Firestone (16 page)

“
She’s a movie star,”
Yvonne said. “These poor men are hoping to get a photo of her so
they can feed their kids.”

“
And she doesn’t let
them?”

“
She does sometimes,”
Yvonne said. “But she likes to lead her life away from the
cameras.”

“
Why?” Jabari
asked.

“
I think you know why,”
Yvonne said.

Jabari didn’t say anything. Yvonne pulled up
to the gate and typed in her code. The photographers took pictures
of their car. They pulled up all the way to the Castle garage.
Yvonne got out and helped Jabari out of the back. Even though the
Castle garden was done for the season, the grass was green and
there was a garden bed filled with kale and other greens near the
front.

“
This is pretty,” Jabari
said.

“
You should see it in the
summer,” Yvonne said. “Everything is green and gorgeous. Delphie
grows most of their food out here. She has help, of
course.”

Yvonne gestured to Noelle, Sissy, Ivy, and
Nash. The children were watering the fruit trees by hand with
hoses.

“
I thought it might be fun
for you to help them,” Yvonne said.

“
Help those kids?” Jabari
asked.

“
They’re watering the
trees,” Yvonne said.

“
Why?” Jabari
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Yvonne
said. “Let’s ask Delphie.”

“
I have to see my mom
today.” Jabari’s voice was very matter of fact.

“
She’s meeting us here,”
Yvonne said. “You’ll get to spend a little bit of time with her
while we’re watching.”

“
Oh,” Jabari said. He
turned and saw the Castle for the first time. “That’s a really big
house.”

“
It is big,” Yvonne said.
“They call it the Castle.”

“
Is there a princess
inside?” Jabari asked.

“
There’s quite a few,”
Yvonne said.

“
Is that big guy the
prince?”

Jabari gestured to Mike as he came out of
the carriage house. Mike’s beard was long and his hair unkempt. He
was coated head to toe with flecks of paint. He walked toward
them.

“
Michael?” Yvonne asked.
“Have you met my friend Jabari? He’s just visiting us from Atlanta.
We’re hoping he’ll get to stay with us. But we don’t know for sure
yet.”

Mike picked up Jabari and lifted the little
boy until they were face to face.

“
Nice to meet you, man,”
Mike said. “I was about to have some sustenance.”

“
Sus-nants?” Jabari
fumbled with the word.

“
Food,” Mike
said.

“
I ate some lunch.” Jabari
looked confused.

“
This is man food,” Mike
said. “Come on.”

Mike tucked the little boy under his arm and
stalked to the kitchen. Yvonne went to say hello to the kids.
Delphie came out of the kitchen and hugged Yvonne. They went to the
back door to peek in.

Mike had set Jabari on the counter. He’d
already taken out two bowls and was pouring the Cap’n Crunch with
Crunch Berries. Jabari’s smile was so big it looked like his face
was going to crack. Mike put the bowls on the table and grabbed
some milk. He tucked Jabari under his arm again and carried him to
the table.

“
I knew they would love
each other,” Delphie said.

“
You were right,” Yvonne
said. “Now what can I do?”

“
When they’re done, we’ll
get them picking kale,” Delphie said.

“
I can do that,” Yvonne
said.

“
We’ll let them do it,”
Delphie said. “They’re closer to the ground. Let’s have some
tea.”

“
What
about . . .?” Yvonne gestured.

“
We can go up to my
apartment,” Delphie said. “Don’t worry. They won’t pay any
attention to us when we go in. They’re bonding.”

Yvonne followed Delphie
inside. When she got there, she heard Jabari say, “I
hate
them
cameras.”

“
Me too, brother,” Mike
said. “Me too.”

“
You
do
?” Jabari’s awe-struck voice was
muffled by a mouthful of cereal.

“
I hate them too,” Charlie
said as he came into the room with Keenan. Charlie was holding a
basketball.

“
Me too,” Keenan
said.

“
Charles,” Mike said. “Get
some bowls.”

Charlie gave the basketball to Keenan and
went to the cabinet for three bowls and three spoons. Keenan sat
down next to Jabari, and Charlie sat next to Mike. A few minutes
later, Nash came in from the garden. He went into the closet and
got a fresh box of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries. He sat next to
Jabari. Having established that they all hated the paparazzi, there
was nothing left to say. The boys and the man ate their cereal in
peace.

Yvonne grinned.

“
See what I mean?” Delphie
asked in her ear.

Yvonne nodded and followed Delphie to her
apartment.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday afternoon — 2:55 p.m.

Sandy led Seth down the hallway and into the
storage room where Valerie and the kids had organized Andy’s
possessions. Neither one was much for small talk, so Seth followed
her into the room without saying a word. She gestured to a pair of
red velvet chairs, and he sat down. While he looked around the
room, she went to a shelf and took down one of the photo
albums.

“
I thought you could help
me with . . . this.” Sandy held out a photo
album.

Seth’s eyes searched her face before he took
the album.

“
I’m sorry, Sandy,” Seth
said.

“
For what?” Sandy sat down
next to him.

“
I realize this is an
impossible task,” Seth said. “I guess I . . . I’ve
been so sick that I . . . I should have taken this
on.”

Sandy nodded that she understood.

“
Well . . .” Sandy said. “It was a lot, mostly
because it was such a mess. Valerie and the kids organized
everything, and of course, Jake lets me keep everything
here.”

“
Delphie,” Seth
said.

“
What?”

“
The Castle belongs to
Delphie,” Seth said.

“
Oh, right,” Sandy said.
“But Jake . . .”

“
Yes,” Seth said. “They
are very generous.”

“
Jake said I could keep
things here forever, if I wanted to,” Sandy said. “I was hoping to
go through a little bit at a time and . . .
Maybe . . .”

