Kind of Kin (10 page)

Luis takes out the paper with the name of the town
written by Beto.
I must go here, where my sons are
working.

Guymon, the boy says.

Gai-mun,
Luis repeats
after him.

¿But how?
the boy
says.

Well,
Luis says.
This is a problem.

I have a good idea. When I
bring more food, I bring also . . .
He looks through the
dictionary.
Ah
. He points to the page.
Is almost the same word. ¿See? In the english and the
spanish.
Map
.

Wednesday | February 20, 2008 | 7:30
A.M.

Latimer County Sheriff's Office | Wilburton

S
weet smiled again at the sheriff, who lifted two fat fingers as the phone rang. Holloway plunked his boots down from his desk and pivoted a half turn in his chair so he could talk with his back to her. Sweet took the opportunity to peer at the small gray monitor on the side wall, carefully watching the shifting, grainy black-and-white images. So far none of them had shown the inside of a cell, just the empty cinder-block hallway in front and the base of a row of bars. The camera switched to a second view of the concrete floor, different angle, then a third view—what good was that? A prisoner could be hanging himself inside his cell this minute, or shooting dope, or slitting another prisoner's throat, you could be looking right at this thing and never know it. Lord, what made her think such awful stuff? She watched too much TV. She hadn't slept hardly any. Sweet rubbed her eyes. When was her daddy going to come to his stupid senses?

“Well, you heard wrong, buddy,” Sheriff Holloway said. “I don't know where you're getting your information, but we don't pull that kind of shi—shenanigans around here. All right. Yup. Uh-huh. You bet.” And the sheriff hung up, swiveled around to face Sweet again. “You're up bright and early, little lady.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn't even know if you'd be open.”

“Always open, always open. Crime don't ever sleep. So, what can I do you for?”

“I need to see Daddy.”

“Well, all right. Men's visitation starts at one thirty Sunday.

“No, I mean I need to see him today. Now. This morning.”

The sheriff snorted. “You know I can't do that.” The phone rang again. He winked at her, wheeled to face the back wall. “Sheriff's office. Yes, ma'am. Oh, he's still here all right. Well, now, I really couldn't say. That'd be up to the district attorney. All right. Yes, ma'am, I sure will. You, too.” He turned back to Sweet. “That daddy of yours is one popular fella.”

“Popular.”

“Lots of folks wanting to know how he's doing. That just now was an aide to one of our state representatives, if you can believe it. Had a reporter from Tulsa down here yesterday, and then I got a call from an ACLU lawyer last night about seven, said he wanted to represent him. I said he's welcome to represent him but I was going to have to get an okay from Mr. Brown first, and far as I could tell Bob Brown don't aim to get himself a lawyer, that's what he told me. But I took the guy's number, got it around here someplace if you want it.” The phone rang again. The sheriff grinned. Sweet tried to listen, but her ears were roaring. A lawyer, a reporter, a state representative . . . this was crazy. She heard Holloway say something about a press conference—a press conference! Good Lord. She got to her feet. The sheriff glanced at her. She sat back down. “We'll be talking to you,” he said, clapped the receiver down. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Ten minutes, Arvin. That's all I'm asking.”

The sheriff tilted back in his chair with his thumbs in his belt. His tight little potbelly strained his khaki shirtfront like he had a prize watermelon under there. “You know I can't be playing favorites, Sweet. Let one family bend the rules just because I grew up with their daddy, but then don't let somebody else. I'd be out of a job in no time.”

“Can't you make an exception?”

His gaze poured over her, chest to thigh to boot, back up to her face again. Arvin Holloway had a reputation for a lot of things, good politicking, bad rule breaking, a twitchy trigger finger—he'd shot at least three men in the line of duty—but one thing he was really known for was his womanizing. Sweet had even heard he slept with women prisoners for favors, though she wasn't sure she believed it. Surely the old fart was smarter than that. “I don't know about exceptions,” he said. “What kind of exceptions?”

Sweet gritted her teeth and smiled. “Five minutes, Arv,” she said. “I promise I won't tell a soul. I'll, uh, I'll bake you some cookies.”

