by J. A. Jance
“That jerk on the radio. I don’t listen to him, either,” Don Frost said, pushing his cup away.
“He makes me sick. Give me another.”
Angie poured herself a cup of coffee at the same time she made Don Frost’s drink. “Let me give you some advice about when you take the driving part of your test,” Frost said. “Signal for everything. And keep checking the rearview mirror. They mark you off if you don’t check that enough. Do you know the manual forward and backward?”
Angie shook her head. “I should have spent more time studying over the weekend, but I was busy with the phone bank.”
“Fun bank?” a puzzled Archie McBride called from down the bar. Years of setting off dynamite blasts and loading ore cars underground had left Archie very hard of hearing. His twenty-six-year-old hearing aid had finally given up the ghost, and he refused to buy another.
“How the hell does a fun bank work?” he demanded loudly. “And where do we sign up? Right, Willy?”
The two old men collapsed against each other in gales of raucous laughter while Angie frowned and shook her head. “Phone bank,” she repeated, more loudly. “For Joanna Brady. For the election.”
“Oh,” Archie said. “That’s right. The election. Isn’t that today? You voted yet?”
Everyone in the room shook their heads. For the first time in her life, Angie Kellogg had actually wanted to vote—had even found a candidate she wanted to vote for—but she had come to town too late to register for this election.
The guy at the booth waved to her again. She went over to him, expecting him to order another drink. “Would it be possible to use the phone?” he asked.
Angie Kellogg studied the man Don Frost had called Burton Kimball. She was gratified to realize her first impression had been right. The man really was a lawyer. At first glance, she had assumed he must be better than the lawyers she had known, the ones who had plied their trade by bailing whores out of jail, their retainers paid by pimps or drug dealers. But she had been wrong. If Burton Kimball was defending a child molester, a man who screwed his own daughter, then he was no better than the lawyers she had known before. In fact, maybe he was worse.
“Local?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Bobo didn’t generally allow customers to use the house phone. Outgoing calls could be made only from the phone in the back room. And Angie’s first instinct was to tell this pervert-loving bastard to take a hike and go make his precious phone call from a pay phone, preferably one in the middle of a busy street.
But then another thought came to her. Hadn’t Don Frost just told her that the attorney’s big-deal trial was due in court the next day? What would happen if the attorney for the defense was too damn hung over to hold his head up? Keeping him out of court probably wasn’t realistic, Angie decided, but she could maybe make him wish he’d stayed home. Even a novice bartender was capable of inflicting that much damage.
“You can use the phone in the back room,” she told him with a beguiling smile. “The number’s on it in case someone needs to call you back. By the way, what’s your name?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
“Burton Kimball,” he said, but he dropped his voice as though he really didn’t relish the idea of other people hearing him.
Angie held out her hand. “I’m Angie. Glad to meet you, Burton. Welcome to the Blue Moon. Care for another drink? It’s on the house. Sort of an introductory offer.”
“Sure,” Kimball said. “As soon as I make this call.”
When he came back, the new Bloody Mary was waiting in his booth. It seemed quite a bit stronger than the previous ones, and hotter.
Angie Kellogg watched with satisfaction as Burton Kimball stirred the new drink with the stalk of celery and swilled some of it down. His eyebrows shot up and down and he made a face, as though he was surprised by the extra jolt of Tabasco. But instead of complaining about the extra heat or the extra booze—a triple instead of a double—he nodded his thanks.
Angie smiled in return and returned to looking after her other customers, anticipating with some pleasure the moment when, because he was so drunk, she would be justified in throwing Burton Kimball out into the street.
With any kind of luck, he’d have to crawl back down Brewery Gulch on his hands and knees.
Nine
AS HE drove home to the Rocking P, Harold Patterson found himself in a state of hopefulness that verged on euphoria. It was going to work. Holly would see him. The woman named Amy, who was Holly’s therapist or nurse or whatever, had been genuinely helpful. That was something he had never anticipated. He had built her up in his mind, expecting her to be some kind of monster. Rather than throwing him out of the house as soon as she learned who he was, Amy Baxter had been almost cordial.
