by Dianne Emley
Houses that had previously been shielded by the forest were now exposed. Chimneys still stood. Half-eaten walls revealed floor plans where kitchens and bathrooms were easily located by their porcelain fixtures. Some of the owners had completed the demolition of their homes, leaving behind just concrete foundations scraped clean. Rubble still cluttered others. Occasionally, a single house remained intact, only touched by the flames while everything around it burned. Maybe the owners were better prepared for fire or maybe they were just lucky, though it was guilt-inducing, odd luck to live in the only house standing in the neighborhood. Fire was fickle that way.
There were few trees, so there were few birds. The Triumph puttered obtrusively in the silence. She switched off her radio because it seemed inappropriately joyous. She turned on Cat Canyon, then on Withered Canyon, following a familiar route that she hadn’t taken in months but was still fresh in her mind.
She drove higher until she could look across the burnt Santa Monica Mountains and see the Pacific, which had stopped the fire’s westward progression, shining silver as the sun began to set. At the end of Withered Canyon, she parked in the flat clearing that had served as a visitors’ parking lot. There were no visitors there now. All the houses in this canyon had been destroyed. She walked up the gravel road, her heels unsteady on the pebbles.
John Somers’s house, built clinging to the side of the canyon wall, had not been visible from the road. Its only markers were a driveway and a mailbox. The steep driveway was still there but the mailbox was not. Iris stood at the top of the driveway and looked down. The large, woodsy, somewhat ramshackle redwood house was gone. In its place on the foundation was a large, jelly bean-shaped, aluminum Air Stream trailer. Two cheap white plastic chairs and a table stood in front of it. A jar on the table held bright carnations. It looked like a campsite in hell.
A sandbagging project was in progress. A wall of sandbags, three high, was placed in a V shape across the front of the property. A shovel, a pile of burlap sacks, and scattered mounds of sand were on the ground.
A dog began to bark and Iris caught her breath.
A muscular white bull terrier, his paws and the underside of his belly blackened with soot, charged from around the back of the trailer toward her. The stubby coarse hairs on the back of his neck were erect. He stopped short a few feet from her, his throat rumbling, and fixed her with one blue and one brown eye.
“Hi, Buster!” Iris exclaimed, glad to see this dog that had made it clear during the time she had been dating his owner that she was barely tolerated on his territory.
The dog turned his big head so that his warm brown eye faced her, then lowered his head compliantly and walked toward her. She reached her hand out and he licked her fingers once. She patted his hard skull and traced her fingernails across the short hair there. They both turned at the sound of a car engine. Buster bolted up the driveway, barking and wagging his tail.
A large, black Chevy pickup truck turned down the driveway and pulled onto the dirt near the sandbags. Its bed was full of sand. John Somers opened the door and stepped out. The large truck suited his long proportions. Wearing worn jeans, heavy boots, and a plaid flannel shirt, he looked as rugged as the surroundings. His coarse red hair was cut shorter than Iris remembered and he sported a neatly trimmed beard of a browner shade of red than the hair on his head.
“Is that Iris?” he half asked and half exclaimed. He stood next to the truck as if it made him feel safe.
“Hi, John.” She held her hands open to indicate the scene.
“Yeah. Pretty weird, isn’t it? I got your card. Thanks.”
“Seems sort of a lame response to something like this.”
“It was nice to know that you were thinking of me. You’ve had your own problems lately. Santa Monica was hard hit in the quake, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. The earth liquefied or turned to Jell-O or some damn thing.”
“How’d you make out?”
She shrugged. “Not unscathed but not as bad as some people. The Homeowners Association is fighting over what they’re going to fix and when and…” She shook her head as if the subject were repellent.
They met each other’s eyes across the ash-covered dirt.
“You grew a beard. It’s a bit more refined than the one you had in college.”
“I’m on a leave of absence for a few months.” He stroked his beard. “I’m taking advantage of my freedom.”
“A leave of absence?”
“I just couldn’t handle it. Investigating murders, then coming home to this. I’ve been seeing a therapist to help me figure things out.”
“You, seeing a witch doctor?”
“Yeah, me. I’ve changed a lot. Had a lot of time to think.” He looked at her meaningfully.
She pointed at the dog, changing the subject. “Buster came right up and licked my hand. Surprised the heck out me.”
“He’s been a kinder, gentler dog since the fire.”
Buster walked to stand next to John, as if he knew he was being talked about.
John roughly scratched the dog’s back. “Penny and Chloe couldn’t find him when they had to evacuate. A few days later, I got a call from this guy who found him drinking from his pool. His fur was singed and his paws were blistered, but he was okay. He’d run all the way out of the canyon.” He patted the dog, blinking as his eyes watered.
Iris also blinked back a tear at Buster’s story.
John continued rubbing the dog, which seemed to have lapsed into a semihypnotic state. John glanced at Iris and pressed his lips together as if trying to hold back something that begged to be said. “She left me again. Penny.”
“I heard. Tough luck. Chloe living with her?”
