After Dinner Games

By Robert D. Doell

Aaron Evans isn't looking for mystery or romance when he moves to a quiet Seattle neighborhood and attends services at a local church. He isn't even looking for religion. He is searching for an environment that will further help his children ease the pain of their mother's sudden death two years ago.

When Aaron's eight-year-old son draws a picture, in church, of Elvis Presley's ascension to heaven on a toilet seat, it attracts the attention of two very different women. Mildred Vinster, a cantankerous octogenarian, is offended. Holly Lawrence, Aaron's new neighbor is amused. Mildred's murder, a few hours later, leaves Holly heir to an old Bible. A hollowed out section of the Bible contains a bag of synthetic diamonds. The Bible also leaves clues to the location of a wealth of real gems.

As Holly's relationship with Aaron turns to love, the mystery surrounding the diamonds deepens. The answer to where the diamonds came from and why Holly received them begins in prewar Nazi Germany and leads from the drug trade in Canada to the casinos of Las Vegas where finding the real diamonds turns into a game of life or death with the odds stacked against them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462080717

Robert D. Doell

Robert D. Doell (Dell) is a former corporate vice-president. He lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and three children.

Book preview

Prologue

Tel Aviv 1986

A half an hour before Aaron Evans got shot he was sitting at a table outside a café on Dizengoff Street sipping cappuccino and eating blintzes with Simon Weiss, his old college history professor. It was barely noon and Aaron could already feel beads of sweat trickling down his neck. In the two weeks he’d been in Tel Aviv shadowing Simon he had yet to adjust to the mid-day heat of this sun scorched land. He wished Simon had chosen a café on the seaside promenade where there might have been a welcoming breeze blowing in from the Mediterranean Sea. Simon had insisted on Dizengoff Street and promised to take Aaron to a place where they made blintzes better than any you could find in New York.

Simon patted his lips with a napkin and said, In the old days the Café Stern was where the intelligentsia met. He never missed an opportunity to impart some history.

Do you think those men across the street know the history of café society on Dizengoff Street? Aaron asked.

The two men in question were Mossad agents assigned by Simon’s friend Levi to discreetly protect the distinguished professor. The men had bullet shaped heads and short black beards. They were smoking cigarettes and pretending to have an animated conversation as they constantly scanned the crowd of tourists and local shoppers.

Simon chuckled. Those men probably know your history now as well as I know Tel Aviv. He shook his head in bewilderment. Why did they send you Aaron? With your red hair and freckled skin you don’t exactly blend in with the flora and fauna of the Mid-East. Any cover story you had is now compromised.

They would suspect a former pupil of yours?

Those men would suspect their mothers.

Simon was in Israel to give a series of lectures at Tel Aviv University. As one of the earliest and most eloquent advocates for building a Holocaust museum in Washington DC his frequent trips to Israel drew little attention. On this visit he was also meeting with a friend in the Mossad to exchange information on the rapidly changing situation in the Soviet Union. Simon had known Levi since the early days of Israeli independence. It was natural that they would get together and it would be safe. Their government roles were well kept secrets.

Aaron was in Tel Aviv for the CIA posing as a tourist and babysitting the professor. He’d attended one of Simon’s lectures, met with him afterwards and agreed to go with him to a Kibbutz where Simon’s youngest daughter, Rebecca, was spending the summer. Rebecca and Aaron had been classmates at Georgetown.

Simon removed a thick black Cuban cigar from his shirt pocket and began searching for matches. He was a chain smoker who always seemed to be at the mercy of others for a light. Aaron lit a Marlboro and passed his Zippo to the professor.

Simon frowned at the lighter. It’s almost a sacrilege to use a lighter on a fine cigar.

Maybe one of your friends over there has matches. Want me to ask?

That won’t be necessary Mr. Evans. The voice belonged to a short, skeletal man with a narrow face and no hair. Aaron had watched him approach and recognized Levi from his dossier. Aaron never forgot a face. Once seen, always remembered. It wasn’t something he’d been taught by the CIA. It was a gift.

