That by now maybe you would even be grieving that you couldn't remember
the sound of his voice." She lifted her brows, her eyes filled with
pity, or something too much like it. "Your memory hasn't dimmed one
iota, has it?"
"No." She cleared her throat to knock back the dull throb.
"Have you thought, perhaps, that you need to get away from Kiel?"
Robyn's heart twisted. She broke off the eye contact. "I can't,
Lucy--"
"Of course you can," Lucy chided gently. "I wouldn't say this to you
if we weren't friends, Robyn, but we are.
If he keeps you so in mind of Keller, get rid of him. You don't owe it
to anyone to put yourself through this, Robyn, least of all some
man."
But that wasn't fair, and Robyn knew it. "Lucy, it's my fault, not
Kiel's, that I see Keller in him. It isn't fair to blame Kiel."
Together, she and Keller had each been whole, larger than life. One.
One.
She was like the jam on his toast. He was as essential to her as the
cream in her coffee. It was only that she couldn't get used to being
"jam" without purpose or place. "I've been drinking my coffee black
for a while now," she mused.
"Is that something I'm supposed to understand, Robyn?"
She shook her head and gave a smile. "No. Lucy, I'm not going to curl
up and die. I'm not a shadow of my former self, and... even if I
thought I could get rid of Kiel, he won't be dispensed with."
"I would help you," Lucy offered. "I have Staff I can turn over to
your use this minute--"
"Lucy," she interrupted, touching her friend's hand, "I can't. I've
never run away from anything in my life, and if I start now, how will
that make me better? Is there some other reason you believe I should
get rid of Kiel?"
Lucy straightened and set aside her napkin with a thump. "I've said
too much, haven't I, even between friends? Of course you must do what
will finally make you better. If I overstepped, Robyn, please forgive
me, but it's because by your own admission, he's making you crazy."
"Or ... maybe he's making me well." Like flypaper, her great-grand
mama Marie used to say. Flypaper traps flies;
so your soul captures what it must learn, and the people to learn
from.
Or in this case, Robyn thought, the angel.
AFTER ROBYN LEFT with Lucinda Montbank, Kiel sat staring into space for
a long time. Every bit as troubled as Robyn by their lack of real
progress in resolving the murders of Spyder Nielsen and Keller, he knew
they must be edging closer. And he knew it was the nature of the
beast, of investigating, that a certain amount of time was likely to be
spent chasing leads that went nowhere. But his own frustration had
more to do with Robyn, with keeping her in the dark as to his true
self, than anything else.
His eyes fixed on the lighted display cabinets along the wall of the
office and the collection of Wild West lore everything from old decks
of cards to bullets, recovered door sills and pictures of dead bodies
from drunken, brawling shoot-'em-ups in the mining. camp saloons. Old
Lucien Montbank, Lucy's great-grandfather, had owned one of the
brothel-saloons, and must have had an unexpectedly forward-looking bent
of mind to save such things for posterity. For instance, the bullet
that killed BlackJack Turner, the notorious gambler.
Just for exercise Kiel split his consciousness, focusing both inward,
on thoughts of Robyn, and outward, on that bullet. His eyes trained on
the misshapen metal bullet, focused sharply and zoomed in until a part
of his being and awareness shrank and actually entered into the
molecules of the lead itself.
This was truly what Kiel would consider an angel trick. David
Copperfield could make the Great Wall of China appear to disappear, so
it wasn't so amazing, to Kiel at least, that he himself had the power
to both materialize,
and then make disappear, that mountain cabin--or anything else, for
that matter. But this ... this ability to be in consciousness in two
different places, this was a feat befitting an angel. He could at once
explore the inner contours of the spent and deadly bullet, and at the
same precise time, be sitting in a chair in an office as would any
mortal being, thinking.
He knew there were times when Robyn believed she had taken a star fling
left-hand, turn into madness. He would either have to resolve this
ease quickly and get out of her mortal life, or finally explain to her
who he was.
The deception was sanctioned as the most humane and compassionate
choice, but every minor piece contributing to it now corroded his
angelic sense of fairness and truth. And with or without the memories
of Keller Trueblood, Kiel's human manifestation was falling deeper in
love with Robyn's earthbound one.
He couldn't handle it much longer. Since the last thing he wanted to
do was to deal with a look of betrayal in Robyn's eyes, he had to do
something--and fast. He ended his little exercise with the bullet in
the display cabinet and sealed the division in his consciousness to get
on with the business of resolving the murders.
He cloaked himself in invisibility and followed the path Robyn and Lucy
had taken, then sat in for a moment on their conversation in the dining
club.
