The Lost Bird (16 page)

Vicky stepped back. Struggling for a calm tone, she said, “Did it happen, Luther? Did Dr. Markham help some Indian woman find a home for her baby?”

“Listen to me, Vicky. I’ve always given you the lowdown when you come askin’.”

That was true, she thought.

“I’m tellin’ you it never happened. So forget about
it. Tell your client to go lookin’ somewhere else.” He wheeled around and started through the smoke-filled lounge, a stiff, bowlegged walk, like that of a cowboy just thrown by a horse.

Vicky watched until he flung open the door and stepped outside. A column of sunlight slipped into the lounge and dissolved in the smoky air before he slammed the door. As she reached for her bag, she saw that Luther Benson had left a martini glass half-full.

•   •   •

Vicky eased down on the accelerator and pulled onto Main Street. All she had was a hunch. A hunch that Markham could have helped some Arapaho woman place her baby with outsiders, and Luther could have prepared the relinquishment papers. An independent adoption thirty-five years ago, and the elders never knew. But if she was right, why would Luther deny it? All she had wanted to know was
whether
such an adoption had occurred. If it had, then Sharon David’s search here might have some hope of success.

She squinted into the sun bouncing off the bumper of the truck ahead. In her bag was the Los Angeles number for Jeremiah Markham, and she intended to call the famous doctor when she got back to the office, as soon as she dealt with whatever emergency had led Laola to track her down. She expected Markham would also deny involvement with the adoption of an Indian baby. It didn’t matter. She would tell Sharon David about her hunch. Advise the actress to continue her search in the area. There was a chance she had been born at the Markham Clinic to an Arapaho woman.

A block from the office, Vicky spotted the crowd milling about the sidewalk. Traffic ahead was moving
slowly. A line of paneled trucks stood at the curb. She parked behind one with
CHANNEL 2
emblazoned in black on the rear doors.

“Vicky Holden!” Someone shouted as she let herself out. Then the crowd was surging toward her: men shouldering boxlike cameras, women with notepads in hand. A couple of microphone poles sprang overhead.

“Where can we find Sharon David?” a woman yelled.

“Who’s her family?”

“Is it true her Indian parents gave her away?”

“No comment.” Vicky pushed through the crowd, briefcase thrust ahead pointing the way. An attractive woman with wide, serious eyes and wavy blond hair brushing the collar of her red suit blocked the stairway. “Sue Causeman. Channel Two,” the woman said, a hopeful note in the tone. “Can we speak in private?”

Vicky dodged past and hurried up the stairs. The woman’s high heels clicked behind her as she walked along the corridor. “We’re the local news!” the anchorwoman shouted. “We should break the stories about our Indian people, don’t you agree? You’re Arapaho. Surely you can understand the importance of Channel Two covering the story.”

Vicky reached her office door and grabbed the knob. It sat motionless in her hand. Laola must have locked the door. She set the briefcase on the floor and fumbled in her bag for the key, ignoring the pleas of the woman at her side: good human-interest story, movie star comes home.

Out of the corner of her eye, Vicky saw the other reporters moving down the corridor, like water flowing through a canal. She gripped the cold metal key
and jabbed it into the lock as the door swung open.

“Vicky! Thank God you’re back.” Laola reached out one hand as if she might pull her inside.

Vicky slipped past the door, slammed it shut, and threw the bolt. Then she leaned against the wood panel. “How long have they been here?”

“All afternoon. Filled up the reception room.” Laola swept the small room with her eyes. “I kept tellin’ ’em ‘no comment,’ but they kept on askin’ questions anyway. I didn’t know what to do, so I called around to find you. Finally I told ’em they had to wait outside. I thought I was gonna have to throw them out of here. I mean, physically.”

Vicky smiled at the image. Laola had thrown calves in rodeos; she could probably throw reporters out of the office.

“Sharon David’s been callin’ all afternoon,” Laola went on, breathless. “Says she’s got to talk to you right away. You want me to get her on the phone?”

“In a moment.” Vicky pushed away from the door and crossed into her own office. She tossed her briefcase onto the desk, then perched on her chair and pulled the notepad out of her bag. She flipped to the notes she’d scribbled at the Grace Clinic. Gripping the phone, she tapped out the Los Angeles number.

“Dr. Markham’s office.” A woman’s voice, clipped and efficient.

Vicky introduced herself and said she was an attorney calling from Lander, Wyoming. She asked to speak with Dr. Markham.

“What is this about?” A friendlier note seeped into the voice, as if the woman was used to fielding calls from around the country, scheduling the doctor onto
popular television shows, radio stations with the largest audience.

“This is a private matter,” Vicky told her. “It’s important that I speak to Dr. Markham personally.”

There was a moment of hesitation before the woman said, “Dr. Markham is on vacation.”

“Is there someplace where I can reach him?” Vicky persisted.

A light laugh floated over the line. “The doctor’s idea of a vacation is a place where no one can reach him. He’s bow-hunting for elk in the Wind River Mountains.”

Vicky shifted forward in her chair, scarcely believing what she’d just heard. “He’s here?”

“Oh?” Surprise registered in the voice. “The Wind River Mountains must be close to you.”

“He checks with his office, doesn’t he?”

There was a moment of silence on the line. Finally: “I suppose so.”

“Please ask him to contact me.”

