by Elia Seely
“Who is the maintenance supervisor?”
“Guy named David. He’s not a monk—older lay guy who’s lived up there a long time. He’s in charge of the work schedules, at least for the maintenance type stuff and landscaping.”
“But no other witnesses to your work?” He shook his head. “And what time did you finish?”
“About three forty-five. We have meditation at four. It’s an optional one, but I like it.”
“Who else was there? Did someone lead it, or whatever?”
“It’s an open sit, in the temple. There were some others there.” Steven rubbed his face. “I don’t remember who.”
“Any of the senior monks, though?”
Steven closed his eyes. “Jampa, maybe? Tsewang, I think.”
“Not Rabten?”
“Um, no. I don’t think so. I don’t know.”
Eli tapped on the door and came in, handed me a note. He’d found and confirmed the maintenance supervisor’s corroboration of Steven’s presence on Friday afternoon, as Steven had told me. Pema had vouched for Steven at the 4 p.m. meditation. I nodded and he mouthed ‘Tsewang’ and went back out. Steven hadn’t killed Choden. I felt relieved, disappointed, and terrible for having accused him outright. But there were more answers that he could give me, and it wouldn’t do to let him know he was out of the woods just yet.
I told the tape that Eli had brought in some minor communication and left again. I smoothed my hands on my trousers. “You know, Steven, I have a son a little younger than you. I try to be a good mom, I mess up plenty, but at least I’m there for him. How did it feel for you to never have your mom around? Who did you talk to if you had problems, or felt … I don’t know … lonely?”
Steven’s eyes blinked. I didn’t know why I was asking, and now I was afraid he’d start crying again. But he pulled it together, shrugged.
“I didn’t think about it. I mean, I didn’t know any different, did I? Wasn’t like any of the other kids there had moms around all the time either. There were the older monks, I guess, if you were having a problem. But mostly, you just, you know, figured it out. Used the tools you were learning. It’s not like here,” he said. “I mean, the U. S., where kids are so spoiled. Where life is so easy yet so dramatic. It’s a totally different world. I guess that’s why I ended back up here in a monastery. Because it’s what I know.”
“But there is some drama, from what you said earlier. All the guys with their vices. And then, of course, Choden.”
The corners of his mouth turned down, making him look more like a sad Muppet than ever. I felt incredibly sorry for him in that moment.
“Steven,” I said softly, “why did you get so upset earlier? I get that it was pretty harsh for me to ask you if you killed your friend—and I know now that you didn’t, you couldn’t have—” his head snapped up at this. “Sometimes we have to ask hard questions. But why did you have that reaction?”
He relaxed, shoulders creeping back down, jaw unclenching. He had still been afraid, however he’d pulled himself together. “I don’t know. I just did.”
I waited. Not a good enough reason.
“Because. It’s just so awful he’s dead. And I could have prevented it somehow, maybe? I’m the one who got him to travel out here. I thought it would be fun. Or interesting. Or whatever. How could I know?” He appealed to me, eyes big.
“You couldn’t,” I said simply. “It’s not your fault.”
We looked at each other a moment.
“Who do you think did it, Steven? Who do you think is trying to come after you?”
He stalled some more, playing with his Coke can. But I could see him thinking.
“I thought it might be that Jerome guy for a while, but I couldn’t figure out why he would. And then I realized it had to be someone at the monastery. That’s when I got scared, and then you guys were getting all up in things and I couldn’t remember what I’d said and to who … and then I felt like maybe it was Tenzin, because he knew I knew about them … but he’s a wimp and anyway I think he was like, really into Choden and there’s no way he’d have done the … the Sky Burial thing.”
“So, who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.” I didn’t press him. I went onto my questions. “Why were you so worried for Choden? It had to be more than him getting kicked out of the monastery.”
“I was worried because he was changing. Like I said, he was obsessed with the sutras. He thought he was going to get instantly enlightened. And the fact that Lobsang and Rabten were always trying to put him off made it worse.”
“Did you really not know about the thangkas?”
