My spirits, briefly raised by my productive work, fell flat. I guessed Macguire had not been successful trying to entice Arch into listening to music. I grabbed a chair and sat. “Tom. Arch wants me to help John Richard. He’s desperate for me to prove his father’s innocence.”
Tom groaned. “Goldy, you can’t. I told you I’d keep you informed. But this isn’t like that time you found the body in the woods by Elk Park Prep. This time the prime suspect showed up at the scene, started raising Cain, and was arrested. You can’t get involved in this: you’re a witness. Listen, let’s get Arch down here to talk ? “
I held up a hand to stop him. “John Richard called here about a half hour ago.”
“He called here? Wanting to talk to you? Do you know how illegal that is?”
“I told him. He claimed he called to talk to Arch. But then he told Arch to put me on. Even from jail he was his usual manipulative self, whining to Arch and demanding to know from me what time Suz died so that he could use his medical knowledge of rigor mortis to prove he’s not the murderer.”
Tom chuckled cynically. “That guy. Maybe he was trying to reconstruct his timetable.” He frowned. His sandy eyebrows drew into a furry, uneven line. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
I shot him an exasperated look. “Of course not.?
“I can just tell,” he said resignedly, “that this is going to be one holy mess.”
“Listen, Tom, remember when I told you about a doctor Suz had supposedly fired, one named Ralph Shelton? What I didn’t tell you was about John Richard’s and my history with him.” Briefly, I summarized how we’d all known one another years ago, when Arch was small. “Anyway,” I said, “Ralph’s a tall bald fellow with a white mustache. I know he was one of those guys I shooed away from, the ditch this morning. I didn’t recognize him because he looked so different with a cap on his head. Plus, his hair used to be gray, not white, and he didn’t have a mustache.”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “You’re kidding.” “I’m not. Ralph was there, trying to see what the paramedics were doing. He was wearing gardening clothes and a baseball cap. Your guys must have talked to him in their neighborhood canvass.” I thought back to the fashionable camouflage-print pants, wide suspenders, dark billed cap, and hand-spun collarless shirt Ralph had been wearing that morning. In retrospect, it was perhaps too studied an outfit to have donned so early in the morning. But something else nagged at my memory. What was it? Something about Ralph hadn’t looked quite right. What? But my tired brain refused to yield any details.
“I’ll check on Shelton,” said Tom curtly. “But I do think you need to go talk to Arch. I’ll pack this stuff up.”
“The last time you packed my stuff I had to make risotto from scratch for a Fourth of July parry. As I recall, you thought it would be funny to substitute ingredients on me, so I wouldn’t go snooping around in a suspect’s house.”
He stood and rinsed his dish. “I thought,” he said without missing a beat, “that I would be keeping you out of trouble by making you do extra work that time, Miss G. Besides, I apologized and you forgave me. No fair hassling me about it now.” He reached into the pantry for several of the large cardboard boxes I used for carting food.
I walked up the stairs, thinking. Shower, change, call Marla ? all these I had to do before leaving. Plus talk to Arch, get him smoothed out on his father being thrown into jail under suspicion of committing a brutal murder. Sure.
My son sat slumped in his desk chair. His lank brown hair was uncombed. His glasses perched halfway down his nose. Julian’s cast-off T-shirt hung on his motionless body. I longed to hug him tightly, the way I had when he was small and I’d always been able to comfort him.
“Arch. Hon, please. Let’s talk.”
“About what?” His voice was toneless.
“May I come in?”
His eyes didn’t leave the pile of magazines on his desk. He shrugged. “I thought you had a parry to do.”
“Arch, please, I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m worried about Dad” He whirled and faced me, his brown eyes ablaze. “You just don’t care, do you?”
I sat on the bed. Honesty was the best policy. “You know how when you leave your homework in your room? I don’t snatch it up and go running to school to bail you out. It’s called being responsible for your actions ? “
“Oh, Mom!” he yelled, his tone disgusted. He glared at me. “Don’t treat me like a baby! Just don’t start, okay?”
“No, then,” I said frankly, “I don’t care about your father. I only care about you.”
“If you cared about me,” he shot back fiercely, “you’d be willing to at least think about whether he did this murder or not. Dad isn’t lying.”
“Did he tell you that he hit Suz the way he used to hit me? He admitted that to Tom and me, you know. That was one of the reasons Tom arrested him this morning. I’m just telling you the truth here, Arch. I’m sorry if the facts are so painful. I don’t mean to hurt you.”
He pushed abruptly out of his chair. “I need to go. I need to go check some things out.”
“What things?”
“There’s a nurse who runs a health-food store ? “
“Don’t you even think about doing your father’s investigative errands, young man. His lawyer will hire an investigator on Monday.”
“So now you’re going to say I can’t go to the health-food store?”
“What are you planning on doing there?”
“I don’t know yet.” He stood in front of the mirror and frowned at himself. Apparently going to the health-food store did not warrant clothes changing or hair combing. “Don’t worry, Mom.” His voice carried a hint of conciliation. “I’ll get Macguire to go with me.”
“He’s asleep,” I said, hoping this was true. I hadn’t heard a peep out of Macguire since he’d shuffled out of the kitchen carrying his soft drink.
“I’ll wake him up! It’ll be good for him to walk again, anyway.”
“He’ll pass out.”
“Mom!” Once again I got the angry, indignant stare. “Will you stop bugging me? Why won’t you at least admit Dad might be down there in jail for no reason? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
I rose from the bed, walked to the door, and assumed a quiet tone. “I love you, Arch. I just don’t want to see you getting involved in your dad’s problems.”
He pushed past me. It was an unconscious, but more gentle, imitation of his father’s shove by me that morning. “Sorry, Mom. I already am involved. I wish you would help him. He really needs you.”
Well, great. I quietly made my way to Tom’s and my room to get ready for the evening party. My heart ached.
Fifteen minutes later I’d showered, changed, and punched in a call to Marla’s answering machine. When I went out the door, luminescent gray clouds billowed just at the edge of the western horizon. Even this early in August, snow would be falling each morning on the highest peaks to the west. When the afternoon sun warmed and wilted that ephemeral white blanket, the mountain towns on the Front Range would get a brief, deliciously cooling rain. But first the moisture would build into luxuriant cumulus towers that resembled fantastic, brilliant mushrooms. Once these clouds completely filled the western sky, they would spill eastward over the hillsides.
Tom had loaded my supplies and announced that he was going to the hardware store, one of his favorite Saturday-afternoon occupations. He seldom came home with more than a dollar’s worth of washers, screws, and nails. Sometimes Arch accompanied him. But I found these excursions deadly boring. Guy stuff. Not surprisingly, Arch had declined accompanying Tom, and my husband had rumbled off alone in his dark sedan.
Arch!. I revved the van and backed out of the driveway. It was early, a good thing since I needed to drive around a little bit to think. At the end of our street, I turned and headed along the creek. When I passed Aspen Meadow Nursery on the left and Aspen Meadow Barbecue on the right, I chewed the inside of my cheek. Arch couldn’t forsake his father. I didn’t really want him to. Despite John Richard’s coldly selfish behavior, Arch clung fiercely to the hope of getting love from his other parent. And John Richard spoiled Arch enough with material things ? usually when he felt guilty over reneging on a promise ? that Arch’s longing for a relationship remained like a sharp hunger, seldom fed.
I made a U-turn, drove back through town, and headed up toward the lake. Perched on the edge of the waterfall between the lake and lower Cottonwood Creek, a gaggle of shiny black cormorants arched their backs and