He didn't like Lucinda much. He had the sense that despite all her
obvious help, she was hanging around to throw roadblocks in their way.
She manufactured disputes with him where there were none, and goaded
him every time Robyn went out of earshot. He was tired of messing with
her, and he would have loved to flare up into his fearsome angelic
visage just to put her in her place. He couldn't see what it was that
Robyn admired in
Lucinda Montbank, but instead of taking her on, he went out of his way
for Robyn's sake not to get into power struggles with Lucy.
He didn't like her and didn't like the tone of her lunch conversation,
but he left the restaurant telling himself he had to have faith that
for the next hour, Robyn would be fine without him.
And if she wasn't, by the carving of ivory wings he had made for her,
he would know it. He soared in his invisible state of being around the
mountains surrounding Aspen in search of Tee Palmer, the crusty old
miner Lucy had promised but so far had been unable to deliver.
Kiel traveled in ever-widening circles, searching for the consciousness
of the old man. He found him taking a smoke break from his labors in
an obscure old mining shaft that would have been closed down cold
inside a week had government safety inspectors ever seen it.
Kiel materialized out of sight in clothes the old man would not
automatically mistrust--which were ones about as filthy as those Tee
Palmer wore.
He walked up the hillside for about fifty feet so as not to surprise
the old man, either. "Tee Palmer?" he called out from a distance of
thirty feet.
"Depends." The old guy squinted hard though the sun was at his back.
"Who
in the billy hell are you?"
"Name's Ezekiel. A friend of Lucinda Montbank." "She didn't say you
could find me up here, 'cuz she don't know what I'm doin'," he answered
suspiciously. "So how'd you find me?"
"Lucky break, I reckon. Need some help. Mind if I sit awhile with
you?" Kiel asked, tailoring his words to the old man's speech
patterns.
They sat and talked awhile. Palmer smoked another cigarette, then
another, while he listened to Kiel explaining what it was Tee could
help him with.
The old man sat soaking up the sunshine for a moment, dozing. He
startled awake when a bird screeched at a squirrel, still in mind of
what Kiel had been talking about.
He settled his backside differently on the hard, down-ward-sloping
ground. "That old Hallelujah cavin' in like it did that day set me t'
thinking. Came a runnin' m'self when I heard it go. In that bunged up
ol' Jeep, anyway," he said, jerking his head in the direction of a
vehicle Kiel would bet had seen thirty years on some army base, 'and
another thirty in Tee's possession.
"Were you at the Hallelujah when they rescued that woman and her
husband?"
"Dead-as-a-doornail husband, yep. Can't figure it. Dumb-ass people
get their selves killed all the time going where they oughtn't oughta
go, but I had a sense about this not being a case of dumb asses," he
went on, "but something' nefarious goin' on instead."
Amused as he was by Tee Palmer's mix of quaint and sophisticated words,
the sentiment, the skepticism, shook Kiel. "Why is that Tee?"
"Just a feelin'. About as much logic as fits in a pinhead, but the
feelin'..." Tee shook his head. "That lack o' serious reasoning don't
change the feelin'. Only times in a long life I've ever been in real
trouble was when I ignored m'gut and went with logic."
"Is it possible that someone set off charges?"
"More'n possible. Likely. Had to set off a few more to rescue them
kids, too--that lawyer fella 'n' his wife."
Kiel had a powerful sense of himself being one of the kids Tee was
talking about, only the mortal body of
Keller Trueblood had been stone-cold dead. But the point the old man
had made was an important one.
More blasting had been necessary to clear a path into the tunnel where
Robyn and he, or rather Keller, had been found--which meant new traces
of explosives residue were to be expected.
"So there'd be no way of telling, would there? No way to prove someone
intended for the Hallelujah to collapse on those two?"
"No way on God's little green earth I know of," Tee said. "You know
anybody had it in for that mouthpiece leila?"
Kiel nodded. "There were some. Nobody such as yourself, though, who'd
know how to do the dirty work."
Tee shook his head. "Wish I'd been around, maybe I'd a seen who done
it. I mighta been in the general vicinity," he reflected, " 'cept I
was five miles away chasin' off after some damn-blamed fool New Age
hippies getting' naked in my hot springs."
Kiel grinned. It was too bad Tee Palmer had not been in the vicinity
to see who'd been anywhere near the Hallelujah planting explosives. He
stood up when Tee shoved himself up to his feet, and shook hands with
the old miner. "Thanks for your help." "Ain't much, come to that."
