A Single Eye (43 page)

I had felt just like that climbing down the hill. I nodded, not that Leo noticed. But Amber's hands clenched into fists, her wide, smooth jaw clenched, and she looked on the verge of shouting: Don't give me this crap about anger!

Maureen I couldn't read at all. She was still shivering; she hadn't touched her tea. Her gaze was locked on Leo's but in an unfocused way, as if she was watching his words more than his face.

He put down the cup, moved his hands back to his lap, and said, “With a great force of will I kept myself from running up to the zendo, finding Ogata-roshi and Fujimoto-roshi and explaining. But I didn't want to appear foolish, see? So maybe ten minutes passed, and when I got halfway there I saw the two old men walking toward their van. I'd been so caught up in my anger I'd forgotten they were so close to leaving. They had to get to San Francisco for ceremonies before their flight home, so there wasn't much leeway.

“So I bowed to them, spoke carefully in what little Japanese I remembered so they would have to see I was sober, gave them the kind of formal farewell that was called for. I was thinking: I should have had everyone here for their send-off. They're noticing that. They're thinking I'm rude or incompetent. They bowed and I can't recall what they said because I wasn't ‘there.' I was in my own thoughts. And then they were gone.

“Afterward I remembered Aeneas, dressed in my robe, and it made perfect sense that he had waited for them on the road and that they took him because they couldn't bear to leave him here, with me. And based on that thought, I went back to my room and drank till I passed out.”

Maureen said, “But Roshi, I
saw
you come after him. I heard you threaten him. “

He nodded. Now they were staring eye to eye.

“You planted the red maple in a hurry and too close to the road.”

He said no more but their faces changed together. It was Maureen's I watched as the fear gave way to welcome shock, to belief, and then a flash of outrage.

“You suspected
me
of killing Aeneas?” she demanded in a wavering voice.

“Well, after I realized he was dead I did
think
. . .” And then he smiled.

I said, “And that's why you set up this last sesshin with the pressure of remembering Aeneas, right? For Maureen, to force her to face killing Aeneas?”

He acknowledged my comment with the smallest of nods. Maureen didn't react at all. So much had to be shifting in her mind now—Roshi
hadn't
killed Aeneas. He
hadn't
lied. His teaching
wasn't
tainted. Her practice
was
valid. The color was seeping back into her face. She had been given her life back. Her teacher whom she doubted, who she thought had replaced her with me, had rearranged this whole sesshin because he cared so much for her.

Their relief and joy filled the room. I sat basking in it, and at some point came the realization that I, too, had gotten life back, my life here with my teacher here. I had gotten back the Leo in the truck, the Roshi with the cocoa. The fire crackled; it was almost down to embers, but still the room seemed warm and safe and full of promise. Maureen and Roshi were still sitting silently, no longer staring eye to eye, but looking toward each other. They needed time alone. I braced my hands to push myself up and ease out.

“Hey!” Amber shouted. “This is all sweety sweety, but my brother is still lying dead under that fucking maple. And somebody here killed him.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-SIX

A
mber's words were like a bucket of cold water on the rest of us. In the relief about Roshi, we'd sidestepped the point that if he hadn't killed Aeneas, then someone else had.

“Roshi,” I said, “once you realized Aeneas hadn't left here, you figured he was dead, right? And you assumed Maureen killed him. Did you wonder about anyone else?”

But even as I asked it I knew the answer. If he had set up this practice period to allow Maureen to come to terms with her supposed guilt, he would do no less for his other students. He certainly wouldn't blurt out his suspicions in a group of four.

“Maureen? What about you? Who else—?”

But Maureen was in no condition to answer anything. Her hands were not merely quivering, they were shaking. She held them out, watching the fingers wriggle like worms. She had been near to emotional collapse in the fire tower hours ago. Of course, she had no reserve to deal with the idea that one of her other friends was a killer, one of the people she had assumed was safe.

“Amber, Barry's gone. Take Maureen to Barry's room above the chocolate kitchen. It'll be warm there. Get some food for her and stay with her. No one will know you're there. I'll show you where it is.”

I motioned her out, leaving Maureen and Roshi their time together.

The wind had picked up, moist with fog. I glanced up at the California night sky—dark, murky gray. Then, for the first time, I checked my watch and was shocked to find it was 9:25
P.M.
In fifteen minutes people would be pouring out of the zendo, Aeneas's killer included.

“You haven't answered me. What about my brother?” Amber demanded as we came abreast the bathhouse.

I motioned her inside. “Use it now. While no one's here.”

She froze. My commonplace comment had brought the danger home to her in a way that Roshi's description of her brother's death so long ago couldn't. I put my hand on her back and led her into the bathhouse.

“Amber, do you know anything that puts you in danger? Anything Aeneas told you? Anything you found out here?” She shook her head, but there was a tentative quality to the movement. “What about Justin? You were both here that weekend Aeneas died.”

“That weekend?”

She eased her buttocks against the edge of one of the sinks and looked nervously at the empty stalls a few feet away. The white tiles on the floor were muddy; the room cold. The chalky soap made it seem like any girls' room in any elementary school.

“You know what surprised me that weekend? That Aeneas was just the same. I mean, I thought, well, I hoped, that after he'd spent so long in a meditation center he would be, well, normal, you know? But there he was, still wandering around, picking up things like everything was his. Still in his own solitary world, except when he got obsessed and had to have something in the big world.”

