style house that has been expanded on one side with a room-sized tent, the kind that might accommodate a wedding party. Here the houses are bargain-basement, costing only around $1.5 million but, to fit in, need a complete overhaul and requiring BYOA-bring your own architect.
Clyde Robichaux’s house looks like it belongs in that bargain-basement bin, maybe at the bottom. It’s a narrow three-story house, a fixer-upper that feels perched almost precariously upon the ground-floor garage. A wooden-slatted staircase, also shrouded in darkness, extends up the right side of the house to the entrances on the second and third stories.
It’s poorly lit, but for what looks like dancing orange flames projecting in a surreal fashion from the picture window on the top floor. Someone is home and they’ve got the fireplace working.
I roll slowly by the house on the single-lane gravel road, which is rutted, sloping upward to the right, entering an area even denser with trees, the opening scene of a children’s book about the secret lair of bears. To my right, a sharp drop-off into a shallow gulley, protected by a thick line of firs. To my left, I’m hugging a steep hillside thatched with foliage and thick-stumped eucalyptus trees protruding at a slight angle.
I wince with each squirt of gravel popping beneath my tires, announcing my whereabouts. It is so quiet. What the houses here lack in modernity, they make up for in acreage; I still haven’t passed another residence when, thirty feet ahead, I see the road widen slightly on my left, sufficient to create room for a car parked tightly against the hillside.
I recognize the car. It’s a red BMW M3, one of the sleekest cars on the road, one Polly once dreamed of having. This one belongs to Sandy Vello. I saw her climb into it at the learning annex where I first realized that, no, Sandy Vello is not dead. From the presence of her car, I’m guessing she’s still not dead. I’m guessing she’s upstairs. Maybe protected by a Marine.
39
Another thirty feet ahead, a small driveway appears on the right, protected by a rickety metal gate and a sign: “Private Property.” Ideal.
I put the car in park, slip out of the driver’s seat and walk to the gate, hearing the small loose stones beneath my feet. The thick metal gate swings open with a creak, cool and damp in my hands. Beyond it, the road doglegs right so that I can’t see what house lies in the pitch black.
I drive through the gates and park to the far right, tires nearly teetering into another gulley. I kill the lights. I shut the door gently, acutely aware of every sound amid the crickets. I’m cold, not from the air, which I’m guessing is not much below 60 degrees, but from something deep inside. I trudge between two trees, slide into the gulley, and then walk up the other side. I can see the house lights but discern nothing further, obscured by half a football field of distance, rolling terrain, and a phalanx of trees.
My phone buzzes, and I jump. I pull the device from my pocket and look at the screen. It’s a reminder that I’ve got an upcoming appointment. With Wilma. It takes a second to picture her, the straight black hair, prematurely aged hands, posture like a long-legged insect with her legs folded beneath her. There’s a note with the calendar: “Do homework for Wed meeting with Wilma.”
Homework. Homework? Am I supposed to be preparing questions? What story am I working on with Wilma?
On the phone’s calendar, I see that I’ve got another appointment, for tomorrow. “Tax evasion hearing, civic center courthouse, 4 p.m.” I have to think hard to picture the portly server who, after the awards luncheon, handed a letter requiring my presence at a hearing alleging tax irregularities. I wonder why I’ve written tax “evasion” hearing. Did I evade taxes? Or was that shorthand?
I also remember the letter stating that if I didn’t show for the hearing I could face criminal penalty.
I’ve got more immediate issues.
On the touch screen, I tap the number for Sandy Vello. It rings twice, then goes to her voice mail. I leave a message. “It’s Nat Idle. Are you okay? That was so strange today.”
I wait for her to listen to it. I guess I want to set up an alibi, for her not to suspect me, just in case. I turn off my phone, and am struck with wonder that I didn’t do it earlier. If the buzzard or the kidnapper is following my movements on the computer, he’s probably also doing it-even more easily-by triangulating the signals on my cell phone.
I consider my options. I can walk to the narrow house, hope that Sandy happens to come to the door, not chaperoned by her reality-TV buddy and former Marine, and that she’s forthcoming with her spirited files and other secrets.
I’m struck by a better option. I start running.
Moments later, I’m standing in front of Sandy’s BMW. I peer through the window. Or try to. It’s black dark, forest dark, a sliver of moonlight barely cutting through an opening in the branches extending over the road. It’s just enough to let me make out two boxes in the backseat, and to see they are empty. No files here. In the trunk, maybe. But I doubt it.
On the hillside next to the car, I rummage through the soil with my hands. I feel for a rock, baseball-sized. Too small. I reach for another. It’s jagged and oval, bumpy, like the moon or the surface of the brain. I raise it. I slam it against the windshield. It doesn’t crack. It rolls off the front of the car. I pick it up again. I close my eyes and I picture Polly. She’s telling me that she loves me and that everything will be okay. Her eyes look so tired, crow’s-feet in the corners, watery. She wears a blue gown, resplendent even in the hours before she gives birth. Even with our split imminent and my visions of nuclear-family bliss dashed.
I slam the rock down on the window.
The thick glass cracks in the zigzag shape of a fault line. The car alarm splits the night air. My ears ringing, I sprint into the trees across the road, impulsive, like a little girl running into the street, about to be crushed by a Volvo.
My whole plan is that impulsive. Nothing this risky could be well thought out. Or maybe it’s just deliberately stupid. I’m willing to risk everything to find out what I’m chasing.
My hope is to draw out Sandy, or maybe the Marine-somehow get Sandy alone, and discover files she may have taken into the house.
I hear a voice on the stairs. It’s Sandy. I can’t make out her words. She appears, striding down the steps, a phone to her ear.
“I can handle myself, Clyde,” she says. She pockets her phone. She walks purposefully down the stairs.
I don’t have much time.
40
Sandy turns back into the house, and disappears. I wait. Less than two minutes later, she returns. She’s cradling a long, thin object in her arms, walking with purpose, confidence. Near the bottom of the stairs, she pauses. Starved of light and clear vision, she must be trying to use her sense of hearing to determine what dark forces lurk in the trees. But the wailing car alarm owns the night, and would mask the sound of feet on fallen leaves.
I can now discern that she cradles a shotgun. She shifts it into her left arm. She wears running tights and windbreaker. With her right hand, she reaches into its pocket and withdraws something. Keys, maybe. The car alarm continues to wail. If she wants to turn the sound off, she’s going to have to get closer, even using a remote. Shotgun held in front of her, she walks down the gravel path.
I squeeze against a tree not fifty feet from her. I feel pain sting my left shoulder, at the edge of my chest. And an image floods my brain: Faith astride me, fingernails digging into my skin, right where the bark’s digging.
She collapses on me, and whispers, “Catharsis.”
“What do you mean, Faith?” I remember asking her.
