Land of Echoes

33

Donny got to the restaurant just as Nick pulled his black SUV into the parking lot. He checked his watch and found that it was eleven-twenty, just as they'd planned, a few minutes early. Nick would have time to bring him up to date before the nurse arrived.

They went inside together. He had decided to make it a threesome for the lunch with Lynn Pierce, given that Gallup was directly on the way to the mine and his one-thirty meeting with the parapsychologist. Might as well help flatter and cajole the nurse and hear what she had to offer firsthand. It wasn't Tuesday's regular bill of fare, but Donny was glad to have an excuse to get out of Albuquerque. Anyway, there were some scary overtones to this latest thing of Julieta's. The sooner he cleared them up, the better.

Inside, there were no other customers-they were ahead of the lunch rush. They took seats at a booth toward the rear, ordered coffee, and set the menus to one side. Nick seated himself so that he had a clear view of the front door, Donny noted, and would see the nurse when she arrived, give them a few seconds' warning. A competent guy.

Donny grinned and rubbed his palms together expectantly as Nick put a slim leather briefcase onto the table, opened it, and pulled out a few sheets of paper.

"Okay. The photo I got from the university. That your gal?" Nick turned around a brochure and handed it to Donny.

It was a UNM psychology conference schedule with a photo of each of the featured speakers alongside a one-paragraph bio and a summary of their lecture topic. Donny scanned the faces, found Cree Black's earnest face, and nodded as he read her blurb.

"That's her."

"Good." Nick took it back just as the waitress brought their coffees. The big man thanked her pleasantly and gave her a flash of Czech-Irish charm, warming up for the main act. When she left, he carefully stirred three plastic cups of creamer into his coffee and tasted it doubtfully.

"What else you got?" Donny asked, feeling good as a coffee glow replaced the sharper burn of acid reflux in his chest.

"Ran an Internet search. Lot of entries, but I looked at every one of them. Lot of her activities are like this one, kind of on the margins of academic psychology. Couple of more sensational things about her investigating a famous haunting or something. Sometimes she debunks ghost stories, too. Then I found a few of these." Nick frowned meaningfully as he slid a few sheets across the tabletop.

Donny took the papers and felt his good mood vanish. These were copies of newspaper articles from different parts of the country, Sunday features-type pieces of the "Frustrated Police Turn to Psychic" variety. All three were about homicides in which the police had asked or allowed Lucretia Black to assist. All reported that she was making "substantive contributions" to the solution of the cases. Only one of the articles was a follow-up item: " 'I can't explain it,' said a jubilant Detective Howard Lathrop of the Mason County, Michigan, Sheriffs Department. 'I was highly skeptical at first and it was definitely not the kind of consulting we'd usually solicit. But Dr. Black gave us information that we were able to verify and that led directly to the apprehension of the suspect.'"

Donny tossed the papers back at Nick, who slotted them back into his briefcase.

"I wonder how much she paid jubilant Detective Howard Lathrop for that little endorsement? Must have been quite a shot in the arm for her ghost-busting business."

"I got one more," Nick said. "This was deep in the pile. Seems she's a licensed private investigator in the state of Washington. You want to see?"

Donny scowled and waved it away.

Nick shrugged his big shoulders, put the briefcase on the seat beside him, wrapped his meaty hands around his cup. They both drank reflectively for a moment.

" So-" Nick began.

"So nothing. We see what our friend has to say, meet the spook at the mine, and take it from there." Donny finished his coffee and glared around the restaurant for the waitress. "It's probably nothing. And I sincerely fucking hope so, because that's all the time I have for it-none."

He glanced up to see that Nick's expression had suddenly turned boyish and sunny, and then the big man was sidling out of the booth. Donny turned to see the nurse coming through the door.

"It's been too long, Lynnie," Nick told her. "You're looking great. I take it life's treating you good?"

