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Authors: Sarah Andrews

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“Because you knew the guy. Always best not to be involved. They’ll understand. In fact, they’ll prefer it.”
I stopped walking and stared at him.
His face had gone all stormy. “You asked for my advice.”
I stared into his dark blue eyes and saw a whole lot of worry shining back. “Do you know something I don’t, Ray?”
He looked away. “No …”
“Well, there’s another part to this, anyway.”
“What’s that?”
We began walking again, the heat of the pavement rolling in under the shade of the spreading trees. “Well, it’s kind of personal, but maybe related. It’s about … well, why are men so protective of women, Ray?”
He laughed nervously. “It’s our job to protect you.”
I tipped my head at him. “You know that’s not what I mean. I’m not looking for what it says in the Good Book or
anything like that. I mean … well, I’m trying to understand why some men are protective and some aren’t.”
“Men who don’t protect their women should be shot,” he said.
“Well, now we’re narrowing down the topic. I’m talking about men who are protective of a woman who isn’t their woman.”
Ray blushed deeply. “Who exactly are we talking about?”
“A hypothetical guy,” I said. “I know you, and I used to be … well, I’m not talking about you, okay? And, well, I’ve got to talk to a friend about this! I know this guy, see, and he’s always around kind of looking after me, and I like that fine, but other friends are telling me he likes me, see …
likes
me likes me, but I don’t see that, so I’m just trying to understand.”
Ray began to chuckle, as if savoring a private joke.
“Damn it, Ray, what’s so funny about that? Can’t I be interesting to someone?”
He patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, Em. Okay, I see what you’re asking. Well, men are protective of women, yes. And that’s a good thing. Speaking for myself, I’m protective of my mother and my sisters and all of my nieces and girl cousins and, as a policeman, I’m protective of every woman in Salt Lake City. But you’re talking about something different from that. Something additional.”
“I suppose so.”
We walked onward. “So what’s your question?”
“I already said!”
He laughed again. “Just teasing, Em. Okay, I’ll tell you, from personal experience, what it’s like to feel protective of you. It’s awful.”
I punched him on the arm.
“Em, part of what’s attractive about you is that you can look after yourself. That’s what drew
me
to you. There are men who need a woman to be more helpless than you are, and then there are men who like their women strong.”
“Okay …”
He said, “But there’s a conundrum to that. Because you’re strong, you take on jobs that other women wouldn’t, and then you’re at risk.
Really
at risk. We’re not talking ‘Let me carry that for you, ma’am,’ or ‘Do you need me to build a shelter over you?’ You walk right out there where people want to kill you.”
We had turned and were heading back toward the police station now. “So you’re saying that men who are attracted to me are also put off. I’m a bad investment.”
He nodded. “In a manner of speaking. I mean no offense, but if you were looking for someone to have babies with, would you choose someone who might get shot by a criminal?”
I gave him a look. “I chose you …”
He nodded. “But I’m the man. Babies don’t die if the dad dies. Not right away.” Before I could start arguing modern sociology with him, he added, “I’m talking hard wiring here, Em. Men don’t consult some book or something when they find themselves attracted to a woman.”
“Okay, but if he’s feeling protective, does that mean he’s attracted? And how would he show that he’s feeling protective, and, um …”
Ray strolled along, eyes on the sidewalk in front of him, hands folded behind his back. “Em, remember when you and I were really close?”
“Yes …”
“We had a connection.”
“Yes, well, ah …”
“I mean a very deep connection, Em, and parts of it are still there, so I know you know what I mean. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about the Spirit.”
“Oh. Well, there you know more than I do, with all your church stuff.”
He laughed again. “You are one of the most spiritual women I’ve ever met, Em, so we’re really just arguing terms. Do you remember that time you saved my life?
What am I talking about? You’ve saved me again and again!” He stopped and stared up into the trees, his arms wide with happy supplication. “That’s it! Now I get it!”
“Get what?”
“Why I still feel so protective of you! I
owe
you, Em!”
“You owe me nothing, Ray.”
