Conflict of Interest by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

Author:Nancy Taylor Rosenberg [Rosenberg, Nancy Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

Wednesday, February 14, 2001, 11:12 A.M.

ELIZABETH DECKER exited her red-and-bronze Chevy Blazer on a farm road approximately ten miles from Magic Mountain. Already soaked, she didn’t bother with an umbrella. The plastic visor would keep the rain out of her eyes, and she’d borrowed some of her daughter’s ski clothes. Dressed in a black jumpsuit with red stripes on the sleeves and four zippered compartments, her feet were encased in red insulated snow boots.

In the rear of the vehicle were two sturdy shovels, a hoe, two rakes, and a grocery bag containing Elizabeth’s gardening tools. The day before she’d lopped off the metal portion at the end of one of the rakes. At the moment, all she needed was the wooden pole. If she found something that appeared to be evidence, she would return for the other rake. On the drive over, she had checked her phone messages from her cell phone. Dreiser had called her, Joanne Kuhlman had left a message, and a detective at the Valencia Sheriff’s Department had tried to get in touch with her. She didn’t need to speak to them. She knew why they were calling.

Since three o’clock that morning, Elizabeth had been working at her dining-room table, mapping the area where she believed her son’s grave was located on large sheets of white paper, then dividing the area into grids. To distinguish one grid from another, she’d purchased fifty yellow plastic stakes at Home Depot the previous evening. She placed a small hammer into one of the zippered compartments of the ski suit, a hand shovel into the other. Her plan was to insert the plastic stakes into the muddy soil to establish the outer perimeter of the grid. She picked up the stakes and placed them in one of the heavy blue plastic garbage bags the sanitation department distributed, knowing she would have to return to the car and retrieve more once these were positioned. Even though the stakes were plastic, they were cumbersome and she couldn’t carry them all at one time.

Elizabeth had hoped to receive another phone call from the anonymous informant. But now that the police had set up the wiretaps at her home, she felt certain that the man who had told her about her son’s murder would never be heard from again.

She rubbed her hands together, wishing she had remembered to bring along a pair of gloves. Already her fingers were stiff and cold. It couldn’t be more than forty degrees. When she exhaled, she could see her breath.

Elizabeth didn’t mind the flashes of lightning, though, the drumrolls of thunder, the transparent sheets of rain, the slippery streets, the traffic-clogged roadways. In a way, she found it gratifying. Her son’s cries for help had been heard. The storm was her affirmation. An unspeakable act had been committed against a holy and treasured soul.

Heaven was outraged.

Elizabeth compared life to an unending series of examinations. When asked to find an adjective to describe Ian Decker, the majority of people would

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