Sitting across from Donny, Lynn Pierce looked tiny next to Nick's bulk. She had ordered coffee, too, and now tasted her cup delicately. She had dressed up a bit for this meeting, Donny saw, wearing a snappy brown blazer with a silk scarf at her throat; her hair shone like a silver dollar. But in fact she didn't look great. Her speck-eyed gaze seemed more lopsided than ever, and her face looked old and a little crazed, kind of the way she'd looked at Vern's funeral.

"Life," Lynn said, "is treating me… interestingly."

"You know, Lynn, I can't tell you how much we miss Vern. Miss both of you. Even after all these years. The Bloomfield site went to hell in a handbasket after Vern died and you left. Seriously." Donny shook his head sadly and sipped his coffee with a pious expression. This was a ritual pronouncement and she'd know it was bullshit, but it was obligatory.

"Thank you. That means a great deal to me."

"It was so great to get your call," Donny went on. "An excuse to have a social lunch. Kind of busy these days, but always happy to squeeze in some time with an old friend and colleague. Life's too short, you know?"

The waitress arrived to stare at them expectantly, hovering with her pad poised. "Are you ready to order?"

They hadn't looked at the menus yet.

"Not quite," Nick told her flatly. "We'll need another few minutes." This time he showed her his other side, a look that told her not to come back until they waved semaphore flags and set off flares. Donny smiled to himself as she scuttled away.

They tossed pleasantries back and forth, and a gentle babble of conversation began to fill the place as other customers filtered in and took seats. The nurse was warming up to her pitch, getting a little flirtatious. Nick was a ball of boyish charm and attentiveness, but Donny thought he'd play it differently. Nice but not too nice; you had to keep her in her place, not let her think anything she had to offer was too valuable. After a few more minutes he decided the foreplay had gone on long enough and it was time to get down to business.

"So Lynn," he said, "you'll never guess what happened Saturday up at the mine. I come out of the site office, I'm about to get into my car, when who do I see on the south rim but Julieta and some other woman. Horseback. And when I go up there, I find out the other woman is a, what do they call it-"

"A parapsychologist," Lynn finished. "Yes. That's one of the things I wanted to tell you."

"What, exactly, is a parapsychologist?" Nick asked innocently.

"Someone who claims to study the weirder aspects of the mind," Lynn told him. "Things nobody's ever been able to prove-telepathy, clairvoyance, contact with the dead, things like that."

"So which kind is this one?"

"Her main thing is ghosts," Donny answered. "But she obviously generalizes a bit, because she was there to ask me about animal mutilations. Remember, we had that episode a couple of years ago? Some Navajo kids found those two horses? Made the papers?"

Lynn was frowning. "But that's not what they've talked about. Not when I'm around, anyway. Or no-they mentioned it, but just in passing. It's not their main concern."

"Oh?" That was interesting, Donny thought: Either the mute thing was some kind of a ruse, or it was something Cree Black and Julieta weren't sharing with the nurse.

The waitress hove nearby on her way to another table but ricocheted away as Nick gave her a look that would have stopped a runaway bull.

"You know, Donny," Lynn said as if beginning something long and complex, "I'm a health-care professional. You know how committed I am to my work. That's my only concern. My patients."

"We've noticed it and appreciated it, Lynn. And you know how much McCarty Energy has relied on it in the past." This was how she worked, Donny reminded himself: veering off the subject so that she could be flattered and coaxed back. You just had to grit your teeth and bear it.

The nurse smiled that little smile, as if she knew she'd set her hook and could now reel them in at her leisure. "I love my work at the school. I really do. At the same time, there are… personality issues that get in the way. You know what I mean."

"Hey, you don't have to tell us," Nick put in. "I don't know how you manage. Working with her these last three, four years."

"She shacked up with the Navajo doctor yet?" Donny couldn't help asking.

Lynn gave him a cardsharp's look, appraising his interest while concealing her own. "Not to my knowledge. But now that you mention it, the… um, questions there might bear upon the situation. For me, it's come to the point where it's not just about personality. This parapsychologist being there is an example of very troubling behavior on the part of… school administration. And I don't know just what to do about it."

