Lizardskin (55 page)

“So are you, Dwight. I expected you to be right in there. The ACLU’s all over this, and Maya BlueStones has a whole crowd of SPEAR members there.”

“I see a few people missing.”

“Beau’s coming back from Los Angeles.”

“Oh, yes. That I heard. Dad’s flying him back.”

Vanessa kept the tension out of her voice with an effort. “So Eustace says.”

“Yeah. I don’t see Meagher around, either. I guess he’s out at the airport, waiting for Dad.”

“I guess.”

On the television, there was a sudden stir as a convoy of cars and pickup trucks appeared, coming up the highway outside the television station. A Highway Patrol car was leading it. The cameras bobbed and jumped as the convoy pulled into the curved driveway. Hard white lights played over the lead
vehicles, a white sedan and a battered old pickup. The pickup was full of Indian men carrying rifles and shotguns. The white sedan was driven by a man Vanessa recognized as Charlie Tallbull.

Maureen Sprague was sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, her face stiff with fear. Ice clinked in his glass as Dwight drained it and poured himself another shot.

“There she is,
la belle dame
herself. We ought to be listening to this, Vanessa.” He picked up the remote and keyed it. The television burst into loud chatter.

“—just arrived. According to authorities, this is the woman who was named by the SPEAR spokesperson. We’re told her name is Maureen Sprague. She’s a nurse at the Julia Dwight Clinic in Hardin. We’re going to try to talk to her—”

The female reporter came back into view, jogging along in front of a crowd of people, talking breathlessly into her mike. They came alongside the white car as it pulled up in front of the station doors. The pickup parked behind it, and several Indian men got out, rifles at port arms. They gathered around the white car, facing the surrounding policemen and federal agents. The reporter was being pushed and jostled. The image jumped and bobbled. She shouted questions into the crowd around the cars, finally cornering a wiry older man with ritual braids and a beaded headband.

“Can you tell us what will happen now, sir?”

The man blinked in the harsh light. “She’s going to talk to all of you inside.”

“You’re talking about Maureen Sprague, the nurse who has been accused of stealing babies from the clinic?”

Dwight laughed once, and took another drink.

“She is part of it. Charlie Tallbull is the man you want to talk to. He’s—”

“Did you attack the policeman yourself? Are you a member of this gang?”

“What gang? Lady, will you—”

“We’re told there are others involved. Can you tell us who? Can you give us names?”

“You’ll get them inside.”

“Are you all members of SPEAR? We see a lot of guns around. Do you think there will be violence?”

“No—look, that’s it, lady.”

“Is SPEAR condoning the kidnapping of this woman? Is SPEAR behind the assault on the police officer at the time of the kidnapping?”

The man brushed past her and into the doors. A cordon of police officers held the crowd back as Maureen Sprague walked into the station building, flanked by Indian men carrying Winchesters and hunting rifles. As she disappeared inside, the reporter stepped back into the picture.

“We’re told that there will be a televised press conference in just a few minutes. As you can see, the scene here is pretty wild. I’ve counted at least six different news crews here, and you can see all the police. So far, the authorities are being pretty silent about the charges, but sources close to the case say that this is the end of an ongoing FBI investigation spearheaded by Special Agent Frank Duffy. We’re also told that charges are being drawn up that will implicate individual staff members at clinics in at least two reservations in South Dakota. We can’t tell you any more until the conference begins, other than to say that apparently the nurse we have just seen here, Maureen Sprague, is involved, that she was kidnapped in a violent assault earlier today, during which her police guard was seriously injured. She’s being turned over to the FBI here by members of the militant Indian group SPEAR. I guess we’ll just have to wait for more details, since the police aren’t—”

Dwight shut the sound off.

They sat in silence for a while, watching the woman talk. Dwight shifted, and Vanessa heard a scraping sound. Yellow light flared up briefly.

“You quit smoking, Dwight.”

“Not anymore. Maybe this is where you tell me what’s going on?”

Vanessa exhaled, smelling the cigarette smoke, watching the blue cloud curl into the darkness above the green desk lamp.

“I’m not sure I know, Dwight.”

“You know more than I do. I’m getting used to it.”

“This isn’t about you, Dwight. Don’t get maudlin. There are more important things at stake than your opinion of yourself.”

