Bev called me about the Safety Walk on Thursday, October 8th.
"Don't go," she said.
"I wasn't going to go."
"Don't stand in your yard during it either. Don't stand in your window. Go to the farmers' market and buy some peaches. Go to the movies. Go to Spokane."
"Why?" I asked. "What's happening?"
There was a long pause on the line. I could hear her chewing.
"I can't tell you that," Bev said. "But I can tell you that I had a long conversation with Detective Lattimore this morning, and that I'd buy you a very expensive dinner if you'd do me the favour of being anywhere other than Larkspur Commons at ten-thirty on Saturday morning."
So of course, at ten-thirty on Saturday morning, I was sitting in a lawn chair in Gus Teague's garage across the street with the door rolled up, drinking coffee out of a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST LINEMAN. Lucía sat on an overturned bucket beside me, and Marisol leaned on Gus's workbench behind her. In my defence, Bev had said not to stand in my yard. She hadn't said anything about Gus's.
"I'm just in my own garage," Gus said, to no one in particular, "with my friends, looking at my roses."
* * *
The Community Safety Walk came down the hill at 10:24, by the clock on Gus's microwave.
There were about twenty people, more than I'd expected. Darlene led them with a clipboard in one hand and her phone held out in front of her on a selfie stick. A small red dot on the screen meant she was streaming live to the Larkspur Commons Neighbors group. She wore the lavender quilted vest with a yellow reflective sash over it, like a pageant contestant for the Department of Transportation. Duchess trotted at her feet in a matching yellow dog vest. Sharon Pike walked behind her with a stack of flyers, and the two reflective-vest men walked behind Sharon. Behind them came a looser group: a few retirees, a young couple with a stroller who looked like they had thought this would be a nature walk, and several people who, I suspect, had come for the same reason I was sitting in Gus's garage, which was that something was in the air and they wanted to see what it was.