Page 26 of A Map to Paradise

25

It didn’t take long to haul down to the car Eva’s boxes of belongings. When the last of her things had been tucked into the trunk of the car, they headed back inside so that Eva could leave a note for Yvonne with instructions not to give June’s address to those strange men.

She started to write a vague reason for the request but Melanie stopped her.

“Don’t give her any extra information. Trust me. Just ask her to say if they have a business card, they can leave one with her. And that the next time she sees you she will give it to you.”

There had been no sign of those men when they arrived, nor was there now as they got back in the car to return to Malibu.

The morning sky on the horizon was refusing to turn blue as Melanie pulled away from the curb, a ghostly coral tinge in its place instead. As the minutes and miles ticked as they approached the coast, the more smoke and the odor of ash hung on the air.

“There’s a fire somewhere.” Melanie turned on the radio and flipped through the stations until she found one reporting the news.

A fire had indeed broken out in the wee hours of the morning in Newton Canyon, eleven miles from Malibu.

But it was apparently a hungry fire and a generous one. It was now gobbling its way toward the coast, starting new fires along the way and in happy partnership with winds eager to play along. Worse, no roads led into Newton Canyon. Getting ahead of it was going to be no small feat for local and regional fire departments. Evacuations were likely if the winds didn’t die down and firefighters couldn’t reach the fire’s heart.

Melanie stepped on the gas.

“They’re okay, aren’t they?” Eva said. Surely June and Nicky were okay. Weren’t they?

“I think so. But I think we might need to hurry.”

“June doesn’t have her car.”

Melanie exhaled loudly. “I know she doesn’t. Stop talking about it. That won’t help me get us there.”

By the time they reached the Pacific Coast Highway, the air outside the car windows was a gritty, dismal gray. Few cars were rushing north toward Malibu as they were, but plenty were driving away from it, toward Santa Monica.

Eva counted down the fifteen coastal miles they needed to travel. She knew those miles. The second bus she took to work every day traveled them. Melanie was driving fast; Eva could feel it. But each time a pumper truck or fire engine came wailing up behind her, she had to pull over to let them pass, losing what seemed like precious minutes.

Finally they were turning off the highway, climbing a residential street, sometimes needing to wait as homeowners backed out of their driveways and fled. At last they pulled to a stop at the top of Paradise Circle.

Eva and Melanie both bolted out of the car and dashed to the front door. A taped note fluttered there.

Melanie plucked it off. “She and Nicky already left, thank God.”

Relief and surprise poured over Eva. “Where are they? How’d they leave?”

“Max came for them. June wrote down his address.”

“And the cat?”

“They have him. Come on. I need to grab a few things from my place before we hightail it out of here.”

As they turned from June’s front door, a fire truck pulled to a stop at the top of the cul-de-sac. Four firefighters jumped off of it, each brandishing a pickax or shovel. One of them made his way over to them as the other three jogged partway down the hill to the next closest house.

The firefighter coming toward them was moving fast.

“This street is being evacuated,” he called before he even reached them. “You two need to return to your vehicle and get as far south from here as you can.” His tone was urgent. “Is this your home?” He pointed to June’s house.

“My neighbor lives here,” Melanie said. “I live next door.”

“Is she still inside?”

Melanie held up the note. “She’s already left.”

“All right, listen. We need access to the backyards on this side of the street to dig firebreaks. If you can unlock your neighbor’s gate, we won’t have to break it down. Are you able to do that quickly before you go?”

Eva felt a cold shot of alarm rush through her as she tried to fit together the firefighter’s request with what she knew lay buried in June’s backyard.

“You’re…what? What did you say?” Melanie asked.

“If you are able to leave your neighbor’s gate unlocked for us we won’t have to break it down. Can you quickly do that?”

“Uh. Sure,” Melanie said.

“You both need to be gone in five minutes. It’s not safe to stay.”

He jogged away from them, holding a shovel aloft as he went.

“Melanie!” Eva said as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Shut up. Don’t say it.” Melanie fumbled with June’s key ring, looking for the one that would open the front door. When she found it she thrust it into the lock.

“But they are going to be digging in the backyard!”

“I said don’t say it!” Melanie threw the door open.

The two women entered the house and Melanie made for the back door in the kitchen that opened onto the backyard and everything that was in it.

Eva followed her, calling her name.

Melanie didn’t answer.

Seconds later in the backyard Melanie glanced at the rose garden for only a second before heading to the gate on the side of the house nearest her own. She turned the lever that released its lock, swung it open, and turned to face Eva and the rose garden.

“We have to move the body,” Eva said softly but with intent.

Melanie’s mouth fell open. “What did you say?”

“We have to. If they dig a firebreak, they will find Elwood. We have to move him!”

A second of silence hung between them before Melanie pivoted to move past her. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this.”

“But we can do it. I know we can. I have already been thinking how to do it if June loses the house. Elwood can’t stay here if she does. You know that, right? What if the new owners want to take out the rose garden? What if they want to put in a pool?”

“Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not!” Melanie started for the house.

Eva put out her hand to stop her. “Melanie. Those firemen will call the police. And the police will arrest June. Can’t you see that? It wouldn’t be right. She loved Elwood. She did nothing wrong. Surely you of all people understand how unfair that is.”

Melanie yanked her arm out of Eva’s grasp. “Now, wait just a minute. June did all kinds of wrong. She broke several laws, I’m sure, not the least of which is burying a man in his backyard!” Melanie punched out the last six words with force.

Could Melanie really not see they were the only ones who could help June?

“But she was not trying to break any laws,” Eva said. “She was desperate. She was not thinking clearly.”

