Too Far Under (6 page)

“That’s terrific news,” I said, hugging him
and kissing him back. “A great way to start this beautiful
weekend.”

“Exactly,” he said with another big smile.
“We’re headed for some fun. The wedding’s going to be a great party
and today is a perfect day to drive into the mountains.”

We decided to take the slightly longer route
to Estes Park along the Peak-to-Peak Highway where we’d get the
most stunning display of fall color. In Colorado we don’t have the
full palette of autumn color that many other states do. Our
dominant color is the brilliant golden yellow of aspens. The sight
of luminous yellow leaves sparkling in the sunlight, set off by the
dark green evergreens, is truly spectacular. It was a gorgeous day
and I relaxed into it for a while as we drove up Boulder
Canyon.

But my thoughts kept drifting back to Mia. I
needed to know more about her and why she was visiting. I waited to
see if Pablo would bring her up. Big surprise—he didn’t. So as we
got close to Nederland at the top of the canyon, I turned toward
him and said in what I hoped was an interested-but-not-accusatory
tone of voice, “I don’t recall you ever telling me about Mia
before.”

Pablo kept his eyes on the road. “Nothing to
tell. I knew her a long time ago.”

I waited a minute to see if he’d go on, but
he didn’t so I forged ahead. “So what’s she doing here now?”

He continued to look straight ahead. Well
okay he was driving, but a few seconds of eye contact wouldn’t be
all that dangerous. His answer was brief. “She’s visiting her
cousins in Denver and checking out a couple of job possibilities.
Hey, look at that bunch of aspen on the right up ahead.” He pointed
at a gorgeous stand.

I took a minute to enjoy the sight. I’m used
to Pablo changing the subject when I ask a sensitive question. He
doesn’t like confrontation, even when it’s gentle. I respect that
to a certain extent, but this time I felt he owed me at least some
explanation. So I got back to business. “Mia’s looking at jobs—does
that mean she might be moving here?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you hoping she does?”

“What’s with all the questions, Cleo? Mia’s
just a friend. Here we are lucky enough to have hit the peak
weekend for fall color. Let’s enjoy it.”

I took a few minutes to think and admire the
scenery before I answered. I was frustrated with his responses, but
he had a point about the peak weekend. It can be tricky to get into
the mountains at just the right time to see the aspens turning and
today as we drove along the winding highway, curve after curve
revealed yet another stand of glowing trees. I didn’t want to ruin
a good time by continuing to push him.

It occurred to me that Pablo’s and my
relationship had as many twists and turns as this road. Sixteen
years ago when we were twenty-one-year-old art students in love, I
thought Pablo was my soul mate. Back then our future together
stretched out in my mind’s eye like a long sandy beach where the
sun reflects off the crashing waves day after day as we stroll
hand-in-hand through the surf. But Pablo’s mind’s eye held a
different vision—one that left me here in Boulder while he went off
traveling the world to find his artistic voice. It took me nearly a
year to accept that he was really gone and not coming back any time
soon. Once the shock finally wore off, I got over being left, and
began to see my future without Pablo. I moved on with my life and
into other relationships—some intense and even serious.

When Pablo moved back to Boulder ten years
ago, I was so over him. No way did I want to open myself up to that
kind of hurt again. But in the last few years we’ve gradually
drifted back together. One reason is that we know each other inside
and out and we have fun together. Another is great sex. But I don’t
have those old illusions about where we’re headed. Now that he’s a
cop I’m not thinking he’ll leave town on a whim and be gone for
years. But he likes to keep his options open. And I’m liking that
freedom too. We don’t have any claim on each other.

Like Elisa said, I don’t want commitment
right now, so why does it bother me when he pays attention to
someone else? Am I like some petulant two-year-old who wants only
the toys someone else is playing with? I knew I needed to sort out
my feelings about the Pablo and Mia thing and he clearly didn’t
want to talk about Mia, at least not right now. So I decided to
drop the questions until I had more time to think about what I
wanted to say.

“You’re right,” I said. “It is a gorgeous day
and I’m ready for some relaxation. This thing with Gramma is
driving me crazy.”

“She has to move? That’s a shame. What’s the
deal?”

