30

Piper sat on the back porch while her grandmother finished making dinner. She was an amazing cook when her arthritis allowed it, a skill she humbly attributed to necessity and not talent.

The doorbell rang, and Piper answered it. Lazarus stood there looking uncomfortable. “Come in,” she said.

“I like the house. It’s comforting.”

“Odd thing to say, but thanks.”

“Is that him?” her grandmother hollered from the kitchen.

Piper led him to the kitchen, where Lake dried her hands and then came over to Lazarus. He held out his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She put her arms around him, hugged him, and said, “We’re huggers in this house.”

The surprise on Lazarus’s face forced Piper to look away so he couldn’t see her suppress a chuckle.

They sat in the dining room to eat as the setting sun cast an orange glow across the sky. Piper and her grandmother joined hands. Lazarus followed suit, holding hands, and her grandmother offered a blessing for the meal. Afterward, she began serving the food, starting with Lazarus. They ate pasta and salad with a good red wine.

“Lazarus is a unique name. Do you come from a religious family?” she said as she speared some salad with her fork.

He took a sip of wine. “Yes, ma’am. My parents were what you would call devout.”

“Oh? Do they live nearby?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re still alive.”

She stopped midbite and looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

He drank another sip of wine. “What about you two? She never talks about her life.”

She looked at Piper with a grin. “She’s always been good at keeping things tight lipped. I think she doesn’t like people to know much about her. That’s why she doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Grandma!”

“Well, it’s true.”

Lazarus smiled as he sipped some more wine.

“I think you’ve had enough wine tonight, Grandma.”

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed. How else are you going to find someone if you don’t put yourself out there?”

Piper blushed and glanced at Lazarus, who was grinning over the edge of his wineglass.

Lake asked, “So were you raised here in Vegas?”

“No, ma’am. I was born in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, but raised in a small town in the desert of Utah. A polygamist community.”

Her gazed fixed on him as if he had admitted he was from another planet.

“Your parents were polygamists?”

He finished his glass and poured another. “My parents were religious, but apparently my father wasn’t religious enough. When I was a kid, my mother met someone more passionate about it and left him. That’s the thing ’bout using crazy as a measuring stick. There’s always someone crazier.”

He drank more wine while Lake watched him.

“My mother and the man she ran away with had plans to get married. Only turned out she was wife number three. Something he didn’t tell her until she was standing in the desert with only her child and the clothes on her back.”

“Goodness. What ended up happening?”

He shrugged. “She married him out of necessity I suppose, or weakness, but I left the second I turned eighteen. Last I saw, they were still married and miserable.” He looked at Piper. “What about her? What was she like as a kid?”

“Oh! I’ve never seen another child like her. Curious about everything and with a giant heart. She didn’t like that anthills would get stepped on, so one day she made a little cover to put over them so people could step over the hill. Some boys came by and thought it would be funny to jump on it, and Piper cried all night. She couldn’t understand why someone would do that.”

Lake’s eyes suddenly glistened as she said, “Her mother was the same way. For a time.”

“Must’ve been hard taking on a child you didn’t know you’d be taking.”

“I didn’t mind. In some ways ... I don’t know. I didn’t mind,” she said, looking at him with a warm smile, the glistening in her eyes fading away. “Do you have any children?” she asked as she took a sip of wine.

“No, ma’am. Was engaged once, though.”

Piper said, “You were?”

“I can commit to things occasionally.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Lake interjected, “Piper, that’s rude. We can find nicer things to talk about.”

“I don’t mind,” Lazarus said. “Police, see, we have this syndrome. Next-case syndrome. That the next case’ll be the one where things go back to normal and get better, but they don’t. And something’s gotta break. Either your mind or your marriage.”

Lake took a bite of food and said, “You know, you’re probably not very fun at parties, are you?”

“I wouldn’t know. No one ever invites me.”

She smiled and softly put her hand over his. “Then your next birthday we’re having here at the house, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

They continued eating and talking, finishing all the pasta and an entire bottle of wine. Piper, her cheeks flushed from the wine, began clearing the dishes, but her grandmother insisted that Piper stop and join her friend outside. “I’ll bring dessert outside on the patio,” she said.

Piper nodded toward Lazarus, and he stood up, following her outside. They settled on the patio, gazing at the pine trees behind the house. There was no wind, so everything was as still as a painting.

“It’s quiet here,” he said. “It’s hard to find quiet anymore.”

“I love it. I moved out once, but why stay in a crummy apartment if I can stay here and save money?”

“Can’t argue with that.”

She hesitated and then said, “I’m sorry about dinner. My grandma puts it in everybody’s head that people have to be married. Not everyone does.”

“You ever been close?”

“Once. In law school. He was a professor actually.”

“You were hooking up with the professor? I never pegged you as having questionable morals, Ms. Danes.”

She grinned as a moth landed on the patio near her foot and then flitted off.

“We were the same age, it wasn’t weird at all.”

“What happened?”

“He was married. I found out from another law student he had dated. He didn’t even hide it when I confronted him. He wasn’t embarrassed at all.”

“You loved him?”

“I thought I did, whatever that means.” She looked at him. “What about you? Is there going to be a Mrs. Holloway one day?”

“I got close enough to know it ain’t for me.”

“You don’t think you should try it before deciding you don’t like it?”

“I don’t need to eat a rhino’s ass to know I wouldn’t like it.”

Piper laughed.

For a brief moment, they fell silent, enjoying the soothing sounds of the breeze rustling through the trees.

“You get anywhere with the therapist?” he said.

“She had to reschedule. I don’t think she’s going to open up and tell me much, but I set an appointment for Sophie, so I’m hoping she allows me to be in there with her. What about you? Any luck with the alarm?”

He shook his head. “Nope. CSI ain’t takin’ my calls apparently, so looks like I’m goin’ into the crawl space by myself. Unless you wanna join me.”

“Um ...”

“I’m kidding.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back in a way that reminded her of Judge Dawson.

“So when were you going to tell me you and Judge Dawson dated?”

“Never.”

“Why?”

“Exactly because we’re going to have this conversation.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be that way. What’s she like? She never talks about herself with me.”

Lazarus paused a moment. “She’s brilliant, refined, and the most dangerous person I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“Well, what else?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“What else do you want?”

“You have to know more about her than that.”

“Some people, isolation breaks ’em, and some people it makes ’em stronger. She’s one a’ them. I don’t know any more about her than you do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ain’t my job to make you believe.”

A breeze swept through the pine trees and made a whispering sound.

Lazarus, his eyes fixed on the sparkling black canvas above them, said, “What went through your head as a kid lookin’ up at this sky?”

“That there were peaceful alien races staring back at me. I liked that idea. That someone, somewhere, has it figured out.”

Lazarus took out his vape pen. “I would think about galaxies moving farther away.”

“What about it?”

“All our knowledge of the universe comes from studying galaxies, but they’re speeding away. Eventually we won’t be able to see ’em, won’t even know they’re there. We’ll need a new truth, and humanity’s never been good at abandoning old ones.”

He took a hit off his vape. “One thing I do remember my piece of garbage stepfather saying right was ‘Humanity’s a blind man feeling an elephant’s trunk and calling it a snake.’”

Piper was silent, and then Lake, who had come out there at some point, said from behind them, “Well, that is just horseshit.”

Lazarus grinned. “Probably. He was insane.” He checked his watch. “I have to go. Thank you for dinner.”

“We haven’t had dessert yet.”

“Another time.” He nodded to Piper and said, “I can see myself out.”

When he was gone, Lake said, “What a pleasant young man. Seems lonely, though. Those souls always make me the saddest.”