Mockingbird Songs (27 page)

Rebecca just stared blankly at Dr. Sperling. Whatever life she thought she was going to have had just ended. The future was some wild unknown, and she was scared beyond belief.

“Let me give you something to calm your nerves,” Sperling said, and from a small cupboard against the wall, he produced a pill bottle, tipped out two, handed them to Rebecca with a glass of water.

She took them without thinking, without even asking what they were, and Sperling sat with her until a dazed and slightly disconnected sense of unreality overtook her thoughts.

She smiled at the doctor, and when she asked him what they were going to do, he simply said, “I don’t know, Mrs. Riggs … To be honest, I really don’t know.”

THIRTY-SIX

Henry and Evie had sat up late the night before. Glenn Chandler had sat with them, too, drank a couple of beers, talked of nothing significant, and the sense that Glenn was avoiding the issue at hand seemed as real as anyone present. It was the elephant in the room. Evan Riggs’s daughter. Carson Riggs’s change of heart. The reason for Henry’s presence in Calvary. Of course, Evie herself was now rapidly becoming just as good a reason to be there. Henry watched her laugh with her father, caught the odd moment as she turned and looked at Henry, her eyes flashing with humor. He felt a very tangible connection, a sense that she—above and beyond everyone else—truly understood what he was doing and why. He hoped that their partnership would last so much longer than the search for Sarah.

Later, lying beside her, those few minutes before he himself drifted into sleep, he questioned his own motivation. Had it now become a matter of stubbornness, the unwillingness to back off, the blunt fact being that he would not be swayed by Carson Riggs? Having spent more than three years doing exactly what he was told, had this now become his way of fighting back? Carson Riggs was a figure of authority. He was a man of the law. Fuck the law. Fuck Carson Riggs.
I will find what I want, and I don’t give a damn what you do to stop me.
Was that all it was now?

It didn’t matter. He had set himself on a course to do this thing, and regardless of any additional reasons he might find to do it, his promise to Evan was enough. It was with this certainty that he slept, and when he awoke the certainty remained.

They set out right after breakfast. The featureless road gave onto an all-too-familiar landscape. West Texas had no dearth of towns that looked much as the one left behind, identical to the next you’d happen upon, no matter the direction taken. The flat horizon was punctuated with grain towers, water towers, irrigation pivots and pumps, all evidence of folks trying to give the land what it did not have, or prevent the weather taking it away. Dusty caliche roads ran away left and right, took you out through fields of bluestem, buffalo grass, Indian stem, every once in a while a grove of cottonwood or willow to break up the monotony.

They spoke little. Henry drove while Evie smoked, careful to ensure each butt was thoroughly extinguished before flicking it from the pickup. Prairie fires had taken lives and livelihoods with less than a thoughtless cigarette.

It was a little after nine when they arrived, and when Henry Quinn and Evie Chandler pulled into the main drag on Monday morning, it felt more like a ghost town than the end of Henry’s quest.

They were looking for an orphanage, maybe some kind of fostering home, and, with a population exceeding little more than one and a half thousand, they figured it shouldn’t be too hard. A town like this everyone would know everyone, and if they didn’t, they’d know someone who did.

They asked first at the post office.

“Orphanage?” the woman asked. She shook her head. “Never been no orphanage here, son.”

“Maybe some kind of fostering place?” Evie asked.

The woman frowned. “How far back you talkin’?”

“Would be twenty years, maybe,” Henry said.

“Well, I don’t know whether it’s gonna be of any help, but there was a family called Garrett who used to look after some strays. That was years ago, though.”

“They still here?”

“He is, she isn’t, far as I know.”

“You know where he lives?”

“I do, yes,” the woman said, and gave them directions.

The house to which they were directed did not seem at all like the place Henry had expected.

Close to ramshackle, whoever lived here could not have possessed a shred of domestic pride. Little more than a wood-built lean-to crudely appended to an almost-derelict single-wide, the roof of both structures a patchwork of exhausted felt, corrugated sheeting, random boards, and a length of threadbare carpet upon which was growing some sort of bright-colored moss. The steps up to the front door were lengths of railway sleeper, as far as Henry could guess, and when he approached and knocked on the door, it felt as if the whole structure reverberated sufficiently to risk collapse.

“This is bullshit,” Evie said as they waited. She wore an expression like some bad smell had assaulted her nostrils.

Henry said nothing. What could he say? He knocked again and stepped back as he heard movement.

