Heaven Is High (5 page)

She walked briskly, and every time her mind switched to the ordeal of facing the McKenzie River, she forced herself to veer off to a different direction. Days after announcing that she and Mike Denisen were going to marry, she had lost him; the river had claimed him. She had not been back since the night that she waited for word.

Binnie and Martin, she veered back to them, deserved something other than a Chicago attorney who so easily discounted the message left to Binnie by her dying mother. He was like a surgeon doing a tonsillectomy without noticing a knife in the patient's back.

Finding the right attorney might take some time, and they didn't have time. That was the problem. Maybe the grandfather would come through for Binnie, she thought then, but without real hope. His emissary had judged Shala an imposter when she turned out to be pregnant. After he returned to Belize and made his report, no doubt Augustus Santos had believed his daughter was dead. But it was possible the emissary had told him the truth, that Shala was alive and pregnant. It was possible, she repeated more firmly. It was possible that he would embrace a grandchild.

Two dazzling white egrets skimmed the surface of the racing water, a beautiful rare moment never captured in art. She stopped walking to watch them, and in her mind she heard Mike's joyous laughter that last day.

She began to walk again, more briskly than before. Another disquieting thought came to mind. Was she letting herself become involved with Binnie and Martin despite her lack of qualifications because they obviously were very deeply in love? Letting it become personal was always a mistake she knew. An attorney could not allow personal feelings to enter a case. But they always did, she added, and with this one more than usual.

All right, she told herself sharply. Consult a specialist, but oversee it, manage it yourself. She damn well knew there was a knife in the patient's back. Something was rotten about the whole affair that made it more than a simple illegal alien, immigration matter.

When she returned home, she found a message from her father on the answering machine. Of course, he would have checked in with Patsy, and she would have told him Barbara had called. She thought for a moment before returning his call. She couldn't go out there without seeing him. He would be furious and hurt, when he found out, and he would find out. And she had no intention of getting him involved with Martin and Binnie. She knew that he would tell her to turn them over to someone knowledgeable about immigration and butt out, that immigration played by its own rules and she knew diddly about what they were. Good advice that she would not heed. She dialed his number.

“Hi, Dad. Phone tag, my turn. I thought I might drop in for a visit Sunday, if you're home and free.”

“I'll be both home and free,” he said. “And I'll make you some dinner.”

“Yum,” she said. “Sounds good. Can I bring anything, good bread, wine?”

He said she could pick up a loaf of French bread, nothing else, and that was that, she thought when they hung up.

*   *   *

In his house overlooking the McKenzie River, Frank regarded the phone thoughtfully. Was she trying to face down demons? Deal with her pain by confronting it? An act of healing? Something else? Barbara had many facets, he knew, and many of them remained hidden, buried, not to be pried out of her. He would never attempt to unravel her mind, but it left him feeling helpless to offer anything that might ease her pain. It was too deep, too well hidden. What he could do, and did as often as she allowed, was to see to it that she got a decent meal at least once a week, and hope to go on from there. And try to avoid anything that might send her packing ever again. His biggest fear was that she would leave again, stay away for months or years. The fact that she was coming out to Turner's Point, to his house, an event he had not invited or expected, was hopeful, he told himself. He would air out the upstairs room she had used before, but he suspected that was a meaningless gesture. He certainly would not push for that extended a visit, just hope it might happen.

He began to consider what would be an especially fine meal in honor of her visit and, humming to himself, he went to take a duckling from the freezer. Barbara was very fond of duck with that special garlic and lime sauce he had found.

*   *   *

Barbara continued to sit at her desk, thinking of next steps. A letter of agreement with Binnie and Martin, making it official that she was representing them. More, she decided. A letter to the immigration service, on office stationery with the Bixby-Holloway imprint. Petty thievery seemed quite minor compared to tangling it up with two big government agencies, she thought mockingly. She would go to Frank's office on Saturday when she was unlikely to meet anyone and lift some letterheads and envelopes.