"Did you get rid of the hippies?"
"I fixed their wagon good," Tee said, cackling a bit. "Filled in the
springs with boulders, that's what."
Chapter Ten
Judge Vincent J. Ybarra kept a dark courtroom every Friday afternoon.
Robyn and Kiel checked in with his clerk, and he had, in fact, gone
home for the weekend. She told them it was the Judge's habit to go
soak in the mineral hot springs at the back of his property. That was
where they found him.
His aging housekeeper had taken their names, and he'd sent her back to
invite them in.
The trek out had to be a quarter mile over a footpath just worn through
the weeds. Covered to his bare neck in a pool cut out by the natural
springs, Judge Ybarra smiled broadly and waved an arm at the two of
them. He had a full mustache, head of snowy white hair and distinctive
Hispanic features. He was one of the most respected magistrates on the
Western slope. "Robyn Delaney," he said. "I'm quite a fan of yours,
young lady, I've read all your books. Found them quite good, in fact.
And you're not a trained attorney, are you?"
"No, sir, I'm not," she answered. "Thank you. It's always nice to
hear that someone enjoyed my work, but doubly so, coming from you." She
turned to Kiel. "You've not met Judge Ybarra." Kiel introduced
himself.
"An alias, or a descendant of the great Italian poet?" the old judge
asked, his eyes sparkling with the devil.
"I chose it, sir," Kiel answered. Smith, he swore, next time. Smith.
"Well, if you're going to choose a name, why not?" Ybarra asked. "A
dear friend of mine, a civil rights attorney, went from Ken to
Sebastian. Quite fitting, I believe now, though in my younger days, I
thought changing one's name a bit on the side of overweening. Take off
your shoes, both of you, and dip your feet while we talk. You'll find
it really very therapeutic."
Robyn peeled out of her light knee-highs and loafers inside thirty
seconds. Kiel took a few seconds longer.
Ybarra's expressive face went solemn. "Your husband was a very fine
young man, Robyn. His loss must be very difficult for you, as it is to
all of us who respected his work so highly."
"Thank you so much for that. Keller held you in the highest regard,
too."
"As he should, as he should," Ybarra joked. "You'll find I am not a
falsely modest man."
Kiel finally stuck his feet in the hot springs. "Judge Ybarra, I'm
working with Robyn, going through Keller's files. We think there may
be reasons to doubt the integrity of one of the investigating officers
in Colorado v. Candelaria."
The old gentleman sat up, spreading his thin arms on the rock behind
him. "What reasons?"
"That's really what we came to see if you could help us with," Robyn
answered. "In Keller's notes... I don't know if you were familiar with
Keller's cartoon sketches--"
"Oh, quite," Ybarra interrupted. ".I found him in contempt twice for
scrawling cartoons when he should have been paying attention." The
skin around his old brown eyes crinkled nearly shut when he laughed at
her startled expression. "I confiscated his drawings as payment."
Ybarra leaned forward, whispering, "I framed them. They're of me.
Quite good." Hesat back, laughing, roaring for his housekeeper to
bring him a cigar. "But you were saying?"
Robyn smiled and shook her head at the sly, funny old magistrate. "I
was saying, that in Keller's notes are several caricatures of Detective
Crandall--all quite recognizable." She described the series of
drawings, ending with the courthouse being pulled into the hole
Crandall had dug. "My question, Judge Ybarra, is this. Did Keller
come to you privately and sug
gest that he mistrusted anything Crandall
had done, or anything he'd testified to in court?"
The housemaid was in the midst of lighting Ybarra's cigar. He puffed
on it several times, making smoke rings sail into the steamy vapor over
the hot springs. The smoke rings didn't last in the humid air like
they might have in the crisp autumn air above.
"Keller did, in fact, indicate a certain level of mistrust," Ybarra
stated.
"Over the unidentified tire track?"
Ybarra nodded.
"Did he think the charges against Ms. Candelaria should have been
dropped?"
"No." He sank back down again in the hot springs until the water rose
to his neck. "Keller was troubled over that issue--but, and I tell you
this now in confidence--even the defense investigators failed to come
up with any specific identification on that tread."
Planting her hands behind her on moist rock, Robyn massaged the instep
of one foot with the toes of her other. She exchanged looks with Kiel.
"Judge Ybarra, were you also aware of the problem with Stuart
Willetts?"
"That, my dear, I was not. Not at the time, I should say. Mr.
Willetts behaved with the utmost decorum in my courtroom, and as you
may well know, I do everything in my power to absent myself from the
social scene in this town."
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