A series of explanations sputtered over the line: the doctor didn’t want his vacations disturbed, he didn’t always call, she couldn’t guarantee—

Vicky interrupted. “Tell him it is a serious legal matter.” She gave the woman her telephone number and address.

The instant she hung up, the phone screeched. In another moment Laola was in the doorway. “It’s Sharon again. She says she’s got to talk to you right away.”

Vicky waved an okay and picked up the receiver. It was still warm. “Sharon?”

“I’ve been trying to get you for hours!” The movie star’s voice sounded clear and crisp, as if it were amplified
by surround sound. “The most wonderful thing has happened.”

Vicky waited, listening to the long, drawn-in breaths followed by the rush of words: “I’ve found my real parents!”

14

F
ather John listened to the electronic buzz of a phone ringing somewhere in Riverton. He had waited until almost nine o’clock, a decent time of the morning to return Mary James’s call. Outside his window, light-filled clouds scuttled across the sky. From down the hall came the soft
tap-tap-tap
of computer keys. Megan had settled in Father Joseph’s office an hour ago and, within minutes, it seemed, had taken over the task of planning the reception for the Bishop following the confirmation ceremony in two weeks.

The ringing stopped. A woman’s voice, firm and commanding came on the line: “Mary James speaking.”

For half a second Father John thought he’d reached another machine. He said, “This is Father John O’Malley from St. Francis—”

“Yes, Father,” the voice cut in. “I’ve been awaiting your call. I’d like to meet with you.”

“What is this about?” he asked, a gentle probing.

After a brief pause the woman said, “It’s a personal matter, Father.”

“I’ll be in my office today.”

“Could you come to my home?” An instruction,
rather than a question. “We’ll have a private conversation.”

Father John was quiet, his eyes following the slow advance of a pillowlike cloud over the distant peaks. “Is this about Father Joseph Keenan?”

The woman remained silent so long he wondered if they had been disconnected. Finally she said, “In a way, Father. I’d appreciate a few moments of your time. I’ll leave the bank early and be home by five. I work two days a week,” she added, a kind of explanation. Then she gave him her address.

He told her he’d be there and replaced the receiver. The tapping in Father Joseph’s office formed a background rhythm to the questions tumbling through his mind. Why did the sister of a woman who had taken her own life thirty-five years ago want to talk to him about Joseph Keenan?

He exhaled a long breath and set to work on the papers tumbling over his desk. Classes and programs to plan; liturgies to schedule, volunteers to contact. He made notes for the final confirmation classes. At noon Megan appeared in his doorway. “Do you eat lunch?” she asked, as if last night’s conversation had never taken place.

“You go on,” he told her, not unkindly. Elena would have bologna sandwiches ready, and he’d been waiting for a moment alone. Through the window he watched Megan walk down the front steps—a slow, preoccupied motion. She cut across the field, the red hair glinting in the sunlight. She was like her mother. It surprised him, the image of Eileen still in his mind.

He picked up the phone and tapped out his brother’s number. He knew it by heart. Odd, he thought, since he rarely used it. Mike’s voice left him
momentarily at a loss for words. He’d expected his brother to be at the office. He did not want to ask for Eileen, so he tried for small talk: relaxed greetings and catch-up questions. There was puzzlement in his brother’s responses, an unasked question: why this call in the middle of the day?

He told his brother he was glad Megan had come for a visit. The line seemed heavy with the ensuing silence. Finally Mike said, “So she went running to you, did she? Well, she’s been upset lately. Quit her job. Most likely some trouble with that fiancé of hers.”

“Most likely,” Father John heard himself saying.

“Maybe you can help her. You do a lot of that, don’t you? Counsel people?”

He did a lot of that, he said.

“I don’t have to tell you what the girl means to us.” Father John thought he heard a softening in his brother’s tone. “We want her to be happy, her mother and I. Help her, will you, John?”

Father John replaced the receiver. He felt infinitely sad. How could he help her? How could he convince her that he was not her father, when they both knew it was possible? He pushed himself out of the chair and walked over to the window. Across Circle Drive, Leonard and his son Arnold were loading branches into the back of a pickup. He watched them a moment—father and son. He and Megan would have to get to the truth. And yet . . . the truth could alter reality. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the truth.
Dear Lord
, he prayed.
Help me. Help Megan.

He walked back to the desk and forced himself to concentrate on plans for the final confirmation classes. Then he started on plans for the confirmation liturgy,
working through the noon hour. He didn’t want to sit across the table from Megan, eating a sandwich, sipping coffee. Uncle and niece, an ordinary day. When she returned, she deposited a sandwich and Coke on his desk in the middle of a stack of papers. Sensing her disappointment—why hadn’t he stopped for lunch with her?—he smiled, nodded toward the papers and folders. So much work. A weak excuse, they both knew.

Between bites of bologna sandwich and sips of Coke, he finished the liturgy plans and began working his way through the unanswered mail and messages, jotting replies, making phone calls. Outside the wind had come up. A cottonwood branch clacked against the glass pane. He pushed the papers aside and leaned back, raising the legs of his chair. Something about Father Joseph’s murder had been nagging him all day, like a cold wind at his back.
I believe he went there to die
, the Provincial had said.

He pitched forward. The chair legs slammed onto the carpet as he reached for the phone and punched in the Provincial’s number. A man answered, probably a young priest. There was the familiar runaround before Father Rutherford’s voice came on the line. “John? Have the FBI made an arrest?”

He had to say that wasn’t the case.