The sun was edging toward the west but still high enough that Lake Mead's ripples caught its light and kicked them out in sharp-edged fragments. You could cut yourself on that light, Ray thought, and remembered the last time he had been to the lake at sunset, after a stormy day, when the water was still and bloodred.
That had been a happier occasion, the wedding of a former student and one of his student aides, who had met because of Ray. One of the perks of a university career, he knew. Crime-scene investigators tended to encounter people at their worst, not when they were young and enthusiastic and brimming with life's possibilities but when they were witnesses, victims, or suspects. Funny how one career shift – albeit entirely within his area of expertise – could so dramatically alter the circumstances under which he interacted with his fellow human beings.
He went to the ticket window and bought a ticket for the dinner cruise, then went back outside and stood on the dock, watching waves lap against the pilings, listening to the excited chatter and the echoing clomp of people crossing the gangplank to the big steamboat. The air smelled like most lakeside docks he had visited, except those in remote wilderness areas, that fishy undertone trying with only limited success to cut through the oily fumes of boat engines.
Ray was waiting for Keith and Ysabel to show up. He had promised to meet them there if he could, and he had made it with time to spare, before the ship even steamed in from its previous cruise, its paddlewheel carving a wide wake behind it. He had watched the passengers crowding the rails on all three decks, sunburned and tired – the littlest kids fussing, teenagers bored or pretending to be, talking or texting on mobile phones as they neared the landing. Children in between those ages, their parents, and lovers young or old, unencumbered by family responsibilities, seemed to have enjoyed the excursion the most. Gulls wheeled around the ship, looking for last-minute handouts, calling out their plaintive cries.
When the ship was cleared of its passenger load, hands swabbed and wiped and polished, working with practiced efficiency, and in no time it was ready for the next batch. Dollies of food and beverages, paper products, and galley supplies were loaded aboard. Then the crew boarded, the rope was taken down, and passengers were invited aboard.
He saw them as they approached from the parking area, Keith walking slowly, one arm out for Ysabel to hang on to. She wore a long skirt and walked with slow, even steps, so from a distance she seemed to be floating toward the landing. Above the skin, she had on a blouse and a light leather jacket, and in one hand she carried a canvas bag with a wolf's-head design. Keith, ever the college professor, wore tweed, an Oxford shirt, jeans, and loafers. Ysabel saw Ray first and tugged on Keith's arm, an unself-conscious smile lighting her face. Keith's grin was less committed but appeared just as heartfelt.
"You made it!" he shouted as they neared.
"I said I'd try," Ray replied. "I'm glad I got here before she shoved off."
"We have to pick up our tickets," Ysabel said.
"I'll do that," Keith offered. "Why don't you wait here with Ray? You have yours yet, Ray?"
Ray showed his ticket. "I'm good."
Keith turned Ysabel over to him, and she took Ray's arm instead of her husband's. She barely needed the support; either that, or she weighed less than Ray had thought. She had definitely lost a lot of weight, and it was more apparent there than it had been when she was sitting in her bed. She seemed shorter, less solid – less present, somehow. Her gaze flitted about from one spot to another, as if afraid she might miss something.
"I love it here," she said. She swept her free hand across the landscape. Ray looked out at the hills ringing the blue, blue water: dun-colored, brown, gray, and purple at the farther reaches. "It's so different, isn't it? Like someone turned on a hose one day and decided to fill a desert valley with water."
"That's not far from the truth." Ray reminded her. "Except it was the Hoover Dam, not a hose, that filled it."
"I know, it's unnatural. It doesn't belong here. But water is life, and so much of it in one place… I can't help it, it just makes me smile."
"That makes me smile," Ray said. "Here comes Keith."
He started toward the gangplank, walking at her pace. Keith joined them. "We're all set," he said. Something about his enthusiasm for the journey seemed forced. "Let's see if we can stake out a good spot on the deck."
The boat launched a few minutes later, the two men flanking Ysabel as it went. Her grip on the deck rail was firm, Ray noted, and Keith kept a hand on her the whole time they stood there watching the landing recede. Ysabel enjoyed the gentle rocking motion of the boat, the smell of the water, the sight of desert mountains slipping into shadow as the sun sank farther.
