by Ron Levitsky
Finally she brought it down to her lap. “Well, I thought you’d be glad.”
“Sure.”
“The psychologist has alerted the high school, and someone there will be monitoring her progress for the first semester. But her final grades were good, she’s practicing with her usual concentration, and she’s having a great summer. I’m very pleased, and you should be too.”
He nodded.
“Things would be even better if you were more accepting of the situation.”
“Situation?”
“My marriage. I know, more than anything, you want what’s best for Sarah. If you could just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I don’t know, maybe have dinner with us, Shelly too, the next time you’re in town.”
He shook his head.
“At least stop with the podiatrist jokes. Every time we go to McDonald’s, Sarah says it must be Shelly’s favorite restaurant because of its golden arches. That’s one of your adolescent cracks.”
“All right.”
“Look, I know I hurt you, but for Sarah’s sake we should try to make the best of it.”
“Of what? You sleeping with another man?”
Her eyes widened. “What in God’s name are you talking about? Shelly and I are married.”
“‘In God’s name’? That’s a strange way for you to put it. You know we never received a get.”
She rubbed her forehead, flashing the rings in front of his eyes. “Get—a Jewish divorce? You never mentioned it when we went through court. Knowing how you feel about your family, I never thought a get would even cross your mind. What’s done is done. Why in the world would you bring it up now?”
Why would he? He must be crazy to say things like that. Still, for a moment he saw her smiling shyly, dressed in white and standing with him under the huppah.
He asked, “You know why a Jewish groom steps on a glass at the marriage ceremony?”
“My mother said it was the last time the husband ever puts his foot down.”
“It symbolizes what discord between husband and wife can do to their family.”
Bess shook her head slowly. “So, after all these years, your head’s still in that ghetto of your father. People go through divorces all the time. They adjust, and their children adjust.”
“Do they?”
“I never said you were the only one at fault. We just didn’t get along. Irreconcilable differences . . . God, I don’t know why we’re rehashing all this.”
“Irreconcilable differences? What does that mean—you wanted a boat on Lake Michigan and I settled for one in the bathtub? The only real justification for a get is something serious like adultery, and there was never any of that.”
Crossing her arms, Bess stared at him for a long time. Finally, she said, “Well, I’m sleeping with Shelly now, so go ask for your get.”
He turned away, pretending to look for Sarah. It was a mistake to have come, to have seen Bess with those rings, fresh from another man’s bed—even if the man was her husband.
Her hand was on his arm, slowly pulling him around.
“Nate, I had no idea my marriage bothered you.”
“Forget it, Like you said, ‘what’s done is done’.”
“Maybe you should get some help. If therapy helped Sarah, it could probably help . . .”
“I said forget it.”
“But if . . .”
“Here’s Sarah.” He took the tea from her. “Thanks.”
She sat between her parents, and they sipped their drinks for a few minutes.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, checking his watch. “I’d better get going.”
“Oh, Daddy, you just got here!”
“Walk me to the gate.” To Bess, “Sarah mentioned a music theory class. You know I pay for all her lessons.” He took out his checkbook. “How much was it?”
“It was just something extra we fit into her schedule, Shelly and I . . . I’ve taken care of it.”
Pen poised over the checkbook, he asked again, “How much was it?”
She hesitated, then said, “A hundred dollars.”
Bess was lying. It must’ve cost at least twice that much, but they both knew he didn’t have that kind of money. He handed her the check.
She asked, “Have you spoken to any of your family lately?”
“No.”
“It’s just that Shelly heard your brother Aaron might be the new head of cardiology. They’re both on staff at Highland Park. Quite an honor for someone not much over forty.”
“He was always the smart one in the family.”
“Funny, he always says that about you. You should call him. And . . . your father’s been ill. Just the flu, but anything at his age . . . I thought you should know.”
Lifting his briefcase, Rosen stood and, taking Sarah’s hand, led her away. Bess remained seated, finishing her coffee and looking at a newspaper strewn on the carpet near her feet. Halfway down the corridor, he glanced back to see her watching them.
