by Gwen Florio
She extracted the phone from the pouch Velcroed around her upper arm and texted the number she’d entered into it after he’d given her his card: Meet today? Noon? 1? I have Q’s re mine. She looked at the time on the phone. Six thirty. There was a chance she might not even hear from him that day, which would mean twenty-four hours wasted on an already-truncated timetable. Even as she wondered whether to fill the day with a follow-up visit with Betty, the phone buzzed with a response. Lola smiled at the laconic reply. Noon. Tuba City museum. C U then. She tucked the phone back into its holder and ground the heel of her hand against the pain in her side. He’d even given her the excuse she needed—a museum visit—for another excursion.
Naomi hovered by the front door in full silk-shirted, designer-jeaned armor as Lola approached.
“I’m glad you’re back. I need to go in early today. You can take the girls again, yes?” Maintaining the fiction that Lola had a choice in the matter. “We’ll be late tonight, too. I didn’t have time to put together a dinner. You’ll have to take the girls out. Here.” She thrust her hand toward Lola, greenbacks fanned within it.
Lola recoiled. “For God’s sake, Naomi. It’s not like we’re paupers,” she said before tact could intervene. She tried to backtrack. “Really. We’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll even cook something here.”
“Sure. Okay. Fine.” Naomi’s words were clipped, rushed; her movements abrupt. Red veins mapped the whites of her eyes. Lola at first had thought Naomi’s hair was still wet from the shower, but she realized it was unwashed, its hasty combing obvious in the oily tracks along the woman’s scalp. She wondered if Naomi’s appearance was a result of early morning imbibing or, maybe, an inexplicable stab at going cold turkey.
She put a hand on Naomi’s arm, then yanked it away, fearing she’d leave grubby fingerprints on the smooth expanse of white. “Are you all right?”
Naomi stared at her arm, then Lola’s hand. “You need a shower,” she said.
“Yes.”
Charlie stalked into the kitchen, stopping just long enough to fill a go-cup with coffee, and brushed past Lola with the barest suggestion of a kiss. “I’ll just go start the car.” The door banged behind him, just short of a slam.
Naomi hesitated. “Edgar’s already gone in. I can stay until you’re done with your shower. The girls—”
Lola wondered how many years it had been since Naomi feared to leave Juliana alone even for the few minutes it took to take a shower. Margaret had been self-sufficient enough for such indulgences for quite some time. She started to say as much. Canyon Man whispered in her ear, Your little girl. Maybe something had left Naomi equally unsettled.
Lola took Naomi’s hand in her own, damn the dirt, and squeezed it, hoping to convey steadiness, reassurance, all the things that apparently were not going to be part of anyone’s day. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be quick.”
She was grateful for Jim Andersen’s suggestion that they meet at the museum, the better to make it appear that they’d run into one another by accident. Little girls had big mouths, as Lola had learned.
She saw him across the room when she entered the building, hexagonal like so much other reservation architecture that harkened to hogans. He started toward her, then checked himself at the sight of Margaret and Juliana. Lola pointedly ignored him as she wandered slowly past exhibits on Code Talkers, sheepherding, and weaving, letting the girls get a little farther ahead with each display. Given the town’s name, she’d expected something about a brass band and felt foolish to read that the name derived from that of Tuuvi, a Hopi leader.
Finally, when the girls had disappeared around a corner, she nodded and Andersen approached, standing with her before the sheep exhibit.
“What’s this about?”
Right to the point. Lola appreciated that. Problem was, she couldn’t be equally straightforward in her reply. What was she supposed to say? Are you the bomber?
“You know a lot about the mine,” she countered.
“Some. I’ve been writing about this stuff for a few years now.”
Lola pushed back against a rush of envy so intense it felt like pain. Years before, she, too, had had the luxury of specializing in a single subject, of soaking up enough expertise to be able to write authoritatively. In her case, that subject had been the conflict in Afghanistan. She reminded herself, as always when the old regrets tugged at her, that without the job in Montana, there’d be no Charlie and no Margaret. And no Bub. Anger moved in, welcome and focusing, giving useless nostalgia the heave-ho.