"Maybe we can help," Donny told her.

"There's a sick boy, one of the students. With very unusual symptoms. He's in the hospital now, for the third time." Pause, a prompting look.

Nick gave her an indulgent look of puzzlement. "What does that have to do with the parapsychologist being there?"

"Yesterday we had a conference about it, and I was completely shocked at the way they discussed it. Utterly shocked."

" 'We' meaning you and-"

"Julieta and Dr. Black and her two associates." Lynn took a very feminine sip of coffee. "They flew in from Seattle. An engineer and a woman who as far as I can tell does forensic-type research."

Nick flicked a glance at Donny, and Donny knew what he meant. That Julieta had brought in a whole team of people couldn't be good. And an engineer! Donny felt the churning burn blossom under his breastbone. This was turning into a disaster.

He mastered his face and kept his voice casual as he asked, "So, what did you all talk about?"

"I don't think I'm getting the whole story-they exchanged looks that suggested a lot was going unsaid? But I know something that should interest you. One is, the reason Cree Black wants to talk to you and go to the pit where your father died is because she wants to see if his ghost is there."

"What the…?" Nick bottled up the expletive, choking on incredulity.

"My father? He had a soul? A spirit? First I've heard about it!" Donny chuckled. Saying it gave him great pleasure.

Lynn Pierce bobbed her head, round eyed with concern and disapproval, dramatizing as she savored their attention. "No, really. The parapsychologist wants to see if she can 'experience' something there, where he died. She's also been 'experiencing' something near the school. Over near the big ravine in the mesa."

Donny felt his breakfast move queasily in his stomach, and this time when Nick caught his eye he returned a command: Let me. He mastered his alarm quickly and said disinterestedly, "Hm. I wonder what to make of that." Then he deliberately checked his watch and let himself look a little concerned at what he saw. "You know, Lynn, I've got this killer day today. For one thing, I'm meeting the parapsychologist, then I've got appointments until all hours back in Albuquerque. What else? What does this have to do with that sick boy of yours?"

Lynn looked at them both and asked innocently, "Aren't we going to order something to eat?" She pulled over one of the menus and began to read it with satisfaction.

Nick shifted impatiently in his seat, as if he were going to do something drastic, and again Donny had to give him a look. No sense in letting her know she'd touched a nerve with any of this.

"Sure," he said. "She's right, we should order, Nicko." Donny turned to the waitress, who hesitated over near the counter. "I think we're ready to order," he called. Then he turned back and muttered, "Christ, service in this place is going to hell. We've been here for half an hour and that gal hasn't been near this table!"

Kind of a running joke. Nick thought it was a scream.

Another ten minutes of banter, and then the food came. Lynn had ordered a BLT, Donny and Nick bowls of red chili. When the waitress set Donny's bowl down, the lumpy mass struck him as gory and nauseating-he should have ordered the green. Or a salad. Nick dumped a cellophane bag of oyster crackers onto his and began spooning bites into his big face in a businesslike manner.

Between nibbles, Lynn Pierce used her sandwich as a prop to make meaningful gestures. "If I tell you about the boy, it has to be in strictest confidence. Because on one level it's something of a violation of the patient's confidentiality. And I would hate this to have a negative impact on the school."

"Absolutely," Donny assured her. "Of course."

"Because if it's dealt with in the wrong way, it would really hurt the school. If word got out, it could close it down. And I would never want that to happen. I guess that's why I'm coming to you instead of, you know… the education or health authorities."

Holy shit, Donny thought. The look she was giving him told him everything: This is it. The weapon you've wanted. His panicky feeling was suddenly replaced by glee.

The nurse knew she had their undivided attention now, and she couldn't help smiling. She set her sandwich down, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. "They believe this boy is possessed. I'm serious. By a ghost. They think that's what's the matter with him. It's making him have convulsions and do strange things. And Julieta brought in the parapsychologist to, basically, exorcise it. And, though I hate to admit it, Joseph Tsosie is going along with it."

