Holly’s broke,” Harold Patterson asserted.
Burton stopped in mid-sentence. “You know that for a fact?”
“She hated Bisbee,” the old man answered. “The only reason she’d come back was if she had to.”
“Uncle Harold,” Burton said evenly. “Are you saying I’m supposed to feel sorry for Holly?”
“You don’t know what happened to her,” Harold answered softly. “You don’t know any of it.”
“No,” Burton agreed. “You’re right. I don’t know because you haven’t told me, even though I’m your attorney. If anyone ought to know, I should. What did happen to Holly, Uncle Harold?” Burton asked, his voice once more controlled, “Tell me the truth. Let me help you.”
But Harold said nothing. For more than a minute no further word passed between them.
“You won’t tell me?” Burton said at last.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Burton swung away from the window then turned and stared down at the old man who continued to examine the backs of his mottled, liver spotted hands with the utmost concentration and studied unconcern. And as Burton looked down at his uncle, a slow dawning-an awful realization washed across him. The younger man’s face blanched.
“That’s not true, is it,” he said coldly.
“What’s not true?” Harold asked.
“That there’s nothing to tell.”
Harold looked up at Burton. On his face was an expression of feigned innocence, one that even the most inept juror would have seen right through.
“My God!” Burton whispered. “It did happen, didn’t it. Holly’s telling the truth! That’s why you don’t want to go to court. That’s why you’re suddenly willing to settle. You’re afraid people around here friends and neighbors, the folks who think Harold Patterson is the salt of the earth-will finally see you for what you are.”
With no warning, Harold Patterson’s eyes betrayed him. Again, as they had several times that day, they brimmed over with unexpected and unwelcome tears. He tried to brush the telling dampness away, but he wasn’t able to, not before Burtie saw the tears and surmised what they meant. With a clutch in his gut, Burton Kimball stumbled into the realization that Holly Patterson was telling the truth.
“If that’s the case,” the lawyer said carefully, “then maybe you’d better go ahead and settle. But I won’t help you. I won’t have any part of it. Because you disgust me, Uncle Harold. I can’t even stand to be in the same room with you.”
He started toward the door.
“Does that mean you quit?” Harold asked.
Burton paused at the door. He answered with out looking back or raising his voice. “Yes, that’s what it means,” he answered slowly. “Given the way I feel at this moment, I don’t think I could adequately represent you. You’ll be better off with someone else, maybe with one of my partners.”
“Please, Burtie,” Harold begged. “Your partners don’t know anything at all about this case. Don’t walk out on me now, not when I need you to help me get in touch with Holly or with her attorney. Nobody else could do that. Only you.”
Burton felt the wave of cold fury begin to rise in his chest, threatening to drown him, to rob him of breath and speech both. It was all he could do to summon what could pass for a normal voice, but with a supreme act of selfcontrol, he managed.
“Holly’s staying at Coo Viejo,” he said, “court order be damned! You’ll have to do your own dirty work, Uncle Harold, because I’m a son of a bitch if I’ll help you!”
With that Burton Kimball stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Harold sat for several minutes, alone in the empty room, regaining his composure; coming to terms with the idea that he now had what he wanted, but not the way he wanted, not at this high a price. He had never thought he’d lose Burtie as well. Never.
Shriveled by this latest penalty, it took some time for Harold to gather his strength and make his way out of Burtie’s private office. In the reception area, he paused in front of the desk that belonged to Maxine Smith, Burton’s secretary.
“When Burtie gets back,” Harold said, “give him a message for me, would you? Tell him I’m sorry, and tell him thank you.”
“Why certainly, Mr. Patterson,” Maxine said, jotting a quick note on a message pad. “Any thing else?”
“No,” Harold Patterson said, shaking his head. “That’s all.”
Holly PATTERSON sat in the back upstairs bedroom and stared out the window at the tawny wall of rock and tailings that rose two hundred feet in the air. Nothing green grew on the dump. It was dead, empty earth that reminded Holly of the moon. And of herself.
The Stickley rocker with its stiff leather back and broad, flat arms groaned each time it arched across the hardwood floor. The sound reminded her of a door creaking shut. The door to her heart.
She rocked and rocked. A cheerful fire crackled in the little stone fireplace, but nothing warmed her. Not the fire and not the two layers of woolen sweaters she was wearing, either. She was cold, and she was frightened. She had warned Rex Rogers, her lawyer, that it would be bad for her to come here, but Amy had insisted that they had to do it on her father’s home turf, and Rex had backed her up. They said there’d be a much better settlement if they bearded the lion in his own den.
Amy Baxter, her hypnotherapist, had told Holly that coming back to Bisbee wouldn’t be that big a deal, had assured her that she’d be perfectly fine.
Maybe for publicity and legal reasons, Rex and Amy were right, and Bisbee was the correct place to be. After all, they were the experts who had handled similar cases in towns and cities all over the country. But for Holly, being here was wrong. Bisbee and all the people in it were what she had spent thirty years trying to drink and drug out of her memory. Now that she was back, so were all the old bad feelings.
No one here gave a damn that she had gone out into the world and made a success of her life for a while. If anyone in Bisbee knew or cared that she had a screenwriting play sitting in her aged unit back in Studio City, no one mentioned it.
And if anyone knew that she had reached the pinnacle of success only to fall off and land in a series of mental and drug-rehab institutions, no one mentioned that, either. They didn’t care if she was a success or a failure. That didn’t matter. The people of Bisbee hated her anyway. They hated her because she was Holly Patterson. That was reason enough.
Holly pulled the sweater tighter across her chest and looked down toward the base of the house.
Amy, dressed in sweats, was down on the terrace working out on a trampoline. Catching sight of Holly peering out the window, Amy smiled and waved. Holly didn’t wave back. Now that the rain was gone and a fitful November sun was peeking through the cloud cover, Amy Baxter was far too energetic for Holly to tolerate. Too energetic and too positive.
Holly, on the other hand, was more like that gaunt, brown-needled pine tree thirsting to death at the top of the once-lush gardens, remnants of which still lingered on the grounds of Cosa Viejo.
Holly knew about the gardens because she and Billy Corbett had ditched school there once during sixth grade. They had taken off their clothes and lain naked in the ivy until they were both itchy and covered with aphids.
Billy had bragged to classmates at school that he had already done it. Twice. Holly had called him a liar and had dared him to prove he wasn’t.
They agreed to meet in the covered garden behind Cosa Viejo, a wonderful turn-of-the-century mansion at the top of Vista Park. In an earlier life and under a different name, the brown stuccoed mansion, with its mission-style and molded-plaster details, was a place one of Bisbee’s original copper barons had once proudly called home.
By the late fifties, the mansion had been renamed Cosa Viejo and the huge dump was already inching slowly across the desert toward the lush backyard, although the tailings weren’t nearly as close then as they were now, nor as tall. Fueled by grumbling trucks and noisy ore trains, the dump grew larger day by day. And the steady round-the-clock barrage of dust and noise began having serious detrimental repercussions on the fine old house.