“These bombings. Have you ever seen anything like them in the other places you’ve been?” She sneaked a glance away from the exhibit and ruled him out of at least one scenario. Standing side by side, she was about the same height as Andersen, who had the emaciated look of a truly accomplished runner. A second later, she upgraded his athletic ability farther still; a tattoo on his calf, just visible below the hem of his frayed cargo shorts, showed the Ironman logo with a series of check marks beneath it. When it came to endurance, Lola thought, Jim Andersen could kick her ass several times over. But he wasn’t the muscle-bound individual who’d wrestled her into the crevice in Antelope Canyon.
His hair swung as he shook his head. “I’ve written about all sorts of civil disobedience. Protesters chaining themselves to the White House fence over the Keystone XL pipeline. First Nations people holding Healing Walks up at the tar sands. Folks sitting by the railroad tracks in Montana to stop coal trains, or lying across the road to stop oversize truck shipments of equipment to the oil patch in North Dakota. But this business of blowing up people takes it to a whole new level. Hell, even ELF burned empty buildings. This is some cold shit.”
He sounded sincere. But so would any half-decent criminal trying to cover his tracks, Lola thought. “So you don’t think ELF or somebody like that is behind it?”
The hair swung in wider arcs, the denial more emphatic. His eyes briefly met hers. “I know those guys.” He held up his hand. “Don’t ask me to put you in touch with them. I won’t. But I can tell you that they’re freaking out, afraid it’s going to get pinned on them. The FBI’s already been sniffing around. ELF wants this solved just as badly as the mine people do.”
Lola couldn’t help herself. The more he talked, the more his status as a suspect diminished, at least in her mind. “Hey, I forgot to ask you the other day,” she said, trying to keep her voice light as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Where were you stationed in Iraq? I did a couple of fill-in stints in Baghdad when our regular correspondent was on leave. Maybe I ran into you there.”
He didn’t even blink at the news that she’d been in Iraq. So he’d Googled her, then, before their meeting, just as she had him. Now he fleshed out the scant information she’d found online about his military career.
“Doubtful, especially if you were in the field. I was a fobbit, sitting on my ass on a forward operating base, writing press releases. I wasn’t even high enough up on the food chain to warrant talking to reporters like you. I just put the right words into the mouths of the guys who did that.”
“Ah.” No explosives training, then. She’d hunt around some more on Google, see if she could find a reference to his status as a public information officer. After all, as the old newspaper saying went, If your mother says she loves you, check it out. But Jim Andersen was probably off the List. Maybe he still had his uses, though. “Any idea who did this?”
His smile was as knowing as Lola’s, in response, was rueful. “Writing a story?”
She spread her hands. “Off the clock. On my honeymoon, as a matter of fact, such as it is. More to the point, I couldn’t get anybody to bite on a freelance piece. But my in-laws are pretty deep into the investigation. My husband’s helping out some. The sooner they’re done, the sooner I get him back.”
“Yeah, sure.” Andersen’s knowing look radiated skepticism. He was, Lola decided
, more of a kindred spirit than she’d first imagined. In her experience, most environmental activists—most activists of any stripe, for that matter—tended toward tiresomeness in their earnest espousals of their causes. Andersen’s sardonic attitude was a refreshing antidote. He knew she was trying to play him for information. But his next words were free of sarcasm, spoken with an intensity so fierce that Lola stepped back.
“Listen. I’ve got no earthly clue who might be behind this. And believe me, I’ve been looking. But one thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“Mom!” “Auntie Lola!” The girls rounded the corner at a run, their default speed. “Come see,” Margaret commanded. “There’s more stuff outside.” The desk clerk turned away from her computer and glared.
Lola held her finger to her lips, as much to warn Jim as the girls. Because she already knew what he was going to say.
