Too Far Under (13 page)

I was beginning to see the attraction. Who
wouldn’t want to try on some totally different identities? “So I
could be a big muscle-bound guy or a cute sex kitten?”

He laughed. “If that’s who you want to be.
You might want to add some brainpower too, though. In Gyaki-Birquit
getting ahead is based on winning challenges that require
thinking.”

I tore off a piece of pita bread and spread
some hummus on it. “So I’d have to work there, try to get ahead?” I
paused to enjoy the hummus and then added, “I thought this game was
supposed to be recreation. Sounds kind of stressful.”

“No, it’s all your choice. You can make
friends, join groups, start a business, compete in games, learn new
skills, run for political office—just about anything you can do
here. But because the characters all have super powers, everything
moves way faster there. For example, my mom spent years trying to
find more land the city and county could buy for open space—and
working out details to get the land. But in Gyaki-Birquit a
powerful advanced character can create additional land in an
instant, choose what it will look like and what it will be used
for. It’s the world like you ideally want it to be.” Shane stopped
his explanation to motion our server over and order more
Sangria

I was genuinely captivated. “It sounds
amazing. Does everyone get along and have the same ideas of what
will make the world better?”

He laughed again. “No. That would make for a
very dull game. There are rival factions always competing with each
other to win more power—not so different from this world. But in
Gyaki-Birquit, unlike here, the smartest and most skillful
characters rule. You can’t just run a bunch of stupid political ads
and win power. You can’t buy your way to the top. You have to work
your way up through the skill levels by playing masterfully,
completing missions and defeating enemies. I respect the integrity
of the process.”

“What do you get paid to do there?”

“I’m a community developer so I set up
greeters to help new players get oriented and find friends. I
provide customer service, and I also monitor forums and clubs for
harassment or any rude or insulting behavior.” So he wasn’t the
slacker Lacey painted him as.

I was about to ask him to elaborate on that
job when I suddenly realized that I was letting my curiosity run
the conversation instead of finding out what Shane wanted to talk
to me about.

“I’d love to hear more about Gyaki-Birquit,”
I said. “But you had something you wanted to talk about, so we
should probably move on to that.” I dipped a piece of calamari in
sauce and munched it while I waited for his response.

Shane leaned back and closed his eyes for a
minute as if mentally changing channels. “Sure. Here’s the thing.
I’ve been thinking about how Angelica is so convinced that someone
pushed Mom under the water. I’m not saying she’s right, but she
does have a kind of spooky way of knowing things. And Mom wasn’t so
popular with some people. She had a habit of going after people she
didn’t agree with, and she either didn’t see or didn’t care when
she’d gone too far. She could be pretty pushy, so she had her
enemies. “

“What do you mean?”

“Well there’s that prairie dog fight she got
into with that developer Hugh Symes. She was bringing a suit
against him for killing prairie dogs on some property he was
developing. I think Mom was a little over the top on the subject,
but she had the law on her side. From what she said, he didn’t even
try to relocate the prairie dogs like the law requires and he
didn’t have a permit to kill them. He slaughtered the whole colony
and somehow got away with calling it an accident. She couldn’t
accept what happened and move on—was insistent that he be held
accountable and his development stopped.”

It was tempting to settle on Hugh Symes as
the bad guy since I already disliked him for his role in the
closing of Shady Terrace. But Shane had mentioned “people” who
didn’t like Mirabel, so I wanted to know who else was on his list.
“Symes sounds like he had reason to dislike your mother for sure.
Who else were you thinking of?”

“Another person she didn’t get along with was
Grandad’s dishy young girlfriend Glenna Corn. She thought Glenna
was after his money, so she was trying hard to get Grandad to dump
her. And I think Mom was investigating Glenna’s background.”

He stopped to eat a shrimp. I waited silently
to see who else he would come up with.

“Of course there’s Dad and Judith. Like
Angelica and Lacey said, Mom knew they had been having an affair
forever. And she’d been pushing Dad to break it off.” He took a
gulp of sangria and then went on. “I don’t think they’d kill her,
though.”

