“Last year the parents gave up and agreed to temporary foster care. She was living with Mike and Julie Stark when she came in here asking for a job. She had that look in her eye—wounded but brave. I like that. I hired her on the spot. Mike and Julie filled me in on the background later.”
“Mike and Julie Stark? Maude’s nephew and his wife?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. Nice people. They’ve got a fourteen-year-old daughter, always wanted more kids but couldn’t have them, so they take in foster children now and then,” Delice explained.
“So did Charlie keep running away because she was being abused at home?” Sally asked.
“She didn’t talk about it with me,” said Delice, “and the Starks didn’t go into detail. But it’s what I suspect. For their part, the parents claim they’ve tried everything, but she’s an incorrigible juvenile delinquent who runs with a rough crowd, a pathological liar and thief.”
Sally thought a minute. “From what she said, it sounded like she was living with her parents again.”
“For about the last month, yeah. I don’t know what happened, but I guess, somehow, they managed to talk her into coming home. I know they bought her a car—maybe that had something to do with it. Bradley Preston has bucks.”
“Bradley Preston?” Sally frowned. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place him.”
Delice made a face. “He’s a heap big bwana corporate lawyer and a pompous jerk. You’d never know I had to kick his ass out of my bar twenty-some years ago.”
“Wait a minute. There was a guy who used to hustle pool and hassle waitresses. Bad Brad. Used to work as a roughneck on drill rigs, right? You’re not saying he’s Char-lie’s father?” Sally said.
“Same guy, but different M.O. Quit the Oilpatch, went to law school, married and divorced his secretary when she ran off and left him with a three-year-old kid. Faster than you can say ‘rebound,’ he married an upright Christian woman and got born again. He represents insurance companies who want to deny claims to little old ladies and Cub Scouts.”
“He was a rude bastard, back in the day. I recall him getting a huge snootful of Yukon Jack, reaching across the bar, and ripping the T-shirt off Lizzie Mason when she was in the middle of making a tequila sunrise,” said Sally.
“And that,” said Delice, “was the last time he set foot in my place. Stupid son of a bitch.”
Nobody messed with Delice Langham.
“What about the stepmother? If the father is a batterer, where does this good professing woman fit in?” Sally asked. She was Jewish herself, but the situation struck her as, well, unchristian.
“Who knows? Beatrice is probably too busy minding other people’s business to notice,” Delice said with a sneer.
“So she’s that kind of Christian,” said Sally.
“Maybe she just doesn’t want anything to do with the leftovers of Brad’s first marriage.”
“Or maybe it’s just easier for her to see nothing. You know how it goes. Family members look the other way so it doesn’t come down on them.” Delice picked up a pen and drew circles on her desk blotter.
“Or maybe she’s convinced herself that the kid deserves what she gets,” Sally said.
Delice put down the pen, sighed heavily, looked up. “It happens,” she said.
“I’m feeling better about giving Charlie the money,” said Sally.
“And the coat,” said Delice. The wind was really kicking up by now, pounding the dingy little window of Delice’s office with dust and gravel from the Wrangler parking lot. “She’ll be glad she’s got that coat. It’s getting really evil out.”
Chapter 2
The American Experience
A week went by, then two, and as Delice had predicted, Sally heard nothing from Charlie Preston. The girl’s predicament was on her mind, though, lurking under the surface of consciousness. Sally dreamed that she was driving down the highway, gripping the wheel hard and going faster, far faster, than she should. It was pitch-dark and the road was slippery, and she was scared. Then she looked over at the passenger seat, and there was a large, hideous man with a furious face and a huge fist drawn back. When she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out. She almost felt the blow as she awoke, gasping for air.
“Mmph,” said Hawk, when she startled him out of a sound sleep by practically leaping on his back. He stirred enough to reach out an arm and pull her close, and immediately fell back asleep. It was comfort enough. Having Hawk Green share your house and your life and your bed was, altogether, a vastly comforting thing.