Predictably, the man who appeared from the side of the building was carrying a shotgun.

“Hell do you want?” he said.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we were told to come looking for you by a woman at the post office,” Henry said. “Got word that you used to run some kind of orphanage or somethin’.”

The man shook his head. “Hell, that’s all history now, son. That was a good deal o’ years ago.”

“We just came to ask about someone that may have stayed with you,” Evie said. “That was all.”

“Lot of kids stayed with us,” Garrett said. “That’s what we did. Looked after kids no one wanted until they found a home. Thankless task, if you ask me, but that’s what we did.”

“There was a girl,” Henry said. “Born in late forty-nine. Mother was from over Calvary way; father was a singer called Evan Riggs.”

The man smiled a crooked smile. “You’d be speaking of Sarah.”

Henry felt an unexpected rush of emotion bloom in his chest. He felt light-headed for a moment. He looked at Evie. Evie opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

“Sarah, yes,” Henry said. “That was her name. Sarah.”

“She be dead,” Garrett said. “Good while now.”

Henry’s eyes widened. His intake of breath was audible. He looked back at Evie once more. She looked stunned, her brow furrowed, her shoulders sagged, as if those three words meant everything and nothing at the same time.

“Dead?” Henry asked.

“Dead is what I said, boy.”

“But … but how? When? What happened?”

“She died. That’s what happened,” Garrett said. “Ain’t no point to dress it up fancy. She got the pneumonia when she was all of seven or eight years old. Killed her stone dead. Had a rash of them here, Calvary, too. Whole bunch o’ kids. Adults, too.”

“She’s dead?” Henry asked Garrett, as if repeating the question would somehow change the answer.

Garrett looked at Evie. “He a bit simple-minded or what?”

Evie shook her head. “He’s just shocked, Mr. Garrett. He’s been looking for her, and we never expected that she’d be dead.”

“Well, in my experience, what you expect and what you get is rarely the same thing, miss. Life is pretty much rough corners an’ sharp angles. That’s a fact right where it stands.”

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Henry said.

Garrett took a step closer toward them. “Seems our business is done, eh?”

Henry was still in disbelief. He kept shaking his head and sighing. He thought about Evan, about what he would say, about the defeat such a thing would bring to the man. The weight of this was sufficient to crush him, Henry believed, considering then that the idea of one day seeing his own daughter had been the sole motivation for Evan’s staying alive in Reeves. Take this away, and what did he have?

“Are there any records, any documents, any pictures of her?” Evie asked.

Garrett shook his head. “You wanna know the history, look elsewhere, girlie. My wife done raised up that girl only to see her die. And she wasn’t the only one. Boys, too. Broke her heart. Broke her mind. She up and burned everything … clothes, shoes, toys, pictures, everything. Done killed herself a year later. Been livin’ alone with naught but conscience for company ever since.”

“Oh, Christ …” Evie exhaled, and even though it was not her loss, she looked close to tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Gotta be sorry for? You didn’t kill her. Only thing you done is remind me of it.”

“Well, then, I am sorry for that, Mr. Garrett,” she said.

“No need for sorry, sweetheart. What’s done is done.”

Evie turned to Henry. “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s not trouble Mr. Garrett any further.”

Henry nodded but said nothing. She stepped back, took his arm, steered him toward the pickup, and opened the door for him.

“Start the engine, Henry,” she said, and he complied.

Pulling away, she waved back at Garrett, and he raised his hand in response.

“She’s dead,” Henry muttered to himself as they reached the main drag of Menard.

“Sad fucking business,” Evie replied, and yet she could not shake that ghost of doubt at the back of her mind. Something was awry. She knew it. Knew it in her bones.

They drove back to Ozona in near silence, Evie wanting to say something, anything, but there were no words. The atmosphere in the car was as if packed tight with thunderclouds. Henry started to say something a couple of times, but then his thoughts fell short of verbal realization.

Both of them spoke when they turned down the drive toward the Chandler place.

“Oh, hell,” Evie said.

“What the fu—” Henry started, but left it unfinished.

Alvin Lang stood beside his black-and-white outside her house, a smug grin on his face, and they knew then that whatever trouble they had started into had only just begun.

“Mr. Henry Quinn,” Lang said as Henry exited the pickup.

“What the hell you doin’ here, Alvin?” Evie asked, at once challenging and aggressive, though beneath the bravado there was a clear tone of anxiety.

“Attendin’ to some business that don’t much concern you, Evie Chandler,” he replied.