Simon rose and held out his arms. Shalom Levi. It’s good to see you.

And you my old friend. Shalom.

They embraced and Levi pulled up an orange plastic chair and sat between them facing the street. Levi tossed Simon a pack of matches.

So you’ve met my young friend? Simon asked.

We haven’t been formally introduced. They shook hands. Levi leveled his intense brown eyes on Aaron. I hear you were one of Simon’s favorite pupils.

No, I’m afraid I’m one of Professor Weiss’ biggest disappointments. Most of his promising students go on to brilliant academic careers.

Oh? Levi would have raised an eyebrow ifhe had any. I heard that the smartest ones, like you, went into government service.

Don’t torture the boy Levi. For two weeks he’s been faithfully following me around like a puppy with nothing to show for his troubles but a sunburn.

Aaron decided that was his cue to make a graceful exit. He stubbed out his cigarette and picked up his lighter. I’m sure you gentlemen have a lot of catching up to do. Professor, I look forward to going with you tomorrow to see Rebecca. I wrote ahead telling her I’d visit if I got a chance. Nice meeting you sir.

Levi nodded and Aaron left without looking back. When he reached the end of the block he noticed a young man coming around the corner. The kid wore jeans and a T-shirt and had a backpack slung over one shoulder. He was slowly weaving his way through the Friday afternoon crowd. Aaron had seen that face twice before. The first time was yesterday when Simon had stopped at a falafel stand at the Bezatel Market. The other time was this morning on the university campus.

On those occasions the young man walked with a relaxed pace and had the countenance of a student on vacation. The face that approached him now was stiff jawed. Aaron saw a hint of recognition in the guy’s eyes, not for him, but for Simon or Levi. The kid slipped the backpack down to his wrist and wrapped his hand around the straps as if getting ready to throw it.

Aaron didn’t hesitate. As he drew even with the kid he gave him a forearm in the face and heard a satisfactory thud as the boy fell and hit his head on the pavement. The dense crowd parted as Aaron bent over and yanked the backpack away.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man running toward him with a gun in his hand. Aaron felt a hot tear at his side and heard a gunshot followed by another. He dropped the backpack and fell on top of the kid who was trying to get up. People were screaming and scattering in every direction. The boy pushed Aaron away, grabbed the backpack and rose to his feet. The gunman shoved people aside and kept firing. The kid cried out as two shots hit him in the back. Blood trickled from his mouth and he released his grip on the straps. The backpack thumped to the ground and the boy slumped beside it. The gunman kept firing at the backpack.

Aaron grabbed the pack and scrambled behind an overturned table. Shattered glass rained down on him and another slug creased his neck. There was a quick burst from an automatic weapon and the shooting stopped. The last thing he remembered before passing out was one of the bullet-headed Mossad agents crouching beside him and saying, You’ll be fine. Help is on the way. You can let go of the backpack now.

The street had been packed with mid-day traffic. Simon said it was a miracle the pack of explosives hadn’t detonated, a miracle that the wound in Aaron’s side had missed any vital organs, a miracle that instead of being dead Aaron would have a battle scar from where the bullet creased his neck. Aaron thought it would be a miracle if a nurse showed up with more pain medication.

Why did you protect the bomb with your body? Simon asked.

Aaron shrugged. There were too many people around. I didn’t think about it. I just did it.

The agency was suitably impressed with Aaron and embarrassed by the incident, as was the Mossad. In those days Tel Aviv wasn’t a hub of terrorist attacks. Aaron was seen as a case officer with potential. He went through further training and worked for them brilliantly in the field for three years.

Then came Marie and their first child. When he held baby Elizabeth in his arms for the first time he knew he needed to quit the CIA while there was still a chance for a normal life. When he resigned it wasn’t out of a sense of horror at what he’d seen or done, or a sense of futility over the value of his actions. He left because he didn’t want to run the risk of leaving his new family without a father. He never imagined Marie would end up making him a widower.