I filled him in on the meeting at Shady
Terrace and what Tim Grosso had told me. “And from what Tim said
last night I’ll have to act quickly to get her a place,” I
continued, “so this morning I dropped in on one of the possible
nursing homes she could maybe go to. Tim said visiting unannounced
is the best way to see what a place is really like, especially if
you go on a weekend when staffing is lighter.”

“Where did you go?”

“Easy Living Care Center. I picked that one
because one of Grampa’s old friends, Dr. Loberg, moved there after
his stroke and I’ve been meaning to visit him. I figured I could
check the place out and look in on Dr. Loberg at the same
time.”

“How was it?”

“Not great. When I got there it was nearly
11:00 and Dr. Loberg was in his room, still in his pajamas. Then an
aide came in and told him he needed to stop fooling around and let
them dress him in time for lunch. I left and went down to the
dining room. There were a bunch of residents slumped in wheelchairs
outside the door waiting for lunch. When lunch got started at about
11:15, I noticed three nurse aides standing by the wall chatting
instead of helping residents who couldn’t feed themselves. That’s
definitely a deal-breaker for Gramma, since she eats pureed food
and usually needs help at the table.”

“Sounds grim. I’m so sorry, Cleo. Your
grandmother is a terrific lady and I know how much you care about
her.” He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “Do you think
there’s any possibility Shady Terrace won’t go through with the
closing if enough families complain? Or what about calling the
paper and getting the corporation some bad publicity?”

I teared up a little at the love and sympathy
I felt from Pablo. He knew me so well and he’d known Gramma before
the Alzheimer’s hit, so he could really understand what I was going
through and how much I was worried about her.

“No,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I don’t think
any of that will help. Elisa says the developer who’s buying the
place—his name is Hugh Symes—has been trying to get his hands on
that land for years. Apparently he’s not the sympathetic type who’d
care that he’s displacing a bunch of old people.”

“You’ve got that right. Symes is one of those
guys who does what he wants and then later says, ‘Oh did I run over
your foot? Well you shouldn’t have been standing so close to my
car.’” Pablo suddenly swerved off into a turnout where we could
look at the trees back down the valley. We got out of the car,
Pablo gave me a big hug, and I kind of collapsed on his shoulder
for a minute. Then we turned arm-in-arm to the stunning display of
leaves below, oohing and ahhing like tourists.

When we were back in the car driving along
the highway again, I asked, “So you know Hugh Symes?”

Pablo clenched his teeth and tightened his
face in that way he does when he takes a dim view of someone or
something. “More like I know about him,” he said grimly. “There are
lots of nasty Symes stories out there. Like last year he was
getting ready to build on some land he owns when the animal-rights
activists started protesting that he was going to be destroying
prairie dog burrows and that those prairie dogs had to be relocated
before he could build. You know Boulder has those laws against
killing prairie dogs or damaging their burrows unless you have a
permit. Well, those permits aren’t easy to get. First, you have to
make what they call reasonable efforts to relocate the prairie dogs
to an approved site.”

“Who approves it? The prairie dogs or the
city? Do the prairie dogs insist on mountain views like everyone
else in Boulder?” I’m not unsympathetic to wildlife preservation,
but sometimes the way we talk about issues in Boulder can be so
holier-than-thou I can’t resist poking fun. Plus I wanted to see if
I could get Pablo to lighten up.

I succeeded. His face relaxed and he laughed.
“Very funny, Cleo. Maybe you’re more like Symes than you think.
Anyway if developers can’t get the prairie dog colony moved, they
can apply for a permit to use lethal control, but the permits can
take more than a year to get after all the reviews and cost
thousands of dollars, and Symes didn’t want to mess with all that.
He just wanted to get on with his development.” Pablo shook his
head and took on that disapproving look again. “Somehow some of his
workers plowed the burrows under, which Symes later said was all a
big mistake, that he wasn’t there when it happened, the workers
didn’t speak English, yada yada yada.”

I shook my head right along with him at that
point. “Wow! Power triumphs again! Didn’t the city do anything
about it?”

