Last Lie (6 page)

8

L
auren called me into our bedroom while the kids were eating lunch. "Close the door," she said. There had been phases in our marriage when a magical moment might have ensued. We weren't enjoying one of those phases.

She sat on the edge of the bed up near her pillow. She sighed.

I said, "Gracie still loves dance. She may stick with it this time. She even likes the girly parts. Something is changing for her, you know."

"I can tell," Lauren said. "She talks about it all the time." She smiled. Then she stopped smiling. "Sam was here this morning along with a sheriff's investigator."

That was news. I sat down on the upholstered chair across from the bed. I figured the cops had stopped by for something to do with Lauren's work. It was not an unheard-of occurrence. My wife was a deputy DA for Boulder County. I surmised that she was going to have to go to the office, which meant that I was going to have to get Grace to the birthday party.

God, I hope we have a present already. And that it's wrapped.
I asked, "Do you have something that's breaking at work?" Sam was the Boulder PD detective who had stood me up at breakfast. His jurisdiction was the City of Boulder. Boulder County, which included the rural enclave where we lived, was the law enforcement purview of the Boulder sheriff. That representatives of both departments had been out our way together was an anomaly; the agencies rarely rolled together.

Lauren said, "They weren't here to see me. They were across the lane for something. Neither of them would tell me why.

"The sheriff's investigator was Courtney Rea. She recognized me from court. She asked me if I knew where our neighbors were, or when they'd be back. I said I didn't."

"That's it?"

"Pretty much. Do you know Courtney?"

I shook my head. I'd met many of Sam's police colleagues over the years but wasn't well acquainted with the sheriff's department staff. Through the DA's office, Lauren got to know all the investigative players for both departments.

"She asked me how well I knew our neighbors. I told her they had just moved in--I don't think she'd known that; she wrote it down--that I'd met them once, casually. She asked if I was aware of a gathering at their house last night. I said I saw a lot of cars over there before I went to bed and that some catering people had arrived earlier in the day. Sam stepped over and whispered something to Courtney. Courtney said that was it. She didn't have any more questions."

I said, "Gracie and I saw a limo coming in the lane this morning when we were on our way to dance class. Mattin and Mimi must have had a car taking them someplace."

"I missed all that. I didn't get out of bed until late."

That was her way of letting me know it had been another difficult night for her. She looked like she could use a smile. I told her about Gracie's reaction to the limo and her theory about someone being voted off our mountain.

The story earned the smile. Lauren added, "I find it odd that Sam never offered a hint to me why he was out here. He played it cool, professional. I don't think Courtney could have guessed that Sam knew me in any way other than through work. After she got in her car and took off, Sam backed up, leaned out the window, and said, 'Leave this alone. The less you know, the better.'

"I saw nothing to indicate that anything special was going on. Their house has been quiet all day. No emergency response on the lane. No fire, no rescue. Just Sam and Courtney."

"Why a cop and a deputy?" I asked. "That part makes no sense."

Lauren didn't know that either.

I hadn't had a chance to tell Lauren about my run-in with the catering truck the night before. I filled her in.

"Idiots," she said. "But it didn't actually crash, right? You didn't call it in?"

"I didn't."

She shook her head. "None of it makes sense."

I asked, "Who was catching this morning at your office? They would know what's going on." A deputy district attorney was always on call to respond to the police department or the sheriff's office regarding developing law enforcement situations. Occasionally, a crime scene or a fresh development in an ongoing investigation might require immediate consultation from the DA's office.

Lauren didn't reply. Since her last MS exacerbation, she hadn't been taking much call time. It was a sensitive subject for her. She stood up, shifted her weight onto her cane, and began the laborious process of walking down the hall toward the kitchen. She hated the cane. Hated the weak leg.

"How are you doing?" I said as I examined her gait for signs of change. Her recovery from a serious exacerbation that had left her temporarily unable to walk had been agonizingly slow. Although we rarely talked about the future of her illness, we were both concerned that her recovery from the recent event had reached a plateau, which might indicate permanent damage to the affected nerve.

Permanent damage could mean permanent disability. A long relationship with the cane. We were both scared.

"It's getting old," she said without turning her head. "I had trouble with the lift on the stairs again when I went down to check on Jonas this morning. We have to get someone out to look at it again."