He had sat nervously in Casa Vieja’s long, box-beamed living room, waiting for Amy to return from upstairs to tell him whether or not Holly would see him. When she first said Holly wouldn’t be down right away, he had been crushed. Then, after learning she would see him later on in the afternoon, he was almost ecstatic.
Talking to Amy had given him some clues as to what he might expect of Holly’s current state of mind. “Don’t be surprised if she acts a little odd,” Amy had said. “She has these little spells. They come and go. Sometimes she’s better, sometimes worse.”
No doubt, had the lawyer been there—had either one of the two lawyers been there—Harold was sure things would have gone in a far different fashion. He had been right to go on his own.
But now, with the prospect of finally confronting Holly only an hour away, he had to break the news to Ivy as well. He had two daughters, and if they were going to be neighbors on the Rocking P, if they were going to live in such close proximity, then one couldn’t be privy to the terrible secret without the other knowing as well.
Harold pulled into the yard and was relieved to see Ivy’s faded red four-by-four Luv pickup parked near the front gate. She was home. The only question now was would she listen to him? Would she give him a chance to talk?
Moving stiffly, slowly, Harold climbed out of the Scout just as the front screen door slammed open. A man named Yuri Malakov came out of the house, his arms stacked high with boxes.
“Hey,” Harold said. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
Harold knew the man to be a newly arrived Russian immigrant and a friend of Ivy’s. Marianne Maculyea, the pastor up at Canyon Methodist Church, had hooked Ivy up with some kind of literacy program. For the past few weeks, the huge Russian and his stack of books had become a constant evening fixture at the Patterson kitchen table. By day, Malakov worked as a hired hand over at the Robertson place a few miles closer to Tombstone on Highway 80. By night, he and Ivy studied grammar and vocabulary.
Yuri stopped short when he encountered Harold standing on the porch. A few seconds later, the door opened again, and Ivy pushed her way out, a loaded suitcase in each hand.
“What are you doing?” Harold asked again.
Ivy shouldered past him. “Come on, Yuri. Those boxes should go in first. There’s another stack in the kitchen that’s all ready to go. Bring them, too.”
Obediently, Yuri shoved the boxes into a spot left in the back of the already loaded pickup. Then, without a word to Harold, he turned and headed back into the house.
Ivy was short, stocky, and solidly built—an exact duplicate of her mother. After years of hard physical labor, of digging fence-post holes and wrestling stock, Ivy Patterson was far stronger than she looked. She reached down and effortlessly tossed the suitcases into the bed of the truck.
“Are you leaving?” Harold asked, unwilling to believe the evidence offered by his own eyes.
“You could say that,” Ivy answered. She didn’t look at him as she hurried past to retrieve the next stack of boxes Yuri was in the process of depositing on the front porch.
“But what’s happening? Where are you going?�
�
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“None of my business?” he echoed. “How can that be? I’m your father.”
“Well, pin a rose on you!” The cold bitterness in Ivy’s usually kind voice shocked Harold as much as if she had slapped his face.
“Ivy, please. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Don’t bother. I already know. Burtie called and gave me the news.”
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Well, he did. And if you think I’m going to live here and share my home with that woman, you’re crazy.”
“But, Ivy, she’s your sister, and you have no idea what she’s been through. She’s had some bad luck, some really hard times.”
“Haven’t we all. Get the tarp, Yuri,” Ivy said, turning her back on her father. “I doubt it’s going to rain anymore, but we’ll lash it down just in case. That way, nothing will fly out of the truck once we hit the highway.”
Together they spread the tarp over the load. While Ivy began expertly tying it down, Harold limped over to the edge of the porch.
