Land of Echoes

52

Seattle. Monday, back at the office. Eight a.m. sharp. Joyce unlocked the door to PRA's suite, turned on the lights, tossed the pile of mail onto her desk. The light on the message machine was blinking and the digital readout told her that there were thirty-two messages waiting. Through the door to Cree's room, she glimpsed the big views of Elliott Bay and the smile of bright blue sky above. She and Ed had arrived Sunday midafternoon, and she'd spent the rest of the day just relaxing and mooning around. She'd done some stretching to ease the soreness in her thighs, then went for a run along the shore of Lake Washington. The rez was great, but it sure felt good to be around a body of water again.

Joyce measured ground Nicaraguan beans into a paper filter, filled the reservoir of the coffee machine, and turned it on. As it perked, she listened to the calls and took notes on pink message slips for Cree and Ed. By the time she was done, the coffee was ready. She poured a mug and took it and the mail into Cree's office, where the Bay and the Sound could keep her company as she went through the week's correspondence.

Between the calls and the letters, there looked to be some promising cases in their future; Ed would be glad to see this stuff when he came in this afternoon. Cree, too, when she got back later in the week and once she got over the exhaustion and existential upheaval that would likely follow the Oak Springs case. Cree was on a perpetual learning curve, rising so steeply Joyce was sure it would one day take her right off the planet. Which day Joyce was determined to forestall as long as possible.

A couple of inquiries had come from people who'd been seeing glowing orbs, one in San Francisco and one right here in Washington, not far from Seattle; Ed would like that, because orb reports were on the increase and the phenomenon promised to be particularly susceptible to physical analysis. There were people troubled by standard-issue phantoms in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota; the person in Maine said hers looked like a druid shaman, like old representations of Merlin. Coincidentally, she claimed to live near one of the supposed pre-Columbian, pre-Viking druidic archaeological sites that occurred throughout the Northeast. Another letter requested help on a poltergeist case in Kentucky and came complete with newspaper clippings with photos of household objects hurtling through the air. Poltergeists always gave Joyce a shiver.

There was even a terse letter from Mason Ambrose in Geneva, accompanied by a check for five grand; the old creep was donating Cree's fee on behalf of Oak Springs School. Trying to redeem himself. Joyce was glad to see the check, because most of the remaining envelopes contained bills and the PRA bank account was, as always, running on fumes.

When she finished sorting and filing, she got herself another cup of coffee, put her feet up on Cree's desk, and stared out the window. She thought back with satisfaction to that last day and night in Oak Springs, which made up for some of the frustrations of the rest of the investigation.

Saturday night, after booking seats for the return flight, she had opted to stay with Cree at the school in the hope that there'd be time in the morning to squeeze in one last horse ride, which she'd decided was easily as good as sex and had fewer risks. Plus there was some other business to see to.

After Julieta had gone back to the faculty residence, she and Cree spent the evening in the big ward room, talking only occasionally. Cree was exhausted and feeling alternately good and then unsettled about the outcome here. They agreed it had been an instructive case, and most of its details had worked out well, but they'd also agreed that a smack upside the head for Nick and some fleeting humiliation for Donny wasn't enough. The absence of justice was a real craw sticker. There certainly was a lot of comeuppance due those two. And due Lynn Pierce, who had done her best to bring the school down. Joyce had been tempted to tell Cree what she'd found and figured out during her research, but Cree was not in a receptive state of mind for such things. And anyway, some details were best kept to yourself.

Cree went on about how she felt only pity for the nurse: perpetually grieving for her long-dead husband, wounded, consumed with envy, fragile, but concealing it all with her coy, insinuating smugness. It wasn't easy to be Lynn Pierce, Cree said, and it couldn't be much fun.

Firing Lynn and throwing some anxiety Donny's way was about as far as it could go for Julieta, Cree said. Julieta had to move on now; she didn't need obsessive concerns for justice or revenge complicating things. It was more important now for her to find the gentleness in herself, to be free from the past and let her love blossom with the good-looking doctor-yaddah, yaddah, all the therapy hooey dear Cree was so prone to.