And as much as she worried about Charlie, life went on. Sally was so overextended, she had started making lists of her to-do lists. Urgent interruptions continually interfered with pressing matters. She thought about taking a time-management seminar, decided what she really needed was a stress-management workshop, then decided she had neither the time nor the patience for either and resigned herself to being content with accomplishing forty percent of what she’d hoped to get done in any given day.
And found herself brooding about Charlie even when there were a hundred other things buzzing in her brain.
“You should go to my yoga class,” said Edna McCaf-frey, accepting a glass of cabernet from a server. Sally was hosting a reception following a preview screening of a new American Experience documentary on Margaret Dunwoodie, the Wyoming poet. Sally, as Dunwoodie’s biographer and head of the Dunwoodie Center for Women’s History, had been a consultant on the documentary, and had arranged to do the screening and reception as a fund-raiser for the Dunwoodie Center. It was a bit of a scam. Everybody who’d attended had paid fifty bucks for the honor of watching a film they could see on television two weeks later, and chatting over wine and cheese with people they were likely to run into at the supermarket.
Still, this was one of those times when it didn’t hurt that everybody in town knew everybody else, and half of them were related. Meg Dunwoodie was a world-famous poet, and had been one of their own. The Performing Arts Center auditorium held five hundred, and every seat had been filled.
“Your yoga class?” Sally asked Edna as she took a sip of the adequate sauvignon blanc they were pouring. “Since when have you gone in for instant karma?”
“Since I went to the doctor and found out that my blood pressure’s a trifle higher than it ought to be,” said Edna. “This business of being a dean isn’t all glamour and glory.”
“You wear it well,” Sally told Edna, and meant it. They’d been friends for years, and it had been Edna who, as dean of arts and sciences, had hired Sally for her current job. Edna remembered and rewarded productivity, creativity, and loyalty, and never forgot laziness, smugness, or opportunism.
You really didn’t want to get on Edna’s list.
She was nearly six feet tall, given to wearing dramatic colors and short skirts that displayed her showgirl legs. Tonight Edna had on a form-fitting red silk cocktail dress, short-sleeved with a sweetheart neckline, and black patent leather spike heels. She could literally look down on most of the people in the place.
“Thanks for the compliment,” said Edna, “but I’ve been feeling like shit. So I started this yoga thing right after Christmas, two or three times a week, and it’s changed my life, I swear to God.”
“You probably shouldn’t be swearing to God if yoga’s changing your life,” said Sally.
“Think I’ll stick to running. By the time I’ve done forty minutes of dragging my ass around town, I’ve sweated out all the demons.”
“You can’t sweat out all the demons,” Edna replied. “Sometimes you just have to stretch out and let them go.”
“By George!” said Sally.
“There is a divinely serene aura around you tonight, Edna.”
Edna laughed. “And if letting the demons go doesn’t work, of course, there’s always the possibility of kicking the shit out of them.”
Now Sally laughed.
“I’m loving this event,” Edna said, surveying the crowd like Big
Bird on the set of Sesame Street. “You’ve raised twenty-five grand, made everybody here feel like an insider, and pulled it off with class. See that gang of thieves over there by the buffet?” she asked, gesturing with her wineglass. “They could be good for a couple hundred thousand down the road.”
Sally looked in the direction Edna pointed, having to crane her neck to see. “Yeah, I’ve seen some of them at Democratic fund-raisers. How come trial lawyers always stick together?”
“How come piranhas swim in schools?” asked Edna. “Go over there and see if you can enchant them into opening up their wallets.”
Sally made her way over to the corner where the lawyers were discussing the coming elections. “If they run him for Congress,” said a substantial blond woman in a poison-green power suit, “the widows and orphans better watch out. Make way for the malefactors of great wealth!” The blond slugged down some wine, speared a cocktail meatball from a chafing dish.
“Hey, easy now. I’m partial to malefactors of great wealth when they’re paying my retainer,” replied a sweet-faced young man in a blue blazer with—of all things!—a crest on the pocket. “Rich folks are people too, you know.”