He thought for a minute and then continued.
“Like I said yesterday, I think she was backing off of the
Scientologists and they weren’t too happy about that because they
were counting on her for big donations. Right now they’re getting a
huge bequest from her estate. If Lacey can reach Mom through your
project, she definitely needs to ask her if she made a new will. If
she did disinherit the Scientologists, the rest of us will get a
whole lot more.”

I took a drink of my sangria and considered
what to say next. Yesterday Shane said he wasn’t sure he believed
in the possibility of reaching Mirabel, and now he was telling me
what he wanted to find out if Lacey was able to reach her. “It’s
not always possible to get specific answers like that from a
spirit,” I said. “But she can try.” Then, just to see what else he
had in mind, I asked “Is that your complete list of suspects?”

He thought for a minute as he chewed the last
of the calamari. “I don’t know all the people and causes she was
involved with. She owned half of that art gallery with Faye
Whitton. They seemed to get along okay, but that gallery was a
sink-hole for money. It was a terrible investment, but I couldn’t
convince Mom of that.”

Interesting and a little scary. Would Faye
have the resources to market Gramma’s work? Given Shane’s negative
view of Faye’s gallery, I was debating whether to bring up my ties
with it. But I didn’t have to decide, because he went on with
another even more surprising thought.

“One of our neighbors—a guy named Tim—was a
friend of hers from working on political campaigns. I happen to
know that he sold Mom pot for her arthritis pain. Then they had a
falling out and weren’t speaking. Who knows, maybe he was afraid
she’d rat him out for drug dealing.”

My mind was reeling by then, and not from the
wine. And the next day was Friday, my teaching day, so I needed to
prepare for class. I decided to wrap things up. “I’m wondering
since you called me whether you’re rethinking whether you want to
try to contact your mom.”

“No. I don’t have the time. I spend about
seventy hours a week on Gyaki-Birquit, and even then I can’t keep
up. Lacey has plenty of time. Let her do it. But I think Lacey and
Angelica are way too focused on Dad and Judith. It’s all they talk
about. I wanted to fill you in on some of Mom’s other issues.”

I thanked him and we got up to leave. But I
couldn’t resist one more question. “Why does Gyaki-Birquit take so
much time?”

He frowned and answered quickly. “I’m a major
investor in Gyaki-Birquit and the game is short of resources. We
have to increase the membership and get the current players to
spend more time so we can raise enough money to complete the
expansion packs for the game.”

Just then, a couple being seated at a nearby
table called out to Shane. We said our goodbyes, he went off to
join them, and I headed out to walk home along Pearl Street. The
sun had slipped behind the mountains bringing a chill to the
evening air. I hustled along preoccupied by the jumbled thoughts
racing through my mind of Mirabel and people who had reasons to
bump her off. I was several blocks past Faye’s gallery before I
even realized I had passed it without checking to see if any more
of Pablo’s work had sold.

Lacey didn’t show up for my class the next
morning, but when class ended at 12:30 she was pacing the hall
outside the classroom door. She looked like she’d just come from a
yoga class. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and
she was wearing lightweight gray yoga pants that sat on her hips, a
white tank, and a gray hoodie. But if she’d been to yoga, she’d
missed out on its calming effects.

The minute I stepped through the door, she
dashed over, stuck her drop slip in my face, and said breathlessly,
“Here. Sign it now so I’m not your student anymore and you can help
me. Please. I’m desperate.” Her eyes were red and swollen and
brimming with tears. “We have to talk,” she said. “I don’t know
what to do.” She looked so forlorn that I paused even though I
wasn’t in the mood to get drawn into Lacey’s drama of the day.