“Well, neither are you right now. I don’t really want to see June go to prison, either, but we’re not digging up a dead man, Eva. We’re not. We only have five minutes—we’d be caught red-handed, and who would that help? We’re not going to compound the mistake June made by making a huge one of our own. She wants this house. I get it. But that’s not a reason to bury someone in his backyard. Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Surely you of all people understand that .”

Eva winced but shook it off. She had to make Melanie see reason. “June was grieving and afraid, Melanie. She meant no harm. She’s a good person. But we have to hurry. We have to do it before the firemen come back.”

For a second Melanie seemed to waver. But for only a second. “You seriously want to dig up a body that’s been in the ground for nearly three weeks and move it? Even if we had the time, you want to, what, put it in the trunk of June’s car and drive it somewhere? Did you not study biology in high school? Are you telling me you don’t know what happens to the human body when it’s dead? Honestly, Eva! And where in the world would we take it?”

“I have already thought of a place. We can bring Elwood to the desert outside Palm Springs. He loved it there, yes? We can rebury him somewhere far off the main road where he will not be found for perhaps years, if at all. He will have a resting place like this one, one that meant something to him. It will fit the story June is telling if the remains are ever found. June need never know where we buried him. If she’s ever asked if she knows where Elwood is, she can honestly say she does not.”

Melanie was staring at her as if Eva had gone mad.

“What in God’s name happened to you in that war that has you thinking this plan of yours is a good one?” Melanie said. “A reasonable one? A feasible one! Eva, this is insane, what you’re suggesting.”

Was it? Was it insane? Was she insane? Had the war—and everything that had happened to her before it and after it—turned her into a madwoman?

She didn’t feel crazy, but was she for wanting to dig up a body like one digs up tulip bulbs? Was she crazy the first time she’d done that?

No. Ernst was not Elwood. And Louise? Had Louise also made a terrible mistake when she wanted to bury that monster of a husband in her backyard?

Eva didn’t know. All she knew was that Ernst would have killed Louise. Eva had to do whatever she could think of in that fear-filled moment. And so she had.

There was nothing similar about the two men. Nothing at all except where their bodies had ended up. But there was much that was similar about Louise and June, including what they wanted and deserved to have.

And what they both meant to her.

“Eva,” Melanie said in a gentler voice. “Listen to me. You’re not thinking clearly. Elwood has been dead for three weeks. That body of his is not the one any of us knew. It isn’t Elwood anymore. June should have called the authorities when she found him dead in his room. He should have been properly taken care of. Do you understand what I’m saying? He needed to have been properly cared for. He wasn’t.”

Eva was tearing up as if she had known Elwood herself, though the two of them had never spoken to each other. The tears were not for Elwood, however. They were for June. They were for the undeserved cruelties of life. They were for the ache of loss that was never far from the surface no matter how many years had passed. “She took him to his rose garden. How is that not taking care of him?”

“Because now June is facing the possibility of his body being discovered by those firemen,” Melanie said, still gently but with authority. “If it was caring and proper to do what she did, you wouldn’t be worried right now. But you are worried. Because it wasn’t the proper thing to do. You know it wasn’t. You and I are helping her live with what she did when she wasn’t thinking clearly, but that doesn’t make what she did right.”

“But we’re her friends!”

“And if she’s charged with murder, we can decide if we want to vouch for her that Elwood committed suicide. But it’s not always a fair world, Eva. You and I can’t prove what really happened the night Elwood died. I know June wouldn’t have deliberately hurt him. But I can’t prove that to the police or to anyone else. And neither can you.”

Eva turned to look at the roses. Smoke in the grip of the Santa Ana was swirling above the bushes like a filmy shawl being tossed about on a clothesline. She could taste ash on her tongue.

“We need to go,” Melanie said.

Eva said nothing though she knew Melanie was right. About everything.

“Eva. Come on. We have to go.”

“June did not want the house, you know,” Eva said, still looking at the place where Elwood lay.

“What?”

“It was not this house she wanted. She wanted to keep her home. That is what she wanted. Her home was this house. She wanted her home.”

Melanie at first said nothing, and in that space of silence between them Eva could almost hear the far-off roar of the approaching blaze.

“You and I have lost things we wanted to keep, too, Eva,” Melanie said a second later. “It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t our fault. But we couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“So we just let it go? Pretend it doesn’t matter?” Eva said, the words stinging in her throat.

“It’s already gone! And no, we don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters, but we’ve done all that anyone can do. That’s what matters right now.”

“But you don’t understand. I’ve done—”

“I don’t want to know what you did before!” Melanie shouted, trampling on the rest of Eva’s words. “I don’t need to know what awful things happened to you or what you did before you came here, okay? That was then; this is now. You are not living that life anymore! That’s what you can let go of. The fireman gave us five minutes and those five minutes are gone. We need to go.”

When she hesitated, Melanie pulled her by the arm and led her back through the house to the still-open front door.

“Do we tell June?” Eva asked as they stepped onto the porch. “Do we tell her what the firemen will be doing when they go inside her backyard?”

Melanie closed the door behind them. “It won’t make these next few hours any easier. I say we say nothing and see what happens. Let’s go over to my place. I need to grab a few things. And I need you to gather up Nicky’s stuff there.”

She and Melanie hurried over to her house, and Eva grabbed Nicky’s bag of soldiers and toys and his clothes. Melanie came out of her bedroom a few seconds later with her airline tickets in one hand and an overnight bag in the other.

Before heading back outside, Melanie pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and took out a notepad.

“I need to leave a message for Alex,” she told Eva. “Just in case.”

On the note Melanie wrote down Max’s address and phone number. She taped it to the door and pulled it shut.

They got into June’s car. Melanie put the vehicle in gear and they drove into a curtain of smoke.