When the Wind Blows (31 page)

He tapped on the office door, and when Bill called for him to come in, he opened it and stepped inside. Bill looked up. Smiling at Dan, he took off his glasses.

“Thank God,” he said, forcing a lightness into his voice. “I was afraid it might be a patient.”

“Nope,” Dan said. “Just need to talk to you about something.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Bill replied. “Fire when ready.”

Without preamble Dan dumped the strange idea that had been building in his mind squarely in Bill’s lap. “What do you think of Diana Amber as a suspect?”

“A suspect for what?” Bill asked.

“Kim and Jay-Jay,” Dan replied.

Now Bill stared at him. “Diana?” His voice was incredulous. “How can you call Diana a suspect?”

Dan tried to smile, but failed. “By reaching real
far,” he said. “She’s a suspect on the basis that she was in the area when Kim drowned, and she was near the mine the night Jay-Jay died. So that makes her a suspect, right?”

“Oh, come on, Dan. She was at home in bed when Jay-Jay died.”

“So she says,” Dan agreed. “But she lives near the mine. I told you I was reaching.” He sighed as Bill’s expression failed to soften. “Dammit, I don’t like it any better than you do, but so far she’s all I can come up with. And you must have heard what a lot of people in town have been saying.”

“Then why talk to me about it?” Bill asked, his voice cold. “I can think of a hundred people—hell, two hundred—who would be more receptive to that idea than I. Why’d you come here?”

Dan leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “’Cause you’re a doc, and I’ve got a weird idea.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Bill said. Then, seeing the unhappy look on Dan’s face, he relented. “Okay, let’s hear it. But I warn you, I’m going to tear it to pieces if I can.”

“It has to do with the wind,” Dan said. “The wind was blowing the day Kim Sandler drowned, right?”

“I don’t remember,” Bill said. “It’s been blowing a lot lately.”

Dan nodded. “That’s what I was thinking about. I know it was blowing the night I found Jay-Jay in the mine.”

“Can’t you get to the point?” Bill asked.

“I’m not sure there is a point,” Dan replied. “I’m just thinking out loud. Since I don’t have any idea what happened to those kids, I’m trying to figure out what
could
have happened.”

“All you’ve said so far is that Diana
could
have killed them,” Bill retorted. “As far as I’m concerned,
that’s not possible. If she had, she’d have been the first person to tell you.”

“What if she didn’t remember?” Dan suddenly asked.

Bill felt an icy chill of fear pass through him as he recalled his conversation with Edna Amber. Had she told the same story to Dan Gurley? “What gave you that idea?” he asked as casually as he could.

“Nothing concrete,” Dan admitted. “It’s just that the wind affects people strangely. Makes them behave funny. And I just got this idea—”

“Well you can forget it,” Bill said. “There’s nothing wrong with Diana Amber.”

“Isn’t there?” Dan asked, his voice dangerously quiet. “I know it’s none of my business, but about ten years ago Diana spent a couple of nights in the hospital down in Pueblo. The mental hospital. Do you know what that was all about?”

“No, I don’t,” Bill said, his voice tight. “And you’re right—it isn’t any of your business, or mine either.”

Dan chewed his lower lip thoughtfully and scratched at his nose. “If it comes to it, I suppose I could subpoena her medical records,” he said at last.

“On nothing more than an idea? You know better than that, Dan.”

“It’s more than an idea, Bill. She was in the area when the kids died, and she was once in a mental institution. That’s exactly the grounds we used to hold Juan Rodriguez. The only difference between the two of them is that Juan’s a poor, retarded half-breed, and Diana’s a rich, well-educated white woman. Now, do you want to tell me whatever you know about Diana, or shall I go up there and arrest her?”

“You won’t do that,” Bill said.

The two men’s eyes met, challenging each other, and in the end it was Dan who backed down. “No,” he
said at last, “I guess I won’t. But I’ll be keeping my eye on her,” he added. “Particularly when the wind blows.”