“Sarah, do you remember when you were a little girl, your mother and I used to take you ice-skating? We’d make little designs on the ice with our skates.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, clowns and stars. Sometimes you’d sit on the ice and make big circles with your tush. Everybody thought you were so cute.”
“Daddy, I didn’t seriously do that in public.”
They looked at each other, then both burst out laughing.
He held her hand tightly all the way to the gate, where a few businessmen had lined up for boarding.
“I’d better go.”
She nodded, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
Cupping her face in his hand, he kissed her forehead. “It’s all right. I’ll be in for your recital in a few months.”
“That’s so far away.”
“Maybe I can come through O’Hare on my way back from South Dakota.”
“Promise.”
“Sure. Now you promise me not to let this new situation—your mother’s marriage—bother you. All right?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “It doesn’t bother me—really. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh. I just can’t stand for you to be alone.”
He suddenly grew very warm and, feeling his heart beat heavily, loosened his tie. “I’m not alone.” He stared deep into her eyes and thought of how the Torah described wearing the phylacteries. He touched his heart, then his forehead. “I keep you here and here, before my eyes always.”
They hugged tightly, he kissed her once more on the cheek, then pulled away from her arms. Before leaving he said what he’d always told her, ever since she was a baby. “Be a good girl.”
Handing his boarding pass to the attendant before entering the gate, he looked back and waved.
The attendant said, “She’s a pretty girl.”
“My daughter. She’s come to see me off.”
Walking into the plane, he thought, “At least today I didn’t lie. I wasn’t a stranger.”
Chapter Four – WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Flying over Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota, Rosen saw farmland that went on forever, an enormous checkerboard of yellow and green fields bigger than most countries, big enough to feed the world. It was a monument more wondrous than those of marble he saw every day in Washington. His father would have said, “Of course it is more wondrous, because all that you see is a gift from God.”
Then he would have quoted the Psalms: “How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all.”
It always came back to his father. Even the words Rosen had spoken to Bess, about adultery and the need for a get, might have been his father’s. She had said the old man was sick, but Aaron lived nearby—the eldest son and a doctor. He’d take care of everything, like the dutiful son he always was. If the illness became serious, Rosen would get a call. Would even t
hat bring him home?
“How manifold are Thy works . . .”
He thought of Sarah—how wondrous she was, and how she was growing up without him. And Bess. What talmudic passage had the rabbi quoted at their wedding—“He who has no wife abides without goodness and joy.”
“Leave it alone,” he muttered, remembering what Bess had said. “What’s done is done.” Besides, there was the case. He needed to concentrate on that, or he’d be of no use to anyone, especially to the man charged with murder . . . this Indian, Saul True Sky. Putting on a pair of headphones, he listened to the all-jazz channel while reading the murder account that had been faxed to his office the day before.
During the next half hour, Rosen occasionally glanced out the window and noticed the landscape changing. The greens and yellows weren’t quite so vibrant; in the distance, the land rose into a series of hills darkened by forests.
“We’re beginning our descent into Rapid City,” the pilot said over the intercom, as the seat-belt sign flashed.
Walking through the gate into the waiting area, Rosen scanned the terminal, looking for the woman who was supposed to meet him.
“Mr. Rosen?”
He turned, then blinked as a flash went off in his face.
“You are Nate Rosen, from the Committee to Defend the Constitution?”
“Yes.”
Another flash. After his eyes cleared, he saw a woman with a camera standing before him.
“I’m Andi Wojecki. Thanks for coming.”
She was tall and slender, in her mid-twenties, wearing a white blouse with puffy sleeves, blue jeans, and sandals. A purse on a long leather strap hung from her shoulder. Her face was pretty, almost delicate with its cat’s eyes and turned-up nose, but a strong jaw gave it character. Her straw-colored hair was cut short, which emphasized the jaw even more, as did her broad smile.