He waved a hand, indicating that I couldn’t possibly understand. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. It’s okay …” Suddenly he fixed his eyes on me, sharply. “But what I’m saying is true, Em. Connection from one spirit to the next, it’s a true and real thing and very, very precious. If you ever need me,
ever,
you just put up that antenna of yours and say, ‘Ray, help me!’ Okay? I’ll hear you!” He reached out and grabbed me by both shoulders. “Do you hear me, Em?”
“Yes.” I was so startled that I spoke like a little girl trying to be good.
He searched my face. “Because we’re back to your original topic now, Em. This case you’re on. It’s a bad one. I advise you to write up your report and stop right there.”
“I did.”
He dropped his hands in frustration. “I’ve just done the dumbest thing in the world.”
“What?”
“Told you not to do something. Now you’ll take that as a challenge.”
“No, I won’t. Honest. I’ve been trying to get out of this case, but Michele—”
“
Damn
Michele!”
“Ray, I’ve never heard you swear. Never.”
He jammed his hands into his pockets and hurried back toward the police station. On his athletic legs he was pulling ahead of me, fast.
“Ray, wait up!”
Without turning to face me, he shouted, “Just promise me you’ll watch your back this time, Em. Please! Just watch your back.”
 
 
MICHELE AND RAY WERE RIGHT, I COULDN’T STAY OUT of it. As soon as I got back to my office I phoned Julia.
She was roaring. “That bitch!” she howled.
“What bitch? Me?”
“Nature Girl!”
she shrieked, giving the name an earsplitting nasal sing-song. “That black-hearted, weaseling, gold-digging
monster
!”
I could hear a lot of conversation in the background. One loud voice was telling Julia to keep her voice down and not say anything she didn’t want repeated back to her, grossly distorted, in a court of law.
“Have I called at an inopportune time?” I inquired.
Julia struggled to get her voice under control. “That’s my dear friend Angie in the background. She happens to also be my lawyer. She is over here trying to keep me from taking a shotgun and
shooting
the freaking beauty queen
impostor
—” Here she took another breath and screamed, “RIGHT IN HER SHRIVELED, RANCID, BUSH-LEAGUE EXCUSE FOR A
HEART
!”
“And the shriveled … whatzit has done
what
to get you this excited?”
“She has filed in court to be recognized as Afton’s next of kin!”
“And her excuse is … oh yeah, she styles herself his common-law wife.”
“That
is
her fantasy.”
“So she’s really going to press that claim.”
Julia shrieked, “You
knew
about this? And you didn’t
tell
me? What kind of a friend
are
you?”
I closed my eyes. I said, “I’m sorry, Julia. Truly. I am working on this case and because of that I have to stay quiet about a great many things.”
“So what
else
haven’t you told me?”
I winced. I’d always gotten along with Julia—in spite of her coarse language and penchant for self-pity—precisely
because she was candid, but candor was too slim a virtue to mitigate the bad cocktail of emotions that was sluicing around inside her just now. I counted to ten, struggling to keep my own in check.
Julia said, “You show up in my office pretending to be my friend, but you’re just an adrenaline junkie! Or worse, you’re a ghoul!”
Julia’s words stabbed into me. Perhaps because this was the third time I had heard this accusation in one day, I looked down into my heart and saw nothing but a dried-up loner who couldn’t figure out how else to have a life with the people around her. I was hiding in my work, and work like this was a drug to numb my aloneness, just like smack.
You’re forty years old and pretend you want a man and a baby, but you’ve been hiding in an arm’s-length relationship with a man who considers you his buddy,
I told myself.
But there are those wonderful moments with Sloane,
I argued.
Or the times I go to dinner at Faye’s …
When was the last time you did that?
my internal critic sneered.
My mind wandered back to the realities of the moment. Julia’s voice was still going off in my ear. “ … and if you can’t be honest with me, go do your damned cowgirl Em Hansen thing. Go to hell, okay? I mean, life is too short to hang out with people on a trip like yours, you know?” She was crying now.
“You’re right,” I said, in a voice as thin as vapor. “You’re absolutely right, I’ve been playing hero again, and you need me to just be your friend.” I took a deep breath. “Please forgive me, Julia.”