Not only was I keyed up from teaching for two
hours, I was also starving. I’d been looking forward to going home
and relaxing on my back porch with a sandwich and a cup of tea
before going to the office to meet my afternoon clients. But I knew
from her involvement in past class discussions that Lacey was more
than a drama queen. She could be bright and thoughtful when she
wasn’t so stressed out. And then I flashed on the image of the
beautiful teen-aged girl I’d seen in the mirror at The Stanley
Hotel last weekend. She’d looked so much like Lacey that I was
almost sure she was Lacey’s deceased younger sister Kari. The same
long dark hair, milky white skin, and probing blue eyes. And the
same melancholy expression when the apparition had pleaded with me.
“Please,” she’d said. “They need you.”

So I put my own wishes aside and said, “I can
see that you’re upset, Lacey and I want to talk with you about
what’s going on. I have to get back to my office soon, but we can
talk for a bit. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, so let’s
grab some lunch while we talk.”

She suggested the Burnt Toast restaurant, so
we walked over to the commercial area on the edge of campus. It was
a warm sunny October day, one of my favorite times to walk on the
tree-lined campus. Backpack-toting students with cell phones or
iPods plugged into their ears filled the sidewalks and the spacious
grassy areas. A group of young guys clad in shorts and tank tops
played a fierce game of Frisbee on the quad in front of the
library.

“What’s happened to upset you so much?” I
asked jumping off the walk to dodge a yellow Frisbee headed
straight for my head.

Lacey took one graceful sidestep to avoid the
Frisbee, but kept her attention focused on me. “Last night was
ghastly beyond belief,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue.
“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Dad and Judith
stabbed me in the back again.” She began sobbing in earnest.

I didn’t try to stop her crying. As a
therapist I know that crying is an excellent release of physical
and emotional tension, which leaves people feeling better. I also
knew Lacey had something she wanted to say and she’d get to it when
she was ready.

Sure enough her weeping subsided after a few
minutes. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and
said, “Sorry. It’s hard to talk about.”

We were in front of the absurdly named Burnt
Toast by then. I wanted to give her time to collect her thoughts,
so I said, “That’s okay. Take your time.”

“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go in and sit
down.”

We got a table next to one of the huge
windows. The restaurant is a homey café in an old house with
hardwood floors, several rooms, and interesting touches like menus
placed in old books, and displays of local art. It’s almost like
eating at a friend’s cozy funky house. We got a pot of tea and
ordered some food. The tofu scramble with veggies for Lacey, and an
omelet with spinach and mushrooms for me.

The tea and comfy atmosphere seemed to soothe
Lacey. She took up her story again in a much calmer voice. “I guess
you know that Dad and Judith were totally bent out of shape about
me taking Angelica to your office the other day. They told me last
night that they’d been to see you and told you not to see her any
more. They were acting like you’re some witch doctor or something.
I don’t see what the big deal is. Angelica deals with life a lot
better than they do.”

“The big deal is that she’s a minor and your
father has to give permission for her to see a therapist,” I said.
“We may not like it, but he has the right to say what she can and
can’t do.”

Lacey looked down at the table and began
turning her knife over and over. “I know that,” she said. “But I
never thought about it when I brought her to your office. And
anyway I can’t see why Dad would refuse to give permission for
Angelica to have grief therapy after all she’s been through. Unless
he knows you can help her contact Mom, and there’s something he
doesn’t want Angelica to find out.”

I refilled my teacup while I took a minute to
think. Then I said, “That’s a big assumption. It could be that he
just wants to closely monitor what’s going on with Angelica. Judith
said they had arranged for her to see a therapist. In fact, I think
she’s supposed to start today.”

The server brought our food and I started
right in on my omelet. But Lacey ignored her meal as tears welled
up in her eyes once again. “That’s what started it all,” she said
passionately. “They’re not sending her to therapy because she’s
grieving. They’re sending her as some kind of attempt to deprogram
her. They say they want her to get over thinking she’s so special.
They don’t believe in Indigo children and they say she needs to get
her head straightened out and start doing her schoolwork even if
she does think it’s boring. I’m afraid of what some therapist like
that could do to Angelica. If she loses the inner calm and
tranquility that is part of her specialness, she might crack from
the stress.” Lacey stopped, wiped her eyes, took a deep breath,
picked up her fork and took a bite of her tofu.