After she regained enough strength to get around with the cane, I'd had a lift installed on the stairs that led to the basement so that she would be able to get down there to check on Jonas.

"I'll take care of it," I said. "First thing Monday."

9

I
n my personal-life lexicon,
walnut,
as a noun, typically referred not to the hard-shelled nut essential to a Waldorf salad, but rather to the unremarkable Victorian house that had been home to my clinical psychology practice, and that of Raoul's psychologist wife, Diane, for many years.

Diane and I jointly owned the century-old building on Walnut Street. Our utilitarian workspace on the first floor included our two consulting offices, which faced the backyard; a shared waiting room fronting the street; a tiny kitchen; and a solitary bathroom.

We rented out a minuscule second-floor office suite. Over the years, the upstairs space had successfully incubated the businesses of a half dozen or so budding entrepreneurs. We gravitated toward tenants who didn't seem inclined to require us to act like landlords. The rental suite was currently occupied by a woman about my age whose stated business purpose was independent product enhancement."

Diane and I didn't know what that meant, but we hoped she wasn't hooking. At the end of the day, we didn't really want to know. The fallout from a revelation that we were leasing space to a sex worker would undoubtedly force us to act like landlords. Neither of us wanted that.

We had originally purchased the house on Walnut just before downtown Boulder began its gradual transformation from Rocky Mountain cool to oh-so-trendy hot, and quite a while before our questionable neighborhood on the wrong side of Ninth Street began its conversion from being a desolate haven for body shops, bail bonds-men, crappy student housing, scrap metal shops, and light industrial warehouses.

Diane and I didn't buy the old house because it sat on thirty-nine one-hundredths of an acre--almost an entire sixth of a hectare--that happened to be situated less than three blocks from Boulder's commercial heart at the corner of Broadway and Pearl. Buying a decent-sized chunk of desirable, developable real estate in such a prime location in the depths of a soft market would have demonstrated investment acumen, a trait that Diane and I lacked equally.

We bought the Walnut house because it was the best property we could afford within easy walking distance of town, my requirement, that also had at least one off-street parking place, Diane's nonnegotiable condition for her Saab convertible.

The house had been nearly derelict at the time we purchased it. The real estate agent assumed we planned to scrape and rebuild--during the initial showing she made a point of telling us that the purchase price did not include demo costs. We had no plans, or funds, to rebuild. I was fresh out of school, and Diane and Raoul had not yet made the transition from the middle class to the we-don't-think-about-money class.

We slapped a much-needed new roof on the old house--vegetation was growing out of the old one in places, which we agreed couldn't be a good sign--and did the minimal renovations necessary to convert the space for our therapeutic purposes. Over the years we had added some creature comforts, like insulation and windows that not only opened but didn't leak like sieves. More recently, Diane had overseen an overhaul of the waiting room decor to spa-like standards. I remained almost cool with that.

It turned out that buying the Walnut Street house had been an inadvertent act of business genius. As Boulder's Pearl Street Mall became a success, and a decade later as hip migrated west and hopped across Ninth Street, our property appreciated like mad. Complete strangers made us blind offers to sell at exorbitant profits. We were in no rush; the bland little Victorian building had served our clinical needs perfectly for the many years we had practiced within its undistinguished walls.

I considered the place my retirement plan. In my mind, my work address was 401(k) Walnut Street, Boulder, Colorado 80302.

RAOUL HAD ASKED ME TO MEET HIM ON WALNUT. To discuss the future.

His Range Rover was already there when I arrived. He'd parked in the location where a ramshackle garage had once stood.

"Alain," he said as I climbed from my car. "Howdy."

Howdy?
The cowboy touch was novel. "Hello, Raoul."

I got kisses to each of my stubbled cheeks along with a casual embrace. Immediately, he placed an arm on my back and began to urge me toward Ninth. Emily, our big Bouvier, often used her stout mass to herd me the same way. Turns out that I'm a relatively docile mammal; I usually do what the herding animals want.

Raoul said, "
Allons.
"

"Fine with me," I said. "It's a pretty day." The gray skies had become partly cloudy. A little cool, but the air was fresh.

