Read Rainbow's End for Free Online Page B

whatever papers they had, so the girl wouldn’t get picked up and land in the middle of something. Which he did, so, of course, the sheriff’s clerk was on the phone, and Rich suddenly realized what the call was about—you, the dough, and that girl. The clerk kept repeating over and over again, to the prosecutor apparently: ‘Mantle knows her from way back and wouldn’t believe anything she said on a whole stack of Bibles.’ He kept saying it over and over, and then wound up: ‘Mantle, he can’t shake off the idea there’s something funny about it.’ So, Dave, here’s what I’m getting at: I want to be there—today—when the questioning resumes. Don’t worry; I won’t charge you a cent. I owe you something, the whole county does, for what you did today. Besides that, you’ve been damned nice to me. So—?”
    I told him, “OK, and thanks,” real quick, to cut it off, because the thing of it was, of course, that who Mantle had known wasn’t Jill but Mom. We set it up that he should come around 4:00, “so we can check it over,” as he said, “what we’re going to say, so at least we all say the same thing.”
    â€œWhat was that all about?” Mom asked when I’d put down the phone.
    â€œLawyer I know named Bledsoe. He offered to come out, and I let him.”
    â€œWhat do we want with a lawyer?”
    â€œJust to be on the safe side.”
    â€œYou’re keeping something from me.” In some ways, Mom resembled a bobcat more than a human being, because a bobcat knows just by looking at you what you’re thinking.
    I said: “I’m not keeping anything from you. He told me: ‘After all, you shot a guy, and you can’t be sure what Edgren’s going to do.’ ”
    â€œI don’t like that Edgren, and I don’t like that Mantle.”
    â€œYeah, him.”
    â€œI don’t like him at all.”
    â€œWhat happened with him in Fairmont?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œHe was on the case of the guy you bit. What other case was he on? And where did you come in?”
    â€œYou want the story of my life?”
    I kept at it and pieced it together: in the place where she worked, another girl had accused her of stealing her tips, and the manager had called the police. Mantle at that time was on the Fairmont force. Nothing was done, and she got on the bus for Marietta. This took me an hour to find out and didn’t tell me much, but at least it explained Mantle and what he thought about her.
    I washed up the dishes after the lunch I’d given our visitors. Mom helped but bumped me quite a lot over and beyond the call of duty. It was nearly 4:00 when a car pulled up outside, a Chevy, but nobody got out. When I went out, Jill was on the front seat, dressed in nurse’s clothes, but without a nurse’s cap. A nurse was on the back seat and a guy was at the wheel who I’d never seen before. Jill introduced me to the nurse and to the man, Mr. York, who, it turned out, was with the airline Jill worked for. He had been rushed on a plane by the airline president within a half hour of her phone call and had hustled down here with money and whatever else she might need—like this car he’d rented for her, “as long as I want it—I never felt so important in my life.”
    â€œBaby,” he told her, “you’re the heroine of the year. Maybe Mr. Howell saved you, but you saved 28 lives. We don’t speak of a multimillion dollar plane. That was due to break apart in the next air pocket unless that door could be closed. You pushed him out, thank God. I hope you feel as important as we think you are.”
    â€œWell, who am I to say no?”
    â€œAnyhow, come in. All of you.”
    â€œDavid, until the officers get here, I’d rather wait in the car.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI have a reason.”
    It wasn’t hard to guess