"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?"
I said, "How do you suppose the fire got started? The one here in Cooperville, I mean."
"Does it matter, Mr. Wade?"
"I'm just curious."
"It was a burning curiosity that laid the ghosts," he said, and cut loose with his laugh again. Listening to it, and to him, was making me a little uncomfortable. I get just as edgy around unarmed oddballs as I do around those with weapons.
"Is it possible somebody set the fire deliberately?" I asked him. "Somebody who feels as you do about cremating the ghosts?"
It was the wrong thing to say. Penrose's mean little eyes narrowed, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its friendliness. "I think you'd better leave now. I have a great deal of work to do."
Kerry said, "Couldn't we talk a while longer, Mr. Penrose? I really would like to know more about-"
"No," he said. "No. Come back and visit me again if you decide to move here. But I don't think you should; it's probably too late. Goodbye, now."
There was nothing for us to do but to leave. We went out onto the platform deck, and Kerry thanked him for his hospitality, and he said, "Not at all," and banged the door shut behind us.
On the way down the stairs she said to me, "Why do you always have to be so blunt?"
"He was getting on my nerves."
"We could have found out more if you'd been a little more tactful."
"We? Bill and Kerry Wade, from San Francisco. Christ!"
"It got him to talk to us, didn't it?"
"All right, so it got him to talk to us."
"Which is more than you accomplished with your direct approach to Mrs. Bloom," she said. "You probably blurted out that you were a detective to Gary Coleclaw and that artist, Thatcher, too. No wonder they wouldn't tell you anything."
"Listen, don't tell me how to do my job."
"I'm not. I'm only suggesting-"
"Don't suggest. I didn't bring you along to do any suggesting."
"No, I know why you brought me along. Women are only good for one thing, right?"
"Oh, for God's sake-"
"You can be a macho jerk sometimes, you know that? You think you know everything. Well, why don't you go screw yourself? You've been doing it all day."
She slid into the car and sat there with her arms folded, staring straight ahead. I wanted to say something else to her, but I didn't seem to have any words. The thing was, she was right. I had handled things badly with Penrose, and with Gary Coleclaw and Thatcher and Mrs. Bloom. And with Kerry, too. It was just one of those days when I couldn't seem to get the proper handle on how to deal with anybody. But it galled me to have to admit it. Kerry wasn't the detective here, damn it; I was.
A half-mile farther along there was another homesteader's cabin, this one owned by a family named Butterfield, but I was in no frame of mind for another interview. I drove back into town. When we came to the Coleclaw place I looked it over for some indication that Jack Coleclaw and his wife had returned from Weaverville. There wasn't any-no automobiles, no people, not even any sign of the fat yapping brown and-white dog. So there was no point in stopping there either; I kept on going up the road and out of town.
Kerry didn't say one word to me all the way back to Weaverville.
5
Thirty seconds after I pulled into the lot of the Pinecrest Motel, Raymond Treacle showed up.
I had forgotten all about him. He lived in Redding, and I had talked to him on the phone last night and arranged to meet him here at five o'clock. It was now two minutes past five. My first thought when I saw him drive in was that it was a good thing I had decided not to stop anywhere else in Cooperville. Failing to show up for a meeting with a man who was willing to pay you five thousand dollars was very poor business. I could not seem to do anything right today, except by accident. Maybe I needed a vacation more than I thought I did.