I stopped walking. ?Do you think Tom chased the killer? Isn?t there a trail or something? Please. Tell me. I have to know.?
Helen Keene picked up the q quilt which had fallen from my shoulders. Shifting from one foot to the other, Armstrong hovered over us. My questions made him uncomfortable. Finally he said, ?The trail ends at a vehicle. Two sets of footprints: Schulz and somebody. We just don?t know what happened. But finding an officer is our top priority. Always.?
I whirled to face Armstrong. My voice was shrill. ?If you?d killed a priest, wouldn?t you just leave? Why would someone hurt Tom??
Armstrong made another helpless gesture. ?Maybe the perp heard Schulz. Or Schulz spotted him. Recognized him. So the perp panics, hides, and then just loses it. Figures he?ll be caught if he doesn?t take Schulz with him. Or maybe Olson wasn?t dead when Schulz got there, told him something and the shooter went nuts … or maybe Schulz followed him and … ? He didn?t finish that thought.
?For what it?s worth,? Boyd interjected, ?we figure this is some kind of amateur. Not that you?re likely to get a professional hit on a priest,? he added uncomfortably.
?You said there was some stuff Tom dropped. May I see it? Now??
?We couldn?t bring it to you.? These were the first words Helen Keene had spoken since her arrival. Her voice was surprisingly young and musical. ?We have to leave it at the scene for photo and video. But we need you to come out and take a look. You may be able to help us identify it.?
Armstrong?s and Boyd?s faces said, Let?s go. Silently, Helen Keene put her arm around me again. We walked quickly, heads down, to the waiting squad car.
Father Theodore Olson?s house was located northwest of Aspen Meadow proper, in the area the locals call Upper Cottonwood Creek. Driving out of town under a darkening sky, we followed the meandering path of the creek, past ancient shuttered summer dwellings, past the entryway to Arch and Julian?s school, Elk Park Prep. After the school, there was a spate of immense custom homes built in the latest real estate boom ? this one fueled by people fleeing the high cost of living in California. Farther up, the landscape turned pastoral. WE passed the few ranches that remained from Aspen Meadow?s proud cowboy past. The ranches boasted wide, lush meadows that sprawled along the creek bed. Then Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve loomed suddenly into view, it speaks still covered with winter snow.
While the police car sped along the winding road, Boyd and Armstrong asked me to repeat my brief conversation with Tom. I reconstructed every line of dialogue as best I could. Were there other voices, background noise, cars starting, any sounds like that? I said no. When I faltered, exhausted, Helen Keene began to talk. Her voice was warm and soothing. Quietly, she asked if there was anything I wanted or needed ? coffee or water from their Thermoses? Were there family members who needed to be notified of my whereabouts? I glanced at the dashboard clock and remembered my parents? flight from Stapleton Airport in Denver. Helen used the cellular phone to call our house. She asked Julian to drive them to their flight for me. I?d be home as soon as I could, she promised him.
Outside, frozen pellets of snow began to drop, making a staccato noise on the windshield. So we would have had a snowy wedding. I could imagine the snow falling in soft waves past the diamond-shaped window above the St. Luke?s altar, my parents with tears in their eyes. Marla weeping unabashedly, Julian giving Tom and me the V- sign.
Arch beaming.
Stop.
Helen Keene?s voice murmured into the receiver about my delay and helping the authorities. Helen did not mention that Tom Schulz was missing. I was grateful for her help; my voice would give me away, I knew.
After Helen carefully clicked the cellular phone back in its holder, she turned back to me. She had wide-set brown eyes, thick dark eyebrows, and her long brown hair contained much gray. From the thing folds of dry skin on her square face, I judged her to be older than fifty, possibly even in her early sixties. I wondered if she had ever been an advocate for a bride before.
She said, ?My background is in crisis counseling. My training is in psychology. Schulz told me that was your training, too.?
?College major. I cook for a living.?