   Diana and Christie spent the morning of the Fourth of July in the kitchen, happily building a macaroni salad that would serve sixteen. Ever since Jay-Jay’s funeral, the weather had been calm, and the tension in the Amber house had eased, though Christie could sense the constant strain between the two women she lived with. But as the week had gone by, and Diana had shown her nothing but love, she had begun to think that maybe the bad times, the times when people had died and she had never known what to expect from her guardian, were over. Slowly she had begun to relax. Now, confident that she wouldn’t be punished for it, she filched a piece of boiled egg as Diana scanned the cupboard.

“What about tuna?” Diana asked. “Shall we throw some in?”

“Yuck,” was Christie’s automatic response.

“It might be good,” Diana protested. “We can at least try it.”

She took the can off the shelf, opened it, and shook it into the salad. When she’d stirred it in, she offered a spoonful to Christie, who made a face, tasted it, then grinned. “Hey! It is good. What else can we put in?”

She began going through the pantry and eventually piled several things on the sink. Diana looked them over, then approved all but the marshmallows.

“My dad always used to put them in fruit salad,” Christie objected as Diana put them away.

“That’s fruit salad. This is different. The olives, pimientos, and water chestnuts are plenty.” While Christie began opening the little cans, Diana started cleaning up. As she wiped the sink Edna appeared at the kitchen door. She stood silently, her face fixed in an expression of disapproval, watching them.

“Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind and come, Mama?” Diana asked.

“Why would I? I’ve never gone to their little parties, and I’m too old to start now.”

“But it’s going to be fun,” Christie said. “We’re going to have games, and contests, and fireworks. You’d have a good time, Miss Edna. Really!”

“I hardly think a nine-year-old knows what would amuse a woman of eighty-odd,” Edna observed. As Christie’s happy expression crumbled Edna turned to her daughter. “I think we’d better have a little talk before you go, Diana,” she added. Then she turned to leave, and Christie and Diana listened to her cane thumping on the stairs as she labored up to the second floor.

“Isn’t she going to let us go?” Christie asked anxiously when they were alone.

“It’s not up to her,” Diana declared. “Finish cleaning up, and I’ll go talk to her.”

Leaving Christie in the kitchen, Diana climbed the stairs. Edna was in her room, standing at the window, staring out. She seemed to be looking at the mine.

“Mama?”

Edna turned, and her clear blue eyes held Diana’s. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to talk you out of going to that picnic,” she said.

“No, Mama. If it were just me, I wouldn’t go. But I don’t want Christie to miss it.”

“She could go with the Crowleys,” Edna suggested. “They seem a decent enough couple.”

Diana took a deep breath. “I’m going, Mama. Bill Henry is picking us up, and that’s all there is to it.”

Edna sighed and lowered herself into a chair. Over the past few days her age seemed to have caught up with her, and she felt too tired to argue with Diana. “Very well, but I want you to promise me something. If the wind comes up, I want you to come home right away.”

Diana’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What makes you think the wind will come up?”

“I didn’t say it would,” Edna corrected her. “I said
if it does
. You know how the wind affects you.”

“It gives me a headache, sometimes,” Diana admitted, her voice guarded. What was her mother getting at?

Edna wrapped an afghan around her shoulders, despite the growing heat of the day. “It does a lot more to you than that, and if it begins blowing, I want you at home.”

“All right, Mama,” Diana said. She, too, was tired of arguing with her mother, but she couldn’t keep her exasperation out of her voice.

“And don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady,” Edna automatically responded.

Anger welled up in Diana, but she knew there was no point in expressing it. Her mother would only match it, and soon they would be involved in one of their battles. In the end she was certain to lose.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said, injecting her voice with as much contrition as she could muster. “I’ll leave you some lunch.”

Edna glared at her balefully. “Are you sure it won’t be too much trouble?” The acid in her voice stung Diana, but she tried not to show it.

“It won’t be any trouble at all.” She left her mother’s room and hurried downstairs.

“Christie? Are you going to change your clothes?”

“No.”

Diana surveyed the little girl and wished she could convince her to change from her jeans into a dress. She would be so much prettier. But she knew it was useless—all the kids would be wearing jeans.

“Okay. What else do we need?”

“What are we going to put the salad in?”

Diana thought for a minute. “A picnic basket. There’s one upstairs. Come on.”