“Like before. Sometimes here, sometimes there. Chloe’s going to be sixteen. Can you believe it?”
“She’s going to catch up with me. I stopped counting at twenty-nine.”
“You look like you’re twenty-nine. You look great.”
“Thanks.”
She saw him inhale the air in her direction. It was a tiny gesture. He raised his head slightly and his nostrils flared for a moment. She’d spritzed herself so many times when she was shopping she probably smelled like the fragrance counter. She swayed back and forth slightly, feeling awkward. She scooped her hair behind her ear, just to be doing something, and looked at the Air Stream. “Did everything burn?”
“I saved some pictures and things. It makes you realize how little you really need. It’s liberating, in a way. I lost a lot, but I gained a lot too.”
He frowned at his shoes, then looked up with something settled, finalized in his eyes. He moved his leg as if he was about to take a step.
She virtually fled from him, turning and quickly walking toward the sandbags. She didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t hear it. “What’s going on here?” she asked conversationally.
He stood beside her, somewhat closer than necessary. “For the rain. There’s no growth on the hillsides to hold the mud and water back. The V shape directs the water around the trailer.” He casually rested his foot on top of the sandbag wall, but his body was tense.
She cringed slightly, sensing the inevitable. She hadn’t come here for this, for revelations and explanations, but he seemed determined to seize the moment. She tried another tactic. “Hey! I’m being promoted to manager of the L.A. office.”
“That’s great, Iris! Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“I always knew you could accomplish anything you wanted.” He sighed. “You’re just terrific.” He pressed his lips together like he had just before he spoke of Penny.
Here it comes, she thought.
“Iris, I’ve kicked my butt every day since I sent you away from me. I guess I really screwed it up for us.”
“It’s in the past.”
“I agree. For the first time in a long time, I’m looking forward to the future. I hope with you.”
He reached to take her hand. For some reas
on, she let him. She’d been lonely. She hadn’t dwelt on it, but she was good at that, at forward motion, momentum, at not staying in one place too long and not looking back. His grasp felt warm and familiar. They had replayed this scene many times over the years. Him on bent knee, hat in hand, begging for forgiveness, and her swearing she’d never again go down that path. Two years ago, in spite of herself, she’d fallen in love with him again. A year ago, he’d told her he was going back to his ex-wife. She’d sworn it was the last time he’d break her heart. Her hand rested against his wrist and she felt his heartbeat. She immediately released him. She couldn’t bear the intimacy.
“Let it go, John.”
“I had hoped you’d forgiven me.”
She looked across the barren landscape. “That’s the second time someone’s said that to me today. I have to go home and read my horoscope.”
“I guess you haven’t.”
“I can’t just set the pain aside. I’ve paid too dearly for it. I cried myself to sleep too many nights.”
“If you don’t make peace with the past, it’ll pollute your present, Iris.”
“Maybe it should.”
He stroked his beard. “I want you to know that whatever happens between us, I’ll always be your friend. You can always count on me. Call me if you ever need anything.”
She changed the strap of her purse from one shoulder to the other. “Well, that’s great because…umm…I do need something.”
“Is that why you came?”
“Well…Yes.”
He snickered and looked at his boots.
“I’m sorry. You started on this relationship thing before I had a chance—”
“You held my hand. I felt…” He bitterly shook his head. “I’m an idiot. I’m always an idiot.”
She wished she could help him but she couldn’t. He owned this one.
“So what can I do for you, Iris?”
It now embarrassed her to ask, but she hadn’t come all this way for nothing. “I wondered if you could track down a car license number for me.” She pulled a slip of paper from her purse. “It might belong to some guy named Angus or another guy, named Bobby, or to Paula DeLacey.”
“Paula DeLacey. Why does that name sound familiar?”
“She’s an old friend of mine. You met her when we were in college.” She hoped he didn’t remember the incident. She’d witnessed all the self-flagellation she could bear for one day.
He winced as he thought. “Oh, yeah. Paula. Of course.” He took the paper and thankfully did not say another word on the subject but looked at her askance as if expecting a blow. “Give me a day to track this down.”
“Great.” She surveyed his new habitat again. “So I guess everything burned, huh?”
“I just took some pictures and clothes and stuff, like I told you.”
She chewed her lower lip. “Maybe it’s best.”
He rounded his eyes and mouth as if a thought had occurred to him. “You mean that?”
“Yeah, that.”
“So that’s what you really came for.” He grabbed a shovel which was leaning against the sandbags and started to walk past the Air Stream. He looked back. “Come and get it.”
She followed. It was indeed what she had come for.
He walked past the foundation of his former house and down a slope to a level area where his fruit trees and garden once grew. The trees that were left were just stumps. He stood at the base of one of them and stepped five paces, then began to dig. After going down a couple of feet, he pulled a green plastic garbage bag from the hole. He dusted the dirt from it, then tore it open with his fingers. There was a second garbage bag inside. He tore that too. He pulled out a large overstuffed Louis Vuitton satchel and handed it to her.
She took it and looked inside.
“It’s all there,” he said. “What was it? About half a million dollars?”