His route took us down Walnut toward downtown. We waited on the curb to weave through weekend cross traffic on Ninth. I asked, "How was the Two Cents thing last night?"

"Surprisingly lovely," he said. "Preston Georges did the food." Raoul pronounced the first name
Press-tone,
the
n
existing mostly in my imagination, and the last name
Jorge,
turning the
G
into a so-soft
J.
I knew the name from somewhere, but I couldn't place it. Raoul kindly offered a clue. "The chef from Pain Perdu? The one who left after that dust-up in August?"

Of course, Preston Georges. "I didn't know there was a dust-up at Pain Perdu in August. They changed chefs? Preston Georges left?" My pronunciation was
Press-ton
with a hard
n, George
like Washington. "What happened?"

"Chefs? Doesn't matter. I don't know how Hake got him to do the party, but he cooked for us. The man is a huge talent. It is like convincing Placido Domingo to sing at a birthday party. He did six, eight appetizers. A few entrees served buffet style. The food?" Raoul made a gastro-orgasmic noise before he continued. "The
amuse-bouches
? One was a perfect scallop, one a perfect quail thigh. Some wilted greens and some cabbage that . . . wasn't cabbage. There was a grilled crawfish salad. Simple but . . . how it was flavored? Some tamarind, perhaps. Asian and Latin all at once. African? I'm not sure. Then roast pheasant--freshly dressed--with turnips and beets. The turnips were a revelation. And usually, I don't like beets, but . . . And the sauce, oh, Alain. For the vegetarians"--Raoul raised his eyebrows at Boulder's vegetarians--"an umami terrine of mushrooms and julienned brussels sprouts topped with shaved white truffles. For desert, poached pears on blood orange
sabayon
with vanilla and caramel ice cream. Almond
tuile.
"

"And the company?"

"Oh, and chocolat, after. The pastries? He has this pastry chef. . . . My lord. It was a good crowd. Some of our oldest friends were there, Alain." He moved his head from side to side. I recognized the gesture as a modifier. I thought Raoul was indicating that some of the members of the group were older friends than others. "Like us, you and me? We finish each other's stories. You would like them, I think. These old friends. Diane and I will host a dinner soon. Maybe early in December before the holidays get all American on us. Oui? We will include you and Lauren. I promise." He smiled.

I could have warned Raoul that tension seemed to be building between Lauren and me and the new neighbors, his old friends, over the dogs. I suspected that whatever plans Mattin and Mimi were spawning to redevelop Adrienne's farmhouse and barn would serve to aggravate the nascent canine disagreements.

I changed the subject. "Mattin's accent? What is that? Is it British?" I asked. Raoul had a savant-like talent for matching accents and geography.

"Not British. He lived in South Africa, Johannesburg, when he was young. That's what you're hearing."

I never would have guessed. Raoul and I crossed Ninth and continued past the St. Julien Hotel until we reached a little pedestrian alley connecting the sidewalk on the thousand block of Walnut, adjacent to Brasserie Ten Ten, with the sidewalk on the thousand block of Pearl. I didn't know the official name of the passage--or even if it had one--but I always thought of it as the Tenth Street alley, because if Tenth continued south from Pearl, which it does not, it would run where the alley is located. We took the walkway to Pearl. Raoul stopped me right in front of the patio of Centro.

I was aware that we had officially left Walnut--not only the building, the purported focus of my discussion with Raoul, but also the street--behind. Raoul is rarely disingenuous, so I found myself curious about the connection between Walnut and Pearl, or at the very least, between Walnut and the Tenth Street alley.

Raoul faced east. In Boulder, that reliably puts the Rocky Mountains at one's back. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khakis and adjusted his posture--shoulders back, chest out. Raoul was a much more impressive physical specimen than I. I put my shoulders back too, even though I don't have a chest that thrusts out very far no matter what the hell I do. I put my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt.

"What do you see?" he asked.

It sounded like a trick question. "Literally?" I asked. "Or are you hoping for . . . I don't know, vision?"

He chuckled. "Let us begin literally. There is always time later in the day for metaphysics. With cocktails, I think is best."

I smiled. "I see downtown. The Mall. A lovely late-autumn day."

"Closer."