“You have business with me?” Henry asked.

“Reckon I do, son,” Lang said.

“Concerning what? This business with Evan’s daughter? If it’s that, then it’s finished. We went out to Menard, found out that Sarah is dead.”

“That so?” Lang asked, seemingly disinterested.

“You aren’t surprised, Alvin?” Evie asked. “Or did you already know she was dead before you sent us?”

“Didn’t know nothin’,” Lang replied. “And I don’t care to know much of anythin’ now. Not here to talk about that. Here to talk about something a good deal more serious.”

Henry knew that. He felt it in the pit of his gut.

“What
are
you doing here, Deputy?” he asked.

Lang reached into the car and took out a brown paper bag. From it he withdrew another bag, clear plastic, and within that was some kind of parcel, again wrapped in clear polythene.

“This here belongs to you, I guess,” Lang said.

Henry frowned. “What is that?”

“Some kind of unlawful substance, I figure,” Lang said.

“The hell you talkin’ about?” Evie said, her expression already giving up her anxiety.

“Like I said, Miss Chandler, this ain’t none o’ your business. This here is business between Henry Quinn and the Redbird County Sheriff’s Department.”

“So I’m asking,” Henry said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Lang smiled like a lizard. “Seems we got some marie-joo-ana here, son. A good deal of it. All wrapped up like a Christmas present and your fingerprints all over. That’s what we got, son, and that’s what’s gonna git you right back in Reeves. Correct me if I am wrong, but you’re on parole.”

Henry knew then what they’d done. Riggs had sent him over to Lang’s with the parking tickets. Lang never took that parcel of tickets off of him, asking him to set it down on the table. Used that wrapper to bundle up some weed, and now they had him.

The world closed in a little. Lang was right; Henry was on parole; one violation and he was back at the county farm for another year, and then whatever they could slap on the tail end for possession, maybe intent to supply.

“Now, seein’ as how you been stayin’ here, you’ll find that I done searched the house for more drug evidence,” Lang said. “You may find things a little all over the place, so to speak, but you have to be thorough, you know?”

“You son of a bitch, Alvin Lang,” Evie hissed. “You goddamned spineless asshole son of a bitch.”

Lang frowned, though the expression was mocking. “You be careful with that sharp tongue, there, missie,” he said, “or you’re gon’ find yourself with a charge o’ complicity to sell and supply this here primo numero uno Mexicana weed.

“Now all that remains is for me to search your vehicle, Mr. Quinn, and you can either let me do that right here and now, or I can send for a truck and we’ll get it towed in and taken apart.”

“What the—” Evie started, but Henry grabbed her arm.

“Do it,” he told Lang. “I know what you’re looking for, and you ain’t gonna find it.”

Lang didn’t hesitate. He took his time, and he was thorough, and when he was done, he looked at Henry Quinn and they both knew what the search had really been about.

“I know what Sheriff Riggs wants, Deputy … I just don’t know why. Did he kill the girl? Is that what happened? Did Sheriff Riggs kill his own niece?”

Lang shook his head. “I have no clue what you’re talkin’ about, son,” he replied.

“What is he hiding, Deputy Lang? Why is he so afraid?”

“Afraid? Carson Riggs afraid? Is that what you think?” Lang laughed dryly. “Day I see Carson Riggs afraid of anything is the day I know the whole world is done for.”

Henry nodded slowly. “You got what you wanted,” he said. “I ain’t goin’ back to Reeves. Not for nothin’. You tell Sheriff Riggs that we is all done and dusted on this business. I’ll be stayin’ a while, I guess, over in Ozona, but let’s call it a little postrelease R ’n’ R. Then I’ll be on my way and you won’t ever hear from me again.”

Lang smiled. “Knew you weren’t dumb, Henry Quinn, and Sheriff Riggs ain’t a man to bear a grudge. However, things will stay just as they are until we see you’re gone for good. This ain’t a game, Mr. Quinn. We ain’t friends, and we ain’t never gonna be friends.” Lang took a step forward, looked at Henry, turned and looked at Evie. “You make your own bed, you gotta lie in it. You been told a coupla times to mind your own affairs and not be concernin’ yourself with anyone else’s, but you saw fit to keep on kicking the dog. Well, even the most patient dog is gonna get up and bite you, you know? This one’s got big teeth, bigger than you think, and this dog has been around a long time and has gotten himself some mighty important friends. Are we seein’ eye to eye, Henry Quinn?”