by Cliff Black
The city police came, examined my door, took pictures and fingerprints, and asked me a lot of questions–which I mostly evaded. They left after trying to convince me that a student had been after tests, or grades, or something like that. Then I spent some time on the phone making arrangements for Natasha to stay at the college dorm for a month or two. And I spent some time with my insurance agent and some with a contractor who promised to come by the next day and give me a bid to replace my door and frame. I opted for a steel frame and door this time.
The last thing I did was call Arthur McLaughlin. When he came on the line I said, “Philo came by my house today, Arthur. My time and the cost of repairs will be added to my next bill.”
“What are you talking about, Corbin?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Arthur.”
When Nat came in from soccer practice, I explained the situation and asked if she’d mind spending a few weeks living at the dorm again.
She thought about it for a minute and then said, “I don’t mind if you think it’s the best thing to do. I don’t want you worrying about my safety.”
“I hope it’s the right thing,” I said. “I think I know who’s responsible for the break in and what he was after. I don’t think he’s aware that I have a daughter living with me, and I’d as soon he didn’t find out. I don’t know how far he’d go, but any of these cretins could easily get to me through you. I’ve checked with housing at the college. There are a few openings at the dormitories. Do you have any friends living there with room for another girl?”
Nat thought a moment and then said, “There’s some of the team members who live in the dorm. I’ll see if one of them has a vacant bed.”
“I’ll appreciate it, missy. Try to have someone with you all the time, and keep your cell phone handy.”
“What about my revolver?” Nat asked. “I can hardly sleep with it under my pillow in the dorm.”
“Leave it here.”
“How about I put it in my car?”
“Lock it in the trunk then. And don’t have it loaded.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next Wednesday I ate lunch in the cafeteria again. I had a feeling I was forgetting something. I called Ezzy. I lucked out and caught him at the office.
“How, Geronimo,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning.”
“I’m at the college. Don’t you have my cell number?”
“Give it to me again.”
He repeated it back to me, and then said, “Hey, Geronimo. I have to go to Glenwood Springs for a Sheriff’s Conference this weekend. I’d like to take Evelyn with me. How do you feel about doing some dog sitting?”
And then I remembered. I hadn’t called the Sheriff in Hawthorne, Nevada. I hoped he’d have a photo of James W. Smith. “Listen, Ezzy, assuming Jimmy Smith is on Virginia's trail and is in the Four Corners country, how can I locate him?”
“A man's gotta live. He maintained slots in Reno. Check out the Indian casinos.”
“Sounds like a plan. I'm gonna call the sheriff in Hawthorne and see if I can get a photo. Other than that, I have no plans for the weekend. I’ll be glad to look after Oscar. When you leaving?”
“I finish my shift at four on Friday. With any luck we’ll be on the road by five. I’d like to get to Montrose to spend the night. We were there on our honeymoon. It will probably be a little after six by the time we get to your place.”
“I can stay up that late,” I said with a touch of sarcasm.
About three o’clock Friday afternoon, my plans changed. Shelly called me.
“Corbin,” she said with a scolding tone. “You’ve been avoiding me. Collins didn’t scare you off, did he?”
“Been busy. I got stuck with some night classes. What’s happening in your world?”
“I think this house is sold. We’re supposed to close Tuesday.”
“And then what are you going to do?”
“I’ll have thirty days to move out. I’ll find an apartment–something I can afford–and I’ll stage one gigantic yard sale. I’ll have to live within my means again.”
I didn't think she'd called just to chit-chat, so I asked, “You want to do something tonight?”
“That’s why I called. We never did have the barbeque I promised you. Our team is playing the last game of the season at five o’clock tonight. I probably won’t pitch. We’re playing Ignacio. They don’t take the game seriously enough to beat us on their best day. Why don’t you come to the game, and then we can come here and cook some steaks. Do you want to invite Ezzy and Evelyn?”
“I would, but they’re leaving for the weekend.”
“Bring your swim suit if you want. We could have a swim or sit in the hot tub.”
That sounded tempting. “You’re playing in Cortez?”
“Same place.”
“I’ll be there. Oh, wait a minute, I promised Ezzy I’d look after his pup. Do you mind having some canine company?”
She hesitated at that. “What kind of a dog is he?”
“‘Comes from a long line of the smartest sheep dogs in Arizona.’” I quoted the man who should have owned Oscar. “He’s kinda special, saved my life last spring.”
There was a long pause before she said, “Well, all right, as long as you keep him tied up. I’m not a dog lover.”
Strike three! I didn’t take my swim suit.
I called Ezzy, told him my plans, and asked if he could drop Oscar off at the ball field in Cortez. He liked the arrangement. He figured it would save him at least twenty minutes. I told him to bring a long rope.
The game was in the sixth inning, and Cortez was ahead ten to three when Ezzy brought Oscar to me. He had about thirty feet of cord tied to Oscar’s collar. I was sitting about six rows up. Ezzy brought Oscar up the bleachers, handed me the rope, told Oscar to stay with me and be a good dog. Then he left.