Holloway barked out a laugh. “Cookies, eh? You slay me.” Again the raking look. Sweet held on to her smile. “All right then.” Holloway chuckled as he hoisted himself out of the chair, came around the desk, brushing unnecessarily close as he strolled to the door. “This way.” He led her to a cramped break room painted the same cobalt blue as the hall, where a greasy-looking microwave sat on the counter next to a burnt-smelling coffeemaker. “Help yourself.” He nodded at the half-empty pot. “Sweets from the Sweet,” he said, still chuckling, and left.

She waited a long time, pacing up and down, her mind scattering like barn cats. When she left the house this morning, she'd had a simple plan: cash in that retirement CD, pay the fine, make her daddy sign those papers and come home! But she'd gotten to Wilburton too early, the bank wasn't open, and now here was all this other stuff, these phone calls, a state politician, what did that mean? Sweet stood in front of the bulletin board reading the same words on the same posters again and again, FBI's Most Wanted, a notice to employees to clean up after themselves. Her jaw ached. She had the same reeling feeling she'd had yesterday in the ER waiting room, like everything was snowballing, piling in, piling up. A broken hip. That was the beginning of the end for old people; she'd heard that a hundred times. The guilt was horrible. The guilt was too much. And the boys suspended from school for fighting, the preacher said—suspended! And of course she couldn't get Terry on the phone, of course she couldn't. The doctor showed her the X-rays, right femur at the hip socket, it was going to need a metal plate, he said, maybe a rod implant, anyway surgery too complicated for this little Wilburton hospital—they were going to have to take Mr. Bledsoe on to McAlester Regional, and Sweet had stared at the doctor's face, thinking, Why? What the hell
for
? He can't walk anyway! He can't talk! He's got to be bathed and diapered and fed with a spoon from a Gerber baby food jar, please explain to me what is the point! Aloud she'd said, “Yes, all right. When?” And Doctor Woodson had answered, his voice puzzled, “Why, right now.”

She'd looked then at her son slumped in the waiting room chair, a bad nick on his chin, his bottom lip jutted, and the preacher next to him trying to get him to play hangman on the back of an old church bulletin. Dustin was sitting outside on the curb, no jacket on, his shoulders hunched; she could see him through the glass doors. It wasn't their fault, Carl Albert kept blubbering from the backseat all the way to Wilburton: “Them kids jumped
us
! They called us honky wetbacks, they said our grandpa's a beaner smuggler! Where
were
you, Mom? We couldn't get you on the
phone
! Where's Daddy? When's Daddy coming? I think my chin is broken, I might have to have a operation, it wasn't my fault!” Thank goodness the preacher had followed them in his car, she'd thought when she saw the ambulance guys wheeling the gurney toward her with the old man on it moaning
oh, oh, ohhhh.
She'd felt like tossing his Medicare card at them, saying,
Take him!
, but of course she couldn't do that; she had to send the boys home with the preacher and follow the ambulance on to McAlester Regional, because what if they ran a blood test and saw how much painkiller he had in him? But then the old man was groaning so pitifully on the gurney that she'd thought hopefully, Well, if he's hurting this bad, maybe the meds are all gone from his system—oh God, oh God, she hated remembering that!

Sweet whirled away from the bulletin board, stalked to the dirty cabinet, and poured herself a Styrofoam cup of coffee, tasted it, dumped it in the sink. The break room door opened.

He wasn't wearing handcuffs. He had on the orange coveralls. His glasses were smudgy but his hair was combed. The sheriff came in behind him and went to the coffeemaker. “You want one, Bob?”

“No, that's all right.” Her father sat down at the little table. “Morning, Sweet,” he said like it was a normal day, a normal morning, like the world wasn't falling apart. The sheriff poured himself a cup of the bitter stuff, leaned back against the counter, sipping it, watching Sweet over the white Styrofoam brim.

She didn't bother with the smile this time. “I'd like to talk to him alone if you don't mind, Arvin.”

“Oh, I mind,” Holloway said. The gun in his hip holster rode low at his side, the tight mound of gut pouching over. “I'm bending the rules far enough for y'all this morning. How do I know you're not fixing to slip him a weapon or something?”

“Give me a break.”

“I am,” Holloway said. “That's just exactly what I'm doing.”

She looked to her father, who said, “Sit down, Sweet.” He nodded at the grime-smeared plastic chair opposite him. She was furious, but there was nothing she could do. She sat. After a moment she leaned forward and said in as private a voice as she could manage, “As soon as the bank opens I'm going to get the money for that contempt fine.”

