A Different Blue

  “I guess I like things the way they are, Blue.”

  “Yeah. I guess.” I picked up a smaller piece of juniper, a mallet, and a chisel and started stripping the bark, mimicking the steady movements of my father.

  “Maybe we could just adopt a baby,” I suggested.

  Jimmy's chisel bit deeply into the wood and he cursed under his breath . . . something about hell freezing over.

  “I would be a good mommy, I think,” I said seriously, ticking off my accomplishments. “I would share my bed with her. I could teach her to crawl. I obviously know how to walk, so that wouldn't be a problem. You would have to change the diapers, though. Or maybe we could teach her to poo outside, like Icas.”

  “Hmmm,” Jimmy sighed, tuning me out.

  “I could be the mommy, you could be the grandpa. Would you like being a grandpa, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy stopped chiseling, his hands falling to his sides. He looked at me soberly, and I wondered at the deep lines around his mouth that I hadn't really noticed before. Jimmy already sort of looked like a grandpa.

  Strains of music found their way through the vent and I shook myself drowsily, the memory/dream still hanging in the air like a hint of perfume. I had grandparents somewhere. My mother must have had some family. And if not, what about my father's family? Had they even known about me? Had they looked for me?

  I lay in the dark, listening as Wilson played the songs that I now had names for. I could identify many of them within the first few notes. Yet I could walk by my own grandfather – even my own father! – tomorrow and not recognize him. My baby shifted within me again. Someday my baby would want to know, no matter how deeply he or she was swathed in love and family. Someday he or she would need to know. And that meant I had to find out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The precinct smelled like you would expect a precinct to smell. It smelled official. Coffee, cologne, a hint of bleach, and electronics . . . you know the smell. I didn't smell donuts, though. I guess the cops and donuts thing is just a bad stereotype. More labels.

  I approached the front desk, manned by a enormous woman with a severe bun and a hint of a mustache. Her looks did not encourage secret spilling.

  “Can I help you?” Her voice was a complete contrast to her appearance. It was sugary and kind, and reminded me of Betty White. I felt better almost immediately.

  “I don't know if you can help me, but maybe you can direct me. I wondered if there is a policeman here with the last name of Bowles? I think he will remember me if he is. It involves a missing persons case he was in involved with about ten years ago.”

  “We do have a Detective Bowles. Would you like me to see if he is on the premises?”

  Bowles wasn't a terribly uncommon name, and I knew there was a chance it wasn't the same guy, but I nodded anyway. It was a start.

  “Could I have your name please?”

  “Blue Echohawk.” That would make it simple. If Detective Bowles didn't recognize my name, he wasn't the same officer I had known.

  The woman who swallowed Betty White spoke sweetly into her headset, obviously trying to locate Detective Bowles. I looked away, taking in my surroundings. This building was much older than the police station they'd taken me to in 2001. That station had been in Las Vegas somewhere, and it had been brand new. It had smelled like paint and sawdust, which at the time had been very comforting. For me, the smell of sawdust was probably the equivalent of homemade chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven.

  “Blue Echohawk?” I turned as a muscular, middle-aged man approached. He was instantly familiar, and I resisted the urge to turn and run as my heart began to pound. Would I get in trouble for not coming forward with this information sooner? Would Cheryl? A smile broke out across his face as surprise had him chuckling and reaching a hand out in greeting.

  “I'll be damned. When all that stuff went down at the high school last January, I wanted to get in touch and say hello and let you know how proud I was of you, but thought maybe you would be overwhelmed with all the hype and media attention at the time.”

  “I thought I saw you that day. That's why I'm here. I figured you had to be working here in Boulder City now and – I know this is a little strange – I think you might be able to help me. I'm not in trouble!” I hurried to add, and he smiled again. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

  “I knew there couldn't be two Blue Echohawks in the world, but I admit, I still pictured you at ten years old.” He eyed my protruding stomach in surprise. “And you're going to be a mother soon, looks like!” My hand fluttered to my belly awkwardly. I nodded and reached for the hand he held toward me, shaking it firmly before I let it drop.

