The Zen Man (7 page)

I opened my door a few inches.

Muttering something about idiots intent on more jail time, she jammed her foot on the gas. The Durango jerked down the driveway, then stopped abruptly. After killing the engine, she began yanking on one of her leather gloves. “With two of us grabbing that stuff, this will go twice as fast.”

We got out of the car, careful to shut our doors quietly, and headed to the garage door. I lifted the handle. It rumbled and creaked as I lifted it three, four feet—enough for Laura and I to slip underneath.

Seconds later, we stood in the shadowy room, inhaling the stench of oil and mildew as our eyes adjusted to the bulky shadows.

“She’s a packrat,” Laura muttered.

The light from underneath the garage door cast bluish shadows on stacks of crates and boxes crammed against the walls, leaving barely enough room for a car to park.

“Trash cans at ten o’clock,” I said, pointing to several barrel-shaped containers.

We hustled over, set the lids on the ground, and were lifting out plastic bags when Laura stifled a gasp.

“What?”

“To our right,” she whispered.

I turned. My gut shriveled.

Four green eyes, about three feet high, stared at us in silence. From their bulk, the sheen off their short hair, and the massive heads, I guessed them to be mastiffs. Had to be pushing a hundred and fifty pounds each, a fact I knew from a case where my client had been attacked by one, resulting in fifty stitches and a funny gait. Of all the memories I’d lost, hell of a one to remember.

They must have entered from some gargantuan doggie door after hearing us in the garage, but why hadn’t they yapped at us like normal, over-zealous dogs protecting their property? Their silence was more foreboding than any crazed barking.

One pair of green eyes blinked.

The other set, followed by a bulky mass of bad, stepped forward.

“Don’t make eye contact,” I whispered in a scratchy voice, “and back slowly to the garage door.”

A low, curdling growl filled the room as the second dog moved forward.

“Hold your trash bag…in front of you…” That garage door felt a mile away.

The bulky beasts tracked our slow, laborious path, snarling and growling their displeasure at the unwanted visitors. It felt as though we were traveling a millimeter a minute, that we’d never get there, when, miraculously, we reached the garage door.

“Laura,” I whispered, “put down your bag, get out…”

“I think I wet my pants.”

“Go goddamit.”

She slipped under the door, leaving me alone with Darth and Vadar, my only protection the smelly, soggy plastic bag I shakily held in front of me. I inched one leg underneath the door. The seeping light highlighted the reddish-gray sheen their coats—and that one had a mouth of canines like a T-Rex. A crazy thought crashed through my mind—
could it bite right through the bag and me?

Bent over, my fingers digging into the bag, engulfed in the stench of rotting food and something icky sweet, my eyes locked with one of the green pairs.

“Good boy,” I murmured in an odd, high-pitched tone that sounded as though I’d been sucking laughing gas.

One of the beasts snapped at the air.

I bent over further, shifting my weight on my getaway-run-like-hell lead leg when… bang! I hit my head on the edge of the door.

All hell broke loose.

As the howling, barking beasts scrabbled and skittered toward me, I hurled myself and the bag underneath the door. I rolled down the driveway with the bag, screaming shut-the-fucking-door-shut-the-fucking-door, Laura screaming oh-my-god-we’re-going-to-die…

The door slammed shut with a resounding crash.

If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you.
—David Brandon,
Zen in the Art of Helping

A
round five
P.M.
, Laura brought the Durango to a crunching stop in the gravel parking lot. “I really, really don’t think anyone saw us,” she repeated for the umpteenth time.

“That’s because we were the epitome of stealth, Mrs. Peel,” I mumbled, sliding out the passenger side. Shuddering at the blast of winter mountain air, I slammed shut the door, then stood there listening to the cooling engine ping and creak. The fading rays of the day coated the undersides of the gray clouds with an iridescent bronze-pink sheen that reminded me of the carnival glass my mother had loved to collect. We’d had so many bowls and cups and vases of it scattered all over the house, we’d looked like a factory outlet for the stuff.

