Blood Ties (12 page)

"Anati? Has there been an accident?" A sick feeling
rose enveloped her. "What-"

"Abbie..

A metallic taste filled her mouth.

"There's no easy way to say this."

"How bad is she hurt?" His eyes told her that it was
worse than that, but she refused to accept the truth. So
long as he didn't say the words, her suspicion couldn't
be true.

He took her hand and clasped it between his larger
ones. She felt calluses on his palms and caught the
scent of his soap. "They couldn't save her. She's dead."

"No!" She jerked away from him. "No!"

"It happened last night. I just got the call. Apparently, there was some confusion about where your
mother was staying on Tawes."

"No," she repeated. "You've been misinformed."

"I'm so sorry, Abbie. There's no mistake. A member
of the Penn faculty made a positive identification. A
Dr. Irene Goldstein."

"No!" Abbie insisted. She began to nun. He came after her, caught her in his arms, and pulled her against
him. She smacked his chest with the palms of her
hands. "No ... no..."

She started to tremble. She clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering and breathed
deeply through her nose. Tears scalded the insides of
her eyelids but she blinked them back.

"Abbie."

"Give me a minute. Just a minute." The sun seemed
too bright. She walked to the shade of a tree and sat
down on the grass as Buck's soft words echoed in her
head. No mistake ... Positive identification ...

Abbie lowered her head. She felt dizzy. Disoriented. As though she'd been struck by lightning. She
forced herself up on her feet. Why did her voice
sound so tinny? Distorted. "What happened? Was she
hit by a car?"

Buck's weather-bronzed face was pasty gray. "God ...
Abbie. I hate to be the one to tell you. I'm so sorry. I
know how close the two of you-"

"No." She shook her head. "You don't know. You
can't possibly imagine." A muscle twitched along his
cheek. He must have shaved this morning. She could
hardly see any trace of beard.

"I can't, can I? You're right. I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're sorry. You didn't do anything
wrong. You're a police officer. You must have had to
tell people that their loved ones were dead dozens of
times." She took another deep breath. "I'm being irrational, aren't I? This isn't your fault."

He swore. "I didn't know your mother ... Dr.
Knight ... well. But what I saw, I admired. She was
smart ... and funny." He laid a rough palm on her
cheek.

"She is, isn't she?" Abbie sank onto the damp sand.
A pair of Canada geese flew over. A dragonfly lit on a
piece of driftwood. A tiny fish jumped. The day was no
different from what it had been earlier ... but it had
irrevocably changed. Anati was gone. Not gone completely, but farther away than she'd ever been since
Abbie had first drawn breath. And she felt the separation in ways she'd never suspected she could.

She scooped up a handful of white sand and let it
trickle through her fingers. "Tell me."

He squatted so that they were on the same level. "It
happened last night between eight-forty and nine p.m.
outside an entrance to the Penn Museum of Anthro pology and Archaeology. The sergeant who called me,
a Sergeant Malone, had only sketchy details. From
what I can gather, the detectives believe that your
mother was the victim of random street crime."

"She was meeting Irene-Dr. Goldstein-at her office at the museum. They were colleagues. Irene was
going to examine the torque and the cloak pin."

"Apparently, your mother was attacked on her way
there. It's my understanding that Dr. Goldstein mentioned those two items to the detectives. Since they
weren't found at the scene, the suspect or suspects
must have stolen them after the attack."

"Why would Mom be going to Irene's office so late?
They were supposed to meet in the afternoon."

"I don't know. Dr. Goldstein discovered your
mother's body and made the call to the emergency
dispatcher. They responded within five minutes, but
it was already too late. It was Dr. Goldstein's belief
that Dr. Knight was already dead when she reached
her."

Abbie spread her fingers and stared down at them.
Her hands were like her mother's, but unlike Anati,
she'd never worn rings. She wondered if the mugger
had taken her mother's turquoise ring, the one Dad
had given her when they were young. "Was she shot?"

He shook his head. "Cause of death appears to be
blunt force trauma. The autopsy will-"

"Tell me. Everything."

"Sergeant Malone believed the weapon was a stone
ax ... an Indian ax. One was found at the scene."

"With her blood on it?"

He nodded. "The assailant may have taken it from
her during the robbery. If there was a struggle, he
probably-"

"She didn't have an ax with her. She had the bronze cloak pin and the gold torque in her case. Why would
she have an ax?"

"Maybe she found it here at the site and carried it
to-"

"And didn't record it? Didn't mention it to me? Impossible." Abbie got to her feet. "She'd never remove
an object from a site without proper identification.
And she always had her pistol with her. Why didn't she
protect herself?"

Buck stood and pulled her to her feet. "We don't
know all the details yet. The detectives-"

"You're telling me that someone killed my mother
with an Indian ax and they believe she carried it there
from Tawes? That's absurd." She turned abruptly and
waded out through the water toward the boat. "Take
me back to town. Now! I'm going to fly up there. Talk
to them."

"It's better if you wait until after the autopsy."

She stopped and looked back at him. "I'm going
now. If you want to help, you'll find someone to watch
over the site while I'm away. My mother would have
wanted the area to remain pristine while-"

"You're in no condition to pilot an aircraft. If you
insist on going today, I'll take you to Crisfield, pick up
my SUV, and drive you myself."

She heaved herself up over the side of the boat. "Flying is faster. I can be at the airport in-"

"Like hell. Philadelphia detectives may not know or
care where Tawes is, but they'll still give me professional courtesy. My badge will make the process
smoother. Maybe get you quicker answers." He scrambled aboard.

"It wasn't a random mugging," she said. "Someone
went there to kill her. Someone from Tawes."

