Winter's Child (17 page)

Vicky could hear
the beep inside her bag as she made her way down the icy sidewalk to the Ford. A new text message. The bright sun bore down onto the rooftops, but there was a chill in the wind that whipped at her coat. She dipped her head, tucked her chin into the collar, and tried to ignore the beeping noise, her thoughts on the three missing days. Two days driving back and forth to Denver; one day in Denver. But where in Denver? Who had Clint gone to see and why?

Clint had deleted everything on his laptop but the barest notes and names on his calendar. What had he found that he didn't want to come into anyone's hands, not even hers? Still, he had wanted to consult with her on the Little Shield case. He would have told her everything, Evie said. And what was that? What had he carried about in his head, unwilling to allow anyone to see?

Vicky gripped her coat close with one hand while she opened the car door with the other. She slid inside and started the engine. She
was shivering. He had gone to Denver, Evie said, and Vicky had pushed the girl. There must have been something that would give them an idea of what he did there.

Evie had gone into Clint's office and retrieved the laptop. Vicky had waited while Evie had called up the file on the Little Shield case. Nothing, the secretary said, except the notes. Then Evie had skimmed the list of files. No sign of Little Shield, Wind River Reservation, Arapaho.

Vicky had been pacing the small area between the desk and the door, conscious of Evie still hunched over the computer, the keys clicking. “I told you Clint kept everything in his head. He was paranoid his files would be hacked.”

Vicky had stopped pacing, a new thought presenting itself. “What about the Web sites Clint visited before he went to Denver? They could tell us what he was looking for.”

Evie had pulled back, tapped a couple keys, then hunched forward again, eyes boring into the screen. “Nothing.” She exhaled the word. “Clint erased his entire history.”

“What did he tell you?” She had pressed the secretary again.

“Nothing. He told me nothing.”

Inside the Ford, Vicky retrieved her mobile, her hand shaking with cold. An image of the dark figure starting across the street in the snow played across her retinas. A dark figure, carrying a briefcase. Paranoid, controlling, thorough. And something else: elusive.

She ran her finger over the button and tried to concentrate on the text message. Her hand was shaking with cold. Annie: “Shooting at Bearing's place. Someone dead. Thought you'd want to know.”

Vicky felt her heart catapult inside her chest. A shooting at the Bearings'. My God. And this morning she had gone to John O'Malley and told him she suspected Lou Bearing was hiding
something. She knew John O'Malley. He would have driven out there to talk to Lou. He would have gone right away. For her. To allay her concern.

She could see Lou Bearing skulking about the barn, nervous, eyes twitching, yearning to tell something. To unburden himself. Confess. The man's discomfort had been as palpable as another presence. She had defended clients like that, shifting in their chairs, wanting to tell everything, get it off their chests. Finally blurting out the sad, terrible truth.

Lou Bearing had been like that, until Debbie walked in, determination and resolve propelling the woman, enough for both her and for her husband. And everything had changed. Lou's demeanor, the yearning that had shone in his eyes, the longing to set down a heavy load.

Is that what happened? Debbie Bearing had walked in on a confession? And a man was dead? The man who had heard Lou Bearing's secret?

Vicky realized that, somehow, she had pulled away from the curb and was driving down Main. A blur of snow piled over the street and wrapped about the buildings. She swiped at the tears bristling on her cheek. She could feel her heart thumping. God. God. What if she had sent John O'Malley to his death?

She had to get ahold of herself. She was talking to herself out loud, her own voice echoing in the void of the car. Admonishing herself.
Get a hold on. Get a hold on.
Anything could have happened. Lou himself could have been shot. Someone else could have come to the barn. She fumbled in her bag for her cell and pressed John O'Malley's number. Three rings, then the familiar voice saying to leave a message. She tossed the cell on top of the bag.

John O'Malley could still be at the mission, in a meeting, a
counseling session, nowhere near the Bearing place. She turned onto Seventeen-Mile Road and drove toward the blue billboard rising into the sunshine and blue sky. The words looked watery:
St. Francis Mission
. She swung left and sped down the tunnel of cottonwoods, rear wheels sliding in the snow, and turned toward the administration building, her heart pounding. Her mouth had gone dry. The red Toyota pickup was gone.

She jerked to a stop where the Toyota had stood, flung open the door, and ran up the steps. She slammed herself against the heavy oak door. “John!” She shouted into the corridor, into the emptiness of his office. “John. Are you here?”