Tried not to think of my mother too much. She’d given up on me after I’d called her too many times, slurring about my troubles or needing money. I heard one of her brothers had tried to find me after her stroke, but I was crashing at a new motel, nobody knew which one. Never got to say good-bye, never got to tell her I’d pulled my life out of the hole.

Sometimes I’ve thought that life isn’t so much about first steps as second ones. The chance to rectify a wrong, celebrate a milestone, heal a break. A writer friend once say that writing was rewriting. That pretty much summed up life, too.

Laura’s footsteps munched across the gravel as she walked around the Durango.

“I know we weren’t exactly
stealthy
,” she said, stopping next to me, “but as I’ve already told you, I looked around when we drove away and didn’t see anyone walking on the street, or anybody in the park across the street close enough to identify us or the license plate.”

I put my arm around here. “You’re a good private eye, baby. Sorry about that Mrs. Peel jab.” I nodded at the army green container at the edge of the lot. “We’ll toss the meaningless stuff there, take anything significant up to the lodge.”

Over the next few minutes, I rifled through the bag of trash. Found a small cardboard box whose print advertised a face power made of jojoba seed oil and corn starch, some written notes on an envelope, masses of slop I presumed were vegetables in a previous life, and a credit card statement. The latter surprising me as I thought an almost-judge would surely use a shredder. In the dusk, I couldn’t see all that well, was ready to give up, when I shoved aside a dog food bag and froze.

“Bingo.”

Laura paused, looked over. “What is it?”

I gingerly picked it up by the edge, pulled it out of the bag.

“Photo of Wicked.”

• • •

An hour later, we were back in the lodge, showered and changed into comfortable clothes, our booty from the trash hit—the envelope, credit card statement, photo of Wicked—laid out to dry on the kitchen counter.

Laura had turned on the XM radio to the Grateful Dead Channel, a kindness toward me as she wasn’t wild about their music (“Do they ever sing on key?”). They were playing “Jack Straw” from their Europe ‘72 live triple album. I listened to the words, feeling about as broke and desperate as the sorry dude in the song.

She brought me a can of root beer from the fridge. Handing it to me, our fingers touched, reigniting the gut-deep ache that had haunted me these last few days in my barren cell. Time to stop being a coward.

“I was wondering—”

“That sonofabitch D.A.,” she said at the same time.

We both paused, looked expectantly at each other.

“Go ahead,” I said, tugging on the metal tab. The drink opened with a fizzy pop.

“His holier-than-thou act in court pissed me off. He acted as though you’d already been tried and convicted.”

“Dude and I share a history. He still nurses bad vibes.”

“Lawyers,” she muttered, extracting a silver shaker from the bar cabinet. “Back to your case. I’ve been thinking about that photo of Wicked in a bathing suit. It seems…” She dropped clattering ice cubes into the canister. “Intimate. Not the suit itself—that black one-piece is actually quite sedate.”

“She hated swimming, or any kind of exercise for that matter. She’d spend a quarter of an hour driving around a parking lot, waiting for a space
directly
in front of the store to open up so she didn’t have to walk too far. I once calculated she’d wasted two months of her life looking for parking places.”

“Interesting,” she said in a not-very voice. “Anyway, maybe the picture was taken at a party.”

“Why?”

“That look on her face. She seemed almost…vulnerable.” She poured vodka into the shaker and vigorously shook it. “I think she was looking at the picture taker with affection,” she said loudly over the rattling and slushing, “you know, somebody she was dating…maybe they went to some party together where people were lounging around a pool or something.”

“Think Iris took the photo?”

She paused. “Hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it…” She poured the liquid into a martini glass. “Was Wicked bisexual?”

I flashed on Iris’s arm protectively around Wicked as they walked out of the kitchen. “She never expressed an interest in women, but considering her penchant for living behind smoke screens, who knows. But if they’d had a fling, why did Iris throw away the photo?”

Laura gave me a get-with-it look. “Because the fling ended. Probably badly. I’ve done worse to pictures of boyfriends after they did me wrong.”

