True Colors (25 page)

“Is that what this is about? I told you so?”

“No. I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to be a good big sister.”

“Do you actually think he killed her?”

“It doesn’t matter. This thing will break your heart, Vivi Ann. You’re not strong enough to—”

“Doesn’t matter?”

Winona wasn’t saying the right things, or in the right way, to make Vivi Ann understand. “I’m sorry, Vivi Ann. What I mean is, my opinion doesn’t matter. I can’t help Dallas. I’m not experienced enough. And there’s probably a conflict of interest. He needs—”

Vivi Ann stood up. “You keep talking,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything after ‘it doesn’t matter.’ Believe me, Win, I got your point loud and clear. You think I’m married to a murderer.” She turned and ran for the door, trying twice before she wrenched it open.

“Vivi, wait, please—”

Winona ran across the porch and out into the yard, but her sister was already gone.

After a long and sleepless night, Vivi Ann woke up tired. Still, by nine o’clock she was dressed in the only suit she owned and heading out to her truck, with Noah squirming in her arms. Now more than ever he needed her to be strong, and she would be. Her son would someday hear about all of this and say,
Mommy, what did you do while Daddy was in trouble?
and she would say,
I never stopped believing in him and I made everyone in town see how wrong they were.

All her life she’d been dismissed by people because of her beauty, considered naïve because she saw the best in everyone. Finally she would show people that her innate optimism wasn’t a weakness or an ignorance or even a flimsy kind of hope. It was made of steel and she would wield it like a sword. Driving through town, she passed Grey Park, and saw the sign—LAND DONATED BY ELIJAH GREY IN 1951. For the first time, she thought not about her family’s prominence in this community’s history, but rather about their durability in the face of adversity. Her great-grandparents had traveled the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon, making their way through countless dangers. Her grandparents had hung on to this land through the Great Depression and two wars.

The land was still theirs because they’d refused to give up or give in. That tenacity was in her blood and she would call on it now.

On the street in front of the diner, she parked and got Noah out of his car seat. As she headed to the restaurant, she felt people watching her, shaking their heads. Their whispers pissed her off, renewed her determination to prove her husband’s innocence. As expected, she found Aurora at the diner with Julie and Brooke and Trayna, having coffee.

At her entrance they all looked up and their expressions of pity said it all:
Poor Vivi, such a fool
.

“Hey, Vivi,” Julie said, sliding sideways in her booth. Her silver bangle bracelets tinkled at her wrists. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

“Thanks, but I can’t. Aurora, you still okay with taking Noah for the day?”

“Sure.”

“Why?” Trayna asked. “Are you going to the jail?”

“Not yet. I need to go to Olympia to find a good lawyer. I got some names out of the phone book.”

Brooke frowned. “Winona—”

“Won’t help.”

“She said no?” Julie asked, frowning.

“Yeah. Be sure and spread it around: Winona turned her back on us.” She kissed Noah’s plump cheek and handed him off to Aurora, along with his diaper bag.

Noah went to his aunt happily, immediately playing with her beaded necklace.

“You want me to come with you?” Aurora asked. She’d made the same offer last night when Vivi Ann called her.

“I love you for offering, but no. I need to start doing things on my own. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of that in my future.” She started to leave.

Julie’s hand on her wrist stopped her. “Not everyone thinks he’s guilty,” she said.

“Thanks, Jules.”

All the way to Olympia, Vivi Ann practiced what she would say, how she would convince a stranger to take her husband’s case. At the first address, she strode into the squat brick building, gave the receptionist her name, and waited impatiently. Almost twenty minutes later, James Jensen came out to meet her.

She smiled brightly when he finally appeared. “Hello, Mr. Jensen. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“When one is looking for a criminal defense attorney, it’s often a rush. Here, come into my office and sit down.”

For the next twenty minutes, Vivi Ann gave him the facts of the case, at least as much as she knew. She was careful to be professional and unemotional; she didn’t want to look like one of those women who stupidly believe the best of their husbands. When she’d exhausted the limited facts, she talked about what a wonderful husband and father Dallas was. Then she waited for him to speak.

At last, he looked up.

She had waited for that look. Now he would ask if Dallas was innocent and she’d nod and tell him how she knew that to be true.

“So, Mrs. Raintree. I would need a thirty-five-thousand-dollar retainer. Then we could get started.”

“A . . . what?”

“My fees. In advance. Not all of them, of course; just enough to get started. A case like this requires a lot of manpower—private detectives, lab work, motions. The discovery alone is often mind-numbing.”

“You haven’t asked if he did it.”

“And I won’t.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Ah. I see.” His flat, pudgy palm made a muffled thumping sound on the wooden desk. It reminded her of a closing door. “There are some good public defenders.”

“But they won’t care like a private attorney would. Like
you
would.”

He lifted his hands, palm up. “Such is the system. I will hope that you can get the money together, Mrs. Raintree. From what you’ve told me, and what I’ve read in the newspapers, your husband—who, as you know, is no stranger to American jurisprudence—is in serious trouble.” He stood up, shuffled her to the door with the ease of one who was experienced in this action. “Best of luck to you,” he said, and closed the door between them.

In the next four hours, five attorneys told her the same thing. Their offices and personalities were different, but the deal was always the same: a large retainer up front or no lawyer.

The last lawyer she’d seen, a lovely young woman who seemed genuinely interested in Dallas’s fate, had said it most clearly. “I can’t take on a case of this complexity for free, Mrs. Raintree. I’ve got children to feed and a mortgage to pay. I’m sure you understand. I’d be happy to handle the arraignment, but if you want me to file a notice of appearance on behalf of your husband, I’ll need a substantial retainer. At least twenty-five thousand dollars.”