On the silent screen, the camera was panning across a news-desk as several people filed into the scene and took their seats behind it. There was Frank Duffy, crisp and brisk and freshly starched, and next to him Maya BlueStones, in a traditional Ojibway doeskin dress, her expression bright, her black eyes full of calculation, reading the room. Charlie Tallbull stood behind her, flesh sagging over his hard-boned face, his broken arm out in a brace, bruises and scratches over his right eye. Maureen was sitting next to him, looking up into the glare of the studio lamps, clutching a sheet of white paper. Her green eyes glittered, and she looked leathery and old in the brutal white light. Around her neck, a heavy gold chain sent back shards of yellow fire as she moved. At either side of the news-desk, solemn-faced Indian men stood with their weapons visible, facing the crowd beyond the lights.

“Look at her,” said Dwight. “What a piece of work. Five bucks says she comes out of this with a six-figure advance for a book, an hour with Oprah, and the cover of
People
.”

“She’ll be lucky to come out of this at all. They haven’t handed her over yet.”

“There’s no way she did this all alone.”

“Well, we agree about something.”

“I got a call from a cop named Moses Harper. He wanted to know about Merced. Asked me about Dad’s Cadillac and his plane.”

“Did you tell your father about the call?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he say?”

Dwight sucked on the cigarette, exhaled in a burst. “He said, ‘Thank you, son.’ ”

“That’s it?”

“No. He said, ‘You take care of yourself.’ And he told me he loved me, said he was proud of me.”

Vanessa said nothing. She was thinking about Beau, up in
the night sky with Doc Hogeland, about that shiny blue missile against a field of cold stars.

“Doesn’t sound like my dad, does it?”

“I don’t know, Dwight.”

“Does Meagher think I was in this? Do you?”

“I don’t know, Dwight. Were you?”

Dwight coughed, inhaled again. “Vanessa, I don’t even know what
this
is.”

“Somebody’s been dealing in fetal tissue—or worse. It’s hard to imagine that you could be that close to it all and not know
something
.”

Dwight was quiet for a few beats. Vanessa watched the screen. Maureen was reading from the paper in front of her. Vanessa wanted to hear what was being said. But hell, they’d play it over and over again. And anyway, a case like this, the DA would take it over. He’d never leave it on her desk. To be honest, she didn’t even really want it. It was dirty, one of the dirtiest things she’d ever come across. It would mark anyone who came near it.

“I guess … I guess I knew there was—something. Dad was having me set up these holding companies. I couldn’t see what he wanted with Merced. And a freight company? It wasn’t like him. All these years, it had always been the hospital. The Hogeland Wing, more equipment. The clinics. Then suddenly, he’s into beef and shipping. I asked him, why the shift? He said it was an investment in the future. In my future, he said.”

Meagher had told her what he knew, and what Beau had found at 220 Ditman in Los Angeles. About Danny Burt and Farwest Beef. About Beau’s suspicions. By then, Beau was already in the air. It was too late to stop him. She’d had the chance. She could have taken a leap, told Eustace he could have his warrant. But no, she had to play the cold-blooded, square-the-corners, by-the-book assistant DA. Now it was too late to keep Beau out of the plane. She’d have to live with that, whatever happened. Now here she was, sitting across from a man who was just now finding out that his father might be a monster, and all she could think about was how
she
was feeling and what it meant to her. She’d lost a lot over the
years. Tonight it was becoming clear to her that perhaps she had lost herself. She felt a rush of sadness, for all the people on the reserves, for what those women had suffered and lost, and even some sadness for Dwight.

She lifted her glass and finished her drink, feeling it burn down her throat. She set it down carefully on the desk.

“Dwight, your father—no matter what he’s involved in, that doesn’t change all the good he’s done in his life.”

“No? If he’s done what it looks like he’s done, I’d say that’s
all
there is. He’s … not human. And I’m his blood. Maybe I’m hiding behind the law all the time because I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I haven’t got the rules in front of me, in black and white. You don’t know what it’s like, living with a legend, and now the legend turns out to be a lie.”

“Yes, I do. I know all about that.”

“Oh, sure. Vanessa Ballard. You know what they call you, around the courthouse? The Tactical Nike. Everybody jumps when you come into a room. There isn’t a man in town wouldn’t open a vein to get your attention—me included.”

“Sure, I’m popular as hell. My social life’s a mad whirl. Ever wonder why?”