  “Candy?” Detective Bowles directed his question to the helpful lady at the front desk. “Is room D available?”

  Candy?? Oh, that poor woman. She needed a strong name to go with that strong upper lip.

  Candy smiled and nodded, all the while speaking into her headset.

  “Right this way.” Detective Bowles began walking. “Can I just call you Blue?”

  “Sure. What do I call you?”

  “Detective . . . or Andy's fine, too.”

  He led me into a little room and pulled out a chair. I wondered if they used these rooms to question murderers and gang members. Strangely, I had felt a lot more nervous at Planned Parenthood.

  “So talk to me. What brings you to me after all this time?” Detective Bowles crossed his bulging biceps over his chest and leaned back in his chair.

  “My father's body was found three years after he disappeared. I don't know if you knew that. I was told by my social worker, and I don't know what happened on your end of things . . . what exactly the police did, if anything. I'm guessing it was documented and the case was closed at some point?” I didn't know if I was using the correct terminology. Like most people, I had watched a few cop shows. I felt a little silly trying to sound like I had any clue what I was talking about.

  “I did know, actually. I'm sorry for your loss.” Detective Bowles tipped his head, knowing there was more to come.

  “My . . . aunt . . .” My voice trailed off. She wasn't my aunt, but for the sake of the story I needed to keep it simple but honest. I adjusted slightly. “Uh . . . the woman who took me in told me something at that time that I don't think the police ever knew. I didn't know . . . you see.” I wasn't making any sense.

  Detective Bowles just waited.

  “I don't want to get her in trouble. She should have spoken up . . . but she had her reasons, I guess.”

  “Do you want a lawyer?” Detective Bowles asked softly. I looked at him in confusion.

  “No . . . I don't think so. I didn't commit a crime. I was a kid. It never even occurred to me that I could go to the police with what she told me. And I'm hoping that this won't be about Cheryl Sheevers or anybody else. This is about me. I'm trying to find out who my mother was.”

  “If I remember right, nobody seemed to know who your mother was, correct?”

  I nodded. “But after Jimmy Echohawk's body was found, Cheryl told me that he wasn't my father.”

  Detective Bowles was sitting up a little straighter. I definitely had his attention. “How did she know that?”

  “She told me that Jimmy stopped for the night at a truckstop in Reno. He sat down in a big booth in the restaurant to have a bite to eat, and about twenty minutes into his meal a little girl sat up across from him. She had apparently been asleep on the far side of this big round booth, and he hadn't even seen her there. He offered the little girl his french fries. She didn't cry, but she was hungry and ate everything he gave her. He ended up sitting there with her, hoping someone would claim her.” I looked up at Detective Bowles whose eyes had grown wide, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

  “You would have to know Jimmy. He definitely walked to a different drum. He didn't live like other people lived, and he definitely didn't respond they way someone else would have responded. He was kind, but he was also reserved . . . and ver
y . . . quiet and..and unassuming. I can just picture him, looking around, trying to figure out what in the world to do with this child, but not saying a word. I swear, he wouldn't have spoken up in an emergency room if he had a hatchet in his head.”

  Andy Moody nodded, listening, urging me on.

  I paused, the memory poised at the edges of my mind . . . but hazy. I didn't really know if it was an actual memory, or if I had just pictured it so many times that it felt that way. “Anyway, eventually a woman came for the little girl. Jimmy thought maybe the little girl was lost and had climbed into the booth on her own. But from the way the woman acted, she had laid the little girl down in the booth on purpose, and let her sleep while she went off and played the slots.”

  Detective Bowles shook his head in disbelief. “And this little girl was you.”

  “Yes,” I said frankly. I proceeded to tell him what Cheryl had told me, about Jimmy's belief that my mother had followed him back to his trailer and about the faulty passenger side door. I told him how I'd been found the next morning, how Jimmy had recognized me, and how he hadn't known what to do. “A few days later, the cops showed up at the truckstop, showing a flyer with the woman's face on it, asking about a child. The owner of the truckstop, who had purchased some carvings from Jimmy and was fairly friendly with him, told him the woman had turned up dead at local hotel. The cops had come around because the woman was wearing a T-shirt with the truckstop logo on it. At that point, Jimmy moved on and took me with him.”

