Keeping Council Part 36

Tara stared at her. She knew what his touch could do. She knew what his eyes looked like in the dark. She knew what she had felt and it chilled her that his own mother had felt the same.

"Was your husband a cowboy? Did he work on a ranch?" Tara asked softly, knowing the answer already but needing to hear it.

"Is that what he's saying his father was? That's good. That's funny."

Vera stayed quiet for a minute.

"That's sad." Then she pulled herself together.

"No, he's not a cowboy. I don't know or care what he is, or where he is, as long as he's not in my backyard. Some things are best kept secret, and I want to keep my secrets. I'm ashamed of them. I'm ashamed I'm his mother. You tell him where I am, and I'll sue. Then I'll run. So if you want anything from me, or Bill wants anything from me, you can just forget it."

That was an invitation to leave. They stayed where they were. What an amazing man Vera's son was. His own mother was shaken with fear that he might return and Donna Ecold sat quivering, fearing he might leave her.

"Bill doesn't know we're here. I want something from you, Mrs.

Hamilton," Tara said.

"You're lucky you got in here." Vera Hamilton cautioned Tara not to press. She ignored the warning.

"I've promised to represent your son, Mrs. Hamilton, and I intend to do that. Bill wants to be hospitalized. He may have committed a horrible crime, and if the district attorney can pet.i.tion for hospitalization, your son would be free from selfincrimination. Instead, the district attorney wants to arrest Bill and bring him to trial."

"Remind me to vote for him," Vera muttered.

Tara ignored the aside.

"I came here because I wanted to meet you and find out more about Bill. Now that I have, I'm convinced more than ever that Bill needs psychiatric help. Unfortunately, since the DA and I can't agree on what we want, I'd like you to sign the commitment papers. Unfortunately, that won't protect Bill from prosecution should he confess this crime to a doctor. But he'll be out of the mainstream for the time being, and he won't be dangerous to anyone else."

Vera Hamilton stood up. She was a determined woman and she was determined not to listen any longer.

"I don't want to talk to you about Bill, and I sure don't want to sign any papers. Maybe you've never seen Bill mad. Maybe you have, and you don't care because you have friends to watch out for you. I've got nothing except shameful memories.

No mother should have felt the things I felt.

Not that kind of love, and not this kind of fear.

Leave me out of it. Go on now. There's nothing more I can tell you."

Vera made a little shooing motion.

"Mrs. Hamilton, he's asked for help. Think what it took for him to do that," Ben said. She spoke without looking at him.

"And he'll bite the hand that gives it to him."

"Do you have any of Bill's medical records?"

Ben asked.

Vera shot him a withering glance. There was pain behind it. Finally she nodded and went toward the back of the trailer, returning a minute later.

"Might as well take them. I burned his picture book."

Ben reached for the envelope and for a minute both of them were holding it, linked together.

They looked at one another for a long while then Vera Hamilton let go.

"It's all I've got left."

"You sure you want me to take it?" Ben asked.

She nodded. Tara and Ben went to the door in silence. They were on the porch again when Tara remembered she had one more question.

"Mrs. Hamilton?" The door was almost closed.

It didn't open again but it wasn't shut either.

"The woman Bill lived with. Where can we find her?"

"You want to eat now? Before we see her?"

Ben drove slowly, the envelope Vera Hamilton had given him on his lap. Tara was once more bent over the map looking for the address Vera had given her.

"Definitely not."

"It's dark. It's getting late. You're sure?"

Tara lifted her head, noted the street, then went back to studying the infinitesimal type.

"I'm sure.

Listen, you're going to make a left on Zuni, then another quick left on San Pedro. Looks like about five minutes more. I want to hear from everyone we can tonight. We'll go back and look at those records, piece everything together, then I'll know what to do."

"I'm starving," Ben complained.

"Suffer," Tara said, adding a smile.

He responded in kind and they were quiet until they pulled up in front of a small blue house. Two bikes were out front and the garage door was open. Inside was a battered Toyota, surrounded by tools, boxes, skates, and the other stuff life with kids was made of. Tara got out of the van, paying no attention to the whirrs and clunks of Ben's descent.

They were halfway up the cracked and crumbling driveway when the door of the house burst open, expelling four children of varying ages. They screamed, hollered, hit one another for no reason whatsoever, and were precariously close to careening into Ben's chair before they suddenly scattered and disappeared into the gathering dark. Tara drew close to Ben. They watched the kids go, then looked toward the house and the woman standing in the doorway, backlit by a low-light bulb.

