* * *
What I really needed was to get out by myself and drive; I did some of my best thinking on the road. So I decided it was a good time to take up an offer from some friends to join them at their cabin outside of Breckenridge the next weekend. Liz could handle the maintenance jobs for a half-day Monday morning until I returned in the afternoon; she said she’d ask Louie to help her if Louie needed a break from her desk job. I arranged with Carol to take the dogs back out to the Casa, and I headed off to the hills.
I steered west up I-70 to the country tunes of The Mavericks, through the Eisenhower Tunnel at the Continental Divide, and down the long, steep hill toward Silverthorne, coasting with the sweet Hawaiian harmonies of Hapa. Next in the queue were the guitars and mandolins of 10,000 Maniacs, and then 1980s English pop of Genesis, blasting at high volume. I sang loudly along, and that was one reason I usually traveled by myself; even Betty Huckleston couldn’t stand it.
Turning south at Frisco, I passed through the ski town of Breckenridge, topped Hoosier Pass, and descended the south side to Perry and Denise in their early retirement at their cabin in the woods. As we sat on the deck after dinner to watch the alpenglow behind Mt. Lincoln and Mt. Cameron, we laughed together as they regaled me with stories about their travels.
Perry Davis and Denise Robicheaux were good friends that I had known for a long time, so I felt comfortable bringing up what I’d been thinking about, or more to the truth, what had been bothering me. At first, Shannon Parkhurst’s story came out in a jumble, just as the events were in my mind. Then I re-started the narrative, and soon backtracked to another detail and lost them completely in the confusing telling. I stopped in frustration.
“I’m going to write this down, get it organized—out of my head. You all talk amongst yourselves,” I deadpanned, “and I’ll be back.”
I went off to find a notebook and pencil in my room, and then sat outside for a while writing. Perry and Denise relaxed on the deck, drinking rum toddies as they watched the ridges grow deep purple, charcoal, and then merge into the black sky. The dense Milky Way was just coming out overhead, and backlit the dark shapes of the mountains in celestial finery. A very young sounding Frank Sinatra, a Perry Davis favorite, was crooning on the stereo inside the cabin, and his smooth voice seemed to fit the velvet and voluptuous night. After I was satisfied that I had made a good start, I returned to the deck, and started to lay out the bare bones of it when Denise stopped me.
“Darlin’, yall’s been listenin’ to yall’s own self too long. Why don’t ah read the list to all yall, out loud? Maybe it’d make more sense?” Denise Robicheaux’s honeyed voice always sounded sweet to me, so I handed the list to her, ready for any idea that would help things make more sense.
Denise snapped on a small lamp on the table next to her, illuminating her short white, spiked hair and everyday Mardi Gras ensemble of tight tangerine tank top, gold lamé capris, and leopard-print flats. She pulled a paisley shawl around her shoulders against the mountain evening chill, and curled up in her chair. “Okay, yall, here we go:
“1. Shannon Parkhurst died—she worked on my crew, and Betty Huckleston’s daughter Hannah was her roommate in college.
“2. The cops say it was suicide, but that doesn’t sound right, doesn’t make sense.”
“Does suicide make sense? Doesn’t the person feel like they have no choice when really they do?” Perry broke in while handing me a fleece throw for my chilly, shorts-clad legs. “What was it about Shannon that was different?”
“For one thing, Shannon was so resilient. I mean, when I met her, she’d come through really tough times. She was pulling her life together. She’d gotten sober, stayed sober—that’s even harder to do when you’re young ‘cause everybody around you is partying it up, and partying hard. But she was doing it, and loving life. She bounced back. I can’t see her giving up.”
“Sounds familiar,” Perry said and poked my arm.
“Yeah, I guess I saw a lot of myself in that kid. I was pulling for her.” I sighed. “Go on, Little D., keep reading.”
Denise continued:
“3. After a funeral that was not a funeral, Betty and I picked up a trunk.
“4. Stickers on the trunk showed a fascination with an out-of-date superheroine.”
“Yall thought those stickers were a clue to get somebody’s attention?” Denise asked me.
“Well, not right then, but later. From what Hannah Huckleston said, it seemed like Shannon was calling attention to the stickers, for a reason I didn’t know then. Then I got suspicious, especially after Barry Correda lied about them, and the trunk, when I talked to him. He told that guy he hadn’t even seen the trunk. I wrote about that farther down the list. But wait, let’s take this order! Otherwise I’m going around in circles again. Read on.”
