Raked Over

  * * *

  As I pulled into the gravel yard at my depot house I saw that I had rail car visitors that afternoon; several of the boxcars had been parked just beyond the stand of cottonwoods on the rail siding. Huge orange, green, brown blocks of color peaked through the emerald sheen of the trees and gleamed in the slanting light. The balloony graffiti looked like cartoon characters resting on their sides, relaxing in the afternoon sun. The familiar sight of the cars felt like a welcome home.

  Also awaiting me was a business card stuck in the front door:

  Colorado Bureau of Investigation

  Agent Henry T. Wade

  Investigative Services

  A Denver phone number and message were written on the back: “Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

  As soon as I unloaded the car, I checked my home phone messages—a reminder from Roxanne Campbell about my upcoming haircut; my volunteer’s update from my first-grade teacher about this school year’s start date; an invitation to a potluck at a friend’s house that weekend; and a message from my niece Haley. But I gave Agent Wade a call first; I was very curious as to what this was about. We made an appointment for him to visit me the next morning; he said he “just wanted to chat” with me.

  While still wondering about the visit, I decided to run out and pick up the dogs since I’d missed them on the trip. I left Carol a heads-up message and drove out to get them, trying to organize my thoughts about Shannon and Barry, wondering if I should bring it all up with Agent Wade. I’d hoped that Carol or Marjo would be home to discuss the issues with me, but they weren’t, so I left a note and took the two joyous dogs home with me instead.

  As I walked in the phone rang—it was Liz Burzachiello.

  “Did you hear? Did you see it on the news? I left messages for you! Did you hear?” The words exploded out of Liz on the other end of the line.

  “What?” I hadn’t listened to her days-old messages, planning on talking to her instead.

  “Barry! It’s Barry Correda! He’s—he died in a car crash!” she blurted out all in a rush.

  She’d seen it on the news: a fiery single-car crash, everything totally burned, no next of kin so Phillip Binder had to identify the body. Binder had been one of a few people listed in Barry’s cell phone that had been thrown from the car in the impact. Barry had been returning from a Binder Enterprises sales meeting late at night, as Liz said Phillip Binder was quoted in the news clip.

  “You know, I only paid attention to the story because the picture of the crash was so gory,” Liz said. “It happened shortly after you left—in the next couple of days, I think. The story said he swerved off the road, rolled, hit a propane tank in a field—then blooey! It caught fire; burned some sheds, too. Nothing left.”

  I didn’t know what to think.

  Liz and I talked for a while longer, but she wasn’t able to add much to the story. I’d been on the road and hadn’t seen the news, of course, and when she heard the story she’d called and left a message I had forgotten to listen to. Andrea Brubaker hadn’t mentioned it; it didn’t seem as if she’d heard the news, either. The delay in me hearing about it didn’t really matter: the guy was dead and that pretty much ended any scenarios I had in mind about clearing things up with Barry Correda about Shannon. I told Liz about the CBI appointment I had the next morning, though, and she was interested in hearing all about it the next day. We made arrangements for her to start the maintenance work at the client’s, and I would join her after Agent Wade’s visit.

  As soon as I got off the phone with Liz I called Betty and told her the news. After her shock she expressed disappointment, as Liz had, at not having a chance to perhaps get closure about Shannon by getting more information from Barry.

  I felt the same way. I was sorry that Barry Correda was dead, but I had to admit my interest in him revolved around Shannon and his relationship with her. And, frankly, he hadn’t impressed me as being a positive presence in Shannon’s life. After talking with him, and especially after the overheard conversation with his buddy, Barry Correda hadn’t come across as authentic, caring, or kind. Rather, he’d seemed a sleazy liar without any real concern for Shannon. I was finding it hard to dredge up much compassion for him.

  The impatient Patsy and Pecos were demanding that I feed them. Life goes on, I mused, as I opened a new sack of dog food, and not the way you expect it. I heard a gaggle of a huge flock of Canadian geese fly overhead, knowing that soon scores of V formations of fowl would be flying over the house twice a day as they headed out and back to glean the fallow fields east of town.

  I put on Tom Waits’s Closing Time CD as his lonesome, scratchy voice seemed to fit my mood. I had a pot of New Mexico green chile on the stove for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry.