Last Lie (19 page)

Without any trouble, I thought of a handful of patients I'd had over the years who were battered badly enough in their marriages to agree to participate in something like that.
Was Mimi a battered wife?
I knew it was possible.

I had to force myself back into the conversation with Nicole. "So, the hostess was hovering in the kitchen, waiting for you guys to finish and drive away?"

"Yeah, basically. Eric wanted to bag everything and go. I was worried that she would end up complaining to our boss about the cleanup we did, or didn't do. When we were almost finished packing up the van, I even took some pictures of the kitchen with my phone so that if she complained, I'd have some record of exactly what we did and what she told us not to bother with."

"She didn't end up complaining to your boss?" I asked.

"Nothing that came back to us."

"The bartender?"

"She left first. Thirty minutes earlier."

Fiji spotted an opening. She jumped onto the chair beside Nicole and climbed onto her lap. "Feel free to put her down."

"No, it's fine, she's cute." She let the puppy chew gently on her wrist--it was a sign of Havanese affection that I'd never quite understood--for a few seconds before she said, "Well, I am so glad that we didn't hurt you, or this gorgeous puppy. I was so worried."

"Me, too," I said. "Would've spoiled my night."

She smiled before she added, "Or that other guy. God, that one was really close."

25

W
hat other guy?

My breath caught in my throat. I turned my head so I could check the time on the microwave. The carpool would drop off the kids in fifteen or twenty minutes. I didn't have much time to learn more about the other guy that Nicole had spotted on the lane Friday night.

"Can I get you something to drink?" I asked.

"Some hot tea?" she said. "That would be great. Whatever you have. I love mint."

I fixed the cup of tea as fast as I could. I was torn. The news of the presence of another man on the lane left me with a lot of questions for Nicole, but I didn't want her to perceive my curiosity, nor did I want her to still be at the house when the kids got home from school.

If Gracie knew Nicole was in our house, the world would know Nicole was in our house. Lauren would have no issue with Nicole's visit. But if Lauren ending up asking me some questions about what else I knew about that night, and more to the point, how I knew what else I knew about that night, I was worried the conversation could go in a troublesome direction.

I had absolutely no right to divulge to Lauren my supervision relationship with the alleged victim's therapist. I also did not plan to betray Sam's trust about the Kobe Bryant parable.

"Did you know we almost slid off that cliff? In the van? Could you tell?" Nicole asked. "Oh, this tea is good. Thanks. Is it Celestial Seasonings? Which one?"

"I can go check," I said. "If it's important." I really did not want to go check what kind of tea it was.

"Never mind. After we . . . passed you? Almost . . . hit you. Could you tell we almost flipped?"

"It probably felt like a cliff to you in the dark, but it's more like a steep slope in that section of road," I said. "But, yeah, I could hear your tires spinning. I could tell that Eric was going way too fast going into that turn; I did think for a minute that the van might roll over. It's a tough pair of curves in the dark. I was thinking he didn't even know the second curve was coming."

Nicole shook her head. "He didn't know the first curve was coming. I was barking at Eric to slow down. He was cursing at the road. We had just almost hit you and the puppy and he had just turned the headlights on, and we were just coming out of that second curve--that's the spot where we came closest to rolling, the end of that second curve--and suddenly there's this guy on the road. Just standing there. Out of nowhere. I mean, it was like, 'Hello, what are you doing here?' "

"The man was by himself? No dogs?" I asked. Some of our neighbors with homes near the beginning of the lane occasionally walk their dogs late at night. We see each other when I'm out with Emily and Fiji. But I rarely saw a solitary pedestrian heading in the lane that late at night.

"No. This man was alone. And I was worried about dogs by then. I would have noticed if he had a dog."

"Was he young? Old?"

"It was hard to tell, honestly. He was cold, all bundled up. It was windy by then. He had a hoodie under a jacket. The hood part was up over a stocking cap. The wind was whipping good. Maybe he had on a backpack, too. I'm not sure about that, but maybe . . . yes. I didn't really see his face." She sipped some tea. "Does it sound like it could have been one of your neighbors?" She smiled. "You think?"