“I don’t know, I mean, he was studying them too but—” Understanding lit up his face. “They were the secret code? How?”
Now it was my turn to say, ‘I don’t know.’ But I pressed on. “Who do you think you saw last night? Standing over your bed?”
“I don’t—”
“You have suspicions. Who?”
“I thought maybe Tenzin, or Rabten. Because they seemed tall.”
“What size jeans do you wear?”
“Huh?”
“Just—”
“Okay, okay. Twenty-nine waist, thirty inseam.”
“Do you have a t-shirt that has a ‘free Tibet’ logo or saying on it? What size shirt do you usually wear?”
“I don’t have one that says ‘free Tibet.’ Just one with the Tibetan flag. I wear a medium usually. Why—”
“Never mind. Deputy O’Connor, terminating this interview at 2:32 p.m.” I shut off the tape. “Now, Steven, I’m going to type up a new statement for you to sign, and then you are free to go.”
He just stared at me for a moment and then rose.
“There’s a waiting area for the misdemeanor court on the second floor, if you want to hang out there. Or you can lie back down in the cell—unlocked—while I type up your statement. And then can you get over to the bus okay? To get back up?”
He nodded. I led him back into the main office and gestured to the door.
“Sandwiches on us.” I tried a smile. “Thanks for helping us with our inquiries. Do you feel that you can go back up there and feel safe? Maybe you should go see your mom down in Boulder.”
“I’m okay, I guess. Do I just go down the hall here?”
“Up to the second floor, take a right at the top of the stairs. I’ll be about a half hour.”
“Okay,” he sighed, and left.
I sighed too. My sandwich hadn’t sat well, and I felt sapped and tired. Eli sat eating his sandwich at his desk. Fran was out; Butch hadn’t returned yet and the office was quiet and still, smelling of onions, coffee, and disappointment. I wondered what Dan and Margo were doing.
“What happened?” Eli asked.
I relayed the gist of the conversation and slumped into my chair. “Is Tsewang coming in?”
“Unwillingly, but yes. She said she’d be here in an hour.”
“Who could have done it? Who doesn’t have an alibi? Who would fit those clothes? They’re the right size for Rabten or Jerome … way too long for Lobsang and not big enough around. But Jerome is accounted for at the time that Subaru went AWOL, as is Rabten. So who? We’re back to square one.”
“Unless, like we thought, they’re in it together, and they’re alibi-ing each other.”
We batted around theories for a moment more, and then I set to work typing up Steven’s statement. We caught Butch up when he finally came in. I felt that we’d lost our momentum; in the final miles to the finish we’d choked. I still couldn’t shake the idea that Rabten was involved, but he had been seen in his room by Tenzin at the time that someone had to be driving Choden away to his death. It didn’t make sense.
“Well, maybe this woman will be able to shed some more light on things,” Butch said as he came out for coffee and I pulled Steven’s statement from the typewriter.
“Tsewang? I hope so. Whatever version of an old boy’s club they’ve got goi
ng on up there she’s not in it, I’ll bet.” I rose from my chair. “Steven’s upstairs in the atrium, I’ll get him to sign this and then I’m going to prepare some notes for her. She’ll be here pretty soon.”
Chapter Forty-One
Tsewang put me off until Saturday morning, when she promised that she would be able to meet with me if I still found that necessary. Her formality and condescension bothered me, but I knew, too, that it wasn’t personal. The afternoon stretched long, but I busied myself with typing up notes and reports. Jim stopped by near to 5 p.m., saying that he’d found nothing to indicate that the Subaru had been used to transport bloody body parts, but that there were plenty of hair and fibers that could be analyzed, so we could at least, perhaps, prove that Choden had been in the car. Most of the evidence would point to nothing, as everyone in our sights had likely driven the car at some point. He said he would get us blood type results on the blood-stained clothing by morning. It was nice to see him, I liked his cool, dry humor and steady focus. He was totally overworked, of course, and looked wrecked.
“When this gets wrapped up,” I told him, “you come back up and celebrate with us, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, not meaning it.
