“Look at this,” she said to Travis after their entrées had been served and the waiter had departed.
He frowned at her plate and said, “Something wrong?”
“No, no. I mean… these vegetables.”
“Baby carrots, baby squash.”
“Where do they get them so tiny? And look how they’ve scalloped the edge of this tomato. Everything’s so pretty. How do they ever find the time to make everything so pretty?”
She knew these things that astonished her were things he took for granted, knew that her amazement revealed her lack of experience and sophistication, making her seem like a child. She frequently blushed, sometimes stammered in embarrassment, but she could not restrain herself from commenting on these marvels. Travis smiled at her almost continuously, but it was not a patronizing smile, thank God; he seemed genuinely delighted by the pleasure she took in new discoveries and small luxuries.
By the time they finished coffee and dessert-a kiwi tart for her, strawberries and cream for Travis, and a chocolate éclair that Einstein did not have to share with anyone-Nora had been engaged in the longest conversation of her life. They passed two and a half hours without an awkward silence, mainly discussing books because-given Nora’s reclusive life-a love of books was virtually the only thing they had in common. That and loneliness. He, seemed genuinely interested in her opinions of novelists, and he had some fascinating insights into books, insights which had eluded her. She laughed more in one afternoon than she had laughed in an entire year. But the experience was so exhilarating that she occasionally felt dizzy, and by the time they left the restaurant she could not precisely remember anything they had actually said; it was all a colorful blur. She was experiencing sensory overload analogous to what a primitive tribesman might feel if suddenly deposited in the middle of New York City, and she needed time to absorb and process all that had happened to her.
Having walked to the café from her house, where Travis had left his pickup truck, they now made the return trip on foot, and Nora held the dog’s leash all the way. Einstein never tried to pull away from her, never tangled the leash around her legs, but padded along at her side or in front of her, docile, now and then looking up at her with a sweet expression that made her smile.
“He’s a good dog,” she said. “Very good,” Travis agreed. “So well behaved.”
“Usually.”
“And so cute.”
“Don’t flatter him too much.”
“Are you afraid he’ll become vain?”
“He’s already vain,” Travis said. “If he were any more vain, he’d be impossible to live with.”
The dog looked back and up at Travis, and sneezed loudly as if ridiculing his master’s comment.
Nora laughed. “Sometimes it almost seems he can understand every word you’re saying.”
“Sometimes,” Travis agreed.
When they arrived at the house, Nora wanted to invite him in. But she wasn’t sure if the invitation would seem too bold, and she was afraid Travis would misinterpret it. She knew she was being a nervous old maid, knew she could-and ought to-trust him, but Aunt Violet suddenly loomed in her memory, full of dire warnings about men, and Nora could not bring herself to do what she knew was right. The day had been perfect, and she dreaded extending it further for fear something would happen to sully the entire memory, leaving her with nothing good, so she merely thanked him for lunch and did not even dare to shake his hand.
She did, however, stoop down and hug the dog. Einstein nuzzled her neck and licked her throat once, making her giggle. She had never heard herself giggle before. She would have clung to him and petted him for hours if her enthusiasm for the dog had not, by comparison, made her wariness of Travis even more evident.
Standing in the open door, she watched them as they got into the pickup and drove away.
Travis waved at her.
She waved, too.
Then the truck reached the corner and began to turn right, out of sight, and Nora regretted her cowardice, wished she’d asked Travis in for a while. She almost ran after them, almost shouted his name and almost rushed down the steps to the sidewalk in pursuit. But then the truck was gone, and she was alone again. Reluctantly, she went into the house and closed the door on the brighter world outside.
3
The Bell JetRanger executive helicopter flashed over the tree-filled ravines and balding ridges of the Santa Ana foothills, its shadow running ahead of it because the sun was in the west as Friday afternoon waned. Approaching the head of Holy Jim Canyon, Lemuel Johnson looked out the window in the passenger compartment and saw four of the county sheriff’s squad cars lined up along the narrow dirt lane down there. A couple of other vehicles, including the coroner’s wagon and a Jeep Cherokee that probably belonged to the victim, were parked at the stone cabin. The pilot had barely enough room to put the chopper down in the clearing. Even before the engine died and the sun-bronzed rotors began to slow, Lem was out of the craft, hurrying toward the cabin, with his right-hand man, Cliff Soames, close behind him.
Walt Gaines, the county sheriff, stepped out of the cabin as Lem approached. Gaines was a big man, six-four and at least two hundred pounds, with enormous shoulders and a barrel chest. His corn-yellow hair and cornflower-blue eyes would have lent him a movie-idol look if his face had not been so broad and his features blunt. He was fifty-five, looked forty, and wore his hair only slightly longer than he had during his twenty years in the Marine Corps.
Although Lem Johnson was a black man, every bit as dark as Walt was white, though he was seven inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than Walt, though he had come from an upper-middle-class black family while Walt’s folks had been poor white trash from Kentucky, though Lem was ten years younger than the sheriff, the two were friends. More than friends. Buddies. They played bridge together, went deep-sea fishing together, and found unadulterated pleasure in sitting in lawn chairs on one or the other’s patio, drinking Corona beer and solving all of the world’s problems. Their wives even became best friends, a serendipitous development that was, according to Walt, “a miracle, ‘cause the woman’s never liked anyone else I’ve introduced her to in thirty-two years.”
To Lem, his friendship with Walt Gaines was also a miracle, for he was not a man who made friends easily. He was a workaholic and did not have the leisure to nurture an acquaintance carefully into a more enduring relationship. Of course, careful nurturing hadn’t been necessary with Walt; they had clicked the first time they’d met, had recognized similar attitudes and points of view in each other. By the time they had known each other six months, it seemed they had been close since boyhood. Lem valued their friendship nearly as much as he valued his marriage to Karen. The pressure of his job would be harder to endure if he couldn’t let off some steam with Walt once in a while.
Now, as the chopper’s blades fell silent, Walt Gaines said, “Can’t figure why the murder of a grizzled old canyon squatter would interest you feds.”
“Good,” Lem said. “You’re not supposed to figure it, and you really don’t want to know.”
“Anyway, I sure didn’t expect you’d come yourself. Thought you’d send some of your flunkies.”
“NSA agents don’t like to be called flunkies,” Lem said.
Looking at Cliff Soames, Walt said, “But that’s how he treats you fellas, isn’t it? Like flunkies?”