There was only one option left: she needed to find twenty-five thousand dollars.

She drove home from Olympia at twilight, turning onto the Canal road just as the last rays of sunlight were polishing the winter waters to a silvery sheen and the snow in the mountains had turned lavender-gray.

When she pulled up in front of her father’s house it was full-on dark. She found him in his study, with a drink in his hand, reading a newspaper. All the way home from Olympia she’d practiced what she’d say, how she’d say it, but now none of that mattered. He was her father and she needed his help. It was really that simple.

She sat down in the chair opposite him. “I need twenty-five thousand dollars, Dad. You could take out a second mortgage on the ranch, and Dallas and I would pay you back. With interest.”

He stared down at his newspaper so long she started to worry. It took all her self-control to sit there, waiting patiently. Her whole world hung in the balance, but she knew not to prompt him. He might be a little taciturn sometimes and judgmental, but most of all, he was a Grey, and in the end that would be his answer.

“No.”

He said it so quietly she thought she’d imagined it. “Did you just say no?”

“You never shoulda married that Indian. Everyone knew that. And you never should have let him spend so much time at the Morgan place. It disgraced us.”

Vivi Ann listened in disbelief. “You don’t mean this.”

“I do.”

“Is that how you take care of Mom’s garden?”

He looked up at her. “What did you say?”

“All my life I made excuses for you, told Win and Aurora that Mom’s death broke you, but it isn’t true, is it? You’re not who I thought you were at all.”

“Yeah, well, neither are you.”

Vivi Ann got to her feet. “You told me the old stories a million times, made me proud to be a Grey. You should have warned me it was all a lie.”

“He’s not a Grey,” Dad said.

Vivi Ann was leaving, at the door, when she turned around to say, “Neither am I. Not anymore. I’m a Raintree.”

Vivi Ann walked up the hill toward her cabin. At the barn, she stopped, unable to keep moving. The ranch she loved so much was still and cold; winter-bare trees lined the driveway, looking stark and lonely against the gray skies and brown fields. She could see a few dying leaves still clinging stubbornly to their places on the branches, but soon they’d be gone, too, let go. One by one they’d tumble to the ground, where they would slowly fade to black and die.

She felt like one of those lonely leaves right now, realizing suddenly, fearfully, that there was no group around her. She’d clung to something that wasn’t solid after all.

Without her father, she didn’t even know who she was, who she was supposed to be. She walked into the cold, dark barn and turned on the lights. The horses immediately became restless, whinnying and stomping to get her attention. She didn’t pass the stalls slowly or with care. For once she walked straight to Clem’s stall and opened the door, slipping inside. The fresh layer of salmony-pink cedar shavings cushioned her steps, made her feel absurdly buoyant.

Clem nickered a greeting and moved toward her, rubbing her velvety nose up and down Vivi Ann’s thigh.

“It’s always been you and me, girl, hasn’t it?” she said, scratching the mare’s ears. She leaned forward, slung her arms around Clem’s big neck, and pressed her forehead against the warm, soft expanse of hair, loving the horsey smell of her.

Two years ago, maybe even last year, she would have reached for a bridle right now, would have jumped on Clem’s bare back and headed for the power lines trail. There, they would have run like the wind, fast enough to dry Vivi Ann’s tears before they fell, fast enough to outrun this emptiness spreading inside her.

But Clem was old now, with creaking joints and aching legs. Her days of riding like the wind were over. Unfortunately, her spirit was young and Vivi Ann knew the mare waited patiently to be ridden again.

“Too many changes,” Vivi Ann said, doing her best to sound strong, but halfway through the sentence, it hit her all at once—her father’s simple
no
; Winona’s refusal to help; Noah’s plaintive bedtime cry last night of
Dada?
and the kiss Dallas had given her just before they left for Cat’s funeral. She hadn’t known then it would be their last one for a long time, but he had. She remembered what he’d said so quietly that morning, dressed all in black, with his gray eyes so impossibly sad:
I love you, Vivi. They can’t take that
.

She’d laughed at him, said, “No one is trying to take it away. Trust me.”

Trust me.

She wondered now if she’d ever be able to laugh again, and then, in the stall with this horse that was somehow her childhood and her spirit and her mother all wrapped up in one, she cried.

This part of the county had been economically devastated by decreased logging and dwindling salmon runs. In the heart of downtown, several storefronts were empty, their blank, blackened windows a reminder of the people and revenue this community had lost. Dirty, dented pickup trucks, many with
FOR SALE
signs in the back window, lined the street, gathered in front of the taverns on this Thursday afternoon.

Vivi Ann stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the gray stone courthouse. Behind it, the lush green hills of the Olympic National Forest rose into a cloud-white sky. It wasn’t raining yet, but it would be any moment.

Tightening her hold on her purse, she headed up the stone steps toward the big double wooden doors.

Inside, the place was even more decrepit-looking. Tired wooden floors, peeling walls, people in cheap suits moving up the stairs to the courtrooms and down the hall to various closed doors. She walked over to a harried-looking receptionist and smiled. “I’m here to visit someone in jail,” she said, embarrassed.

The woman didn’t even look up. “Name?”

“Vivi Ann Raintree.”

“Not yours. The inmate’s.”

“Oh. Dallas Raintree.”

The woman punched some keys into her bulky beige computer, waited a few moments, then said, “P Cell. Visitation begins at three and ends at four.” She pointed one stub-nailed finger down the hall. “Second door on your right.”

“Th-thank you.” Vivi Ann began the long, slow walk to the jail. When she got there, another receptionist was waiting for her.

“Name?”

“Dallas Raintree.”