by Carly Bishop
She had struck the target again.
Relief poured through him. He’d been in bad situations where he thought he’d surely be dead in the next second. He’d been scared before—but never with such fleeting reason.
Takamura turned on all the lights. If the arrows piercing the target had been welded together, they could not have been more closely aligned. Amy turned away and unstrung her bow. Staring hard at Cy, she signed an apology to the old man.
“Next time, Amy,” he assured her. “When it matters.”
Next time. It was all Cy could do to stir from the back wall of Takamura’s practice hall and follow her out the door.
CLAD AGAIN IN her waxed cotton windbreaker, Amy walked briskly down the paved, spruce-lined lane toward her father’s property. The sun shone brilliantly in the foothills to the Rockies, but a biting wind had come up.
She made it nearly impossible to walk and carry on a conversation: McQuaid didn’t try. She credited him for his patience, but she sensed an edge about him that she hadn’t seen before. A sudden spike in whatever respect he had for her? Maybe.
She lived in the small guest house now, to the rear of her father’s mansion. McQuaid probably knew that, so she took him to the front door of the main house and rang the bell. Pixielike and Irish, the live-in housekeeper answered the door and gestured them inside the foyer.
Amy turned momentarily to Cy and signed, “This is Moira Kilbride. Please tell her hello for me and introduce yourself.”
Cy turned to Moira and translated for Amy, then reached for his badge and credentials and introduced himself. Moira paled and darted a glance toward Amy.
Amy touched the housekeeper’s thin shoulder reassuringly, then turned to Cy again. “I’m sorry. I forgot Moira is having troubles, at her staggering income level, with the IRS. Can you reassure her you are not here to take her away or to threaten her?”
Cy quickly eased the woman’s fears, then waited until she had disappeared down what must be a service hallway in the enormous Tudor-style house. He turned to Amy. “Why are we here, Amy?”
“As opposed to... where?”
“The guest house,” he answered. “Your home.”
She stared for a moment at his lips, which already she knew too well, then shrugged out of her windbreaker and hung it on the brass coatrack. She led him to her father’s study. She would not take him where she lived, where she must later tolerate remembering Cy McQuaid’s presence.
She sat in the oxblood leather-upholstered wing chair, and drew her long legs up beneath her. He took the near end of the matching sofa. At last she answered his question. “I thought you might like to see where my father spends his time. The study of a brilliant and dedicated jurist.”
He didn’t follow the descriptives, only guessed at the hyperbole by her effusive signing. “Trappings don’t make the man, Amy.”
“Nor does a badge. Do you think you could even pretend to a shred of honor?”
Sticks and stones and arrows, he thought. Her aim with words was as just as deadly. She was calling him on his tactics. “Amy, I didn’t intend to upset your grandmother—”
“Yes, and dragons don’t breathe fire.”
He missed the subject of her reply entirely. “Again?” he asked, repeating the sign he didn’t know.
“Dragon,” she answered, spelling the word, repeating the fire-breathing creature with her hands. “You intended no harm—dragons don’t breathe fire.”
He didn’t have to think much about what forces had gone into making her so flinty, or her language so damned impenetrable. She was deaf and in her silent version of a very noisy hearing world, she had to fight every moment for her place in it.
Still, she refused to dumb down her meaning.
He looked straight at her, taking her on, maybe harsher than he meant to be because of her physical effect on him. “What is it, Amy? What do you want?”
“The truth, McQuaid. The truth about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. Why you’re here.”
He grimaced. “You’re not alone.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know.” He hadn’t been made privy to the full extent of the charges against her father. He didn’t have any real understanding of the quality of the evidence either way, and that fact pissed him off no end. He told her as much. “For whatever reason, I was—I am being deliberately kept in the dark.”
She didn’t believe him. Not fully. “What about my grandmother’s music boxes?”
“What about them?”
“You knew when you asked me that she had turned them all on before. That she had done it the night my mother died.”
“I didn’t know, Amy. It was a just a lucky guess.”
Her chin notched up. “And do you have a lucky guess as to why you would be kept in the dark?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at her. “When your father reported the extortion attempt, it wasn’t only the manner of your mother’s death came into question.” What he suspected, he told her, was that he believed he had been set up to unwittingly exploit the deadly intersection of a possible homicide, a child going suddenly stone-deaf and an old woman swallowed alive in an insane asylum, all in a matter of twenty-four hours, twenty-four years ago.
Fending off a shudder, maybe just unable to take any more, Amy got up and crossed her father’s study to the French doors. She stood with her back to him, her arms crossed, her head and shoulder resting against the highly lacquered white door frame.
He gave her a few minutes, then joined her there, wondering idly how she could bear the weight of her hair caught up in long tortoiseshell pins. He wanted to let it down for her.
He leaned against the door opposite her, facing her, watching her watching a pair of Siamese cats perched on a low stone fence, taking turns bathing each other with their tongues.
He waited until she turned to face him again, then went on. “I’m guessing that whoever was looking into the case had a hunch that you might have seen or heard something the night your mother died that would prove crucial to resolving the case against your father.”