1

It had been forty-five years since Harold Lawrence had smuggled anything into the country. When the interstate highway system was being built in the 1950’s he’d once wheeled a brand new cream-colored DeSoto off the lot of his brother’s dealership in Pasadena and driven down to Tijuana to buy some diamonds from a man with a Mexican name and a German accent.

Going to Tijuana had been one ofhis brother Gerald’s schemes. There was a man he knew. There was always a man Gerald knew. All Harold had to do was meet with a Mr. Juan Garcia at a small hotel across the border, examine some diamonds and buy them if they were real.

Harold had given Gerald a knowing look. Why doesn’t Mr. Garcia come here?

Mr. Garcia might have some trouble at the border.

His brother had shown him a color photograph taken last month in Mexico City of Gerald and Juan. They were sitting at a booth in a nightclub with two young women who could have been in their teens. The girls had thick black hair, obsidian eyes and dusty brown skin. They smiled at the camera in a way that said we know you’re staring at our cleavage. They were right. Harold took his eyes off their breasts and studied Mr. Garcia. He was holding a long necked bottle of Mexican beer in front of his face. Garcia’s hand was light skinned and the one eye that wasn’t obscured was cobalt blue. His blond hair was clipped close to his scalp.

Harold handed the picture to his brother. Mr. Garcia looks rather Nordic.

I believe he emigrated to Mexico after the war.

From where?

Gerald shrugged. Who cares? The diamonds look real. He needs to raise some capital fast. I told him I had a brother who was a jeweler and might be able to help him out.

Gerald smiled. He ended most of his sentences with a smile.

And if they’re stolen? Harold asked.

Walk away. Anything makes you nervous, walk away.

This conversation makes me nervous.

Gerald lit a Lucky with a gold plated lighter and snapped the lid shut. If this sale works out there could be more. A couple of trips and you’ll be able to open your own jewelry store.

He waved his hand with the cigarette as if gesturing to some place out there in the near future. Harold’s eyes followed the trail of smoke. From Gerald’s office he could see a cream colored DeSoto convertible sitting on the showroom floor. Nothing looked newer than brand spanking new whitewall tires.

What are you going to do with the diamonds?

Gerald warmed to the question. He threw an arm around his brother’s shoulder and said, You mean what are we going to do? I’ll give you that new convertible you’re lusting after and a quarter of the diamonds.

The sun glinted off of the DeSoto’s chrome tail fins.

Harold heard himself say, The car and a third of the diamonds.

Gerald laughed and squeezed Harold’s shoulder playfully. You drive a hard bargain little brother.

On the drive to Tijuana with a money belt fastened snugly around his waist, Harold replayed the conversation in his mind and shook his head in disgust. The sales pitch had gone exactly as Gerald had planned.

The border crossing was slow and uneventful. He knew from previous trips as a college student that getting out of Mexico involved more scrutiny than getting in. He found the hotel and parked next to a new powder blue Cadillac with Mexican plates. After checking in, Harold crossed the street to a small cantina and threw back a couple of shots of mescal. As he waited at the bar he surveyed his surroundings. Overhead fans lazily churned the heavy smoke filled air redistributing the furnace like heat. A mariachi band played a tired brass rendition of a sad song that seemed well suited for the listless customers who occupied about a third of the tables.

A tall, thin man with the erect posture of a military officer crossed to the bar and held out his hand. Mr. Lawrence?

Harold shook the extended hand and joined Juan Garcia at a corner table. Garcia looked even more Nordic in person. He had bright blond hair and a reddish complexion. Gerald had given Garcia a wallet snapshot of the two brothers that Garcia returned with a smile. Your brother said he’d want the photo back.

It was a snapshot taken at their parent’s house shortly after the end of the war. The brothers stood arm in arm, their faces beaming with joy at being out of uniform.

