Tyree considered. “Didn’t I read that about a third of the Indians force-marched to the reservations out West died on the trail?”
David nodded, looked aside.
Amy grunted. “That’s why the name, Trail of Tears.”
Tyree folded his arms, said to David, “So your ma, Amy’s grandma, is the law here?”
Lydia smiled.
Amy grinned. “She’s a Wise Woman. She sees and knows it all. Nobody can get away with a dang thing. She nails somebody, they’re nailed for good. Who needs a pushy cop shooting up innocent bystanders? She’s teaching me to take her place someday. She can’t die until I take over from her.”
Tyree slid his eyes sideways to examine the half-pint-size girl so smug, so big for such a pixie. Tried to keep the flummoxed look off his face. He finally sighed. “I believe you. You asked about my mark: Don’t know his name. I know what used to be his name. Edgar Fallon.”
Silence.
“What’d he do?” rumbled David Bearclaw at last. “In Chicago, was it?”
“Oh, Dad. Drugs and heatin’ up women, you can guess that much.”
Tyree lilted his hands. “Holy shit. You sure Captain Sabinski didn’t just mail you the guy’s jacket?”
Lydia Bearclaw smiled. “It’s hard to get used to, I know. Like jungle drums. Kizzy is a... a natural force, like a tornado. Amy, too. She’s just not as disciplined or schooled. Yet.”
“And where’d you come from?” Tyree asked. “The Upper East Side of Manhattan?”
“Very good,” she said, still smiling.
He thought a minute. “So you were running, too, when you got here. From what?” He studied her, brow furrowed in thought. “Were you blind before you got here? From birth? Or from—”
“Not nice, Mr. Tyree,” said Lydia Bearclaw. “Mind your manners. I know you have some. And I know you’re used to minding them, because you’ve restrained yourself amazingly ever since you arrived in Rushing River.”
Tyree nodded. “You read me right. Sorry, ma’am. Sir,” he said to her husband, who just faintly smiled and shrugged. Not a talker, thought Tyree.
“So now what?” he said, more to himself than to his hosts.
“Tell us the whole thing,” insisted Amy. “I don’t get the twenty years ago part.”
Tyree looked at her ruefully. “Twenty-four years ago, to be exact. This kid lied about his age — he was seventeen then — so he could marry a twenty-year-old dumb Polack girl in Chicago. He’d knocked — he’d gotten her pregnant. Too innocent, no family. A pretty blonde. So she works hard in a local diner while he’s supposedly driving a cab, and she thinks they’re socking away every penny so they can escape the projects with their baby, but he’s depositing it all into his veins. But she trusts him. The sweet little girl has her beautiful baby boy, goes right back to work. He switches to nights to watch the kid during the day. Next thing she knows, stuff starts missing from the apartment. See, his addiction’s growing beyond their joint income. So she reports the thefts to the precinct, but they’re all petty. I mean, what do they have to steal? The local beat cop, after one look at the husband, guesses the truth, tries to tell her, but she won’t listen. Until one day she catches hubby snitching her paycheck from her purse. Big fight, lots of screaming, and then silence. Some hours pass, but the silence bothers one neighbor who really cares about the poor girl, who finally decides to check on her. He pushes open the door, finds the girl in the kitchen, bloody and out cold on the floor next to her baby. Baby’s head is smashed flat on one side. The woman’s physically OK. The blood is all the baby’s.”
“Jesus wept,” murmured David Bearclaw.
“The cops went for the husband at his place of work, found out he’d been fired a few weeks before. His former dispatcher confirmed Eddie was supporting a monster habit and unable to hold a job. He had to be getting desperate for cash. Dealers don’t extend credit.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Cops figured, with nerves raggedy from too long off the juice, his wife catching him in his theft — screaming wife, screaming baby — he popped. Then either he slam-dunked the child to shut it up, an accidental murder, or he just flat murdered it. Luckily a chop to his wife’s head knocked her cold, or the cops figured she’d be dead, too. No Eddie. And when she woke up, she’d lost herself. Catatonic.”
Mrs. Bearclaw asked gently, “That makes it twenty-three years ago, then. So why are you here? And why now?”
“Because after twenty-three years of institutionalization, therapy, and whatever they do to help poor souls like that sweet girl — woman now — she regained her mind and memory. The doctors say she not only recovered, although still frail, but can be believed. And she told what happened. The cops had the story nailed pretty much correctly.”
“But you’re no cop,” said Amy. “Doesn’t sound like there’s a bounty on the guy. Why are you here?”
Tyree sighed. “’Cause I had the misfortune of going through elementary, then junior high, then high school with a good buddy who’s now Captain Lee Sabinski of Homicide in Chicago. And over the years, he’s kept track of our running balance of favors. I owe him big right now, and bounty hunters don’t suffer from a need for search warrants, extradition paperwork, and that stuff.” He looked Amy in the eye, man to man, so to speak. His sharp cheekbones bunched up into his own grin. “Plus, I’m good at my job. The cops had nothing then, and Sabinski’s men found the same nothing now. They aren’t even sure he ever left Illinois. But I work with a rather special computer information expert — a genius in his own way. Probably should meet your Grandma Kizzy. He decided to start with Eddie’s car. Even if he ditched it fast, in that first flight away from his own house, we figure he used his own car. In the projects, he was one of the few who had a car.
“So my man patiently traced from car to car to car, all but a few of them stolen, natch, but the ones that he didn’t steaclass="underline" he changed his name just a little with each transaction. And two patterns emerged: a trail that never went beyond West Virginia, and a name that by now we figure might somewhat resemble Roy Barso.”
Amy settled her chair back down on all four of its feet and gazed levelly at her father. Her father shook his head, then stood to take the used dishes from the table to the sink.
Tyree jumped to his feet, grabbed his dirty dishes. Lydia patted the air. “Never mind, Tyree. Amy, better lead Mr. Tyree back to his car.”
“If it’s still there,” Amy agreed. David nodded and started squirting dish soap in a large metal sink.
“Better run on,” David said, taking the dishes Tyree held.
“What?” said Tyree.
“C’mon,” said Amy. “Gotta chore to help you with, then you can bed down in comfort until tomorrow.”
“No, not tomorrow. Tonight. Sabinski and I both know the newspapers’re onto this. We have to nail him before he’s warned. He could run again and be smarter about it by now.”
Lydia shrugged, her back turned to him.
Tyree let out the breath he’d been holding, and a puzzled anger started to rise. Amy grabbed his large hand and tugged. “C’mon, we might be too late as it is.”
Tyree went.
When they reached the car, pulled into the deep shadow beneath a golden rain tree. Amy chided, “You parked under a rain tree? You’ve got crap all over your car from the tree droppings now. Worse than sitting under a caged polecat.”
She was right. Yellowish green bits covered his black car all over. “I bet your mom wouldn’t like you to say crap.”
“I know. I do my best around her.”
Tyree felt like saying worse than crap as he tried to brush the sticky yellow stuff off and it only rolled in the dust already coating his Cherokee.
“There.” She pointed at the back window of his car. Or actually, at the black hole where the window had been. He didn’t need his key to open the door. Swearing fluently but as quietly as possible under his breath to keep from corrupting his accomplice, he stuck his head inside the Cherokee to view — nothing.