Moonbird Boy (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Four)

by Abigail Padgett

  Henderson had written a letter to Mort Wagman offering Mort even more money than the SnakeEye athletic shoe company had given him, if Mort would star in a commercial about psychiatric treatment at Ghost Flower Lodge. The commercial would be on television. Henderson wanted to show Mort crazy in a breechcloth, sweating in a Yurok sweathouse, doing a Navajo sand painting, wearing Zuni jewelry. Then he wanted to show Zach afterward sitting in a bar with pretty women.

  Mort had handed the letter to Zach and said, "Flush it." Then he'd written back to Henderson telling him he'd "place his personal resources at the disposal of the Neji" if MedNet continued its attempts to buy the Ghost Flower program. But that was before Hopper Mead died. Before the ignorance of Zachary Crooked Owl handed Ghost Flower and the Neji legacy straight into the hands of the enemy.

  Zach kicked pebbles at a young banded gecko peeking out from the deep shadow of a rock, and immediately cursed himself. The supple little creature with its pinkish legs nearly transparent in the bright sunlight looked like a human fetus. "What kind of man kicks a baby?" Zach said aloud. He knew he was going to have to do something before his self-hatred made him a monster.

  Old John had wanted him to go to school, he remembered again. Had said that a business course at the community college would help in running the Neji's board-and-care business. And Zach had gone for a semester. But he was young then, and shy among the white students who called him Black Tonto and the black students whose jargon and hostility he couldn't understand, and even the Latino students, who just ignored him. There were no other Indians there. He didn't fit in, and he'd stopped attending classes.

  If he'd finished, Zach thought bitterly, he might have seen the flaw in Hopper Mead's offer. He might have remembered that even young people can die, and hired a lawyer to handle the loan she offered. But he hadn't done any of those things. And now the greed of white men would destroy everything they'd worked for. The sullen finality of it made his head pound. Somebody should have to pay, he thought. One of them should die as Mort Wagman had died. He should kill one of them.

  The copper shell in his pocket pressed against his thigh as he walked. He could give it to the authorities, could have done that from the beginning. They could run tests, determine the type of gun it was shot from, check records. They could see who owned guns like that from records all over the country. Maybe it would be Henderson's gun.

  Zach pushed himself against the hot desert air as if it were an obstacle. Even walking felt like a battle. He'd searched for the shell and then kept it because it was the only thing he could use against Henderson. He hadn't really thought he'd need to.

  When he found the shell he still thought he could get enough money from the mob to pay off Mead's loan, now held by MedNet. He'd agreed to let a gambling syndicate build a casino on the Neji Reservation, even agreed that some of the Neji would run it. It had to be owned and run by Indians on reservation land to avoid federal and state gambling laws. Indian reservations, he'd learned, were like sovereign nations in some ways, not always subject to the laws of the conquering culture. Zach hated the idea of a Neji casino, but it was better than losing the dream his father had created from nothing. That dream was Ghost Flower Lodge and its program, a legend of kindness begun when one man did not abandon his ill brother.

  But Zach hadn't understood the game. He'd gone to St. Louis for a meeting with the syndicate, but they'd already said MedNet would pay them even more money than the four hundred thousand he needed if they'd forget building a Neji casino. MedNet wanted the Neji for its own purposes and would pay the syndicate to back off. There was only one way to cinch the deal for the Neji, his connection had told Zach. And that way involved a woman. She was Mort Wagman's mother.

  She was a member of MedNet's board, the man told Zach. And she wanted to take Mort's little boy away from him. That's why Mort had changed his name, why he had no history. He'd been hiding. But she'd found him. And MedNet had arranged to have him killed at her request.

  But she could stop the MedNet drive to gain control of Ghost Flower, the man went on, if she thought her grandson's life lay in the balance. If she thought the child had been kidnapped, she could stall the move long enough for Zach to nail the casino deal, get the money, pay off Mead's loan. But it all had to go down over the weekend, when she wouldn't be able to contact anybody at the agency holding the boy. When she would believe he'd been kidnapped.

