Turtle Baby (33 page)

"Why did she kill him?" Estrella asked, rising and searching for car keys in her voluminous purse.

"When Reinert called while you and Bo had gone to pick up Mildred," Andrew answered, "he said Kee told the police her husband was going to leave her, and she'd never get the baby." He grinned tentatively at Bo. "He also said her hotshot lawyer is already talking about an insanity defense if she's formally charged with Terrell's murder."

"Insanity?" Bo yelped. "What kind of insanity? Ripping off Indians? Since when is personal imperialism—"

Estrella grinned. "I'll give you a ride to your motel," she told Chris Joe. "Time to get out of here before the fireworks."

As they left, Bo watched Estrella's car lights slice the darkness in narrow cones, and then tilted her head to look at the night sky stretching over the Pacific Ocean. The Milky Way seemed to be a hazy road, leading to the past and future at once.

"Andy?" she asked. "Would you mind driving me by the Dooleys' for a few minutes? There's something in my car that belongs to Acito."

"A drive would be nice," he agreed, asking no questions.

A half hour later Bo stood in a nursery lit only by a night-light made of a seashell. In her hands was a fraying shawl woven from colored yarn and black satin ribbons. From it an odor of dust drifted, warm and historical.

"I'm going to paint a portrait of Chac for him," she told Davey and Connie Dooley as the four of them gazed at a sleeping baby with rosy brown skin, a tuft of white hair, and a classic Maya nose. "But right now I want him to have this. It's a gift from the Maya."

As she tucked the shawl over him Bo saw one small hand clutch its fabric and tug it toward his heart.