"Don't torture yourself with conspiracy theories," he
cautioned.

"You have to protect the site, Buck. There's something here that the murderer doesn't want us to find."

"That's jumping to conclusions, Abbie. It's a common reaction by next of kin, but not realistic. Street
crime happens every day, especially in a city as large as
Philadelphia."

Abbie glared at him. "Bull! She knew how to take
care of herself. My mother died because someone
didn't want her to excavate this site. What's this marina project worth? Millions? People die all the time
for ten dollars, let alone ten million."

"Exactly. Your mother was simply at the wrong place
at the wrong time." He pulled the starter.

"You're the one who said that something about this
site worried you," she reminded him.

"This site, not Philadelphia. Your mother's death
has nothing to do with this dig."

"We'll see, won't we?" Images of her mother's face
rose behind her burning eyelids. How could Anati be
lying still and cold on a steel table in a medical examiner's lab?

Abbie swallowed, trying to breathe normally, trying
to ignore the pain in her chest. Buck might be a good
cop, but he was wrong if he believed this was just a
crazed druggie out to make a quick hit. Her mother
had died because of this project-because of what
someone was afraid she'd discover. Abbie was as certain of it as she was that none of the authorities would
listen to anything she said.

If the murderer had killed her mother with an Indian ax, he'd done it deliberately to make a statement,
and he'd been the one to carry the weapon to the
scene.... Which meant he'd intended to commit
murder. The place to start the investigation wasn't in
the city where her mother had died. It was right here
on Tawes.

Nine days later, in a nineteenth-century frame church
in Sweet Water, Oklahoma, Abbie spread a blue and
red Hudson Bay trade blanket over her mother's simple wooden casket. Her father, standing beside her,
laid a single eagle feather on the blanket and then
wafted the smoke from a smoldering bundle of cedar
bark through the air.

Father Joseph stepped forward, and Abbie-wearing
her mother's turquoise ring-took her seat in a pew between her dad and his sister, Aunt Kate. Cousins, uncles,
friends, and neighbors filled the small church. The familiar scents of incense and oil mingled with the cedar
smoke as the priest's words blended with the echo of traditional drums from the churchyard. She tried to concentrate on the service, but her thoughts kept returning
to her frustration in the days following her mother's
murder.

The detectives had been sympathetic and professional. The case was still open, but no witnesses had
appeared, and the torque had not surfaced at any city
pawn shop. If robbery had been the motive for the attack on her mother, the killer had made good his escape and was lying low, or had taken the antiquities
out of state for disposal.

Buck had kept his promise, taken her to Philadelphia, and helped her through the ordeal. He'd remained three days in the city before returning to his
duties on Tawes, and he'd promised to keep her informed of any evidence or suspects. In due time, the
proper procedures had been carried out, and she'd
been permitted to bring her mother's remains home
for burial. But Abbie knew the funeral wouldn't end
her nightmare. There could be no closure until the
murderer paid full measure for the crime.

Her dad nudged her elbow, and Abbie accompa nied him to the front of the church. Six men, including her father, carried the casket out the door to the
churchyard. As was the custom, she walked behind
them, chanting old words in Algonquian, half-forgotten
phrases from her childhood.

The interment and gathering that followed passed
in a blur. Dr. Goldstein and her mother's colleagues
and non-Native American friends paid their condolences and departed. Minutes stretched into hours as
relatives and friends told Abbie how sorry they were
and how much they would miss her mother.

Her father's home was large and modern, and
guests filled the downstairs and spilled out on the
porches and into the yard. Kitchen and dining-room
tables groaned under platters of beef and pork, trays
of relishes, huge bowls of salads, vegetables, and fruit.
Cakes, cookies, pies, and other sweets covered every
inch of countertops and sideboards, claiming space
between pitchers of lemonade, tea, and liter bottles of
soda pop.

Someone put a plate and fork in her hand, and
Abbie pretended to eat. She distinctly remembered
complimenting her Aunt Nettie on her fry bread.
Babies cried, old women gossiped, men talked, and
children dashed in and out of the crowded room.
Teenaged girls in bright lipstick and blue eye
shadow wobbled in heels too high and whispered to
each other amid bursts of subdued giggles. Sullenfaced youths tugged at their too-tight ties and pretended not to notice the girls. The house smelled of
ham and apple pie and pumpkin bread. It smelled of
mourning.

Abbie's dad woke her the following morning with a
mug of black coffee and a slab of peach pie. "Eat something," he urged. "You didn't have a bite yesterday.
Karen wouldn't like it."

She sat up in bed, groaned, and rubbed her eyes.
"Mom's not here. I don't have to eat if I don't want to."

"OK. Suit yourself." He set the coffee on a stonetopped table beside her bed. "But you need to be
ready in half an hour. Your Aunt Kate and two of your
cousins will be here at nine to pick you up. Grandmother Willow is having a sweat in your mother's
honor."

"I'm not going. I'm not into this Indian stuff." Willow wasn't really her grandmother. She was a traditional woman much respected in the community.
She'd been old as long as Abbie could remember. "I've
seen enough relatives, and I'm not going to any sweat."

"Aunt Kate was pretty set on having you there. It's
women only, and I think there must be ten or so coming from your mother's side. If you're late, it will make
Kate look bad."

"I am not stripping off my clothes and sitting half
the day in the middle of a bunch of my mother's sisters
and cousins. This is the twenty-first century."

"It may help."

She climbed out of bed and hugged him. He
seemed smaller than she'd remembered. His hair,
which he'd always worn long and pulled back into a
single braid, was more silver than salt-and-pepper, and
there were shadows under his eyes. "Maybe you should
be the one going to a sweat, Dad. It's your thing. Not
mine."