Raising The Stakes

The first was of two men dressed in suits, though neither man looked as if he belonged in one. They stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders and grinned into the camera. The men were in their thirties or early forties, strong and young. Curious, he turned the photo over. Ben and Jonas, Venezuela 1950. The words were scrawled across the back of the picture, again in his uncle’s handwriting.

Gray took another look at the photo.

Yeah, he could see it now. One of the men was definitely Jonas. The mouth, the eyes, the grin…none of that had changed. It was just weird to see him so young. Somehow, though he’d always thought of his uncle as fit and powerful, he’d never imagined him as anything but old. The other man, Ben Lincoln, had lighter hair and sharper features. Except for that, Jonas and he seemed like duplicates, tall and handsome and broad-shouldered, looking into the camera through eyes that said they already owned the world.

The second photo was of a woman. Gray flipped the picture over. Nora Lincoln, someone had printed on the back. She stood in a grassy square, maybe in a park somewhere, hands planted on slender hips, chin elevated in a posture of what seemed defiance. She was a pretty woman or she would have been, if she’d unbent just a little. Her expression was hard to read. Were her eyes cool? They seemed to be. Her hair was long and light-colored. It looked windblown and maybe in need of taming, but another look at those eyes and Gray figured everything about her had probably needed taming.

Two powerful, tough-looking men in the prime of life. And a woman who looked as if she’d be a challenge to either of them. Gray felt a stir of interest. What did these people have to do with a sample of ore from a Venezuelan gold mine?

“Well,” Ballard said, “this sure isn’t much to go on.”

He handed the handwritten page of notes to Gray. Ben Lincoln, date of birth unknown, place of birth unknown, had been married to a woman named Nora sometime around 1950. They’d been divorced early in 1952 and Nora had given birth to a child she’d named Orianna in the summer of that year. Orianna had given birth to a baby girl, too, in 1976 or ‘77. The father was unknown. The child had probably been born somewhere in southern Utah or northern Arizona. That baby girl, if she existed, if all the other information was correct, Jonas had written, would be Ben Lincoln’s granddaughter. But, he’d added, there was no way to be sure. Ben Lincoln had died a long time ago. He’d heard that Nora and Orianna were dead, too.

Gray turned the page over. The reverse side was blank. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Ballard said, and grinned. “This one’s gonna cost a bundle. I’ll have to hire a bunch of guys to do the legwork. There’ll probably be a couple of dozen leads to check out and the odds are good they’ll all go nowhere long before I can find something usable.” He tapped a pencil against his teeth. “We’re talking six figures here.”

Gray tossed the paper on the desk, tilted back his chair and folded his hands over his flat belly. “That’s okay, Jack. Just do it and send me the bill.” He smiled tightly. “Don’t worry about the cost.”

Ballard laughed. “I never do.”

“Good. My client deserves to pay through the nose.”

The investigator chuckled as he scooped the photos and the single sheet of information into the manila envelope, then got to his feet.

“You disappoint me, Gray. Here I thought you defense attorneys were supposed to be protective of your clients.”

“Nobody needs to protect this one,” Gray said. He rose, too, and came around his desk. “As always, this is confidential, okay?”

Ballard clapped his hand to his heart. “Man, you wound me. Aren’t I always the soul of discretion?”

He was right. Investigators didn’t last long if they weren’t discreet but Ballard was even more circumspect than most. It was one of the reasons Gray employed him.

“Yes, you are.” Gray held out his hand. “What I meant was, if you should manage to find this woman, don’t talk to her. Don’t let her know you’re watching her. Just keep everything under your hat. I’m supposed to check the lady out myself. Client’s orders.”

“No problem.”

The men shook hands. “Truth is, though, I suspect you’re not going to come up with anything.”

“The odds are that you’re right, but you know me. I’ll put all the stuff I don’t find into a fifty-page report, fit the report into a shiny binder and your client will be impressed.”

Both men grinned. “Keep me posted,” Gray said, and Jack promised that he would.