 
MICHELE PHONED AGAIN JUST BEFORE IT WAS TIME FOR me to quit for the day and go home. In the wake of my conversation with Julia, I had been on a downward spiral into that dark place that lurks underneath daily routines and the other businesses of life. “What do you have for
me?” I asked, meaning
Do you have something that can fill the next hour, let alone the rest of my existence?
“I have a plane ticket to Colorado, unless you’ve got another hitchhiker’s pass with your friend.”
“What?”
“Your idea about the airplane hit the jackpot,” she said, her voice going all juicy with satisfaction. “We’ve got an FAA record of a Beechcraft Baron belonging to a Hugo Attabury taking off from Centennial last Thursday at 5 P.M. and returning during the night. The flight plan gave a different name—George Lewis—but we’ve got an eyewitness at Million Air who saw two white males getting off that plane. One answers close enough to a description of Hugo Attabury, and the other was dressed just like our corpse. They were met by another man who was waiting for them. The car came back at 2 A.M. I don’t have an eyewitness yet who saw how many people were in it, but we’ll have that as soon as their night crew comes on shift. We’re subpoenaing the tower tapes to nail Attabury’s voice.”
“So you’re going back to Colorado to interrogate him again?”
“Right.”
“If you’re so close to a collar, what do you need me for?”
“You’re the one who understands this ground water thing. If he was so afraid of McWain’s testimony that he’d kill him—and if McWain got off that plane alive, who else killed him, hmm?—then finding out I’ve got a geologist backing me up will loosen him up quite nicely.”
She was right. Forensic geology was a double-edged knife. One edge looked at microscopic evidence of Earth materials. The other edge was much broader: The contexts and connections under which the profession of geology was carried out. “With the evidence you have, he’ll probably go down like a house of cards. Anyone can file a flight plan under a false name, and his alibi is a lawyer who also stood to gain from McWain’s death,” I said.
“All right,” Michele grumbled. “But if Attabury can prove it wasn’t him at the controls of that airplane, I’m back at it with the shovel again. So stay close to the phone, okay?”
“Sure. Hey, you’ve got a backup going into it with Attabury, right?”
“The locals are ready and waiting.”
“Good. See ya.”
“I have a nasty feeling you will.”
 
 
TO PROVE TO MYSELF THAT I HAD A LIFE OUTSIDE MY work, I phoned Faye and invited her and Sloane to come to my apartment for dinner. When they arrived, I had hot dogs for Sloane and a nice bit of steak for us grownups, and some cold cooked potatoes fried up with red onions. Faye brought a salad. We sat out on my little balcony in the shade of the elm tree and caught the evening breezes, enjoying a cup of decaf after the meal and waiting for the air to cool and the sky to go pink over the Oquirrhs.
“How’s that case coming?” she asked.
“I’m standing by for a phone call,” I told her. “I might need to go back to Colorado tomorrow.”
“Are you going with Fritz?” she asked. “I thought he wasn’t going back until the weekend.”
“No, that’s okay,” I replied. “The sheriff’s department will pay for me to fly commercially.”
“But Fritz will be going over there again tomorrow or the next day for Mr. Reed. Why would you want to fly commercial when you can go general aviation? No waiting at the gate, no long lines anywhere, you go into a more convenient
airport and to an FBO where people treat you like something smarter than cattle, and besides, you get to ride with Fritz. And Mr. Reed really enjoyed your travelogue.”
“That’s nice to hear,” I said noncommittally.
Sloane had climbed up onto my lap. “Horsy ride,” she begged, pulling on my thumbs as if they were reins.
I jiggled her up and down gently and sang, “This is the way the ladies ride, trippity-trot, trippity-trot …”
“Are you and Fritz having a fight or something?” Faye asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you avoiding him?”
“Am I?” I tried to deflect Faye’s scrutiny by looking the little girl in the eye, wondering if the horsy seemed lame to Sloane, too. Shifting to a faster gait, I said, “This is the way the gentlemen ride, gallopy-trot, gallopy-trot …”
“He said you turned him down for a low-level flight in his plane. That sounds serious to me.”
“Cowboy!” Sloane cried, giggling with glee.
Faye said, “Em, fess up; something’s bothering you. Come on, you can’t hide it from—” she shot out a hand and jabbed me in the ribs, a rough tickle“—the claws of Faye!”