“We all do.”

“Nobody gets to me because my father … my father was a monster too.”

She couldn’t say it. Not even for Dwight. She didn’t have the strength or the mercy.

Dwight lit another cigarette.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa. I forgot about your father.”

That rocked her. Dwight sat forward in his chair and looked at her through the smoke and the green light, his eyes in shadow, a pool of yellow light lying on his hands on the desktop.

“Mom told me about it a long time ago. She said that’s why Bonnie drank, because she knew that at night, your dad would get out of bed and … Mom said Bonnie would lie there at night in the bed, and she’d try to get up and go stop him. But she couldn’t.”

“Oh, yes. Poor Mom.”

“Yes. She—she failed you. Maybe, these days, maybe it would be different. But back then, people looked away.”

“If you knew this, then how could you bring those charges against Beau? How could you let Maureen go ahead with that charade?”

“Because … because I thought it might be true.”

“Beau? Beau McAllister? Even I wouldn’t buy that. I
know
Beau. I mean, I know the kind of man.”

“Like people knew Augustus Ballard? Or the great Doc Hogeland?”

Feelings welled up around her, and she felt her eyes start to burn. Dwight saw that. He got up and came around the desk, stood beside her, uncertain. Finally, he put a hand on her shoulder. After a moment, she reached up and put her hand on top of his. She watched the yellow pool of light where it lay on the dark wooden desktop. The brass base glimmered and blurred.

Dwight was handing her something. She tried to focus on it. Oh hell, it was a linen handkerchief. She raised her hand to brush it aside, stopped, then accepted it.

She wiped her eyes, feeling the warmth of Dwight’s hand on her shoulder. It felt sweet and strange, and she realized that nobody touched her, not ever. She sighed and looked up at Dwight, at his bruised face and damaged nose.

“You know, Dwight, you look better a little roughed up. Gives you some character.”

“I didn’t bring your dad up to hurt you, Vanessa. I’m sorry. I was trying to apologize. Make it right.”

She looked around the room, at the plaques and photos, at the artworks and the antique rifles, then at the skyline of Billings beyond the glass. Out in the darkness, past the city lights, Montana rolled away under an endless night sky. She felt the pressure of all that emptiness, and the weight of all the years that bore down on the ancient hills and valleys. She sighed and stood up, looked at the damp linen in her hand. Dwight’s face was drawn, pale with shock and worry.

“That’s the trouble with memories, isn’t it, Dwight? You don’t always get to choose what to remember.”

Dwight smiled at her. “Well, Vanessa. I’m going to give it a hell of a good try.”

“Yes,” she said, gathering herself. “So will I.”

Hogeland had the jet throttled back so close to stall speed that the warning light was blipping red in the control panel, and even then the ground under the wing was a blurred impression of round hills, sudden flashing lakes, herds of cattle lumbering out of their flight path, and moonlight flickering like silver fire on hydro lines and the tin roofs of barns and coops as the Lear thundered over the landscape.

Beau, so tight with fear he found it hard to swallow or talk, watched the earth rush past his windshield. He had the vertiginous illusion that they were racing past a huge wall of pale gray hills and valleys.

“Doc, what are you going to do?”

Hogeland wasn’t talking, and Beau didn’t have a single option.

Hogeland didn’t look at him. He had his eye on the altimeter. Beau was watching the hills below them. They flew past under the wings, bulky and rounded, tinted a soft gray by the moonlight.

Moonlight glittered on creeks and rivers threading through the valleys. They looked like bright wires. Little farm ponds glistened like pearls on the strings of the rivers. A grid of lights marked a crossroads. A hard square of blue light was a gas station. Soft yellow circles showed isolated homes and ranches. On a side road beneath them, twin white beams crawled along immense expanses of darkness. Far away to the east, Beau could see ragged tatters of cloud shining against
the clearing night sky, the last of the front that had torn up eastern Montana, then gone off to dissipate itself over South Dakota. Stars showed through the rips and the moon rode above it, clear and brilliant, almost perfectly round. He could see the dark shadows of the lakes and craters on it. At the edge of the moon he saw the crater walls and mountains edged in hard light. He had never seen it so clearly. It held him for a moment, transfixed, until Hogeland’s voice, packed with strain, brought him back again and he looked down at the ground.