Child of Silence (22 page)

Bo could not close her eyes, could not stop a palsy that turned her legs to sand. Shaking, she leaned against Weppo and merely breathed as Rudy Palachek stumbled through the murky, dust-filled tunnel, a rifle in his hand.

“Ms. Bradley?” he said with irrational courtesy, “It's okay. We got the other one, right back there.” He gestured with the rifle. “With a knife. Cut him up a little, while Andy broke his wrist to get the gun. But he'll live to talk. Don't worry. You can come out now. Bring the boy on out. It's okay. Charlie Garcia brought us here in time.”

Bo tried to move and could not. Every muscle was locked. Her whole body a soundless scream that could not move. Behind her Weppo's shrieks faded hoarsely.

“I scream because I am a bird.” The Paiute chant filled her ears as she stared at the old woman on the stony floor.

“The boy will rise up.”

As tears blurred her vision, Bo began to rock. Just slightly, but enough to break the paralysis. Weppo crept under her arm and then clung to her, rocking softly at her side.

“Uhhhh,” Bo tried to speak, but the sound emerged in a croak.

From behind Rudy, Andrew LaMarche emerged, breathless in a rattle of pebbles.

“Oh, God,” he whispered. “Bo. It's all right. You saved him. Look. He's right there next to you. He's alive. And so are you.”

Bo felt the warm, small body beside her, felt it rise and run to Rudy Palachek, who grabbed the boy in huge arms and hugged him. In the boy's face she saw Laurie smile briefly, and then vanish.

Andrew LaMarche was holding her, pulling her gently from the jagged crevice she'd thought would be her grave. And Weppo's.

“Come on,” he urged quietly. “Let's get you outside. It will be better outside.”

On her feet now, Bo stopped to touch Annie Garcia's face. Even in death the old eyes showed no fear, only that mysterious ferocity, now visibly waning, which was in Bo's experience the signature of those who live fully. Closing the bronze eyelids with her own pale, freckled hand, Bo thought she felt the spirit of the Indian envelop her one last time before the eclipse of death. In the tunnel's chill air Bo sensed a retreating notion her people called Cally Berry— Caillech Bera, the irrefutable truth of death. Somberly Bo stood and allowed herself to be led out the long tunnel. From inside the ancient walls she thought she heard the voice of a little girl who had never talked saying, “Bye, Bo. It's okay now. I know you loved me. Bye.”

Tia Rowe woke somewhat earlier than her usual 6:00 a.m. and rose to open embroidered drapes, refreshed by a sound, untroubled sleep. The girl she hired after Deely left had vanished as well, but no matter. Skiltia Marievski knew how to make her own coffee. And her own future.

Striding to the kitchen in an ecru silk dressing gown that deepened the butterscotch color of her eyes, she glanced at her answering machine. The retarded child had inherited her eyes, the Marievski eyes she remembered flashing from her aging father's face when he told her what he'd done.

“You hated us from the day you were born,” he raged. “You broke your mother's heart with your hate. I pity you because you can feel no love, but I will not place the fruit of my life's work in your hands. You will inherit nothing from me! The paintings, my entire estate will be held in trust for my grandchildren, Kep and Julie, and for their children. Nothing for you, Skiltia, because you have given us nothing!”

The old man died three weeks later.

What a fool, to think she wouldn't get what she wanted in the end.

But the answering machine wasn't blinking. No one had called during the night. They should have called, left the coded message that would tell her it was over. Tell her the monstrous child, the mistake standing between her and twenty-six million dollars, was dead.

Well, they'd call eventually. No point in wasting time worrying about it. Tia Rowe warmed a croissant in the toaster oven and assessed the best possible use of the morning.

Sunday. Hard to accomplish much on a Sunday. People were at church. . . church! Perfect.

Tia drank her coffee and set the Quimper cup back in its saucer briskly. An early mass. The widow alone, seeking solace and strength in prayer. She'd wear black, of course, but not the Givenchy. That would be for the funeral home this afternoon. Something tailored, then? No. Something blousy, feminine. Something to suggest a heart broken with grief.

