All God's Promises (A Prairie Heritage Book 7)

by Vikki Kestell

  “Really!” Kari took his number and went the same day to visit his studio. She was impressed by the man’s computer setup and knowledge.

  “I can bring the photographs onto my computer,” he explained, “make corrections to them, and then print them in the size you request.”

  “This would be something of a project,” she told him. “It would require that you travel to Nebraska and Kansas to, er, shoot all the photographs I have in mind.”

  “If you are willing to pay my expenses and fee, I am willing to take on the project,” he replied. “This is actually a good time of year for me to do this. Not as many weddings and graduations to photograph.”

  “I, um, would also like you to make a family portrait of my cousin and his son for me—and take a photograph of me for them.”

  “I’d be delighted to do so.”

  Kari hired him on the spot.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 7

  AS AUGUST GAVE WAY TO SEPTEMBER, Kari immersed herself in her New Orleans life: twice-weekly meetings with Oskar Brunell, the renovation of the office and master suite, Rose’s journals, her Bible, her church.

  Clover had his staff begin the legal work to change her last name to Michaels. “It will only take three weeks, Kari. If you would like to begin using it now, I don’t see the harm.” He wheezed out a guffaw. “Might cut down on the confusion.”

  “I agree!” Kari replied.

  Kari Thoresen Michaels. My father’s real name was Edmund Thoresen Michaels. Kari loved the sound of it, loved that her name would be the same as his.

  Kari purchased an office chair more her size and style, one that would complement the desk she was growing to appreciate. She visited an office supply store and came away with a desk pad and three bags of supplies to fill her desk’s sizable drawers. She had the phone company install and place a vintage French-styled telephone on her desk.

  When she stood back to view the results, Kari was satisfied—particularly with the tied-back curtains that opened the room to light and the view Kari wanted. A shade covered in ivory watermarked silk, that she could raise or pull down as she desired, completed the window treatment.

  Then Kari began to use her office in earnest. She started each morning with coffee and fifteen minutes of Bible study and prayer. She finished each morning’s devotions by reading a single entry from Rose’s blue journal.

  I don’t want to read them all at once. I want to savor them, she told herself. I’m no longer desperate to know everything about Rose and her Jesus, because her Jesus is my Jesus, now. I can enjoy her journals slowly.

  Kari opened to her marked place in the blue journal.

  Journal Entry, November 4, 1911

  Today our beloved Mei-Xing was married to her sweetheart, Minister Liáng. She is the first of our “girls” to be married from Palmer House, but I know she will not be the last. We work and pray for our girls to be healed in their souls and to become strong, whole, and independent women, but we also pray they will find love and happiness.

  And so, Lord, we give you great praise for Mei-Xing’s happiness, and thank you for a man of Minister Liáng’s abiding character. He will be a good husband to Mei-Xing and a good father to Shan-Rose, and Mei-Xing will be a strength and a help to him in his ministry.

  I shall miss Shan-Rose. We all shall. Tonight I realize that the absence of her little voice has left a void in this house.

  But I shall not dwell upon our loss. Rather, I shall rejoice in her future. I sense your call upon this child, Lord God, even at an early age.

  And I lift up our Tabitha to you, Father. She was unable to leave school and come to us for this important occasion. I ask you to sustain her, Holy Spirit, for you are the Comforter and our Helper.

  —

  KARI GAVE LORENE FREE REIN to remodel the master bedroom and bathroom, and Clover’s wife dove in with gusto. At the same time, Kari made sure her elderly friend did not overwork herself.

  As the decorators and contractors came and went, Lorene asked Kari for her input, but Kari acquiesced to Lorene’s impeccable taste.

  “All I ask is that the suite be thoroughly modernized and lovely,” she told Lorene. “If I ever have guests I would like them to be comfortable.”

  Lorene smiled. “My dear, your guests will think they have died and gone to heaven when I finish—but I do hope you will move into the suite when we are done. I am redecorating with you in mind.”