I adjusted my frame of reference. "The Kitchen, Salt, Juanita's--"

"What? You see food only? I'll buy you something to eat when we're done. You are leaning too far left." Raoul laughed at his own joke. His politics were difficult to discern--I blamed that on his youthful experience with Franco--but his bias toward protecting business interests at all costs was not much of a secret. I suspected he and I would not agree about much. "Now look straight ahead. That way." He pointed due east.

"If I must. I see the
Daily Camera
building, and its always alluring parking lot."

The
Daily Camera
was Boulder's legacy newspaper. The structure was a two-story, unimaginative brick rectangle that had been plopped into the heart of what was otherwise a nineteenth-century, pioneer-heritage, Victorian-accented, vibrant, pedestrian-friendly downtown. It is hardly one of the area's architectural treasures. If some rogue state--or, more likely, another Colorado county--decided to bomb downtown Boulder, the
Camera
bunker might be a good place to seek shelter. That is the extent of its charms. A couple of significant renovations over the decades I'd been in town had somewhat improved its looks, in much the same way that a trip to Maaco improves the prospects of an '82 Plymouth Reliant.

Raoul said, "You see
le Camera
. Bueno
.
Now, let's try vision."

English, French, Spanish, English,
I thought. One of the reasons I loved talking with him was to get an opportunity to hear all the instruments he used in his orchestra. Then it hit me.
Really?
I let my jaw drop. "Raoul, did you buy the
Daily Camera
?"

He didn't respond to my question. I persisted. "Have you somehow discovered a business model that will permit you to make money printing out copies of yesterday's news and delivering those printouts to people's residences by throwing them out the windows of moving cars?"

He smiled at me warmly. He said, "You know confidentiality? Si? We call it nondisclosure. Whatever I tell you next is nondisclosure.
Agreeable?
"

The last word, from Raoul's mouth, was
ag-ray-ahb-la.
"My forte," I said, placing an open palm on my chest. It was true. Confidentiality was one of my strengths. Secrets were my thing. I kept my mouth shut with the best of them. Better than most of them. I said, "I have to tell Lauren. She has an interest in all of this. What I own . . ." I shrugged.

"Mais oui."

"May I talk to Diane, too?"

He made a face that said,
Are you kidding?
He added, "
C'est tout? Avec les questions?
" I nodded. "I am part of a syndicate that has just optioned the buildings and the land. No, not the newspaper, not the business--only the land, for redevelopment purposes. We have formed an LLC. You know about LLC?"

I nodded. Limited liability company. A name that put the ass-covering in front of the venture, precisely where business thought it belonged.

"We are in due diligence. Back to that vision--what do you see in front of you?"

"I assume you are planning to knock it down."

"Oui. Si. Yes. The Pearl Street building, definitely. The Walnut side?
Peut-etre.
"

In recent decades, the
Daily Camera
had constructed a modern office structure across the alley, behind the main building. That structure faced Walnut Street, not Pearl.

"My vision for the land on Pearl? Given that A, you and your partners want to make money, and B
,
that you need to come up with something that the planning board and the city council will approve, I would say that . . . you'll dig a big hole for parking, of course. A big, big, hole. First floor retail--the planning department would insist. On the upper floors? Offices? Condos?

"Design? Probably the same kind of inoffensive stuff that was done on the stretch of Walnut that's east of Broadway. Or the new stuff on Canyon west of Ninth. That would be the easiest to get approved." I was thinking and talking simultaneously. "Red brick, and glass. A contemporary feel, but with just enough Victorian brickwork to keep the preservationists from cardiac arrest. Something, ultimately, forgettable."

I was just getting started. "Your syndicate will have to make money, so you'll probably put in more square feet than anyone really believes should be squeezed onto a piece of land this size." I turned to look at Raoul. "How am I doing? Is that what you have in mind? An inoffensive monolith?"

He rolled his eyes but nodded an acknowledgment.

I asked, "Tell me something. You don't do real estate, you do engineering, and you do tech. You do them better than anyone. Why this? Why now? Somehow you've convinced yourself that a speculative real estate development is prudent in this economic environment? Can you actually make money building a big, expensive multiuse project? On spec, I presume? You don't have a tenant, do you?" He didn't. "This land has to be terribly expensive. I heard that somebody spent two million bucks for the Tom's Tavern building to renovate it for Salt."