After a moment, Cheyenne, the faithful Catholic, asked Lien-hua, “So, are you Buddhist?”
“No. My mother was.” Lien-hua paused. “I don’t mean this to be flippant, but I guess I’d say I’m between religions.”
Cheyenne waited for her to go on, but when Lien-hua didn’t elaborate, she said, “Well, it’s a journey.”
When Christie and I were dating, she used to tell me that when we pigeonhole people by their faiths, everyone loses out. “Multiculturalism doesn’t build bridges,” she said. “It puts people into boxes.” Maybe it wasn’t always true, but I could see it beginning to happen right now.
I wondered if Lien-hua was thinking something along those lines, because she went on to say, “Last February when Pat and I were working a case in San Diego, I was attacked and left in an empty pool-one that was nearly thirteen feet deep. While I was unconscious, a man who’d already killed at least eight other women-including my sister-chained my ankle to the bottom, and when I awoke he began filling the pool with water.”
“That’s horrible,” Cheyenne said softly, her voice full of empathy. “What happened?”
“Well, I was terrified, of course, and when the water was going over my head, I…” Lien-hua hesitated, and I think we could all tell how difficult it was for her to share this story. “Being raised in a Buddhist home, I wasn’t even sure if God existed, but I prayed, and someone arrived just in time to save me.” Her eyes found mine just as Cheyenne’s had a minute ago. “I’m still trying to sort out what all that means.”
“It means,” Cheyenne said, “that God still has big plans for you.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Then, the conversation veered away from God and fear and treasure-guarding serpents and returned to the tamer territory of favorite books and movies and pastimes, and I was thankful. But not long afterward, Cheyenne mentioned that she really needed to get going. “I’ll be sitting in on classes all day tomorrow,” she told me. “But I can help with the case in the evening. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. At 5:00.”
“Okay,” I said.
After we’d all thanked her for coming and said our good-byes, she headed for the door.
I debated whether or not to offer to walk her to her car, but in the end I decided against it. Cheyenne stepped outside, and I joined Lien-hua and Tessa, who were in the kitchen putting away the dishes and leftovers.
A few moments later I heard Cheyenne’s car backing down the driveway.
And then she was gone.
71
Brad entered the gas station to get a Mountain Dew.
The clerk glanced up, and for a moment his eyes lingered on Brad’s face, at the deep scars. The man, whose name tag had only his first name, Juarez, looked a little uneasy then went back to chewing a glob of gum and texting someone on his phone.
Brad found the soda, brought it to the counter. Set it down. Waited.
Juarez didn’t bother to acknowledge him, until, in no particular hurry, he finished sending his text message. Then, without making eye contact with Brad, he muttered with a thick Spanish accent, “That all?”
“Did you ever think about the two things technology tries to deliver us from?” Brad asked.
Juarez finally looked at him. Worked the gum back and forth in his mouth. “Que?”
Brad gestured toward the clerk’s phone. “Technology. Whatever field you choose-industry, science, medicine, entertainment-technological advances are there either to create more diversions to occupy our time or to relieve our discomfort: so either to construct a fuller life or an easier one. Would you agree with that?”
He shook his head and mumbled something in Spanish. Brad didn’t know the language well but recognized some of the words. He placed his hands flat on the counter beside the soda can. “Paradoxically, do you know the two aspects of human experience that offer us the most wisdom?”
Juarez looked past him then, scanning the store as if he were expecting someone to step out and explain the joke to him. This time as he spoke to Brad, his tone turned caustic. “Did you want anything else with your Mountain Dew, senor -” Once again he slipped into speaking to Brad rather rudely in Spanish. Brad waited, studying his eyes, until he was done.
Eventually, Brad saw the smirk fade and a wisp of uneasiness settle in. “Solitude and adversity,” he said softly. “Those are the two things that lead us to wisdom. Enough silence to facilitate reflection on the meaning of life, enough pain to cause us to consider its brevity. Quietude and suffering.”
Brad still had both hands flat against the countertop, and Juarez was letting his eyes drift from Brad’s hands to his face, to his hands. He shifted his weight.
“And yet, every technological advance is another desperate attempt to remove either silence or pain from our lives. Our society is constantly trying to cure itself of the very two things we need the most. Does that sound civilized to you?”
The clerk did not reply. But he had stopped chewing his gum.
Brad slid the soda toward him. “This will be all.”
Juarez promptly rang up the purchase. Brad paid for it, then walked to the door, paused, flipped the “open” sign around so that the word “closed” faced the highway, then turned to the clerk. “Maybe I’ll have one more thing. Before I go.”
72
Tessa told me and Lien-hua that she was going to call it a day, even though I think we all knew she wouldn’t be heading to bed quite yet, then she left us alone in the living room. After a few minutes, Lien-hua mentioned she could use some fresh air, and I suggested we go to the back deck.
As we entered the cool night I noticed there was just enough light from the moon for me to see across the yard to the stone wall where the doe had appeared yesterday morning.
Grace and beauty. Pursued by fear.
A small glance of kitchen light slipped out the window.
For a little while Lien-hua and I spoke about the case, focusing on the possible links between the locations of the crimes. “I think we need to speak with the former vice president,” she concluded.
“Yes,” I said. “But I might not be the right one to do that. Apparently, he’s on Lansing’s side in this custody dispute.”
“I’ll talk to Margaret. We’ll take care of it.”
A moment slid by, but it didn’t hold any awkwardness. The silence between us felt safe and familiar, almost inviting.
At last she said, “I never really had the chance to talk with you about Calvin’s death. Are you doing all right?”
“He was a good friend. He lived a full life, but even if he hadn’t been attacked like he was, he didn’t have much time left. He had congestive heart failure.”
She saw right through my answer. “That sounds like something a counselor told you to say. How are you doing, really?”
I hesitated. “I’m doing all right. I miss him, but it is what it is.”
“Grief has different hues, Pat.” No psychoanalysis in her voice, just friendship. Understanding.
“And they change over time.”
“Yes, they do.”
Then we were quiet again.
The night was full of stillness and crickets and dewy moonlight. “What are you thinking?” she asked at last.
“I was thinking about him again. Calvin. About the last time we were together before his coma.”
She waited for me to go on.
“We talked about justice, and I remember him asking me, ‘How far is one willing to go to see justice is carried out?’ I’ll never forget that question.”
She processed that. “There’s no easy answer to that.”
“No, there isn’t.”
I recalled the promise I’d made to Grant Sikora that I would not let Richard Basque hurt any more women, a promise I probably shouldn’t have made, but nevertheless felt compelled to carry out. And I remembered Ralph’s take on preemptive justice: “Identify a threat and eliminate it before it eliminates you.”
“Or someone else,” I’d added.