Denise turned to me and tapped the sheet with my list. “Yall’s handwritin’ is pretty, honey lamb. Yall could make money on it; yall oughta hire yall’s self out!”
Perry and I started laughing.
“Oh, stop it. Yall know what ah meant,” Denise said, and popped my leg with her spotted flat. She continued with the list.
“5. ‘Nephew’ was suppose to pick up the trunk, but didn’t, and I forgot to deliver it.
“6. Had an attempted break-in.
“7. Someone broke in again and rifled through the trunk, taking nothing.
“8. Found out Shannon’s aunt—Bernice Thorton—suddenly went on a cruise, so can’t ask her about the trunk.
“9. The boyfriend Barry Correda was full of himself and a liar at my meeting with him.
“10. Shannon’s colleagues thought she was an alcoholic (and didn’t seemed surprised that she was suicidal) via info from Barry. Facebook photos said to show her drunk.
“11. Liz and I eavesdropped on two profane jerks who blamed ‘Daryl’ for everything, They said they were looking for a book.
“12. Found sheets of paper filled with numbers, written by Shannon it seems, in a hiding place—under a sticker—on the trunk. ”
“Some kind of code?” Ca-OH-dah on Denise Robicheaux’s tongue. “Like the numbers correspond to letters?” she asked as she finished the list and handed it to Perry.
“Or the numbers are related to something in that book they were looking for?” wondered Perry Davis in her nasal Midwestern tone. She scanned the list and then switched off the light, and in the darkness the thick blanket of stars overhead felt just a reach away again.
“There wasn’t anything in the books in the trunk—nothing marked up or crossed out—to indicate that they were part of a code. I don’t know exactly what they were talking about,” I answered. “I think the sheets of numbers are what’s important. Folded up they looked like a tiny book, I guess. And now this list you just read—everything laid out like that—makes it seem clearer. To me, at least. There are too many odd things going on. Now I’m thinking I should tell the police about these pieces of Shannon’s life—that have just dropped in my lap—even if I don’t know what to do about it all. Even if they are coincidences.”
Denise Robicheaux gave a wag to her white, spiked head. “Mmm, hmm. Girl, sounds like it’s time to eat some bait to cut your fish.”
Perry and I started laughing, again. Little Denise always entertained.
“Aw, come on, now! Ah can never get that folksy crap right. Yall know my momma didn’t raise me up to be a fool. What ah mean is, in plain ol’ English, ah think it’s time to quit goin’ back and forth about it all, and go on to the police, just like yall said. Don’t yall, sweetie?” Denise asked her partner.
Perry grinned at her and turned to me. “Yes, I do, but what’s most important is what you think, Lily. It’s your life all of this affecting. You have to decide what you want to do.”
We sat in the dark for a while in silence, the sweet smell of their hot toddies drifting over to me as I sipped my decaf. Denise asked some more questions, as did Perry, and we discussed one possibility and another far too deep in
to the night.
After the next day of biking up the Boreas Pass road with them, I left early the following morning, Denise and Perry barely awake enough to tell me good-bye. Later in the day, Big Denise Robicheaux herself was being shuttled up from Denver, where she’d relocated after Hurricane Katrina, and I knew they needed time to prepare, both the cabin and themselves. Big Denise wasn’t difficult, Perry had winked at me the night before, but did require her particular comforts and attentions. Perry Davis had navigated the demanding seas of the Robicheaux matriarch’s world for a long time, but I wasn’t up for crewing on a family dynamics barge, so I enthusiastically left them to it.
Shunning the interstate for as long as possible, I turned south on Hwy. 9, to take the long and scenic way home via Alma, pop. 200. I like to laugh at their fully-outfitted mannequin policeman propped up behind the wheel of a patrol car sitting beside the highway at the edge of town, and smile at the amusing moniker of Hoosier Daddy Liquors. The mountain humor was worth the detour. At Fairplay, I changed out my music mix to Irish alternative rock of The Cranberries, the driving beat of Texas, rumba flamenco of Gipsy Kings, and then the dub and reggae of Thievery Corporation. Then I turned northeast, and headed home. In the midst of the music, I made up my mind: It was time to talk to the police.
CHAPTER NINE