I know that now, that day, though. I was captivated by the chase. I was inspired by the challenge to find a way to comfort her.
I was stupid.
I said. "Besides Clemens, do you have any other brothers or sisters?"
"You mean Huckleberry and Pudd'n head?"
My face obviously conveyed the fact that I believed her. I didn't consider that she'd probably used this line fifty times previously.
She said. "I'm kidding. It's just me and Clemens."
It would have been a perfect time for her to ask me about my family; or my siblings. Or where I was from. Or what I was doing at the medical school. But she didn't ask. If I had been paying attention, it would have taught me something important about Sawyer. But I wasn't and it didn't.
The ominous gray form of an approaching thunderstorm had been looming to the west from the moment we sat down on the restaurant patio. Presaging its arrival, wind began to gust through the nearby elms and one prodigious blow actually sent a limb flying from a big cottonwood across the street, the wind died after two or three minutes. Seconds later, the first sharp crack of lightning made it difficult for me to think, a second brilliant flash preceded a roaring clap of thunder by only seconds. Hail the size of baby peas began to pelt the canvas awning above our heads.
I stood to move inside.
Sawyer didn't.
"It's just a little thunder,” she said as a loud snap that sounded like a tree trunk breaking swallowed her words. I was torn between staying alive and staying in the presence of a captivating woman.
I sat back down.
The rest of the patio patrons had already scurried inside, the hail that was falling now was the size of acorns. I said. "Are you sure you don't want to go inside? We can watch the storm from there."
"People say these things pass in minutes most of the time in Colorado. It's not like back home. This is kind of fun. Let's wait it out. How many people actually get struck by lightning, anyway?"
I was thinking, very few. But I was also assuming that the statistics were heavily skewed by the fact that most people had the good sense to go indoors when lightning was illuminating their faces as brightly as a portrait photographer's flash. I figured that of the remaining few— those who insisted on remaining outside during thunderstorms— a reasonably high percentage was actually struck by lightning.
I also figured that, by and large, this natural selection tended to improve the gene pool.
I said. "You're sure?"
She parted her lips slightly and smiled a shy smile. Right then, for the first time. I began to believe my premonition that Sawyer had secrets. Immediately, I filed the thought away in a place that would make the insight difficult to retrieve.
Behind her in the parking lot, the hail was soon deep enough to shovel.
The thunderstorm was being pushed east by powerful winds aloft and it passed, thankfully, in minutes, the sky cleared first to the west, the hail turned quickly to rain and moments after that the brash sun was beating down on the ice balls that had accumulated in the parking lot. Sawyer had finished her beer. Our waitress finally decided it was safe to venture back out to the patio, and Sawyer called her over and ordered a Maker's Mark neat.
She said. "I’ve been curious about something. What made you think I wasn't going to read your note and decide you were some psycho?"
"I thought about it. I figured that I didn't have much to lose, anyway, most psychos, especially your successful ones, don't leave their names and phone numbers with their intended victims."
"You think you know a lot about psychos?"
"Yeah, I think I do. Enough anyway. I'm starting my internship in clinical psychology at the hospital in a couple of weeks. I'll probably learn a little more about psychos there."
I thought I saw her jaw muscles tense, she didn't say anything.
"After I decided to write the note. I assumed you would be either offended or intrigued by it, that you would decide that my gesture had been either terribly romantic or appallingly desperate."
"Which was it?"
I decided to be honest. "A little of both, probably."
She seemed to take a moment to process that. "Why? Why was it so important that you meet me?"
"I wasn't sure at first. I felt kind of crazy when you seemed to disappear from that office before I had a chance to, to ..."
"Try to pick me up?"
"Introduce myself. I still don't know what it was. You ever see somebody across a room and feel that your life is never going to be the same again? You ever have a day when gravity seemed to totally disappear?"
Sawyer didn't answer, her eyes skipped away. For ten seconds or so she wasn't even in my vicinity.
The waitress delivered Sawyer's whiskey, she took a long pull, downing half of it, and said. "And?"
With that solitary word, her voice was suddenly devoid of melody. I was surprised to feel a hard surface in there, somewhere. It was as though I'd bitten into the seed of a fresh cherry that I thought had already been pitted. What did I do? I spit it out and moved on.
"Well, that was what it was like when I saw you in the housing office that first time, and, believe me. I barely saw you. I didn't see your eyes that day. I didn't see you smile." I leaned across the table in my best imitation of a flirtatious pose. "I saw your neck and your hair and the tip of your nose and your lips, maybe your lips. I saw the skin on your shoulders. I didn't even know then that you're as"— I swallowed— "as lovely as you are. I just knew that I had to try and find out exactly what had happened between us in that room."
"And what might happen later? Right? You wanted to know that, too?"
"Yes. I wanted to know that, too."
She brought her hands together as though entering into a prayer, she raised them in front of her mouth. "Nothing happened between us that day; you know. I didn't even know you were there."
"When a radio station sends out a signal, it doesn't know who's listening. Far as I can tell, that doesn't detract from the message."
She ignored my analogy and said. "So what happens now, alan Gregory, note writer?"