“
I’ll help,” Seth
said.

Sandy looked relieved.

“
I thought we could start
with these pictures,” Sandy said. “I was going to get them
digitized, but I wanted to see if you knew any of these people
first. Some of the photos can probably be trashed
but . . . I don’t know what’s important and
what’s . . .”

She opened the photo album so that the cover
landed on his lap.

“
I think you’re in this
one,” Sandy said.

She pointed to the first picture in the
album. In the picture, Seth was staring at something out of frame.
He looked incredibly young and very lost.

“
Valerie put these
together by the dates on the back,” Sandy said. “That’s when the
photo was processed, but not when it was taken. If they’re out of
order, you’ll have to say.”

“
I was a handsome devil,”
Seth chuckled.

“
You’re about a year older
than Rachel here.” Sandy smiled.

“
This is my first day of
college,” Seth said. “The juniors were assigned freshmen to show
around.”

“
Andy was your junior?”
Sandy asked.

“
No,” Seth said. “I wasn’t
that lucky. She was assigned to my roommate.”

Seth gestured to a handsome
eighteen-year-old boy.

“
He played the trumpet,”
Seth said.

“
You seem
so . . . young,” Sandy said. “And he seems
so . . .”

“
Hunky,” Seth said. “He
was quite the ladies’ man. I was ten.”

Sandy laughed.

“
Actually, he was very
kind to me,” Seth said. “He was the oldest of ten or something like
that. Mormon. He was terribly homesick. He took care of me, like a
brother, the whole time we were there. We were roommates all the
way through.”

“
What happened to him?”
Sandy asked.

“
Drafted into the Navy
band,” Seth said. “It’s kind of a cushy assignment, but he felt
like the band played for the brass at their parties while the
little people died in the jungles. By the time he got out, he’d
lost his taste for music. He lives in Provo, sells insurance, and
has a bunch of kids of his own. You’ve met him.”

“
I have?” Sandy asked. She
peered at the image of the handsome young man.

“
Glint Fielding?” Seth
asked. “He sold me my life insurance. Yours too.”

Sandy burst out laughing that the bald,
heavyset friend of Seth’s could have ever been this gorgeous young
man. Seth peered at the photo again.

“
I guess he looks pretty
different now,” Seth chuckled.

“
You look remarkably the
same,” Sandy said.

Seth flipped through a few pages to get a
sense of what they were looking at. Sandy watched his face. He
seemed thoughtful, interested, and slightly amused. Suddenly, his
face turned cold.

“
Well, I’ll be damned,”
Seth said.

“
What?” Sandy looked down
at the photo album to see what he was looking at, but he was
holding the page to get a better look. She couldn’t see the photo.
“What is it?”

“
I’d completely
forgotten . . .” Seth said.

“
What?” Sandy
asked.

Seth laid the photo album page down and
pointed to a picture. Andy was in the center of the picture at what
looked like a party or a holiday gathering. Her eyes were glowing
and she smiled. She looked like she was in love with whoever she
was looking at.

“
You?” Sandy asked. “She
looks like she’s head over heels with whoever’s taking the
photo.”

Seth looked surprised and looked back at the
photo.

“
I took this photo,” Seth
smiled. “She’s looking at me. That’s not what I mean.”

Seth pointed to a young man standing just
behind Andy. You could only see the side of his face. He was
looking at Andy.

“
Patty is over here,” Seth
said.

Seth pointed to the young girl who would
eventually grow to be Charlie and Sissy’s mother. Sandy was
surprised at how innocent and lovely she’d been.

“
Andy didn’t have a lot of
family,” Seth said. “Just the one cousin, Patty. Andy’s parents
made their friends their family. Andy called the children of her
parents’ friends her ‘second cousins’. That’s what she called
him.”

He pointed to the young man again.

“
Shit,” Seth
said.

“
Who is he?” Sandy
asked.

“
Ben Red Bear,” Seth said.
“The police detective assigned to your case, and the
rapes.”

“
How is that possible?”
Sandy asked. “You’d have recognized him!”

“
I only met him this one
time. I was twelve and . . .” Seth gestured to
Andy.

“
In love,” Sandy
said.

“
I didn’t really pay
attention to anything when Andy was around,” Seth said. “At the
time, he was absolutely obsessed with Andy. She thought it was kind
of cute. ‘Sweet.’ That’s what she called his affection.
But . . .”

Seth stopped talking, and looked off into
the distance.

“
But?” Sandy
asked.

As if to decide how much to tell her, Seth
looked at her for a moment.

“
You can tell me
anything,” Sandy said.

“
It wouldn’t surprise me
if he was the man she was with when she died,” Seth
said.

Sandy leaned forward to look at the
photo.

“
Detective Red Bear killed
my mom,” Sandy said.

“
I’d guess so,” Seth
said.

Sandy was so surprised that she fell against
the back of her seat and stared off into space.

“
Mitch hated him,” Seth
said. “Red Bear never lifted a finger to investigate what happened
to you. Which means . . .”

“
He was involved,” Sandy
said. “He didn’t do anything on the rape case either. Aden said
that was a key point at Charlie’s Grand Jury hearing
today.”

Seth nodded.

“
What are we going to do?”
Sandy asked.

“
Tread very carefully,”
Seth said.

“
But we’re going to do
something, right?” Sandy asked. “Surely, we’re going to
do
something.”

“
Oh, we’ll do something,”
Seth said.

“
What can we do?” Sandy
said.

“
We’ll get Ava’s lab to
check the DNA in Andy’s case against his DNA,” Seth said. “There
was a bunch of DNA. No prints, but lots of DNA. I wondered about it
at the time — why would someone so careful be so careless with DNA?
If it’s him, we know why. They don’t test DNA against cops. Did you
ever . . . uh . . .?”