“What is it?” The bishop listed down the corridor from the back office. “What's happened?”

“Is John here?” John O'Malley was not here; she could sense his absence. The Toyota pickup was gone.

“I'm afraid he's gone out.” The old man couldn't quite hide his own worry. “Left a couple hours ago. Is everything all right?”

“I don't know. I don't know.” Vicky had swung back toward the front door when the door across the corridor flew open. The tall, red-haired woman—a girl, really; the serious look on her face almost comical—blocked the corridor.

“What's happened to my uncle?”

“He went to talk to someone. There's been a shooting. I'm going over there.”

“I'm coming with you,” the girl said, and Vicky could hear the click of footsteps behind her as she yanked the door open and ran down the steps. She had started to back the Ford onto Circle Drive when Shannon O'Malley pulled open the passenger door and jumped onto the seat. A black jacket half on, half off. She wiggled about, jammed both arms into the jacket, and pulled the fronts closed.

“You think Uncle John's been shot?”

Vicky hunched over the steering wheel and peered past the windshield, barely registering the question, the girl's voice nothing but background noise.

“I don't know,” Vicky managed. She was at the end of the cottonwood tunnel, sliding into the turn back onto Seventeen-Mile Road. A horn sounded, brakes squealed. She jammed her foot down hard on the accelerator and sped away from an oncoming pickup.

For a long, blessed moment, Shannon was quiet. Vicky was aware of the girl staring straight ahead, watching the road. It could take thirty minutes to get to the Bearing place. She had lost two minutes checking the mission. Two precious minutes. She wondered if an ambulance had been called. There was a chance the victim was still alive. Oh God. Let him be alive.

“It's dangerous here.”

Vicky flinched. The girl's voice had startled her out of her own thoughts. She had forgotten the girl was here.

“Life is dangerous,” she said.

“Uncle John is great.” And then she went off about the research she was doing and how John O'Malley had been helping her, how he really cared about a captive white girl who had become Arapaho more than a hundred years ago. Background noise to the name pulsing inside Vicky's head.
John O'Malley
.
John O'Malley
.

“Why would anyone want to shoot a priest?” the girl said.

The road unfolded ahead, mottled gray asphalt plunging through the whiteness. The reservation looked deserted, empty, except for a trail of smoke rising out of chimneys here and there.

It took a moment before Vicky realized the girl was waiting for an answer. What an absurd question. No one would want to harm Father John O'Malley. He was a man of the people; he belonged
here. “No one. No one,” she said, trying to blink away the image of Debbie Bearing, the hot hatred in the woman's eyes.

“You think someone did.”

“I want to make sure he's all right.”

Shannon went quiet again. This time Vicky felt the girl's eyes boring into her. “You love him, don't you?”

“Everyone loves him.” Vicky waited a moment, scanning the road ahead for the junction with Blue Sky Highway. Easy to miss with snow everywhere; more minutes would be lost. She slowed for the turn, then picked up speed again, heading southwest. She turned onto Highway 287. The rooftops of Fort Washakie appeared like dark smudges on the horizon ahead. She glanced over at Shannon O'Malley. “It's not what you think.”

The girl took her time. Then she said, “Well, that's too bad.”

Vicky felt her muscles stiffen. This girl came from another time, another world, where people did what they wanted to do and nothing else mattered. Nothing else was allowed to get in the way, not vows and conventions and expectations . . .

The noise of a siren grew louder. She saw the flicker of red and yellow lights, slowed down, and jittered to the side as the ambulance tore past. Shannon was up partway on her knees, stretching backward, eyes following the ambulance. “It could be Uncle John.”

They were a short distance from the Bearing place, and Vicky made a decision: They would go on, find out who was in the ambulance. Then she would follow it. Follow it to hell.

She pulled out into the lane and kept going. Shannon was still twisted about. “We should turn around.”

Vicky didn't say anything. Looming through the glare of sun and snow was the Bearing house and the barn behind it, a pair of dark buildings set back from the road with vehicles parked in the
yard. She could make out a police car and a blur of people walking about. She slowed again, came around a short curve and swung left, bumping over the barrow ditch and up into the yard past a couple of sedans and other vehicles toward the red pickup. She jammed on the brake, slammed out of the Ford, and started running, barely aware of the surprise in the faces turned toward her. Past the little groups of people, around the cars. She stopped. The rear door of the police car hung open. There was a muffled squawk and a hiss of radio noise. And then she saw him: getting out of the backseat, his cowboy hat brushing the top edge. Coming toward her now. “Vicky,” he said.

