Daniel Hecht_Cree Black 02 (30 page)

The implication was obvious, but that was difficult territory and neither wanted to articulate it: longtime friendship, deep
and full, yet never quite matriculating into romantic love. Thinking about it opened up a deep reservoir of feelings too complicated
to face.

They came around a curve in the mesa wall and saw the school. The sun was high enough to bathe all but the easternmost edge
of the campus in its angled light. Students were spilling from dorm buildings and heading toward the cafeteria. Without saying
anything, they both stopped to gaze at the scene.

As always, the sight moved Cree, a pang in her chest and belly. It was a rainbow of feelings, Julieta's and her own, admixed,
and somehow central to it was the image of Joseph Tsosie fixing her brakes, making sure she was safe. It all had to do with
love—the labyrinth that love of any kind had to pass through. Why did it have to be so complex? Why was it so easy to get
lost?

An insight occurred to her, and though she shied away at first she forced herself to spell it out.
One time,
she told herself,
just once.
She'd let herself think it one time and then she had to let it go away for now. Julieta and Joseph: not unlike Cree and Edgar.
But was that real, based on her own feelings, or another example of Cree Black's absorption of Julieta's state of mind? It
hurt not to know. And the worst of it was, Ed must have noticed and was probably asking himself the same question. He deserved
so much better.

"Hey, Ed," she said quietly. "That was nice. Up on the mesa—our breakfast picnic."

"Yeah."

"I've missed hanging out with you. I can't tell you how much."

He turned away as if there was something to look at in the empty land to the west, then checked his watch. "We should get
back. Big day for both of us."

"Yeah. Okay." He was right: This was no time for her to be talking to him this way.

He started walking. When he spoke again it was as if she'd been harrying him for further explanation: "Look, Cree, I don't
know how to solve Julieta's thing with love, past, present, or future, or where things stand with her and Joseph, or why.
But I do know this—love won't leave us alone until we meet its gaze fairly and fully. Okay? That's what I know. That's my
pontification for the day, take it for what it's worth. Now I gotta go be an engineer for a while."

33

DONNY GOT to the restaurant just as Nick pulled his black SUV into the parking lot. He checked his watch and found that it
was eleven-twenty, just as they'd planned, a few minutes early. Nick would have time to bring him up to date before the nurse
arrived.

They went inside together. He had decided to make it a threesome for the lunch with Lynn Pierce, given that Gallup was directly
on the way to the mine and his one-thirty meeting with the parapsychologist. Might as well help flatter and cajole the nurse
and hear what she had to offer firsthand. It wasn't Tuesday's regular bill of fare, but Donny was glad to have an excuse to
get out of Albuquerque. Anyway, there were some scary overtones to this latest thing of Julieta's. The sooner he cleared them
up, the better.

Inside, there were no other customers—they were ahead of the lunch rush. They took seats at a booth toward the rear, ordered
coffee, and set the menus to one side. Nick seated himself so that he had a clear view of the front door, Donny noted, and
would see the nurse when she arrived, give them a few seconds' warning. A competent guy.

Donny grinned and rubbed his palms together expectantly as Nick put a slim leather briefcase onto the table, opened it, and
pulled out a few sheets of paper.

"Okay. The photo I got from the university. That your gal?" Nick turned around a brochure and handed it to Donny.

It was a UNM psychology conference schedule with a photo of each of the featured speakers alongside a one-paragraph bio and
a summary of their lecture topic. Donny scanned the faces, found Cree Black's earnest face, and nodded as he read her blurb.

"That's her."

"Good." Nick took it back just as the waitress brought their coffees. The big man thanked her pleasantly and gave her a flash
of Czech-Irish charm, warming up for the main act. When she left, he carefully stirred three plastic cups of creamer into
his coffee and tasted it doubtfully.

"What else you got?" Donny asked, feeling good as a coffee glow replaced the sharper burn of acid reflux in his chest.

"Ran an Internet search. Lot of entries, but I looked at every one of them. Lot of her activities are like this one, kind
of on the margins of academic psychology. Couple of more sensational things about her investigating a famous haunting or something.
Sometimes she debunks ghost stories, too. Then I found a few of these." Nick frowned meaningfully as he slid a few sheets
across the tabletop.

Donny took the papers and felt his good mood vanish. These were copies of newspaper articles from different parts of the country,
Sunday features-type pieces of the "Frustrated Police Turn to Psychic" variety. All three were about homicides in which the
police had asked or allowed Lucretia Black to assist. All reported that she was making "substantive contributions" to the
solution of the cases. Only one of the articles was a follow-up item: " 'I can't explain it,' said a jubilant Detective Howard
Lathrop of the Mason County, Michigan, Sheriffs Department. 'I was highly skeptical at first and it was definitely not the
kind of consulting we'd usually solicit. But Dr. Black gave us information that we were able to verify and that led directly
to the apprehension of the suspect.'"

