The Lost Bird (15 page)

“Any suggestions?” Vicky walked over to the counter.

A look of exasperation came into the woman’s eyes. “You have to keep calling. Over and over. Leaving messages on that infernal machine. Eventually Dr. Markham gets back to you.” She gave a long sigh. “He’s very busy, you know.”

Vicky thanked her and started to walk away.

“Is this about Sharon David?” Eagerness leaked into the other woman’s tone.

Vicky turned back. “I want to talk to him about the clinic.”

“Well, if it has anything to do about business, you should talk to Joanne Garrow. She was his business manager, and business managers know a lot more than doctors about business matters.” She straightened her shoulders and gave the files stacked along the counter a proprietary glance.

“Where would I find her?”

“Joanne? Still lives where she always did. About four blocks south of here. The big red-brick house on the corner. Can’t miss it.”

13

A
glance at her silver watch told Vicky she was late for the meeting with Luther Benson. But Luther, she knew, would wait. Ensconced at his favorite table in the back of the Mountain Lounge, one hand wrapped around a sweating martini glass, the other poking at the swivel stick, bobbing the olive in the clear liquid, Luther would wait, glad for the excuse to order another martini. Since he’d retired from his law practice a few years ago, he had few demands on his time.

She let up on the accelerator, suddenly aware that the green sedan ahead was traveling about fifteen miles per hour. She tapped out an impatient rhythm on the wheel as she followed the sedan down the residential block and through the intersection. Suddenly the car swerved right and crawled up a long driveway that ran alongside a two-story, red-brick house.

Vicky swung next to the curb as an elderly woman emerged from the sedan, opened the rear door, and lifted out a brown bag of groceries. Then she pushed the door shut with one hip and started across the lawn.

“Ms. Garrow?” Vicky called, sliding out of the Bronco.

The woman whirled around, clutching the groceries against her chest like a shield. “Yes?” she called. It might have been the chirp of a small bird.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Vicky started up the sidewalk.

The woman was peering over glasses that slipped partway down her nose. A pink cord hung from the side pieces and dangled below her chin. She looked to be in her seventies—the small, birdlike frame hunched around the grocery bag, the tightly curled gray hair and the face furrowed with worry.

As she approached, Vicky gave her name and said she was an attorney. “Could I talk to you a moment?”

“I can’t imagine what it could be about.” The woman started across the lawn toward the porch steps.

“About the clinic Dr. Jeremiah Markham ran in town.”

The woman was halfway up the steps. She stopped and, without looking back, called out, “I don’t know anything.”

For a moment Vicky wondered if she had stopped at the right house. “Weren’t you Dr. Markham’s business manager?”

“Go away!” she shouted. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Ms. Garrow”—Vicky walked to the bottom step—“I only want to ask you . . .”

The woman had reached the porch. She swung around, staring over the carton of eggs poking from the grocery bag. “You’re Indian, aren’t you?” She hurled the words like an accusation.

Vicky caught her breath. For a moment she couldn’t speak. Then: “I’m a member of the Arapaho tribe. I have a few questions about the Markham Clinic.”

“Get off my property, do you hear? Get off my property.” She was backing across the porch, one arm slung around the sagging grocery bag, the other fumbling in a jacket pocket. Pulling out a key, she pointed it like a weapon. “I’ll call the police if you don’t leave immediately. You’re trespassing.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“Trespasser! Trespasser! Indian trespasser!” the woman shrieked as she turned and began jamming the key into the lock, ramming the grocery bag against the door, as if the egg carton and bulge of groceries might break through the wood.

Vicky started backing down the sidewalk, her legs trembling beneath her. She forced herself to turn around and walk confidently to the curb. The whack of the door slamming behind her broke the afternoon quiet of the neighborhood. As she slid inside the Bronco, she saw the lace curtain flutter at the front window of the house, as if a breeze had caught it for the briefest moment before dropping it back into place.

She switched on the ignition. The engine growled into life, echoing the fury surging inside her. Giving the wheel a sharp turn, she pulled into the street. She hadn’t seen it coming, that was all. The woman’s reaction had caught her off guard. She could usually read the questions in the eyes of strangers: Greek? Italian? Spanish? And then the dawning realization: Ah, Native American. But there had been no questions in the eyes of Joanne Garrow, only hatred as pure and sharp as broken glass.

She turned the corner and headed east toward Main Street, her mind replaying the scene: she, walking up the sidewalk—the dark, slanted eyes and black hair, the coppery skin. Joanne Garrow had seemed only startled. Then Vicky had said she was an attorney. She had mentioned the Markham Clinic.

Vicky felt her muscles begin to relax. An alien from outer space with green skin and purple hair could have walked up the sidewalk. It would not have mattered. The fact that she was Arapaho did not matter. It was a convenient excuse, words hurled like stones to make her run away. What mattered, what had ignited the hatred in Joanne Garrow’s eyes, was the name of Dr. Jeremiah Markham.

•   •   •

Vicky still felt shaky as she made her way through the clouds of smoke in the Mountain Lounge, past the men perched on bar stools, turning, staring. She found Luther Benson seated at a small table in back. As she approached, he started to his feet, stumbling sideways, righting himself against the table. A half-empty martini glass scurried toward the edge. He grabbed it and set it solidly into place.