“I hope you had a good flight. That airplane food can be seriously dangerous. Let’s get your luggage, then I’ll take you into Bear Coat. It’s about an hour’s drive.”
Rapid City Airport could have fit into O’Hare’s carrental lot, but it was clean and modern, with low slat ceilings exposing the walkways above. Andi walked a little ahead of him. She moved like a cat, bending one knee and stretching gracefully to photograph anyone catching her fancy—a businessman wearing a cowboy hat, an old man whose cane had a pistol-shaped handle, and an Indian woman whose small children trailed behind her like ducklings.
Rosen said, “My boss, Mr. Nahagian, mentioned you own the town’s newspaper. I take it you’re also its photographer.”
“Dad owned the paper, but I sold it after he died. I stayed on and, in a hick town like Bear Coat, do a little of everything—photography, reporting, even paste-up.” She reached into her purse. “Here’s yesterday’s edition. It’s got the best coverage of the murder.”
The Bear Coat Chronicle’s headline screamed: ALBERT GATES MURDERED, and most of the paper’s eight pages were taken up with the crime. A photograph of Gates had been placed directly under the word MURDERED, and, below it, another photo showed paramedics rolling the body away from “the scene of the crime.” Both photos were credited to A. Wojecki.
The lead story gave details, most of which Rosen knew from the fax. The police chief, Tom Cross Dog, was quoted as saying that Saul True Sky had been arrested for the murder and that police had “strong physical evidence” linking him to the crime. Other stories carried background information on the victim, who owned a car dealership in Rapid City and a ranch outside of Bear Coat, and his wife, Belle Gates, the town’s current mayor. All that was mentioned of the accused murderer was his name, age—“probably 67”—and the fact that he had been a resident of Bear Coat his entire life.
“Not much here,” Rosen said, returning the newspaper to Andi. “What else can you tell me?”
“Well, like it says, they found Gates’s toolbox by the Indian remains, and his Cadillac parked down the other side of the ridge.”
“What about this ‘strong physical evidence’?”
“Gates was hit on the back of the head, and his blood type was on Saul’s sleeve. A stone with blood on it was found near the body. That’s about all I know. Tom’s playing this pretty close to the vest. He’s no Barney Fife.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, Barney Fife. The bogus deputy sheriff on ‘Andy Griffith.’ The TV show, ‘Andy Griffith.’”
“Sorry, I don’t know it.”
Andi shook her head sadly. “You grow up on the moon?”
“Sort of. The Chronicle didn’t say much about True Sky. Normally, a paper would play up the killer angle for all it’s worth. I expected to see his sullen face staring back at me on the front page with some deep-background about his sordid past.”
“Yeah, well, things are like a little complicated. Do you know why you’re here—I mean, why I called the Committee to Defend the Constitution?”
Rosen nodded. “My boss Nahagian said he knew your father. They worked together on one of the CDC’s first cases, back in the fifties.”
“Uh-huh. It had something to do with the county jail making Indian prisoners cut their hair, and the Indians saying it was against their religion. Dad was very young, he’d just taken over the paper, and he wanted to do something good. Nobody gave a damn about Indians back then. Finally he found this new organization, the CDC, and your Mr. Nahagian. They lost the case, but I guess they became good enough friends to exchange Christmas cards. When I went to D.C. on my junior class trip, Mr. Nahagian showed me around. He sent me a real nice letter two years ago, when Dad died.”
“You think this True Sky is being framed for the murder, because he’s an Indian?”
She looked down at her camera before answering. “Maybe. Saul True Sky was one of the Indian prisoners my father tried to help with Mr. Nahagian. And . . . there could be another reason.”
They had reached the baggage-claim conveyor belts. While Rosen waited for his suitcase, Andi went to a nearby candy counter. She came back smoking a cigarette and offered him one.
“No, thanks,” Rosen said, as he pulled his luggage from the conveyor.
“I hope you’re not one of those antismoking fanatics. They really freak me out. They’re usually chewing gum and bulging out of their spandex.”