“About four hundred thousand,” she corrected him.
“I could never figure out why you left it on my doorstep.”
“I wanted Penny to find it with the note I wrote. I knew how jealous she was. I did it to be a bitch.”
“I found it before she got home.”
“The best-laid plans…”
“Why didn’t you keep it? I was the only one who knew you had it.”
“It’s unlaundered drug money from the mob. I couldn’t spend that much cash without sending up a flare to the IRS. Plus some friends of mine died because of it. In my mind it’s tainted.”
“Why do you want it now?”
“I need a lot of cash for something and I got to thinking. If I use dirty money to do something dirty but morally right, maybe it makes the money clean.”
“Two wrongs never make a right.” He gave her a penetrating look.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not going to have somebody killed, are you?”
Her mouth gaped with delight. “It never occurred to me. Leave it to a cop to come up with a great idea like that. I could probably hire a real pro with this dough.”
“Just don’t get into trouble.”
She gestured toward herself. “Moi?”
He laughed. It was good to see him laugh. It was a good time to leave. She turned and began trudging back up the sooty dirt. At the top of the rise, she turned to look at him one last time. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Say hi to your mother for me.”
“Sure,” she said, knowing it would be a cold day in hell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Iris slapped the snooze button on the clock radio and remained horizontal. After ten minutes passed in a heartbeat, she slapped it again. When it buzzed the third time, she knew she’d be in serious trouble if she didn’t haul her butt out of bed. She knew without looking at the clock that it was almost 5 a.m. She had fifteen minutes to get ready for work. She flew out of bed, leaving it unmade, plugged in the hot rollers, flung herself into the shower, barely patted herself dry, wound the rollers into her hair, burning her face and neck where they touched her skin, ran into her closet, struggled to pull on pantyhose over her damp skin, and snagged a work dress off a hanger. As she was buttoning it up, one of the buttons came off and flew into her forest of shoes. “Crap!”
She tore the dress off and grabbed her faithful herringbone-weave suit that was well overdue for a trip to the dry cleaners but never looked it. She rummaged in the closet, desperate to find a clean blouse. In the back, she found a blouse she disliked and hadn’t worn in years. She fumbled with the buttons as she put it on, hoping that no one at the office would ask her if it was new.
Hearing the minutes tick by in her head, she spent a precious minute unzipping the garment bag in which she’d packed her new dress and accessories. She breathed a sigh of relief. That thing hadn’t happened. That weird thing in which clothes that were “can’t-live-without-it” in the heat of the shopping moment transformed into “what-was-I-thinking?” in the cool light of day. The outfit was still fabulous. She swooned.
She scooped makeup into her purse, grabbed her briefcase and the garment bag, poured already brewed coffee into her commuter mug, and ran out the door, down the stairs, and into the garage. She put on her makeup by the light of a flashlight held between her knees as the Triumph warmed up. At the on-ramp to the Ten, the light was green and she orange-lined the TR.
Forty-five minutes later, she walked into the McKinney Alitzer suite, composed and on time. She walked past the investment counselors’ cubicles, her garment bag tossed over her shoulder, her briefcase held firmly in her hand, her posture erect and her stride certain.
“Rough night?” Kyle asked as she passed.
Warren Gray sniggered and Sean Bliss for once seemed to be staring at something in the vicinity of her face for a change. Amber raised her eyebrows.
What’s their problem? Iris raised her chin to a regal angle, unlocked her door, and gave them an imperious glance when she turned to flip on her light switch. As she was taking files out
of her briefcase, Amber Ambrose appeared in her doorway.
“Good morning,” she chirped. She sauntered into Iris’s office and casually leaned against her window.
“Good morning,” Iris said tensely, having a natural aversion to and suspicion of early-morning enthusiasm. “What is everyone laughing about?”
“Have you looked in a mirror this morning?”
“Why?” Iris took a hand mirror from her filing cabinet and was examining her makeup when she saw it. “Son of a bitch!” She jerked the forgotten hot roller from her hair and sheepishly smiled. “A sign I have too much on my mind.”
“Oh, really?”
The comment seemed innocent enough, but there was an eager edge to it that aroused Iris’s suspicions. She started to tell her what was going on but thought better of it. “It’s nothing.”
“Hmmm.” Amber spotted the garment bag that Iris had hung behind the door. “Going somewhere after work?”
“I have a date.”
“Really? Someone new?”
“Actually, it’s someone I’ve known for a long time, but this is our first date.”
“Sounds interesting. Anyone I know?”
“You might have heard of him. Thomas Gaytan DeLacey. He’s running for the City Council.”
“No kidding? I’ve seen his picture in the paper. He’s a fox.”
Iris smiled crookedly. “Yeah.” She continued taking folders from her briefcase and getting ready for the day.
“New blouse?” Amber asked.
“Ah, yeah.” Well, it was almost new.
“Nice.”
“Thanks.” Iris couldn’t figure out why Amber was being so unusually vociferous this morning.
“So, have you heard any dish about Dexter’s leaving?”
