Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

“I still like it out there. No pass-out nights, recently.”

“That you can remember.”

“No, really. I’m over the worst of it.”

I looked down the slope to where a fresh grave was being dug. Gravediggers don’t use shovels now; they use CAT backhoes. They carry the lining vaults around in little trailers attached to little tractors. The ones here all go about their work with an indifference that makes me wince sometimes. It’s just a business, really, just a living. You can’t expect them to stare off toward the Pacific and think of the boy they buried almost two years ago.

“Kenneth doing well?”

She nodded.

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Thanks.”

In fact, I’m not glad she’s happy. I’m not a capacious enough man to wish her supreme happiness with a new husband, when she never really had it with her old one. She married Kenneth not long after I moved out. At first it surprised me, because she never told me she was even dating. Then I realized how naked and unsupported Ardith felt — and had been feeling — for some time. Kenneth is a retired commercial pilot, a big, heavy-handshaking, wide-smiling block of a guy who has the personality of a sunny eight-year-old. He’s financially solid, and according to Ardith, a kind and caring man. I’ve spent as little time as possible around him, but it’s easy to see he adores her. She’s a trophy. And he’s a rock for her.

“I’m glad it’s working out for you two,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to see you have a family again someday.”

I truly would like to see that. Ardith is only thirty-five years old, but time goes by fast. It would kill something inside me, but maybe some things inside me would be better off dead.

“No. Kenneth won’t do that. He’s got four grown.”

“Things can change.”

“I’ve never yet seen a human being grow younger.”

Well.

“How are you and Melinda?”

“Okay.”

“Okay sounds not so good.”

“I think... well, it could be argued that we didn’t really make a good decision.”

“It was too soon, Terry. You knew that.”

“Everybody knew it. We did it anyway.”

“People aren’t overly bright.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just mean all of us, in general.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Hang in there. There’s another chance for you, Terry. But you have to take care of yourself. You got to be standing up for it.”

Ardith has a kind and loving heart. It was one of the many things I loved about her and still do. But she was always, always, always, first and foremost, before and after everything else, afraid. She was always afraid. And that is the part of Matthew’s death I blame on her.

“I still love and care about you a lot, Ardith. Just for what it’s worth.”

“I love and care about you, too.”

“We had a lot of bad luck.”

“Lots of that.”

The gravediggers worked and the clouds slid across the reservoir and Catalina Island sat in the ocean like a black stump.

We sat a few more minutes. Ardith reached over and hugged me, then stood and walked off to her car. I stayed a while longer, drank some tequila and lay down on the beach towel to look up at the passing clouds.

I was proud to walk onto Sheriff Jim Wade’s sprawling ranch property for the Orange Classic. It was a sunny cool morning and the aroma of the hillside sage mixed with the smell of horses and hay and leather. Penny skipped along between Melinda and me, holding our hands, in her pink dress and white straw hat with the pink ribbon. I felt patriarchal.

I was also temporarily content at what we’d been able to do for Brittany and Abby Elder. The Horridus had made his move, but he hadn’t done what I feared the most, and we’d been there fast to get the physical evidence and, most importantly, the physical description we needed so badly. I checked my watch. Right now, as we rode the tram toward the Wade Ranch, I knew that Amanda Aguilar and Brittany were conspiring to give a face to our monster. I felt luck in the air and luck in my blood and I knew that Amanda was going to get from Brittany what she hadn’t been able to get from Steven Wicks. We were going to get him, soon.

I also felt happy to have truly arrived in high society. They were all there, sitting in the bleachers and sauntering over the grounds — the politicians and captains of industry, the judges and the big attorneys, the publishers and entertainers, the philanthropists and civic leaders, the owners and chairmen and chief executives, the builders, the movers and the shakers. The Tonello’s crowd — but more of them. Even the governor of California was expected to arrive by helicopter for a brief visit around noon. Orange County had voted strong for him in the last gubernatorial race. Not that I really knew many of these people, or really believed that their world was mine. This was merely the beginning of my association with them. But few men — especially those of us in law enforcement — are immune to the attractions of power. I’m not.

Best of all, I felt like a Sheriff Department insider, one of the handful of ambassadors that Jim Wade had picked to represent us to the top echelon of our county. To the people there at the Orange Classic, on any other day of the year, sheriffs are mainly just cops. But on the last Sunday of April we are the best of the best, the ones who can put away our guns and use our energies to nurture the culture’s finest aspirations — like providing for needy kids — through this splendid, ostentatious, lucrative event. Cops feel like outsiders, of course, not really a part of the society they serve and sometimes die for. That’s an old story. But here at Jim Wade’s ranch they are momentary insiders, powerful players within the system. They’re the insiders, the very core responsible for this extravagant event. Some are chosen. And I was one of them.

So when the tram dropped us off and we walked under the wooden J. WADE RANCH sign that hung between two massive redwood stanchions at the entrance of his property, my head was big and my heart was full. I’d bought a light-colored suit for the occasion, and Penny’s outfit was new, too. Even Melinda, so reluctant to buy clothes for herself, had found a department store dress on sale — a summery floral print — and bought it for today. We looked like subjects for an impressionist.

Jim and his wife, Annette, met us as we approached the big ranch-style house. He looked distracted, as I knew he would be, looking over my shoulder to see who might require more personal attention than one of his loyal deputies. He studied me for a split second when he shook my hand, then turned his attention to Melinda. Before we moved past him he leaned up close to my ear and said he’d see me in his study in an hour. I couldn’t tell by his expression what might be afoot. But a little shudder of excitement went through me as I nodded, then gathered my little instant family together and moved on toward the arenas.

We talked to Burns and Vega, both of whom seemed glum, considering the occasion. It’s always a little hard to see co-workers socially, hard to know which version of themselves they’re trying to be.

I tugged gently on Melinda’s arm and we eased away. We walked past one of the arenas to where the food and beverage tables were set up. We got drinks, then followed another family down one of the many trails of the Wade Ranch and into a meadow of wild-flowers. There were orange poppy and red lupine and purple penstemon all in bloom, an eye-shivering carpet of color. Big oak trees stood in solitary distance around the meadow, casting black shadows. And all of us humans in our Sunday best, outfitted like flowers, too, roaming through the tall grass.