Donny tossed the papers back at Nick, who slotted them back into his briefcase.

"I wonder how much she paid jubilant Detective Howard Lathrop for that little endorsement? Must have been quite a shot in
the arm for her ghost-busting business."

"I got one more," Nick said. "This was deep in the pile. Seems she's a licensed private investigator in the state of Washington.
You want to see?"

Donny scowled and waved it away.

Nick shrugged his big shoulders, put the briefcase on the seat beside him, wrapped his meaty hands around his cup. They both
drank reflectively for a moment.

" So—" Nick began.

"So nothing. We see what our friend has to say, meet the spook at the mine, and take it from there." Donny finished his coffee
and glared around the restaurant for the waitress. "It's probably nothing. And I sincerely fucking hope so, because that's
all the time I have for it—none."

He glanced up to see that Nick's expression had suddenly turned boyish and sunny, and then the big man was sidling out of
the booth. Donny turned to see the nurse coming through the door.

"It's been too long, Lynnie," Nick told her. "You're looking great. I take it life's treating you good?"

Sitting across from Donny, Lynn Pierce looked tiny next to Nick's bulk. She had ordered coffee, too, and now tasted her cup
delicately. She had dressed up a bit for this meeting, Donny saw, wearing a snappy brown blazer with a silk scarf at her throat;
her hair shone like a silver dollar. But in fact she didn't look great. Her speck-eyed gaze seemed more lopsided than ever,
and her face looked old and a little crazed, kind of the way she'd looked at Vern's funeral.

"Life," Lynn said, "is treating me . . .
interestingly.
"

"You know, Lynn, I can't tell you how much we miss Vern. Miss both of you. Even after all these years. The Bloomfield site
went to hell in a handbasket after Vern died and you left. Seriously." Donny shook his head sadly and sipped his coffee with
a pious expression. This was a ritual pronouncement and she'd know it was bullshit, but it was obligatory.

"Thank you. That means a great deal to me."

"It was so great to get your call," Donny went on. "An excuse to have a social lunch. Kind of busy these days, but always
happy to squeeze in some time with an old friend and colleague. Life's too short, you know?"

The waitress arrived to stare at them expectantly, hovering with her pad poised. "Are you ready to order?"

They hadn't looked at the menus yet.

"Not quite," Nick told her flatly. "We'll need another few minutes." This time he showed her his other side, a look that told
her not to come back until they waved semaphore flags and set off flares. Donny smiled to himself as she scuttled away.

They tossed pleasantries back and forth, and a gentle babble of conversation began to fill the place as other customers filtered
in and took seats. The nurse was warming up to her pitch, getting a little flirtatious. Nick was a ball of boyish charm and
attentiveness, but Donny thought he'd play it differently. Nice but not too nice; you had to keep her in her place, not let
her think anything she had to offer was too valuable. After a few more minutes he decided the foreplay had gone on long enough
and it was time to get down to business.

"So Lynn," he said, "you'll never guess what happened Saturday up at the mine. I come out of the site office, I'm about to
get into my car, when who do I see on the south rim but Julieta and some other woman. Horseback. And when I go up there, I
find out the other woman is a, what do they call it—"

"A parapsychologist," Lynn finished. "Yes. That's one of the things I wanted to tell you."

"What, exactly,
is
a parapsychologist?" Nick asked innocently.

"Someone who claims to study the weirder aspects of the mind," Lynn told him. "Things nobody's ever been able to prove—telepathy,
clairvoyance, contact with the dead, things like that."

"So which kind is this one?"

"Her main thing is ghosts," Donny answered. "But she obviously generalizes a bit, because she was there to ask me about animal
mutilations. Remember, we had that episode a couple of years ago? Some Navajo kids found those two horses? Made the papers?"

Lynn was frowning. "But that's not what they've talked about. Not when I'm around, anyway. Or no—they mentioned it, but just
in passing. It's not their main concern."

"Oh?" That was interesting, Donny thought: Either the mute thing was some kind of a ruse, or it was something Cree Black and
Julieta weren't sharing with the nurse.

The waitress hove nearby on her way to another table but ricocheted away as Nick gave her a look that would have stopped a
runaway bull.

"You know, Donny," Lynn said as if beginning something long and complex, "I'm a health-care professional. You know how committed
I am to my work. That's my only concern. My patients."

"We've noticed it and appreciated it, Lynn. And you know how much McCarty Energy has relied on it in the past." This was how
she worked, Donny reminded himself: veering off the subject so that she could be flattered and coaxed back. You just had to
grit your teeth and bear it.

