When the Wind Blows
Page 14
“I was just giving Christie a bath,” she began, but Edna cut her off.
“In the middle of the day? And giving a nine-year-old a bath? Diana, are you all right?”
“Of course I am, Mother. Why shouldn’t I be?”
Edna paused. Then: “Didn’t you hear the siren just now?”
“Siren? What siren?”
Now Edna’s face tightened, and she glared at her daughter. “Not five minutes ago, Dan Gurley went by, with his siren on. You must have heard it,” she finished, her voice almost desperate.
“I didn’t hear anything, Mother,” Diana said quietly.
“Well, I didn’t imagine it,” Edna snapped.
Diana’s expression turned to exasperation. “Mother, if Dan Gurley went past here with his siren on, I would have heard it. There was no water running, and I’m not deaf.”
“Aren’t you?” Edna asked. Again she searched her daughter’s face. “Diana, I don’t think we can keep that child here any longer. She isn’t good for you.”
Sudden fury flashed through Diana. She understood what her mother was up to. “Not good for me, Mother? Or not good for you?” Her body quivering with anger, she turned, left the room, and hurried upstairs to finish giving Christie her bath.
The bathroom was empty. Diana went to the third floor and into the nursery. It, too, was empty.
“Christie? Christie, baby, where are you?”
There was no answer, and Diana was about to leave the nursery when something outside caught her eye. She went to the window and looked out.
Christie was coming out of the barn, her face smudged, her clothing covered with bits of straw. Diana’s eyes blazed as she stared at the little girl.
That was the trouble with children.
You gave them a bath, and they went right out and got dirty again.
Still, she temporized, it wasn’t the baby’s fault. Not really.
Babies have to be taken care of.
And living things—things like chicks and horses—attract them.
Shaking her head sadly, Diana left the nursery to go down and bring her naughty baby in from the yard.
Dan Gurley stared down into the clear waters of the pond and swore softly. Even from where he stood, he knew who the little girl in the water was. With that wiry body, and the long brown hair, it could be no one but Kim Sandler.
She was facedown, her hair spreading out like a halo, arms akimbo, as if she were practicing a dead man’s float.
Dan ran down the hill and made his way through the thicket to the gravel beach. He waded in, picked Kim up, and carried her ashore. Though he knew it was useless, he tried to revive her, first forcing the water from her lungs through artificial respiration, then trying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Juan Rodriguez stood next to him, clucking sympathetically. Dan gave up at last and stood, his breath coming in panting gasps. He waited until his breathing was normal, then looked sharply at Juan.
“She was in the water when you found her?”
Juan nodded.
“I thought you said she was naked,” Dan said, eyeing the panties the girl was clad in.
Juan shrugged, but made no reply, so Dan tried another question. “Why didn’t you pull her out?”
“I was scared, Mr. Gurley. I don’t like dead people.”
“But she might not have been dead yet, Juan.”
Juan looked at him, his brown eyes as clear and innocent as a cocker spaniel’s. “But she didn’t move. I watched her, and she didn’t move.”
Dan sighed, knowing he would get nothing else out of the young man. “All right, Juan. Come on—let’s get her out of here.”
He picked Kim up and carried her back through the thicket. He paused there and stared at the clothing that was strewn around.
A bathing suit, crumpled in the dirt, and next to it a pile of clothes, neatly folded.
Except for the underwear, which Kim still wore.
His first thought was that it had probably been an accident. If Kim had been swimming alone, she could have had a sudden cramp and, with no one to help her, drowned.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
It looked as if she had been getting dressed.
Had she suddenly decided on one last dip? But she would have put her bathing suit back on, or gone skinny-dipping, wouldn’t she?
To Dan, it looked as if something had surprised her.
Something, or someone.
He spoke none of his thoughts to Juan, who was fidgeting nervously next to him.
“Should we take her clothes?”
“No. Leave them here—I’ll come back for them.” With Juan following him, Dan carried Kim back to his car, which was parked near the mine entrance.
Standing by his car was Esperanza Rodriguez. As she saw the body of the little girl in Dan’s arms, she crossed herself, then went to her son. She looked into his eyes, then, as if satisfied with something, whispered in his ear. Juan listened, nodded his head, then got into the marshal’s car. As Dan started the engine Juan smiled at him and spoke.
“My mama says everything’s okay,” he said. “She says I didn’t do nothing.”
Dan sighed and put the car in gear. He didn’t bother to turn the siren on as he drove back to Amberton—there seemed no point in it. As he passed the Ambers’ he saw Diana in the yard, talking to Christie Lyons and leading her toward the house.
After he’d taken Kim’s body to Bill Henry’s office, he’d have to come back out here and talk to Diana and Miss Edna, and Christie, too. Two deaths on the ranch in nearly as many weeks.
It was like the stories he’d heard of the old days, when the mine was going. Except that now the mine was closed.
Bill Henry came out of his office and shrugged.
“I don’t know. I haven’t opened her up, but so far there isn’t much. Some bruises on the surface, but there’re no breaks in the skin.”
Dan scratched his nose and nodded. “Did you check for a sexual assault?”