Actually, Joyce didn't disagree with her in the slightest. But.

Later, when she was sure Cree was asleep, she had gathered up the photocopies she'd made at the newspaper archives, and scanned them again to make sure she had the details right. It was ten-thirty when she went to find the nurse.

Cree and Julieta need never know.

Lynn Pierce wasn't in her bedroom, but Joyce found her in the examining room, tidying up. The silver head bobbed and its thick braid swung as Lynn stooped to pick something up. When she sensed Joyce in the doorway, she straightened and turned quickly, her eyes so wide the bronze speck glinted in the lights.

"Didn't mean to startle you," Joyce said. "I called out from the hallway, but I guess you didn't hear me."

"I'm about to go to bed. Do you need something?"

"I'm just saying good-bye. I have to leave early tomorrow. I understand you'll be leaving soon, too."

"Yes." Tight-lipped, eyes hard and suspicious.

"But I hear you've got another job all lined up."

"Highly skilled medical practitioners and administrators are hard to find out here. I'm fortunate to have professional contacts who respect that fact. I'll be assuming my new position next week."

"Yeah, I saw Donny earlier today. He thinks the world of you. I guess you've worked for him before, right? Up at the Bloomfield mine. Your husband, Vernon, too. I'm sure he'll take good care of you."

"Is there something I can do for you, Ms. Wu?" Lynn Pierce took a paper towel from a dispenser and feigned preoccupation with a smudge on the stainless steel counter.

"No. But there's something I can do for you."

"Oh, that's so kind of you!" Lynn's voice was coy, but when she turned back toward Joyce, her eyes were not. The look confirmed Joyce's sense of her: This gal is dangerous.

"Vern, he was a pretty important man in the McCartys' operation?"

Lynn could tell she was being baited, but as Joyce had hoped, she couldn't resist indulging her pride in him. "Vernon was chief explosives engineer at the Bloomfield mine. He was the very best in his field and received numerous commendations for his safety record. He supervised all explosives operations and staff. It's a very important part of coal mining."

"So he probably rubbed shoulders with Garrett McCarty now and again. And Donny."

"Vernon was invaluable, and it's to the McCartys' credit that they knew what they had in him and made a point of treating him well. Vern's office was just down the hall from Donny's in Bloomfield. Vern appreciated their respect and trust."

Joyce nodded. "Do you know what's been going down around here in the last few days? Aside from you telling Donny everything about Tommy Keeday?"

Lynn looked at her speculatively. After a moment, she took a cigarette pack out of her smock, unfolded a little foil ashtray, and lit up. She blew the smoke at the ceiling. "You're kind of a disjointed conversationalist, Ms. Wu, did you know that? Are you going to connect the dots for me, or do I have to guess?"

"Oh, heck," Joyce said, "I'll connect 'em. Why not."

Lynn narrowed her eyes as she sucked hungrily on her cigarette. This time she blew the smoke at Joyce and stared confrontationally at her.

"Your husband once told you something he'd overheard the McCartys talking about, didn't he? Way back, like in 1986, not long before he died. Something very juicy and hush-hush about Julieta. That's how you knew she'd had a lover back then. A Navajo guy. That's why you figured she acted so strangely sometimes-maybe Tommy Keeday was her child."

"Isn't he?"

"What else did Vernon tell you? Did he tell you that Garrett murdered Julieta's lover? Buried him in the ravine over at the north end of the mesa?"

That news clearly caught Lynn by surprise. She said, "No!" and then must have realized it was an admission that Joyce had been right so far. A mask slipped over her face.

"No, of course you didn't know. Because all this time you've been thinking Joseph Tsosie was the father. But he wasn't. A man named Peter Yellowhorse was, and that's who the McCartys killed. And Vern found out. And he made the mistake of letting them know he knew."

