Ben Schuler’s house was in one of these, perched on a hill where hundred-year-old elms used to shade a boulevard the city had filled with flowers every spring. Dutch elm disease had taken most of the trees within the past twenty years, a new freeway ramp system had taken the rest, and now the locals had little to look at except the six lanes of traffic at the bottom of the hill. Magozzi and Gino could hear the roar of an eighteen-wheeler shifting on an upgrade the minute they got out of the car.‘Used to be nicer up here,’ Magozzi said, looking at a long crack in the stucco of Ben Schuler’s house; the sagging porch of the two-story brick next door. ‘My great aunt had a big old Victorian a few blocks over.’‘Then why the hell did it take you so long to find it?’ Gino grumped, peeling off his suit coat and tie and draping them over the seat.‘Haven’t been up here in years. We only came a couple of times, when I was about six or seven. She was a scary old broad. Never met a person she liked, according to my folks, and that included family.