  Zach's hands knotted into fists when he remembered his stupidity. It all happened so fast. And the man talked so fast. But it was all a lie. A lie to get Zachary Crooked Owl's handwriting on a threatening note that would divert attention from both the mob and MedNet if there were further violence as the two jockeyed for control of the Indians. It was a joke, Zach thought bitterly. For a hundred years the Kumeyaay had survived like lizards in a barren landscape nobody wanted. Unworthy of attention, much less help. Invisible. Now powerful men offered powerful amounts of money for a chance to use that land and its lizards. Powerful men were willing to kill for that chance.

  But he could fight back, Zach mused. If Henderson had murdered Mort, the shell casing would give the Neji leverage. There were countless reasons for murder, and Mort Wagman had been wealthy. Zach had stopped trying to understand the connections between Mort and MedNet. There was no source from which he could learn the truth, put the pieces together. But there had to be a connection because Mort Wagman was dead. And Henderson had been in town.

  He would tell Henderson he had the shell. He would insist on a renegotiation of the loan in exchange for it. And that was blackmail. Henderson might try to kill him, but he was ready. If it would save the dream, he was completely ready.

  Henderson was coming to the lodge on Wednesday. The Neji didn't have to permit him on their land, but Zach had told him to come. And now he was uneasy. He'd been in the army, seen action in Vietnam. He'd shot thousands of rounds into steaming jungles where tiny people were hiding. He might have killed them, but if he did he didn't know it. This would be different. The thought of it made him sick.

  Looking up, he saw the edge of Yucca Canyon. He couldn't seem to stay away. Something was going to happen here, he could feel it. Someone was going to die. Throwing his head back, he screamed into the dry air, silent except for a ticking sound that might have been insects and might have been time running out. The echo bounced off the canyon's wall and bathed him in vibrating light.

  Chapter 24

  At the office Bo found messages from Andrew, Mindy at the dogwash, and Ann Lee Keith, each carefully abbreviated by the message center worker.

  "Dr. LaMarche has important news. Call at home," said the first. Then, "Dog Beach Dogwash, call back." The final one was cryptic. "Urgent—phone Dr. Ann Lee Keith anytime day or night." Both Keith's work and unlisted home numbers were given.

  Bo dialed Keith's home number immediately, and got a busy signal. Then she phoned the dogwash. Jane and Mindy were out, and the young employee who answered knew nothing of a package for Bo.

  "Maybe it's this shipment of the new anti-matting coat conditioner," she suggested. "It comes in sage, peppermint, and unscented."

  Bo ran a hand through her short curls and found no mats. "I have plenty of conditioner," she said. "Just tell Jane and Mindy I called."

  Andrew LaMarche answered his phone on the first ring and sounded strangely exuberant. "Bo," he began, "I had no idea how much fun it could be not going to work. That harpsichord kit I ordered finally arrived, and—"

  "Andy, where are you going to put a harpsichord? Your condo's not much bigger than my apartment, and a harpsichord's as long as a grand piano."

  "Indeed," he went on as if the dimensions of a stringed keyboard first seen in the sixteenth century were deeply exciting. "And I'm going to make the plectra out of crow quill the way they did in the beginning, not out of the plastic that came in the kit. And where to put it, well, J'ai l'idée que—"

  "My guess is that means you've got an idea," Bo interrupted, "and I'd love to hear it, in Engli
sh. Also, I'm concerned about how you plan to entertain a flock of naked, angry crows until their quills grow back. But I need to call Ann Lee Keith. When can I see the harpsichord?"

  "In about three months," he laughed. "But there's something else I want you to see tonight."

  "What?" Bo took the bait, resisting an urge to point out that she'd already seen it. A bawdy remark at this point would only drive him further into the Cajun French he sputtered at the slightest hint of emotional stress. She'd never get off the phone.

  "A surprise."

  "What kind of surprise?"

  "Wait and see," he teased, filling Bo's ear with a baritone vibrato that made her think of windblown cypress trees. In Greece. "And by the way," the cypress-voice continued, "I remembered seeing this Dr. Keith's name before, in medical journals. She was a rising star in experimental neurophysiology until a few years ago, the name in early fetal-cell implant technology. Then she just vanished from the scene, quit publishing, dropped off the face of the earth, as they say. I seem to recall there was some kind of professional scandal, but I never knew what it was. Not surprising, though. It's a controversial field."