Oscar tried to follow, but I held him back. He followed Ezzy with his eyes then turned and looked at me. He looked back at Ezzy and barked once. Then he lay down on the narrow board by my feet with his nose on his front paws. Occasionally, he’d roll his eyes up and look sorrowfully at me.
After the game, Shelly met me by the bleachers and said, “You’ll have to follow me. I don’t want dog hair in the Jag.”
Fine with me. I led Oscar to my pickup, opened the back of my shell, and let down the tailgate. I patted the tailgate once and Oscar jumped in. “Good boy,” I said, and tousled the soft fur behind his ears. He tried to lick my face.
Shelly’s place was nearly the last house up the hill past the golf course. It was a rambling Pueblo design that seemed to go clear up and around the corner. There was a police car and a van parked out front when we arrived. Shelly hit a remote button in her car and the first of three garage doors slid up. She skidded to a stop inside, leaped out, and went through a utility room and out the back door in a blur. I had the window down in my pickup. As I rolled to a stop in front of the second garage door, I heard her yell, “What do you think you're doing down there?”
I got Oscar from the back of the truck and followed Shelly through the garage and utility room to the back yard. A cop was holding a paper out to Shelly and saying, “. . . order to dig up your rose garden.”
I saw two men digging a trench between rose bushes in the far back-left corner of the yard.
“A court order?” Shelly yelled. “What idiot asked for a court order? What panty waist judge signed it?”
“Judge Belnap. I’m really sorry about this, ma'am, but the District Attorney got the order, and we have to do it. We’re about done. We haven’t found anything but dirt. We’ll leave you alone as soon as we can.”
“Like hell you will. You’re not leaving here until that garden is just the way you found it. And if any of my roses are damaged . . . .”
“What do you care?” the cop said. “I hear you’ve sold the place.”
“I haven’t seen any money yet, and besides, I planted those roses. What d
id you think you would find? Do you think I’m stupid enough to bury my husband in my own yard? I’ll bet that nosey old lady Ortiz put you up to this, didn’t she? Why don’t you go dig up her yard?”
“Well, you did haul in a lot of top soil; and there seemed to be quite a bit more than you needed; and we couldn’t help but wonder why you’d spend the money to put in a big rose garden when you knew you were only going to sell the place.”
“What a pack of fools. How did I know Barry wasn’t coming back? It isn’t bad enough that he runs out on me, and I have to sell this place, but now I have to put up with the Keystone Kops. Where’s that chicken Sergeant Collins, anyway? Was this his idea? Is it so hard to understand that I like roses? Couldn’t I think a new owner might like them too? And who knows how long it’s going to take to sell a place like this? And now that I might have a buyer, how am I going to explain dead rose bushes?”
Shelly didn’t stop there. She was on a roll, and she was mad. She read that poor cop the riot act for another ten minutes.
The back yard was terraced down from right to left, and front to back with intermittent stone outcrops forming the terraces. That made the rose garden and a patch of grass on this side of the roses the lowest point in the yard.
The back door we’d come through put us on an upper terrace. Stone paving continued to my left to form a sheltered patio. Beyond the patio was a stone-paved deck surrounding a swimming pool, and extending back so far there was a steep drop to the lawn by the rose garden.
Shelly finally ran down and motioned me to some deck chairs by the far end of the pool. We sat there and watched while the workmen finished filling in their latest excavation. Shelly was visibly upset and silent, so I didn’t break into her thoughts. I wondered if the cops really thought Barry might be buried in the rose garden, or if they were only trying to rattle Shelly.
The lot the house was on must have contained an acre. The back yard, where there wasn’t paving or rock outcrops, was in grass, trees, shrubs, or flowers. The grounds had to have been designed by a landscape architect and professionally executed. I had to wonder how much the place was selling for. I didn’t dare ask.
I had Oscar on a short rope lying by my chair. Whenever he tried to get up, I’d force him back down again. He wanted to go investigating. He was as curious as I.
After a long silence, I finally said, “This place must cost a fortune to maintain,” It was mostly an attempt to lighten the mood.
“It does. Another reason I have to sell it. I like to work in the yard–something Barry didn’t approve of–but there’s no way I can keep up with all this by myself. Two landscape men come every Wednesday and spend half the day.”
When the diggers packed up their shovels and left, Shelly said to me, “Let’s go see what kind of an unholy mess they’ve left me with.”
From the stone-paved terrace behind the garage, there was a flagstone path way that meandered over the terraces and down to the rose garden. Oscar marked the lower corner of an outcrop, which elicited a sour expression from Shelly.
As we descended, I became aware of the sound of running water and saw on a flat spot below the swimming pool, what looked like twin springs about six feet apart. The water from the springs went over a five-foot cliff in two waterfalls; then the streams ran together and disappeared over another rock outcrop in a single waterfall.
As we walked down the last set of steps onto the level grassy area next to the rose garden, the fragrance was intoxicating. I saw that the last rock outcrop was undercut and the water plunged into an irregular shaped pool, about ten feet by five feet, tucked up against the undercut stone face.
“Hey, I like the water feature,” I said. “What with the roses, wonderful Fung Shua or whatever they call it.”
“I designed it myself. Do you really like it?”
