Winter's Child (8 page)

The booth was empty, the door still swinging shut. Through the plate glass window, she watched Vince weave toward the pickup, holding on to the brown bag as if it were a wall that held him upright. She stopped herself from running after him. She couldn't stop him.

She watched him fall into the pickup, then lean out so far to pull the door shut that, for a moment, she expected him to tumble onto the pavement. There was a burst of black exhaust as the pickup backed up, then shot forward toward the street. A cop will stop him, she thought. God, let a cop stop him before he kills somebody.

Steel-gray clouds massed
over the mountains and crept across the reservation and into town. Snowflakes dotted the windshield. Vicky fiddled with the temperature controls until the heater whirred into life and warm air burst from the vents. In the short time she and Vince had been in the coffee shop, the temperature had plunged ten degrees. Another storm on the way, with fresh snow piling on the corrugated surfaces of last night's storm.

She reached inside her bag on the passenger seat, found her cell, and ran a finger over Betty White Hawk's number. A phone rang somewhere on the rez, long beeps that melted into Betty's voice: “Hi. Can't take your call right now. Leave a message.”

Vicky swiped disconnect. The time at the top of the phone was 3:48. Betty was a custodian at St. Francis Elementary School on the road to the mission, twenty minutes away. She might still be at work. Vicky could swing by the school, give Betty the bad news that
her son would probably hole up in a drinking house tonight and drink himself senseless. But there was always the chance he could regain his senses tomorrow and agree to give himself up before the cops called out the SWAT team.

Except that the deal with the prosecuting attorney would be off the table. The deadline was almost an hour away. With any luck, she could talk to Betty and get ahold of Jim Peters before he left for the day. She would have to convince him to extend the deal.

She drove past the warehouses, liquor stores, and trailer parks that led out of town, then took the turn into the reservation. The snow was getting heavier. Always a surprise, how fast the weather could change. Touches of spring one moment, a blizzard the next. All part of life on the plains, and probably the reason her people had become experts at adapting. You had to know how to adapt, change your plans in the space of a heartbeat, hunker down in the storms and make new plans. And wait. Survival required adaptation and patience.

Rising into the gray sky was the blue billboard with white letters that spelled out
St. Francis Mission
. The rear tires skidded on the slippery new snow as she slowed for the turn onto the mission grounds. Familiar, all of it. The cottonwoods, bare and silent with snow tracing the branches, marshaled on either side of the road. She hadn't seen John O'Malley in several months. She laughed at the idea of not remembering the last time she had seen him. Of course she remembered. The exact day, the sun moving west, a red ball of fire gathering energy for the plunge over the mountains and the wind plucking the sleeves of his plaid shirt. She tried to blink back the memory because memories never meant anything, except that she missed their times working together for her people. She would not blink away the memory of those times.

Just before the road bumped into Circle Drive, which wound through the mission grounds, she turned right onto the road to the school. The low brick building with the two-story entrance shaped like a tipi lifted into the sweep of gray clouds overhead. A few pickups and cars stood about the parking lot next to the school. She slowed down and scanned the side of the road for the driveway, a narrow spread of gravel and snow that crossed the barrow ditch. She swung right, took a diagonal route across the parking lot to the front of the school, and parked at the sign that read Buses Only.

Inside the entrance, the tipi poles rose high overhead around glass panes that shimmered in the fading light. The school had the shocked, left-behind feeling of a deserted building, the life and energy having moved elsewhere without warning. Faint smells of wet wool and used crayons and mud-caked boots floated down the wide corridor that led to the classrooms. At the mouth of the corridor was a glass-enclosed office under bright ceiling lights. The door in the back opened and a round-faced woman with black, silver-streaked hair walked over to the counter that divided the office from the corridor. She slid back a glass window. “Help you?” she called.

“I'm Vicky Holden. I'd like a brief word with Betty White Hawk.”