Pablo gave an exasperated sigh. “One of
Boulder’s local activists was pushing the city attorney into filing
criminal charges against him, but then she drowned in her hot tub
and I guess the other people in the prairie dog group didn’t feel
like pursuing it, so Symes got away with it.”

Wait a minute! I gasped and almost grabbed
Pablo with both hands as I tried to digest this stunning news. But
even in my agitated state I realized that pouncing on him
physically wasn’t a good move while he was negotiating mountain
curve. Instead I pulled back and screeched at him. “Drowned in her
hot tub! Was that Mirabel Townes?” How did this woman’s name keep
popping up? Could Tyler be sending me hints?

“Right,” Pablo said. “Did you know her?”

I could have just said, “No, I don’t know
her,” and left it at that, which probably would have been better,
but I decided to go ahead and tell him about Lacey’s issues. I took
a deep breath and said, “No, I never met Mirabel Townes, but her
daughter Lacey is in my class and yesterday she told me she and her
younger sister think someone pushed Mirabel under and drowned her.
They want me to help them contact her to find out what
happened.”

“What?” Pablo turned to face me and nearly
slammed into the back of a car that had slowed down to take in the
view. His good mood had taken a definite nosedive this time.
“Dammit, Cleo. I thought you had enough of that last summer when
you almost got yourself killed.”

I knew he didn’t want me getting involved
with another possible murder. But I’m an adult and bottom line I
get to make my own choices. So I didn’t give an inch. “Back off,
Pablo,” I said. “You’re going to kill both of us if you don’t pay
more attention to your driving.”

But he didn’t back off. He scowled and said,
“How about you don’t smack me with ugly news while I’m driving
then?”

What happened to enjoying the day? I took a
calmer tone “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I was just telling you
what Lacey said to me, what she asked me to do. Why do you have to
react so fast and get all bossy and overprotective?”

“Cleo, I don’t want to tell you what to do,
but I don’t want you in danger either.”

“I hear you,” I said. “And I know your
concern comes from caring about me, but I have a lot to consider in
this situation. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, so can
we let it go for now?”

“Okay, Cleo,” he said with a sigh. “I hope
you use good sense making your decision, and I don’t want to talk
about it now either. We’re almost to Estes, so how about we head
straight for the park so we can get in a hike before the wedding.
We could both use some exercise to work off our stress.”

I agreed, so we went right through the town
of Estes to Rocky Mountain National Park, home of some of the most
fantastic mountain scenery in the world. It’s only an hour from
Boulder, but I don’t go there nearly as often as I wish I did. It’s
one of those places people come from all over the world to see, but
because I know it’s right next-door—well, you know how that
goes.

October is elk mating season at the park so
there were lots of elk and tourists everywhere. We stopped briefly
at Moraine Park to watch some male elk butting heads, each trying
to win the right to mate with a nearby female elk. As I watched, I
couldn’t help but think that while facing conflict head on may be
violent, it has the advantage of being clean and quick.

We sat silently as we drove on along the
curvy Bear Lake Road to the Glacier Gorge parking lot where a
popular trail leads along Glacier Creek to Alberta Falls, less than
a mile each way. I wanted to focus on the scenery, but I couldn’t
get the Townes family out of my head. I truly didn’t know what to
do about Lacey and Angelica Townes’ suspicions about Mirabel’s
drowning. Tyler had been—for him—very clear about what I should do.
And Tyler is a determined spirit who finds ways to get me to follow
his directions. But if Lacey is a drama queen and Angelica some
sort of precocious psychic kid, Elisa might be right about them
being trouble for me. And—despite what Pablo might think—I’m not
looking for trouble.

Plus, it had only been twenty-four hours
since I’d found out that I had to find a new place for Gramma to
live, and apparently I’d have to act quickly. So should I start
with that and put other unpleasant stuff out of my mind?

As we hiked along the creek, I played a game
I sometimes use, where I mentally toss my problems into the creek
and let them pitch and bob along beside me. It helps me prioritize,
as in my mind’s eye I see some issues sail to the front while
others barely remain afloat. I know, it sounds like
Tyler-the-surfer has gotten to me with his water imagery, but trust
me, I was doing this long before he showed up.