* * *

Two weeks later, Ballard phoned late one morning.

“Got some stuff,” he said.

Gray suggested they meet for lunch at a small Italian place midway between their offices.

“So,” Gray said, after they’d ordered, “what do you have? Information? Or fifty pages of B.S. in a shiny binder?”

Jack chuckled. “Information, surprisingly enough. Not enough to fill fifty pages, but solid.”

“You found Lincoln’s granddaughter?”

“No, not yet. But I figured you’d want an update. I found the town where Orianna Lincoln lived and died, and some people who knew her.”

“Orianna Lincoln,” Gray said. “So, even though she was born after Ben and Nora were divorced, he acknowledged the child as his flesh and blood?”

“Careful, counselor.” Ballard sat back as their first courses were served. “You’re leaping to conclusions. All I know is that Nora Lincoln put Ben Lincoln’s name on Orianna’s birth certificate.” He stabbed a grape tomato, lifted it to his mouth and chewed vigorously. “Orianna was born in ‘52, same as your uncle said, in a little town in Colorado. Her mother—Nora—died in an auto accident not long afterward. Orianna was bounced from foster home to foster home, grew up into what you might expect.”

“Her father didn’t raise her?”

“Ben Lincoln? No. He lit out for Alaska in ‘53, died up there in a blizzard a few years later. The kid—”

“Orianna.”

“Right. She grew up, got herself into a little trouble. Nothing much, just some shoplifting, a little grass, a couple of prostitution convictions.”

“Sounds like a sweetheart.”

“Right. NCIC—the National Criminal Investigation Center—has her getting busted for petty crap all over the southwest. Eventually she ended up with some bozo in Fort Stockton, Texas. He walked out on her and the next record we have shows she set up housekeeping in a trailer park in a place called Queen City, up in the mountains in northern Arizona.”

“Alone?”

“Yup.” Ballard speared another tomato and grinned. “But that didn’t keep her from leading a full life, if you get my drift.” The detective took a sip of water, swallowed and leaned over the table. “The lady believed in an open door policy. One man in, another out, no stopping to take a breather in-between. No kids to slow her down until 1976, when something must have gone wrong with her planning. She gave birth to a girl she named Dawn.”

Gray raised his eyebrows. “Classy name.”

“Yeah, and I figure that was all that was classy in the kid’s life. Dawn lived in the trailer with mama until she was seventeen. Then she married a local name of…” Ballard reached into his breast pocket and took out a small leather notebook. “Name of Kitteridge. Harman Kitteridge.”

“In Queen City?”

“Yup, Queen City. Two traffic lights and half a dozen cheap bars. And local branches of every whacko political organization you ever heard of.” He grinned. “Plus some you’re lucky you haven’t.”

Gray put down his fork. “It sounds like heaven.”

“You got that right. Two days there, I was ready to grab a rifle and go looking for black helicopters. Kitteridge lives on the outskirts of town, on top of a mountain. He’s got a cabin up there. Apparently his grandpappy built it with his own hands.” Ballard put down his notebook and turned his attention to his salad. “You can almost hear the banjoes playing in the background.”

Gray nodded, picked up his fork and poked at his antipasto. Just what he needed, he thought glumly, a trip to the ass end of nowhere for a stimulating conversation with Dawn Lincoln Kitteridge. If he’d thought about her at all during the last weeks, he’d imagined a more up-to-date version of that defiant, almost beautiful woman in the photo, but this conversation had put things in perspective. He could almost envision Dawn Kitteridge, country twang, lank hair, bare feet, gingham dress and all.

“Lucky Dawn,” he said, “she got to trade her trailer for a shack.”

“Yeah, she got herself a shack, and a hubby ten years older than she is.” Ballard paused as the waiter cleared away their appetizers and served their main courses. “But she got tired of both,” he said, tucking into his spaghetti carbonara. “She left Kitteridge and the mountain almost four years ago.”

Gray looked up from his pasta alla vongole. “She missed the trailer park?”