Green Lake (18 page)

“Fine,” he said.

“Give me your number, so I can call you back with the flight details,” she asked.

“It would be better for me to call you back later today,” he said. “I'm never home to hear the phone ring and the cell service out here is not good.”

“Yes, of course. Can you call me around three, your time?”

“I'll try.”

“All right. I'll speak to you again soon. And Eris? This might sound like a stupid question, but are you angry? Have you been angry with me? I have to know.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Okay. We'll talk when we see each other. I have a lot to tell you.”

When Eris hung up he felt numb. He looked around his house and suddenly realized he was going to need some furniture. A couch. A table, maybe, and something for her to sleep on.

His mother was coming. As quickly as she could.

He put his hands to his eyes and rubbed. Then he walked out onto the porch to feed the baby hawk and wait for Madeleine to come home.

She frowned when she saw him come up the hill. She got out of the truck with a sack of groceries and handed them to him while she opened the door.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you still here?”

“I was waiting for you.”

They went inside and Madeleine moved to put the groceries away. She was still frowning, waiting for him to go on.

“I contacted my mother this morning,” Eris said. “She wants to come here. She's booking the first flight out.”

Madeleine stopped what she was doing and stared at him. “You found your mother? Eris, that's wonderful. You've already spoken to her and everything?”

“She's coming here,” he said. “She wants to stay at my house.”

Madeleine moved to grip his hands. “I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now. What you must be thinking.”

Eris gave her fingers a squeeze and said, “I won't be able to be with you while she's here.”

“No, I suppose not,” Madeleine said with a brief smile. “I was wondering myself how we would handle the weekend, with Manuel and Jacqueline here to guard my virtue. How long will she be staying?”

“She didn't say.”

“Will I be able to meet her?”

“I don't know.”

She fell silent and slowly removed her hands from his to go back to putting away groceries.

“I'm glad you found her,” she said, not looking at him. “I'm sure it was important to you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Where does your mother live?”

“Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has an art gallery and a studio there.”

Madeleine stopped what she was doing again and turned to look at him. “My parents live in
Santa Fe, your adoptive parents—”

“No,” said Eris. “It wasn't
Santa Fe.”

”Oh.”

They stood looking uncomfortably at one another, until Eris said he had to go.

Madeleine nodded and turned to finish putting away her things. Eris exhaled and moved past the counter to put his arms around her and pull her against his chest. She stiffened, and for a moment he thought he should let her go, but finally she relaxed against him and placed her arms around his waist.

“I'll bring her to meet you when I can,” he said. “I want her to see you.”

She lifted her head to look at him. “For a minute there I thought you were ashamed of me.”

“Never.” His mouth worked, but he couldn't begin to impart what she was to him. Instead he kissed her, then tore himself away and left the cabin.

He had to go and find a bed for Sara Bent Horn.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Madeleine cooked her meatloaf that evening and watched in curiosity as a delivery truck unloaded furniture at Eris's house. After thinking about it she knew he would need another bed. And maybe another chair, or something to sit on in the living room. Perhaps a small dinette.

When the meatloaf was finished and Eris showed no signs of coming, she picked up the phone and called the Birdy
’s. Earl Lee and Gloria were delighted to be asked to dinner and hurried right up the hill, bringing a six-pack and a can of tomato juice with them.

Both went on and on about the cabin, and after dinner Earl Lee attached himself without hesitation to a sports channel on the television, leaving Gloria and Madeleine to walk outside and sit on the porch to enjoy the evening air. The black kitten played at their feet, gnawing on toes and chasing imaginary insects.

“Seen the digger man?” asked Gloria.

“We call him the Earthworm,” Madeleine told her, and was gratified to hear Gloria snort with laughter.

“That's it. I'd heard it before but forgot it.”

“Gudrun is Mole Woman,” Madeleine added, and Gloria slapped her knee and laughed even harder.

Her short brown hair appeared red in the light from the porch.

The glass of tomato juice was right beside her, this time diluted with beer.

“I saw him last night as a matter of fact,” Madeleine told her. “And he was on his way up to the cemetery.”

“Why the hell didn't you call me?”

“I started to, but something else came up. How often does he do this disgusting thing?”

“No one knows for sure. Damn, I wish you'd called me last night.”

“Maybe I should have,” Madeleine said thoughtfully, staring down the darkened lawn at Eris's house.

Gloria flicked a pill bug at the kitten. “What did you say you do?”

“Do?”

“Profession.”

“Oh. I'm a teacher—well, I'm not a teacher anymore. I'm back to being an anthropologist begging for a grant.”

Gloria was impressed. “Any specific area?”

“Native-American languages.”

“Huh. How does that grant stuff work exactly?”

“The begging part? I tell a university what I've done and what I want to do, and they discuss the merits of my application. If they approve, voilà, I get money and time to study and write.”

“What do you write?”

“Papers, generally published in scholastic journals. A few years ago I wrote a book on variations in the Sioux language. It was published by a university press.”

“Did it do very well?”

“It wasn't a bestseller, if that's what you're asking.”

Gloria grunted. “Must've not had any humping in it.”

Madeleine rolled her eyes and Gloria gave her a light pinch on the arm.

“Glad to know what you're made of. I can see you as an academic type, with the right clothes and that tight little bun you wear. You ever talk with Renard about his people?”

“Only briefly.”

“He's a quiet one, Renard is. Earl Lee thinks the world of him. He once saw Renard cut his hands to shreds trying to loose a deer whose leg was caught in a barbed-wire fence. Renard had tranquilized the deer and he didn't know anybody was watching him. Earl Lee said he was as gentle with that deer's leg as if it were a human. That said a lot about him to Earl Lee.”