Garcia spoke English with a pronounced German accent. They drank tequila and made small talk about their journeys to Tijuana. Garcia had driven up from Mexico City in a new Cadillac. Harold wondered why a man who could buy a new Caddy needed to sell diamonds to a young jeweler from California. He didn’t realize he’d verbalized the question.

Garcia leaned forward and lowered his voice. My family was forced to flee Hitler before the war. First we went to Argentina where we had business interests. Big mistake. He shook his head mournfully. They were very pro-Nazi. Gestapo agents almost killed my father in Buenos Aires. Once again we fled from Hitler’s thugs in the middle of the night. We linked up with the refugee community in Mexico City where we finally found peace.

Garcia ordered another round of drinks and waited for them to arrive before continuing. My father never got used to being an expatriate. It took a toll on his health. He died last month.

I’m sorry Juan, Harold said. My mother recently passed away.

They drank to their departed parents.

It will take a while to close my father’s estate. I’m turning some of my most portable assets into cash. Juan glanced around to make sure no one was listening. In the near future I plan to move to Canada where I have relatives.

Garcia’s? Harold asked.

Gerald laughed. No, not Garcia’s. As you can tell by my appearance Garcia is simply a name of convenience. He hunched over and tapped the table with his forefinger. If this transaction goes as planned there could be future business deals between us. I know other people in the same predicament.

Harold looked around as if Juan was referring to some of the other patrons. They all looked like locals, not expatriates. They also looked a bit blurry.

After another round of tequila Harold and Juan staggered over to the hotel where they stood swaying in front of their new cars. Garcia admired the DeSoto and Harold congratulated him on his wise decision to purchase the powder blue Cadillac. They toyed with the idea of returning to the cantina to toast the automotive geniuses of Detroit. Instead they helped each other climb the stairs to Garcia’s second floor room. It was a mirror image of Harold’s with a naked overhead light bulb on a pull chain that cast a dull yellow light on a small wooden table with a straight-backed chair and a gray metal bed.

Garcia spread the diamonds out on the sagging mattress for Harold to examine. Even in the dim light and his drunken state Harold could tell they were truly exquisite. Garcia haggled half-heartedly over the price and seemed visibly relieved when they came to an agreement.

Harold slept with the pouch under the pillow. Early in the morning he awoke with a dry mouth, piercing headache and the vague sense that he was covered with dirt that wouldn’t scrub off. When he checked out of the hotel the Cadillac was gone. He stashed the diamonds in the special compartment behind the ashtray that Garcia had built into the DeSoto. It was felt lined so the jewels wouldn’t rattle.

At the border Harold experienced a momentary pang of tension. Then he was home free blasting through the desert with the top down. To this day he remembered the feel of the hot desert wind on his face and the heat on his left arm as it rested on the window sill mile after mile, turning from a light tan to a dark brown as he cruised from Mexico through southern California.

Harold had time to think as he drove. The hardscrabble days of the depression were gone for good. The war had ended all that. With victory had come opportunity. He could stay in California drifting along and trying to keep his brother operating on the edge of legality or he could strike out on his own. Buying the diamonds had knocked the slats out of any tenuous sense of moral superiority he’d maintained with Gerald.

The next trip would be easier. The schemes would escalate. When he got to Pasadena he gave all the diamonds to Gerald and kept the car, refusing more of his share. Then he quit his job at the jewelry store and headed for Seattle. It wasn’t until he reached San Francisco that it began to rain and he stopped and put the top up. That was the beginning of a winding journey that led to his wife Harriett and

through her to the Lord.

* * *

Now he sat in the deep-seated comfort of a white Lincoln Town Car and marveled at the expanse of cars at another border crossing. That time so long ago in Tijuana it had taken him less than fifteen minutes to enter the U.S. Today it had taken them ninety minutes to get this far, the third vehicle in line at the border crossing at Blaine, Washington. All the day-trippers to Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia were jamming the border with their RV’s, SUV’s, cars and campers as they returned to western Washington.

