding Club is just across the road. I played in the trough that day, floating leaves like boats. It was afterward I climbed the hill and came across the tree I used as my hideout.”
“Na
“I’m not paying you to make fun of me.”
“Then you shouldn’t be such a pill.”
“Sorry.”
“Forget it. Let’s focus on the job at hand. When you saw the guys, in what direction were they walking?”
“Actually, they were coming up the hill from here. They must have parked along Via Juliana and passed through this clearing. The tree where I was hiding was partway up the slope so I was looking down on them. They crossed my field of vision from left to right and moved off in that direction.”
“So if the fence was there, they’d have had to climb over it, which means you’d have done the same thing.”
“But I didn’t…”
“Would you stop that? I’m not saying you did. I’m saying we should knock on some doors and see if someone knows what year the fence went in.”
We climbed up the hill again, moving up the steps from terrace to terrace, until we reached the wide, flat patio with its pool, cabana, and built-in barbecue pit. We went around the side of the house and then crossed the front lawn to the house next door. I rang the bell.
Sutton stood behind me and to my right. To anyone inside, with an eye to the peephole, we’d look like Jehovah’s Witnesses, only not as well dressed.
Sutton shifted uneasily. “What are you going to say?”
“Haven’t made that part up yet.”
The young woman who opened the door had a six-month-old baby clamped on her right hip. He had a pacifier in his mouth that wiggled as he sucked. His face was flushed and his hair had been flattened in a series of damp ringlets. I was guessing he’d recently awakened from his nap and, judging from his aura of fecal perfume, was in desperate need of a diaper change. He was at that clinging-monkey stage, where his hold on his mother was pure instinct. I could see clutch marks in the fabric of her blouse where his grip had made star shapes across the front. His resemblance to her was eerie-same noses, same chins, two sets of identical blue eyes looking back at me. His dark lashes were longer and thicker than hers, but life is basically unfair and what’s the point of protest?