A stocking cap?
"No," I said. "Doesn't sound like my neighbors." The closest neighbors down the lane--they lived a few hundred yards beyond the S-curve--were a pleasant gay couple who tended to keep to themselves. Neither was predisposed to take solo walks on the lane late on a frigid weekend night, especially not in a hoodie and stocking cap, wearing a backpack. "I have no idea who you saw. How close did Eric come to hitting him?"

"Closer than we came to you. I mean, close. By the time the headlights swung around so we could see him, we were right on top of him. Oh, he was a smoker, too. He had a cigarette in his hand that went flying when he jumped off the side of the road. It actually started a little fire. That was weird, too. God, what a night."

"A fire?"

"I had screamed at Eric to stop after the guy tumbled away, or jumped away, or whatever it was. At the time, I thought we might have hit him. There was no
thunk
or anything, but he really went flying. I watched it in Eric's mirror. Eric finally did stop, maybe fifty yards farther down the road. I kept my eyes on the spot where the guy had gone down until I saw him stand back up. At the same time he stood up, I also saw smoke curling up from the dried grasses right behind him. Flames jumping. It was scary. But the man stomped it all out, kicked at the dirt. Then he turned to the van and flipped us off.

"Eric flipped him right back and drove away. He was all, 'What the F was the guy doing there in the middle of the night? That is so not my F-ing fault.'

"I kept my mouth closed. By then? All I wanted to do was track down my friends in Boulder and have a couple of drinks. Eric bitched the whole way but he dropped me off on The Hill and went off to find his dealer. I found my friends; we ended up hanging out for drinks over at The Sink." She shrugged and smiled. "My night got better."

People Nicole's age had been hanging out with friends for drinks at The Sink on The Hill in Boulder for decades. "It was quite a night for you," I said. I had one more question I wanted to ask. I tried to find a sideways manner of posing it. "Did Eric meet his dealer on South Boulder Road?"

Nicole hesitated before she said, "No."

I didn't believe her. "Did the guy you almost hit call the police? Did Eric get in any trouble?"

Nicole looked at me suspiciously. "No, I mean . . . no. Why would he? We didn't . . . hit him. Just came close."

I could have explained that a charge of reckless driving doesn't require the actual impacting of a pedestrian. Running a couple of them off the road would probably be sufficient legal grounds. But I didn't think the lesson would have served any useful purpose. I said, "You know how people can be sometimes. I was just curious how bad the evening got for you guys."

What I really wanted to know is if Nicole had talked to the police about the housewarming, if any investigators had tracked down the caterers to interview them about what they might have seen inside earlier in the evening. I also wanted to know if the police or the sheriff knew about the man that Nicole and Eric saw on the lane, or about Eric's rendezvous with the dealer. Nicole didn't spot the intent of my questioning.

"Did you call the police on us?" she asked me. "Because a woman called me. A detective."

I held up my hands. "No, I did not. No. I admit I cursed at Eric a little, but that's as far as that got. What did the detective want?"

"Just asked what time we left. Whether people were still at the party. That's all. You know, I should probably go. Midterms. Studying."

"Thank you," I said, "for coming back out here and checking on us. You didn't have to do that. I appreciate it."

"I felt bad. If it was just me, I would have stopped the van. Or I would have come right back the next day. But Eric said he'd get me fired if I got him in any trouble about his driving that night. So I didn't. Then yesterday? My dad told me that he didn't want me to work for the rest of the semester and he said I could quit my job if I'd also quit smoking. He promised to up my allowance to give me more spending money, and he said he'd pay for nicotine patches. Pretty good deal, huh? So I quit the job. And I've quit smoking. It all worked out. I'm really, really glad you're okay. But I have to go."

I needed some way to reach Nicole if I had more questions about the events of Friday night.

I said, "You ever do house-sitting gigs?"

"Seriously? Up here? I would so love it." She turned
love
into a multisyllable word.

"Dogs, too?" I said.

"Absolutely. I adore your dogs."

I handed her a pen and paper. "Give me your number. We're always looking for reliable people to help us out when we leave town."