  She tapped her finger on her chin, thinking. “And while we’re making a mess of your upstairs, why not let me redo the other two bedrooms at the same time? We can get all the muss and fuss done with in a single dustup.”

  “What a super idea! Thank you, Lorene. You don’t know how much I appreciate you. How much I love you.”

  The older woman drew Kari into her arms and Kari inhaled the powdery scent that was uniquely Lorene’s. “I think I do know, Kari. I think Clover and I have the dear privilege of loving you and being part of your family.”

  —

  WITHIN A FEW WEEKS, CONTRACTORS, PAINTERS, AND WALLPAPER HANGERS were moving up and down the staircase hauling tools and materials. Either the decorator or crew boss was always on site to manage the workers; still, Kari fled to the kitchen to avoid the sense of upheaval she was so sensitive to. The few hours each day Azalea was in the kitchen, Kari worked alongside of her.

  While she peeled carrots or chopped salad fixings, Kari’s thoughts turned continually to Owen and Anthony and their search for Elaine and Samuel. The phrase “illegal adoption” circled in her mind, too.

  Early one afternoon, Kari left the house with directions to one of New Orleans’ main library branches. I was a librarian. I know how to research a topic. I want to find out more about illegal adoption, she told herself.

  Kari spent hours reading on the subject. She stayed until evening when the overhead lights blinked off and on, signaling closing time.

  She left the library horrified by what she’d read. Pieces of Rose’s journal, hinting at the age some of Palmer House’s girls had been when sold into the brothels, came back to her. So did entries where Rose described how false newspaper employment ads had ensnared young mothers and their children together.

  Lord, what if a family did not adopt Elaine and Sammie? What if—

  She couldn’t voice the concerns her research had raised, but her heart trembled.

  Father! I am calling on you! she prayed.

  —

  FOUR WEEKS AFTER TAKING KARI’S COMMISSION, the photographer called. “Miss Michaels? Bill Blair here. I have your photographs ready. Would you care to come see them?”

  “Would I? I’ll be there within the hour.”

  The display the photographer had arranged for Kari stole her breath away.

  “I took the liberty of framing those reproductions you wanted to hang,” he said quietly. “When I saw the wall of photographs at your cousins’ home in Nebraska, I knew you thought to do the same thing. I located a few vintage frames and found others that are vintage reproductions.”

  He had assembled the framed photographs in chronological order, oldest to newest, in a row upon a table, and leaned them against some draped blocks so she could see how they would look when hung upon a wall.

  At the end of the row, in a burnished frame, was the family portrait of Søren and Max she had requested. Søren’s hand rested on Max’s shoulder, and his expression was sober, but Kari thought she detected a tiny smirk of humor behind his eyes. Max’s grin, on the other hand, was wide, displaying a complete assortment of missing or half-grown-in teeth.

  Kari lifted the photograph and smiled back at Max.

  I’d like to plant a kiss on your forehead, young man.

  “They are wonderful, Mr. Blair. So, so wonderful!” Kari already visualized how the framed images would look on the wall in her home office. She could not wait to get home and hang them.

  “And here is your photograph.”

  Kari blinked at the confident woman staring back at
her. Is that really me? Is that the person Max sees? And Søren?

  “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  The photographer opened a photo album on the table. “The remainder of the photographs are in this album.”

  Kari turned the album’s pages slowly, relishing the treasure within its covers. “And you made the other copies I asked for?

  “Yes. Three additional sets. I will ship your picture and two albums to your cousin and the other album to your uncle. I must say that I usually take longer to complete a project this detailed, but I became quite caught up in the work.”

  He coughed, a little self-conscious. “It was a privilege to do this work. You are lucky to have such a family heritage.”

  “Thank you. Yes, I am certainly blessed,” Kari whispered. She closed the album and turned back to the framed display.

  The image that most captured Kari’s heart was the picture of Rose taken by O’Dell. The photographer had enlarged it and removed all signs of cracks, yet the new imaged retained the clarity of the original.