5

Everything was exactly as she remembered it, Barbara thought that Sunday, leaving the highway for the gravel road that led to Frank's house and a short distance beyond. The rise of the high Cascades as backdrop. The same tall, dark fir trees, a tangle of brambles on one side, a madrone visible now and then, gleaming red where sunshine shafted in to touch it, ferns, and multicolored lichen. The smell of the river. Changeless, eternal woods here, eternal mountains, river. She shook her head, acknowledging that that was her human arrogance at work. Actually, it was all in flux, connected in a dance taking place in a time frame not visible to her limited vision. Her passage through it was like that of a meteor streaking through space.

She pulled into Frank's driveway and parked, picked up her purse but left her briefcase in the car. He would wonder why she was bringing a briefcase out for a family visit.

Frank greeted her with his arms spread. “Good weather for a drive in the country,” he said, embracing her. “Good to see sunshine, have spring arrive, maybe.”

“Maybe is always the right word about weather,” she said, smiling.

She tossed a light jacket on a chair and went to the living room with him. He had moved a small table and two chairs close to the fireplace where a low fire was burning, sparing her the kitchen windows with a broad view of the McKenzie. She recognized and appreciated the gesture.

“Coffee in the carafe,” Frank said. “Have you had lunch?”

“Yep. And breakfast. Dad, I'm not going hungry. Honestly, I don't go hungry. But coffee would be good. How's the book coming? I thought I might read a bit of it, if you're willing to show it.”

“Willing? Try delighted. I've been coming across some pretty incredible cross-examinations, and decided to give a whole chapter to some so rotten you have to question motivation of the defense, or in some cases the prosecution. Although generally you know damn well what's driving that side. The scoreboard.”

She laughed with him, and for the next hour read his manuscript and made comments. Then, laughing harder, she put a page down and said, “Dad, he'll sue you! You can't get away with saying things like that.”

“Verbatim quotes from the court transcript,” Frank said complacently. “I hardly even mention what an ass he is, what he missed. A passing reference is all. I consulted an expert on libel.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

She stood. “With that I need some air. I'll take a walk, inspect Nell's walnut trees, maybe drop in on Tawna to admire her newest jewelry creations. Do you mind?” Tawna taught French at the university, and she made fantastic jewelry, her true love.

“Take a walk, Bobby. I have things to do in the kitchen. Have a good walk. Tell Tawna and James hello for me. I hardly ever see them.”

She picked up her jacket and left, then stopped at her car to get her briefcase. It was a short walk through the woods to Nell Kendrick's property with a grove of black walnut trees that would be ready to harvest in a year or two. The valuable wood would make Nell a rather wealthy young woman. Adjacent to the maturing trees younger trees were growing sturdily, another harvest in twenty years coming along. Seedling trees would not be ready, Nell had told Barbara, for about seventy years. A long time between edible nut in the ground and a harvestable tree.

It was wondrously peaceful under the massive walnut trees. Little undergrowth succeeded in the deep shade, and with the toxic substance the roots exuded. It was squirrel heaven, and jays scolded raucously at her presence. When she neared the big house, both Martin and James emerged from the barn to greet her. James was a veterinarian and usually had a sick animal or two housed in his barn. His greeting was warm and friendly, the greeting of an old friend rather than a simple acquaintance. She was glad that Martin appeared to be more relaxed than he had been in Eugene. His welcoming smile revealed what seemed to be an awful lot of very white teeth.

“You didn't tell us we'd be housed in a little paradise,” he said. “This is great.”

“Come on in,” James said, heading for the house. “I think Tawna is using Binnie as a model for earrings or something. What's with women and jewelry? I don't get it.”

“What's holed up in the barn?” Barbara asked. “A sick goat or pig or something. And you think jewelry is hard to get. Hah!”

Inside, Tawna and Binnie indeed had been trying on jewelry. A table was covered with it. Tawna's welcome was as warm as James's had been, and Binnie smiled shyly at her.

