I felt strangely exhilarated. As I pulled out of downtown onto to I-25 the adrenalin rush of the previous couple of hours had subsided, but I still felt elated, and calm, at the same time.
Andrea had blabbed more than she realized, though not about Chloë as I had implied. And meeting Chloë Austin again wasn’t the dreaded event I always thought it would be. Her spew of venom hadn’t cut this time, hadn’t reached home. The bully power of her snarky humiliations was gone because I didn’t believe any of it was true anymore. I wasn’t laid low by it, as I would have been in the past. Rather, I felt energized.
First I called Henry Wade, and gave him a synopsis of my morning with Andrea Brubaker and Chloë Austin, leaving out Chloë’s personal spew about me; he didn’t need to hear it. He asked a few questions, and I thought I could tell that the information Andrea had given me confirmed some of his suspicions. He didn’t reveal much, but there was concern in his voice when we briefly discussed Ernesto Mondragón.
“Look, Lily, the guy is real trouble. I can’t tell you more than that because he is part of our investigation. I know he’s in New Mexico and not up here, and I don’t want to sound dramatic, but you should be careful. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious around your place, and then call us immediately if needed. We need to take care of this guy, and you don’t need to be involved. Just watch your back.”
“Henry, believe me when I say I don’t want to be involved,” I assured him. “I just want all these people caught and convicted. I can stay out of it!” I started to laugh, and said, “As they say, I’m just a gardener.”
Once off the phone with Henry Wade, I slipped in the top CD and queued up The Doors’ “20th Century Fox,” turned it up, and seat danced to the hypnotic keyboards. After that, I let it shuffle between synth-driven Berlin, buoyant Indian bliss of Ratnabali, tenor Placido Domingo, and the hard country beat of Kathy Mattea; and enjoyed the drive home, and my own personal epiphanies.
Traffic was light for once, and there was a clear view to the Flatirons west of Boulder, and the Indian Peaks Wilderness beyond. There was snow on Longs and Meeker, and winter wasn’t far from descending down to the plains, already in a palette of brown, with the cottonwoods in the arroyos barren of leaves and the upright branches of shrub willows bunched in yellow-orange blocks. I needed some time outside, and in my mind I was already on a walk along the river.