I would no more give Nicole the keys to my house than I would ask Kobe Bryant to take my daughter to the prom. As she wrote down her number, I imagined her head spinning with plans for the amazing party she would have in our house while Lauren and I were out of town.

She handed me the pad. "Please. I would love, love, love it. To help you, I mean. I almost owe you, right?"

"I will," I said. "Count on it."

I'm accustomed to people--patients--lying to me. I'm not accustomed to lying right back at them. I had to admit that I was kind of enjoying the banter.

I helped Nicole on with her vest. I asked, "How's the quitting going? Smoking? Is it difficult?"

"Good, good," she said. "I've been wanting to, you know, for a while. Quit. A lot of guys don't like it. Girls smoking."

I wondered why she lied. Reflex? Daddy transference? Or did she have a reason?

26

T
he dogs had been cooped up all day. They had to go out. I fumbled around for a working flashlight--the "working" part was key; I seemed to always find a couple of dead flashlights before I found one with charged batteries--and then I got the halter on Fiji. I allowed Emily to head out the door first without a lead. She stayed within shouting distance of me as I marched Fiji out the lane, through the second curve of the S
.

Emily took off up the hill when I slowed the march so I could begin searching for a patch of crushed grasses and indications of a small fire.

Fiji seemed pretty excited by the fact that I was in the grasses and not on the lane. I think she was pretty sure I had finally capitulated and was assisting her with her prairie dog hunt.

Nicole's description of what had happened made my work easy. I spotted a wide swatch of flattened, dried grasses on the west side of the lane almost immediately. It was less than fifty feet from the northern edge of the S-curve. Identifying the square foot or so of charred grasses took another couple of minutes of searching. The cigarette had blown a good twenty feet south in the wind. I used one of the dogs' unused poop bags to retrieve a cigarette filter from the middle of the burned area.

I had a suspicion that the charred butt would be a Newport. I didn't buy Nicole's story that the man she'd spotted on the lane was responsible for the fire. I was guessing that Nicole might have sparked it when she tossed her cigarette out the window.

In the distance, I spotted the headlights of a car turning onto the lane down near the mailboxes.
The kids' carpool,
I thought. I pulled my hands together and put out the clarion call for Emily to rejoin me. She didn't wait for the second call; I saw her bound down the hill from the highest ridge. I got her back on her leash about twenty seconds before a black Town Car rolled even with us on the lane. The car slowed to a stop and a back window opened halfway. Inside were Mattin and Mimi.

I leaned over and said hello, while I offered a silent prayer that the two dogs would be on their best behavior.

Mattin said, "I see the dog's on a leash. Very neighborly of you, thanks. We do appreciate it."

I feared that he had just seen Emily off-leash and that his gratitude was not only facetious but sarcastic. I decided my best bet was to ignore the comment. "Welcome home," I said. "Nice trip?"

Mattin answered. He said, "There are no bad weekends in Napa. I especially love the time after the berries are crushed. Everything has slowed down, the tourists are gone, the people are relaxed. The valley is full of hope about the harvest. Do you ever go?"

"Lauren more than me. She used to live in the City before we met. Do you grow grapes? Make wine?"

"We have some vines. Others make the wines. For me, it's a privilege to be even a small part of the process." He turned and smiled at his wife before he looked back to me. "Well, if you ever decide to make a trip to Napa, we'll introduce you to some friends who are winemakers. Changes everything, to meet the winemakers. Great people."

"Thank you. That's very kind. And neighborly."

Mattin smiled at me with his side-of-a-bus smile. The window rolled back up. And they were gone.

I wasn't sure what someone should look like after he's been summoned back to town to provide DNA samples because he's under suspicion of committing sexual assault on a close friend. But at that moment Mattin Snow didn't look like a man who had a worry in the world that extended beyond the end of my dogs' leashes.

"Good girl," I said to Emily. "Good, good girl."

I watched another set of headlights turn onto the lane. This time it would be the carpool. The dogs and I hurried back home.

GRACIE WALKED IN THE DOOR AND ASKED WHO'D BEEN SMOKING.