“How's Tee?” her father said.

“What?”

“Your husband. What's he up to this morning?”

“He's at work, what's that got to do with anything?” She lowered her voice again. “Daddy, you got to sign those papers and come home now. Dustin ditched school and ran off the other morning.”

At that moment the girl who minded the front desk stuck her head in the door. “Sheriff, I think you better come out here a minute. There's people with cameras.”

“What kind of people?”

“Like, that woman from Channel 2 that goes all over?”

It seemed to Sweet that Holloway's strained khaki shirtfront strained harder to meet over his puffed chest. “Be right there, Cheryl. Sorry, folks, interview's over. Y'all are going to have to visit on Sunday afternoon like everybody else.”

“Just two more minutes,” Sweet said. “Please.”

“They're waiting to talk to you, Sheriff,” the girl said.

“All right, sugar. Go get Beecham, tell him to come escort the prisoner.” Holloway swaggered to the door, turned and pointed a finger at Sweet, made a little clicking noise at the back of his teeth like cocking a trigger. “Oatmeal raisin.” He laughed his greasy laugh and strolled out, leaving the door open to the empty hall.

“Ran off where?”

“Back out to the farm. Me and Terry both drove out there looking, he hid from us the whole day, I didn't even find him till way up after dark! I can't take care of him, Daddy! You've seen how him and Carl Albert fight, and then on top of that, yesterday afternoon—oh never mind. Just come home, that's all. I'll get you the money for that contempt fine. I'll take it out of savings, you can pay us back.”

“No, now, it's going to take a little more time, hon. But me and Jesus got to see this thing through.”

“Quit calling him that!”

Her father gazed at her quietly a moment, then he stood up and went to the cabinet, poured himself a cup of coffee, brought it back to the table. “Let me know when your snit's finished,” he said.

Sweet was so furious she almost bolted right then, but her troubles came swarming, and she took a deep breath, stilled herself. Her voice was controlled, if shaking, when she said, “All right, Daddy. Why don't you just tell me. What is this ‘thing' you and that . . . pastor have got to see through?”

“And Jesus.”

She crimped her mouth.

“I'm not making a joke, honey. I mean it, the Lord Jesus and Brother Jesús and me, we're all in this together. Things just took a kindly unexpected turn.”

“What turn?”

“Arvin Holloway raiding my farm Friday evening, for one thing. But we decided to just go with it.”

“Who decided? You and that Mexican pastor?”

“And the Lord.”

Oh, if that wasn't her daddy all over. A man of faith, yes, no denying it, but somehow her daddy's faith and the Lord's name always seemed to cover just whatever the blue blazes he felt like doing. “You tell me how you sitting in jail helps the Lord! Or anybody else, for that matter.”

“Somebody's got to stand up to that law.”

“Oh, for crying out loud—and meanwhile you're just going to let Dustin run wild? He got kicked out of school yesterday, you know. For fighting. He was defending
you
.” She'd been holding on to that bit of information for her trump card, and she could see it working on her father, his jaw tightening. She surged toward him. “See, that's what I mean! I can't control him.”

“Bring him up here and let me talk to him.”

“The sheriff's not going to let a ten-year-old boy come in here! He barely let me.”

“Never mind about Holloway, he'll be all right. Have you talked to Misty?” Her father ran his fingers back through his thinning hair. For the first time she saw the blackened scab on his scalp, near his bald spot.

“What happened to your head?”

“Nothing. It's fine. Georgia, honey, listen. I didn't ask for this. A thousand times since Friday I've prayed for this cup to pass from me, but apparently that ain't the way the Lord wants it.”

“How the hell do you know what the Lord wants!” Sweet bit her lip. “I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry.” But the next instant she flew mad again. “You absolutely
did
ask for it! How did fourteen Mexicans get in your barn? The Lord didn't fly them in there on gossamer wings!”

“I wasn't out hunting up folks in need of shelter, Sweet. They came to me.”

“How?”

“You don't need to know that.”

“I need to know something! I need to know what in the world you think you're doing! It's that Mexican preacher, right? Garcia. He's the one put you up to this nonsense!” This is what her husband kept saying, and really, it's the only thing that made sense.