He said it anyway. “He’s going to do it again.”
THIRTY
Next up, Betty Begay, this time without subterfuge. Well, maybe a little subterfuge.
“She might have seen Bub,” Lola told the girls by way of explanation for another trip to Betty’s hogan. “Or talked to somebody who’s seen him. She knows the area better than anybody, and she seems to know everybody on the rez. Right, Juliana?”
“Everybody,” Juliana agreed with solemn certainty. “I want you to find your dog, Auntie Lola. I like him.”
Through the windshield, the desert peeled away on either side of the dividing line of black asphalt. The road ran straight to the horizon. With Juliana’s statement, it blurred and wavered. Lola blinked her eyes and cleared her throat. “Me, too.” She chanced a glance in the rearview mirror. Margaret stared out her window, jaw set, her stoic silence even more frightening than her tears. Lola had thought to focus the girls during the long ride up the mesa by urging them to scan their surroundings for signs of the dog. She realized Margaret had been doing that all along. She reached back and wrapped her hand around Margaret’s ankle, trying to convey reassurance.
The mine’s entrance reared before them, bristling with additional No Trespassing signs. The protesters stood at a farther remove than before. On this day, there were only three, none Navajo. Jim Andersen’s ilk, Lola figured. When they saw Lola’s truck, they lifted their signs halfheartedly, then dropped them back down in the dust.
A few yards away, a contingent of tribal policemen had joined the two white security guards Lola noticed on her first trip past the mine. On impulse, she swung the truck toward the mine entrance. The tribal policemen stayed put. The white guys stalked toward the pickup, footsteps heavy with purpose. Even in Montana, the malls had the occasional private security guard, usually a kid in a cheap uniform, sometimes even a handgun riding awkwardly to one side of a belly going too fast to blubber. But these men looked fit and hard, their uniform shirts the sort of lightweight material perfected in the desert wars, stubby Uzis held across their bodies, only a single motion required to bring them into firing position. Lola couldn’t see their eyes behind their wraparound glasses but she imagined them trained laser-like upon her as she slowed to a stop, leaving her hands on the wheel where they could see them. Thank God for the girls, she thought, their presence making her seem less of a threat. An idea had just come to her, the sort of illogical impulse that sometimes actually panned out.
One of the men twirled a finger at her. His partner stayed put, raising his gun just enough to make sure Lola saw the gesture. She lowered her window. Time to tap-dance.
“Morning.” Lola pasted a smile across her face.
“Afternoon,” he corrected her. “State your business here.”
Asshole, Lola thought. She pegged him as a former security contractor from one of the wars, missing his six-figure salary from Iraq, hiring himself out as corporate protection for nearly the same amount.
“I’m here to see Jeff Kerns.”
Keeping his gaze—at least as best as she could tell behind those mirrored lenses—trained upon Lola, the man jerked his head at his companion. “Says she’s here to see Kerns. She on the list?”
The second man shifted his gun to the crook of one arm and flipped up a notebook dangling from a lanyard around his neck. “Name?”
Lola raised her voice. “Lola Wicks. I’m not on your list.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” said Asshole No. 1.
Game on, thought Lola. She’d spent too many years jousting with the legions of self-important people, usually men, who’d tried over the years to stop her from getting whatever bit of information she sought. They looked at her, saw female, and went immediately to intimidation. Sometimes, Lola had to stop herself from yawning in their faces as one after another tried the tiresome tactic. Her smile was genuine. She was starting to enjoy herself.
“I’m here to see Jeff Kerns,” she said again.
“And you’re not on the list,” said Asshole No. 2. “So turn the fuck around and drive away.”
“Mr. Kerns isn’t going to like hearing about the language you used in front of two children.”
Asshole No. 1 took a step toward her, squaring his shoulders. Trying to loom, as they so often did, Lola thought. Problem was, she had the advantage of Edgar’s truck, quite a bit larger than her own. She gazed down upon him. “Call him. Tell him Lola Wicks is here to see him.”
