Indigo Slam

I grumped.

She put her fists on her hips. 'Pouting won't help.'

These flight attendants are something.

I settled in beside an overweight man with very short hair and glasses so thick that his eyes looked the size of BBs. He smiled, but I didn't smile back. Tough.

I crossed my arms, frowned real hard, and thought about Teri and Winona and Charles as we lifted up through the northwest cloud layer into a brilliant clear sunshine that stretched from southern Washington to the tip of the Baha Peninsula and the Sea of Cortez. Maybe it would help if I stuck out my lower lip. I had flown to Seattle to find an ordinary missing father, and instead had found that Clark Haines was really Clark Hewitt, and that Clark Hewitt, along with being a drug addict, was a criminal, a former participant in the federal witness protection program, and was actively being sought by both the Russian mob and various federal law enforcement agencies. These are not good things to discover, and were even less good when one considered that, if the mobsters were after Clark, they would also be after his children. For all I knew, Clark Hewitt was dead and would never return, or, if he wasn't dead, perhaps had no interest in returning. I thought that maybe I could get his kids into foster care without revealing their true identities, but this somehow seemed to leave them more vulnerable and exposed. The obvious solution was to take them to the police, identify them by their original names, and allow Jasper and Scully to see to their well-being. Charles and Winona and Teri would still end up in foster care, only an awful lot of people would know who and where they were, and the more people who knew, the greater the possibility that word would get back to the Markovs. This was yet another problem, and all these problems were making me grumpier still. Maybe I should try to get into a problem-free occupation of some kind. Hunting lions, maybe. Or raising the Titanic.

The flight attendant stood over me. 'Are we feeling any better yet?'

I stared at her, and then I sighed. 'Is it that obvious?'

'Mm-hm. Could I bring you a nice cup of tea?'

'A cup of tea would be fine.'

She brought the tea, a couple of Tylenol, and a reassuring smile. Two hours and fifty minutes later we let down through a cloudless cathedral of sky and faint orange haze into the wonderland that is Southern California. I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I felt better about not knowing. The attendant smiled a good-bye at the door. 'You look much better.'

'I've achieved a measure of peace with my uncertainty.'

'Sometimes that's the best we can do.' I guess you develop a certain wisdom when you spend your life at thirty-five thousand feet.

I kissed her hand, then picked up my car from long-term parking, and made the drive up through the city to Teresa Hewitt's house.

It was after three when I arrived, and that meant Charles and Winona would be home. I would've preferred to speak with Teri alone, but there you go. Tell me, Winona, can you spell 'foster care?'

I parked at the opposite curb, crossed to their front door, and rang the bell. I couldn't see Joe Pike or his Jeep, but I waved to him anyway. He would be someplace near, and he would be watching. Unobtrusive.

The Saturn was in the drive, and I figured that Charles would throw open the door and we'd go through the same opera again, but this time it wasn't Charles. This time it was a half-bald guy two inches shorter than me with faded hair and skinny arms and glasses. I said, 'You're a hard guy to find, Mr. Hewitt.'

Clark Hewitt made a soft smile that seemed confused. 'I'm sorry, but my name is Haines. I don't use the other name anymore.' He said it as if there were no value to its secrecy, or, if there had been, he'd forgotten. He was heavier now than in the picture with Rachel and the Brownells, and somehow less distinct. He was wearing a loose cotton shirt and ValuMart chinos and brush-burned Hush Puppies that were screaming for a retread. Winona ran up, grabbed him around the legs with an oomph!, and looked at me. 'Hi, Elvis. Our daddy's home!'

'Hi, Winona. So I see.' Can you spell 'reunion?'

She dangled one of those ugly little trolls that kids have. It had purple hair and a horrible leer. 'You see what my daddy brought me?'

I nodded.

'It's a key chain.'

Clark Hewitt beamed at her and patted her head. 'Because she always has the key to my heart.'

Winona giggled, and I wanted to shoot him. Clark looked back at me, and said, 'You must be the detective! Please come in.' The detective.

The house smelled of fresh coffee and baked cookies, and, as we entered, Teresa came out of the kitchen carrying a plate heaped with the cookies. Charles peeked out of the hall that led back to the bedrooms, scowling and hunched, with his hands jammed into his pockets. He didn't look happy, and he didn't come out. Lurking. Teri said, 'I left a message on your machine. Daddy came home this morning.'

'I just got back. I haven't checked my messages.'

Clark Hewitt made himself comfortable in his easy chair. I didn't sit. 'Were you on a trip?'

' Seattle. I guess we just missed each other.'

'Ah. Seattle is a wonderful city, but I haven't been there in years.' He gestured at the cookies. 'Teri baked these cookies, Mr. Cole. Won't you have some?'

Teri said, 'Chocolate chip raisin.'

She held the plate close to Clark, who bent to smell. 'Ah! My favorite!'

Clark beamed at Teri and Teri beamed at Clark. Winona beamed at everyone. Charles stayed back in the hall and glowered, but that was Charles. Maybe this wasn't the Hewitt house. Maybe my plane hadn't really landed in Los Angeles, but had somehow jumped dimensions and brought me to an alternate Los Angeles and these people were the Bradys.

I stayed on my feet, and I didn't take the cookies. ' Clark, you and I need to talk.'

He selected a fat, round cookie and settled back in the chair. 'Mmm.'

' Clark.'

Winona perched on the couch and Teresa put the plate on the coffee table near her father. 'Come out here, Charles, and have a cookie with Daddy.'

Charles made a single cough. 'Eff'm.'

Teresa's face flashed into a hard white mask, and her voice came out as rough as a rat-tail file. 'Charles.'

Charles coughed again, stomped down the hall, and slammed his door. Daddy might be home, but I guess everything wasn't hunky-dory with the Bradys.

Clark chewed and swallowed and smacked his lips as if he hadn't heard. Maybe he lived in one world and they lived in another and the two worlds overlapped only on occasion. 'I'm sorry the kids bothered you with all of this, Mr. Cole, but it's my fault they were worried. A business opportunity came up and I had to leave on such short notice that I couldn't get home to explain.'

'Such short notice that you left three underage children to fend for themselves.' No one had mentioned my face. No one had asked about the swelling or the bruise.

He eyed the plate for another cookie. 'Well, I tried phoning, but I always called at the wrong time.'

Teresa said, 'He phoned during the day when I was out.'

'You told me you don't go out.'

She frowned. 'Well, to the market and to pick up the kids. You know.'

Clark snagged a second cookie. 'I guess I should've tried more often, but there was so much to do.'

Winona said, 'We're going to be rich. We're going to buy a house and a Sega and a really big TV.'

Clark chuckled. 'Well, let's not buy that house just yet, but life is certainly looking up. Yes, it is.' He gave Winona a hug and smiled at Teri, but Teri wasn't looking at him. She was looking at me. He said, 'Our luck is about to change, and, boy, we deserve it. I'll be printing documents for a group of international investors with a long-term contract. A contract spells job security. None of this seasonal employment. No more of this moving every few months.' He tickled Winona and she giggled. 'We'll be able to buy our own home and settle down and not move around so much. Won't that be good, Teri?'