Read A deeper sleep for Free Online Page B

led Kate into the now empty courtroom and closed the door behind them. She glared at Kate. "What you do about this?"
     
    "There's nothing I can do, Auntie," Kate said. "You heard the jury."
     
    Auntie Vi, not given to profanity, made a few choice observations on the intelligence of the jury, individually and collectively.
     
    "It's not their fault, Auntie," Kate said. "You know Louis must have sicced Howie on them. They're afraid for their families. And they're right to be."
     
    Auntie Vi, who did not enjoy being interrupted, turned a cold eye on Kate, who braced herself. "That girl dead."
     
    Every Park rat below the age of fifty was a child to the aunties, but Auntie Vi was well known as the guardian angel of every Park female under the age of twenty-one. "Yes."
     
    "That boy kill her."
     
    "Yes."
     
    "No one blame that boy."
     
    "Everyone blames him, Auntie," Kate said. "Everyone knows he killed her. Even the people on the jury know it."
     
    Auntie Vi brooded on this. "He scare them."
     
    Kate nodded. "It's the only reason they wouldn't convict. They were afraid of what he'd do to them. And he would do something. Louis will never be convicted of anything by a jury made up of Park rats. The state should have petitioned for a change of venue."
     
    Auntie Vi poked Kate in the chest with a force strong enough to push Kate back a step. "What you do?"
     
    "There is nothing I can do."
     
    "Bullshit!"
     
    Kate didn't know what was more shocking, that Auntie Vi would speak such a word or that she'd say it in front of one of the children.
     
    Auntie Vi poked her again. "We give you time, Katya." She pointed at the scar on Kate's throat. "You almost get killed when you stop bad man from hurting baby girl. You come home to heal. Okay, we let you heal." She pointed a stern finger at Mutt. Mutt's tail gave an ingratiating wag, but Auntie Vi wasn't having any. "We even give you the puppy to help you heal. Instead you fight with your emaa. Okay, we let you fight. Ekaterina die. Okay, we let you mourn. Your man die. Okay, we let you mourn some more. Your house burn down. We build you another. The whole Park, we build you another!" She poked Kate a third time. "How much longer, Katya?"
     
    "How much longer for what, Auntie?" Kate looked at the door for rescue, but the cavalry was late.
     
    "How much longer we wait?" Auntie Vi said, her voice rising. "We give you life, we send you to school—"
     
    "I didn't want to go to school, Auntie. Emaa made me."
     
    "Ekaterina make that decision for all of us! And then instead of coming home like you should have, working for your people, you take job in Anchorage!" Auntie Vi struck her breast fiercely with one fist. "What about us! Your people!"
     
    Forgetting for a moment that she was speaking to her elder, Kate raised her own voice. "What have I been doing for the past seven years but work for my people! Who's the first person Billy Mike comes running to when the Bingleys start fighting or the Jeppsens and the Kreugers start shooting? Somebody burned down my cabin, my parents' cabin, the cabin I was born in and lived in my whole life. It's gone because I was working for my people, looking for a killer!" With an effort, she brought her voice back under control. "And if the price of my new house is me taking a seat on the board of the Niniltna Native Association, I would never have let you build it for me."
     
    Kate watched with mean satisfaction as a vivid flush washed up over Auntie Vi's face, but she, too, struggled for control. "You need to be on the board, Katya."
     
    "Like hell I do, Auntie. I don't know the first thing about how to run a corporation."
     
    "You can learn!" Abruptly, Auntie's voice gentled. "Billy not young anymore."
     
    "He's not old, either, Auntie."
     
    "He sixty-three, Katya, and not healthy. Annie says his heart goes funny sometime. Old Sam older than his name. Joyce, Demetri, Harvey—all old enough to be your parents." She looked, if it were