  By this point, Detective Bowles was scribbling wildly, his eyes darting up from his paper to my face as I spoke.

  “Bottom line, my mother abandoned me at a truckstop in Reno. She turned up dead in a motel in the area a few days later. With that information, I wondered if you could find out who she was.”

  Detective Bowles stared at me, his jaw working, blinking rapidly. He didn't have a great poker face. “Do you know approximately when this would have been?”

  “August. I always thought my birthday was August 2. But how would Jimmy have known when my birthday was? I think he just marked my birthday by the day my mother abandoned me. I can't be sure of that, but it's my best guess. Cheryl said she thought I was about two when this all went down. It would have to have been 1992 or 1993. Does that help?”

  “Yeah. It does. August of '92 or '93. Hotel room. Missing child. T-shirt with a truckstop logo. What else can you give me? Anything at all?”

  “She was young . . . maybe younger than I am now.” The thought had struck me often in the last few months. “She was Native American, like Jimmy. I think that might be one of the reasons she left me with him.” Maybe I was kidding myself. But it was something to hold onto.

  “I'm gonna make some calls. This case was obviously never solved because they never found you, did they? Reno P.D. will have to hit the archives, do a little digging, might take a few days, but we'll find out who your mother was, Blue.”

  “And find out who I am.”

  Detective Bowles stared at me and then slowly shook his head, as if the realization was staggering. “Yeah. You poor girl. And we'll find out who you are, too.”

  “I'm going to Reno.”

  “Reno?”

  “Reno, Nevada.” Wilson was British. Maybe he didn't know where Reno was. “It's in Nevada, but it's way up North. It's about an eight hour drive. I could fly, but I'm too far along for that to be safe. I don't even know it they'd let me on a plane.”

  “Why Reno?”

  “I went to the police department on Monday.”

  Wilson's eyes widened and he was very still.

  “I told them everything I knew . . . about myself, about my mother . . . about Jimmy.” I felt oddly like crying. I hadn't felt that way when I spoke with Detective Bowles on Monday. But he had called me back this morning. And he had been excited. And I had a feeling that the life I was trying to build for myself was going to unravel yet again.

  “The Detective who I spoke with . . . he says there was a woman who was found dead in a hotel room in Reno in 1993. This woman apparently had a child. The child was never found. The details match up with what Cheryl told me. They want me to come to Reno, give a DNA sample, and see if I'm the missing child.”

  “They will be able to tell you that?” Wilson sounded as stunned as I felt.

  “Not right away. Apparently, when they realized there was a child unaccounted for, they took a DNA sample from the woman and it's in some national database.”

  “How soon will they know?”

  “Months. It isn't like TV, I guess. Detective Bowles said he's had to wait a year for DNA results before, but he thinks this will be a priority, so it shouldn't be that long.”

  Wilson huffed out. “Well, the sooner you get up there and give them a sample, the sooner you'll know, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I felt queasy.

  “I'll come with you.”

  “You will?” I was surprised and oddly touched.

  “You can't go alone. Not when you're this close.”

  “I've got two weeks.”

  Wilson waved that away and whipped his cell phone out, making arrangements for a substitute for Thursday and Friday as well as reservations at a Reno hotel, all in a matter of minutes.

  “Did you tell Tiffa?” He paused, phone in hand, glancing up at me. “She's going to want to know.”

  I called Tiffa, and, as it turned out, Tiffa didn't just want to know, she wanted to come. She actually didn't want me to go at all, but Wilson just shook his head and took the phone from me.

  “She has to go, Tiff. She has to.” So Tiffa decided the next best thing was to just come along. Jack was going to be in Reno for a medical convention on Saturday and Sunday anyway, and she had debated joining him. She would just leave a couple of days early so she could be with me. Baby Mama status was getting a wee bit old, I told myself grumpily. I had been so independent for so long, it felt strange needing to clear my comings and goings with anyone. Secretly, though, I was thrilled that she cared so much.