After a while, they took her inside the main cabin to their reserved table. "I'm going to get a drink," Keith said. "You sit here, Ysabel." She sat down, and he wandered off toward the bar. From her bag she took a partially completed basket and her basket-making kit. She loosened the ties and unrolled it on the red tablecloth, revealing her weaving tools. "Will you sit with me. Ray?" she asked.
"I will, in a few minutes," he said. "First I'm going to talk to Keith a little. But let me ask you – that kit you have? What's that made of?"
"Oh, the tools? They're bone and antler and -"
"No," he interrupted gently. "I mean the outside, the pan that holds everything in."
"Oh, that's just plain yucca. It's pretty old, but it does the job."
"Thanks, Ysabel. I'll be right back, okay?"
"I'll be here," she said. Her voice was as cheerful as ever, with the singsong quality that everybody who knew her came to love.
Ray reluctantly left her and started toward the bar. He encountered Keith on his way back to the table, caught his friend's arm, and nodded toward the exit. "Can we go out on deck for a few minutes?" he asked.
Keith tensed, but only for a moment. "Sure," he said. He freed his arm from Ray's grip and went out the hatch. They stood together at the rail, Keith taking occasional sips from his drink. Water shushed past the bow, relatively smooth until it caught the paddlewheel's choppy wake.
"You've had silver hair as long as I've known you," Ray said.
"It turned early. I started going gray while I was still in college."
"To be fair, you spent a long time in college."
Keith laughed once, in a startled way. "I never wanted to get out. I guess I never did. From student to teacher is a short trip. I guess I've never not been part of academia."
"It isn't a bad life," Ray admitted. "Constant intellectual stimulation. A lot of politics to deal with, but what workplace doesn't have that? Decent salary, good benefits."
"Administration is where the real money is," Keith said. "You know that. In these days of budget cuts, education cuts, we mere professors are an endangered species. Not only were there no raises the last couple of years, but fully a quarter of the department's faculty was phased out. Class sizes are getting insane, and -" He stopped, took a sip, looked at Ray. "You didn't bring me out here to get the same old lecture about university life, did you?"
"I've seen pictures of you from when you were younger," Ray told him. "Your hair was light then. Blond, right?"
"Yeah, I was always pretty sandy-haired. I guess that's why I didn't mind the gray so much – it didn't seem like that much of a change."
A breeze blew up from nowhere, fluttering Keith's silver hair, wafting the smell of bourbon from his cup.
"And your eyes," Ray said. He waved his hand at the water. "Always been as blue as Lake Mead."
The sun had dropped more, streaking the sky with salmon and orange, colors repeated in the rippling lake surface. "Not so blue right now."
"The lake, no. Your eyes, yes."
"I'm glad you admire my physical perfection so much. Ray," Keith said. "Is this leading up to something?"
"I'm afraid so," Ray said. "Can you take your jacket off? Roll up your shirtsleeves?"
Keith held his gaze. "It's getting a little cool out here. Maybe we should go back in."
"I guess you don't have to. Not yet, anyway. If there's some reason you don't want to show me your arms…"
"It's just -"
Ray didn't want his friend to have to lie to him. "You probably had a perfectly good excuse," he said. "Not that murder is ever justified, but if it was self-defense, something like that…"
Keith looked away at that, toward the water, and drained the rest of his cup.
"Ysabel's basket-making stuff is wrapped in old yucca," Ray said. "There were bits of yucca on Domingo's body. He scratched his killer, probably in a struggle, and the DNA tells us that the killer was a white man, with blond hair and blue eyes. If you can show me your arms, and they're not scratched, if you can tell me where you were when Domingo died… Keith, I'm asking you to let yourself off the hook here. Help me out."
