Picture Perfect Read online

  At Oglala Community College, in some culture class he'd been forced to take to graduate, Will had learned the punishment the Sioux meted out for a woman's adultery in the days of the buffalo. It had completely shocked him: If his wife had run away with another man, the husband had the right to cut off the tip of her nose, so she'd be marked for life. To Will, it seemed to contradict everything else he knew about the Sioux. After all, they did not understand ownership of the land. They believed in giving away money, food, and clothing to friends down on their luck, even if it meant that they'd become poor as well. Yet they branded a wife as property, a husband as an owner.

  He watched Jane sleep. In a way, he envied her. She'd managed to discard her past so easily, when Will had to work so hard to put his own history out of his mind.

  Will touched the edge of Jane's collar where blood had dried. He would get some cold water and soak that. He brushed her hair away from her forehead and looked over her features. She had ordinary brown hair, a small nose, a stubborn chin. Freckles. She was not the blond bombshell of his adolescent dreams, but she was pretty in a simple way. Someone must have been frantic to find her missing.

  He lifted his palm from her neck, planning to get a washcloth, but was stopped when her hand shot up from her side, her fingers closing around his wrist with lightning speed.Jesus , he thought,the reflexes of a cougar . Her eyes opened, and she glanced around wildly as if she'd been trapped. "Shh," Will soothed, and as he gently tugged to free himself, Jane let go, frowning as if she wasn't really sure why she'd grabbed him at all.

  "Whoare you?" she asked.

  Will walked to the door and turned off the light. He looked away so that she would not be able to see his face.

  "You don't want to know," he said.

  WILL'S FIRST MEMORY INVOLVED BAILING HIS FATHER OUT FROM JAIL.

  He was three, and he remembered the way his mother looked standing in front of the sheriff. She was tall and proud and even in the dim lighting she looked very, very pale. "There's been a mistake," she said. "Mr. Flying Horse is one of my employees."

  Will did not understand why his mother would say his father worked for her, when she knew that he worked for Mr. Lundt on the ranch. He did not understand the word "assault" although he thought "battery" had something to do with making Christmas toys work. The sheriff, a man with a florid cauliflower face, stared closely at Will and then spat not an inch away from his foot. "Ain't no mistake, ma'am," the sheriff said. "You know these goddamned Indians."

  His mother's face had pinched closed, and she pulled out her wallet to pay the fines his father had been charged. "Release him," she hissed, and the sheriff turned to walk down a corridor. Will watched him grow smaller and smaller, the pistol at his hip winking each time he passed a window.

  Will's mother knelt down beside him. "Don't you believe a word he says," she told him. "Your father was trying to help."

  What he learned, years later, was that Zachary Flying Horse had been in a bar when there was an incident. A woman was being hassled by two rednecks, and when he'd stepped in to intervene, a fight had broken out. The woman had run out of the bar, so when the police came it was Zack's word against that of two white locals.

  Zachary stepped out of the corridor in the jail behind the sheriff. He did not touch his wife. "Missus," he said solemnly. "Will." He lifted his boy up onto his shoulders and carried him into the hot Dakota sun.

  They walked halfway down the block before Will's father swung him off his shoulders and caught his wife up in a tight embrace. "Oh, Anne," he sighed against her hair. "I'm sorry to put you through that."

  Will pulled on the edge of his father's plaid shirt. "What did youdo , Pa?"

  Zack grabbed Will's hand and started down the street again. "I was born," he said.

  IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE FOR HER TO MISS THE NOTE WILL had left her, sitting as it was on the toilet lid with a fresh towel, toothpaste, a twenty-dollar bill, and a key.Jane , Will had written,I've gone to work. I'll ask around about your husband, and I'll try to call later today with some answers. I don't have anything in the refrigerator so if you get hungry, go down to the market (3 blocks east). Hope you're feeling better. Will.

  She brushed her teeth with her finger and looked at the note again. He hadn't said anything about what she should do if she awakened with a perfect understanding of her name and address--not that it really mattered, since she still couldn't remember. At least she was lucky. Her chances of running into a drug addict or a pimp on Sunset Boulevard had been much greater than running into someone from out of town, someone who'd leave a perfect stranger his house key and twenty dollars without asking any questions or expecting something in return.

  A light came into her eyes. Shecould do something in return; she could unpack for him. Her taste in decorating might not be like his--in fact, she had no idea what her own taste was like--but surely having the pots and pans in the cabinets and the towels in the linen closet would be a nice thing to come home to.

  Jane threw herself into the task of putting Will's house in order. She organized the kitchen and the bathroom and the broom closet, but she didn't really have to get creative until she got to the living room. There, in two boxes, carefully layered in newspaper, was a series of Native American relics. She unwrapped beautiful quilled moccasins and a long tanned hide painted with the image of a hunt. There was an intricate quilt and a fan made of feathers and a circular beaded medallion. At the bottom of the box was a small leather pouch trimmed with beads and bright feathers, on which was drawn a running horse. It was closed tight with a sinew thong, and although she tried, she could not open the bag to see its contents.

  She did not know what most of these objects were but she handled them as gently as she could, and she began to piece together more about Will. She looked around the bare walls and thought,If I were in a strange place, I'd want something that reminds me of home.

  NO ONE HAD COME BY THE ACADEMY LOOKING FOR A MISSING woman. Will spent the day being introduced by the captain to other people in the LAPD, getting his badge and his assignment. When he registered for his gun, the officer who took down the information asked if he'd rather have a tomahawk; his new partner got a great kick out of calling him Crazy Horse. But these were things he'd faced before. He did not see the officer who'd blackened his eye; however, Beverly Hills was a separate precinct. When giggling secretaries asked about the bruise, he shrugged and said someone had gotten in his way.

  It was after four o'clock before he got up the nerve to knock on his new captain's door and tell him about Jane. "Come over here," Watkins said, waving Will inside. "You think you got the hang of things yet?"

  Will shook his head. "It's different."

  Watkins grinned. "South Dakota it's not," he said. "A couple of celebrity traffic violations, a drug bust, and it'll be old hat."

  Will shifted in his seat. "I wanted to speak to you about a missing persons case," he said. "Actually, I want to know if--" He stopped, and smoothed his palms against his thighs to gain his composure. There was no right way to go about saying he'd skirted procedure; Jane should have been brought into the precinct and photographed by now. "I found a woman last night who's got amnesia. We went to the hospital, but since it was late, I didn't bring her in right away." Will looked up at the captain. "Have you heard anything?"

  The older man shook his head slowly. "Since you weren't on duty yet," he said, "I'm not going to count this against you. But she needs to be brought in for questioning." Watkins looked up at Will, and at that moment Will knew that in spite of the captain's absolution, he would start out with a strike against him. "Could be her memory loss is related to a crime." Watkins fixed Will with a sharp glance. "I assume you still know her whereabouts. I'd suggest you bring her down as soon as possible," he said.

  Will nodded, and started toward the door. "And Officer," Watkins called after him, "from here on, you play by the rules."

  WILL PULLED ON THE COLLAR OF HIS UNIFORM THE WHOLE DRIVE back to Rese