Celeste and Ned Lowe lived in what was probably a sixteen-hundred-square-foot one-story board-and-batten house painted a soft gray, with a shake roof, solar panels, and a living room with a bay window. I was guessing two bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen in desperate need of rehabilitation. There was no sign of Ned’s black sedan in the driveway. The garage doors were closed and I had no way of knowing if his car and hers were tucked away inside. I’d have to take April’s word for his being tied up at work.
I rang the bell, staring out at the driveway while I waited. There was an older-model aluminum-and-galvanized-steel Argosy Motorhome parked in the side yard, white with a brown stripe that ran around its middle. The back end of the vehicle was rounded, and a unit affixed to the top suggested a working air conditioner. The license plate read FOTO BIZ, which I assumed referred to Ned’s photography.
Decals from countless tourist stops had been applied in a tidy line along the brown painted stripe. This was a history of Ned’s travels spelled out one town at a time in a series of slogans. FALLOWAY, TX: HAPPIEST LITTLE CITY IN THE WEST. PARADISE, AZ: GHOST TOWN OF COCHISE COUNTY. PRAIRIE, NV: HOST OF THE 1985 WILD WEST RODEO.
The door was opened and Celeste stared out at me, fair-haired and pale.
“Celeste?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Kinsey. I’m a friend of April’s. She asked me to stop by and make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“May I come in?”
She didn’t look me in the eye and she didn’t reply, but she didn’t close the door in my face, which I took as a good sign. She considered my request and then stepped back. I entered the house and followed her into the living room, noting that she sat in a chair that allowed her to keep an eye on the street through the picture window in the front. She was tense and thin in the manner of someone with an eating disorder. Her dark eyes were at odds with her fair coloring and seemed enormous in the delicate oval of her face.
“Are you expecting Ned? April told me he’s tied up in meetings until noon.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. He says things like that all the time and then pops in unexpectedly, hoping to catch me unawares. He likes to keep me on my toes.”
On the wall behind her, there were two enlarged black-and-white photographs that I assumed were Ned’s. Over the fireplace, there were two more in stark black frames. He was apparently fascinated with rock formations: limestone worn down by chemical weathering; sedimentary layers undulating along a ridge; granite outcroppings; a massive sandstone bed that had eroded into a single towering crag. Striking, but cold.
“Are those his?”
She nodded. “He hopes to retire from his sales job and make a living from his photography. That’s part of what he does on his annual treks: he goes to galleries to show his portfolio.”
Her tone of voice had the flat quality of someone reading from a script. She seemed to wear her passivity like a Kevlar vest. Getting through to her would be impossible unless I could find a way to gain her trust. “Do his prints sell?”
Her smile was brief. “Lately, they have.”
“April says he’s leaving tomorrow.”
“Unless he cancels or delays or changes his mind.”
“Where’s he going this time?”
“He says I don’t need to know. If I press him for information, he says I’m trying to control his every move.”
“When, in fact, that’s what he’s doing to you,” I said.
She gave one of those little half shrugs.
“Are you okay? You seem to be operating in a fog.”
“Ned says I’m depressed.”
“Do you have an opinion of your own?”
“That’s what the drinking was about. I’ve been depressed all my life and that’s how I made myself feel better.”
“But you’re not drinking now.”
“I’ve been clean and sober for four and a half years.”
“That’s great. I’m not sure I could do that myself,” I said. “I understand the two of you got into a disagreement last night.”
“My fault. I should have kept my mouth shut. When I called April this morning, I was upset. I’m better now.”
“Are you aware that he called her just before you did?”
“Oh. She didn’t say anything about that.”
“He told her you were drinking again, which is one of the reasons she was so concerned?”
“He tells people at work the same thing. I know because one of his coworkers called me and offered to help. He told her I was flipping out.”
“This doesn’t sound like a wonderful way to live.”
“I’m used to it, I guess,” she said. “Why are you so concerned?”
“I was a friend of Pete Wolinsky’s. He contacted you a year ago, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “He was concerned about my safety. He believed Ned was dangerous and I needed some way to protect myself. Leverage, he called it.”
“What’s wrong with running for your life?”
“Where would I go?”
“There are shelters for women who need help.”
“Ned knows where they are. He has friends in law enforcement. He can get any address he wants.”
“That’s bullshit. He’d feeding you a load of crap.”
“I don’t think so. The one time I left, he killed his own dog. Took him out in the backyard and shot him in the head. He said it broke his heart, but he wanted me to understand how serious he was about our relationship. No one leaves him.”
“Did Pete have an idea about how to get you out of here?”