The Man From Oklahoma

Their battle against infertility, the child they were finally going to have, none of it seemed real now. It seemed as if the only thing that remained from his former life was this land where he had grown up, these endless hills.

He put his forehead to the glass and fought the rage, the tears, the self-pity. When his mind cooled and he raised his head, the clouds seemed brighter than any he had ever seen. The strange sight caused a sudden unease to pass over him. He looked around the room, cast in an amber glow, and the furniture—his grandfather’s furniture—looked the same as it always had, yet not the same at all.

Grief, he knew by now, could have strange and unpredictable effects on a man’s mind. He turned his head slowly, looking back at the clouds, and they had altered again. Before his eyes they suddenly took shape above the setting sun as first one, then many faces formed. As he stared, this wall of faces stirred in him an unbidden anger, then sadness and finally a strange resolve. It seemed as if this vision had been trying to form for the past three years. He shook his head and blinked, then rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, the faces had vanished. Only ordinary clouds remained, following the sun to bed.

He turned from the window and the room looked ordinary again, too. Like the same old place where the same evening sun had shone in the same way ever since he was a small boy.

He stumbled to the wide leather couch facing the fireplace and sprawled on his back, suddenly stricken with a blinding headache.

Which was where his cousin Robert found him.

“Nathan!” Robert yelled as he crashed through the front door, then halted abruptly when he caught sight of the figure on the couch with one arm flung over his eyes.

“Nathan,” Robert repeated more quietly, and Nathan heard his cousin’s boots clomp heavily as he crossed the hardwood floor. Nathan sensed Robert standing over him. “Are you all right? I came here as soon as I heard the television reports.”

Nathan lowered his arm.

Six and a half feet tall, thick-necked and thick-middled, with a tail of unkempt jet-black hair trailing down his back, Robert Hart looked like nothing so much as a sorrowful young bull, peering down at Nathan. He removed his well-worn baseball cap and held it in both hands. “They said they found her…her bones out there.” Robert inclined his head toward the massive window.

Nathan sat up. “Damn the media—reporting it before I’ve been officially notified.”

“So how’d you know?”

“Long story. A reporter.” He braced his elbows on his knees and pressed steepled fingers to his lips. “What are the news reports saying?”

Robert sat down next to him. “They said they made a provisional identification,” he answered quietly, “by her jewelry.”

Nathan nodded. “The Claremont ring. I can imagine what Wanda and Fred are feeling.”

Thinking about Susie’s mother and father tore at Nathan’s heart. He didn’t mention his own parents, although he suspected that Robert was picturing them now. Nathan wondered if his cousin was grateful, as he himself was, that Clare and Drew Biddle were not alive to witness this sorrow. Despite Robert’s hokey Indian ways, Nathan was suddenly thankful to have this particular man at his side for the ordeal ahead. Robert was a guy you could count on. The cousins were men of one accord, though they lived in different worlds, believed in different things.

“Nathan, don’t you want to turn on the TV so you can see for yourself what they’re saying?” Robert offered.

No, he did not. But to satisfy Robert, he said, “Okay. Put it on Channel Six.” He was, in fact, curious to know if Jamie Evans had used the footage of him. It would feel good to have some petty reason to get righteously angry right now.

Robert got up and opened the doors of the massive armoire and pushed the buttons on a big-screen set. He returned with the remote and handed it to Nathan. A weatherman was talking, pointing at scrolling satellite images of clouds.

“Switch to another channel,” Robert suggested. “Maybe one of the other stations has something about it.”

“No. I want Channel Six.”

“Why Six?”

“Jamie Evans was out here today. She and her photographer. I told them not to use the tape they shot.”

“Jamie Evans? That little blond reporter? She was out here on the ranch?”

“If you’d get your head out of your Wordsworth and Shakespeare and step foot out of that rotting old cabin once in a while, you’d know these things, cousin. I spotted them up on the north plateau a little over an hour ago.”

“And coming up at ten o’clock,” the news anchor was talking again, “complete details on the discovery of the body of missing oil heiress Susan Claremont Biddle. Jamie Evans has more on this late-breaking story. Jamie?”