Harold drummed liver spotted hands on the padded steering wheel. Harriett smiled and patted his arm. It won’t be long now, she said.

Harriett had traveled with him throughout the world. She knew how to wait. Harold glanced in the rearview mirror. Their friend Mildred Vinster was withering. Even the floral print on her dress seemed to contract and shrink as they waited and waited. He turned on the air-conditioning again, leaving it on the bottom notch so the air would circulate but Harriett wouldn’t shiver.

For the third time this hour Mildred brought up the subject of drugs. The border didn’t used to be like this. All that drug traffic from Canada is the cause. We throw those bums in jail. The Canadians put them on probation.

Harriett decided this wasn’t the time to mention that Mildred’s own grandson had been on probation for smoking pot. She twisted around in the big leather seat.

Mildred, did it ever occur to you that if we didn’t buy all those drugs on our side of the border they wouldn’t smuggle them from their side?

The argument went round and round. Harold tuned them out and watched the traffic trickle along under the hot afternoon sun and worried about getting back to Seattle in time for a church budget meeting. For some inexplicable reason he had that same knot in his stomach he’d

experienced at the Mexican border crossing forty-five years ago. * * *

At the border, Jim Howser felt the sun wearing away at his crisp green Border Patrol shirt. Each time he plucked it away from his skin the shirt was more sweat stained. Officer Howser was pulling a sixteen-hour shift today. It was the second one this week. By the end of the day his shirt would be a limp rag. A professional appearance was impossible to maintain on these hot weekends.

They’d already arrested two kids with ten pounds of BC Bud hidden in their spare tire. How original, like hiding your house keys under the doormat. B.C. Bud was worth $4,000 a pound once it hit

Seattle and $6,000 a pound if it made it all the way to California. The risks were small. Less than two percent of all smugglers got caught. The rewards were great enough to create a cottage industry of marijuana growers and distributors in southern British Columbia that had grown into a billion-dollar business.

The Toyota in front of him vibrated with the endless, monotonous thump of rap music. It was plastered with skateboarding and snowboarding bumper stickers and had eight-foot long skateboards strapped to the top. The college age occupants had that I-can-almost-grow-a-goatee look of extreme sports enthusiasts. Officer Howser’s wife, a trauma nurse, called them the vegetable sports. That’s what you became when you made a mistake and applied your head to a patch of concrete at sixty or seventy miles an hour.

Howser motioned for them to roll down the window and asked them to lower the volume. He hoped these kids were clean. An arrest would pull two or three officers off the line and add another half an hour to the traffic delay. Though their appearance shouted, arrest me, they were just another pair of college kids returning to Bellingham.

The next car quickly passed through the border followed by a big boat of a Lincoln with three senior citizens. The couple in front looked fit for their age. The old lady in the back seat had a gray pallor. Prominent blue veined fingers snaked around the curved head of a cane resting on her lap. One hand trembled with palsy.

Officer Howser didn’t let their age fool him. He’d arrested senior citizens before. The Christian sign of the fish on their trunk didn’t impress him either. Last month he’d arrested one family with a Promise Keepers bumper sticker on their camper.

It was a numbers game. Five million vehicles crossed the border every year. You couldn’t do a detailed search of all of them. These people didn’t fit the profile. After a cursory search he smiled and waved them through.

Harold smiled, waved back and blissfully drove on unaware he had transported fifty pounds ofBC Bud across the border.

2

Tyler Evans was drawing a picture of Elvis’s ascension to heaven. It was the early Elvis. The Sun Records Elvis with slicked back hair, black leather jacket and a microphone that looked like a giant piston. He didn’t capture the raw energy and sexual tension of the youthful Elvis. Then again, he didn’t even give Elvis a neck.

Tyler was eight. He frequently forgot to draw necks and usually ended up placing most of his people on the Titanic. Sexual nuances were not his forte. His specialty was ships and he preferred to work in colored pencil.

