Too Far Under (25 page)

Of course if I really wanted control, I could
have told him our planned story over the phone. Maybe I should
have. But I told myself that it would be less awkward in person and
also I’d be able to see his reaction. Truthfully, though, there was
a little something else drawing me toward seeing him again. He
might be a Scientology nut but he still had those smoky eyes, and
that sexy smile when he wanted to use it. Given the way my
relationship with Pablo was going, I guess I felt like kicking up
my heels a bit.

He sounded surprised to get my call. “Hey,
Cleo. Good to hear from you. I didn’t mean to upset you the other
day. Can we write that off, start over, and be friends again?”

“Friends? Is that what we were? I’ll have to
think about that. But, yeah, I’d like to make a fresh start, and I
have some information for you. Can you drop by my office for a cup
of tea this afternoon? Anytime between 3:00 and 5:00 works for me.
I’ll be here preparing for my class tomorrow.”

“Sure. But don’t keep me guessing. What kind
of information?”

“I can’t go into it now, Brian. My next
client is due any minute. Come by later. I’m at 736 Pearl.” As soon
as I said that, I remembered that he knew everything I’d been doing
for days, so he probably knew quite well where my office was. And
now I’m inviting him in. Elisa may be right about my need for
excitement.

He showed up at 3:15, so I guessed he must be
eager to hear what I had to say, eager to see me, or both.

He was all smiles and charm with an autumn
bouquet of sunflowers and chrysanthemums in hand. “Again, I
apologize for Sunday—and, come to think of it, for Saturday night
too. I know I was pushy. I promise not to do it again.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Thanks for the
flowers.” I took the bouquet and led him back into the counseling
room where I had turned on my electric teakettle and set out mugs
and an assortment of tea bags.

“Nice office, and in the high-rent district,
too,” Brian said. “Your practice must be doing well to afford
this.”

“I’m doing pretty well,” I said as I got a
vase out of a cabinet, filled it with water and stuck the flowers
in. I didn’t want to get into explaining about how the endowment
for my Contact Project pays the rent, or even mentioning the
Contact Project. So I let that topic drop. “Help yourself,” I said,
gesturing toward the kettle. “I think the water’s hot enough.”

We each made ourselves a mug of tea and moved
over to the seating area, where I sat in my usual wing chair and
Brian sat on the couch opposite me. Earlier I had put a plate of
cookies and some napkins on the coffee table.

“Hey, oatmeal cookies with raisins. My
favorite. You remembered,” Brian said picking up a cookie and a
napkin.

Hmmm—had I remembered that? I had taken a
quick trip over to the tiny Lolita’s grocery a few blocks up on
Pearl to get some cookies. But I wasn’t aware of specifically
trying to get Brian’s favorite. “Enjoy,” I said.

Brian took a big bite of his cookie, chewed
slowly, then picked up his mug and sat back, looking quizzically at
me. “So what’s the information you mentioned?”

I took a drink of my tea to fortify myself
before I plunged in. Then I said, “I thought about your question
about whether Mirabel’s kids know if she made a new will. There’s
no reason not to answer that.”

Brian looked up sharply. “Really? They told
you something? What do they know?” He sounded like an impatient
prosecuting attorney who would not be denied an answer.

His sudden intensity put me on edge. But I
kept that feeling under wraps. After years of experience with
volatile people I know how to keep my voice calm. I replied
carefully, “They have some information that she did make a new will
and that it had some big changes.”

Brian slammed his mug down on the table,
slopping tea over the sides. “What kind of changes?” he demanded,
wiping at the spilled tea with his napkin.

Whoa. I wasn’t prepared for him to react so
strongly. I felt like telling him I’d made a big mistake inviting
him and that he should leave. But I was also curious about his
vehement responses. Why was he this upset about a possible new
will? Did he have reason to believe that Mirabel would have
disinherited the Church of Scientology? So I said, “They don’t know
what might have changed. What changes do you think she might have
made?”