"h.e.l.lo," Tara called as they went closer.

"h.e.l.lo," came the wary reply. Mothers didn't like strangers in the driveway when dinner dishes waited and kids were loose. Tara and Ben were close enough now to see the woman's round face.

Her skin was beautiful without makeup, but she looked tired and worried.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"We hope so." Tara went close to the door, holding out her card as she did so.

"I'm Tara Limey, an attorney here in Albuquerque. This is Ben Crawford, a psychologist who is working with me.

We're looking for Paula Maxwell."

"Paula?" The woman looked confused.

"You mean Paulette?"

Ben and Tara exchanged a glance. Ben talked to the woman in the doorway.

"We were told to find Paula Maxwell." Tara looked to Ben, who nodded his agreement.

"Who told you?" The woman was suspicious now.

"Vera Hamilton. Bill Hamilton's mother." Tara hitched her purse a little higher.

"We're looking for the Paula Maxwell who lived with Bill Hamilton."

Even in the dark Tara saw the woman pale.

Her voice wasn't quite so sweet anymore.

"Paula's dead."

That was it. The door was closing. Tara would have thrown herself through it to keep it open.

Another dead woman. Oh, Donna.

"Please, wait," Ben called and the woman hesitated.

He smiled gently, his hand was out to her.

"We really need help. Please. That wasn't what we expected to hear."

"What do you want?"

Tara stepped in.

"I have a friend who thinks she's in love with Bill Hamilton. She's crazy about him and I'm worried about her."

The door was open, the woman stood back, dish towel slung over her shoulder.

"I don't have a lot of time."

"We won't need much. I promise." Tara stepped into a neat-as-a-pin tract house.

"My mom was a wonderful lady. She had a sense of humor. Her name was Paula and she named me Paulette. Everybody got us confused and that just made Mom laugh." Paulette shook her head sadly.

She was a big, attractive woman, serene and engaging.

But there was nothing shy about her. She looked Ben and Tara in the eye and kept her head moving so she didn't leave either of them out.

"Anyway, she had a real sense of life. She shopped and went to the bars. She loved to dance and shoot pool. My mom wasn't a lush or anything, you understand," Paulette said quickly. Ben and Tara shook their heads simultaneously, offering appropriate though indefinable murmurings.

Paulette smiled uncomfortably, not sure they really understood.

"She met Bill in a bar one night and fell head over heels. Now, my mom was really good looking.

I mean really good looking," she insisted, "but she wasn't twenty. Heck, she wasn't even forty. And here's this man who is just beautiful to look at.

He was funny, paying attention to her in a way no man had before. My mama was in seventh heaven.

He wanted to be with her all the time and the next thing I know they moved in together. I couldn't believe it."

Paulette looked heavenward as if hoping her mom could hear her talking about the good times.

She snapped the towel and laid it on her lap, smoothing her memories out along with it.

"Was your mother a wealthy woman?" Tara asked. Paulette looked up, her eyes gentle. She shook her head emphatically.

"No, ma'am, not at all. She was comfortable, for sure. More than we are, I'll tell you. But not dumb like me. She knew enough to keep her legs shut and not have four kids." Paulette laughed and it was so sweet Tara smiled. Obviously hanging around people under the age of ten did good things for the soul.

"But she wasn't smart enough to get rid of Bill Hamilton."

Paulette looked startled.

"Why should she? He was just wonderful to her. He didn't look at another woman that I could see. He didn't take her money. And when she got so sick, he was at the hospital with her all the time. And that was a long ride. We were all living pretty far out, and he would get to that hospital any way he could. Finally he let her buy him a secondhand car, but he put up a fight about that. Never could understand it.

And then"*Paulette shrugged*"she died."

"In the hospital?" Ben asked. He and Tara exchanged a look and they both knew they'd been waiting for the same thing: the gory finale.

"Are you sure?"

"Well, yeah. She just died. Bill was devastated."

Bewildered, she looked from Ben to Tara and pushed a strand of hair in back of her ear.

"Bill had nothing to do with her death?"

Paulette blinked.

"Gosh, no. He was really broken up when she died. I think he really loved her."

Hope was quashed. Tara stood. This woman couldn't be a witness to Bill Hamilton's madness.

She arranged her purse, and tried to smile through her disappointment.

"We've taken up a lot of your time and we've made an awful mistake. We understood they had quite a different relations.h.i.+p," Tara said.