It gave me a pang to turn into the familiar driveway marked with the lieu dit (place name), Cavart, and pass the fences and gates I'd helped build, going through the green gate that was plastered all over the front pages for a couple days after the murder. The police tape was still sort of intact having been tied and retied. Six months after the crime, I didn't bother. I took a long, uneasy look up the lane toward the Dutch neighbor where Helene killed their friend. Nobody around, the bamboo fronds growing higher and higher.
All the doors had two red wax seals, one on the door, the other on the jamb. The strings embedded in the seals had long since been broken so I just opened the front door, half expecting the wretched German shepherds to bark and lunge against the glass.
I decided to walk through the whole house in case there was broken pipe or an open window. Dorien's toys, no Dorien. Eleanor's bulletin board and the bed I made for her, but no Eleanor. Helene's and Robert's beds were neatly made up. There were bags of possessions marked with Helene's maiden name, the name they use at the jail.
Robert gave me a detailed list of what I was to pick up. It took a long time even though I know the shop well and have at least passing familiarity with his huge collection of tools. He is setting up a carpentry job, timber framing a porch roof. It would have been a lot harder if it had been a masonry, zinc, roofing, or sheet metal job he was doing, to mention just a few of his trades. Setting up a job, tryng to get there with enough and not too much equipment, this is extremely personal. An odd thiing to do for another carpenter, as if he were partly incapacitated. This incapacity is a legal one though, not physical, in the form of a court order forbidding Robert from visiting his house and workshop. I found and loaded three different sized skillsaws, including the big Makita 18". And the automatic mortiser, which I covet and which Robert had brought over for me two years ago, unasked, to use here on the joists and beam of the kitchen floor.
The light was going but I was all loaded when I made a bêtise: I drove a little too far into the orchard and one of the front wheels sank into the soft earth up to the axle. I scrabbled around for the jack, raised it up to the maximum, cribbed the truck in that position, added material under the jack, raised it again to the maximum, more cribbing and so on about 7 or 8 times. Dumped a bunch of wood into the hollow where the tire had been, inserted a board under the tire itself, a lot of gravel under the rear tires and gave it a try. It STILL was spinning! So I called home, had Robert tell me where he stored his come-alongs and cable, wrapped cable around a convenient huge piece of steel I-beam, winched the truck in the maximum, reset the come-along, winched some more. Then jumping in the cab, before the truck could decide differently, I revved my way out. It was completely dark and I forgot the 8 meter ladder which was the last item on my list. I forgot the list too.