He got up and took his mug and the soggy
napkin over to the counter where I had put the kettle. I figured he
was trying to regain his composure, so I waited quietly. He walked
back over to the couch and sat down again, looking less agitated.
“I have no idea what changes she might have made, Cleo,” he said.
“But any changes could have a big financial impact on the Church of
Scientology. That’s why I’m asking you. Does Derrick Townes have
the new will?”

“They don’t know that either.”

I could see him trying to control his anger,
but it welled up in his face like mercury rising in a temperature
gauge until he lost the struggle and boiled over again. “Christ!
Why don’t they just ask him?” he asked furiously.

I was beginning to worry about what Brian
might do next. Shane’s plan had been to tell people not only about
the new will, but also that Mirabel might have been murdered. If
Brian got this upset about a new will, how would he react to the
rest of my story? But I had signed on to the plan, so I continued.
“Derrick’s children aren’t close to him. You probably know he’s
been having an affair for a long time. And they’re worried that
there’s something suspicious about how Mirabel died.”

Brian glared at me. “What do you mean,
suspicious?” he challenged. “I thought the police said it was an
accident.”

I felt myself shrinking in response to his
aggressiveness, but I took a deep breath and forged on, speaking
slowly and deliberately. “They did rule it an accident. But that
doesn’t mean it was. The police have been wrong before.”

Brian finally got a grip on his emotions. His
face relaxed and his voice softened. “Will the case be re-opened?”
he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“How are they going to find the will?”

“That’s all I can tell you, Brian.” I rose to
signal him that it was time to leave.

Brian didn’t get up or say anything, just sat
there looking at me for a minute. As a therapist, I’m used to
letting silences build rather than filling the space, so I waited
quietly. Finally he stood up and said, “I do appreciate your
telling me about the will, Cleo. I don’t mean to be pushy again,
but I sure would like to know where that new will is, if there is
one.”

“Now you know what I know, Brian. What are
you going to do with this information?”

“You have no idea how important this is,
Cleo,” he said, looking defeated.

I walked out into the hall moving toward the
front door. He followed. “Thanks for coming by,” I heard myself say
as he went out the door. I wasn’t really glad he’d come. In fact, I
regretted inviting him. But the automatic social response slipped
out anyway. I hate it when I do that.

After Brian left, I spent another couple of
hours preparing for the next day’s class, which was going to be
about the Afterlife Encounters Survey, a five-year international
study of friends and family members’ reports of their encounters
with deceased loved ones. The study, completed in 2002 by a former
hospice worker and director of the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Center,
found that ninety-eight percent of the 596 respondents who had
experienced at least one afterlife encounter reported that their
encounters brought them comfort that did not diminish over time.
This finding is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the
benefits of my Contact Project.

I got so involved in the material that I was
able to put Brian and the Townes family drama out of my mind until
I was on my way home. But then my regrets about my interaction with
Brian resurfaced. What was I thinking? There was no way I wanted
Brian back in my life in any ongoing way. We had problems when we
were together years ago and that was before he became a
Scientologist. Plus now he seemed kind of threatening.

I realized I was missing Pablo. Usually when
we have a fight we each need a few days to cool off, but it was
Thursday and our fight had been Sunday morning. We should be over
it by now. As it turned out, Pablo was thinking along the same
lines. About ten minutes after I got home, he showed up at my front
door with a pizza and a six-pack of Fat Tire—my favorite local
microbrew beer.

“Hey, babe. We got off track, but let’s not
rehash it. We know by now that we don’t have to agree about
everything to have fun together. What do you say?”

“I say I’ve been missing you too,” I said, as
I took the beer from his hand and headed for the kitchen to put it
in the refrigerator. He followed me, put the pizza box on the
kitchen counter, and turned toward me with open arms. I flew into
those arms and squashed myself against his solid body. It felt like
home. We hugged, kissed and headed for the bedroom, leaving the
pizza cooling on the counter.

Later in the kitchen as we quenched our
thirst with frosty brews while we reheated the pizza, Pablo said
quietly, “Cleo, do you understand why I don’t want you getting
involved in investigating a possible murder?”

