* * *
With the heat expected in the mid-90s the next day, Liz Burzachiello and I started very early in the morning weeding and planting perennials at a riverside property a mile or two up the Poudre Canyon. The property had some old magnificent cottonwoods that gave off a rustling, welcome shade, but there were still large, open, hot areas that were exhausting to work. But my real problem with keeping my mind on my work was all of the conflicting thoughts in my head. The heat just made it seem as if they melded into gooey lump.
I felt that Barry Correda was not the person he pretended to be and that he was hiding the real truth about Shannon. He had two very different personas, and in my experience that meant something was awry, something was not as it seemed, something was a lie. He seemed so popular at Binder Enterprises—women swooning over him, his charm evident. Promoted in the company, obviously making money, lots of it. Everyone saw him as Successful Charm Boy.
And then Liz and I listened to him being Mr. Sleazebag bragging skank talk to some low life jack wagon. How could I get at the real side of him to learn what happened to Shannon? Didn’t it seem to others that he was trying to make her look bad while claiming to care about her? Why were they so ready to believe him? Didn’t it seem to others that he had kept her isolated in the final months of her life? That only he had access to her? That it was his story that she was drinking and depressed? Did anyone take the time to check on Shannon to see if they could help? Or did they all just believe Mr. Golden Boy? Shaking my head, I disgustedly threw more handfuls of bindweed onto the tarp, and then pulled it toward the next batch of weeds under a row of tall cotoneaster.
Nancee Kepler, Barry Correda’s receptionist, said she saw Shannon stumble down the hallway on Barry’s arm—did that necessarily mean she was drunk or that she was incapacitated in some other way? It seemed that Shannon’s public drunken downfall happened very quickly; could she have messed up her accounts so much, so quickly that she would give away her hard-fought sobriety, and then kill herself?
Did anyone say they saw Shannon drinking, or just that Barry Correda had said she was? And if he was making that up, what else was made up? But what about the photos? My thought process always stopped at the photos; they seemed to be indisputable proof. But did Shannon Parkhurst really kill herself? Was it just an accident? That took me around in the circle again. I knew how insidious alcohol could be and how quickly it could take away one’s judgment, self-respect, and joy of living. Did she just commit suicide, and I couldn’t accept it?
“Lily! Watch out!” Liz Burzachiello’s strident voice penetrated my circuitous musings and not-perfect hearing. “Watch out! There’s a yellow jacket just behind your head!”
I quickly spun to face the danger, my eyes searching the air for the distinctive color and flight pattern of a yellow jacket. I ducked and dodged as a wasp buzzed at my face, and swooped around my head several times before flitting off.
“It’s okay, Liz. Just a wasp, not a yellow jacket. Don’t want it to sting me, but it won’t kill me.”
Liz pulled down her sunglasses and glared at me. “But your injector is probably in the car, isn’t it? A lot of good—”
“I know, I know. It’s stupid. I just forgot.” We encountered so many flying insects outside that it was hard to maintain a steady vigilance, and keep the injector on hand at all times, that I almost always became lassiez-faire about it, trusting my own observations to keep me out of trouble. “You know I’m afraid I’ll lose stuff in my pockets,” was my lame excuse to Liz.
“But, hey? I’m going around and around in my head about Barry Correda,” I said to change the subject. “We know he’s a jerk, and it seems like he’s trying to discredit her. But did he have anything to do with her death? He went through all the steps of a concerned fiancé, too—reporting her missing, helping the police, searching, bereft when she was found, blah, blah, blah.”
Liz nodded as she deadheaded a batch of yellow coreopsis and kept an eye out for more flying death. “But he was at an office function—not out looking for missing Shannon—the night she died. That seems odd to me. Was it for the alibi?”she asked.
“I wondered the same thing. It didn’t feel right. And this feeling of things not adding up is driving me crazy. Barry Correda bugs me.”
“Emma thinks the guy is a lying sleazebag!” Liz said.
“Ha! Me too! How’s she doing? How’s the project in Germany going?” Liz’s more-than-usual cheerful demeanor was a good indication that her partner was just home again from one of her frequent overseas trips.
“Oh, the project’s okay, but being gone for three weeks at a time is rough! We’ve even missed some big races at the speedway—just when she was getting interested. It’s getting old, her not at home. She’s pulling the whole weight of the project, and it’s really taking its toll on her,” Liz said in an indignant tone, grumbling out a litany of grievances I’d been hearing for a couple of seasons. Emma herself rarely talked about it, but I knew her work situation was still difficult.
“Anyway,” she sighed, continuing with her normal get-on-with-it manner, “Emma and I have discussed this from day one, and she always thought Barry was a sleazebag, and not to be trusted.”
“Maybe I should have her talk to the police with me!” I said only half-jokingly. “I didn’t seem to have much luck. If there’s two of us, then maybe I wouldn’t sound crazy. Maybe I should talk to Barry again, see if I could learn something more. Even if he’s a liar.”
Liz enthusiastically wanted to go with me to such a meeting, but since I had no plan as yet how to do it, I put her off. I needed to think some more about it.
We finished the yard and loaded up Wanda the trailer. It had been a long day’s work, but it felt good to have accomplished what we set out to do, and that the planted beds looked impressive. The healthy, lush plants already looked at home and the native grasses—fescue, bluestem, prairie switchgrass—stood tall and glistening, back lit by the sun. Shadows were beginning to draw long lines over the landscape, and the saffron threads of the late afternoon light glowed in deep contrast. Our grimy faces matched our grimy arms and legs as each tarp load into Wanda drifted fine dust all over us as we bungeed down the tarp on the final load. I made the daily stop at the recycling yard, always happy to dump a load of yard debris for the mulch pile, and being able to go home with an empty trailer. It would be perfect if I could just dump all my anxieties at the recycling yard, too.