The Thunder Keeper Part 7

"You believe that?" Vicky made no effort to stifle the astonishment in her voice.

"Until we find the driver"-he held her gaze-"anything's possible. We're running a check on recent arrests and complaints. We'll see if a black Camry figures in any other reported crimes. And we're following some other leads." He tapped his fingers on the table, as if he was trying to make up his mind how much to divulge. "Turns out Lewis's wife, Jana, served him with divorce papers three days before he was killed," he said finally. "Alleged infidelity. Could be Lewis was looking for a good divorce lawyer when he called you."

She didn't believe it. A man like Lewis could hire the best divorce lawyer on Seventeenth Street. When she didn't say anything, the detective went on: "The widow gave us the names of a couple of Lewis's girlfriends. We interviewed them. Seemed pretty broken up by the guy's death, but you never know. One could have wanted to settle an old score."

He lifted his cup and took a long sip, regarding her over the rim for a long moment. Then he set the cup down. "Turns out the grieving widow is due to collect on a big insurance policy. Three mil. Could be she wanted to make sure Lewis didn't have time to change the beneficiary."

Vicky glanced around the restaurant-waiters hovering over tables, diners getting to their feet. Her theory could still be right. Lewis had called her, an Arapaho attorney. She brought her gaze back. "I heard Roz Baider was taking over the company. How did that affect Lewis?"

Steve let out a long sigh. "Don't you ever give up?"

The buzz of conversation, the sound of gla.s.s tinkling, drifted between them a moment. Finally he said in a lowered voice, "Lewis climbed the ladder to vice-president of development and Nathan Baider's right-hand man in only three years. He was hard-driving and ambitious. A profile that would probably fit a lot of guys in this dining room." He nodded at the tables stretching toward the maitre d's station. Some were empty now.

"n.o.body knows what'll happen when another man takes the chief's seat, but Roz made it sound like Lewis would be part of the reorganization."

"Reorganization?"

Steve shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time a son decided he could do things better."

Vicky sat quietly for a moment, only half-aware of the flashes of white jackets bobbing past. "Suppose," she began, "that Lewis wasn't going to be part of the reorganized company. Maybe he'd want to blow the whistle about a secret diamond deposit."

Steve was shaking his head. "Sweetheart, you've been watching too many detective shows." He leaned over the table, so close she could smell the mustard and coffee on his breath. "n.o.body at Baider Industries mentioned anything about Lewis being out. Just the opposite. He was the brains. Roz needed the man."

Vicky felt a longing to be back in Lander, at the cafe on Main Street, John O'Malley across from her, examining her theory piece by piece, looking for the logical pattern. There was always a pattern.

The waiter appeared with a small black folder, and Vicky dug in her bag for a couple of bills, which Steve waved away. "It's been a long time since you had lunch with me." He slipped a credit card into the folder. "Look, Vicky," he said, "I understand your worry. I'll have another talk with senior and junior Baider. Maybe they forgot to mention a diamond deposit on the res."

"Will you let me know what you find out?"

He was signing the charge slip, collecting his card. He looked up. "I'll let you know."

They slid out of the booth at the same moment, and he ushered her through the maze of tables and into the courtyard that connected the Pavilions' shops to the Sixteenth Street mall. She could feel the firm pressure of his hand on the small of her back as they walked down the concrete steps to the sidewalk.

"I'd like to see you, Vicky," he said, guiding her to one side, away from the crowd. The shuttle swooshed along the mall.

"As soon as you find out-"

"Forget the Lewis case a minute. You're unattached, right?" He didn't wait for a response. "So am I. So what's wrong with two unattached people, a beautiful woman and a so-so guy, getting together?"

Vicky raised one hand, but before she could say anything, he said, "You know I've been attracted to you since you b.u.mped into me on campus. That was deliberate, right?" He grinned.

"Deliberate?"

"You saw me coming through the door. Next thing I know, I'm picking up your papers and notes all over the stairs. You got my attention all right."

Vicky threw her head back and laughed. "It could've been an orangutan coming through the door, Steve. I wasn't looking where I was going."

A small shadow of pain crossed his face.

"I'm very glad it was you," she said hurriedly. "You did such a good job of getting all of my notes before they blew away, and-" She paused. "You've been a good friend."

"How about having dinner with a good friend?"

Vicky looked away. A trio of men in dark suits glanced at them as they pa.s.sed by. She'd been thinking about John O'Malley all during lunch, she realized. He had never said to her "have dinner with me."

"You were right earlier," she said, bringing her eyes back. "I'm still running from what happened on the res." She saw in his expression that he thought she meant the shooting. "I need some time."

"I've been waiting a long time. I can wait a little longer." He made a halfhearted attempt at a shrug.

She was about to turn away when his hand reached out and touched her shoulder, holding her lightly in place. "Promise me you'll stay out of this investigation, Vicky. If it is homicide and the guy who killed Lewis thinks you're trying to find out why, he could come after you."