“Thanks for seeing me, Luther.” Vicky sat down across from him. The lawyer waited a moment before folding himself into his own chair. He was in his seventies, but he might have been taken for a man ten years younger: the thick, iron-gray hair and bushy eyebrows, the deep-set eyes with a perpetual look of amusement, the ruddy features of a man accustomed to the outdoors.

“Never let it be said Luther Benson turned down a drink with a beautiful lady.” He lifted the martini glass and gave her a mock toast before taking a long
sip. From the bar came the soft buzz of conversation, the sound of ice cubes clinking against glass. “You’ll join me, won’t you?” He waved over the bartender.

“Just water,” Vicky said after the man in blue jeans and T-shirt had sauntered over, a white towel slung across one shoulder. She never drank alcohol; she feared its magical powers. It could draw out the very soul, transform someone into something unrecognizable. Before her eyes, it had transformed Ben into a stranger.

“Guess I’ll drink for both of us.” Luther glanced up at the bartender. “Bring me another.”

The moment the bartender moved away, Luther leaned toward her and, in a low, raspy voice said, “I forgot about you being Indian.”

Vicky knew that wasn’t true. She said nothing.

“Indians either stay fallin’-down drunk or don’t touch the stuff.”

“You think so?”

“Think so! I been around these parts a good long time.” He winked at her.

Vicky gave a little shrug. “I’m not here to discuss the problems some Indian people have with alcohol,” she said.
Not with a man who wanted to meet in a bar in the mid-afternoon. Who has already polished off at least one martini and is about to start on another.

Holding her gaze, Luther drew his wallet from inside his light-colored, western-cut jacket and plucked out a few dollars, which he tossed on the tray as the bartender delivered another martini and a glass of ice water. “You wanted to see me about Sharon David, right?”

Vicky wasn’t surprised. Luther had kept up with
everything that went on in the area for the last fifty years. He knew everybody’s business. She had turned to him in the past, trying to get a handle on some case she was working on. His information had always been reliable. She said, “Any chance Sharon David could have been adopted from the reservation in 1964?”

Luther cleared his throat. “Didn’t happen, honey. I would’ve known about it. Benson and Benson knew everything goin’ on in these parts.” Glancing at some point beyond her, as if he were plucking a memory out of the smoke-filled air, he went on: “Dad started the firm seventy years ago, and I joined up soon’s I got out of law school. Oh, a few young turks set up storefront offices from time to time, thinkin’ they could challenge us, but we ran ’em off. There wasn’t much law business ’round these parts back then. We had to corral what was here.”

“Did you handle private adoptions?”

“’Course we handled private adoptions.”

“For women from the reservation?”

“Indians?” He nodded. “Sure. We got kids adopted to aunts and uncles, grandmothers, older siblings. Not much money in it, that’s for sure. A lot of work we did pro bono. But we didn’t get any Indian babies adopted outside the tribe, that’s what you gettin’ at.”

Vicky leaned into the hard back of the chair and sipped at the ice water. Every trail led in the same direction. The tribe did not let its children go. Unless, she realized, the tribe didn’t know. Unless an adoption had been arranged secretly. She wondered if Joanne Garrow had also guessed that she’d come on behalf of Sharon David. Was that why she didn’t want to talk about Dr. Markham?

“I went to see Joanne Garrow this afternoon,” she said.

“How’s Joanne doin’?” The lawyer’s voice was tight and controlled.

Vicky felt something change in the atmosphere between them. The bar conversation seemed louder, the guffaws sharper. A phone was ringing somewhere. She hurried on. “Garrow once worked for Jeremiah Markham. Did you know him?”

“’Course I knew him.” The old friendliness was gone.

“I thought his business manager might tell me whether the doctor ever arranged private adoptions.”

“And did she?” A cold, clipped tone. Luther Benson must have been a formidable adversary in the courtroom, Vicky thought.

She said, “Joanne Garrow threw me off her property.”

The man’s expression dissolved to a point somewhere between amusement and disdain. “Well, don’t take it personally, Vicky.” The old friendliness had returned. “Lawyer comes around askin’ questions, the lady probably got nervous. You wanna know what she would have told you? Jerry Markham wasn’t runnin’ any adoption agency. He was runnin’ a clinic.”

“There might have been a desperate woman. He might have known of a couple who wanted to adopt—”

The lawyer cut in. “It didn’t happen.” He took another sip of martini. Then: “Take the advice of an old barrister, honey. Tell your fancy client there are five hundred and forty-five tribes in this country, and she picked the wrong one. Collect a nice big fee and take yourself a long vacation.”

Vicky studied the man a moment. She had a hunch he was lying, and it surprised her. Luther had always been straight with her, his information reliable. When she’d opened her office, he’d assumed the role of the older, more experienced lawyer whose advice she could count on. She still counted on it, despite the martinis that, lately, he seemed to consume in ever-greater volume. Why would he want to throw her off track? Where could she have been headed? She decided to take a chance: “You know what I think, Luther? I think the famous Dr. Markham may have arranged private adoptions for Indian women. I think his business manager and lawyer don’t want to talk about it.”

The lawyer stared at her. The clink of glass, the squeal of bar stools and droning voices filled the air. Suddenly she was aware of the bartender standing behind her. “You Vicky Holden?”

She glanced up.

“Secretary called. Says you should get back to the office on the double quick.”

Vicky caught her breath. What kind of emergency would make Laola call her here? Pushing back the chair, she started to her feet.

“You’re wastin’ your time, Vicky.” Luther Benson lumbered alongside her, the stale odor of his breath engulfing her.