Free Child of Silence by Abigail Padgett Page B

car. White male. Young. Maybe twenty-three. OD'd on some bad stuff he'd just bought on the street. The needle was still in his right hand. Lotta tracks. The guy was a heavy user. Medical examiner'll do an autopsy on Monday.”

    Death. Everywhere. Bo could see the nightmare settling in a nest made of the bones of poets. Could see a painting of the scene she might do herself. The feverish, spavined mare. Screaming. Nesting on a mound of bones.

    “Watch out, Gormfhlaith,” her grandmother's voice cautioned in Gaelic. In the ancient tongue her name meant “strange woman.” It was appropriate, she acknowledged. Totally.
     
    “Are you okay?” Bill Denny inquired.

    Under the detective's red nylon windbreaker Bo noted the bulge of a gun. And a rumpled T-shirt. Bill Denny had been pulled out of bed like the rest of them. She wished she could be as calm.

    “There wasn't anything to identify the. . . the corpse, in the car?”

    Denny yawned. “Nothing. Clean as a bone in the desert. And besides, there may be no connection between the stiff and the kid. We've got some Indians downtown, street types, druggies. Maybe one of them borrowed a car from our guy in Houston and drove home to see Mom. Maybe the guy was up on the reservation making a drug drop. There's still nothing to connect him to the kid.”

    Bo knew Denny was right. Annie's message hadn't brought them any closer to solving anything. She felt like throwing up.

    And then she remembered something—the grocery receipt.
     
    “Is there a grocery in Houston called Jamail's?” she asked the detective.

    His eyelids were at half mast.

    “How should I know? I've never been in Houston. Why?”

    “I found a receipt,” Bo raced through an explanation, “up at the reservation. And SpaghettiOs. They were on the receipt.”

    “Spaghetti on a receipt.?” Bill Denny was beginning to look wary. Bo wanted to strangle him. Why were they all so slow?

    “If I give you the receipt, will the police check it out?” She tried to slow down.

    “Sure. No problem.”

    “When?”

    “Monday, probably. This case will have to go through the assignment desk. I'm backed up for weeks. The department'll assign another detective. It'll take a while.”

    Monday ! He’ll be dead by Monday !

    Across the hall the pale child with wild, wiry hair touched a red plastic truck, a red notebook, the red print on a hospital menu, and then signed “red.”

    “Excuse me.” Bo smiled at the detective, and went to Weppo's door.
     
    It was going to be up to her. She'd known it somehow all along. The message in the fog. Caillech Bera wailing... to her. The rest of them didn't understand, were too slow, simply couldn't see. She would have to solve the mystery of Weppo's identity quickly, if he were to survive. And she would have to do it alone.

    “Kid's crazy about colors,” Palachek mentioned. “I just thought I'd entertain him for a while until the excitement dies down, see if he could pick up a little signing. He loves it. But all he wants to know are colors.”

    “Where did you learn to sign?” Bo asked the beefy ex-Marine.

    “My aunt was deaf,” he explained. “From Rocky Mountain spotted fever. She lived with us. We all learned to talk on our hands.”

    Incredible .

    “Bo?”

    It was Madge, her eyes following Bo narrowly.

    “I've decided to take you off this case. We'll let the higher-ups handle it. It's too dangerous, after the threat on your door. . . and you, well, I just think it's best.”

    How much do you know , Madge ? How much do you suspect ?

    The supervisor's gaze was critical, judgmental.

    “Dr. LaMarche does not agree.”

    “Absolutely not!” Andrew LaMarche seethed. His tie was askew and his chin revealed a salt-and pepper stubble. “Ms. Bradley actually cares about this child, unlike some of your other…”

    Madge stiffened as Bo shot the doctor a look of gratitude. What she saw in the man's face was surprising. Fondness. Concern. A disarming