"I promise not to do anything rash," she said.

"Don't do anything at all." A note of sternness in his voice.

She smiled, then slipped past him and joined the knots of people on the sidewalk. She waited for another shuttle to glide past, trailing pneumatic sounds, then started across the bricked pathway, only half-aware of his eyes following her. She was thinking that a woman who had filed for divorce might be willing to talk about her husband's activities at Baider Industries.

14.

Detective Matt Slinger might have been a professional wrestler, Father John thought. The fleshy, pushed-in face, the nose that looked as if it had been broken once or twice, the thick mane of dark hair. He crossed the waiting room at the Fremont County Sheriff's Department and extended his hand. "Father O'Malley," he said. His smile was friendly and guarded. His grip hard. "Come on back." He gestured toward the door he'd just come through.

Father John followed the man down a corridor with fluorescent light washing over the gray walls and pebbled-gla.s.s doors. They emerged into a room the size of a large conference room. Papers and folders had been spread over the surfaces of three desks pushed against one wall in no particular order that Father John could see. Bookcases stuffed with folders, boxes, and books ran along the opposite wall. Across the room, rain spattered the two windows that framed a blurred view of the cars and trucks in the parking lot.

"Have a seat." The detective pushed a chair over to one of the desks, then took the barrel-shaped chair on the other side. Leaning back, he said, "So you're the Indian priest I've heard about. Gotten yourself mixed up in a few homicides around here."

"Not by choice, I a.s.sure you." Father John sat down and laid his cowboy hat on the tiled floor next to his feet. It always surprised him: Indian priest. He was an Irishman, from Boston, a.s.signed to St. Francis Mission. He happened to like it there.

The detective's mouth turned up in amus.e.m.e.nt. "You think Duncan Grover's death was another one of your homicides?" That was what Father John had told him when he'd called to make an appointment.

"It's a possibility." He was treading a fine line. All that he knew he'd heard in the confessional. The rest was theory, with no evidence to back it up.

"You a friend of the victim's?" The detective rearranged his bulky frame and folded his hands over his stomach.

Father John admitted he'd never met the man.

"Friend of the family?"

"No."

"Then what makes you think somebody killed him?"

"I've been talking to people on the res," Father John began, lining up his argument in a logical order. "Ben Holden told me Grover went to the Arapaho Ranch looking for a job. He agreed to hire him in a couple of weeks. A man planning to kill himself doesn't go job hunting."

The detective shifted again. "Stranger things have happened."

"Look, Detective," Father John said, taking a different tack, "Holden believes Grover was in some kind of trouble in Denver. Somebody could have followed him here and killed him."

"Oh, Grover was in trouble, all right." A slow smile burned through the detective's face. "Had a robbery warrant out on him in Colorado. He'd been working construction jobs for a temp agency. Had quite a scam stealing jackhammers and compressors and stuff that he could sell for decent cash. The foreman at the last job got onto him and filed a complaint. Grover already had two convictions. Third strike, and he was looking at prison for a very long time. So he took off and came to the res, the way Indians like to do. Minute they get into trouble in the big white world, they come running home."

"Grover was from Oklahoma." Father John didn't try to conceal his irritation.

"Wind River is Indian country." The man was warming to the subject now. "Looks up Ben Holden, plays the good Indian, goes to stay with a holy man and learn Indian ways, hoping n.o.body'll notice him."

"And kills himself? Come on, Detective. You're describing a man who wanted to live."

"Not in prison, he didn't. You ask me, Grover had one strong motive to kill himself." He hunched forward. "Another thing, Father O'Malley, there's no evidence of anybody else on that ledge at the time of death."

Father John glanced at the rain-smeared windows. The room was muggy and warm. He had to concede that what the detective said made sense. There was a certain logic to it. He might even have believed it if it hadn't been for the man in the confessional.

He said, "Grover may have a girlfriend in the area." It was a gamble. He had no proof that the woman who had called Gus Iron Bear was Grover's girlfriend. "She might be able to tell you if Grover was running from somebody."

"What girlfriend?"

Father John told him about his conversation with Gus.

The detective seemed to consider this. Finally he said, "Could've been anybody, Father. Some girl he met in a bar. If she was involved with the guy, why hasn't she come forward, told us whatever she knows?"

"Maybe she's scared. Maybe she doesn't want to talk to the police."

"Maybe she doesn't know anything." A flush of impatience came into the detective's cheeks.

Father John pushed on: "Duncan Grover was trying to start over, put the past behind, follow a different road. No Indian's going to kill himself on a vision quest in a sacred place like Bear Lake. It would be a sacrilege, an offense to the spirits."

"I know all about Indian vision quests." The detective plopped one hand onto a stack of papers. A couple of sheets slid across the desk. "Grover was up there on that high ledge for three days without food or water, smoking a pipe and breathing in that sage they like to burn. After a while he got up the courage to throw himself off the cliff."

