Dance for the Dead

'Well, yes.'

'And doesn't it have to file tax returns each year?'

'Certainly.'

'My friend seems to think that there's no other occasion when the state automatically takes a look, unless the trust changes hands. Somebody with a legitimate reason has to ask. And the statute of limitations for embezzling the money is something like four years.'

The judge blew some air out through his teeth. 'Your friend seems to have worked this through more carefully than I have. If they filed the standard annual forms, declared Timmy legally dead, and took their time about the disbursement to charities, then yes, they could probably avoid scrutiny until it was too late to prosecute the theft. Your friend must practice in another state. The statute of limitations here isn't four years. It's two.'

'Great,' she muttered.

'But they can't do what they planned. They never got the death certificate.'

Jane spoke slowly and quietly. 'If they've already robbed him, then they still need to get one. I think they're committed.'

'It's all right. Timmy is under police protection.'

'I know,' said Jane. 'I went into his bedroom, talked to him, took him for a ride, and brought him back.'

'I'll order him moved,' said the judge.

'Moving him increases the danger. Just tell them you're not keeping him incommunicado, you want him protected, and they'll do their best. I'm sure you know they can't keep somebody from killing him if the person tries hard enough.'

'Then what the hell do you want me to do?'

'Remove the motive.'

'How?'

'The reason to kill him is to hide a theft, so uncover it. He's a ward of the court. Order an audit of his assets. Open everything up.'

'All right.'

'And, Judge,' Jane said, 'can you make it a surprise? You know - like a raid?'

'Yes. I'll have to do some preliminary probing first, and I'll have to find probable cause for a search, but I'll do it. Now what else are you waiting for me to stumble onto?'

'Nothing.' Then she added, 'But, Judge...'

'What?'

'I don't know if it's occurred to you yet, but if they realize you're going to do this, then Timmy isn't the big threat to them anymore. You are.'

'I'm aware of that,' he snapped. 'Now I've got sixty-three litigants and petitioners and all their damned attorneys penned up in a courtroom waiting for me, so if you'll excuse me...'

'Keep safe. You're a good man.'

'Of course I am,' he said. 'Goodbye.'

Jane hung up the telephone and drove home. She climbed the stairs, opened her closet, and then remembered that she had given the suitcase she was looking for to the Salvation Army in Los Angeles. She went downstairs into the little office she had made out of her mother's sewing room, looked in the closet, and found the old brown one. It was a little smaller, but she wasn't going to bring much with her. She stared at the telephone for a moment, then dialed his number. His answering machine clicked on. 'Carey, this is Jane. I'm afraid I was right about the trip. I'll call when I'm home. Meanwhile you'll have to make your own fun. Bye.' She walked upstairs to her bedroom and began to pack.

As Jane set down her suitcase and walked through the kitchen to be sure that all the windows were locked and the food stored in the freezer, she saw the pile of letters that Jake had brought her. She had not even bothered to look at them. She leaned against the counter and glanced at each envelope, looking for bills. There were several envelopes from companies, but they were all pitches to get her to buy something new.

Finally she opened the one at the bottom. It was thin and square and stiff, from Maxwell-Lammett Investment Services in New York. Inside was a greeting card. It was old, the picture from a photograph that had been hand-tinted. There was a stream with a deer just emerging from a thicket, so that it was easy to miss at first. All the leaves of the trees were bright red and orange and yellow. The caption said 'Indian Summer.' When she looked inside, a check fluttered to the floor. The female handwriting in the card said, 'You told me that one morning after a year or two I would wake up and look around me and feel good because it was over, and then I would send you a present. I found the card months ago and saved it, but you're a hard person to shop for. Thanks. MaRried and PrEgnant.' R was Rhonda and E was Eckerly, or used to be.

Jane picked up the check and looked at it. The cashier's machine printing on it said 'Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand and 00/100 Dollars.' The purchaser was the investment company, and the notation said 'Sale of Securities.' She put the check into her purse and took one last look at the card. Rhonda had probably felt clever putting her name in code. If the people her ex-husband had paid to hunt her had known about Jane they could have identified Rhonda's prints from the paper and probably traced her through the check.

She switched on the ventilator on the hood over the stove, set out a foil pan, lit the card at a gas burner, and set it in the pan to burn. There would come a time when an uninvited guest would go through this house. Maybe it would be some bounty hunter, or maybe it would be the policemen investigating her death. Whoever it was would not find traces of a hundred fugitives and then turn them into a bonanza for his retirement. When the card was burned, she turned off the fan, then rinsed the ashes into her garbage disposal and let it grind them into the sewer. She dropped the rest of the mail into the trash can, picked up her suitcase, set the alarm, and stepped out onto the porch.

As she locked her door and took a last look at her house, she thought about the old days, when Senecas went out regularly to raid the tribes to the south and west in parties as small as three or four warriors. After a fight they would run back along the trail through the great forest, sometimes not stopping for two days and nights.

When they made it back into Nundawaonoga, they would approach their village and give a special shout to tell the people what it was they would be celebrating. But sometimes a lone warrior would come up the trail, the only one of his party who had survived. He would rest and eat and mourn his friends for a time. Then he would quietly collect his weapons and extra moccasins and provisions and walk back down the trail alone. He would travel all the way back to the country of the enemy, even if it were a thousand miles west to the Mississippi or a thousand miles south beyond the Cumberland. He would stay alone in the forest and observe the enemy until he was certain he knew their habits and defenses and vulnerabilities. He would watch and wait until he had perceived that they no longer thought about an Iroquois attack, even if it took a year or two.

It occurred to Jane as she got into her car that Rhonda's present had come at a good time. If she stopped to deposit it on her way to the airport, it would buy a lot of spare moccasins.

11

Jane took a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth under the name Wendy Simmons, and another to San Diego as Diane Newberry. Then she took a five-minute shuttle bus ride from the airport to the row of tall hotels on Harbor Island. She stepped off at the TraveLodge, but walked down Harbor Island Drive to the Sheraton East because it seemed to be the biggest.

She checked in with a credit card in the name of Katherine Webster. She had gotten the card in the same way she had obtained the five others she had brought with her: she had grown them. Now and then she would take a trip to a different part of the country just to grow new credit cards. She would start with a forged birth certificate, use it to admit her to the test for a genuine driver's license, and then would go to a bank and start a checking account in a new name. If the amount she deposited was large enough, sometimes the bank would offer her a credit card that day. If it did not, she would use the checks to pay for mail orders. Within a few months, the new woman would begin receiving unsolicited mail. Among the catalogs and requests for contributions would inevitably be offers for credit cards. She used the credit cards carefully, a new one in each town, so that when Katherine Webster disappeared, she didn't reappear in the next city. Instead, a woman named Denise Hollinger took her place.

The banks that issued their own credit cards were happy to pay themselves automatically each month from her checking account, so all she had to do was to keep the balance high. For the others, she simply filled in the