* * *
As Liz and I staked out new flower beds the next day, I filled her in on the new developments, and she wanted to speculate on different theories about Shannon, Barry, Andrea, and Cowboy Binder. “What did Isabelle think about the Momo as Barry idea?” she asked. She was intrigued with Momo Morgan.
“We didn’t talk about Momo very much,” I said, “There was too much other stuff to talk about.”
“You didn’t even get to Momo?” she asked. “Is Momo on the board yet? I want to come over and look at that board! I was telling Emma about it.”
“Yeah, I put him in his own little circle by the New Mexico group. Not much info there right now to talk about, though. We got sidetracked by the Andrea-Cowboy intrigue. Isabelle has all sorts of ideas. ” I suggested to Liz that she and Emma come over and take a look at the stuff on the board; maybe they could see any connections we had not. I told her about Isabelle’s asking for a photo of the board doodlings to continue her theorizing at home, and that made me think of the photos of Shannon posted on Facebook.
It all kind of bubbled up to the surface on its own because it had been stewing for quite a while. Just as I had concluded that Shannon Parkhurst wouldn’t have given up on life, I knew Shannon wouldn’t have given up her sobriety. In the end, it was the same thing. Old timers in AA acknowledged that few alcoholics stayed sober—that one had about a five percent chance to make it. But they also told me that one way to beat the odds was to be authentic and true, and achingly honest. That had been the timbre of Shannon’s story, told to me on a rare rainy day when we sat in the shop the summer we had worked together. She told it without grandiosity, without hubris, and accepted responsibility for her actions; and she looked me in the eye when she did. Her behavior matched her words, and I hadn’t discovered anything that would make me change my mind about Shannon Parkhurst.
“The photos of Shannon were wrong, Liz. I wish I’d seen them; maybe I could tell something was off. But that doesn’t matter now. Think about the origin of those photos: the biggest party of the summer around here, Kelsy said. And there was quiet Shannon, who hadn’t even been seen at work for weeks, supposedly partying it up? I think Barry trotted her out for that party. So lots of people would see her; plus pictures were made. He wanted people to see her incapacitated, and made sure of it by posting photos of the party on Facebook.”
“The photos never did fit the picture for you, did they? But Kelsy said they showed Shannon drunk, and that she saw her drunk at the party where they were taken,” Liz responded.
“’Out of it’ is what people have been saying,” I said. “No smell of alcohol, that’s the big clue; and no one saw her drinking. I know that’s a fine distinction, but was she really drunk? Look, if I wasn’t suspicious of Barry Correda’s behavior I’d drop it, but my instincts are just telling me something is not right. I don’t know, but it seems like she wasn’t participating in the party, like brought out by Barry for people to see her ‘drunk’, so it would match the story of her being drunk, and then committing suicide.”
“Well, it’s too late on the photos now anyway. Didn’t you say they were taken down? Not much you can do.”
“Yeah, I know. But I can talk to Henry Wade about it. God, I hope doesn’t think I’m some busybody who—”
“Hey, Lily,” a voice called. It was Jorge Martinez. “Can you come over here and check the first course of stone?” he called, pointing to the beginnings of a stacked stone wall around the side yard of the property. It was time to get back to work.
Jorge and I made a few adjustments to the base, and then we went through pallets of buff-colored sandstone picking out key pieces with the right coloring and thickness to later cap the wall. We had a lot more stone to put down, and I was anxious to continue making progress to keep ahead of the ever changing fall weather, so we all worked until late in the afternoon.
At the end of the day, Jorge’s dusty and tired crew put away their tools in his dually truck, and started on the daily job site cleanup. Jorge loaded his trailer with empty wooden pallets to be recycled, and called out instructions to the crew. I waved to Liz on her way out, and then took the long way home over Bingham Hill, for a sunset vista of the green valley spilling out under rusty red sandstone hogbacks above the river winding its way east. An idyllic old farm with a red brick silo spread out under the ancient cottonwoods lined up along irrigation ditches, glinting silver now in the slanting rays of the last of the sun. The expansive view released my inner tensions, and my gratitude reservoir was refilled.
When I checked my messages that evening, there was one from Isabelle, explaining that she remembered a really interesting idea she had had the night before at my house, and that she couldn’t wait to tell me. She asked me to call her back in Niwot the next day after work, and she said she was sure I’d be interested, as if I needed that hook. I was very curious already.