“I got a call just last night around bedtime. After eleven. It was from someone in Georgia, a policeman, I think. Maybe a firefighter. I don’t recall. They’re still looking for him, you know. I haven’t given up hope.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I called it a disappearance. I’m sure they’re doing extraordinary things to find him.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Was last night like him? Like your husband? To stop and help someone like that? That was a courageous, selfless thing he did. An act of true heroics.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’s the work I do, maybe it’s just some inborn cynicism-I admit that’s a fault of mine-but I’ve come to believe that some of us are born with more of the Good Samaritan gene in us than others. I’m curious where Sterling fell on that spectrum.”
She thought about it for a moment.
“It wasn’t like him at all. Stopping to help someone like he did. Usually Sterling put his own self-interest first. It’s not one of his best traits. Love doesn’t require perfection, does it?” Her eyes found the small plate in front of me. “You don’t like the cookies. Some fruit, maybe, instead? I think I have grapes.”
I almost got stuck on that question. Not the cookies-and-fruit one. The one about perfection. Sherry hadn’t done what she did because I wasn’t perfect. No, that’s not why she left. That had to be true. The day I said “I do,” I knew I wasn’t perfect. I went to bed every night knowing I wasn’t perfect. I knew it the same way I knew that the stars felt like snowflakes under God’s feet. I just knew it.
She knew it, too. Sherry left me for some other reason then, something more.
Or something less.
“No, ma’am. No thank you on the fruit, and no, love doesn’t require perfection. So what evidently happened last night at the Ochlockonee River?” The name of the Georgia river rolled magically off my tongue. “Him stopping to rescue somebody. That would have been an exception then, what we might consider an anomaly?”
She nodded. “I’ve been comforting myself with the possibility that it was an act of… you know, contrition? Atonement?”
“Because he heard about the investigation that was going on? He was making up for what he had done?”
“Yes, I’d like to think so. I’d been keeping him informed of what was going on here, you know, legally. Sterling knew what kind of trouble he was in.”
I lowered my eyes and allowed my expression to soften before I looked back up. “My understanding is that at the time of the… tragedy, he was traveling to visit a friend?”
“Yes, an old college friend. A man named Brian Miles. Brian lives just outside Albany, Georgia. He’s a tech guy. An electronics genius of some kind. I don’t know him that well. He and Sterling used to chase girls together in school-he’s that kind of friend. They stayed in touch. We never socialized much together, though. I always thought Brian was kind of, you know, gay. Sterling says not.”
Relevance?Got me; I filed it.
“And this visit? It was typical for Sterling to look up old friends during business trips?”
“No. Not male friends anyway, not just for the hell of it. Sterling likes women for company. He prefers women for company. Always has. He always will.”
She managed to state it as though it were a simple fact, as though he preferred Hilton to Hyatt or Pepsi to Coke. But there had to be something more, didn’t there? When people do unexpected things at unexpected times, it’s important.
“Has that been a problem for the two of you? That Sterling prefers women for company?”
She stared at me again. She had quite a repertoire of stares. This one was an it’s-none-of-your-business stare.
“All couples have issues, Detective. We have ours.” She glanced at my stubby left hand and spotted the thin gold band almost disappearing in the lard on my finger. “You’re married, aren’t you?”
I was tempted to get lost with her. Tell her about Sherry and Simon and having Thanksgiving alone. But I don’t tell stuff to strangers. Certainly not to strangers treading in homicide soup like Gibbs Storey. So I didn’t tell her. But I knew I’d come close.
I came close because she’s so pretty.
That was an ugly realization.
I moved my right hand so that the gold ring was no longer in view. What did I want to ask? I wanted to know how in the world a man could prefer the bed of another woman when he was married to the one who was sitting in front of me. I opened my mouth to ask at least twice, but each time I chickened out. Even rehearsing the words in my head, they sounded wrong.
I ended up asking a safer question. “So this whole sojourn from Tallahassee was unusual? The trip to see an old friend, a man? Then stopping to aid a stranger. Were you aware that Sterling was going to visit Mr. Miles?”
“Yes. Yes, I was. Sterling called me during the football game in Tallahassee. He knew about the search of our home, about the detective waiting here from Laguna Beach. He knew what was facing him here. He really wanted to talk it out-you know, his situation-with someone he trusts. Sterling doesn’t have too many male friends, but Brian is someone he trusts. As much as he trusts anyone.”
“Mr. Miles?”
“Yes.”
“The one he chased girls with?”
“Yes.”
“Was Sterling angry with you for your role in exposing him to the police?”
She maintained her balance and matched my steps as though she was accustomed to following bad dancers.
“He was, and he wasn’t. I’ve been so torn-my loyalty to him, my love for him. An impossible choice. He understands that I’ve been placed in a difficult position by all this.”
“And you have, haven’t you?” I said. I meant two or three things with the question but figured she only heard one.
After a little sinus upshift she started to whimper again.
My decision-making process was abrupt, almost instinctive. I didn’t plan to say what I said next. I just said it.
“I have some time off from work. Personal time. I’d like to help you find your husband. Try to find out what happened that night. At least go… to Georgia and do what I can to make sure everything possible is being done to…” I didn’t know how to end the sentence.
Gibbs did. She said, “Find him.”
“Yes.”
She melted me with those eyes. “Please do that. Will you do that? Find him.” I didn’t know what to make of the stare she offered up next. But Gibbs Storey skipped third gear and went right into sniffle overdrive.
In seconds I had an arm around her, and she was leaning into my man-boobs. Want to know what it was like? Having her in my arms, having her delicate beauty against my fat flesh?
Comfort. Solace. Succor.
Giving, getting.
I felt like goddamned Shrek with the goddamned princess.
It felt like heaven.
Didn’t feel right, though. I can tell you that.
And it didn’t answer that question about why Sterling chose the bed of another woman. Or the question about why I’d volunteered to go ask him.
Nope, it didn’t do any of that.
THIRTY-TWO
The storm had departed and left the Colorado plains in bright sunshine, which was typically what happened after a fierce snowstorm along the Front Range. But our seventy-degree Saturday had become a high-thirties, low-forties Sunday. Less than a full day had passed, and we were in a whole different season.
Lauren slept most of Sunday, a bad sign. Grace and I ran some errands, played some toddler games for which neither of us understood the rules, built a snowman out of snow that was the consistency of a Slurpy, and the whole time I pretended that the big bad wolf wasn’t really at our door getting ready to huff and to puff and to blow our house down.