  "Scandal, huh?" Bo mused. "Maybe you'll remember what it was by tonight. I'll call you later."

  Without replacing the receiver Bo dialed Ann Lee Keith's number again. This time it rang.

  "This is Dr. Keith," a well-modulated, feminine voice answered. The words were almost whispered.

  "This is Ms. Bradley, calling from Child Protective Services in San Diego." Bo matched the woman's polite tone. "If you have a few moments, Dr. Keith, I'd like to ask—"

  "Do you have my grandson?" Ann Lee Keith broke in. "There have been threats, you see. I've been trying to find him. Surely that's the reason you've called?"

  In the interrogative statement Bo heard panic, the beginning of tears. "Who is your grandson?" she asked gently.

  "Charles. Adam named him Charles for Baudelaire. His name is Charles Duncan Keith. He would be six now, almost seven. I haven't seen him since he was four."

  Bo could actually feel her brain filing bits of information like tumblers moving in a lock. Grandson. Charles. Adam. Baudelaire. Little conceptual thunks. Then an awareness that discretion might be called for here. If Charles were Bird, his father had not wanted this woman to know his whereabouts. And this woman would either be Mort Wagman's mother or Bird's mother's mother. An advisor to MedNet. And a once-prominent scientist with a scandal in her past.

  "Dr. Keith," Bo said, casting about for a way to get information without providing too much in return, "I'm investigating a case involving a murder near a treatment facility which is about to be taken over by a corporation called MedNet. I'm contacting you in your capacity as an advisor to that corporation." It sounded official, Bo thought, and it said absolutely nothing.

  "Murder!" the woman said. "Are you telling me that my grandson is dead? What treatment facility? And why would a representative of a children's agency be investigating a murder?"

  Then her voice changed. "I'm tired of this," she pronounced in low, angry tones. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but whatever it is, I don't have it. I have nothing to do with MedNet. Those vultures bought my name, nothing more. The message you left at my home means nothing to me, except that you've somehow kidnapped Charles. The St. Louis police have your note, and now the San Diego police will have this phone number. You're not going to get away with this!"

  Before Bo could reply, Ann Lee Keith hung up.

  In the hall outside her office door Bo heard Nick Paratore urging somebody to join his save-the-fish group, Scales of Justice.

  "It's only fifteen dollars," he insisted.

  "Madre de Dios!" another voice answered. "I already gave you five dollars. Hit up somebody else." It was Estrella.

  "Am I glad to see you!" Bo said as her friend dumped case files, purse, and briefcase on the desk across from Bo's, and slumped into a desk chair. "I can't make sense out of this Wagman case no matter what I do, and it's getting worse. Ann Lee Keith may be Bird's grandmother, but at the moment she's phoning San Diego police to have me arrested. Did you have lunch?"

  Estrella grinned. "No, and I'm eating for two. Let's go up to the lunchroom before they padlock the sandwich cooler. The baby wants tuna salad on sourdough, a bag of chips, and one of those chocolate chip cookies the size of a Frisbee. I'll just have skim milk."

  "That's wise," Bo agreed.

  The lunch crowd had already cleared as Bo and Estrella sat facing the CPS building's overgrown courtyard. Half an immense chocolate chip cookie lay on each of their paper plates.

  "Mmm," Estrella said, savoring a bite of cookie as Bo finished a narrative of the morning's discoveries. "I think you'd better tell Madge about your call to Dr. Keith before a SWAT team arrives to blow you away. Keith sounds like the type who really will call the police, file complaints, the whole thing."

  "Yeah," Bo agreed halfheartedly. It was nothing unusual. Parents and relatives of children picked up by CPS often called the police demanding help, as if the police and CPS weren't two sides of the same coin. And when the parents' demands weren't met, they often filed complaints, creating another whole office just to shuffle the paper. But Ann Lee Keith wasn't just another disgruntled relative. Bo didn't know what she was.