“I do. This would be a great place to read or take a nap. I can see me lying in the shade listening to the falls while a slave girl feeds me grapes.”
“In your dreams!” she said, but she almost smiled before she continued, “The new owners liked it, too, and they liked the rose garden. I guess my addition didn’t hurt anything.”
“Who are the new owners?”
Instead of answering, Shelly said, “Look at this. They’ve left dirt all over in the grass, and would you look at the way they’ve dug by my roses? It will be a miracle if they survive.”
The roses looked okay to me, but then, I was more interested in the creature comforts. Like a clump of birch between the stairs and the pond, and an outdoor recliner facing the waterfall and placed to take advantage of the shade.
“I’ll bet you’re gonna miss this yard,” I said.
“This was my favorite spot,” she said. “I come down here on my days off with a magazine and the telephone and just hang out–unless it gets too warm. The back yard was only sand and rock when I came here. After much nagging and pleading Barry let me put in the landscaping, but he didn’t like the idea of roses. I had to wait until he was gone to level this out and put them in. I wish he could see how great it turned out. The perfume in the morning or in the evening is almost overpowering.”
“Where does the water come from?” I asked.
“It re-circulates. There are two pumps, one on each end, under the rocks. They pump the water to the top, and it runs back down.”
“Don’t you lose a lot of water?”
“Not really. There’s an automatic make-up valve to replenish the pond, but we don’t lose much. The pond is lined with a sheet of rubber, and there’s rubber under the stream beds. We put rocks on the bottom and around the edge to hide the rubber.”
She was silent a minute and then said, “I guess you’re hungry, aren’t you? I’ve about lost my appetite with those Neanderthals tearing everything to pieces.”
I didn’t know what to say. I watched Oscar sniffing at the rocks along the pool edge and wondered if I should offer to take Shelly to a restaurant. I was willing, but what would I do with the pup?
Before I could come up with a suitable response she said, “Let me get a quick shower and some fresh clothes. Maybe I can shake this off.”
“Take your time,” I said. “I’ll try out your recliner and enjoy the sunset.”
Shelly’s recliner was like being cradled in rose petals, and I hadn’t been sleeping well–mostly due to night classes and the conflict I was having with Bloody Mary. I dozed off.
I awoke with a start to hear Oscar scratching away by the pond. I got up and went closer in the dim light. He was trying to dig under the rocks and the cement holding them in place.”Cut that out, Oscar. You’ll get us thrown out without supper.” I pushed the dirt he’d excavated back into the hole with my foot and tamped it down. “Come on, pup. I think I’d better take you to the pickup while I see what the prospects are for something to eat.”
When I got to the upper terrace, Shelly was dragging a gas barbeque out through the back door of the garage and onto the flagstone patio near the pool.
“I wondered if I'd have to go after you,” she said. “Were you asleep down there?”
“I was. It was so comfy I dozed off. I’m gonna tie Oscar to the bumper of my truck where he can’t get in trouble. Then I’ll come help.”
“There’s a plate of steaks on the freezer–to your right inside the door. Bring them when you come back. And don’t let that dog get them.”
I tied Oscar up and came back to get the steaks. I hadn’t paid much attention to the drive and the garage when we first arrived, but this place reeked of money. The triple-wide driveway was paved with dark red brick. The garage floor was some kind of artificial tile in a medium reddish tan color with a darker strip about two feet from the walls as an accent. The utility rooms, which ran all across the back of the garage had Mexican tile floors. The roof throughout was supported by huge exposed log beams that had been stained and varnished. I noted a heavy steel eye-bolt screwed into a beam near the chest type freezer. It would make a perfect place to hang a de
er carcass.
The utility rooms were almost an extension of the garage. When I stepped inside from the patio, I looked to my right for the steaks. It was the side toward the house. There was a free standing wall dividing the utility room from the garage stall where the Jag was parked. The freezer was against this inside wall, and the washer and dryer were opposite against the outside wall. Beyond the appliances was a door into the house proper.
The room to the left was bigger, as it took up the space behind two garage stalls. The architect had probably figured on the space being used for a shop. In this house it was used for a few garden tools, a weight and exercise room, and sports equipment. I saw two golf bags, and a rack containing bats, balls, and gloves.
Man, I thought, as I picked the plate of steaks off the freezer. All this place needs is a three-car hobby garage somewhere, and it would be perfect. I chuckled to myself at the idea. I hadn’t even been in the house proper. My priorities were obvious.
While the steaks cooked, I fantasized about living in a place like this with money to burn and no Bloody Mary to put up with. I needed to win the lottery, and marry Shelly. I wondered if the amenities here would be enough to sway Natasha. I decided after sober deliberation they probably would not.
Shelly seemed preoccupied–and I understood why. Since she wasn’t in a talkative mood, I was left to wonder what she would think about a driveway past the attached garage to a garage for antique cars on the high side of the back yard. Maybe I should make it big enough for a shop too. No, that would ruin too much landscape. I wondered how much rock I’d hit if I put a basement under the garage, and how to support a concrete garage floor over a basement? It would never happen, but it was fun to think about..