This Sunday he was making do with the crayons on the table. He’d drawn a purple ship, green iceberg, an orange cross and a blue Elvis. Tyler’s father, Aaron, didn’t know if it was the size of the picture or the subject matter, a neck-less, winged Elvis, but it certainly caught the attention of some of the other members of the congregation.

They were attending the ten o’clock interactive service. It was held in the multipurpose room in the Christian Elementary School on the church campus. The room was part theater and part church. A row of rectangular stained glass windows at the top of the east side wall filtered the bright morning sun and cast rainbow shafts of soft light throughout the room.

Hanging next to posters preaching teamwork and study skills were student drawings of Noah’s Ark. Tyler’s rendering of the great flood looked like a movie poster for Jurassic Park meets the Old Testament.

There was a T-Rex trying to break out of his cage to get at a pair of giraffes as they hurried up the gangplank. A gray bearded Noah was beating T-Rex back with what looked like a laser sword. Maybe it was Star Wars vs. The Lost World. Hanging Tyler’s picture next to more pious depictions indicated that the school was making every effort to help him fit in.

The minimal effort invested in converting the multipurpose room to a church on Sundays seemed a conscious decision. There was no cross or altar. Instead of pews, round tables were arranged to seat small groups of four to six people. The tables were covered with butcher paper so the kids could draw and the adults could doodle. In the center of each table were Bibles, a basket for offerings, a cup of crayons and an assortment of church literature.

The young worship team was cranking out a fast paced version of Shine Jesus Shine. Aaron knew this because the lyrics were displayed on a state of the art video screen at the back of the stage. This allowed him to stand there clapping hands and singing along with as much gusto as the truly devout.

The piano player, a huge square jawed college kid, pounded the keys with massive hands as he bent forward and sang into the microphone. Beads of sweat dripped off his forehead as his voice rose in adulation to his Lord.

Here and there, arms were raised in praise; their outstretched fingertips intersecting with beams of light from the stained glass windows, as if completing a circuit of energy that stretched heavenwards. Bodies swayed. Hands clapped. Feet tapped. The clinking sound of a tambourine slapping against the palm of a hand came from the back of the room.

It was during the second chorus that Aaron glanced down to see what Tyler was drawing now. Tyler was painstakingly writing Elvis’ name in lights above a winged figure that was sitting on a toilet seat and singing Blue Suede Shoes. Tyler’s fourteen-year-old sister, Elizabeth, who wasn’t with them today, delighted in reminding him that Elvis had died on the toilet. His ten-year-old sister, Deborah, not Debbie or Deb, but Deb-or-ah, was too busy drawing her own Barbie-like angel to notice her little brother’s scribbling.

The rest of their table consisted of Janet Turner, one half of the dental and life partnership of Janet and Dean Turner and Mildred Vinster, a stern old-line evangelical, who was attending the interactive service for the first time. Mildred was somewhere between the age of eighty and Moses. She was dressed in her Sunday best: a pink floral print dress and matching wide-brimmed hat.

When Aaron and his family sat at her table she had winced and inched her chair away from Deborah. Mildred carried a cane, which Aaron suspected she only used to hit small children and homeless animals or vice versa.

She sat there ramrod straight with a Calvinistic scowl of displeasure. Aaron thought her ire was directed at the worship team until Mildred reached up with her cane and tapped him on the back of his shoulder.

What is your son doing?

Tyler was drawing dotted lines from the angelic Elvis to a pink cloud marked HEAVEN.

He likes Elvis. We used to play Elvis gospel music to him when he was in the womb. Actually it was Tyler’s mother who played him Elvis and it wasn’t gospel. Aaron played Gershwin, Copeland and Puccini to all three of his children before they were born. His wife Marie used to laugh and rub her tummy and say, Daddy’s trying to culturize you.