“Oh my God. You're alive.” She was trembling; her legs felt numb, as if she were standing on air. She felt the warmth and strength in his arms as they wrapped around her and pulled her to him.

After a moment, she stepped back, and it was Shannon's turn, hugging him, sobbing. “We were so worried.”

So many eyes on them, Vicky realized. At least a dozen people gathering around, boots shuffling in the snow. A plainclothes officer had gotten out of the other side of the car and was watching over the roof. A spectacle. Two women sobbing over a priest.

“Come over here.” Vicky felt him lift her hand. Then he took Shannon's hand and led them toward the front of the house, away from the others. “Lou Bearing is dead. Debbie found him in the shop this morning. It looks like he shot himself.”

“I knew you would come here . . .” Vicky began, wanting to explain, yet knowing it wasn't necessary. She could see in his eyes that he understood; the moccasin telegraph had the news already. She had tried his cell, but he hadn't answered. Then she had gone to the mission to find him. He wasn't there, and Shannon had insisted on coming with her.

“I was finishing the statement to the police.” He gave a nod in the direction of the police cars. “Debbie's on the way to the hospital. She's in shock. I'm going over there.” He looked at both of them a long moment, then he reached out, and Vicky felt herself pulled into his arms again. Then Shannon, crowding in. “You're all right?”

“We're fine.” It was Shannon's voice, muffled against his jacket.

Vicky didn't say anything.

They were standing
inside the door as if they had seen her turn into the driveway. Annie and Roger, expressions edged with anxiety. “You okay?” Annie said.

Vicky pushed the door closed. She could feel the dry heat blowing through the vents. Of course she was okay. Why wouldn't she be? She started to slip out of her coat, and in an instant, Roger was behind her, taking the coat, hanging it on the rack next to the door.

“We heard about Lou Bearing,” he said. “Debbie's in the hospital with shock. The news is all over the telegraph.”

How efficient the moccasin telegraph was. The news had reached the office before she had. She wondered what else Annie and Roger had heard. It wasn't just a matter of text messages and phone calls. Now it was videos. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to erase the video of herself throwing herself into John O'Malley's arms. That should stir up a lot of gossip.

“I went to the mission this morning,” she began. A feeble effort to explain. What did it matter? People would believe what they wanted to believe. “John said he would have a talk with Lou. I was afraid I had sent him to his death.” She drew in a long breath, feeling calmer now, more like herself. “He went to the hospital to check on Debbie.”

Because Debbie had no one, she was thinking. No one she seemed to care about. No one who cared about her, except Lou, who was gone. But this was Vicky's family, Annie and Roger. And the kids, Lucas and Susan. Living far away, but part of her nevertheless. She had
someone.

“Are you hungry?” Annie might have been addressing a small child. “Roger brought in sandwiches. Egg salad?”

Perhaps that was the emptiness inside her—hunger. Breakfast had been hours ago. She couldn't even remember what she had eaten before she'd left for the office.

“Egg salad sounds delicious.” She gave them another smile, these two solicitous people—this family—and went into her own office. She had
someone,
she told herself again. John O'Malley was a priest. He cared for those who had no one.

Annie was behind her. She stationed herself at the corner of the desk and waited while Vicky sat down and turned on the computer. “What's the rest?”

“Lianna Blue Hawk canceled her appointment this afternoon. I guess she's not ready to divorce Joseph. They're trying to reconcile.”

“And when will she be ready?” Vicky stared at the icons peopling the computer screen. “When he's knocked her senseless?”

Annie nodded, a blurred motion at the edge of Vicky's vision. “I told her you'd see her when she changed her mind. Lester Duwalt dropped in without an appointment. Claims highway department
wrongly terminated him because he took time off for his grandfather's wake. Roger saw him. You have an appointment with Doris Rides Fast at five. She didn't say what about.”

Roger materialized beside Annie and set down a paper plate with a sandwich and chips and a mug of coffee. The musty odor of hard-boiled eggs mixed with the aroma of fresh coffee. Vicky glanced up and nodded her thanks.

“Let us know if you need anything else,” Annie said. They were backing out of the office, around the opened beveled-glass doors, these two friends of hers.

Vicky swiveled about, giving them her full attention. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

Roger pulled the doors shut, and Vicky went back to the computer. She was running up against mountains. Everywhere she turned, she encountered an outcropping of rocks. Vince White Hawk, still missing. He could be a thousand miles away. He could be in a drunken coma or dead. And Mary Ann Little Shield, lost in a place as gray and amorphous as a snow cloud, with parents not legally her parents. People who loved her and who might lose her.