“Something as mundane as a manila envelope?”

“I suppose,” she said tentatively. “He didn't just choose stuff for no reason. I mean, if it was pretty, or interesting, or important—”

“Important?”

She fingered a blob of pink soap hardening on the sink, scooping it onto her nail, looking at it without seeing.

“Well, you know, if someone treated it like it was valuable. Like the Buddha. He might have taken it because it's pretty, but definitely because it was on the altar.”

“Rob found the Buddha in his suitcase.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. Just that that's where Aeneas was when he lost interest in it.”

“But,” I said, thinking aloud, “if Aeneas picked up something, like that manila envelope, and the owner chased him, then Aeneas—”

“Right.” She flicked the soap off her nail, and turned to face me straight on. “When he was still at home, mornings were like chaos. My parents had to hide the car keys. I couldn't lay my homework down or he'd grab it. Anything any of us cared about was fair game, even Mom's shopping list, and umbrellas! We went through so many umbrellas that winter the guy in the store must have figured we were running a shelter.

“It's sad, really sad, but once he left for here, we all relaxed. My parents set their alarms for half an hour later. And when I came for the opening, I had a term paper due Monday. I'd actually gotten it done, but I'm a lousy typist and I absolutely had to read it over, even if it meant doing it in the car, with Justin. I did, and it was fine, but I was so nervous about Aeneas getting hold of it, I stuck it in the glove compartment and made Justin lock it and the car. Justin thought I was crazy. I mean, he had his college entrance essays with him—we figured things would be so boring at the monastery we'd have plenty of time to work. I told him to put them in the glove compartment, but he didn't believe me, not then.” She shrugged. “He thought I'd lost it. I could see that he thought I was going wacko, just like Aeneas.”

Her hand tightened on the sink. “Oh, god, it's so sad. I wish I never came to this miserable place. I wanted to learn about Aeneas but I didn't want to remember again. When I was with him I was a kid. I adored him; then I hated him; then he was a pain in the ass. But now, now that I can think what it was like for him, Oh, god, I just don't want to think about him actually dying.”

The small sweet bell pinged in the Zendo, ending the last sitting period. People would unbend their stiff legs, fluff their cushions, and prepare for the final three bows. In five minutes they would be in here.

“Amber,” I said, “The things that Aeneas snatched, can you be sure they were important to the owner? Aeneas could have misjudged, couldn't he?”

“No.” The sound was closer to a squeak than a word; she shook her head as if to amplify it. “No, never once in all the months he took stuff, never once did he take anything that didn't matter. You know what idiot savants are? Well, Aeneas was one when it came to knowing what was important to people. I mean, Darcy, it used to drive me crazy, the thing about my homework. So I tried to divert him by making a fuss over my coffee mug or a magazine. But it was like he
knew
, you know? I ended up thinking that his focus was so narrow that he was a master of what was in it. So, no, he never made a mistake. He only took what mattered.”

“And it went on for months?”

“Well, yeah. We hid stuff, my parents got locks. I mean, we weren't fools. Toward the end our house looked like we'd moved out. There was nothing personal around. It was only when company came there was a problem, and by then we didn't have . . . much company.” She swallowed hard, and hurried into the stall. She flushed twice, I'm sure to cover her sobs, and when she came back she stood at the sink, not washing, only letting the cold water run over her hands. “Whatever Aeneas took here, that day,” she said, “wouldn't someone have missed it?”

“Maybe,” I said.

But I didn't tell her Aeneas had fallen on top of the manila envelope, or that Maureen had buried it with him. I didn't explain that anyone chasing after Aeneas would have assumed that envelope was washing downstream.

I didn't tell Amber any of that. I just watched her reflection in the mirror, and mine. I looked awful, like I did after the worst hangover, my skin yellowy except for the dark circles under my eyes, my hair a tangle of greasy red curls clown-like against my deathly skin. But the shock was Amber. She looked like all the moisture had been drained from her cells. The plump promise of youth was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut against another onslaught of tears, and muttered, “I'm so scared.”

“You aren't a danger to anyone. You don't know anything, right?”

“Aeneas wasn't a danger. Whoever killed him, how can he be sure I don't know anything?” She took a breath and glared at me. “How do I know Maureen didn't kill him, and you're sending me to hide out alone with her?”

“She didn't.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove you didn't kill him.”

“What?”

“You could have. You were there. My point is you can't always prove someone didn't do something, you can only prove that they did. You're going to have to trust me.” Two bells sounded in the zendo—the final bow. I gave her a final squeeze and said, “Come on. We've got to move.”

We finished in the bathroom and hurried across the still-empty quad to the kitchen. As we reached the door, I heard the wooden clappers in the zendo, signaling people to turn and file out of the zendo for the night. To the students in there this was the end of the third rigorous day of sesshin, the turning point from days of exhaustion to days of calmer awareness. They would be relieved to finish it less tired than yesterday and thankful for that; in their perceptions life was slowing, like downshifting the truck. I envied them that moment when it happened, that clear, noticeable downshift, after which they would notice sounds of wind and birds and rustle of cloth unheard before, the comforting awareness of breath ebbing and flowing, the first inkling of freedom from the chatter of thought. Despite all that had happened Leo—Roshi—had preserved that for them.