A Maidens Grave

chopper, Lou. Look outside. We’ve got twenty-mile-an-hour winds, low overcast, and fog. You wanted pontoons. Well, pontoons don’t grow on trees.”
    “You got twelve-mile-an-hour winds, ceilings of two thousand feet, and no fucking fog that I can see.”
    The television, Potter remembered, angry with himself for forgetting. Maybe Handy was watching the Live at Five weather report at that moment. A long minute of silence. Potter, staring at the speaker above his head, decided they were too focused on the mechanics of the negotiating. It was time for something personal.
    “Lou?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You asked me what I looked like. Let me ask you about yourself.”
    “Fuck, you’ve got pictures in there, I’ll bet.”
    “What do mug shots show?” Potter asked, and laughed.
    When Handy spoke, his voice had calmed considerably. “What do I look like?” he mused. “Let me tell you a story, Art. I was in a prison riot one time. All kindsa shit was going down like usual in things like that. What the fuck happens but I find myself in the laundry room with a fellow I’d had it in for for a long time. Now, you know where you hide things when you’re inside, don’t you? So I crapped this glass knife, unwrapped it, and started to work on him. You know why?”
    Echo his questions and comments, Arthur Potter the negotiator thought. But Arthur Potter remained silent.
    “ ‘Cause when I first was in he come up to me, all macho and that shit, and said he didn’t like the way I looked.”
    “So you killed him.” A matter-of-fact statement.
    “Fuck yes, but that’s not my point. While he was dying there, his gut all split open, I leaned down. See, I was curious. I leaned down real close and I asked him what exactly it was he didn’t like about the way I looked. And you know what he said? He said, ‘You looked like colddeath.’ Know something, Art? I was sorry I killed him after he told me that. Yessir, cold death.”
    Don’t play his game, Potter thought suddenly. You’re falling under his spell. With an edge to his voice he asked, “Lou, give us until seven. You do me that, I think we’ll have some good news for you.”
    “I—”
    “That’s all. What difference does it make?” Potter kept all supplication from his voice. He made it sound that Handy was being unreasonable. It was a risk but Potter assessed that the man would have no respect at all for whiners.
    Still, he was very surprised when Handy said, “All right. Jesus! But have the chopper here, Art. Or the little one in the dress goes.”
    Click.
    Potter calmly instructed Tobe to adjust the deadline clock accordingly.
     
    The door to the van opened and a trooper looked in. “The two girls are here, sir. They’re in the medical tent.”
    “Are they okay?”
    “One fell and scraped her elbow. Otherwise they’re fine.”
    “I’ll go over there. I could use some fresh air. Frances, could you translate? Henry, get yourself unplugged and come with us. Angie too?”
    In a grove of trees not far from the van Potter ushered the girls into folding chairs. Henry LeBow joined them, portable computer in hand. He sat down and smiled at the girls, who stared at the Toshiba.
    Potter tried to recall what Frances had taught him and spelled their names in sign language. S-H-A-N-N-O-N and K-I-E-L-L-E, bringing a smile to Shannon’s face. They were the same age, Potter knew—eight—but Shannon was taller. Kielle, however, with her grim face and cynical eyes, gave the impression of being far older.
    “What’s the matter?” Potter asked Kielle.
    Frances’s face went cold when she received a response. “She said she tried to kill him.”
    “Who?”
    “Handy, I think she means. She calls him Mr. Sinister.”
    Potter produced the flyer of the fugitives. Kielle’s face screwed into a tight mask and she poked a finger at Handy’s picture.
    “She says he killed Susan and she was going to kill him. Melanie betrayed her. Melanie is a Judas.”
    “Why?” Angie asked.
    More brutal signing.
    “She threw her out the door.”
    “Melanie did that?”
    Potter felt the chill down his spine. He knew there’d be a payback of some kind.
    Shannon confirmed that the men didn’t seem to have any rifles, only shotguns—her father hunted and she knew something about guns. Beverly’s asthma was bad, though Handy had given her the medicine. She reiterated that the “big man,” Bonner, hovered over the girls and kept looking at Emily because she was “prettier