“Ouch!” I shrieked.
Sloane squealed with glee. “Cowboy! Cowboy!” She rocked forward and back maniacally, almost dislocating my thumbs.
Bouncing Sloane right into the air, I cried, “This is the way the cowboys ride, gallopy-gallop, gallopy-gallop!”
Faye raised her arm for another strike.
Panting, I said, “Fritz is busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Dating what’s-her-name.”
“What’s-her-name? Who’s what’s-her-name? Fritz hasn’t spent time with anyone but you in months.”
“Well then, who was that in …” Cringing, I slammed on the verbal brakes, but I had already said too much.
Sloane twisted and wiggled with delight. “Farmer! Farmer! C’mon, Auntie Emmy! Farmer!”
I began to lift one knee and then the other, rolling her from side to side. “This is the way the farmers ride, hobblety-hoy, hobblety-hoy …”
Faye gave me her you-cannot-avoid-the-piercing-mind-of-Faye look. “Spare me the twenty questions this time, will you?”
I tried unsuccessfully to quell a whiny tone that crept into my voice, but failed. “There was somebody at his house Saturday night. A woman answered the phone.”
“Oh yeah. Marsha.”
“That was
Marsha
?” I felt like a total fool. “What was his ex-wife doing answering the phone?”
“She was there to drop off Brendan and discuss their situation. Which is serious. Did he tell you she wants to move out of state?”
“Yes …”
“Yeah, well she can’t do it without his say-so, I don’t think, so she’s there putting pressure on him. It’s been awful for him. He could really use your support just now.”
I pulled Sloane into a tight hug and buried my face against her shoulder.
Faye asked, “What’s troubling you so, Em? Come on, you can tell me. I won’t bite.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s Fritz.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You can lie to yourself, Em, but you can’t lie to me. Why are you hiding from him? Because Marsha answered the phone? Wait … I get it! You
like
him! Well, he’s
nuts
about you!”
“How do you
know
that?”
Faye stared at me, really squinted, as if I were some odd bug she had never seen before. “You two really are a pair. Just like you, he misses half the social clues that are thrown at him and misconstrues the others. In his case, it makes him
easy to get along with because, while he doesn’t hear half of the compliments, he’s also deaf to three-quarters of the insults. But with you, it somehow just makes you ornery.”
“So you’re saying we’re not suited for each other.”
“I’m not saying that at all. What’s not to like? He’s Mister Nice Guy. Amiable. Decent. Keeps his nonsense to himself. He doesn’t take things personally, and he’d never, ever push himself on you. Besides that, he’s smart about a great many things—good at business, good with clients for all the reasons I’ve just mentioned, and a wizard at anything to do with aircraft or flying. And he’s damned fine to look at, he takes care of his body, he loves kids, and hey—featurette!—he’s deeply moral. What is your problem?”
“I—” What
was
my problem? “I don’t know. He’s so calm all the time. I get to feeling agitated around him. I can’t hold still. I feel like an idiot sometimes.”
Faye shook her head. “He’s a good man, Em. Try letting him be the calm one so you can do the wiggly stuff.”
I seized the opportunity to change the subject from me to her. “It sounds like you like him a lot. I shouldn’t get in the way.”
“He has eyes for you, toots, not me. Trust Mama Faye.”
“But what if I weren’t here? Wouldn’t he then like you?”
“I doubt that.”
“But would you like him to?”
“Like him to what?” Faye asked.
“To like you?”
“He does like me. We’re very good friends and successful business partners, and that is exactly how we both like it. Trust me, we’ve even … drum roll … discussed this.”
“But wouldn’t you like him to
love
you? As a woman?”
“No, I would not like that.”
“Then you don’t really—”
“What are you looking for? My stamp of approval? Didn’t I just give that to you?”
“If you approve of him, why aren’t you interested in him?”
“Because it would ruin everything.”
“How so?”
“Because then he would be a frustrated business partner who wanted to be my lover, which I don’t want.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not his type, and he’s not my type.”
“What is your type?”
Faye’s gaze drifted to the sunset and grew dreamy. “You knew him. Tom was my type. Tom really, truly did it for me.” She shook herself as if waking from a trance. “Fritz does
not
do it for me.”