“Clearing the way,” she signed, “for his confirmation hearings—or sparing the President the embarrassment of nominating a murderer to the Supreme Court.”
“Exactly.”
Her throat constricted. He could see her battling back tears. “So what you needed was to orchestrate my grandmother assuring me that I knew what happened that night?”
“There’s no way I knew that would happen. No way anyone knew.”
“Are you saying you weren’t informed that I would be there?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.” And it was the truth, so far as it went. Professionally, he couldn’t fault the approach. What setting Amy up against her grandmother lacked in sensitivity it more than made up in usefulness. Bottom line, it had knocked Amy off her position before she could even stake it, forcing her to reexamine her certainties about what had happened in that period of twenty-four hours, and what had not.
He might have agreed to the scheme even if he’d known how it would work out. Probably would have. Pitting one story against another was a time-honored tradition in the annals of Getting at the Truth. But the image of himself as the blind leading the deaf to her emotional slaughter gnawed at his innards like a hungry rodent.
“Amy, look. God’s own truth. We don’t go looking for the most Byzantine route to the truth of what happened. If the charges against your father could be tossed out on the basis of the facts on record or the autopsy, he would have been exonerated and it would have been unnecessary to speak to you or your grandmother. That didn’t happen, and since it didn’t, I have to assume that even the taint of the charges will stick.”
“Unless I can remember what really happened that night?”
“Yeah.” It would at least give the investigation another angle of approach if what they had was as badly stalled as he suspected. “Anything, Amy. Any leverage into this is be
tter than nothing.”
Clutching both her elbows with her hands, she sighed deeply. Outside, the cats continued washing each other’s faces and she stood still watching them, her attention splintered, Cy thought, between her conflict with him and the peaceful, utterly sensual behavior of the cats.
Chapter Four
“Can you guess,” Amy signed, turning away from the outdoors, her signing less eloquent, more jittery now, “what was the purpose of my last arrow?”
“No.” He straightened against the doorjamb. Became conscious of the pain in his leg and hip that was never very far from the surface. He had no idea where she was going, what she was asking. “What?”
“To split the shaft of the one before it.”
He stared at her, knowing he had understood her meaning perfectly, doubting it all the same. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Is it possible?”
“I grew up watching Takamura do it.”
“Have you ever—”
“No. That’s the point, Cy.”
He cupped her cheek with his hand, couldn’t get the images of the cats’ stroking out of his own mind now. “Amy, I’m not asking anything like that—” He was interrupted by the abrupt appearance of a man at the door of the study. Stepping back, lowering his hand, Cy recognized Perry Reeves, Amy’s uncle, Judge Reeves’s older brother.
He had a full head of silver hair, very dark, flashing eyes, a nose and ears too large for his head. No taller than Amy, he wasn’t handsome. Still, Reeves radiated charisma—and the air of a man to be reckoned with.
Surprise flitted across his plain features. “Amy. What a pleasure it is to see you.” Cy’s first instinct was that her uncle was not as pleased as he claimed to be.
Amy signed a hello and blew her uncle a kiss. He tossed a thick file of papers onto the desk. “And who have we here? A suitor, I presume?”
She shook her head in answer to her uncle’s question, then looked at Cy. “I’ll be right back. Introduce yourself.” She turned and unlocked the French doors, then went outside.
Reeves introduced himself and offered a handshake.
“Cy McQuaid, sir.” He took out his credentials with his left hand, shook with his right. “FBI.”
“Not a suitor then?” His complexion darkened visibly. “My mistake.” He went around behind the glossy mahogany desk and planted his fingers. “I suppose you’re here about this ridiculous extortion attempt on Judge Reeves.”
Ignoring the “suitor” remark, Cy confirmed, “Judge Reeves turned the threat over to us, yes. As he is obliged to do, given his position.”
“Of course. I fully understand my brother’s responsibilities under the law. What galls me is the thought of lending these ludicrous charges any credibility at all.”
“I’m sure most of the country would agree with you, sir.” Cy moved on quickly from the acknowledgment. “I understood you were in Washington, D.C. Our intention was to get in touch with you there.”
“Must have missed connections, hard as it is to believe in this day and age, with cell phones and all. I’m here now, but I’m off again in a few hours. A number of fronts need to be covered in Judge Reeves’s business interests. Still, I suppose I can spare you a few minutes.”
Cy didn’t much care for Reeves invoking the judge’s name or interests. It smacked of privilege, the kind of consideration which a federal appellate court judge might be accorded—but which in no way extended to his brother.
“How can I help you?” Reeves prodded. “Assuming,” he paused, letting his gaze find Amy out on the terrace, “assuming, of course, that you haven’t already gotten what you need from my niece?”
“Mr. Reeves.” The man’s carefully deadpan tone nevertheless insinuated that Cy had already gotten a good deal more from Amy than the necessary answers in an ordinary investigation. Amy was coming back inside now, one cat in her arms, the other darting through the door she opened. “Let me warn you that it is not in your best interests to piss me off.”
Reeves blinked. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Taking the judge’s chair behind the mahogany desk, he settled himself. “Please. Sit down and let’s get on with it.”
