* * *
It was usually about after the first mile that my mind would start to let go of whatever things it was worrying about, and allow me to walk along the river and enjoy the open sky and exuberant green riparian growth. Wild plum and shrub willows grew so densely that many times I could only hear the water from the path beside it, rather than see it. The brownish green river was low now from summer irrigation water being pulled out of it, the flow just covering rounded grey rocks on the bottom, and I stopped to watch a belted kingfisher make a blue swoop over the channel by the far bank before it plunged after a fish. The sound of the river would pull me for miles, just around another corner, if I let it, but I was going to lose the light soon, so it was time to head home.
The phone rang as I walked in the door, with Hannah Huckleston on the other end. “I just remembered something, Lily, that we hadn’t talked about. Maybe it’ll be helpful?
“Shannon’s and my time in Las Cruces was pretty busy with, like, school, and the immigrant projects we volunteered for. But I was, like, blown away that Shannon had the time to travel up to Abiquiu so many times that year. I didn’t have any extra energy to spare, but she did. She’d connected with the peace and justice movement down here, and went up there with a couple of other volunteers to conferences, or seminars, or something like that.”
“Did she ever talk about what they did at the seminars or other people she met?”
“Maybe she did, but I just don’t remember. I didn’t see her a lot that last year. She seemed pretty happy with what she was doing, though.”
“Hannah, I’ve been thinking about Shannon committing suicide, and the whole story of her going down the tubes, cheating her clients, and stealing from their accounts. It doesn’t seem to fit. Does it to you?”
“Umm, no, not really, I didn’t think it seemed right at the time, but … but that’s what everybody said happened, like, I thought maybe she’d changed a lot. But, you know? I lived with her those years at school, and just about every day I saw her she would, like, express gratitude that her sobriety allowed her to help others and make a difference.”
“That’s how I remember her,” I said.
“She wasn’t preachy about it or anything, I just saw her as always trying to do the right thing. That’s not the kind of person who would, like, steal from others, or whatever it was they said she did.”
“I don’t think she was that kind of person, either. After you all graduated, did you keep in touch?”
“Well, Joe and I were getting together then …” Hannah paused, and I could hear the grin in her voice. “And I was concentrating on getting into UNC’s graduate teaching program up in Greeley, and Joe was starting with the Forest Service, and then we took that backpacking trip all summer in Canada …” Her voice trailed off. “I guess we weren’t good about staying in touch; I thought we would, but, well, you know how it is. She said she was working in Abiquiu that summer and fall with a foundation or something. A non-profit? I don’t remember. Connected with the peace and justice groups, I think.”
“So when you say Abiquiu do you mean Ghost Ranch?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s right, Ghost Ranch. She went up there for those meetings.”
Ghost Ranch Conference Center was the Presbyterian Church’s education retreat center north of Abiquiu and it was open to all sorts of groups wanting retreat space in a beautiful and affordable setting. I’d been there myself many times. It was not Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, which was private, and located up the road.
“Do you remember the name of the sponsoring foundation, or someone’s name? Was she dating anyone or had met anyone she talked about?”
“Sorry, I don’t remember any names. She wasn’t dating anyone then. I remember her, like, laughing about how she’d rather spend time with the kids she volunteered with at the elementary school than with a boyfriend right then. She hadn’t had very good luck with boyfriends; didn’t seem to pick ‘em very well, you know? I always thought she deserved better.” Hannah sighed on the other end of the phone, and then I heard a faucet turned on, and dishes clinking in the sink.
“It seems like a long time ago, even though it wasn’t. Like, things are just so different now! I’m married, I’m teaching school. Although, now we’re back in ‘Cruces, it doesn’t seem to have changed much!” she laughed. But her voice became serious again. “I lost track of her. I don’t keep up on the Facebook thing; too busy. Like, I didn’t even know she was back in Colorado until I ran into her at that party.”
We were both silent for a moment. “Well, thanks for the call, Hannah. That information helps to give me a fuller picture. Call any time, really,” I said.
“Lily,” Hannah asked, “is anything going to happen? I mean, like, about questioning Shannon’s suicide? Like, the police looking into it?”
“At this point it seems unlikely,” I said, telling her about my phone call to the county detective John Boyer.
She sighed and I did, too. “It just seems so sad,” she said. I agreed and bid her goodbye. And then went out and sat on the steps in the back yard, looking up at the Big Dipper. I could hear crickets creaking a rhythm in the dark. Sad, indeed.