She smiled, showing large teeth streaked with yellow. ?And you?re a mother. So am I, although my children are grown now.?
I pulled the quilt over my shaking knees. I?d never talked with one of the Sheriff?s Department victim advocates, although their existence was well-publicized in the county. The advocates, both men and women, brought teddy bears and homemade quilts to the victims of accidents and crimes. Tom had told me that after a recent landslide, the advocates had spent the day in a hospital emergency room, giving out over forty quilts. They did a lot of good work, he?d said, with people who were hurt, with people who had lost loved ones …
Helens?s smile held through my silence. Tom would have said, Tell me how you see her. What he meant was describe her. Suddenly I could imagine Helen Keene bringing an oversize container of Kool-Air into her children?s elementary school classes on Field Day. When the Shriners? circus came to town, I saw her shuffling onto a schoolbus to help chaperone the boisterous class on its bumpy trip. Now her gentle smile faded to seriousness. ?Goldy, we need to talk. You?re going to have to decide what people you?re going to tell to about this. Among your friends, I mean. If you?re going to keep it together and help us, you need to take care of yourself.?
?Decide who I?m going to tell about the canceled wedding, Tom disappearing, what? I want to help find him,? I said, without adding a doubtful comment on how effective I was afraid the Sheriff?s Department could be without Tom Schulz.
Again Helen put her hand on my arm. Her short nails were spotted with chipped orange nail polish. Outside, the snow shower thickened; Boyd turned on the windshield wipers. ?It?s like any kind of assault,? Helen told me. ?It?s a personal violation. Your fiance has disappeared. So maybe you feel stranded. High feelings, emotional vulnerability.? In the front seat, I heard Boyd snap his match between his teeth. I flinched. Helen went on, ?But people won?t think of you as being in need of care. They?re going to think of you as a switchboard operator, full of information. They?ll feel they have to call you to find out the latest developments. Or maybe they?ll just be nosy to see how you?re holding up.? She continued firmly, ?You need to decide. Who?re you going to tell how things are going? Who are you going to talk to about how you feel??
?All right,? I murmured, I did not know what I would say and to whom. I just wanted Tom back.
?Something else.? Her voice was still matter-of-fact. ?People are going to talk. They?re going to joke. They?re going to say Schulz staged this disappearance to escape getting married to you.? She chewed her bottom lip and looked at me expectantly.
My face became hot. A spasm of pain swept over me. I said, ?They already have. Or at least one woman at the church has. And of course my parents think he?s skipped,? I said with an absurd squeak of laughter.
Helen shook her long hair. The police car turned right by a row of mailboxes where a sheriff?s Department car was stationed. Its lights flashed blue and yellow in the snowy gloom. We started up a rutted, muddy road. ?Look, Goldy, part of my job as victim advocate is working on how people are going to respond to unexpected cruelties. One of the hardest things I have to deal with is when a child is kidnapped, and the neighbors insist he ran away.? She said firmly, ?I know Schulz loved you very much.?
?Helen ? please. Loves.??
?Sorry.?
Our car skidded through an ice-covered puddle before stopping by the broken-down split-rail fence that led to Father Olson?s house. With my nerves put on edge by Tom Schulz?s disappearance, I needed to find significance or clues in every detail. Had the fence been broken when I catered a vestry dinner here last month? I could not remember. A lanky policeman standing by another Sheriff?s Department vehicle motioned Boyd through.
Boyd gunned the engine up the precipitously steep driveway. My mind snagged on a memory. The inclined driveway had been one of the reasons Father Olson had insisted to the vestry, that group of twelve lay people elected to run the temporal affairs of the church, that he needed a four-wheel-drive vehicle. And not just any four- wheel-drive, vestry member Marla had laughingly told me, but a Mercedes 300E 4Matic. The vestry, charged with raising and managing the church finances, had balked. But eventually, according to Marla, the group had acquiesced. This year, they?d even agreed there was sufficient money to hire a curate. Olson had hired the fidgety,
