Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [99]
Trina kept shaking her head. “Why would Angel want to see me?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Frank replied. “I just know that she came by the garage and asked me if I knew who you were, that Alex had mentioned you to her, and that she wanted to meet you. I told her where you lived. I thought she was going to see you before she left town.”
“No, I never met Angel.” Trina leaned against the door.
Frank stared straight ahead. They both seemed to be stunned by what they were finding out.
Finally, it was Frank who broke the silence. He turned to Trina and could see her working through the information. “You want to go back?” he asked. “You want to ride this thing out?”
She waited and then sat up. “I don’t know,” she said. And then she drew in a breath as if the decision was being made as she spoke. “No, I’ve already said good-bye. I think this is best.”
Frank hesitated, looked as if he was going to say something else, and then seemed to think better of it. He turned to face the road. He put the car into drive and pulled back onto the highway. The two of them did not speak of Pie Town again.
Chapter Thirty-seven
They all walked or drove up the winding road that Sunday morning. Just as if they were going to a church service. Just as if it was a typical Sunday morning in Pie Town, just as if it was only the Catholics going to midmorning Mass, hoping for redemption or inspiration or something to get them through another week. They walked in file, Protestants and nonbelievers, old-timers and the newly baptized, all of them making their way to a church that no longer existed.
The late autumn winds had started blowing, and the sand cranes circled high above the heads of those moving along the road and making their way into the parking lot next to a charred and ruined piece of land, while the snow geese called out, announcing their arrival. The birds, native to Canada and the Pacific Northwest, were already arriving at Socorro, a few miles east of Pie Town, having made their way south, another sort of migration of salvation.
Although many of them had their own reasons for going to the called meeting, most of them were going just out of curiosity. They had all gotten the flier, stuck in doors and under mats, on the sides of mailboxes and on windshields. Nobody knew who had created the mailing or who had delivered them, since no one had taken responsibility for making the handbills and distributing them. But everybody in town had gotten one, and everybody in town, Catholic and otherwise, was curious enough to go out to the burned-down church and see who was calling a meeting and what was going to be reported.
Everybody from Pie Town was there except a few who never participated in any public gathering: the Indians living on the edge of town, Frank Twinhorse, having already left for Texas, his son Raymond, the old people at Carebridge, a few teenagers who had intended to go but overslept, the sheriff and his family, and the new girl who lived in the apartment behind him.
Danny White figured he should be the first one to arrive. He knew he was going to be the only person of authority in attendance, and he wanted to get there first to establish his presence to anyone planning to make trouble. He also thought that getting there early would give him a look at who else arrived before the crowds and help him figure out who had planned the assembly.
He left his house early, around eight o’clock, drove around town to do standard surveillance, and stopped at his parents’ house for a cup of coffee and his mother’s sweet rolls. He and his parents talked for a while, read the paper together, and then the couple went back to their bedroom to get ready before church. Checking his watch, Danny got in his squad car and drove to the church. He had not seen his little sister at breakfast, but he hadn’t expected to. She was a teenager, and it was Sunday morning. Danny just assumed she was asleep.
Thinking she was still in her bed at