On either side of the top steps, framing the entrance to the porch, stood the knotted trunks of two huge wisteria vines. Harold had planted them himself when they were little more than twigs. Those two vines had been Emily’s pride and joy, coming to the house with her when she first arrived as a bride. He had always teased Em by telling her that those vines with their generous summer shade and sweet-smelling flowers were the best part of her dowry. In actual fact, they had been Emily Whitaker Patterson’s only dowry.
Slowly, struggling to steady his breath, Harold eased himself down against one of the trunks and looked up at the twining branches, leafless, now, and empty with the approach of winter. The twisted wood looked ancient, brittle, and lifeless—as though a strong breeze would splinter it into a million pieces. Harold felt the same way.
“As soon as we unload this, we’ll come back for the horses. Natasha Robertson said Bimbo and Sam can stay on their place until I make other arrangements. They sure can’t stay with me at an apartment in town, and Yuri can look after them when I can’t.”
“Ivy, please listen to reason. You don’t have to leave home. It isn’t like that. You’ve got to understand.”
Handing the rest of the lashing process over to Yuri, Ivy Patterson stalked over to the bottom of the step. “What do I have to understand?”
“Why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have to talk to you. In private. I can’t say what I have to say in front of anyone else, anyone outside the family.”
She eyed her father coldly. “Yuri is family,” she answered. “We’re going to be married as soon as we can make arrangements. Look.”
Ivy held up her left hand. Harold was astonished to see a ring where there had never been one before.
“Don’t you recognize it?” Ivy asked. “It’s Mother’s. The one she gave me before she died. On what little he makes, Yuri couldn’t afford to buy me a ring. It’s lucky I happened to have one.”
Harold Patterson was dumbfounded. “How can this be? How come I didn’t know anything about it?”
“Because you weren’t interested,” Ivy responded. “Because you were so wound up worrying about what was going to happen with Holly that you couldn’t see the nose on your face.”
Harold glanced at Yuri, who was standing by the truck. The Russian was looking up at them quizzically, his huge hands dangling awkwardly by his sides.
“But you haven’t known him very long, have you?” Harold objected. “How can you be sure…?”
“How long did you know Mother?” Ivy countered. “And I’m a lot older now than either of you were then. I’m forty years old. I’ve got a chance to grab some happiness before it’s too late, and I am by God taking it.”
“Does Burton know about this? Did you tell him anything about it?” Harold asked.
“No, I didn’t tell Burton. Why should I? This isn’t the old days, Pop. I don’t have to ask permission from every male relative before I make a decision. It’s my life. I’ve spent all these years putting other people first. Well, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not going to do that anymore.”
“But what about the ranch? What about the Rocking P?”
“What about it?” she raged back at him. “Have Holly come take care of it.”
“She can’t. She’s sick. She’s been sick for a long time.”
“She’s sick, all right,” Ivy retorted. “Holly’s a drug addict, Dad. Face it. She may have had talent once, but she’s burned her brain up on booze and cocaine and God knows what else.”
“A drug addict? Are you sure?”
“She’s been in and out of treatment half a dozen different times. That’s one of the reasons Burton doesn’t want you to settle with her. If it comes down to your word against hers, who’s going to believe her?”
Without answering, Harold leaned back against the wisteria trunk and closed his eyes.
“You went to see her, didn’t you?” Ivy flared. “You’ve made arrangements to settle, haven’t you?”
“Not yet,” Harold murmured. “But I will. Later on today.”
“Why?”
“Because she couldn’t see me right then.”
“I don’t give a damn what time you go see her. What I want to know is why did you go at all? Burton told me what he thinks, but I want to hear it from you, from your own lips.”
Yuri moved closer to Ivy. Towering over her by nearly two feet, he put one protective hand on her shoulder. For years Harold Patterson had longed for someone to come into his younger daughter’s life, someone who would honor her and care for her the way she deserved. Yet now that Yuri had showed up on the scene, he seemed like more of an enemy than a friend.