“Nobody denies that, Flip,” interjected a lanky, slightly older (forty-something? fiftyish?) man in a tweed sport coat and gray sweater. “But they can probably get along okay even without the extra advantage they’d derive from having a tool like Bad Brad in Washington.”
And then he noticed Sally. “Oh hey, Professor Alder. Great job on the documentary!” He turned and put down a paper napkin to shake her hand and introduce the group. “I’m Dave Haggerty,” he finished. “I’ve got a little office downtown.”
A little office. Uh-huh. Haggerty, Hebard, and Bright was the state’s foremost civil rights and criminal defense firm, and Dave Haggerty was senior partner, chief mastermind, and byall accounts, courtroom hypnotist. She could understand the appeal. The man had a voice like Godiva chocolate.
Most right-thinking people in Wyoming considered Dave Haggerty a rabble-rouser at best, possibly a commie. She’d seen him around, but never been formally introduced. “You’re too modest, Mr. Haggerty. I know all about your work, and I’m a great admirer. I wanted to tell you in person how grateful I am for the support you’ve given the center.”
Haggerty smiled. “It’s Dave. I had Miss Dunwoodie for freshman comp. A truly merciless woman. I still can’t bring myself to use an adjective,” he said.
“Except when you’re talking to a jury, Dave,” said the blond in the green suit. “I’ve even heard you resort to adverbs.”
“Actually, Dave,” Sally observed, “I believe you just used the adjective ‘merciless’ to modify the noun ‘woman.’ ”
“Merciless of you to point that out,” said Haggerty. Sally laughed.
“We’re just speculating about the election. Looks like the Republicans are going to run Bradley Preston for our lone congressional seat. Don’t know if you’re familiar with him. It’s a pretty alarming prospect.” Haggerty sipped a little wine.
Bradley Preston? That got Sally’s attention.
“It’s just a stepping-stone,” the blond explained. “The Republicans have Bad Brad in mind for greater things. The bastards have been dying to get a right-winger on the Tenth Circuit bench, and it looks like they’re lining it up for Brad. They might as well revoke the Bill of Rights right now.”
“Maybe not the whole Bill of Rights,” said a small woman in a black dress. “I’m thinking he’d leave the Second and Tenth Amendments.”
“So that the states would have all the power, which they’d never use, of course, except to enforce public prayer and assure every American of his or her God-given right to carry an assault rifle into an elementary school,” the blond said.
“Preston hasn’t even announced for the House yet,” said the guy with the crest. “And even if he wins, it’s hardly the end of civil rights as we know it.”
The other three lawyers just looked at him.
“Okay, you’re right. It is,” he conceded.
Sally liked their politics, but she wanted more information about the man they were dissecting.
“So this Bradley Preston,” she said. “He’s the darling of the GOP machine?”
“Professor Alder,” said Haggerty, looking directly at her, “this guy’s just one of the many standing in line to soldier forth for the cause of righteousness and tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy. He just happens to be slightly smarter and a whole lot more ruthless than the average.”
“Call me Sally,” she said, noting that Dave Haggerty’s eyes were an interesting golden color. Amber? Topaz? Tiger eyes.
“And Preston’s got a secret weapon,” said the blond. “The B-Bomb.”
“His wife,” the woman in the black dress explained. “One of those people who makes you wish women hadn’t gotten the vote.”
“I never wish that,” said Sally. “But why would I?”
“Bea’s head of the Traditional Family Fund. They’re new, but they’re incredibly well organized and well funded, or they will be. Every time there’s a bill in the legislature that allocates a little money for day care for single mothers, or familyviolence shelters, Beatrice Preston sends out one email and mobilizes a hundred fanatics to burylegislative staff in messages and letters and phone calls, and hold prayer vigils outside their offices—they even send little kids to prayoutside the houses of everyone from the representatives to their lowliest aides. Pretty intimidating,” the blond said.
“Not to mention creepy and fascist,” the black dress added.
“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of them.” Sally tried to imagine life as Charlie Preston, with a stepmother like that. “What about the Preston family?” Sally asked. “They must at least have one or two skeletons in the closet. A gay nephew, a brother who writes bad checks.”