They climbed up to the third floor, and Diana unlocked one of the storerooms. As she rummaged around, searching for the ancient wicker basket that she remembered having seen up there, Christie began looking around.

Something caught her eye.

“That’s my suitcase,” she said, pointing to the top shelf.

Diana straightened up and looked where the child was pointing.

“No, it’s not,” she said uncertainly. “Why would it be up here?”

“It
is
mine,” Christie insisted. Using the shelves as a ladder, she scrambled up and pulled at the suitcase.

“Leave it alone, Christie,” Diana said sharply, but it was too late. The suitcase crashed to the floor, and the lid flew open.

Out of it tumbled the Lyons family album. Christie stared at it, then at Diana.

“Why did you put it in here?” she complained.

Diana, flustered, tried to think of a reason.

Vaguely she could remember having put the suitcase on the shelf, but she couldn’t remember why.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Take it to your room, if you want to.”

As Christie picked up the album and left the storage room, Diana continued hunting for the picnic basket. And as she hunted she tried to remember the day she had brought Christie’s things home. But all she could remember was that on that day, the wind had been blowing.

   Bill Henry slid his car into a spot between the Crowley’s pickup and the Penrose’s new Chevy and grinned at Diana. Though he was still concerned about his talk with Dan Gurley earlier in the week, he had not mentioned it to Diana, nor did he have any
intention of spoiling the picnic for her by telling her today. Perhaps he would never have to tell her at all.

“Sure you’re ready for all this bucolic excitement?”

“I’m going to love it,” Diana assured him. “I don’t know why I’ve let Mother keep me from coming all these years. Christie, isn’t that Jeff over there?”

Christie scrambled out of the car and ran off toward the baseball diamond, where Jeff and Steve Penrose were trying to find enough people for a softball game. So far the square wasn’t crowded, but here and there various people had spread blankets on the tables, reserving space for themselves and their friends.

Diana noticed that the Jenningses and the Sandlers had chosen a spot as far away as possible from the area near the statue of Amos Amber, where Joyce Crowley and Rita Penrose were unloading baskets of food. While Bill lifted Diana’s basket from the trunk of the car, she hurried toward the two women.

Diana tried to concentrate on the chatter that Joyce Crowley was determinedly keeping up, but as the square began filling up she was acutely aware that many people seemed to be avoiding her.

The mothers of Amberton were keeping their distance.

   On the baseball diamond, Steve Penrose had finally succeeded in getting a game going, though he didn’t think he had much of a team. He was pitching, and Jeff Crowley was catching, but he was stuck with only Christie and Susan Gillespie to cover everything else.

“Come on, Susan,” he yelled. “What are you doing in right field? Nobody hits out there.”

Susan obediently trotted up toward first base, and the next ball went flying over her head into right field.

“I don’t wanta play,” she shouted, but ran after the ball anyway. By the time she had fielded the fly a home run had been scored.

The other team, seven boys, hooted and jeered. Steve Penrose shrugged and walked off the field.

“Come on,” he called. “This isn’t even fair.”

The rest of his team joined him, and the other team began a game of work-ups.

Bill Henry was the first to see the four children coming toward the tables. “Beat ’em already?” he asked Steve.

Steve made a face but said nothing.

Diana, seeing that Christie’s eyes were filling with tears, asked her what had happened.

“The other kids didn’t want to play with us,” she said. “They wouldn’t choose up sides, so we said we’d be a team. But there aren’t enough of us, and Susan and I aren’t any good anyway.”

“Susan can’t throw, and Christie can’t catch,” Jeff added. Then his eye began to twinkle. “But it didn’t matter because none of us can hit anyway.”

Steve Penrose suddenly started laughing. “Who cares about that? We would have just chased balls for them all day. We never could have gotten them out.”

“Sounds like you quit while you were ahead,” Joyce Crowley said.

“We were six runs behind,” Jeff told her, then looked perplexed when the adults laughed. “Can we eat now?” he said.

   Late in the afternoon the breeze picked up, and instinctively everyone looked toward the mountains. The clouds that had been visible all day were roiling in the distance, and the people of Amberton looked at each other and nodded.

“Off-season chinook,” someone said. “Gonna blow all night.”