Double Shot

DOUBLE

SHOT

Diane Mott Davidson

TO JASMINE CRESSWELL

A brilliant writer and unfailing friend

But if any one has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure…to you all.

—II Corinthians 2:5, RSV

If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies of all your enemies will float by.

—Chinese proverb

Prologue

You think you know people.

You see a snapshot from the old days—from fifteen, sixteen years ago. The memories swim up. You think, Ah yes, those people from long ago. There were folks who were kind. Some who weren’t. And then there were some you barely knew. You stare at the photograph. Do I really remember these people?

Define remember.

Then you hear about a sacrificial gift, a private kindness pitched your way. Oddly, the gift was given so you’d be kept in the dark. Is it always helpful to be the recipient of good deeds?

Define good.

Say the snapshot does not reveal another reality—a hidden darkness, a nefariousness. A sin, as we Sunday-school teachers say. At the time of the photograph, a bullet was fired from far away. Not a real bullet, mind you, but a metaphorical one. An evil was done; a cruelty committed; a line crossed over. But it was hushed up. Denied. Forgotten.

Define forgotten.

Because, see, some people never forget.

They’re called victims.

Celebration of the Life of Albert Kerr, M.D.

THE ROUNDHOUSE

TUESDAY, JUNE THE 7TH

TWELVE O’CLOCK NOON

Chilled Asparagus Soup

Radiatore Pasta Salad

Arugula, Watercress, and Hearts of Palm Salad, Champagne Vinaigrette

Herb-Crusted Grilled and Chilled Salmon

Potatoes Anna

Spinach Souffle

Mini-baguettes

Tennessee Chess Tartlets

Fresh Peach Pies

Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

1

It’s a funny thing about being hit in the head. Afterward, you’re never quite sure what happened. You only know that something did.

At five in the morning on June the seventh, I was pushing my dessert-laden old pie wagon up the walk to the Roundhouse, a failed restaurant I’d leased and was converting into a catering-events center.

At half-past five, I was lying in the grass, wondering what I was doing there and why I was in so much pain.

Reconstruct, I ordered myself, as I wiped gravel from my mouth. I hadn’t fainted. But I had been knocked out. My head throbbed, my knees stung, and the back of my neck felt as if it had been guillotined with a dull blade. I groaned, tried to move my legs, and was rewarded with a wave of nausea. I rubbed my eyes and tried to think, but the memory remained out of reach.

My husband, a cop, often tells witnesses to begin their story at daybreak on the day they see a crime. This gives folks a chance to talk about how normal everything was before events went haywire.

So that’s what I did.

I closed my eyes and recalled rising at four, when mountain chickadees, Steller’s jays, and all manner of avian creatures begin their summer-in-the-Rockies concert. I showered, did my yoga, and kissed Tom, to whom I’d been married for two years, good-bye. He mumbled that he’d be in his office at the sheriff’s department later in the day.

When I checked on my son, Arch, he was slumbering deeply inside his cocoon of dark blue sheets. I knew Arch would wait until the last possible moment before getting dressed to assist with that day’s catered event. But at least he was helping out, which was more than most fifteen-year-olds would be willing to do at the start of summer vacation. I loaded the last of the event’s foodstuffs into my catering van, made the short drive up Aspen Meadow’s Main Street, and rounded the lake. A quarter mile along Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive, I turned into the paved Roundhouse lot, where I’d parked and unloaded.

So far so good. I remembered merrily wheeling my cart up the gravel path toward the back door of my newly remodeled commercial kitchen. Peach pie slices glistened between lattices of flaky crust. A hundred smooth, golden, Tennessee chess tartlets bobbled in their packing. Threads of early morning sunlight shimmered on the surface of Aspen Meadow Lake, two hundred yards away. In the distance, a flock of ducks took off from the lake,