Double Take

She said, “The district attorney called me today. Are you ready for this, Cheney? Fact is, he apologized. He’s got a truckload of proof against Thomas Pallack, and with Charlotte more than eager to testify against him, I know he meant it.”

No matter how many apologies the D.A. gave Julia, Cheney would still like to smack him in the chops.

“I’m big with the paparazzi again, for a short while anyway. They photographed me at my house speaking to one of the insurance people.”

“So long as they don’t trail you to my condo, we’re safe.”

She sighed and snuggled in close. The wind died down as the fog thickened, the tops of the bridge towers nearly covered now. She was sorry, but there was no chance of sun today. They both shivered at the sight of two lone sailboats on a broad reach, heeling sharply.

“There’s no more beautiful place on earth,” she said, “even if you freeze half the summer.”

He smiled, felt happy enough to burst with it. Not all that long ago he’d gotten himself a date on a Thursday night for the Crab House on Pier 39. He hadn’t gotten his cioppino, he’d gotten Julia.

Fate was something he marveled at, but accepted. As for the local woo-woo wizards, he imagined it would always be hard not to roll his eyes. He pictured Bevlin Wagner in his slipping towel and grinned.

He said, “Let’s go brew some coffee and talk about that new house we’re going to find.”

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

It was easy to dig Christie’s grave. Bobby Ray Parker and Lynn Thomas hadn’t used equipment, no need. In the early morning hours beneath a soft steady rain that had begun the previous evening, they’d shoveled deep and deeper still and the earth was still damp and yielding. They spoke of Christie Noble, her kindness, how she’d yelled her head off at her boys’ games, and how sometimes life was just too bitter to bear, and it wasn’t fair, now was it? But at least she’d finally come home.

Four hours later, Dix stared at that massive wet black mound of rich earth, at the three red roses laid carefully atop it, and felt pain like a gash to his heart.

He held his boys’ hands, theirs squeezing his hard during Reverend Lindsay’s brief graveside litany, his deep quiet voice somehow reaching to the last person in that crowd of at least five hundred people, all of whom had come directly from the memorial service at the First Presbyterian Church of Maestro to Penhallow Cemetery, to attend Christie Holcombe Noble’s interment next to her mother.

Dix looked over at Lone Tree Hill, at the single oak, an ancient sentinel, keeping vigil over the rolling hills and the row upon row of graves. Its leaves were greening up nicely. Suddenly the sun came through the clouds, blurring through the gentle rain, and he saw raindrops sparkle fiercely on the oak leaves. He squeezed his boys’ hands and slowly they raised their heads and looked to where he nodded, toward that old oak, at the sunlight coming through the rain. He heard Rob sigh, felt both boys move closer against him.

Dix felt Savich and Sherlock behind him, Savich solid as a wall, and Sherlock, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder throughout the entire graveside service. His anger toward Savich was long gone, but he remembered how he’d wanted to smash Savich in the face when he’d refused point-blank to let him see Christie’s remains. Why? he’d asked. You already have the image of her you want to keep in your mind and your heart for the rest of your life, Dix. Let it rest, let her rest now. It’s over, finally over.

And Sherlock had stood with Savich, united against him. Ruth hadn’t said a word, he remembered, simply listened to him rave and yell. He knew she would never say anything about that remote site in southern Tennessee where the dogs had found—no, it was over, Christie’s life was more than three years over.

He straightened when Reverend Lindsay called for the final prayer, a prayer of acceptance, of granting oneself a measure of peace and the chance of becoming. What did becoming mean for him? But of course he knew. It meant bringing Ruth in fully, it meant bringing his boys forward now that they’d said a final good-bye to their mother, and it meant becoming what they were meant to be. He wondered what that would be for each of them. But whatever happened, the four of them would be together now.

It was over. Reverend Lindsay finished speaking. Dix felt hands touching him, heard quiet voices speaking to him and his boys, accepted the endless stream of words he couldn’t take in now, but they would be there in his memory, and perhaps he’d recall them one day.

Chappy, tears running down his face, didn’t want to let him go. He held the older man, Christie’s father, so many times a pain in his butt, but still Christie’s father, who’d loved her more than anything, and his grandsons, her sons, at his right elbow. Behind him stood Christie’s godfather, Jules Advere, who’d collapsed when he’d seen Charlotte Pallack in San Francisco. The phone call from Chappy seemed a lifetime ago, but it wasn’t.