The woman was shaking her head, silver streaks in her hair catching the ceiling lights. “Betty's on duty. She'll finish her shift soon.” She stole a glance at her watch. “You'll have to wait outside.”

“I'm her lawyer, and I need to speak to her now.”

Lawyer. The word tumbled across the woman's expression. Well, one never knew. A custodian with a lawyer.

“It will only take a moment.”

The woman pushed a clipboard across the threshold of the window. “Sign in here. Technically, I shouldn't allow this, but if Betty's in some kind of trouble . . .”

“She isn't.” Vicky signed her name and added the time: 4:13. “Where can I find her?”

“She usually finishes up in first grade. Three doors down on the left.”

Vicky thanked the woman and started along the green vinyl that gleamed like polished marble. The roar of a motor flooded the corridor. She followed the noise to the third door. Inside, Betty White Hawk hunched over a machine that crawled along the floor, its giant brush reaching under desks and chairs. The noise expanded inside the classroom like wind funneled through a canyon. Vicky maneuvered around a desk and waved. It took a moment before Betty located the switch and turned off the machine. She stood up straight, fingers tightened around the handle as if she were ready to meet bad news head-on with the machine for strength. “Where's Vince?”

“I don't know.” Vicky leaned back against the edge of a desk, grateful for the solid support. “I found him at a liquor store in Riverton. For a few minutes I thought he would come with me to turn himself in, but . . .”

Betty waved away the rest of it. “Vince can make you believe anything. He can change the temperature, the time of day, the day itself, all by making you believe it's different. You know what's funny? He can make you think you got the facts all botched up. I swear”—she was shaking her head, half laughing, half crying—“my son should go to Hollywood and get in the movies. He'd be the best. He's handsome enough, don't you think?” She was crying now, shoulders shaking, knuckles turning white on the handle. “Everything going for him, except the booze. He can't lay off the booze. He's gone somewhere to drink, right?”

Vicky waited a moment to allow the reality to claim its own
place, fill up the vacancy in the room. “There's one thing I don't understand.”

Betty let out a harrumph. “Only one?” She found a tissue in the pocket of her blue jeans and mopped at the moisture on her cheeks. “Sometimes I think I don't understand anything about my son. I've been thinking he's been two or three different people, depending on what he wants you to believe. Vince was twelve when his daddy died, but he figured out he had to be two people. The boy and the man in the house. He had to take care of things, and I . . .” She was crying again, blotting the corners of her eyes. “I encouraged him. He was like a headstrong pony, and I gave him his way. So there he was, fifteen and already drinking like his daddy. He made me believe he could do anything, even quit drinking if he wanted. I've been praying for him to want that.”

“Where did he get the money to go on a bender?”

“What?” Betty's eyes opened in wide circles. She went back to gripping the handle.

“It takes money to drink. He had three bottles in a brown bag when I found him. Last week he tried to rob a woman for money to buy booze. What has he been up to? Did he rob somebody else?” God, it was possible. Staged a robbery, and this time got away with it.

Betty looked as if she had been jolted by a live wire. Then she studied the floor for half a minute before she glanced up, shaking her head. “I gave him money yesterday . . .”

“You gave him money?”

“Five dollars. Not enough . . .” She let her voice trail off. “He was flat broke, and he needed gas money to meet up with some friends. He promised he'd give himself up today, so I figured, what difference did it make if he had a little fun before he went to jail?”

She gripped the handle, knuckles popping out like rocks, then turned sideways and stared at the rows of crayoned stick-figure drawings tacked to the wall.

“What is it?”

Betty stayed quiet a long moment. Finally, she looked back. “It's nothing.”

But it was something, Vicky knew. Something different and new had invaded the space between them, like a physical presence she could sense but not see.

“Tell me, Betty. How did he get the money? What are you afraid of?”

The woman's fingers moved toward the switch. “Vince is a good boy,” she said. “He didn't do anything. Got drunk sometimes, and tried to panhandle that woman, but that was because he needed another drink real bad. He never would have hurt her. Vince wouldn't hurt anyone.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” An index finger moved up and down on the switch.