"You're thinking you can sour me on Donny McCarty, but I don't believe any of this. And you're not subtle enough."

Joyce tossed photocopies of the Gallup Independent articles onto the counter next to Lynn's white, clenching hand. The nurse glanced at them despite herself.

"When did Vern tell you, Lynn? Think back. Because I know when Vern died and how he died."

Lynn tore her eyes away from the photocopies.

" 'Explosives expert killed in coal mine accident,' "Joyce read out loud. "Think about it. Best safety record in New Mexico, but he manages to blow himself up November fifteenth, 1986. A couple of weeks after Peter Yellowhorse was murdered, probably a few days after he overheard Garrett and Nick, or maybe Donny and Nick, talking about it. A few days after he told you the juicy gossip. He knew what they'd done, and it was dangerous knowledge, Lynn. Nick was up at Bloomfield a lot right around then, wasn't he? Really think it's all a coincidence?"

Lynn was holding her cigarette in the V of her fingers, high in front of her, but she had forgotten it. Joyce could see in her eyes that she was thinking back, checking the dates, the details. The tumblers spun and began clicking into place. After a moment, Lynn took a long, long, deep breath. The deadly, metallic look in her eyes chilled Joyce.

Lynn turned back to the counter to stub out her unfinished cigarette. She busied herself with a tray of scalpels. Her hands shook badly at first but then steadied as they moved among the bright blades, putting them one by one into the sterilizer.

"Good-bye, Ms. Wu," Lynn Pierce said expressionlessly.

Joyce left her and went back to the ward room where Cree had been sleeping peacefully. She had felt a little twinge of guilt, knowing Cree probably wouldn't approve. But, hey.

Turning the basket, Joyce thought. She couldn't be one hundred percent sure she was right about Vernon Pierce's death. But those bums deserved it in any case. Donny, Nick, Lynn-the three of them deserved each other, and Lynn was already launched, something like a human heat-seeking missile, coming in under the radar. Oh, it would take a while; she would settle in at the mine and think about how best to do whatever she'd do. But you didn't have to be a Las Vegas bookie to figure the odds on Donny's and Nick's continuing health and happiness were not so good. Joyce made a mental note to check the Albuquerque papers once in a while to see how it turned out.

She finished her coffee, checked her watch and found that she'd been sitting for almost an hour. Still, she felt good and lingered a little longer.

Cree would be back on Thursday. She'd have a lot to think about. She'd done an incredible job with Julieta and the gorgeous Navajo doctor, zeroing right in on the crucial knot that held everything back, kept everything snarled. But Joyce doubted she'd do as good a job when it came to her own love life. Ed hadn't talked about the parallels there, but Joyce was sure he'd noticed them. You'd have to be a major dummy not to. And of course Cree would come back all bent out of shape by it. For more reasons than one. She'd absorbed so much of Julieta McCarty, she probably couldn't even tell whether her feelings toward Ed were truly her own, or some kind of resonance with Julieta's thing with Joseph. Heartbreaking, really.

On one hand, Cree was as ready for a man as anyone Joyce had ever known, but on the other hand, it was complicated. Joyce couldn't decide where the problem lay, exactly. Once, she would have said, Easy-the shadow of her dead husband's hanging over her, her very own ghost. And the cure for that was obvious. She'd told Cree as much last spring, and Cree had wisely gone back to see Paul in New Orleans.

But maybe it was more complex than that, more even than making a choice between Ed and Paul. Seeing Cree out there, riding, walking, the way she expanded into the place, Joyce knew she'd come back in love with the land, the rocks, the big sky, the Navajo medicine men, even the ghosts, as much as with Paul Fitzpatrick or Edgar Mayfield. Cree wasn't all that available because she already had a lover: mystery. Or maybe just life. The mystery of life. Whatever.

Joyce honestly had no idea how you could help somebody with a situation like that.