Amy curled up into the chair with one of the cats. Cy sat again on the end of the leather sofa. “I’ll be signing to make the interview accessible to Amy.” Her uncle gestured impatiently, as if such a consideration was a given, when in Cy’s estimation he had already discounted her presence. “You have no objection to your niece being present?”
“Of course not. Why would I?”
Amy signed, “Delicate family issues, Uncle Perry. Fiona has already weighed in.”
Obviously unable to understand her, Reeves waited for Cy to translate, then scowled. “What a waste of time.” He looked sharply at Cy. “I assume you know my mother is a paranoid schizophrenic, not to mention senile.”
Translating for Amy, since her uncle seemed oblivious to the need to speak so that she could see his lips, Cy nodded. Senile was carrying it too far. He was liking this man less every time he opened his mouth. “The Bureau fully appreciates the nature of your mother’s condition.”
“That surprises me, Mr. McQuaid, because if you truly understood her ‘condition,’ as you call it, you would know anything she has to say to you is both unreliable and inadmissible in a court of law.”
“I had no expectation of learning anything from your mother that might later be ruled admissible or not.”
“Then—”
Curious to see what Amy would reveal to her uncle, Cy watched her interruption.
“Granny Fee only offered her opinion that Julia was a resentful mother.” Cy spoke her words aloud.
“Well, that much is true.” Reeves looked at Amy, finally. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, sweetheart. It’s irrelevant in any case.” He faced Cy again, repeating for emphasis, “Meaningless to your investigation. My brother has often wondered in private just what jackshit they teach you boys at Quantico these days. I have to say—” He broke off, suffering Amy’s animated interruption as she confirmed with Cy her uncle’s meaning, down to spelling out the insult.
“That’s not true, Uncle Perry.”
He turned a sympathetic, almost pitying look on her. “How would you know, sweetheart?”
Himself stunned by the callousness of her uncle’s remark, Cy watched Amy absorbing the shock.
Reeves backed off, bowing his head for an instant, then apologized. “I certainly didn’t mean that the way it came out.”
“I think you did,” Amy signed.
A silent clash of wills, of strength, a meltdown, something between them which Cy had no way of understanding, ensued. Was it the echo of some distant battle between them? Or only the emotional fallout of what Amy saw as a very deliberate and considered insult?
Cy watched her throat grip, her rib cage freeze, her beautiful green eyes dart away, and all he could think was of panic winning out under the force of her uncle’s scorn. He thought of Seth, of the countless slights, both intended and innocent, that he had endured. What stamina and strength of character it took to stand up to them.
He didn’t want Amy to lose this one. It shouldn’t have mattered to him one way or the other.
When she looked up, he could find no hint of the raw emotion that had threatened her, only the woman he had first encountered, the one who knew how to protect herself, when to launch an offensive and where to strike to get it done.
“If I asked my father to his face,” she signed, “if he had ever wondered in private what ‘jackshit’ they teach at Quantico these days, what do you think he would say to me?”
Reeves was just as gifted as his niece in controlling his demeanor. Her uncle never looked away from her face while Cy gave voice to her words, nor did he wince or hesitate.
“He would lie to your face to protect you, Amy, from the harsh realities of life, just as he has always done. And given what you’ve been through, I won’t fault him for it.”
/>
“Would he also lie to me about what happened to my mother?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Reeves snapped after Cy had verbalized her question. “We were speaking of a philosophical attitude your father has most assuredly had occasion to raise. And questioning a certifiably insane old woman in regard to Julia’s accidental death is a clear example.”
She would not be bullied or distracted. “Fiona believes I know what was going on the night my mother died.”
“Fiona believes—Well. There you have it, the gospel truth. I have only one question. Where has such knowledge been locked away all these years? Are we to rely upon the memories of delusional paranoid schizophrenic in her eighties and a five-year-old child? The fate of your father’s career, his reputation, his life now depend on what you knew as a preschooler? Amy?”
“Of course not!” she signed. She started to go on but Cy cut her off.
“Mr. Reeves.” He’d had enough of the man’s emotional badgering. More than enough. “Judge Reeves’s fate, as you put it, rests on the facts of the case, nothing more. Just give me the facts as you know them.”
“Fine.” Reeves sat back in his brother’s chair and let his arms stretch out the length of the armrests. “Where would you like me to begin?”
“Wherever you’d like.”
“All right. Early in the day of my sister-in-law’s death, I was in the middle of very delicate, very time-consuming real estate negotiations at the First National Bank in Steamboat. Fiona called me there, interrupting my meeting. She was already hysterical. It took me several minutes to get out of her that Amy had fallen down the ventilation shaft of an old silver mine located on the property adjacent to ours.”
Looking confused, Amy shook her head. “That isn’t what I—”
“Recall?” Perry interrupted Cy’s translation. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he asked, making an example of Amy’s clear inability, as a child, to understand what she thought she knew.
Amy’s expression remained neutral, but a flush stained her cheeks. Her uncle folded his hands over his abdomen and looked down as if hurting her hurt him worse.
“In any case.” He sighed. “I called 911, which Fiona hadn’t had the presence of mind to do. I left instructions with my secretary to get word to Byron, and then I left.