She had a laugh that filled a room. It wasn’t a polite laugh or a girlish giggle. It was a full-throated rumble from her soul laugh. For months after she was gone, Aaron used to wake up in the middle of the night with the sound of her laughter on his mind. Nightmares would have been better. Nothing is quite as painful as waking up in the dark with a smile on your lips and then realizing you are alone.

The music stopped just as he said the word womb. Now he had the attention of everyone at his table and a few of the people at the table on his left.

Is that a toilet? Deborah had a very loud voice for such a small body. She patted the paper by the object in question. The worship team almost saved Aaron by singing, This is no time for fear, the first line from Twyla Paris’s song, God Is In Control. He nudged Tyler and mouthed the words, stand up.

Tyler flashed him an innocent gap-toothed smile and finished writing the word toylet in brown before slapping his crayon down in satisfaction and standing.

After another song, the youth pastor took the stage, welcomed any visitors and explained that this was an interactive service. The outline for the sermon was to be found in the program as well as a list of questions that each table would discuss at appropriate times during the sermon.

After a brief prayer he told everyone to take a short coffee break and meet his or her neighbors. As his kids got up to race for the donuts, Deborah took a moment to lean over and tell Tyler, in her typical stage whisper, TOILET IS SPELLED T-O-I-L-E-T.

Not in heaven, he countered as he rushed off in pursuit of a sugar high.

Behind him Aaron heard a deep feminine laugh that caught him off guard. He felt goose bumps spider along his spine and his throat tightened up. It had happened once before. Tyler and he were at the checkout line at QFC last year when a woman who used to check at a different grocery store recognized them. She smiled at Tyler and said, Does your mom trust you and your dad to do the shopping now?

Tyler was busy studying the candy supply, no doubt trying to figure out a way to get Aaron to buy him some Warheads. Without taking his eyes off the candy he whispered, No. Mom’s in heaven now.

Aaron reached down, picked up a couple packages of Warheads and tossed them in the basket, hoping she and the other people in line hadn’t seen the tears in his eyes.

After two years he thought he’d built up immunity to emotional triggers. It wasn’t Marie’s laugh. The tone and timbre were close enough to momentarily shock his system.

When he turned around the first thing he noticed was a wide-screen smile; a Julia Roberts smile. She had medium length strawberry blond hair and was dressed in a Ken Griffey T-shirt and matching Mariners shorts. The dress code was very relaxed at the interactive service. Thank God for that on this unseasonable hot May Sunday in Seattle. She removed her sunglasses and held out her hand.

"I’m Holly Lawrence and you are my new neighbor." She had a model’s face: deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, lips that said I-can-sell- you-anything and a southern accent with a hint of question marks at the end of some of her words. He pegged her age as late twenties.

Her grip was firm, her hand warm as they shook hands and felt a special spark of energy pass between them. I’m Aaron Evans, he said. You must be the neighbor my daughter Elizabeth mentioned.

Elizabeth has a great pitch shot, she said flashing that smile again.

Except for the golf balls she pitched over the fence into your yard.

Holly cocked her head to the side and nodded. I’m impressed. When I was her age I never would have told my daddy something that might get me in trouble.

She even told me you borrowed her wedge and pitched the balls back to her.

Holly laughed. I couldn’t resist. I haven’t played in over a year.

I know what you mean. I used to play every Sunday morning. When the weather is good I take the kids to the par three at Jackson.

People were starting to wander back to their seats with their coffee and donuts. The sermon would begin soon.

Can I get you some coffee? Aaron asked. He wasn’t just being polite. He really needed the coffee.

Thanks, Holly said motioning to the other end of the refreshment tables. I’ll grab us some pastries before they’re all gone.

There was regular coffee, raspberry flavored coffee, decaf and water for tea. Aaron poured two cups of regular black coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Holly work her way through the crowd, saying hi to a variety of people, bending down to talk to the youngest children.

She had the body of an athlete, thin with subtle muscle definition. He knew