“He?”
Sam was sharper three minutes after being woken from a sound sleep than I was at the end of a long day. “Has to be a he, right? It’s only Bill and his son who live there.”
“The Millers aren’t allowed to have guests? I didn’t know that. Boulder and its laws? Wouldn’t want to be a cop here-be arresting people for farting on the wrong side of the street.”
We’d moved from amused incredulity to aggravated sarcasm. Where Sam was concerned, that wasn’t a healthy progression. With some defensiveness creeping into my voice, I said, “I think it was a he.”
“Then what did you mean when you asked ‘why?’ What’s the big deal about somebody watching you from his own bedroom window? Maybe it was a neighborhood watch thing and Bill Miller’s the block captain. Who the hell knows? It’s not a crime to spy on your neighbor’s yard. We’d have to arrest half the old ladies in town if it was.”
“Did you talk to the neighbor yourself, Sam? You or Lucy?”
He forced patience into his voice. It was a tight fit. “Lucy and I were doing other things. You know that.”
“It was Slocum, wasn’t it?”
“Your point?”
“Talk to the neighbor yourself, please. I don’t trust Slocum.”
“I thought Jaris behaved himself tonight.”
“Barely. He was nervous. And you and Darrell were watching everything he did. I still don’t trust him.”
The silence that ensued suggested to me that Sam was considering saying something else about Jaris Slocum. He didn’t. He said, “You talk about this Camaro guy as though he’s a victim. You considered that he may be mixed up in all this, like criminally?”
“It doesn’t fit,” I said. “Psychologically.”
“And in your world people never act out of character?”
Sam actually asked that question with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Talk to the neighbor, Sam.”
“On what pretense do I do that?” he asked.
“You’re looking for that Camaro. You wanted a hook? That’s your hook. Now that the BOLO is out, you want to tie up a loose end. Slocum himself said he didn’t know about the Camaro during the first interview. You just have to make a call, one call, maybe go have a chat with the guy who owns the house and the garage.”
Ten minutes later I crawled into bed and sprawled on my side, facing my wife. Silently, Lauren backed toward me until I could feel the warmth from her nighttime flesh on the front of my naked thighs. I’d almost drifted off to sleep when a fresh thought forced me to snap open my eyes in the dark.
Maybe the secret has to do with Rachel Miller, not with Mallory.
Maybe this is all about Rachel.
That’s why Diane disappeared.
She knew something about Rachel. Or she was about to learn something about Rachel.
I climbed back out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and used the kitchen phone to warn Raoul that when he’d walked into the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and met Reverend Howie he may have inadvertently walked into something that was extremely dangerous.
But Raoul didn’t answer his hotel room phone at the Venetian.
He didn’t answer his cell, either.
My next thought? Sam was going to kill me when I tried to explain Canada to him.
47
All I told Bill Miller on the phone was that I had some further questions that I needed to address before I could make a commitment to see him for ongoing psychotherapy. He readily agreed to come in on Friday morning. I never quite decided how surprised I was that Bill was so accommodating about meeting with me again on such short notice. My indecision, I was sure, was a product of the fact that more than twelve hours had passed and I still hadn’t been able to track down Raoul in Las Vegas.
Lauren shared my dismay about Raoul’s silence. The look she’d given me that morning when I slowed her down on the way to the bathroom to let her know Raoul wasn’t answering his phone was like the look I might expect after I’d told her I’d not only lost my car keys but also managed to misplace the spare set, too. “Diane and Raoul?” she’d said, finally. Before shutting the bathroom door behind her, she’d added, “Find him, honey. Today would be good.”
Bill settled into the chair across from me and without any visible indications of concern, said, “Shoot. I’m ready. Ask your questions. I’d love to get this whole thing settled.”
In typical shrink form, my question wasn’t really just a question. “Thanks for being so flexible,” I said. “I’d like to know more about your current relationship with your-is it ex-wife?-Rachel.”
“Well,” he said, sitting back on the chair. “I didn’t expect that one.” He wasted a moment picking at the crease on his perfectly pressed trousers.
I, of course, grew curious about what question he had expected. But I didn’t ask him that. I waited.
“Rachel and I are separated, not… divorced. For some reason, I thought you knew that. I feel like I don’t have any secrets anymore. We never went through the whole legal process. It just never felt… necessary to me. Or even appropriate. Given her difficulties, I couldn’t just… You know the circumstances back then as well as anyone.”
Actually, not as well as Mary Black, I thought. “Are you legally separated?”
Bill struggled to find the right word before he settled on “Rachel is my wife.”
“And the nature of your current relationship?”
He shifted on his chair, crossing his legs, left ankle over right knee. He took a moment to make certain that his cuff was adequately shading the top of his sock. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer my question at all, but he finally said, “Rachel’s in Las Vegas, still attending weddings, still delusional, still… psychotic. Sadly, that hasn’t changed.” He paused. “She moved there for the weddings. I’m sure you could have guessed that even if you hadn’t heard about it. She still feels compelled to… There’s no shortage of weddings in Las Vegas, that’s for sure.”
Yes, I know. I know a lot about Reverend Howie and the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.
“And she’s still suffering, that hasn’t changed. She’s still struggling with her illness, and… and with the medicines. She hates the medicines. She hates the new ones as much as she hated the old ones. Sometimes she takes them, more often she doesn’t. They help when she takes them, but they don’t solve anything. They’re not a cure, not for her.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but why is this important?”
I went into a matter-of-fact spiel about a psychologist’s ethical burden to avoid dual relationships, and explained that it would be difficult for me, as a psychotherapist, to avoid them if I didn’t even know they existed. My explanation was intentionally convoluted, but Bill seemed to buy it. I’d figured he would.
I’d counted on the fact that he would. My voice as level as a freshly plumbed door, I said, “Bill, you still haven’t told me about your current relationship with Rachel. That’s the part that most concerns me.”
I thought his eyes narrowed at my use of the word “concerns.” Maybe not. I wished I’d said “interests.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s not exactly true, I said that…”
Bill’s apparent predilection was to argue the point with me, but he changed his mind and seemed to decide that my statement was, in fact, accurate enough that he’d leave it alone.
“We’re in touch,” he said. “If you can call it that.”
No problem, I’ll call it that. “Go on,” I said.
“We talk about once a week. That’s not true. I call Rachel once a week, but we probably only talk about twice a month.” He exhaled hard and grimaced. “She doesn’t call me… often. Sometimes I leave messages. And the truth is that even when I do reach her, I do most of the talking. I fill her in on what’s going on here, with the family.