Free The Lost Bird by Margaret Coel Page B

her kids to play with, he was so mean. The nephew always in trouble. The last she’d heard of James Holden, he was in jail in Denver.
    “I want to see Lucy.” Vicky raised her voice over the pounding music. The woman was probably somewhere inside.
    “Sorry, Aunt Vicky.” The tone was harsh. “Lucy ain’t here, so you better be runnin’ along.”
    “That your aunt, James?” A woman’s voice, small and childlike, came from behind the door.
    “Lucy, it’s important I talk to you.” Vicky moved sideways, attempting to see around the man blocking the door. She caught a glimpse of the room: green sofa, crumpled cushions; small table littered with foam food boxes; rap sounds filling the air like a physical presence.
    Suddenly a girl came into view. A white girl, not much more than a teenager, with pale skin and long blond hair that hung in clumps down the front of her black T-shirt. She had on blue jeans that hugged her thin hips and exposed a slip of white midriff. Her feet were bare. Laying a hand on James’s arm, she tilted her face toward him. “Can’t she come in a minute?” she asked, a pleading voice.
    James jerked backward, bringing the girl with himin a kind of dance, and Vicky stepped into the room. Reaching around, he gave the door a shove. The
thwack
punctuated the monotony of rhythms coming from speakers on either side of the sofa. A stereo stood against the right wall, next to a couple of webbed metal chairs, and the black halogen lamp between the chairs splashed light over the ceiling.
    “Are you Lucy?” Vicky locked eyes with the girl a moment.
    “Yeah, that’s me.” The girl glanced hurriedly at James, then stepped over to the stereo and turned one of the knobs. The music receded to a buzz, like the noise of a chain saw in a distant field. “You here about that shooting up the road?” she asked, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her blue jeans.
    “I told you to shut up about that.” James whirled toward her. “It’s none of our business.”
    Lucy’s gaze shifted uneasily around the room. “Well, that’s what everybody’s been callin’ about.” Her voice was tentative. “Everybody’s wantin’ to know where the old man got shot.”
    “I told you, I’m gonna rip that phone out, you don’t do what I say.”
    Vicky stepped toward the girl. “A priest was murdered this afternoon, Lucy. If the killer isn’t found soon, another priest might also die.”
    “White men,” James said, a kind of snort. “Let white people take care of it. What do we care if they kill one another off?”
    Your girlfriend’s white
, Vicky thought. She said, “Tell me what you saw.”
    “I’m tellin’ you, she didn’t see nothin’.” James moved to the girl’s side and slipped an arm aroundher, pulling her toward him. “So, Aunt Vicky, why don’t you just get outta here?”
    Vicky didn’t take her eyes from the girl. “Why didn’t you tell the FBI agent you saw a white truck this afternoon? You could be in a lot of trouble for withholding information about a murder.”
    “You gotta leave,” James said. There was a crack of fear and uncertainty in his voice. He started pulling the girl toward the shadows of a hallway.
    Vicky ignored him. “A man’s life depends on you telling the truth, Lucy. I know the FBI agent. His name is Ted Gianelli. He’s going to come back here tonight. I’m a lawyer and I can stay with you while you talk to him.”
    “She ain’t talkin’ to nobody.” James pushed the girl into the hall. His face grew darker, his eyes squinted with intensity. “Lucy tells the fed she seen Sonny Red Wolf’s truck out here this afternoon, you know what Sonny’ll do to her? He’s been givin’ us enough grief, drivin’ by, shouting ‘white whore’ and a lot of other stuff. Last week he drives by and fires off a round of buckshot. We was just lucky Lucy and me didn’t get killed. Most likely he come out here today to keep on harassin’ us ’cause he wants Lucy