“Because of what happened last summer?”

“That and the fact that you’re not a trained
crime investigator and you have no backup if things escalate. I
know you’re following your heart when you try to help people, but I
don’t want to lose you because you got in over your head.”

His tenderness disarmed me. I put my beer
down on the table and gave him a hug. “Pablo, I know you’re coming
from a caring place when you try to protect me. But it feels too
protective, like you’re limiting me, smothering me a little.” I
pulled him over to the table and we both sat sipping our beers for
a few minutes.

Then I reached for his hand and continued
making my case. “Remember, I’m not the twenty-one-year-old art
student you were in love with sixteen years ago. After you left me
for your grand adventure, I grew up and learned to enjoy my
independence. Helping people is my career and I’m good at it. I’m a
professional and I find it upsetting when you try to tell me how I
should work with my clients. Advice is one thing, but I have to
make my own decisions. Surely you can see that.”

He gave my hand a squeeze. “I hear what
you’re saying, but it’s hard for me to watch you driving off a
cliff without trying to do anything about it. As a cop, I see a lot
of ugliness and I don’t want you to be caught in that.”

I let go of his hand and went back to my
beer. “Pablo, you have to trust that I’m being careful. I learned
some hard lessons last summer and I won’t put myself in that kind
of danger again. Can’t we just drop this and enjoy our pizza? Like
you said, we don’t have to agree on everything.”

“Okay, Cleo,” he said reluctantly. “But can
you at least promise that you’ll call me right away if you find
yourself in danger—that you’ll let me help before it
escalates?”

“I will,” I said. “Let’s get another beer and
take our pizza in the living room. I have this week’s episode of
Boston Legal recorded. Watching that should take our minds off this
discussion.”

We ate and drank as we laughed at Alan Shore
and Denny Crane resorting to outrageous tricks to win questionable
cases. I mused to myself about how easy it is to see how television
characters overreach and how hard it is to recognize that tendency
in myself.

Pablo left about 10:00 p.m. to go back to his
Longmont apartment because he had an early morning meeting. I
reviewed my notes for the next morning, took a long shower and went
to bed.

But I tossed and turned, unable to sleep as
worries crept in like a bunch of slimy squiggly garden worms
creating tunnels in my mind. I was too stubborn to admit it to
Pablo or Elisa, but deep down I was beginning to agree with them
that I might be in over my head. The more I thought about it, the
less I liked it. I had agreed to help because Angelica touched me
in a way I couldn’t explain. And because Tyler had repeatedly
insisted that I must help her. But now I was involved in a
duplicitous plot with Lacey, whose emotional stability was erratic
at best, and Shane, a slacker and petty criminal. None of this felt
good to me.

I slept fitfully for a bit, then woke up in a
sweat. What if Elisa’s warning about my safety was right? What if
the trap Lacey, Shane and I had set did lead to another murder? I’m
the adult professional here. Should I pull them back? Otherwise,
wouldn’t a bad outcome be my fault? I needed to step back and
rethink my involvement. I resolved to call Lacey and Shane the next
morning to call off the plan. We should go back to everyone we had
lied to about what Mirabel had said and tell them the truth.

Unfortunately, my second thoughts came too
late.

A frenzied pounding on my front door woke me
up at 6:00 a.m. My first sleepy inclination was to pull the covers
over my head and hope whoever was making the racket would go away.
But the knocking continued. As I grew more alert, I panicked. What
if something had happened to Pablo and the police were here to tell
me about it?

Swallowing my fear, I jumped out of bed, ran
to the living room and looked out a side window. No police. Instead
I saw Lacey, disheveled and weeping, banging frantically on my
door. “Cleo, wake up. Open up,” she howled.

I was so relieved not to see cops that I
wasn’t even irritated at Lacey for waking me with one of her
dramatic tantrums. I just opened the door and stood there waiting
to find out what she wanted. She nearly fell into my living room.
“Something horrible has happened,” she shrieked. “Grandad is dead.”
She fell against me, sobbing on my shoulder.