The nurse smiled that little smile, as if she knew she'd set her hook and could now reel them in at her leisure. "I love my
work at the school. I really do. At the same time, there are . . . personality issues that get in the way. You know what I
mean."

"Hey, you don't have to tell
us
," Nick put in. "I don't know how you manage. Working with her these last three, four years."

"She shacked up with the Navajo doctor yet?" Donny couldn't help asking.

Lynn gave him a cardsharp's look, appraising his interest while concealing her own. "Not to my knowledge. But now that you
mention it, the . . . um, questions there might bear upon the situation. For me, it's come to the point where it's not just
about personality. This parapsychologist being there is an example of very troubling behavior on the part of . . . school
administration. And I don't know just what to do about it."

"Maybe we can help," Donny told her.

"There's a sick boy, one of the students. With very unusual symptoms. He's in the hospital now, for the third time." Pause,
a prompting look.

Nick gave her an indulgent look of puzzlement. "What does that have to do with the parapsychologist being there?"

"Yesterday we had a conference about it, and I was completely shocked at the way they discussed it. Utterly shocked."

" 'We' meaning you and—"

"Julieta and Dr. Black and her two associates." Lynn took a very feminine sip of coffee. "They flew in from Seattle. An engineer
and a woman who as far as I can tell does forensic-type research."

Nick flicked a glance at Donny, and Donny knew what he meant. That Julieta had brought in a whole
team
of people couldn't be good. And an
engineer!
Donny felt the churning burn blossom under his breastbone. This was turning into a disaster.

He mastered his face and kept his voice casual as he asked, "So, what did you all talk about?"

"I don't think I'm getting the whole story—they exchanged looks that suggested a lot was going unsaid? But I know something
that should interest you. One is, the reason Cree Black wants to talk to you and go to the pit where your father died is because
she wants to see if his ghost is there."

"What the . . . ?" Nick bottled up the expletive, choking on incredulity.

"My father? He had a
soul?
A spirit? First I've heard about it!" Donny chuckled. Saying it gave him great pleasure.

Lynn Pierce bobbed her head, round eyed with concern and disapproval, dramatizing as she savored their attention. "No, really.
The parapsychologist wants to see if she can 'experience' something there, where he died. She's also been 'experiencing' something
near the school. Over near the big ravine in the mesa."

Donny felt his breakfast move queasily in his stomach, and this time when Nick caught his eye he returned a command:
Let me.
He mastered his alarm quickly and said disinterestedly, "Hm. I wonder what to make of that." Then he deliberately checked
his watch and let himself look a little concerned at what he saw. "You know, Lynn, I've got this killer day today. For one
thing, I'm meeting the parapsychologist, then I've got appointments until all hours back in Albuquerque. What else? What does
this have to do with that sick boy of yours?"

Lynn looked at them both and asked innocently, "Aren't we going to order something to eat?" She pulled over one of the menus
and began to read it with satisfaction.

Nick shifted impatiently in his seat, as if he were going to do something drastic, and again Donny had to give him a look.
No sense in letting her know she'd touched a nerve with any of this.

"Sure," he said. "She's right, we should order, Nicko." Donny turned to the waitress, who hesitated over near the counter.
"I think we're ready to order," he called. Then he turned back and muttered, "Christ, service in this place is going to hell.
We've been here for half an hour and that gal hasn't been near this table!"

Kind of a running joke. Nick thought it was a scream.

Another ten minutes of banter, and then the food came. Lynn had ordered a BLT, Donny and Nick bowls of red chili. When the
waitress set Donny's bowl down, the lumpy mass struck him as gory and nauseating—he should have ordered the green. Or a salad.
Nick dumped a cellophane bag of oyster crackers onto his and began spooning bites into his big face in a businesslike manner.

Between nibbles, Lynn Pierce used her sandwich as a prop to make meaningful gestures. "If I tell you about the boy, it has
to be in strictest confidence. Because on one level it's something of a violation of the patient's confidentiality. And I
would hate this to have a negative impact on the school."

"Absolutely," Donny assured her. "Of course."

"Because if it's dealt with in the wrong way, it would really hurt the school. If word got out, it could close it down. And
I would
never
want that to happen. I guess that's why I'm coming to you instead of, you know . . . the education or health authorities."

Holy shit,
Donny thought. The look she was giving him told him everything:
This is it. The weapon you've wanted.
His panicky feeling was suddenly replaced by glee.

The nurse knew she had their undivided attention now, and she couldn't help smiling. She set her sandwich down, leaned forward,
and lowered her voice. "They believe this boy is
possessed.
I'm serious. By a ghost. They think that's what's the matter with him. It's making him have convulsions and do strange things.
And Julieta brought in the parapsychologist to, basically, exorcise it. And, though I hate to admit it, Joseph Tsosie is going
along with it."