Madeleine nodded, but she said nothing. She wanted to change the subject so the sudden thickness in her throat would go away.

“Earl's thinking about teaching next year,” Gloria went on. “The folks over at the county community college want him to come and work with a criminologist on a course about the future of penal institutions.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Madeleine.

“I thought so.” Gloria swirled her glass and then took a drink. “I bet the community college would be more than interested in you.”

“How so?”

“You said you were a teacher.”

“Not anymore. I'm finished teaching.”

“Too many kids with shit for brains?”

Madeleine smiled. ‘‘You got it.”

“Things are different in the country,” Gloria said. “Kids aren't the same as they are in the city. They still know how to say please and thank you and they're grateful just to get off the farm or out of that small town and go to school.”

“I don't know about that,” said Madeleine. “I had kids from small towns in my classes. They fit right in with the rest.”

“So they wouldn't stick out. Out here being courteous is the norm, not the exception.”

“Have you told that to the jerk in the baseball cap?”

“He's a punk. Don't even consider him.”

“You sound like you're trying to convince me.”

“I am. I'd love to have a smart woman like you around all the time. I don't know that many smart women.”

Madeleine chuckled. “I'm flattered, but I'm afraid my circumstances won't permit me to remain here beyond the summer.”

“Out of money?”

“For starters. Second on the list is the fact that the cabin belongs to my sister and her husband, who only tolerates me because I'm family and because my sister loves me.”

“It's a shame,” said Gloria. “I can see us becoming cohorts in crime, nailing up pictures of the Earthworm wiggling his worm.”

Madeleine burst out laughing, and she found herself laughing continuously over the next hour, because Gloria had just gotten started.

When the Birdys finally took their leave Madeleine was sorry to see them go. She enjoyed Gloria immensely and wanted to call her sister Jacqueline and say, See? I have a friend.

They made plans to see each other again soon, and Madeleine finally closed the door behind them. It was ten o'clock and Eris wasn't home. She refused to allow herself to stay up and wait for a glimpse of his mother, but there was no chance of sleeping once she was in bed.

The ringing of the phone startled her and she leapt out of bed to answer it, hoping it was Eris but figuring it to be Jacqueline.

“Hello?”

“I can't believe you're fucking Renard. A piece like you spreading your legs for that ugly bastard. Makes me sick just to think about—”

She slammed the phone down and hurried through the cabin, locking all the doors and windows.

Someone really was watching her.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she glanced all around herself, wondering what she could use as a weapon.

Manuel and Jacqueline were going to love this. They would probably kick her out rather than wait for her to leave and take her troubles with her.

She had meant to tell Eris about the first call. She meant to tell him about the man in the baseball cap, too.

Madeleine's throat and mouth were dry as she picked up the phone and called the police. She would make a complaint. That was doing something.

The police were understanding and concerned, and they told her to keep her doors and windows locked. When Madeleine hung up she felt better, but only minimally. She went back to bed and lay shivering under the covers despite the warmth of the air. Already she missed Eris.

Ronnie Lyman sat behind the wheel of his green Grand Prix and wondered what else he could do to Eris Renard. Following him, spying on him, and scaring his girlfriend wasn't enough. Renard hadn't led him to Sheila, as he had hoped. He knew the do-good sonofabitch knew where she was.
He had to; Sheila had told him everything else.

His teeth clenched as he thought of what he would do to her when he found her. He had a hell of a time convincing the cops the whole scheme had been her idea to begin with. He asked them to watch the television tapes so he could show how she had been the one to do most of the talking. There was no way he could have coached her.

Despite his argument, Ronnie was taken into custody again. He wasn't put under arrest, but the same judge he had seen before demanded his presence, and he told Ronnie he was so disgusted he wanted to order a brain scan to see if there was any activity in Ronnie's head.

“How could you do that to your own little girl?” the judge had asked, his eyes stained red and bloodshot. “Don't you know that by perpetrating that hoax, you're just as guilty as the man who molested and murdered her? You delivered her into his hands, Mr. Lyman. How does that make you feel?”

“Pretty shitty, sir,” Ronnie had said. “But I keep telling you people it wasn't my idea. My wife, Sheila, got crazy when we lost our house. She said we had to do something, anything, to get some money. So she cooked up this scheme to—”

“You couldn't dissuade her from it?”

Ronnie stared, confused. “What?”

“You couldn't change her mind? This woman you nearly strangled at your little girl's funeral? You couldn't sit down and talk her out of it?”

There was no reply. Ronnie knew when to keep his mouth shut.

The judge finally let him go. But he was on probation for three years, and he had to find a job. Otherwise, he was going back to jail.

Thanks to Sheila and Renard.

Sheila he couldn't do anything about, not right now anyway, but he could make life difficult for Renard until he found a job. Or until Renard led him to Sheila.

He was so good at following people he considered going into the collection business. Renard never once saw him as he went about his daily routine. Of course, Ronnie hung way, way back on the dusty dirt roads, but he never lost Renard once. After one day he was bored stiff, though, so he decided to watch what Renard did after he came home. That was a little more interesting, considering the pretty blonde who lived in the log cabin. Ronnie got the name from the mailbox then called his Dad’s secretary to get him a phone number.

Easy.

Still, there had to be something else he could do. Some way to make Renard see what a man felt like to be cut off from his family and set adrift in a hostile environment. Let him know exactly what kind of mistake he had made by messing with Ronald James Lyman.

It was something Ronnie would have to think about. He started his car and drove away from
Diamond Bay. His headlights picked up the huge blood stain in the road and he stopped to look at it and wonder. Then he drove on, slowly.