The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  “Where were you when the police stopped you?” Vicky said.

  “Soon as I got the truck outta there, all I wanted was to get the hell away.”

  “You’d been drinking,” Roger said. A matter-of-fact tone.

  “What’d’ya think? You ever dump a body? I smoked some weed, drank half a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Kiki was alive when you dumped him,” Vicky said.

  Troy sat back, as if she had landed a blow in his solar plexus. He kept blinking, and for a moment, she thought he might burst into tears. “I thought he was dead. I wouldn’t’ve left him out there to die. I wouldn’t’ve done it, no matter what Bellows said. Kiki and me used to hang together when we was in prison. Looked out for each other. He tried to get me to clean up, same as he did. Least I thought he got clean. But all the time, Kiki was setting up his own gang, gonna do his own business. Didn’t surprise me none that Bellows killed him.” He stopped. He was still blinking, as though he had to get around a new reality. “What’s gonna happen?” he said, his voice barely audible.

  “You agreed to testify against Bellows?” Roger said.

  “I gotta get outta here.”

  “We’re going to call another lawyer for you. Maybe he can get the prosecutor to drop one of the minor charges. No guarantees.”

  Roger got to his feet, and Vicky stood up next to him. Her legs felt wobbly. It was possible Troy was telling the truth. Possible that she had been wasting time, worrying about an Arapaho who was nothing more than a shadow, a whispering voice, probably on drugs, confessing to a murder he didn’t commit. She didn’t believe it.

  They left Troy alone in the interview room, the guard waiting to take him back into the cell block. Outside, Vicky strode ahead of Roger, wanting a moment to sort it out.

  “What’s going on?” Roger said when they got into the car. He had switched on the defroster, and a little half circle began to clear at the bottom of the windshield. The engine made a low rumbling noise.

  “If I represent the man who’s been calling me . . .”

  “He’s not your client, Vicky.”

  “There could be a conflict of interest. I’m sorry, Roger, but we can’t take the chance.” She let a beat pass before she said, “Troy could be lying.”

  Roger gripped the steering wheel and stared through the half circle of cleared glass. He made no effort to drive away. “You think your guy killed Kiki, and Bellows happened to stumble on the body and decide to send a message of his own?”

  “Why would the caller admit to killing him if he hadn’t done it?” Vicky took a moment, aware of the sound of her own breathing. “I think he called me because he got worried that Gianelli would connect him to Kiki somehow, which means he is connected to Kiki. He wanted to get ahead of the game, claim it was self-defense.”

  “Okay,” Roger said. “Let’s say you’re correct and it wasn’t Bellows who killed Kiki. It doesn’t mean that Kiki wasn’t setting up his own drug business. Your anonymous caller could have been in on it. Maybe he and Kiki had a falling out, and Kiki’s death wasn’t self-defense after all.”

  Roger waited a moment, and when Vicky didn’t say anything, he shifted into forward. The tires whined and spun before getting purchase in the snow. They drove back through town to the office building, and Vicky got out in the parking lot. It was dark now, the parking lot sheathed in ice and snow. The Jeep felt like an icebox when she slipped inside. The motor groaned and sputtered before turning over, cold air blasted from the vents, and a country song drifted out of the speakers.

  Vicky drove down Main Street and turned onto the side street that ran in front of her apartment building. She wished she could shake the sound of the voice at the end of the line saying that he had a kid, that he didn’t mean to do it.

  VICKY HAD PARKED behind the apartment building and was picking her way across the icy pavement when she saw the bulky dark figure rise up between two parked cars and start toward her. Lights glowed in the entry and tentacles of light reached into the parking lot. There was no one else around.

  She gripped her bag, a thousand impulses firing. Run back to the Jeep? Run to the entrance? She made herself keep walking. It was still early in the evening. A man in the parking lot didn’t mean anything. Probably another tenant, except every part of her knew that was not the case.

  Up the curb onto the sidewalk, the soles of her boots sliding a little. Walking deliberately now, every step considered, the bag gripped in her hand like a weapon. The man stepped onto the sidewalk about twenty feet ahead, still coming toward her. She recognized him now, the swagger in his walk, the bulky shoulders leading one after the other, the head thrust forward. A man who acted on impulse, Jane Gorsuch had said. He had killed once, he might kill again. Vicky could hear her heart pounding in her ears. She felt as if her muscles were fused together.

  He was closing the distance between them.

  “I’ve been hoping you would call again,” she said, trying for the calm and matter-of-fact courtroom voice.

  He stopped and put up one hand, a traffic cop warning her not to come closer. “You got the deal?”

  “Why don’t we go to a coffee shop and talk,” she said, her heart still pounding. She threw a quick glance around the parking lot. Nothing but the dark hulks of parked vehicles. “If you killed Kiki in self-defense, I can help you get the matter cleared up.”

  “All you had to do was tell the fed what happened.”

  “I need you to come forward.”

  “Just tell the fed what happened.”

  Vicky took a moment. They were getting nowhere. “I need details. Give me something the fed can check out, make sure you’re telling the truth.”