Bill nodded. “Nothing. Hymen intact, and no traces of semen.” Bill paused and glanced out the window at the police car where Juan Rodriguez still sat placidly in the front seat. “Were you thinking of Juan?”
“I’m not sure,” Dan said slowly. “I guess I must have been, except the docs in Pueblo told me he was harmless. But you never know, I guess. What do you think?”
Again Bill shrugged. “Unless you have some reason for thinking otherwise, I’d call it an accident. But I won’t write that down—I want her opened up by someone who knows what to look for. Have you told her parents?”
“Not yet. I called Alice Sandler—she’s on her way down here.”
“It’s going to be rough. Kim’s all they had.”
“I know. I think that’s the worst part of this job, having to deliver the bad news. Then I’m going back up to the quarry. There’s still some looking around to be done, and I’ve got to let the Ambers know what happened.”
The front door of the office burst open, and Alice Sandler stumbled in, her eyes wild.
“Where’s Kim?” she demanded. “What’s happened?”
“You’d better sit down, Alice,” Bill said, the tone of his voice telegraphing to the distraught woman what had happened.
Alice sank to the sofa and listened numbly while Dan explained. When he was done, she looked at him steadily.
“It was no accident,” she said. “Kim’s a good swimmer. She’s been swimming since she was four.” Then, as if for the first time realizing the extent of the tragedy, she began to cry. “I mean she was a good swimmer,” she added, her voice breaking.
She sat still for a moment, then glared at Dan Gurley. “Juan killed Kim,” she said. “He’s a sex fiend, and he always has been. Why is he sitting out in your car?”
“There’s no evidence that he had anything to do with it, Alice.”
Alice Sandler was suddenly screaming, her face an ashy white. “Nobody else in town would do a thing like that,” she wailed.
But Alice was unconvinced. “He—he did it,” she said brokenly. “He killed my baby.” Then, her grief overcoming her, she buried her face in her hands and gave in to her tears.
Dan Gurley pressed the Ambers’ doorbell and waited uncomfortably on the front porch. Except for Kim’s clothing, there had been nothing around the quarry. Finally he had given up his search, gathered the clothes together, put them in his car, and driven down to the Ambers’.
The door opened, and Edna Amber stared at him suspiciously.
“What’s happened?” she demanded.
“May I come in?”
Edna reluctantly stood aside as Dan stepped into the foyer, then led him into the parlor.
“Is Diana here?” Dan asked.
“She’s upstairs.”
“Could you call her?”
Edna hesitated, and for a moment Dan thought she was going to refuse. Then she went to the stairs, pounded the ceiling with her cane, and called to Diana. A few seconds later Diana hurried down the stairs. She came to an abrupt stop when she saw who was there.
“Dan. Mother said you went by earlier. Is something wrong?”
Briefly Dan explained what had happened.
“My God,” Diana breathed when he was finished. “Christie was up there this morning, too.”
“Christie?”
“And some others. Jay-Jay Jennings and Susan Gillespie. They came by on their way up to the quarry, and Christie went with them.”
“Then maybe I’d better talk to Christie,” Dan suggested.
Diana’s eyes flickered toward the stairs, and her fingers plucked at her skirt. “Do you have to?” she asked finally.
Dan frowned. “Is there some reason why I shouldn’t?”
“She’s—well, she’s only a little girl,” Diana said lamely. Edna shot her a sharp look.
“I’m going to have to talk to all the girls who were with Kim,” Dan said. “Could you have her come down?”
Diana chewed on her lip. “Of course,” she said at last. “But don’t upset her—please?” Then she went upstairs to get Christie. When she was gone, Edna turned to Dan.
“I warned you,” she said.
Dan frowned, wondering what she was talking about. “I beg your pardon. Miss Edna?”
“I told you something would happen.” The old woman’s eyes glittered almost triumphantly. “A ranch like this is no place for children. No place at all.”
“Diana was raised here,” Dan countered, still unsure of what she was getting at.
Edna’s eyes narrowed. “That was different. I’m her mother, and I had lots of help. Someone was always watching Diana. But there’s nobody here now. I can’t have children wandering all over the ranch wherever they please.”
“They’ve been doing it for years, Miss Edna,” Dan informed her.
“If they have,” Edna muttered angrily, “this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Dan was sure the old woman was telling him the truth. He was aware that the children had, until recently, steered well clear of the house. And if Christie Lyons were not living there, they would undoubtedly still be avoiding the place. But none of that had any bearing on Kim Sandler’s death, and he was about to say so when Diana returned to the parlor with Christie next to her.
The little girl looked at him worriedly. Was she in trouble with the marshal now, as well as with Diana? “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Dan knelt by her and took her hand gently in his own. “Well, something happened today, and I need to talk to you about it.”
Christie regarded him warily. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. At least I don’t think so.” Dan smiled at her reassuringly. “Did you do something you shouldn’t have?”
Christie shook her head.
“Then you can’t be in trouble, can you?”
Memories of the last week whirled in her head. “What happened?” she asked.
Dan ignored the question and asked one of his own instead.
“Were you up at the quarry today?”
