“From a
“A large-size color photograph of Leonardo DiCaprio.”
Priest wanted to punch the cop in the face, but that would not have helped Flower, so instead he thanked the man for coming here and promised that he and Flower’s mother would appear at the sheriff’s office in Silver City within an hour to pick up their daughter. Satisfied, the cop drove away.
Priest went to Star’s cabin. It doubled as the commune’s clinic. Star had no medical training, but she had picked up a great deal of knowledge from her physician father and nurse mother. As a girl she had got used to medical emergencies and had even assisted at births. Her room was full of boxes of bandages, jars of ointment, aspirins, cough medicines, and contraceptives.
When Priest woke her and told her the bad news, she became hysterical. She hated the police almost as much as he did. In the sixties she had been beaten by cops with nightsticks on demonstrations, sold bad dope by undercover narcs, and, on one occasion, raped by detectives in a precinct house. She jumped out of bed, screaming, and started hitting him. He held her wrists and tried to calm her down.
“We have to go there now and get her out!” Star yelled.
“Right,” he said. “Just get dressed first, okay?”
She stopped struggling. “Okay.”
While she was pulling on her jeans he said: “You were busted at thirteen, you told me.”
“Yeah, and a dirty old sergeant with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth put his hands on my tits and said I was going to grow up into a beautiful lady.”
“It won’t help Flower if you go in there mad and get yourself arrested, too,” he pointed out.
She got control of herself. “You’re right, Priest. For her sake, we have to ingratiate ourselves with those motherfuckers.” She combed her hair and glanced in a small mirror. “All right. I’m ready to eat shit.”
Priest had always believed it was best to be conventionally dressed when dealing with the police. He woke Dale and got from him the old dark blue suit. It was communal property now, and Dale had worn it most recently, to go to court when the wife he had left twenty years ago finally decided to divorce him. Priest put the suit on over his workshirt and tied the twenty-five-year-old pink-and-green “kipper” tie. The shoes had long worn out, so he put his sandals back on. Then he and Star got in the ’Cuda.
When they reached the county road, Priest said: “How come neither of us noticed she wasn’t at home last night?”
“I went to say good night to her, but Pearl told me she had gone to the privy.”
“I got that story, too! Pearl must have known what happened and covered up for her!” Pearl, the daughter of Dale and Poem, was twelve years old and Flower’s best friend.
“I went back later, but all the candles were out and the bunkhouse was in darkness, so I didn’t want to wake them up. I never imagined.…”
“Why would you? The darn kid has spent every night of her life in the same place — no reason to think she was anywhere else.”
They drove into Silver City. The sheriff’s office was next door to the courthouse. They entered a gloomy lobby decorated with yellowing news clippings of ancient murders. There was a reception desk behind a window with an intercom and a buzzer. A deputy in a khaki shirt and green tie said: “Help you?”
Star said: “My name is Stella Higgins, and you have my daughter here.”
The deputy gave them a hard look. Priest figured he was appraising them, wondering what kind of parents they were. He said, “Just one moment, please,” and disappeared.
Priest spoke to Star in a low voice. “I think we should be respectable, law-abiding citizens who are appalled that a child of theirs is in trouble with the police. We have nothing but profound respect for law enforcement personnel. We are sorry to have caused trouble to such hardworking folk.”
“Gotcha,” Star said tightly.
A door opened and the deputy let them in. “Mr. and Mrs. Higgins,” he said. Priest did not correct him. “Follow me, please.” He led them to a conference room with a gray carpet and bland modern furniture.
Flower was waiting.
She was going to be formidable and voluptuous like her mother one day, but at thirteen she was still a lanky, awkward girl. Now she was sullen and tearful at the same time. But she seemed unharmed. Star hugged her silently, then Priest did the same.
Star said: “Honey, have you spent the night in jail?”
Flower shook her head. “At some house,” she said.
The deputy explained. “California law is very strict. Juveniles can’t be jailed under the same roof as adult criminals. So we have a couple of people in town who are willing to take charge of young offenders overnight. Flower stayed at the home of Miss Waterlow, a local schoolteacher who also happens to be the sheriff’s sister.”
Priest asked Flower: “Was it okay?”
The child nodded dumbly.
He began to feel better.
The deputy said: “Sit down, please, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins. I’m the probation officer, and it’s part of my job to deal with juvenile offenders.”
They sat down.
“Flower is charged with stealing a poster worth $9.99 from the Silver Disc Music Store.”
Star turned to her daughter. “I can’t understand this,” she said. “Why would you steal a
Flower was suddenly vocal. She yelled: “I just wanted it, okay? I just wanted it!” Then she burst into tears.
Priest addressed the deputy. “We’d like to take our daughter home as soon as possible. What do we need to do?”
“Mr. Higgins, I should point out to you that the maximum penalty for what Flower has done would be imprisonment until the age of twenty-one.”
“Jesus Christ!” Priest exclaimed.
“However, I wouldn’t expect such a harsh punishment for a first offense. Tell me, has Flower been in trouble before?”
“Never.”
“Are you surprised by what she has done?”
“Yes.”
“We’re flabbergasted,” said Star.
The deputy probed their home life, trying to establish whether Flower was well cared for. Priest answered most of the questions, giving the impression that they were simple agricultural workers. He said nothing of their communal life or their beliefs. The deputy asked where Flower attended school, and Priest explained that there was a school at the winery for the children of workers.
The deputy seemed satisfied with the answers. Flower had to sign a promise to appear in court in four weeks’ time at ten A.M. The deputy asked for one of the parents to countersign, and Star obliged. They did not have to post bail. They were out of there in less than an hour.
Outside the sheriff’s office, Priest said: “This doesn’t make you a bad person, Flower. You did a dumb thing, but we love you as much as we always did. Just remember that. And we’ll all talk about it when we get home.”
They drove back to the winery. For a while Priest had been unable to think about anything except how his daughter was, but now that he had her back safe and well, he began to reflect on the wider implications of her arrest. The commune had never previously attracted the attention of the police. There was no theft, because they did not acknowledge private property. Sometimes there were fistfights, but the communards dealt with such situations themselves. No one had ever died here. They had no phone to call the police. They never broke any laws except the drug laws, and they were discreet about that.
But now the place was on the map.