“Listen to me. I'm trying to help your son. He has a chance if he turns himself in. If there is anything you can tell me . . .”

“I already told you what I know.”

“Who did he go out with last night?”

“What?” A dull, opaque look clouded the woman's eyes.

“What friends? He could be with them now.”

Betty bit her lip. “How would I know? Vince has lots of friends.”

“You knew who to call this morning. You found out Vince had gone to his old girlfriend's place.”

“Yeah. Well, I got lucky.” She had bitten her lip so hard that a tiny trickle of blood started down the crease alongside her chin.
“Besides, chances are none of his other friends are snitches. So what does it matter who they are?”

“I can't help Vince if you won't help me.” This was becoming her mantra, she thought. Help me to help a client who doesn't want my help.

Betty was shaking her head. She stared at the ceiling and ran her finger over the switch. “He'll be okay. He knows what he's doing. He's always had what you call a sixth sense about what's best for him.”

“Don't you understand? The police will come for him with guns. Anything could happen.” And would happen, she was thinking. “I need to find your son.”

Betty stared into some distant space beyond the desks and the tacked-up papers as if she were considering the possibilities. After a moment, she blinked and brought her eyes back to Vicky. “This is all a mistake. Vince must think he's going to be railroaded into prison 'cause he stopped a white woman and asked for a little help. It's no reason to put a man in prison. He's desperate. He knows what he's got to do.”

Vicky took a moment before she said, “There's something else. I think Vince is carrying a gun.”

Betty dropped her eyes and studied the vinyl floor, flecked with brush strokes and lines of wax. She gave a little shrug. There was effort in the way she brought her eyes back to Vicky's. “Ridiculous. Why would Vince carry a gun?”

“Does he own one?”

“He never pulled a gun on that woman at the ATM.”

“No, but he's carrying a gun now. Level with me, Betty, or I can't help him.” Vicky waited, hoping the woman would say something that made sense. Her son was on the run, and he was carrying a gun,
which made it all the more dangerous for the cops to try to arrest him. Betty White Hawk was making excuses, denying facts.

The woman flipped on the switch, and the noise rose to a high, whining pitch. The conversation was over.

Vicky took her time. Turning around, walking toward the door, waiting for the noise to stop and Betty White Hawk to call her back. The noise followed her down the corridor and into the tipi. The glass in the high, pointed ceiling had turned dark with the oncoming dusk.

She sat in the Ford several minutes, replaying every conversation with Betty. Two days ago, Betty had come to the office and begged her to help her son. She had seemed to understand the importance of the deal Vicky had struck with the prosecuting attorney. This morning, Betty had called to say that Vince had disappeared. Then, another call: he was at Dolly's. Always cooperative. At what point had her attitude changed?

The money. The truth of it jumped out at her like a rattlesnake. Vince had gotten his hands on some money, maybe a lot of money. Enough to purchase bottles of whiskey. Enough to make him think he didn't need a deal. Enough to take off, light out of here.

That was what had frightened his mother—the thought of what Vince might have done to get the money.

Vicky fished the mobile out of her bag and tapped in the prosecuting attorney's number. It took a moment to get past the secretary to Jim Peters himself. “I'm going to need more time,” she told him. “A couple of days.”

“Any more fairy tales?” Peters made no effort to conceal the disdain in his voice. “I take it your client skipped.”

“Vince is a sick man. He's drinking, and he's incapable of making a rational decision until he sobers up.”

The line went quiet for several seconds; nothing but the faint sound of breathing. “You got a one-day extension,” Peters said finally. “Then we're coming for him.”

The call ended before she could say anything. She stared out the windshield. The day was moving into evening, shadows lengthening. The voice rang in her head:
we're coming for him.

Finally, she made herself check her messages
.
One message, from Rick Masterson. “Dinner tonight?”