A stunning strong intelligent young face filled the screen. “Authorities aren’t telling us much right now, Nick, but apparently they have reason to believe the remains found by hunters this morning belong to Susan Claremont Biddle. Mrs. Biddle was the twenty-eight-year-old granddaughter of well-known Tulsa oilman Ross Claremont and the wife of Tulsa philanthropist Nathan Hart Biddle. Authorities are awaiting positive identification from dental records.”

The blond woman holding the mike had a creamy complexion and amber-green eyes that caught fire when the studio lights reflected in their depths, then narrowed with reined-in emotion as she spoke. Her perfect full mouth, set in a square jaw, moved with precision over every word. She had the ideal media face, Nathan thought with detachment, a classic movie-star face. Sincere. Appealing. Unforgettable.

“The remains were found by black-powder deer hunters who told authorities they thought they had stumbled on a deer scrape on a sandbar in the Arkansas River. But what they found was the victim’s shallow grave. The state medical examiner’s office has not released cause-of-death information, but we hope to have more details at ten, as well as a statement from Tulsa County District Attorney Trent Van Horn about the status of this shocking case.”

Nathan hit the mute button and they watched the attractive young reporter mouthing her sign off.

“She’s in the studio,” Nathan mumbled. “The footage I’m looking for was shot out here in the open. She said it was a teaser, so I guess we missed it. I’d like to know what she showed.”

“What’s the deal with her?”

“She’s an up-and-coming little reporter who’s been digging around ever since she came to town. She’s young, smart, ambitious. Hot after the sensational crime story that will boost her career.”

“Your private investigator can probably find out if she used that footage of you. Although I kinda wonder about old Frank. Goes by the book too much for a private dick, if you ask me. Why hasn’t he called?”

“He may not know they found her.” Nathan’s voice was emotionless. “The sheriff doesn’t notify the suspect’s private detective.”

Robert sat stone still for a moment before he slowly nodded. “Suspect. That occurred to me, too, when I was flying down the ridge on my bike. I didn’t see any cars around your house, and I thought, what if they haven’t contacted Nathan yet because…well…you know…”

“Because they think I killed her?”

Robert turned his head and let his sympathetic brown eyes speak for a moment before he said, “You are in danger, cousin, and you need powerful help.”

Nathan studied Robert’s serious expression and, despite his emotional turmoil, felt his face pulling into a crooked smile. “Robert, my man, don’t even think about that.”

“Just talk to him. Or come away with me for a few days. So we can plan, so we can think.”

“Talk to your crazy medicine man so he can blow on my face and make me invisible or something?”

“Mr. Elliott has the power to help you. I’m not asking you to go up there and stay forever. Just long enough to prepare yourself. If you went into hiding for a while, we might even have a half a chance of finding the real killer.”

“Be sensible, Robert.”

“Nathan, you be sensible. Van Horn hasn’t believed your story from the start. If he doesn’t get a conviction, he could lose the election next spring, and you’re the only suspect he’s got. Is that what you want? To go to prison, to die, for something you didn’t do? How does that help Susie? If we seek guidance from the shaman—”

“I’ll fight this battle my own way. I don’t need some old Indian guy singing chants and rattling turtle shells.” Nathan shifted and reached for the portable phone on the marble table in front of them. “I’d better call Frank.” His private detective was going to be less than thrilled to learn that his missing-person case had turned into a murder investigation. Frank was a sharp old dog, but he was about ready to retire. He wouldn’t like taking on something this complicated.

Robert threw up his hands, then stood. “Let me call him. But first let me get you some water. You look like hammered buffalo dung.”

“Bring some aspirin, too,” Nathan said. “I’ve got a killer headache. But don’t blow on ’em,” he added without looking up at his cousin.

Robert glanced back and said, “Humph,” before he disappeared behind the stairs, down the long hallway toward the kitchen.

Nathan eased his pounding head back onto the couch and stared up at the high cedar-beamed ceiling. For three years he’d been living with this nightmare. Would it never end? He thought about what lay ahead and the dark crossbeams above him blurred. But a steel-hard resolve quickly cleared his vision. He no longer cared about the ambitions of political phonies in Tulsa, about society’s judgment, their courts, their reporters. He no longer cared about anything at all except finding Susie’s murderer.

All along his gut had told him that Susie would never be found alive. And now he would probably be charged with her murder. A sensational suspect for a sensational crime.