  “Road trip!” she squealed, coming through my door two hours later, suitcase in hand, sunglasses on, wearing one of those big hats you wear on the beach. She looked ready for a day on a yacht. I giggled and allowed her to pull me in for a big squeeze, a smooch to my belly, and a kiss to my cheek. I'd always thought the English were supposed to be less effusive, less demonstrative, than Americans. It definitely wasn't true where Tiffa was concerned.

  “We're taking the Mercedes! I'm not squeezing these long legs in the back of the Subaru, Darcy!”

  “Fine. But I'm driving, and you are still sitting in the back,” Wilson said agreeably.

  “Please do! I'm just going to sit back and relax, maybe read, maybe kip a bit.”

  She didn't read a word. Or sit back. And she definitely didn't kip . . . which I learned meant to sleep. She talked and laughed and teased. And I learned a few things about Wilson.

  “Did Darcy ever tell you how he wanted to trace the steps of St. Patrick?”

  “Tiffa..please, can you just fall asleep already?” Wilson groaned, sounding a lot like one of his students.

  “Alice had just turned eighteen – done with school, wanting an exciting holiday. I wasn't even living at home then. I was twenty-two and working at a little art gallery in London, but every year we had a family holiday. We would go somewhere for a couple of weeks, usually somewhere sunny and warm where Dad could unwind a little. Alice and I wanted to go to the south of France, and Dad was on board. However, little Darcy had gotten a wee bee in his bonnet. He wanted to go to Ireland – cold, wet, and WINDY just like Manchester was that time of year. Why? Because the precocious lad had just read a book about Saint Patrick. Mum, of course, thought that was wonderful, and we all ended up traipsing all over a bloody hill in sloshy boots, reading pamphlets.”

  I giggled and tossed a look at poor Wilson. “St. Patrick was fascinating.” He shrugged, grinning.

  “Oh, Cor! Here we go!” Tiffa groaned theatrically.

 
“He was kidnapped from his home at fourteen, chained, marched onto a boat, and kept as a slave in Ireland until he was twenty years old. Then he managed to walk across Ireland, get on a boat, with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and make it back to England, a miracle in itself. His family was overjoyed at his return. Patrick's family was wealthy and educated, and Patrick would have had a comfortable life. But he couldn't get Ireland out of his head. He dreamed about it. In his dreams, he claimed God told him to go back to Ireland to serve the people there. He went back . . . and ended up serving the people in Ireland for the rest of his life!” Wilson shook his head in wonder, as if the story still moved him.

  I thought St. Patrick was just an Irish leprechaun. I'd never even thought about him as an actual person. Or an actual saint. It was just a holiday.

  “So, how old were you when you discovered St. Patrick?” I teased.

  “Twelve! He was bloody twelve!” Tiffa bellowed from the backseat, making everyone laugh. “When Darcy was born, he was wearing a tiny little bow tie and braces.”

  “Braces?” I giggled.

  “Suspenders,” Wilson supplied dryly.

  “He has always been an absolute geek,” Tiffa chortled. “That, my dear Blue, is why he's brilliant. And wonderful.”

  “Don't try to be nice to me now, Tiff,” Wilson smiled, catching her gaze in his rear view mirror.

  “All right. I won't. Did you know he was going to be a doctor, Blue?”

  “Tiffa!” Wilson moaned.

  “Yes . . . actually. I did know that.” I patted Wilson's shoulder.

  “He wasn't cut out for it. He would have been completely miserable. Dad saw how brilliant Darcy was and just assumed that meant he should be a 'man of medicine' like he was, and his father before him, and his father before him. But Darcy was brilliant in all the ways that had nothing to do with science, right luv?”

  Wilson just sighed and shook his head.

  “Darcy always had his nose in a book. He used enormous words and used them correctly . . . at least I think he did. He loved history, literature, poetry.”