After Jim left, we had a case meeting in Butch’s office. Short, as we’d gone over a lot of details earlier.
“I think it’s pretty clear—we’ve got to get Rabten in for questioning under caution. I just know he did it,” I said. “And he knows that I know. I’m afraid he’s going to run. Leave the country, even. He could do it.”
“But he likes the game,” Eli mused. “Likes being in control. I don’t know anything about psychopathic personality types, if he even is that, but I think they don’t do fear, you know? He won’t run because he’s afraid. He’ll bail if it extends the game, if he can do it from a power place.”
“Yes—you’ve nailed it, Eli,” I said. “That’s exactly how he’ll play it. I think he knows we don’t have any proof, or much evidence. We’d have arrested him already if we did. But he knows we’re close and there’s no one else he can point us to; so now he waits to see what our next move is. The problem is his alibi. If Tenzin saw him, and we can’t get him to break on that, then we’re stuck.”
“We don’t panic,” Butch said. “We don’t arrest him until we’ve got probable cause. We spend tomorrow talking to Tenzin, Jerome, Tsewang. I’ll talk to Tenzin; Eli, speak to Jerome, see what more you can get out of him and why he held back on Shannon. And you’ve got Tsewang,” he nodded to me. “We’ll have a meeting tomorrow afternoon, see what we’ve got, and move from there. I agree that Rabten won’t flee from panic. These books are too important to him, for one thing. He’s not going to leave without them—he’s killed a guy for them, in all likelihood. Everybody get some sleep tonight and get at it first thing. I want paperwork organized, statements signed, clean things up for the CBI Monday. If we get an arrest before then, great. But if not—I want to be ready to hand off. Got it?”
I briefed Butch on Tenzin’s previous statements. I felt vaguely sick from too much coffee, so I went home to change and just take a breath before heading out to pick up the kids.
The house was already getting that stale smell of emptiness. I wandered around, eating peanut butter from the jar, trying to organize my scattered thoughts. I think we all felt the urgency rising to get Rabten to crack, but I doubted we’d manage that. Unless he got so cocky that he’d make a mistake. But he was miles ahead of all of us. I wondered if he’d committed a crime before, somewhere else, perhaps. Why he’d left his first monastery in Nepal. How he’d come to be there in the first place.
I knew I was distracting myself from calling my mom as I’d promised Naomi I’d do. It didn’t seem necessary now; the weekend would pass and then we’d hand over the case just as my mom, if she came at all, would be arriving. And then I’d have her on my hands, as well as the kids. But something made me pick up the phone, dial the number from memory. I stood in the kitchen, winding the curly cord around and around my fingers.
“Hello?” Her voice was scratchy, older.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Shannon.”
“Oh, hi honey. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Look, I’m calling because I—could you—there’s a big case I’ve been working on and it’s been really hard on the kids. Dan broke his collarbone this week, and Margo’s been sleepwalking and I just wondered if maybe they’d enjoy seeing you for a few days, up here. We could all have a visit.” I ended weak; a note of giving up in my voice that I hated but was always there with her.
“He’s okay, though? Dan?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. It was just an idea, Mom. Honestly, we’re fine. I was just—”
“You used to sleepwalk too, after Danny died. Scared me to death that you’d burn the house down. Don’t you remember? It stopped about six months later. I was so worried.”
“I did? What did I do? Did I ever leave the house?”
“You would get up and cook yourself things. Oatmeal, toast. Or you would take a shower with all your clothes on. I don’t think you ever left the house—but no, of course, you did—you went in the back yard and slept in that horrible spidery playhouse you had. Your dad found you out there in the morning. We were in a panic. I can’t believe you don’t remember that!”
My brain hurt with trying to conjure a memory. But though there was nothing to grasp hold of, it made me feel better somehow about Margo’s episode—that it was some kind of normal, that it would end. There were still her uncanny abilities to deal with, but I couldn’t think of how to mention those to my mom. And then the rest of her words sank in: she’d been worried. About me. After Danny’s death, when there seemed to be no time or concern for me at all. My heart felt like it was cracking.