“And who the f—I mean, who the heck is Lola Wicks?”
Score one for me, Lola thought. He wouldn’t curse again, at least not in front of the girls, who leaned forward in their seats, training twin judgmental scowls upon him.
“I’m an investigative reporter,” she said, and started counting beats. One … two … three …
No. 1 permitted himself a bark of a laugh. “Jeff Kerns don’t talk to no reporters. You get on out of here now.”
Four … five … “And I’m Edgar Laurendeau’s sister-in-law.”
No. 1 didn’t get it. “Yeah, big fu—honkin’ deal. I don’t know any Edgar Laurendeau. Gary, you got any Edgar Laurendeaus on your list?”
One of the tribal cops stepped to No. 2’s side and whispered something. Lola sat back and enjoyed the speed with which No. 2’s expression went from arrogant to uncertain. His voice dropped a couple of decibels. “Uh, we might want to give the front office a call,” he said to No. 1. “Laurendeau’s kind of a big shot.”
The information took a while to work its way into No. 1’s testosterone-addled brain. Lola goosed it along. “Kind of,” she said. “He works for the mine you’re supposed to be protecting. I’ll bet he knows your names, even if you don’t know his. Wonder how it’s going to go for you when he finds out you’ve hassled me?” She hoped Edgar didn’t hear about any of this until after she’d gotten a chance to talk to Kerns.
No. 2 turned his back on them and muttered into a cellphone. He turned around and clipped the phone into a belt holster and waved his arm toward her. “Come on in. Sorry for all the trouble.”
“Oh, you will be,” Lola promised, flashing a final smile at No. 1. “See you later—at least, if you’ve still got a job by the time I leave here.”
They would, she knew. But two could play the intimidation game. And it worked especially well when it came from a direction they didn’t expect. She gave the truck a little extra gas, scattering pebbles as the towering, barbed-wire-topped gates of Conrad Coal swung open to admit her.
Conrad Coal’s on-site headquarters was exactly the sort of utilitarian building Lola would have expected at a mine: aluminum outside and plastic and linoleum within, surfaces easy to wipe clean or hose down. All of which must have been done frequently.
Its interior, given the rugged mission of its workers, was surprisingly bright, with only the lightest film of red dust that Lola supposed even the most assiduous of cleaning crews could never completely eradicate. A young woman, Hopi by the look of the lengthy last name on h
er badge, led them down a hallway air-conditioned to a level of frigidity that necessitated the sweater thrown over her shoulders.
“I don’t want to be here,” Margaret announced. The young woman stopped.
“Is everything all right?” she asked in a pronounced accent. Both the Navajo and Hopi nations had aggressive language preservation programs, meaning young people were more likely to have been raised in bilingual households.
Margaret assumed a feet-planted, arms-akimbo stance that Lola knew all too well. “This isn’t helping me find my dog.”
The woman cast a glance down the hallway as though expecting to see a dog emerge from one of a row of closed doors. “Excuse us,” Lola said. She hurried to Margaret and pulled her a few steps away. Juliana stood between them and their escort, shifting from one foot to another.
Lola knelt before Margaret and took her face between her hands, forcing her daughter to look her in the eye. “I’m going to talk to a man here about the bombings,” she said, pitching her voice so that Juliana and their guide wouldn’t hear.
“Don’t care about the bombings—” Margaret began.
Lola lowered her voice still farther and articulated an idea she wasn’t sure that she herself understood. “Somehow I think it’s all connected. I think somebody is afraid we’ll—I don’t know. That we’ll find out too much about the bombings, maybe. I think they want to scare us. I think they took Bub because they want us to go home. And that’s why I’m not going home, Margaret. Because I won’t leave here without him.” Dear God, she thought as she tossed one frightening adult concept after another at her daughter, she’s only seven. “Oh, honey. I know this all sounds crazy. Just give me a few minutes with this man and we’ll go talk to Mrs. Begay about Bub.” She dropped her hands.