  "Keith doesn't know I really work here," she explained as Estrella continued to erode the slab of cookie. "I didn't want to tell her anything about Bird until I knew more about her, about why Mort wasn't in contact with her. So I handed her a line of bureaucratic bull and she saw straight through it. Now she thinks I'm part of whoever's threatening her, leaving messages at her house. That was Zach and the gangster, Es. They left that note in her mailbox. But I don't want to tell Madge about that."

  "Don't. She'd have you in a straitjacket before you got out of her office if she knew about your little trip on Saturday."

  Bo sighed. "California outlawed straitjackets in public facilities thirty years ago. People choke to death in the damn things. They're barbaric!"

  "It was a figure of speech, Bo. Sorry."

  "Keith will find out I'm legitimate as soon as she does some checking," Bo went on. "Then she'll call back. I need to know something about her before then. I can't keep putting her off if she really is Bird's grandmother."

  "Why not?" Estrella grinned. "This system's set up to put people off."

  "Because Bird needs somebody to take care of him now. Somebody who can understand him and love him and provide the environment he needs. A grandmother would do nicely, but is Bird really this Charles she talks about, and who's Adam?"

  "Maybe Adam was Mort," Estrella offered. "He looked like an Adam, don't you think?"

  "He looked like a raven," Bo mumbled through her last bite of cookie. "The Neji called him Raven. My brother Raven and his fledgling, the Moonbird, backlit by moonlight atop a desert mesa. That's the picture in my mind."

  "Um," Estrella answered, standing and brushing crumbs from a gold knit maternity top. "Don't put that in the court report."

  Five minutes later Bo was on the phone with Eva Broussard.

  "I need to learn something about a neurophysiologist on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis," she told her psychiatrist. "It's Ann Lee Keith, the woman at whose house Zach and that organized crime guy left the weird note. Andy says she's famous, or was. There was some kind of scandal. How can I find out about her?"

  "First, how are you doing?" Broussard asked. "Are you sleeping, eating, moody, manic? All the usual questions."

  "Actually, I'm fine," Bo answered. "This case is really interesting, I'm taking my meds right on schedule, and it helps that Andy's back. It's funny, but the depression seems like something that happened a long time ago. I don't think about it."

  "Less than a week ago you were still in a psych rehab facility," Eva pointed out. "Of course you don't want to remember why you were there, but you have to. Am I being too direct?"

  "You're shattering my illusion of normalcy." Bo
grinned, drawing a row of round, imbecilic "happy faces" on the margin of a county directive regarding possible changes in dental insurance. "But thank you."

  "Always delighted to help. And as to your question—I'd recommend the medical library at the University of California, here in San Diego. Do you know Keith's area of research?"

  "Something about fetal implants," Bo answered. "Andy said it was controversial."

  "He's correct. It's an area fraught with ethical dilemmas, but also one of the most exciting new fields in medicine. Your research should be fascinating."

  "I'll let you know," Bo concluded. "Thanks, Eva."

  After explaining to Madge Aldenhoven that an irate grandmother would probably be phoning the San Diego police to complain that Bo Bradley was impersonating a child abuse investigator, Bo made her own call to the police. Specifically, to Dar Reinert, a detective in the San Diego Police Department's Child Abuse Unit. Bo had worked with the crusty detective on previous cases and knew he wouldn't flinch at a little rule bending.

  "Dar," she began, "I need to see a copy of the report on that shark attack. You know, the Hopper Mead thing."

  "Mead didn't have any kids," Reinert resisted. "What the hell does CPS want with a shark story?"

  There was no point in trying to con Dar Reinert. "I don't really know, but there's some kind of connection to this case I've got. A money connection. When Mead died her trust went to a corporation called MedNet, and—"

  "MedNet was her daddy," Reinert growled knowledgeably. "Guy that's heading the investigation is a buddy of mine, told me all about it waiting in line at the firing range Saturday night."

  "What did he say?"

  "Daddy was Randolph Mead, Sr. Started the first chain hospitals years ago after he married into money, wife's name was Delores Hopper. Hopper Feeds. Big poultry feed company outta Kansas. It's defunct now, but—"

  "Dar," Bo interrupted, "chicken feed isn't what I'm looking for. Did the investigation turn up anything suspicious about Hopper Mead's death?"