  “I’m telling the truth!” he shouted. Then, almost a whisper, “They’re gonna throw me in prison and toss the key. I got a little boy. I gotta take care of him. I can’t leave him. I don’t want him growing up knowing his old man’s in prison. It’d be better if I was dead. You know what I’m talking about?”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “What?”

  “Where was Kiki killed?”

  “What the hell difference does that make?”

  “I need the details,” Vicky said. “I need something concrete. Give me something Gianelli can verify.”

  He looked away at that, and Vicky studied his profile backlit by the entry lights. The hooked nose, the high cheekbone of her people.

  Finally he turned back. “Kiki called, all upset, agitated-like. Wanted to meet me at a place in Ethete.”

  “Where?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “The details matter.”

  “House on Yellow Calf Road. I figured the fed must’ve been smelling around something that happened a long time ago before we got sent to prison. I figured there was some kind of trouble, so I went.”

  Vicky was aware of the sharp sound of her own breathing. It was the same house where Kiki had been attacked. “What kind of trouble?” she said.

  He threw up his arm again. “Enough. You got your details. Tell the fed to check out the house. He’ll figure out what happened.”

  “What about Bellows? Was he at the house?”

  “Bellows? Why would he be there? Didn’t have nothing to do with him.”

  “I think you’re lying,” she said. “What I can’t figure out is why.”

  He stared at her out of narrowed eyes, his face dark and pinched beneath the knit cap. “What are you talking about?”

  “There is a witness who says that Bellows killed Kiki at the house.” A pair of witnesses, she was thinking. Lennie Musser would back up everything Troy said. “Bellows is bound to be indicted for homicide in the next day or so.”

  He staggered backward, as if he had been struck by an unexpected force. It was a second before he seemed to get his bearings, then he swung around and headed down the sidewalk.

  “Where can I reach you?” she called, but he was running now, weaving through the parked cars, another shadow melting int
o the shadows of the trees at the edge of the lot. She was certain now that she would never hear from him again.

  24

  LATE AFTERNOON, AND the sun dropped behind the rounded peaks of the Wind River Range, leaving a leaden sky and long dark shadows that reached across the white plains. The air was filled with the stillness that gathered before a blizzard. It would snow again tonight, Father John thought. The sign for St. Francis Mission rose out of the shadows ahead. He slowed down and turned into the mission. Lights shone in the windows of the administration building, and he could see Lucy’s blue sedan parked in front.

  He had planned to return sooner, and he felt a wave of gratitude toward the girl for staying on. It had taken a couple of hours to muck out the stalls and lay new beds in Felix’s barn—he moved slower than the old man. The barn was like an icebox. Still he’d found himself sweating like a workhorse, the pain in his ribs gathering into a white heat, as if a branding iron had been strapped onto him. Now the pain had subsided somewhat into a numbness that, at least, made it easier to breathe.

  He parked next to the blue sedan and, using the door for support, managed to lift himself out. Lord, he was too old for brawls in parking lots. Fighting the likes of Bellows’s gang—he could’ve gotten himself killed. He gripped his side and made his way up the ice-slicked concrete steps. A wall of warmth mixed with the smells of old wood and plastered walls fell over him as he stepped into the corridor.

  Strange, the rhythmic thumping noise, followed by a series of thuds. He followed the noise to the doorway of his office. Lucy was across the room, leaning over an opened drawer of the filing cabinet. She slammed the drawer shut and pulled out the next drawer. The red-tipped fingers started flipping through the tabs on the folders, as if she were counting out dollar bills. Cardboard boxes were scattered about the floor, but some of them were empty. “Surprise,” she said without turning around. “I’m almost done getting you organized. About time, too, I’d say.” She shoved the drawer closed and pivoted about. “Got the files organized in the top drawers. I’ll start on the others tomorrow.”

  “Organized!” Father John managed to get his jacket off and hung over the coat tree. The pain was crawling across his back. “That will be a first,” he said. He had intended to sort through the files, discard and straighten and make some kind of sense out of them for the last two or three years. There never was enough time.

  “What brought on this burst of activity?” He walked over and lowered himself onto the chair behind his desk.

  “Didn’t you ever get tired of not being able to find things?”

  “One time that I remember,” he said.

  “Right.” She looked around. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”

  “Wrong with me? Let’s see?” He swiveled slowly toward her. “I’m a busy man?” Then he realized he was still holding on to his side. “A little soreness in the ribs,” he said, but each breath brought a new stab of pain. “It’s nothing.”

  “You know what I heard on the moccasin telegraph?” The girl flounced over and sank into a side chair. “You went to a bar last night and got into a fight. I mean, look at you. You’re hurting and you got a Band-Aid above your eye. I mean, geez, Father, what am I supposed to tell people when they wanna know what happened?”

  Father John started to lean forward, but he had to wait for the sharp pain to pass. Whatever he said would be on the telegraph about five minutes after Lucy left. She would be on the cell phone as she drove out of the mission. “Tell them I went to the bar because I was looking for somebody.” They were there together, he and Vicky, and that would be on the moccasin telegraph, too. “A couple of goons jumped me in the parking lot,” he said.

  Which wasn’t going to satisfy the girl’s curiosity. He could see it in the unblinking way she stared at him.