Harold was glad the letter was still safely stashed in his box at the bank. After all those years, now that he was finally willing to share the awful secret with his two daughters, this one demanded unreasonable conditions. He couldn’t see spilling his guts after all these years with some interloping stranger hanging on every word. Harold shook his head helplessly and didn’t answer.
Ivy shrugged off Yuri’s hand and moved closer, leaning forward until her face and her father’s were only inches apart. “Is it true, then?” she demanded. “Is that it?”
“No,” he protested, holding up his arm as if deflecting a physical blow. “It’s not that at all. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Well, I don’t. And no one else will, either, not if you settle. If you were innocent, you’d go to court to prove it. In the meantime, don’t bother splitting the ranch. Go back to Holly and tell her she can have the whole damn thing. I don’t want any part of it. Let her come back home and take care of you the way I took care of Mother if it ever comes to that. She can be the one who keeps the doors locked so you don’t wander outside without remembering to put your clothes on the way Mother did.”
“Ivy, please…”
But Ivy wouldn’t stop. “And when it gets to the point where you can’t feed yourself anymore, let your precious Holly be the one to ladle the soup into your mouth and change the filthy sheets and empty the damn bedpans. Tell her I’ve already done it once. Tell her I’ve already served my time, and I’ll be goddamned if I’ll do it again! Come on, Yuri, let’s go.”
As afternoon sunlight warmed the wet yard, a few chickens, the peacock, and two peahens had ventured into the yard and were scratching for bugs in the damp dirt outside the fence. Harold sat without moving while the Luv roared away, sending startled fowl squawking in every direction.
Only after the Luv was entirely out of sight did he get up and wander into the house. With a despairing gaze, he stood in the middle of the room and looked at the things that were missing—the things Ivy had packed to take with her—pictures, books, knickknacks that were probably every bit as much hers as they were his.
He stumbled over to the armchair in front of the fireplace where a small fire still burned on the grate. It was too bad he h
adn’t brought the letter with him. He could just as well give up and burn the damned thing. The fire would have been only too happy to consume the old yellowed paper saturated with candle wax.
But giving up would have been too easy, and that wasn’t Harold’s style. Instead, he lurched to his feet and hurried through the house. In his bedroom, he leaned into his age-mottled mirror and combed his sparse hair. He was old and butt-sprung all right but he could still take care of his ownself. So far, anyway.
After sprinkling on a dab of Old Spice, Harold Patterson clambered into the Scout and once more headed for Casa Vieja.
Ten
LATER ON, when Burton Kimball tried to recall the exact sequence of events, it was difficult for him to sort out that long, emotionally troubling afternoon. What he did know for sure was that it had been right about noon when he strode into the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge, and all he could think about was Ivy, poor Ivy. What could he do to help her? What would become of her if she lost the Rocking P? Where, for instance, would Ivy go looking for a job?
Cattle ranching was all Ivy Patterson had ever known or cared to know. Working with her father on the ranch had been her whole life, but if cowboys were a dying breed, cowgirls were even more so. When Trigger, Roy Rogers’ old horse, went to the great pasture in the sky, someone had gone to the trouble of calling in a taxidermist to stuff the carcass. But whatever happened to Dale Evans’ horse? Burton wondered morosely. The way the world worked, Buttermilk probably turned into a horsehide sofa.
The bartender at the Blue Moon, a young slender blonde Burton Kimball never remembered seeing around town before, came out from behind the bar to take his order. Burton pulled himself out of the depressing morass of thought only long enough to order a Bloody Mary. As soon as the bartender walked away, he returned to his somber contemplation of Ivy Patterson’s dismal future and Holly’s treachery.
Because that’s how Burton saw it—as treachery pure and simple. Holly’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father were too much a part of current pop-psychology myth—a belief system that tended to blame everything from ingrown toenails to snoring on the convenient bogeyman of childhood abuse. The presence of Amy Baxter, a supposedly internationally recognized hypnotherapist, was designed to lend legitimacy to Holly’s claims.