Keith drew back his left sleeve far enough to show Ray deep gouges on the back of his arm, just past the wrist. He shrugged, then released the sleeve again. "He ruined everything." His eyes brimmed, but he wiped them with his right hand and continued. "I'm getting pressure from the university to take early retirement. I could do it, but the deal's not as good as it would have been even last year. Their pension fund took a big hit, and so did my 401 (k). Her medical bills. Sharing in proceeds from the new casino would have been a big help, but Domingo screwed us there. Ysabel's dad was Apache, and her grandmother on her mother's side was Pyramid Lake Paiute. Under Domingo's new blood-quantum rules, she's not Grey Rock enough. They cut her off."
"I know. I had one of our people check with tribal police, and they told me she was dropped. I'm sorry."
Keith snapped, anger replacing sorrow for the moment. "Yeah, me, too. It's like they say, Domingo was trying to keep as much tribal wealth as he could for himself and his friends, no matter what it cost other people."
He paused, turning the empty cup in his hands, then continued. "And think how Ysabel felt about it. All her life, she's considered herself Grey Rock Paiute. To suddenly be told that she's not – it crushed her. I have no doubt it weakened her resistance, allowed the cancer to get a stronger grip. That's why she's in the shape she's in now."
"That's got to be hard," Ray said.
"It's not just about money, Ray," Keith insisted. "Not at all. That cancer? Ysabel started smoking in the first place as a young woman. Back then, the smoke shop was the tribe's main profit center, and most members smoked. It was a way of giving back to the community, if you had anything to give. It turned into a lifetime habit for her. She wanted to support the community, and what she got out of it was lung cancer. She finally quit after she was diagnosed, but it was hard on her. On both of us."
"So, like I said, you had good reason."
"I was so pissed. Furious. Domingo kept the smoke shop going all these years, even knowing he was selling poison to his own people and anyone else who stopped in. The other businesses were doing well; he could have afforded to close that one. But he was a greedy sonofabitch, wanted every dime he could scrape together, so he could have his fancy house in the city, the lifestyle, the nightclubs and women and trips.
"I went to see him, to try to reason with him. I thought if I just talked to him, I could make him understand, get him to change his mind, to relax the blood-quantum standards. But he wouldn't listen, wouldn't engage. Just stood there puffing on that big cigar and looking at me like I was an ant, barely worth his notice.
"I got mad. I pushed him. He started to fall – he had been drinking, and he was unsteady on his feet – but he caught my arm, scratching me. When he was upright again, he laughed at me and told me to get the hell out of his house. He turned his back on me, that's how little I meant to him. I lost it then, picked up that heavy lighter, and smashed his skull in. Tried to, anyway. I'm not much of a fighter, I guess."
"It did the trick," Ray said.
"I wiped it off on my shin and dropped it. I ran out of there so fast… I'm surprised I'm not one of those guys who leaves his wallet at the scene, I was so scared,"
"You did a good job, all things considered." Ray said. "Didn't leave us much to work with."
"Enough, though."
Ray nodded. "Enough, that's true. We didn't have a match for the DNA, but if you'll submit to a swab test -"
"Is that necessary?" Keith said. "If I confess?"
"Probably not, but it won't hurt to have it for backup. Will you turn yourself in?"
The sun had reached the western hills, and the water had turned into a pool of glittering, molten gold. "When we get back," Keith said. "Right now, I'd like to go be with my wife. She wanted to watch the sunset."
"That'll be fine, Keith. You watch the sunset with Ysabel."
Ray went with him, and together they took Ysabel's arms and walked her out on deck. The sway of the ship affected her balance, and she stumbled a couple of times, but the two men kept her going and held her at the rail. The sun stained her beaming face with gold.
"It's so pretty," Ysabel said.
"It sure is," Keith agreed. But he was not watching the sunset, he was watching his wife, seeing the delight and wonder she took in the simplest of natural processes, the way the earth's rotation made its surface slide past the sun, bringing darkness to the day and then brightness to the dark.
Ray Langston watched them both, old friends, still desperately in love with each other after so many years. He knew this would not be Ysabel's last sunset, but it would probably be her last sunset on the water, certainly her last one with her husband at her side, and Ray held on to her warm, fragile hand, cupping it against the ship's rail, and he wanted to live in that moment, skimming across the lake's surface with Ysabel and Keith, for as long as he could.