Finding a Roman Catholic church in the Yellow Pages, Tia left messages for two photographers designating the time and place, and then hurriedly found the gray silk blouse with poufs of white lace at the collar and cuffs. Under the black cape it would be fine.

Twenty minutes later she saw one of the photographers lounging in a car parked across the street from the rectory of Holy Innocents Church. He ambled from the car as she parked her Mercedes near a cluster of young Georgia pines bounding the church property. A handful of people, well dressed and quiet, chatted briefly on the little church's flagstone steps before entering. Tia covered her head with the cape's hood and ignored the photographer as she walked demurely toward the open doors.

“Mrs. Rowe?” he called as she expected. The surprise photo, caught by a vigilant journalist at an unusual moment. Tia looked somberly from beneath her cape at the young man beside the steps.

“Yes?”

“You're under arrest,” came a voice from behind her as two of the well-dressed men lingering on the church steps pulled her arms back and snapped handcuffs over poufs of white lace.

The photographer caught the picture, framed by church doors.

“There's been some mistake,” Tia Rowe pronounced urgently. “You can't do this!”

“No mistake, ma'am,” came the calm reply. “If you'll just come with us now. . .”

It couldn't be happening! The plan had been foolproof. Nothing to it. Just get rid of that wretched child, inherit the money, and win the election. Anything, Tia had known, could be bought. Money was all that mattered. Money, and power! She'd almost had both.

“Your hired boys got caught,” the HPD officer mentioned while handing Tia carefully into a waiting squad car, “up in some California hill country. One of them's dead. The other one talked. And the boy. . . well he's just fine.”

The boy. Tia's mind wrenched, turned on itself in a paroxysm of hate. An idiot she should have suffocated at birth! Because of that thing she'd kept in her attic, it was over. Senseless, that her plans would be wasted because of a brain-damaged, subhuman monster whose life could accomplish nothing.

“I demand to speak with my attorney immediately,” she told the squad car's uniformed driver.

“At the station, ma'am,” he answered.

Behind them the heavy oak doors of Holy Innocents Church swung shut.

Bo woke slowly with a headache she recognized immediately as a sedative hangover. In a bed. Clean sheets. Ugly orange-flowered bedspread, but not of the serviceable twill universally selected by psychiatric hospitals. Maybe she wasn't in a hospital. Then why were there flowers everywhere?

Through narrowed eyes she found the window. Ugly orange curtains to match the bedspread. But no bars.

Okay
,
it's not a hospital
,
but what is it
?
Where are you
?
And where’s Weppo
?

With an effort that sent dull spikes of pain through her bandaged hand she pulled herself up on an elbow and was stunned to see Estrella Benedict in a chair beside the bed, grinning.

“Es? What are you doing here? Where am I? Where's Weppo?”

Estrella appeared to be caught somewhere between tears and laughter. “Dr. LaMarche called early this morning. Henry and I drove up right away. You've been asleep all day.

We're in Bishop, forty miles north of Lone Pine. It was the only place LaMarche could find a decent motel.”

So it was a motel. Of course. Where else would you find plastic “Mediterranean” furniture with reproduction prints of Death Valley under snow? Bo felt tears spilling from her eyes.

“I thought. . .” she began.

“No, no,” her office mate crooned, hugging her. “You're not in a hospital. LaMarche sedated you himself. Everything's all right. You just need to rest for a few weeks, take your lithium. It's all under control. And wait until you hear what that reporter—”

“Weppo.” Bo remembered. “Where's Weppo?”

Estrella smoothed Bo's unruly hair. “Haven't you heard of creme rinse?” She laughed. “Weppo's fine. Off somewhere with Rudy, seeing the sights. I think they're playing miniature golf at the moment. Don't worry. It's over.”

Bo thought of the mining tunnel, Annie Garcia on its floor with a hole in her chest.