She leaned back and watched their faces with satisfaction, knowing full well what she'd just delivered into their hands. Donny's mind was spinning with the implications. Julieta had to know that what she was doing would kill her five ways come Sunday. If word got out into the Navajo community about a chindi possessing the boy, haunting the school, her staff would evacuate the place like there was a bomb threat. Two days later, the last of the kids would be yanked by their parents. And bringing in a ghost buster? Doing an exorcism? The education people would crucify her! And the rumors, let alone an article or two in the papers, would kill Julieta's fund-raising dead; she'd lose too much credibility ever to recover financially.

It would be so easy. With several hundred Navajos working for McCarty Energy at different sites, it would be a cinch to get word moving in the general population.

Donny almost laughed out loud: For all his toughness, even big Nick had been sitting openmouthed, and all he could manage when he finally found his voice was, "No shit!"

A half hour later, as they caravanned west to the Hunters Point mine, Donny dialed Nick's cell phone number. In his rearview mirror, he watched Nick's broad silhouette put its hand to its ear.

They had milked the nurse for a while more, and she had milked them in return. At last, with Nick flirting and Donny assuring her that she always had a job at McCarty Energy if she needed it, they'd left the restaurant. Donny's mind was in overdrive.

"We have to do lunch more often, huh, Nicko?"

"Oh fuck, Donny. Oh man. I was going to wring her neck if she did any more dancing around, so help me. This close, man. This close." Nick's voice had a broad smile in it. Donny could visualize him holding his thick thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. "Seriously, I was thinking, too bad her account wasn't closed when good old Vern's was."

"So what are we up against here?"

"Seems like a good-news-bad-news situation," Nick's voice said. Nick would know to keep it reasonably circumspect, given that cell phones were not the most private form of communication.

"Julieta, she's really planning something major. Gotta be, with the engineer, the bogus thing with the mutilations. And the mesa! Jesus Christ!"

"But we've got her by the balls! The ghost buster, the sick kid. If we can keep the nurse's cooperation. We need her to keep us informed. And she'd need to back us up, maybe testify, if it comes out in the open."

"You'll see to that? Keeping her sweet on us?"

Nick groaned at the thought of more sessions with Lynn Pierce. "Yeah. Provided I get a bonus here, Sahib. Call it hazard pay."

They both chuckled and then were silent as they navigated past a slow-moving pickup truck with a goat tethered in the back and about six Navajos crammed into the single-seat cab. Donny frowned, nagged by the sense that something didn't quite compute with this whole thing. If Julieta had brought in the parapsychologist to deal with the kid's problem, why were they talking about the mutes or the mesa? On the other hand, if she'd brought her and her team in to throw a monkey wrench at McCarty Energy, what was the whole business with the kid? But whatever it was, the only workable hypothesis was that it was aimed at his head in some way, and he'd better think about preemption.

When they were past the truck, Nick's voice crackled over the phone again: "So. With the ghost business. We want to start the word circulating among the men right away?"

Donny had made a strategic decision. He hoped it wasn't overly biased by what he had to admit was some trepidation at the thought of an outright war with Julieta. "Nick!" he scolded. "I'm surprised at you!"

"Why not?"

"Think about it. Julieta's planning something-that's the only explanation. It's got to be a major offensive. She's found out something. I don't know what she knows or how she knows it, but there's no other conclusion. If we shoot our ammo now, she'll be even more pissed off and she'll have no reason left not to shoot us down in return. So we hold our fire. We do our homework, we poke around a little more, get our ducks in order. When we know more about what she's trying to do, we go to her and gently suggest she cease and desist because with what we know we can take her down. We preserve what we know as a disincentive for her to give us grief, not use it prematurely to stir up a hornets' nest."

"Right." Nick was silent for a moment, thinking that through, and then chuckled. "You're good with the big picture. I guess that's why you're the boss, huh?"

"It's all just psychology," Donny told him. "Human psychology."