She forced herself to concentrate on the new information Evie Moran had given her. Three missing days on Clint's calendar that weren't missing after all. He had been in Denver. A night there with his secretary, a day driving back to Riverton, and he'd told her nothing. And yet, he must have had a reason to go to Denver.

She held herself still, barely breathing. Clint had visited the Bearings before he left and had gone back to see them as soon as he returned. Something he had learned from the Bearings had sent him to Denver. Clint must have stumbled onto something. And he had been killed because of it.

It all came back to Denver. She typed in “Denver Wind River
Reservation 2011” and strained toward the screen, willing a connection to come up. A chamber of commerce site appeared, followed by things to do and see in Denver, festivals, and races. A similar site popped up for the reservation. Powwows, rodeos, parades, drumming groups, dancers. Nothing that might explain a connection between Denver and an infant left on a doorstep on the reservation.

Vicky sat back and tried to focus on something else: a shadowy thought circling in her head, something Shannon O'Malley had mentioned. She had pushed it away, her own thoughts focused on the fact that someone was dead at the Bearing house, and John O'Malley had gone there. Now she felt herself slowly coming to attention. Shannon's voice sounded in her head as clearly as if the girl were sitting beside her now:
Uncle John's been a big help to me. He gets it, you know? Not everybody does. My own father wonders why I care about a captive white girl who became Arapaho.

Captive white girl! My God, the reality was as obvious as the Wind River Mountains looming over the reservation, and Clint Hopkins had seen it. Lou Bearing must have divulged something that made Clint scour the internet and go to Denver. Divulged too much! Whatever Clint had found, he had tried to erase it, except for his calendar and notes. Had he expected her to follow in his tracks, should something happen to him? Hoped she would latch on to the truth and help Mary Ann? If she didn't, Mary Ann Little Shield would remain in that gray, indefinite place.

She typed in “Missing Infant Denver 2011.” A new set of Web sites, several pages long, materialized. Culled from stories in newspapers, radio and TV, two or three internet news sites, several blogs. She tapped on an account from the
Denver Post
and read down the page.

MOTHER KILLED, INFANT ABDUCTED IN CARJACKING

A tense carjacking Monday ended in the death of a twenty-nine-year-old Denver woman, Louise Adler Becket, and the abduction of her five-week-old daughter, Elizabeth Louise. Jason Becket, husband of the deceased woman and father of the infant, has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of his child. “I will never stop looking for her,” Becket said.

Witnesses said the incident occurred in Cherry Creek North, the popular upscale shopping area. At about five p.m. Louise Becket parked her late-model Honda SUV in front of a series of shops. A pickup immediately pulled in alongside the SUV, and a man and a woman jumped out. They accosted Mrs. Becket as she was attempting to remove the infant from the rear seat. The man allegedly subdued the victim while the woman took her purse and got behind the steering wheel of the SUV. She backed out and drove down the street with Mrs. Becket hanging on to the rear door in a futile attempt to rescue her infant. Witnesses said the woman slipped under the wheels of the SUV. According to Denver Police Detective Tim Martinez, she was pronounced dead at the scene. The man fled in the pickup, following the SUV, and both vehicles headed east toward Colorado Boulevard.

Witnesses describe the carjackers as medium height with dark hair and dark complexions.

Police have issued an alert to law enforcement throughout Colorado and neighboring states. Anyone with information on the missing infant, the dark-colored SUV, or a light-colored Chevrolet pickup is urged to contact their local police immediately. Police are concerned that the longer the infant remains with the carjackers, the greater the danger she is in.

Vicky read the article again. She felt as if the breath had been sucked out of her, as if the beveled-glass doors and the snow-covered ground framed in the window were closing in. Elizabeth Louise Becket, a white infant—a captive—stolen from her family. Whose father had offered a $25,000 reward for her return. Was that the story of Mary Ann Little Shield?

She glanced through the other sites. Repetitions of the newspaper article with something new added: police mockups of the two carjackers, according to the descriptions of witnesses. Dark hair and dark eyes, indistinct features. Indian, Hispanic, Asian. They could be Debbie and Lou Bearing or a thousand others.

There were pages of Web sites. Week after week, and still no news of the missing infant or the dark-complexioned carjackers. But no news in the months after the carjacking did not mean that Elizabeth Louise Becket—or her body—hadn't been found sometime in the past five years.