  Rose’s soft gray eyes, looking with hope into the future, brought a lump to Kari’s throat.

  “Ah. That one is my favorite, too,” the photographer added. “What a lovely woman.”

  “My great-grandmother,” Kari answered.

  She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye before it could wend its way down her cheek.

  —

  KARI CALLED AHEAD AND TOLLER WAS WAITING when she arrived home.

  “Want me t’ carry these boxes int’ the house?”

  “Yes, one at a time, please. There are two of them, and they aren’t heavy, but what is inside is precious. I’ll carry the album.”

  Mr. Blair had swaddled each framed photograph in a piece of soft flannel and then enfolded the bundle in a wide strip of bubble wrap that he taped so each bundle was a snug package. Kari helped him place the twenty bundles into two boxes.

  She led the way to her office and directed Toller to place the boxes on her desk.

  “Tomorrow, when I’ve unwrapped them all, could you help me hang them? I want them to go on that wall there.”

  She grinned. “And of course I’d like them to be straight—without putting a bazillion holes in the paneling, so I’ll need your help for sure!”

  “A’course. I’ll bring a level and ever’thing else we need t’ do the job.”

  Kari spent the evening unwrapping each photograph with care and staging them as she wanted them hung.

  Being surrounded by photographs of my family’s faces will make this office truly mine—but Rose’s photograph? It goes right here on my desk.

  Kari sighed in satisfaction.

  —

  ANTHONY POURED OWEN A CUP OF STOUT COFFEE as they prepared to begin another day. So far, their tedious records search had been unfruitful. Owen reached for the mug and sank into the cushions of the chair he’d come to think of as “his” chair in Anthony’s office.

  “I’m not prepared to say we’ve come up empty yet,” he muttered, “so I’m hoping you have another avenue we haven’t yet explored.”

  Anthony gave his head a minute shake. “If it were someone else, someone other than Kari, I might be tempted to call it quits.”

  Over the past three weeks, with Brunell & Brunell providing legal intervention and assistance, Owen and Anthony had backtracked every state employment record they could lay hands on and had searched the ranks of State retirees.

  They had done the same with county records. Since the accident in which Kari’s parents died occurred between Gallup and Grants on their way to Albuquerque, they had included the counties of McKinley and Cibola.

  When McKinley and Cibolo turned up nothing, they branched out into the surrounding counties: Bernalillo, Sandoval, San Juan, Valencia—and the more distant counties of Catron, Socorro, Rio Arriba, Torrance, and Santa Fe. They cast their net wide and far . . . and caught absolutely nothing.

  The two investigators had interviewed many a retired social worker who may (or may not) have had remembrance of the accident. Still, they had turned up no hint of the mysterious Marge S.

  They had located the accident report filed by the New Mexico State Police. Although NMSP records back that far were stored in boxes in a warehouse, turning up the report in question had been fairly straightforward. The two men spent the better part of an afternoon flipping through paper until Anthony’s fingers fell upon the right one.

  Unfortunately, the report listed two adults, both deceased at the scene, and a six-year-old child as the lone survivor of the accident. And when Anthony and Owen had tried to track down the trooper who had filed the report, one Gary Showman, they found that he had passed away—as had the other two troopers listed as “on scene.”

  “Because I take Kari seriously, I’m not ready to call it quits,” Anthony concluded.

  Owen frowned as he nodded his agreement. “I believe Kari, too. I believe she witnessed the abduction of her siblings and I believe she was threatened, abused, and traumatized, but maybe we’re missing something? Maybe we’re making a wrong assumption somewhere?

  “I mean, we’ve driven the highway out to where the accident took place, and the area is pretty unpopulated. Could some other department or agency have responded or been involved? What proof do we have that Marge S was a social worker at all? We have assumed she was, but what if she wasn’t?”