“She's so tiny,” Tawna said, indicating Binnie. “Most of my earrings are ridiculous on anyone so small and delicate.”

She was neither. Both she and James had struck Barbara as tall, handsomely built athletic types when she met them. They had shrunk down a bit next to Martin, but everyone in the room dwarfed Binnie.

“Well, you didn't come to buy jewelry, so to the study with you three,” Tawna said. “Barbara, James and I are plotting on how to keep them here forever. He's a genius in the kitchen and her pastries are downright sinful. I never want them to go away, although I could start waddling.”

She led the way to a study as she spoke, glanced around, and added, “Do you want something to drink while you talk? Wine, beer, coffee…?”

“Not for me,” Barbara said, and both Binnie and Martin shook their heads. Tawna nodded and left them.

There was a leather-covered sofa, side chairs, coffee table, and a large desk covered with papers and books. They arranged themselves in the chairs and on the sofa.

Binnie signed to Martin and he said, “She has copies of all her notes in our room. I made Xeroxes of everything for you. We'll hand it over before you leave.”

“Good. I have an agreement for you both to look over,” Barbara said, taking it from her briefcase. “It's an attorney-client agreement recognizing me as your attorney of record in this matter. It allows me to act on your behalf. Binnie, Martin, I have to say this so you'll understand our relationship. I told you I'm not an expert on immigration matters, and I'll try to find someone who is but, with your permission, I'd want to use such an attorney as a consultant, not ask anyone else to become your primary attorney. I'd oversee the case.”

Binnie's eyes filled with tears and she nodded vigorously, and Martin said huskily, “Barbara, we couldn't ask for anything better. We'll be forever in your debt if you handle this for us, however you want to do it.”

She watched them read the letter, sign two copies, one for them to keep, one for her. “Okay,” she said. “On to a few questions. Who has access to your kitchen at the restaurant?”

“We've been thinking about that,” Martin said. “There's a new guy making deliveries, he started early last week. Everyone else has been there about as long as we have. A couple who come in the mornings to clean. Guys with deliveries of drinks, things like that, and that's just about all. On busy nights we have a busboy, a neighborhood kid, but he hasn't been there for a week.” He gave her names and she made a note of them. He had pegged it, she thought. A new deliveryman whose deliveries included more than just drinks, timed to coincide with when the tip would have been passed to the immigration people.

“Next,” she said. “Martin, did you pay off Domonic Guteriez? Did you pay him anything?”

“No. I never even heard from him directly. It was the Coast Guard guys who told us there was a kidnapping charge, and there was one short item in the Miami paper, that's all I knew about it.”

“You told the first attorney you talked to in Chicago?”

He nodded.

“Have you mentioned it to anyone else?”

“No. We haven't talked about this with anyone until we came to you.”

“Have you asked Tawna and James to keep it quiet that you're houseguests here?”

Martin's look was reproachful. “Barbara,” he said slowly as if taking care with his choice of words, “black folks don't generally talk about their trouble with the government. Like preaching to the choir, just no point in it. In any case, they know better than to talk about us. The fact that we asked for asylum is enough said about the matter.”

She brought up Nell and her two children and he shook his head. “Tawna told us about them, but she said they've gone over to Bend to spend a week with the kids' grandparents. Spring break starts tomorrow. The Greshams have a daughter at Juilliard, but she won't be coming home until summer.”

She had more questions. Had any of the other football players suspected Binnie was aboard the yacht? He said no, that he kept hanging out with them as usual, and they all took food to their staterooms. No one paid any attention to that. Binnie signed rapidly and he added, “I never touched her on the yacht, Barbara. I think I was scared to death of her, most girls but especially her, so little and afraid and all.”

Barbara turned to Binnie then. “Did your mother talk about her father? What he was like, anything about him?”

She signed and Martin said, “A little, not much. She was running away from him and a marriage he wanted to arrange. She had fallen in love with Binnie's father. She was attending the university when she met him, and hated the man her father was trying to make her marry.”