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oak, just the way I
liked it. The wine clung to the crystal glass, dribbling down the sides with
the thickened leggy brush strokes of a Van Gogh. It reminded me of Pasquale’s,
in Chicago, where my family took me for my twenty-first birthday. We had my
graduation party in a back banquet room. We held a small wake for my mother in
that same room. I flashed my new engagement ring to my father at the bar.
    Catrozzi’s head waiter brought me the
delicate abalone and disappeared before I could thank him. Or was the movement
even him? I had the distinct feeling someone was watching me. I’d taken my
table. A big table with six chairs. Maybe a large party was waiting for it as I
sat there alone? Maybe someone was casting pitiful looks my way? Poor
little-rich-girl looks.
    I
glanced around. The narrow room bustled with power business lunches, a few
young mothers enjoying an hour or so away from dirty diapers and drools, and
flirtatious conversations. Another loner like me, a man of about sixty-five—maybe
seventy, sat sipping an iced tea and reading a newspaper.
    The
waiter patiently allowed me my slow degustation, then reappeared with a second
glass of wine.
    “From
the gentleman over there,” he nodded in the direction of the old man. “It’s
from another vineyard, but he insisted you would like it.”
    The
chair sat empty with the newspaper catching a wimpy occasional draft from the
air-conditioning.
    The
waiter followed my gaze. “Strange. He was just there. Let me tell you, he chose
a special wine for you. An excellent chardonnay from a small winery. We mostly
just serve the California wines here.”
    The
small talk was a nice diversion. “Is it French?” The shimmering golden fluid
had a strong bouquet of buttery oak.
    “You’d
never guess. It comes from Southern Arizona.”
    I had
another plane to catch. I would be returning to Tucson. Carly and Sterling were
coming with me.

 
    Chapter Fourteen
    An
Empty Memory
    FRIDAY
MORNING I GRABBED my bags to pack for the short weekend trip to Tucson. The
final chore was to switch out purses from a tiny black leather Chanel to a
large Hobo. Exchanging contents, the airport claim check fell out from the
smaller purse.
    Tom
Bradley Terminal. The receipt the old man with the stolen wallet had mistakenly
returned to me.
    I would
check it out on my return.
    I didn’t
give Carly or Sterling a choice. Neither of them held down jobs where they
couldn’t take a quick weekend excursion to Tucson.
    Sterling
had called it a ‘Big Chill’ thing,
sans any sexy male companions and long after any funeral. I had a different
itinerary in mind. We wouldn’t be lounging around the pool immersing ourselves
in idle chat about the good old days.
    Carly
loved a bargain. She was in charge of lodging. We took potluck in finding a good
hotel in Tucson, in late August, and she managed to snag a five-star suite at
half the price of their winter rates.
    While Carly
wore a grin gained from her success at haggling over the cost of the room, it
quickly faded when she, Sterling, and I folded our exhausted bodies against the
silky Stroheim and Romann fabric of the suite’s
living room loveseats.
    “It
doesn’t feel right, does it?” Carly asked.
    “Christ,”
Sterling said, “maybe because last time we were here it was to say goodbye to
Payton.”
    “No,
it’s not that,” Carly said. She was fondling a bottle of cold water, pursing
her lips to it without sipping, and then rolling it against her forehead. “You
don’t think she did it, do you, Lauren?”
    “Payton
did a lot of dumb-ass things, but not this. She wouldn’t take her own life.”
    Sterling
looked up from the room service menu. “Yeah. The cat, Teddy. She wouldn’t leave
her cat. Not ever.”
               

 
    THE
NEXT DAY CARLY and I returned from a continental breakfast and jarred Sterling
awake. As she finished applying makeup with the use of the car visor mirror, we
approached the Pima County Sheriff’s Office