  Anthony heard him out and then slipped into deep concentration as he sipped his coffee. Owen didn’t disturb him. He had his own troubled thoughts.

  Lord, Kari is counting on us to uncover a secret that has been buried for decades. We can’t possibly do this on our own. We need your help—your miraculous help. You are the God of the impossible, Lord, and nothing is too difficult for you. Please show us the way forward.

  Anthony sat up, two lines between his eyes creased in thought. He stared in Owen’s direction, but Owen could tell he was still immersed in whatever idea had taken hold, so he waited.

  “Hang on one blessed minute,” Anthony mumbled.

  Owen waited. And watched.

  Anthony fumbled in a drawer and pulled out a worn New Mexico map. He unfolded it on his desk and stood over it, tracing it with his finger. When his finger came to rest, he hmmed to himself and then looked at Owen.

  “What if . . .” He didn’t finish his question. Instead, he pawed at a well-used rolodex until he found the number he was looking for.

  “What’s going on?” Owen couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “Have an old friend—emphasis on old—lives in an assisted living facility in Crownpoint. He must be in his late eighties now, but I’m pretty sure . . .” Again, he trailed off.

  “What?” Owen insisted.

  “Used to be a boys’ ranch out there, somewhere along that stretch of road. I only remember because my friend regaled me with some of the outlandish problems those boys caused over the years . . .”

  Anthony was still thinking, but Owen couldn’t wait. “Wouldn’t a kids’ ranch like that be registered with the State?”

  “Not necessarily. Not if it were privately funded. Or federally funded. And things like licensing had to have been a lot different in the fifties. Seems to me . . .”

  And he was off in his thoughts again, but his finger was dialing the number on a rolodex card. “Morning. Anthony Esquibel speaking. Yes. Is Nathan Running Bull still a resident? He is?”

  Anthony listened. “I see. So, um, is there a certain time of day when he is more apt to have the energy for visitors?”

  He tapped a pencil on his blotter and nodded. “He is a friend. We go way back. Yeah. I would like to drive up and visit Nathan. Tomorrow. We can be there by eight. Yes. Please let him know? Thank you.”

  He put the receiver back into the phone’s cradle. “Up for a road trip?”

  “Sure. Who is this Nathan Running Bull and why are we going to visit him?”

  “He was the stock manager on the boys’ ranch I mentioned.”

  “And this r
anch?”

  “If I remember right, it was about five miles off the highway, maybe another five miles from where the accident took place.”

  “What does this have to do with Kari?”

  “The ranch had staff there to deal with the issues many of the boys had. Counseling staff. Administrative staff. House parents. That sort of thing.”

  “But why would any of them have been called out to the scene of a vehicular accident?”

  “I don’t know, but when you asked if another department or agency could have responded, I started asking myself the same question—and Nathan’s name popped into my head. We don’t have any other leads, so I want to trace this one down.

  “B’sides. I need to see my old friend. Been too long.”

  —

  EARLY IN THE MORNING, Anthony and Owen climbed into Anthony’s pickup and beat the I-40 morning traffic west out of Albuquerque.

  “Tell me about Crownpoint,” Owen asked. “How long is our drive?”

  “’Bout ninety-five miles, so less than two hours. Crownpoint itself is small—not even three thousand residents—and most of them are Native people. The town is close to the border of the Navajo reservation.”

  “And this man we’re going to see?”

  “Nathan Running Bull was, as a young man, a cop on the reservation, but he didn’t care for it. He wanted something more natural, closer to his roots. Went back to handling livestock. He still had lots of connections on the res, though, and helped me on a particularly troubling investigation about twenty-five years ago. Been friends ever since, although we’ve sort of lost touch over the last few years.”

  They entered the tiny town and located the assisted living center where Nathan Running Bull lived. The aides were still clearing away breakfast trays when Anthony found the room toward which the receptionist pointed them.

  The door was standing open, but Anthony knocked anyway. “Nathan?”

  “Yeah, I’m here, you ornery old greaser.”