Diversion was my only hope with the kid. I got her a snack and she started her homework. I asked Jonas if he'd come outside and show me the surveyor's stakes from the day before. The dogs wanted to come. Grace wanted to come. I asked her to stay with the dogs. All three girls were unhappy with me.

Jonas and I were barely out the door when the garage door opened across the way. Mattin sped out the lane in his Cadillac sedan. He might have waved at us. His windows were tinted so darkly that I couldn't have said one way or another.

I waved at the car. Jonas didn't.

Jonas asked, "You want to see all of them? They go way up the hill. And way down the ravine. All the way out to the curve on the lane."

It was apparent to me that Jonas had covered the ground necessary to find all of the surveyor's stakes. It gave me a context for the extent of his anxiety about what might be going on.

"How about just the ones on this side, this end. Nearest the two houses and the lane. Those are the ones that we have to be worried about."

He jumped on that. "What kind of worried?"

I should have been more careful with my choice of words, but I'd already decided that I would tell Jonas what my concerns were about our neighbor's plans. Trust required it. "I am . . . concerned that the new owners of your old house will do some renovations. Remodeling, addition, new construction, something. I'm thinking any work they do will most likely be down here, close to us at this end of the lane. I say that because that's where the access is. That's where the utilities are."

"Utilities?" he said.

"Gas and electric. Wells. Septic--um, sewer. Phone. Access is the lane. They might have to get permission to extend it. I think whatever they decide to do--if anything--will be down here."

"I know what access is," he said. He was working something out in his head. "What kind of renovations?"

"I don't know. I'm thinking maybe an addition to the house. You know the story about the missing turret, right?"

He nodded. Peter and Adrienne had tracked down the original architectural drawing for the house. The first owner of the ranch had planned a grand turret on the southwest corner, but it had never been constructed.

"That'd be okay," he said. "If they wanted to build the missing turret. Mom always wanted to see how the house would look with the tower."

"I agree," I said. "That would be okay. I'm also thinking they might have ideas about what to do with your dad's shop. The barn blocks the views toward Eldorado from the first floor of their house. They might not like that."

"Can't they just go upstairs? The views upstairs are fine. You can see everything."

"You'd think they could," I said. "Just go upstairs. The Realtor who sold the house told Lauren and me that the new owners saw 'opportunities' with the house you grew up in. That must mean they have ideas already about what they might like to do. My friend Diane is a friend of theirs, and she said she heard that an architect is involved. That might mean they even have plans. You know, firm ideas. Maybe drawings. That's all that I know so far, kiddo."

Jonas took a couple of steps. Kicked at a round stone. "Can they do . . . whatever they want?" His voice told me he was imagining something awful.

I guessed it had to do with bulldozers. "There are limits. The county has land-use ordinances. Size limitations. Restrictions on what can be done with historic structures. They have to follow all those rules. And others. They can't put a store out here. Or an apartment building." I eyed him for a moment. Jonas's face usually told me little. "Is there something specific you're worried about?"

He took a few steps before he said, "I don't want them to knock anything down. Anything. Our house." "Our house" meant his old house. "Or Dad's shop. Can they do that? Just knock stuff down?"

"Maybe, Jonas. It's possible. But I don't know the exact answer to your question. I share your concern, though. I'm hoping that the house and the barn are old enough that they'd be protected historic structures."

"How old is historic?" he asked.

Great question. I told him I didn't know the answer. We could check the regulations online when we went back inside. The path he was leading us on led toward the ravine side of the old barn. The steep ravine to the south separated the hillside with our home on it from the scenic overlook that tourists used to gaze down on Boulder and up at the foothills and the Divide from the edge of Highway 36 on the eastern ridge of the Boulder Valley.

"Here," he said. He kicked at the dirt near a stake with a yellow plastic marker tied around the top.

I followed him as he marched thirty yards or so to another. "And here." He kicked again. He extended his arm at one more stake in the near distance. "And there." It was almost too dark to see it, but not quite.

"This might be our property line," I said, swinging my arm between the three stakes. "Ours. I mean yours, mine, Gracie's, and Lauren's. This could be the line that separates what's ours from what belonged to you and your parents."