“Unh-hunh. I was swimming with Kim and Jay-Jay and Susan.”
“You all went up together?”
“Unh-hunh.”
“And you all left together?”
Now Christie shook her head again. “Kim didn’t go with the rest of us. She stayed.”
“By herself?”
Christie nodded silently, and Dan went on.
“How come she didn’t come back with the rest of you?”
Christie shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she didn’t want to.”
“Was she mad at you?”
Christie hesitated and glanced at Diana, hoping for support. There was none, and finally she turned back to the marshal. “Sort of,” she admitted.
“And were you mad at her?”
Now Christie shook her head emphatically, her blue eyes reflecting the fear that was growing inside her. “No,” she said. “Did something happen to Kim?”
Reluctantly Dan nodded. “She had an accident.”
Christie’s eyes met his, and when she spoke, her voice was steady. “Is she dead?”
Though Dan was sure the ingenuousness in her voice was sincere, he watched her carefully as he answered her question. “Yes, she is. She drowned.”
Christie’s hand tightened on Diana’s, and Diana knelt beside her. “It’s all right, sweetheart. No one said you had anything to do with it.”
“But how could she drown?” Christie asked. “She swims better than any of us.”
“We don’t know,” Dan told her. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Now, I want you to think very carefully. Did you see anybody else up there? Anybody at all?”
A tear formed in Christie’s right eye. She brushed it away, but when she spoke, her voice shook. “No. The kids said nobody ever goes up there.”
“What about Juan? Did you see Juan up there?”
“No!” She pulled away from Dan Gurley and wrapped her arms around Diana. “Please,” she asked, her voice tiny. “Can’t I go back upstairs now?”
“Of course you can, darling,” Diana murmured. “I’ll be up in just a few minutes.”
When Christie was gone. Diana faced Dan Gurley. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. It looks like an accident, but there are a couple of odd things. She was wearing only her underwear, and there seem to be a few bruises on her body. Nothing serious, but Bill wants them looked at by an expert.”
“I see,” Diana said pensively. Then she met Dan’s eyes. “Juan?”
Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not, but until I know exactly what did happen up there, I’ll have to hold him. He’s in jail right now.”
Diana shook her head sadly. “Poor Juan. He seems so—well, he seems so harmless.”
“Maybe he is,” Dan said, trying to express more hope than he was feeling.
A few minutes later he was gone, and Diana was about to go back upstairs when Edna stopped her.
“Diana?”
“I have to go up to Christie, Mother.”
“In a minute. I want to talk to you.”
Diana sighed and sat down.
“Diana, didn’t you go up to the quarry today?”
Diana looked at her mother blankly. “I started to, but I didn’t. I—I changed my mind.”
“But when you left here, you were so worried.”
“I know—”
“What happened? What made you stop worrying?”
Diana thought about it. In truth, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t tell her mother that, nor could she explain to her mother what had happened up on the mountain that day—the wind screaming at her, the confusion, the minutes she had lost. It would only give Edna ammunition to use against her.
Besides, her mother always wanted answers. Simple answers. Suddenly she smi
led.
“I just decided you were right, Mother. You told me I was being silly, didn’t you?”
“But the wind was blowing when you left, Diana. I always worry about you when the wind blows.”
“That’s in the past, Mother,” Diana replied. “Can’t we forget about all that? Please?”
As Diana left the room to go up to Christie, Edna sat very still. She wished she could forget about the past. But try as she would, she could not. The past was too much a part of the present, and it could destroy her.
Somehow Edna would have to find a way to use the past to control the present.
If it wasn’t already too late.
12
Jeff Crowley wished he could go home.
He, along with his parents, was at the Sandlers’. All afternoon the word of Kim’s death had rippled through Amberton, passing from one person to another among the shopkeepers and over the back fences, and late in the afternoon people had begun arriving to offer their sympathy to Alice and George, and to discuss what had happened.
Now, at nine o’clock, only the Jenningses and the Gillespies were still there, along with the Crowleys. While their parents sat talking in the living room, the children huddled in the kitchen, their ears pressed against the door, eagerly listening to every word.
“It could have happened to any of them,” Jerome Jennings was saying.
But it didn’t, Alice Sandler thought bitterly to herself. It happened to Kim. Why Kim? Involuntarily she glared at Jennings. Why couldn’t he take his prissy wife and his brat and go home? She chided herself for being uncharitable and tried to make herself believe that he was right—that it could have been any of the children. Deep in her heart, though, Alice was positive that what had happened to Kim was no accident.
“Juan Rodriguez should have been arrested years ago,” she said aloud.
The Reverend Jennings, who prided himself on being fair-minded, clucked sympathetically. “Now, now. What he did then wasn’t all that serious. Still, considering his background …”
“And for that matter, it’s the Ambers’ fault, too,” Alice went on, ignoring Reverend Jennings. The rest of the people in the room were staring at her now. “I warned them years ago,” Alice explained. “I told Miss Diana that the quarry was dangerous and that it should have been fenced off. But did those high-and-mighty women do anything? Nothing! Nothing at all. Well, maybe if it had been one of their own who was dead—”