“Who doesn’t? Bea’s got an ingenious approach—she puts the family troubles right out front and uses them for all they’re worth. Brad has a daughter from a first marriage. The kid’s always in trouble. Bea suffers and prays a lot, very publicly,” said the blond.
“It’s disgusting,” Haggerty said quietly. “And effective.”
“Which is why you’ve got to run against him, Dave,” the guy with the crest told Haggerty. “We can’t have Bad Brad in Congress, and the B-Bomb running things behind the scenes.”
“Look, I’m hardly Brad’s biggest fan, and I’d even consider the run. Except for three things. One, I wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting elected. Two, the party knows that, and would never run me. Three, I don’t want to be a politician.” Haggerty drank some more Perrier.
The blond gave him a half smile. “We’ll see about that, Dave,” she said, and turned to Sally. “Now, Sally, tell us more about the Dunwoodie Center. Flip here just won a big case, and I’m sure he’d like to make a generous contribution.”
“Hey, I’m cash-poor,” said the younger man.
“Oh, I forgot,” the blond said. “Your latest client was the poor slob they so unjustly accused of cocaine trafficking. He paid you in giant plasma TVs and weekends at a timeshare in Cabo.”
Just then, Haggerty got a call on his cell phone. At the same time, Sally noticed Maude Stark, chair of the Dunwoodie Foundation, trying to get her attention. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said to the lawyers. “It’s been great meeting all of you.”
“Let’s keep in touch,” said Dave Haggerty, putting his hand over his phone, looking at Sally’s wedding ring–less left hand, and then smiling into her eyes.
Hoo boy.
Sally shook off the vibe as she approached Maude, who happened to be chatting with, among others, Hawk. Dave Haggerty was a fox, Sally decided, but Josiah Hawkins Green had been lighting her up a long time. Hawk’s wardrobe ran to jeans and T-shirts and flannel, but he cleaned up very nicely. Tonight he wore a black turtleneck, a black cashmere sport coat, black jeans. His thick black hair, streaked with silver, was caught in the usual ponytail, halfway
down his back. It was a careless, dangerous look, underplayed but not to be underestimated.
Maude was a formidable presence in her own right, nearly as tall as Hawk and just as lean. She wore a trim pantsuit with an Eisenhower jacket, steelyhair pulled back, her eyes as pale and clear as a prairie lake at sunrise. Sallyhoped she looked half as good as Maude did at half-past sixty. “So did you talk those legal eagles out of big bucks?” Maude asked.
“Working on it,” Sally said. “David Haggerty’s actually already made a contribution, but I’d never met him until tonight.”
“He’s probably good for more,” said Maude, nodding approvingly. “I’m just introducing Hawk to my nephew and niece, Mike and Julie Stark. They’re so busy saving the world, I hardly ever get to see them myself.”
“That’s you, Maude,” said Julie, a comfortable-looking brunette with a round face. “We’re just humble high school teachers.”
“And you’re not introducing Mike and me,” said Hawk. “I’ve played against him in the city basketball league. If he’s interested in saving the world, tell him to start with my ribs. I’ve been introduced to his razor-sharp elbows on any number of occasions.”
“Welcome to the city league,” said Mike, grinning. The man was unmistakably related to Maude—same build, same eyes, same air of confidence. “This is great, Dr. Alder. I mostly remember Meg Dunwoodie as the scary old lady that my auntie Maude used to keep house for. She really came to life in the film.”
“What do you teach?” Sally asked Mike.
“Photography,” he said, “and Julie teaches math.”
“They don’t get enough of obnoxious teenagers at school,” said Maude, “so just to keep things interesting, they take in everybody else’s problem kids.”
“That’s incredibly brave of you,” said Sally. “Teenagers scare the hell out of me.”
“Us too,” said Julie. “Especiallysince our own daughter turned fourteen. It seems like just yesterday I was buying her underpants with the days of the week printed on the butt. Now she’s going down to the mall in Fort Collins with her friends and smuggling Victoria’s Secret bags into her bedroom.”
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