“No, I think it makes you look like Humphrey Bogart.”
“Huh?” She grinned. “You know, you’re kinda cute.”
It was a beautiful day, the breeze making it just cool enough for his sport coat. Following Andi into the parking lot, he tried to guess what kind of car she drove. They passed a number of Jeeps and pickup trucks, and he figured her for one of them, maybe with fuzzy pink dice and a Grateful Dead bumper sticker.
“Here we are,” she said.
It was an old yellow Mercury—beat up, rusted, and the size of a gunboat. She unlocked the trunk, which yawned open to reveal its contents: a spare tire, lawn chair, snow shovel, several camera cases, a tripod, boots, books, stacks of old newspapers, and a man’s boxer shorts.
She pushed the newspapers to one side. “You can put your suitcase in here.”
“You can put the entire airport in here. Some car.”
“Dad’s. He said if he couldn’t afford a Cadillac, at least he could buy something as big. Well, get in.”
The car’s interior was a faded green vinyl, the cracks in the seats covered by long strips of black duct tape. Even with the windows open, everything smelled of stale cigarette smoke; the ashtray was overstuffed with butts. The clock didn’t work, he wondered about the gas gauge reading empty, but he had more leg room than in a swimming pool.
Andi quickly pulled from the parking space, turning the steering wheel with both hands, and the car rumbled forward.
“Original muffler,” she said, leaning back and taking a long drag of her cigarette.
Suddenly she hit the brakes, grabbed her camera and snapped a photo of a wizened cowboy passed out against a pickup, an empty whiskey bottle resting
like a candle between his hands. Then she continued, through the parking lot, onto the highway.
Rosen said, “You’re really serious about this photography.”
“It’s gonna be my ticket out of here. I’m putting together a portfolio to send to newspapers in Denver, San Francisco, Chicago—anywhere that’s got streetlights and men who don’t act or smell like bulls.”
“I thought the great photographers came out West to take pictures. Like Ansel Adams.”
“He didn’t have to live here. I’m gonna be like Annie Leibovitz—spend all my time taking kinky photos of Mick Jagger and Clint Eastwood. No more cowboys and Indians.”
They drove for a few more minutes, then Rosen said, “You mentioned there was another reason why someone might want Saul True Sky framed for the murder.”
Andi nodded. “You ever hear of George Manderson?”
“No. Should I have?”
“He discovered a tin mine around 1890, after the Indians were driven onto their reservations, and built Tin Town. Was the big man around here for awhile. After he died, his son Owen got into a feud with the owner of the Homestake Gold Mine down by Lead. Guy by the name of William Randolph Hearst.”
“I can guess what happened.”
“Hearst squashed him like a bug. Cut off his transportation routes, hired away his miners, while Owen kept pouring his money into the mine, even after the tin began to run out. Talk about being a jerk. He went broke, and, if that wasn’t bad enough, his daughter hurt him the way Hearst never could.”
Andi stubbed her cigarette butt into the ashtray, then lit another one. “Eleanor was an only child, and Owen spoiled her rotten. Folks say she was a helluva tomboy—great rider, used to hang around the rodeo. Her old man didn’t like that and spent the last of his money to send her East for an education. Guess he wanted her to become Queen of South Dakota or something. Instead, she came back full of her own ideas about the Golden West and how the white man had screwed the red man. She helped my dad defend those Indians I told you about.
“Then she did the damnedest thing. She married one of the prisoners, Saul True Sky. A white woman just didn’t do that back in the fifties. Well, Owen kicked her out and never spoke to her again. When he died, though, his will left everything to her. Of course, by then he’d lost most of Tin Town to taxes. Eleanor and Saul lived in the house her grandfather had built, though Saul stayed on the ridge most of the time. Said it was holy. They seemed happy enough, had two kids, then Eleanor died from a bad fever. That was about twenty-five years ago. Her kids, Grace and Will, still live up there.”