"That's what now belongs to the new neighbors, right? Which means everything on this side is . . . theirs?" He faced toward the house where he'd lived almost his entire life and the wide-open hillside above it.

"Yeah. You and your parents had over ten acres. A small part of the original ranch, but a big, big piece of land. All the way from the ravine to the curve in the lane. And from the lane, up the hill almost to the ridge. That's a lot of land."

Over four hectares,
I was thinking. If any kid knew about hectares, it would be Peter's kid. My kid.

"How much do you have?"

"We"--I made a point of including him, even if he wasn't yet inclined to do so--"have almost half a hectare. A little more than an acre."

Jonas was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, "What about the lane? Who owns the lane?"

"The lane is something called a right-of-way. It's shared access. Although somebody may technically own it--have a deed that includes that strip of dirt--nobody can build on it or block access to it. Not us, not them."

He was at least two steps in front of me. He faced the ravine. "I told my uncle I didn't want him to sell the house."

As he was beginning to recover from his injuries and digest the reality of his loss after the bombing in Israel, Jonas had become very vocal about his resistance to selling his family home. Given the losses he had suffered, I thought rushing into a sale would be a huge mistake and managed to get his mom's brother to postpone the date the house would be listed to give Jonas time to come to terms with the eventual sale. His uncle relented once. But that was all.

I said, "I wish it hadn't been necessary."

"It wasn't necessary," Jonas said. "I don't need the money." He took a couple of steps. "Do I? Do I need the money?"

"No, Jonas. You don't need the money."

"My allowance is plenty." Although he had never asked how much money he had inherited--it was plenty, plus a zero or two--he was letting me know how out of control the universe looked from his vulnerable position in it.

All his money didn't make that view any better.

He walked me to the rest of the nearby markers. He kicked at the dirt near every one of them. If the surveyor's marks were accurate--and I had no reason to suspect they weren't--it turned out that we owned less of the land fronting the lane than I'd long suspected. Although I knew our lot was shaped like a slice of pie, it was a much more acutely cut slice than I'd remembered; the narrowest part of the slice was the section where our house, and more recently the garage, had been built adjacent to the lane. Most of our remaining half a hectare was on the steep slope that fell down below our house. It was a nice slope--the buffer it provided to our downhill neighbor's land was certainly welcome, but from the point of view of the possible future development of our closest neighbor's property, the actual demarcation line wasn't the best of all possible news for us.

The truth was that we didn't own much of the land that they might covet.

For the first time in my adult life, I found myself wishing I was the master of a larger plantation; AHAH was no longer a big enough chunk of Spanish Hills for me.

"You seen any other strangers out here lately?" I asked Jonas. "Other than the surveyor?" I was especially curious if he'd seen the solitary man walking on the lane on Friday evening, or seen him at any other time.

He spun away and took a couple of steps in the direction of our house. "Nope," he said, his back to me.

"Are you sure?" I asked. I asked it because I thought, just maybe, he'd hesitated before he'd said
nope.
I could usually read Gracie with 90 percent-plus accuracy. Which, frankly, was nowhere near good enough a percentage to give me any parental comfort. Jonas? Not even close.

"Pretty sure," he said. He skipped a couple of times, doubling the distance between us. It wasn't unlike Jonas to get jittery and physical in a geeky way when he was anxious about something. Was our previous conversation about the uncertain future of his original family home responsible for the anxiety he was displaying? Or was it the question I had just asked him about whether he'd seen any strangers around lately?

I am an experienced psychologist. I should have been able to figure that puzzle out. But I couldn't tell. I tried again. "Nobody walking out here by himself recently?"

"Why? You see somebody?" He didn't turn around.

"I did not," I said. "I'm just trying to understand this whole situation. The new neighbors. What they're up to. Any new information will help. An architect, maybe? Photographer? Contractor? Everything and anybody you notice will help us sort out what they might be doing. Like the surveyor. That was a great catch."

"Gotcha," Jonas said.

"You'll tell me if you see anyone?"

"Yep." He sprinted toward the house. "When's dinner?" he yelled.

I was about to tell him that Lauren was bringing something home, but he was already out of easy earshot.