"When I'm done with my work, I'd like to feel that I've come to know who Tami was on that day that she died."
Dell raised an eyebrow and asked, "Don't get it. How will that help you find her killer?"
I took a moment to compose a response.
"The more I know about Tami-the better I know Tami-the better chance I have of being able to figure out what caused her to…"-I struggled to find the right word-"… to collide with whoever it was who murdered her."
Dell appeared to be on the verge of responding when Cathy said, "She was a sweetheart. No one who knew her would ever want to kill her. It had to be a stranger."
"Tami…" He shook his head a tiny bit and smiled lovingly.
"She could be kind of ornery," added Dell.
"But she was our girl. We loved her from sunrise to sunset. God, how we loved her."
Over a decade had passed and they were both still crying over Tami's death. I noticed that Lauren's hands, which had been folded on her lap, were now spread palms down, the fingers nesting protectively around her womb.
Lauren and I didn't have a plan. As things developed she spent much of the next hour sitting with Cathy at a game table in an alcove on one side of the sitting room, poring through photo albums, listening to Cathy reminisce about a daughter she had never imagined living without.
As soon as the wives retreated to the photo albums Dell invited me outside to show me some of his ranch and, it was apparent, to talk about his living child and not just his dead one. I waited while he changed his boots in a big mudroom before he led me away from the house. He had already surprised me with his openness and his sensitivity in discussing his daughter. Anticipating the visit to the ranch I'd unfairly pigeonholed him as a taciturn old cowboy. It was neither a fair nor an accurate assessment. I was beginning to see Dell as an emotionally resourceful man who didn't run from either his own pain or Cathy's.
The ranch was "a lot of acres" according to Dell.
"My father assembled almost all the land. I've added a couple of small patches over the years. Some new buildings. The technology of course, though Dad would have been the first to have that if it was available to him. But mostly I've been a caretaker of what my father imagined. I consider this place a kind of trust, you know?" I said, "I think I understand." My focus was on the expansive high prairies and the vaulting peaks of the wilderness below Mount Zirkel. Those aspen groves would sparkle like gold dust in the fall.
"Trust" felt like a good enough word.
"My part's been the animals. My addition to my father's vision. I do well with them. With the animals. I especially love just about everything that's involved with breeding. You know much about ranching?" I was a step behind him, following him down a wide asphalt lane that led from the family home to the barn with the shiny new roof.
"Not much," I admitted.
"Almost as much as I know about the economy of Serbia."
He laughed.
"Most don't. Some think they do; they think any brain dead cowboy can run a ranch. Some pretend they know. But most don't understand. Tami did. She loved it out here. Really understood what it was we were up to. What it takes to feed this monster. What it takes to tame it. We hoped-me and Cathy-we hoped Tami'd stay, marry somebody who would want to take over the ranch with her."
"Joey's not interested, Dell? In the ranch?" I assumed he wasn't but wanted to hear Dell's response.
"In this? Nah. He's got his golf. Its all he seems to need. Never seen anyone who's been so completed by one activity." Dell shook his head, apparently perplexed by his own son.
"We're blessed in Routt County. You know you can play golf up here almost as long as you can in Denver? In a good year you can play all the way from May through October. We're not as high up in the mountains as people think. Where we're standing right this minute, we're only a little above seven thousand feet. You're surprised, right? Still, don't know how Joey got so darn good at it. Golf, I mean. Some people just click with some things. You ever notice that? " I said I had noticed that.
The first two stalls on the inside of the huge barn had been rebuilt as an indoor golf driving range. An elevated tee. A huge net to catch balls. A computer to analyze and measure something. Distance? I didn't golf. I couldn't tell.
"I play a little. Been a member for years at the little golf club that's out on 40. Started as an excuse to hang out with some friends, really. I hack. It's a nine-hole and if I'm lucky, I break fifty maybe twice a summer. Never really have time to play eighteen. Lose more balls than I care to count. Joey used to like to come with me to the range when he was little, you know, like five or six. He'd hit some balls. Had a real sweet swing, right from the start. Soon enough, he wanted to play in the winter, too. Only kid I knew who would rather hit golf balls than go skiing, so one year I built this for him." Dell waved at the indoor golf setup.
"It wasn't always this fancy. At first it was just a piece of Astroturf I nailed to the floor and a net I hung to keep him from killing the animals. I added stuff to it as he got better and better during high school. After… you know… he's been… well, a kind of salvation for me. Whenever I hated life because of what had been done to Tami, I had Joey to be thankful for. I can't tell you how much it helped. Church helped, too, of course. But when life got especially rough, Joey helped me keep the ball on the fairway."
I didn't know how my next words were going to be received. I said them anyway.
"You more than Cathy though. Dell?"
He didn't flinch at all.
"Oh, you betcha. You… betcha." He scuffed the toe of his boot into the floor. Did it again.
"Cathy was Tami's best friend. And Tami was hers. Cathy loves Joey, don't misunderstand me.
But… he was never the right shape to fill the hole that Tami left when she was…"
Dell couldn't bring himself to say "murdered" or "butchered" or "ravaged" or whatever word his unconscious mind had used to pigeonhole the horror that had been inflicted on his only daughter.
I tried to remember why I was there. Despite my instincts, I steered south of Dell's pain.
"Mariko wasn't Tamis best friend?"
"Miko was new. For Tami, for us. And she was… what's the word? Exotic, you know, Oriental like that and all? I think that Tami was intrigued by the foreignness. Tami spent her whole life up here. Other than occasional family trips, I mean. Until the Japanese bought the ski area we never saw too many of them in these parts. I think most of 'em went to Vail and Aspen. Hell, we never saw much of anybody but the American tourists. And most of them were as white as we were. We got some Mexicans for a while before their economy tanked. But they go more for Vail and Aspen, too. That's what I hear anyway. Better shopping over there.
"The girls became good friends, sure. Miko could ski with Tami. Bump for bump.
Not too many girls could, or would. Tami liked that. But when I talk about Cathy and Tami and friendship, I'm talking the bigger picture. Confidences and all that. Cathy and Tami shared something special."
I was at a loss as to how to follow him wherever he was heading. It was as though he were leading me through a cave. I should have just shut up. Instead, I asked, "Does Joey still live up here?"
The tone of his voice lightened and I knew I'd let him off a hook with my question.
"We see him a lot. But he has a big fancy place near San Diego. On a golf course, of course. We visit. He visits."
"He has that plane. That must make it easier to see him."
Dell shook his head.
"Joey has investment advisers. Agents. Managers. The jet was their idea. They want him rested and relaxed while he plays. He's just a kid; he went along.
Waste of a lot of money far as I'm concerned. But it's his now so I try and get him to do some occasional good with it."
I decided to see how Dell would react to my mentioning that Lauren and I had been on the plane. Did he already know?