She closed the sites and typed in the same search string for Denver in 2012. An anniversary article popped up: “One year ago today, five-week-old Elizabeth Louise Becket was abducted in a carjacking in Cherry Creek North that left her mother, Louise Becket, crushed under the wheels of her SUV. Despite a five-state alert and ongoing search for the carjacked SUV and the Chevrolet pickup one of the carjackers drove, neither the vehicles nor the infant have been located. ‘I know my baby is out there somewhere,' said Jason Becket, husband of the dead woman and father of the missing infant. ‘She is all I have left. If anyone knows of her whereabouts, I beg you to contact the police.' He said the $25,000 reward he had offered following the incident will stand until his child is found.”

Vicky repeated the search for the following years: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. Fewer articles appeared each year, a gradual tapering
into a vacuum of inevitability and even acceptance, like the gradual tapering of grief.

She started a new search, this time for Jason Becket. He would still be in Denver, she was certain, and Clint Hopkins had gone there to talk to him. The search took only a few minutes, and she had located the man. The photograph showed a handsome man with a broad chin and curly hair and something undefined in his eyes, like a visible mote. Jason Becket owned several restaurants, including the Thirty-Second Street Bistro, judged the best bistro in Denver two years running. Vicky jotted down the telephone number, picked up the phone, and called.

She glanced at her watch while a phone rang somewhere in Highland, the northwest section of Denver, not far from where she had lived when she practiced law in a downtown skyscraper, before she'd come home to the reservation.

“Thirty-Second Street Bistro.” The voice on the other end sounded cheery and enthusiastic. There was a faint background noise of clinking glasses and buzzing voices

Vicky asked to speak to Jason Becket. There was a muffled sound, as if a hand had been placed over the receiver: “Is Jason here?” A second passed, then the woman said: “Who's calling?”

“Vicky Holden. I'm an attorney in Wyoming.”

She should hold, the woman said. Several minutes passed, the line inert, and Vicky had started to wonder if they had been cut off when a man's voice said, “This is Jason.” There was an edge of impatience to his voice. “What is this about?”

“My name is . . .”

“Yeah, I got it. You're an attorney in Wyoming. Is this about Elizabeth?”

“Yes.”

“You'd better have something definite. No more theories and possibilities, no more gossip. There was another Wyoming attorney here last week, asking a lot of questions. If you know something about my daughter, let's hear it.”

“Mr. Becket, the lawyer you spoke to, Clint Hopkins, has been killed. I've taken over an adoption case he was working on. It's imperative that I meet with you.” She should have checked the flight schedules, she was thinking. Flights out of Riverton in the winter could be erratic. She plunged on: “I can be in Denver tomorrow.” She would drive, if she had to.

“Killed!”

“He was struck down by a truck. The police believe it was an accident. I saw it happen. I believe it was deliberate. Could we meet tomorrow?”

“God! Why would anyone kill him? He seemed like a nice man. A little tense and, frankly, a little confused. I wasn't sure what he was trying to sort out and put together.”

“Can we meet tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure. Come to the restaurant. You know where it is?”

Yes, she told him. She knew where it was.

She had just replaced the receiver when the phone rang. Annie, saying Rick Masterson was on the other line. Vicky waited for the clicking noise, then she said, “Rick?”

“How about dinner?”

Dinner! Another conversation between two people who had witnessed the same incident and seen different things. “Sorry,” she said, starting to explain that she was leaving town tomorrow and had a lot to do.

He cut her off. “Look, Vicky. I've been thinking about Clint's death. I believe you're right. It wasn't an accident.”

Vicky let a couple seconds go by before she said, “What changed your mind?”

“Clint, himself. Something he said at the meeting started to bother me. He told me he intended to bring you in on an adoption case to make certain the little girl would be settled with people who loved her, in case . . .” Vicky could hear the in and out of his breathing. “In case something happened to him.”

“Something happened?”

“An hour later, he was dead. I realized I'd seen what appeared logical. An accident in a blizzard. I've told the police what Clint said. Look, Vicky, I'm sorry that you and I got off to a bad start, and I'm sorry we can't get together this evening. I have to go back to Cheyenne tomorrow, but I'll be here in a couple of weeks on another consultation job. May I call you?”

Vicky tried to picture the man who had sat across the table from her two nights ago. Sand-colored hair, earnest-looking face. A man who could reconsider, acknowledge other possibilities. “Of course,” she said.