“But do you do it for him?”
“I already said—oh, I get it, you don’t want to be second best. Don’t worry about that, Em. Fritz has never even so much as given me the once-over. I think he saw you and that was that. The women he’s been dating since he met you have been just … well, companions. He’s been waiting for you.”
“How do you know this? Has he told you this?”
Faye was beginning to lose patience. “No, but it’s as clear as the nose on his face. Every time he looks at you he gets kind of … well, his cheeks get rosy; haven’t you ever noticed?”
“I thought that was just how Fritz’s face was put together.”
“That’s because you’re there each and every time you look at him. Try sneaking up on him some time. In fact, try not ignoring him; he’ll get even redder.”
Sloane had turned around in my lap and rested her head against my chest. She was getting sleepy with all this adult chitchat.
And I was getting agitated again. The subject was swinging back to me like a twenty-millimeter gun that had snapped an anchoring pin. I kicked it back her way. “But you need a husband, a father for Sloane.”
The little girl’s eyelids were growing heavy, and her neck was damp with baby sweat from being so close to me. I wanted to hold her forever.
Faye said, “I may need a father for Sloane, but I do not need a husband.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I don’t. Em, not every woman needs a husband. When Tom came along, that was great—while it lasted. In my own peculiar way, I’m kind of a one-man woman. But that’s gone. Over. He’s dead.”
“I know, but if he’d lived?”
“Then I hope we could have kept it going, at least for Sloane’s sake. But neither of us was really built for the good ol’ settled-down bit.”
“Am I?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then why—?”
“Because you want a man! It’s written all over you. You’ve got ‘I need a man and a baby’ tattooed on your forehead. Or maybe on some other part of your anatomy.”
“But you’ve just said I’m not built for settling down.”
“You aren’t. Damn it, Em, dynamic people do not settle down!”
“
I’m
dynamic?”
Faye flopped back in her chair. “Woman, you are the dynamo itself. Or make that feminine—you’re a dynama.”
“So—”
“So you find someone who doesn’t require that you settle down. What is this, rocket science? You want to be miserable, go find some chump who’s looking for a hausfrau. That is not you. Bon-bons and daytime soaps just ain’t gonna keep your heart pumping. You’re like a horse that needs plenty of exercise. And a very big pasture to run in.”
“No,” I said. “I’m the rider. And no fences or I’ll jump them.”
“I rest my case.”
“But Fritz wants … a woman who’ll settle down?”
Faye said, “Yeah, what does Fritz want? Let’s see if you can figure that out. Em, you are so thick!”
“He makes jokes about wanting a wife and babies. Doesn’t that mean settling down?”
Faye shook her head. “Fritz is not the type who makes jokes about such things, except maybe to hide his intentions in plain sight.”
“How do you know so much about him?”
“I work with the man every day.” She shrugged. “And it’s a lot easier to see these things when you’re not hiding from the man. Em, take it easy on him. Look what he’s going through now. Ol’ Marsha wants to take his one baby somewhere where he couldn’t see even as much of him as he’s seeing now. I think the man’s a saint that he’s not taking a meat ax to her or even cussing about her. Most men who go through such things come up with nasty names or just refer to their former wives harshly as ‘the ex.’ But Fritz doesn’t have a mean bone in him.”
“So how’s he doing with all that?” I asked with embarrassment. She was right, I should have been a support to him.
“Oh … well … I asked him how he felt, and he said it hurt but that life wasn’t simple. He said he’d made his choices, and she was making hers, and he had to think it through and figure out what was best for Brendan, time with his dad or too much time with a frustrated mother. Call him, Em.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’ll call him, get him out for a hike. He always looks happier after a little exercise.”
“I’ll bet. He gets those roses in his cheeks every time.” She stared at the clouds that had gathered over the Oquirrhs. “You’ve done such a good job of asking me questions that I haven’t gotten to ask you the obvious one. Do you want him?”
Sloane was out cold, or should I say, out warm in my lap. Softly, I said, “I don’t know, Faye. How do you know when you’ve met the right man?”
Faye let out a long sigh. “Sometimes you find out the hard way.”
BOOK: Dead Dry
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