  “Look,” he said. “Vicky Holden and I are both trying to find out what happened to Kiki Wallowingbull. You can put that out on the telegraph. Anybody who has any information can call me here at the mission.”

  Lucy jumped to her feet. “I’m not just some gossip with nothing better to do, you know. You think my friends care about some druggie that got himself killed?”

  “That’s the point, Lucy.” Father John inched forward and braced his arms on the desk, which seemed to provide a little support for his ribs. “It’s possible that Kiki wasn’t involved in drugs and something else led to his murder. I’m trying to find out what it could’ve been before the fed files it away with a lot of other unsolved drug deaths. And I don’t think you’re a gossip. I think you are a very bright girl with enough initiative to take on the world’s worst filing cabinet. You should think about going back to school.”

  Lucy threw her head back, let out a puff of air, and examined the ceiling a moment. “That’s why my mother got you to hire me, isn’t it?” she said, leveling her gaze at him. “She figured you’d convince me to go back to school.” She walked around to the front of the desk and rapped her knuckles on the edge. “What did school ever do for you?”

  Father John waved toward the office. “Gave me all this,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes and started for the door. “I loved history,” he went on. “I loved learning about the past, how people lived, what they did. It was interesting to see the way the past influenced the present, made it the way it is. I think that’s the best part of school—the chance to understand something you love, make it a part of you.”

  She was holding on to the door frame, looking back. “My mother told you to say that, didn’t she?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “Not in those words. Any messages this afternoon? Did JoEllen Redman call?”

  “Check the folder.” She swept a hand toward the new metal rack on his desk. “Who is she, anyway? I heard you’re looking for her.”

  “Somebody I’d like to talk to about Kiki,” he said.

  She shrugged at that, then she was gone, the sound of blue jeans swishing together and boots clapping down the corridor.

  He pulled over the rack, selected the folder with Today’s Messages printed on the tab and started going through the small pile of message sheets. Nothing from JoEllen Redman. He spent the next two hours returning calls, making appointments for baptisms and counseling, lining up a substitute religious education teacher for Helen Loneman, who had gone to Denver to care for an elderly relative. At some point, Lucy had hurried past the door, wrapped in a jacket and scarf, and hollered, “See you tomorrow.”

  Beyond the window, the sky had deepened into blue black, and the streetlamps around the mission had switched on. The familiar hush of early evening began to settle in. Early evening and early morning—his favorite times of the day, when the stillness was complete and he could get some work done. He used to go looking for the stillness in Rome, but even in the early morning, there was always noise and bustle out on the streets, and the evenings were filled with the sounds of belching motorcycles and the clamor of horns. He would work until the AA meeting at seven, he decided; Elena would put his dinner in the oven.

  An hour and a half later, he glanced at his watch—6:45. He liked to get to Eagle Hall a few minutes early to help set up the chairs, although he doubted how much help he would be tonight. He assembled the messages into the folder along with notes he’d made, and set the folder back in the metal rack. A place for everything, he supposed, and his teenaged secretary would expect everything in its place. It still hurt to breathe, but not as much. As soon as he stood up and started across the office for his jacket, the pain came roaring back. He could see Vicky behind the steering wheel—the dashboard light bathing her face—shouting Get in! Get in! The belt of pain tightening around his ribs as he’d thrown himself onto the seat, and not really feeling the pain, he realized. Thinking she was safe.

  He flipped the light switch, went into the corridor, and turned off those lights. Darkness fell into the stillness of the building. He let himself outside, locked the door, and headed down the steps, which seemed even slicker than e
arlier.

  He had reached the alley between the administration building and the church when he heard the engines gearing down, the vehicles plowing through the snow. AA members arriving a little early, he thought. They could help him set up the chairs.

  He was about to start down the alley toward Eagle Hall when he saw the two trucks racing across the grounds, clouds of snow swirling about, darting in and out of the circles of light around Circle Drive. He could make out three men in each truck, bulky shoulders squeezed together. The passenger window in the lead truck dropped, and an Indian leaned out, yelling and hammering a fist against the door. The engines growled as the trucks skidded to a stop next to his pickup. The men jumped out. Bellows took his place in the center, the others shadowing him. One of the shadows carried a metal baseball bat that glinted under the streetlamp.

  “You should be satisfied, Bellows,” Father John shouted. They were about thirty feet away, but closing the distance, heavy looking boots digging in the snow. “You gave me a couple of bad ribs. That ought to be enough for you.”

  “How about a broken head?” the Indian with the bat yelled.

  “What do you want?” Father John kept his gaze on Bellows, making a point to ignore the others. Bellows was the man he had to deal with. He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head: Look for the leader of the pack. Take out the leader and the rest will turn tail and run. But he had been twelve years old, and his father had been giving him tips about bullies on Commonwealth Avenue, not a hardened druggie like Bellows. They were no more than six feet away now, squinting at him, readying themselves for some choreographed maneuver. It was almost comical. He swallowed back the guffaw rising in his throat. He could see the sweat on their foreheads. Odors of whiskey and something else that he couldn’t identify drifted toward him.