“Let me talk to Jenny,” Daniel finally said. Then, as if it was a struggle to pull himself away from his anger, he said to Cork, “How’d it go today?”
Cork filled them in on his progress, or lack thereof. Mathias Paavola was missing, and Cork thought that maybe it was not by his own volition. The sister was no help. He told them about his visit to the Sheriff’s Department, and of Theresa Lee’s desire to help learn the identity of the girl buried in the blueberry patch.
“I think we might already know who she is,” Daniel said, which clearly surprised them all. “Monte put out the word, and we got lucky. An officer from the Three Rivers Tribal Police called him. A little over six months ago, a girl named Fawn Blacksmith was released from the North Regional Juvenile Detention Center. The girl’s grandmother eventually reported her missing, but because none of this occurred on the rez, it was out of the officer’s jurisdiction and in the hands of the Deer County Sheriff’s Department. He contacted them but didn’t get much of a response. He hasn’t heard anything more, but he said he would talk to the grandmother and to the Sheriff’s Department again. He didn’t sound too hopeful. Apparently, the relationship between the tribal police department and the local constabulary isn’t exactly copacetic. Monte and I were planning to go down there ourselves, tomorrow, see what we could find out.”
“Are you going to let Marsha Dross know?” Cork asked.
“Monte wants to keep a lid on this until we’ve spoken with the grandmother. Are you okay with that?”
“She’ll be pissed when she finds out, but I’ll hold off saying anything for now.”
They heard the front door open, and a few moments later, Stephen and Belle walked in, both of them looking exhausted from whatever had occurred at Spirit Crossing that day.
“The pipeline’s lawyers got a judge to sign an order for the encampment to be dismantled,” Belle said. “We’re trying to get the order stayed, but my brother, Anton, is pretty sure they’re going to roust the encampment tomorrow. It could turn into a major confrontation.”
“How’re you doing?” Cork asked.
“Tired,” Belle said.
“You should get some sleep,” Cork suggested.
Rainy glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s late. We should all get some sleep. Maybe in the morning, things won’t look so bad.”
The words sounded wise and hopeful, but when Annie looked outside, all she saw was the gloom of a long night ahead.
She was used to sleepless nights. They went along with the headaches, the trembling, the stumbling. She rose from the bed as soundlessly as possible. Maria went on sleeping. She left the bedroom, descended to the first floor of the house, quietly opened the front door, then eased the screen door open and closed it behind her without a squeak of the spring. She sat on the porch swing.
There were streetlamps at the corners, but most of Gooseberry Lane lay in darkness. No lights shone warmly through the windows of the neighbors’ houses. The moon had not yet risen, and Annie sat with the night wrapped around her like a blanket without substance.
In these sleepless nights, what haunted her wasn’t the prospect of her death. It was the unanswered and unanswerable question of what would come after. She’d been raised Catholic, had wanted all her life to be a bride of Christ. She’d become a novice of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Then she’d become infatuated with another young woman and her life had become nothing but a web of doubt. She’d gone to Guatemala with the Order, intending to work through her doubts. Instead, she’d left the Sisters, still cloaked in uncertainty, and had thrown herself into the work of helping those whose lives were about how to survive one day to the next. Then she’d met Maria. And love had been her salvation.
The headaches began, followed eventually by the other signs. By the time the neuro-oncologist in Guatemala City told her that the tumor on her brain was advanced and inoperable, she had, he guessed a year, or perhaps two, left. That was thirteen months ago.
She had thrown herself even more fervently into the work of helping the poor and the ignored in the barrio on the edge of the city. Gradually, her strength left her. The headaches grew in frequency. The tremors were more evident, the stumbling more frequent. And more and more, the wonderment about death was on her mind.
Maria’s middle name was Cocum, which meant listening in the language of the Mayan people. It was perfect for her. Annie didn’t ask for answers, and Maria didn’t offer them, content to supply a comforting shoulder for Annie’s weary, confused head.
Growing up, Annie had believed in heaven. But she’d spent so much time in the hell of poverty and ignorance and the heartlessness of those who could help but did not that she no longer believed. Heaven was loving Maria and the comfort of lying in her arms. And she was afraid that when she died, what came after would be a hellish eternity without that love, without that comfort.
The pickup truck came up Gooseberry Lane with its headlights dark. It cruised past and, at the end of the block, made a U-turn and came back. It parked across the street. The engine died and the truck sat. The brief flicker of a flame and the dot of a yellow ember afterward told Annie someone had lit a cigarette. She couldn’t see inside the cab. Although the truck was on the far side of the street in front of the neighbors’ house, Annie knew it wasn’t the people who lived there, the O’Loughlins, who were of interest.
Wrapped in her own cloak of darkness, she must have been invisible to the watcher. She thought of Waaboo. Someone besides the reporter knew about her nephew. Someone knew where he lived. She was glad that Jenny had moved Waaboo to Crow Point so quickly. What they—whoever these people were—were afraid of seemed obvious to Annie. They feared that the boy who saw things others did not would see them.
Her concern for herself left her. Now she was fiercely afraid for Waaboo. She stood, impulsively intending to stride down the sidewalk, cross the street, and confront them. But just as she took her first step, a light in the living room behind her came on, and she was exposed. The truck engine kicked over, and the pickup took off down the street.
The front door opened and Annie’s father stepped outside.
“You okay?” he asked.
“There was a truck on the street, Dad. Someone was watching the house.”
“Wait here.” Cork started toward the porch steps.
“I’m going with you,” Annie said.
They hurried to the street together. The pavement under Annie’s bare feet was still warm from the afternoon sun.
“Which way?” Cork said.
“There.” Annie pointed in the direction the truck had gone, but the street was empty now.
“Let’s go back to the porch,” Cork said. “I’m going to turn off the light inside. We’ll see if they come back.”
Her father killed the living room light, and they sat for a long time in the porch swing, waiting.
“Trouble sleeping, huh?” Cork said.
“A lot on my mind,” Annie said.
“Things left undone in Guatemala?”
Instead of answering, Annie nodded toward the tree in the front yard. “I remember climbing that elm when I was a kid and my knee got stuck in a wedge between a couple of high branches.”
“I remember, too,” her father said. “You were ten. You were always climbing that tree.”
“You climbed up and got my knee unstuck.”
“And the next day, you were right back up there.”
