middle of New York City, and she needed time to absorb and process all that had
happened to her.
Having walked to the café from her house, where Travis had left his pickup
truck, they now made the return trip on foot, and Nora held the dog’s leash all
the way. Einstein never tried to pull away from her, never tangled the leash
around her legs, but padded along at her side or in front of her, docile, now
and then looking up at her with a sweet expression that made her smile.
“He’s a good dog,” she said. “Very good,” Travis agreed. “So well behaved.”
“Usually.”
“And so cute.”
“Don’t flatter him too much.”
“Are you afraid he’ll become vain?”
“He’s already vain,” Travis said. “If he were any more vain, he’d be impossible
to live with.”
The dog looked back and up at Travis, and sneezed loudly as if ridiculing his
master’s comment.
Nora laughed. “Sometimes it almost seems he can understand every word you’re
saying.”
“Sometimes,” Travis agreed.
When they arrived at the house, Nora wanted to invite him in. But she wasn’t
sure if the invitation would seem too bold, and she was afraid Travis would
misinterpret it. She knew she was being a nervous old maid, knew she could—and
ought to—trust him, but Aunt Violet suddenly loomed in her memory, full of dire
warnings about men, and Nora could not bring herself to do what she knew was
right. The day had been perfect, and she dreaded extending it further for fear
something would happen to sully the entire memory, leaving her with nothing
good, so she merely thanked him for lunch and did not even dare to shake his
hand.
She did, however, stoop down and hug the dog. Einstein nuzzled her neck and
licked her throat once, making her giggle. She had never heard herself giggle
before. She would have clung to him and petted him for hours if her enthusiasm
for the dog had not, by comparison, made her wariness of Travis even more
evident.
Standing in the open door, she watched them as they got into the pickup and
drove away.
Travis waved at her.
She waved, too.
Then the truck reached the corner and began to turn right, out of sight, and
Nora regretted her cowardice, wished she’d asked Travis in for a while. She
almost ran after them, almost shouted his name and almost rushed down
the steps to the sidewalk in pursuit. But then the truck was gone, and she was
alone again. Reluctantly, she went into the house and closed the door on the
brighter world outside.
3
The Bell JetRanger executive helicopter flashed over the tree-filled ravines and
balding ridges of the Santa Ana foothills, its shadow running ahead of it
because the sun was in the west as Friday afternoon waned. Approaching the head
of Holy Jim Canyon, Lemuel Johnson looked out the window in the passenger
compartment and saw four of the county sheriff’s squad cars lined up along the
narrow dirt lane down there. A couple of other vehicles, including the coroner’s
wagon and a Jeep Cherokee that probably belonged to the victim, were parked at
the stone cabin. The pilot had barely enough room to put the chopper down in the
clearing. Even before the engine died and the sun-bronzed rotors began to slow,
Lem was out of the craft, hurrying toward the cabin, with his right-hand man,
Cliff Soames, close behind him.
Walt Gaines, the county sheriff, stepped out of the cabin as Lem approached.
Gaines was a big man, six-four and at least two hundred pounds, with enormous
shoulders and a barrel chest. His corn-yellow hair and cornflower-blue eyes
would have lent him a movie-idol look if his face had not been so broad and his
features blunt. He was fifty-five, looked forty, and wore his hair only slightly
longer than he had during his twenty years in the Marine Corps.
Although Lem Johnson was a black man, every bit as dark as Walt was white,
though he was seven inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than Walt, though he
had come from an upper-middle-class black family while Walt’s folks had been