"This." I waved my hand over the table as though I were a magician who could make cocktails and tortilla chips and frijoles disappear. "I get to begin the wonderful process of getting to know you."
"Do you?"
I sat back confidently. "Sure. I'll show you. Watch. What kind of doctor are you. Sawyer?"
She shook her head and pushed her chair back from the table. "No, that's not the way to know me. You'll have to find another way. You showed me you have some imagination. Really, that's why I'm here right now. You're going to have to use that imagination if you want to know me." I remember thinking that she looked playful. Though, in retrospect. I'm more certain she was looking smug.
"I can find out. I could call your work number again and ask what kind of clinic it is you work at, that's pretty easy."
"Knowing that won't tell you much."
"If I press Mona enough, she'll talk."
"Mona doesn't know."
"Doesn't know where you work?"
"Don't be silly."
"Doesn't know what, then?"
She nodded approvingly at my question, she said. "There you go." Abruptly, she leaned forward, her breasts crushed against the edge of the table, her eyes doing a private waltz just for me. "Do you want to sleep with me?"
I thought about it for the time that it took my eyes to blink. I said, "Yes, Sawyer, I do."
"Good," she said. "Now I know more than you do."
If I were truly insightful I would have recognized that Sawyer had just used sex to create a dangerous fjord between us.
I wasn't. I didn't.
EIGHT
Three relatively rare events occurred the morning after Arnie Dresser's funeral.
Lauren woke before I did.
I was hungover on good Riesling.
And I learned that the FBI was coming over for dinner.
I couldn't do anything about
the first two, the last one, though. I thought I could at least influence. I could call the motel where Simes and Custer were staying and cancel the repast that Lauren had arranged while I slept in. Canceling, however, felt more petulant than prudent. My other option. I decided, was to go along for the ride and bring an objective observer to the table.
Lauren was rushing out the door for an early appointment at the courthouse but said she had no objection to the second option, so I phoned Sam Purdy before I left for my office. Sam, a detective with the Boulder Police Department, had been my friend for a long time. If you asked, he would be happy to assert that he had been on a Christmas visit to his family in
Minnesota the night JonBenet Ramsey was killed, was never assigned to the case, and insisted he was "untainted" by the resulting fallout.
I explained to Sam about Arnie Dresser's funeral, the weird lunch in Silver Plume, and the two ex-FBI agents, he said it sounded like so much bullshit to him and asked me for the ex-agents' names. I told him, then, with increased interest evident in his voice, he asked what we were planning on having for dinner. I told him I didn't know for sure but it would probably be Thai something.
"Tie something what?"
"Thai, as in Thailand, asian food."
"Is it like Chinese?"
"No, different. Thailand. Sam. Curries, coconut milk, basil and cilantro, fish sauce, there are other Asian cuisines besides Chinese."
"Doesn't mean I want to know about them. Boulder has restaurants from countries that aren't even recognized by the UN, that serve food that isn't sold in any grocery store I've ever been in. I can't keep up, so I don't even try. I like Italian and Mexican, that's adventurous enough for me."
"I think you'll like dinner, almost for sure, we'll have salad and chicken and noodles and rice."
His voice took on a skeptical shadow. "But it's not going to be anything like my mom's chicken and rice.
Right?"
"Maybe a little spicier. Your mom's not Thai, is she?" I knew well that Sam's parents and their parents and probably their parents were from Minnesota's Iron Range.
"My mom thinks people from Milwaukee are foreigners."
"Don't worry. Sam, you'll like dinner. Can you do seven o'clock?"
"Yeah, Can I bring anything?"
"Just your skepticism."
"I never leave home without it. So, tell me, worldly one, do people from Thailand drink beer?"
"Absolutely. I'll get some Singha. Thai beer. Has jasmine in it."
He made some noise I interpreted as relating mild disgust. "Listen, one more thing."
"Yes?"
"Actually, two more things. Buy some Bud on your way home, and do I have to use chopsticks? I hate chopsticks."
"They're optional."
He said "Bueno."
I was glad that my Monday schedule was busy. I had eight patients to see between nine-thirty and six. I didn't want a lot of free time to think about Custer and Simes.
methodical murderers, and Sawyer Sackett, a full day of other people's problems was a perfect prescription for distraction from my own paranoia.
Diane's day was as frantic as my own: but she found a few minutes to come down the hall into my office for a brief visit after lunch.
"Well?"
Once Diane was in the loop, she acted as though she were the proprietress of the loop. No one else in the loop was permitted to be reticent. I knew all those rules, so I filled her in on the latest developments.
"Lauren and I are having the FBI over for dinner tonight. I've invited Sam to sit in."
"Really— a local cop and the feds at the same table. You're trying to see if oil and water really do mix?"
"I just want his take on things, he's smart. I'm kind of hoping he'll convince me that they're blowing smoke."
She seemed amused at my capacity for denial. "You thought any more about Sawyer since last night?"
I lied. I said. "No. Diane, that was a long time ago."
"So was the Holocaust. But for some reason I just can't understand, the Jews are still suspicious. Come on, certain things are hard to forget, alan, and most of the time, they really shouldn't be forgotten."