“Wow, I don’t—you know, that whole time was so awful. Just kind of a blur. I think Margo must be picking up on my stress about this case. She’s only done it once, but gave me a huge fright. She walked all the way to the school—two blocks—and fell asleep on the playground. I was frantic. But she was all right,” I added quickly. “Didn’t even really realize what had happened.”
“Well,” she said, “I’ll come up, if you need me, of course I will. It’s been such a long time since I saw you all.”
“What about Dad?”
“Oh, he’s fine on his own.”
So much unspoken in that one sentence.
“Okay, well, when can you come?”
“I’ll leave tomorrow. There’s a few things I’ll need to reschedule, but none of them so important. It will be a lovely drive. I haven’t been anywhere in so long.”
“Long drive, though. You should stay the night someplace. Break it up.”
“Well, we’ll see. I bet I can manage.”
We chattered on a bit more; she caught me up on people we both knew and how Telluride was changing—for the worse—every day. I managed responses in kind of a stunned state of disbelief. She was coming: no way had I expected her to, and so easily. By the time we ended the call I was actually, in some tiny corner of my mind, looking forward to seeing her.
Chapter Forty-Two
“I don’t want to worry you, Shan, but it’s been kind of a weird day.”
I had just arrived. Naomi came out into the dusty parking area in front of her house before I had time to get halfway to the front door. The poplars waved, the wind bringing the fresh smell of grass.
“Oh God. What? Did Margo—?”
“Everyone’s fine. Really,” she said, placing a hand on my arm. “I just wanted a chance to talk to you before you got all involved with the kids. They’re down at the swimming hole again.” She smiled. “It’s great how much they love it. I did too when I was a kid.”
“Naomi, it’s been a massively long and depressing and kind of freaky day already. What is it?” My little wave of hope after speaking to my mom evaporated.
“Let’s go inside. I’m sorry. I’m making a big deal out of nothing, probably. Everything is fine. I jus
t did a little therapy session with Margo and Gadget today, and it was kind of strange, is all. Margo had a great time—she loved it. And I think it was good for her too. It’s just, I was sort of weirded out.”
“Could we sit down, maybe have a beer and you can just tell me? I know she comes up with some pretty strange things. It’s what I’ve been telling you.”
We went inside and Naomi brought out fresh guacamole and the fiery salsa that Alejandro’s wife made for her. A bowl of tortilla chips and two cold Coors Light. We sat at the kitchen table rather than going outside. I could hear the kids’ shouts filtering in reassuringly through the screen. My heart started to settle; whatever had happened today it probably wasn’t any weirder than Margo’s sinister sleepwalking dream.
“So.” Naomi smoothed her hand over the table, letting her fingertips explore the small dips and scars that scattered the top. She didn’t look at me. “There’s just a kind of process we do, when getting started with a horse and a person. I won’t get into that, but it involves letting the person settle into an accepting yet commanding role. It’s all non-verbal. For Margo this was pretty easy. She and Gadget made their ‘hook-up,’ as we call it, fairly quickly and they were just walking around the arena together—no halter or anything. Then Margo stopped walking, and Gadget stopped just behind her. I saw Gadget’s ears go forward—you know how they do—and Margo got this strange kind of look on her face. I was at the fence, so as not to get my energy mixed up with Margo’s, but they were facing my direction. Margo went really … blank, I guess you could say. I didn’t know what was happening, but I just wanted to watch. I mean—she was perfectly safe and I was twenty feet away.” She looked at me now, anxious.
“It’s okay, Naomi. I’m sure you were being careful. So—was that it?”
“No … Gadget was right behind her, almost protective, like she would be with a foal. Well, Margo’s so little, her head barely comes up to Gadget’s neck. And then she started talking. Margo, I mean.” Naomi smiled. “I couldn’t really hear what she was saying, but her voice sounded, like, sort of louder, like she was agitated, and Gadget started to stamp and whuff a little. I wasn’t worried that she’d hurt Margo, but it’s as if they were both … what? Interacting? With something that I couldn’t see.”