"It didn't happen." Father John's tone had a harder edge than he'd intended.

Matt Slinger lifted his other hand and rubbed his fingers into his temple, as if to rub away a minor annoyance. "Okay, Father O'Malley. Have it your way. Maybe he was in some kind of altered state of consciousness and didn't realize that he couldn't fly like an eagle. Maybe that's what happened. It comes down to the same thing. Duncan Grover was responsible for his own death, which makes it suicide."

Father John felt as if he were running into brick walls. There had to be another way. He drew in a long breath and began again: "What kind of injuries did he have?"

"The lethal kind." The detective's gaze was steady. A half second pa.s.sed before he reached for a file folder, flipped it open, and began shuffling through the official-looking forms.

Father John realized the detective had been expecting the question. He'd already retrieved Grover's file from a filing cabinet.

"Multiple contusions, bruises." Slinger spoke in a monotone of futility. "Broken ribs, femurs, arms. Spinal cord crushed." He glanced up. "Shall I go on?"

"What about his skull?"

"Crushed left temporal."

That was it, the opening he'd been looking for. He said: "Isn't it possible that Grover was struck in the head, then thrown off the ledge?"

Slinger gave a sharp expulsion of breath that pa.s.sed for a laugh. "Speculation's cheap, Father O'Malley," he said. "Fact is, Grover fell two hundred feet off a cliff, bounced through some sharp boulders, which accounts for his injuries. Take my word, he decided that dying on a vision quest was more honorable than rotting in prison."

The detective set both palms against the desk and pushed himself to his feet. "I suggest you forget about trying to turn Grover's suicide into something it wasn't. The guy was a loser. He decided to end his life. It's as simple as that. Why don't you just remember him in your prayers."

Father John picked up his hat and got to his feet. There was a loud clap of thunder, then the glow of lightning in the window. Outside the rain was beating on the asphalt parking lot. He said: "How do you know somebody else won't be killed?"

"What're you talking about?"

He kept his eyes on the other man's. He was talking about what he'd heard in the confessional-the sealed confessional. "If you're wrong," he said, "there's a killer in the area. He could kill again."

Slinger glanced away. Rubbing at his temple again. Finally he looked back. "I need the girlfriend's name, Father O'Malley. Give me a name. I'll find her and have a talk with her."

A surge of hope, like lightning. For the first time since the man had come into the confessional, Father John felt there was a chance that Duncan Grover's killer would be found. That n.o.body else would have to die. A name, and Detective Slinger would continue the investigation.

Father John set his cowboy hat on his head and headed down the corridor. There was a girl somewhere in Lander who knew Duncan Grover. A girl who'd left a message for him to call her at the convenience store. Which could mean-he could almost taste the certainty of it-that she worked at one of the convenience stores.

He let himself out through the gla.s.s-door entrance and, hunching his shoulders in the rain, ran across the lot to the Toyota. He'd start with the convenience stores on Main Street.

15.

Father John waited for a semi to pa.s.s on Main Street before he took a left into the parking lot between a motel and convenience store. It was his second stop. The rain banged on the Toyota's roof, nearly drowning out the sounds of Faust. He turned off the tape player and ran across the pavement to the double gla.s.s doors with posters plastered on the inside: CARTON CIGARETTE-$22.99; TODAY'S SPECIAL-SIX-PACK c.o.kE, $1.29.

He stepped inside and stopped. Behind the counter: a small, black-haired woman, about twenty, eyes like slate, golden-brown skin, sharp cheekbones, and the small b.u.mp in her nose-the nose of the Arapaho. Several customers waited in line, gripping packages of Twinkies, cans of pop, candy bars. He walked down the center aisle and selected an apple from the bin on the rear wall, a c.o.ke from the cooler, and wandered back to the register. One customer now-an elderly woman with a pink plastic hat clamped over her head and a clear plastic coat hanging loosely over a dark sweatsuit.

The young woman behind the counter handed the customer some coins and reached for the items he was holding. Her hair was pulled back, caught with a pink beaded barrette-the way Vicky sometimes wore her hair. An unimportant detail-a pink barrette, for G.o.d's sake-and she was in his mind as though she'd never left.

The young woman ran the c.o.ke bottle over the scanner and tapped in some numbers on the register. "One-oh-seven," she said.

He fished some coins out of his blue jeans pocket and pushed them across the counter. "Are you a friend of Duncan Grover's?" he said.

She flinched, as if he'd struck her.

She was the one he was looking for, he was certain. Her hand was suspended over the coins, her dark eyes darted about. "Who wants to know?" she said in a voice tight with fear and hostility.

"I'm Father O'Malley. From the reservation."

She was staring at him. The cowboy hat, the rain slicker, the blue jeans.

"Yeah, and I'm Annette Funuchio."