I didn’t want to ask. “But if they’d had a fling,” I continued, “it obviously didn’t end this week. After all, she was shtooping Sam.”

“Right. Iris didn’t seem grief-stricken at the party, and Wicked was definitely an item with Sam.” She took a thoughtful sip, swallowed. “Maybe Iris got miffed hearing Wicked would be Sam’s date?”

I thought about that.

She carefully carried the martini to her chair, pausing in front of mine. “You said earlier you were wondering about something.”

“It can wait.”

“Not like you to hold off talking about something.”

“With you.”

“Right, with me.”

She took another sip, her left eye squinting slightly.

When Laura and I first met, I thought that squinting thing meant I’d said or done something to upset her, until she’d explained it was due to minor nerve damage, the result of a teenage motorcycle accident. Although she’d said her eye twitched with a schedule of its own, that she had no control over it, I sometimes thought it happened when she felt stressed or unsure.

About us?

Time to get clear. “Why’d you say ‘no’ when I asked you to marry me?”

Jerry’s folksy, thin voice kicked off a new tune. Dire Wolf.

She studied my face. “You were
seriously
asking me?”

I nodded.

“While wearing that orange jumpsuit? Behind bullet-proof glass?” She gurgled a laugh. “No way.”

“Way.”

Her mouth curled down. “Hey, we agreed we didn’t need a piece of paper to make what we have any better.”

That talk had been on the eve of our decision—well, technically her decision—to buy this place. We’d been talking about the new responsibilities we’d share as bed and breakfast owners and live-in lovers. Although marriage had surfaced in our talk, we’d done the cliché yammer about a piece of paper not making us feel any more committed than we already were. That neither of us were interested in having children.

Problem was, I lied. At the time I gave it a five on the lie scale. But since then, I’d realized it was more like a eight-point-six. If there was anything I regretted, it was missing out on being a dad. But I didn’t want to push the issue with Laura because I knew, after raising her troubled kid sister in the vacuum left by their parents, she’d had her fill of motherhood.

“I know we said we didn’t need a piece of paper,” I agreed, “just felt differently the other day, sitting there on desolation row.”

She took another sip of her drink, then set it on the butcher block table behind her. Turning back, she stared at me for a long moment, her lower lip thrust out in vague annoyance.

A wave of cold rushed through me. Bad news was on its way.

She’d had it with this current mess of affairs. She wanted out. Maybe she’d be generous and offer to stand by me throughout the trial, a figurehead of comfort—like those heartbroken, stiff-faced senator’s wives who stand by their husbands despite their wild cavortings with prostitutes and campaign aides—but with my verdict also would come my walking papers.

“I’m committed to you, Rick,” she said quietly. “There’s no one else for me.”

Took me a moment to realize I’d heard what I’d heard. My heart plummeted, bouncing hard on my gut before soaring back to its rightful spot. But the silver cloud still had a dark lining.

“I may spend my life behind bars.”

“I can’t believe a jury would find you guilty.”

“Even twelve righteous people can be wrong. DNA tests have cleared men who’ve spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.”

“Well,” she said quietly, “considering our business…” She gestured broadly, indicating the lodge. “…is tanking, time for us to dedicate ourselves to investigating your case.”

I put down my drink, stood. Sometimes a thoughtful man has to cut to the heart of the matter, offer a satisfactory resolution for all parties involved.

“Let’s go to bed.”

We didn’t quite make it there. Not sure if we even tried.

All I knew was that we were in each others’ arms, clutching, clinging, our mouths damn near devouring each other. I’d never kissed her like that—hell,
I’d
never been kissed like that. Like two drowning people clinging to the only rock—us—in a turbulent ocean. At one point, she pulled back her head, those violet eyes wet with emotion, and started to say something, but I claimed her again with my mouth, didn’t want to hear words, only wanted to feel, to drown all the pain and hurt and fear…

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.
—Buddha

“I
hate lawyers. You guys expect everybody to jump when you want them to jump, and if they don’t, you subpoena them.”