“Annie's dead,” she pronounced. “I thought she was Laurie, but. . .”

“Try not to go over and over what happened,” Estrella warned. “Orders from LaMarche's sister in Louisiana. A shrink or something. He's been on the phone with her for hours, trying to figure out what to do with you...”

“
Do
with me!” Bo fumed. “Why in hell does he need to
do
with me?”

She was on her feet in spite of the headache.

“Because he wants to.” Estrella grinned. “I think he likes you, Bo.”

“How flattering,” Bo sniped.

Es merely grinned lasciviously. “About time, Bo.”

In a small refrigerator under the luggage shelf Bo found fruit juice, chocolate eclairs, and Cokes. Estrella handed her a bottle of aspirin.

“Who did all this?” Bo asked, including the flowers with a sweep of her bandaged hand.

“LaMarche. Annie's grandson. That reporter, Gretchen Tally. Everybody. You're a hero. Everybody wants to do things for you.”

“What about Madge?” Bo remembered reality with a lurch. “I suppose I'm out of a job.”

“Nope. Thanks to your reporter from Houston. God, she's good! Threatened Madge with nationwide coverage—‘San Diego Department of Social Services Fires Top Investigator Who Saved Deaf Boy from Hired Gunmen! Film at Eleven!’ Madge went belly-up when she realized sacking you would hurt the department's image. She even decided you have a work-related injury justifying three weeks' paid sick leave. LaMarche thought of that.
Muy astuto
, huh?”

“Muy,” Bo agreed. It was overwhelming.

“And that woman who called you from Houston?” Estrella went on with enthusiasm. “Delilah Brasseur?”

Bo remembered. “Does she know Weppo's okay? Has anybody told her?” The nana would be frantic.

“Tally's paper got a message to her through the preacher at her church. She was hiding out someplace, from that
woman
. . .”

“Tia Rowe,” Bo pronounced. The unanswered question.

“Those flowers are from Brasseur,” Estrella pointed to a bouquet of pink carnations and baby's breath on the night-stand. Bo opened the card.

“Bless you,” it said simply, “from Deely Brasseur.”

Bo sank back onto the bed. The aspirins were helping the headache, but also reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything but seven-grain bread in twenty-four hours. She hoped never to see another slice of seven-grain bread in her life.

A commotion in the hall alerted Estrella, who rose to answer the door.

“That'll be the crew.” She smiled. “I'm glad you're okay, Bo. That office would've been a frigging pit without you.”

A small boy in a large red-and-gold sweatshirt with “USMC” embossed across the chest bounded across the room and into Bo's arms.

“I love you!” she signed, and hugged him hard, unable to let go.

He squirmed in her arms and then looked questioning.

“Food?” he signed, grinning.

A bright little boy. Happy. Hungry.

Reality. Lois Bittner was right. There could be nothing better. How could anyone have wanted to snuff this young life, obliterate it, kill it?

Rudy Palachek, LaMarche, Henry Benedict, and Gretchen Tally poured in the door amid congratulations.

“You're one in a million!” Tally enthused. “I just came by to say goodbye. Got to get back to Houston, plan the coverage for Bea Yannick's win by default on Tuesday. People are going to say she didn't really win. She'll need our support.”

Bo's confusion was evident. “I've been asleep all day,” she said. “What's happened?”

“Tia's in the toilet!” the young reporter crowed. “Thanks to you, and Deely Brasseur, and your Paiute, Annie Garcia. The doctor'll fill in the details. I've got a helilcopter flight to San Francisco, leaves in twenty minutes. The connection'll have me back in Houston before midnight. And Bo,” the young woman's look was sincere, “there will be nothing in the coverage of this story about your manic-depression, nothing that can hurt you.”

“I knew that,” Bo offered in acknowledgment. “I knew you could be trusted, although I wish all this secrecy wasn't necessary. Nobody has to lie about having diabetes or glaucoma or even leprosy.” Bo knew she was lecturing, and didn't care.