A Time of Predators

San Luisa Creek was dry, raggedly edged with blackberry bushes, mugwort, and the telltale red leaves of poison oak. The path rose beyond it, plunged abruptly into a thicket of elderberries and ceanothus and then under the shade of a stand of sycamore. It was much cooler under the trees; a flash of white wing patch and a glimpse of iridescent tail marked the passage of a yellow-billed magpie, and a squirrel scolded from a low branch. Curt topped the slight rise, could see the white siding of a house through the thinning undergrowth.

Beyond the trees was a strip of dusty straggled weeds, a shallow ditch littered with paper, and a loop of blacktop. Across it were tract houses. Curt shook his head. A few years ago there had been no path, no subdivision at the end of it. He crossed the ditch, turned left, downhill toward an intersection a hundred yards away. The cross street was Westpoint, he found; he had been walking on Edgewood Drive.

Aptly named, Edgewood. Wait a minute. Edgewood. Was that...

It came back in a rush. Barbara Anderson, 1791 Edgewood Drive. One of his first four prime possibilities. An attractive brown-haired woman in a red robe whom he had disturbed in the middle of a bath. He lengthened his stride until he was nearly trotting. A boy living on Edgewood, late home, would have walked his bike through those woods, along that path. Five minutes.

But she had said she was unmarried, had no children.

Women had lied before. When Curt got to 1791, he was sure she had lied, and felt a little sick to the stomach with frustration. The lawn was shaggy and yellowing, the neighborhood shopping papers distributed free were yellowing in a messy heap on the porch. Planted in the middle of the sere grass was a small neat FOR SALE sign. She had been the one, unless he accepted it all — path, precipitous move from the neighborhood, proximity to Curt’s house — as a series of coincidences.

Curt looked about almost wildly. Neighbors. Find out if she had a son. Find out where she had gone if she did.

Directly across the street was an open garage door with a car parked in the drive. A man was dragging a green plastic garden hose from the garage. He wore a Giants baseball cap, a white T-shirt, and Bermuda shorts shoved down under his stomach, so the ends of the legs covered his knees.

Curt crossed the street. “I’m looking for Barbara Anderson, sir. Could you tell me if—”

“She moved.” He scratched his nose reflectively. “Just about three weeks ago, real sudden like. One week talking about her lawn, next week just... packed up and gone, bag and baggage.”

Three weeks. Almost immediately after Curt had talked with her. A three-week head start. “Is she a Mrs. Anderson, or a Miss?”

“Missus. Well, you know, divorced. Thought at first she’d gone back to Charlie, but the next week here comes the realtor’s sign up.”

Curt nodded. “Funny she’d just move out that way, with the boy and all... I guess he’d be about ten now, wouldn’t he?”

“Jimmy? Yep.”

The man started to turn away, when Curt had a sudden inspiration. “Say, do you remember if anyone else was around asking about her? Say... sometime last spring, maybe?”

“Nope.” Then he frowned, and rested a foot on the front bumper of his car. “But now you mention it, a kid about high school age come around one Sunday morning, musta been in May, just about this time of the day, right after Barb took the boy off to church. Said he was looking for some other Anderson, I disremember the name — remember the kid ’cause he looked sorta Mexican. You know, dark skin, black curly hair — oh, and a long nose. I remember that nose, all right.”

Somehow they find out where the boy lives, talk to the neighbors to get the right name, then make a threat, probably by phone. A virulent threat, Curt thought, if he was right: because it had made Barbara Anderson and her son disappear just because Curt had dropped around to ask a casual question. Yes, it fit. Door bolted, night chain on in the middle of the afternoon. A tottery theory on a shaky framework, but...

“You... don’t know where I could reach Barbara now, do you?”

“Sure don’t, mister. Like I said, just moved out sudden. She didn’t leave no new address, not even a phone number. Not that I guess you’ll have much trouble finding her.”

“How’s that?” asked Curt quickly.

The man jerked a calloused thumb. “Realtor. Or Charlie, even.”

Curt arrived home fifteen minutes later, sweaty-faced and branch-lashed from his hurried return through the woods. Before going up to shower and shave, he dialed the Heritage Realty Company, 2101 Armando Road, to see if they were open on Sunday. They were. When he came back downstairs in fresh slacks and sport shirt, he paused at the phone again. There was no listing for Barbara Anderson, but there was for Charles. Homestead Avenue, Mountain View. Curt dialed, got an answer on the sixth ring from a voice full of Sunday morning phlegm.

Curt said, “Sorry to disturb you this way, Mr. Anderson, but I’m trying to get in touch with Barbara. She—”