I didn't respond immediately.
"Do I need to expound on my analogy? How about black America, lynching, and the KKK? Does that ring a bell?"
"You're being a little over-the-top. Diane. I haven't forgotten about Sawyer, but I'm not terribly eager to revisit all that, either."
"You know, until lately with Lauren. I've never considered your relationships with women to be the most mature comer of your personality; but whatever it was that went on between you and Sawyer was an absolute nadir, and certainly not a paradigm of mental health. Yours or anyone else's."
"Including hers?"
"Including hers, maybe especially hers. You two were a pair back then. Oh my. Jesus."
"Thanks for your confidence. But I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't at least a little bit afraid it would happen all over again, that I'll see her once, and..."
"And, let me make a guess. Your testicles will once again swell until they're bigger than your brain?"
"Something like that."
She smiled at some idea she was having before she said. "You know, alan, maybe .., maybe Sawyer's gotten fat and ugly, maybe there really is a god or a god-ette whose sole role in heaven is to exact retribution from beautiful blondes with great bodies."
"She was your friend. Diane."
"And what? I can't be jealous of my friends? What planet do you live on?"
"When I find her— if I decide I need to find her— how about this? I'll bring her over to your house to meet Raoul, he'll—"
"No. No, no, no. You keep Sawyer away from Raoul, alan, the man is weak. I tell you, he's weak. Sawyer's a natural blonde and Raoul's currently on this Marilyn Monroe nostalgia kick that worries me no end. You haven't been over to the house for a while, but we now have Marilyn coasters in our living room and there are old Life magazines everywhere."
I tried to picture it. "Marilyn Monroe tchotchkes along with that big Neiman of the World Cup over the sofa? Oooh, that must be a good look. Now there's a decorator's dream."
She laughed. "I'm embarrassed to admit that Raoul bought yet another masterpiece by the God. LeRoy. This one's bullfighting, for heaven's sake, the World Cup is now in our bedroom." She glanced at her watch and warned. "Don't say what you're thinking. Listen, I have a patient to see, one whose denial, by the way, doesn't even begin to approach yours, we'll continue this later."
I checked the little light on the wall of my office that indicated that my next patient had arrived as well. "My next patient's here, too, See you."
• • •
Lauren made it home from the DA's office before I made it home from my practice, she'd been busy; she had a green papaya salad chilling in the refrigerator along with a huge platter of chicken breasts marinating in something that was redolent of fish sauce and hot chili oil and cilantro. I was left with the easy work: getting the jasmine rice started in the rice cooker and throwing together some sesame noodles with green onions.
The day had been warm, almost hot, and I suspected we would be eating out on the deck to take advantage of the evening breezes. But Lauren had stacked plates and napkins and glassware and chopsticks and silverware on top of the pool table that consumed the center of the dining room, which indicated to me that we were going to be unfolding our dining room table from its home against the east wall and dining inside.
As we struggled to move the heavy fruitwood table out into the room. I asked her why we were eating in instead of out.
"I told you. Dr. Simes has MS, she'll be more comfortable in here with the air conditioning."
"You're that sure she has MS?"
"Yes." With that she started downstairs to rest before everyone arrived, she was gripping the handrail tightly as she descended the stairs. I pulled the rica cooker from the pantry and started water boiling for the noodles.
As I ho
ped he would. Sam arrived before Simes and Custer, he'd driven his own car, an old fire-red Jeep Cherokee, but he was still in his work clothes, which always seemed to include a plaid shirt and pastel tie. This sport coat was green corduroy. I wasn't sure I'd seen it before and wondered if he'd actually bought new clothing.
Under his right arm, he was carrying his very own six-pack of Bud.
Emily, our Bouvier, greeted him like an old friend. Few visitors were spared Emily's usually ferocious welcome, but she'd liked Sam right from the first time they'd met.
I thanked him for coming over and took his six-pack to the refrigerator. Since one of my responsibilities in life is expanding Sam Purdy's narrow cultural horizons, I poured him a Singha instead of a Budweiser and carried it to him in the living room, where he was sitting on the sofa, talking on the telephone, he pointed at his pager and I handed him the beer.
I prayed he wasn't going to get called away before he had a chance to size up Simes and Custer for me.
After a minute or so he hung up and took a long draw on the beer. His mustache was dotted with foam.
"My page? Lucy's warning me about a call, there's a house with a suspicious smell in North Boulder, she's getting a warrant so she can go in, she'll call if it turns out to be what it smells like."
"You'll have to go?"
"Yeah, I'll have to go." He held up the beer glass and smiled at me warmly. "Now, why don't you stop messing with me and go get me a Budweiser. This tastes like somebody dropped a gardenia in it." Sam's wife, sherry, was a florist. Generally, he knew his flowers. Not this time.
"Jasmine," I corrected.
He laughed. "You're confusing me with someone who gives a shit."
Lauren came upstairs and embraced Sam, who pecked a kiss to her cheek, she looked lovely in a long rayon skirt and a small black knit shell that was supported by straps thinner than the tender noodles I was cooking in the kitchen. But Lauren also looked tired.
"You nap?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I'm way too nervous about all this."
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