The Thunder Keeper

by Margaret Coel

  Hartley let the pen drop onto the notebook. “Sorry, Father. I can’t print a story based on your anonymous source. I need names, telephone numbers so I can confirm—”

  “You rely on anonymous sources all the time, Hartley.” Father John reached across the desk and lifted a folded newspaper. “How many anonymous sources did you use in this issue?” He tossed the newspaper aside. “Check out the warrant in Colorado. Check out the Denver Indian Center where Grover and Eddie hung out. You’re a reporter,” he said. “Go after the real story.” He was thinking that a reporter asking questions might convince Slinger to reopen the investigation.

  “I don’t know.” The reporter rubbed his pudgy hands together.

  “Here’s your lead. ‘Father John O’Malley, pastor of St. Francis Mission, has asked Detective Slinger to reopen the investigation into the death of Duncan Grover. O’Malley claims that someone by the name of Eddie followed Grover to the reservation from Denver. The man may have information on Grover’s murder.’ ”

  “What’s this really about, Father?” The reporter pushed back in his chair. “What do you care whether some Indian from Oklahoma committed suicide or got himself murdered?”

  “I told you. There could be a killer in the area,” he said. “In Lander. On the res.”

  “I get it.” The reporter shifted his weight forward, picked up the pen, and began tapping the notebook again. “The Gazette prints this”—he hesitated—“news article, and the murderer, if the murderer is in the area, starts worrying about how much you know. He might have to pay you a little visit. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re trying to draw Eddie out.”

  “You know a better way to stop him?”

  “Stop him?”

  “He killed once. What’s to prevent him from killing again?”

  “And you could be the next victim.” Todd Hartley tossed the pen across the desk and got to his feet. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Father.”

  Father John stood up, facing the man. “You’ll run the story?”

  “I don’t know if my editor’s gonna go for it, Father. It’s pretty transparent. But I’ve had a bad feeling about that suicide. Never heard of an Indian killing himself on a vision quest. Something not right about that.” He was shaking his head. “I’m trusting that you’re giving me a straight story, Father.”

  “Thanks.” Father John shook the other man’s hand.

  “You might not be thanking me if the killer comes looking for you.”

  He gave the reporter the most nonchalant wave he could manage and, setting his cowboy hat on his head, made his way back across the newsroom and through the vacant lobby, where a metal curtain had dropped over the counter. He had to turn the key in the door to let himself out.

  He drove out of town on 789, veering onto Rendezvous Road, plunging through the late-afternoon shadows that crept over the southern part of the reservation. Every mile or so a house appeared in the open spaces, as if it had erupted from the earth. Todd Hartley was right, he thought. Drawing a killer to himself—to St. Francis Mission—could be dangerous. The article would probably appear in tomorrow’s paper, and he was going to have to watch his back.

  He turned east on Seventeen Mile Road and, after about a mile, slowed for a right into the mission grounds. He felt a calm certitude settling over him. One way or another, he and Eddie would cross paths. Let it be before anyone else dies, he prayed.

  18

  “Adam Elkman’s on the line.”

  Vicky glanced up from the black print on the computer screen, struggling to switch her train of thought from the Navajo Nation brief she was working on. Laola stood in the doorway, an expectant look in the almond-shaped eyes. “You want me to put the call through?”

  “Go ahead,” Vicky told her, surprised that she’d finally connected with the natural resources director on the reservation. Laola had been trying to reach him since yesterday.

  While Vicky waited for her line to ring, she tapped several keys and sent the Navajo Nation brief to the other lawyers on the appeals team. Yesterday Jacob Hazen had called to say that the Navajos wanted to go ahead. The relief and satisfaction in the man’s voice had matched her own. Once she had the other lawyers’ comments, she’d make the last-minute changes. She intended to deliver her brief to the Tenth Circuit Court tomorrow.

  There was a low buzzing sound, and she picked up the receiver. “Adam? How are things on the res?” It was never polite to get right down to business.

  “Surprised to get a message from your office yesterday, Vicky.” The man had the low-pitched voice of a TV announcer. “We figured you went off to the big city and forgot all about us.”

  Vicky swiveled toward the window. Clouds were piling around the tops of nearby skyscrapers. Somewhere a plane was droning. She’d spent four years in Lander waiting for her own people to trust her enough to give her important cases, but the important cases had gone to firms in Casper and Cheyenne. She felt that her people had forgotten her.

  The director went on. Lots of rain lately. Roads soggy. Cattle sinking in the mud. She told him about the rainy weather in Denver. Finally she asked if he’d ever heard of diamonds on the reservation.

  A guffaw burst through the line. “You gotta be kidding! The Creator put all the diamond deposits down on the Wyoming–Colorado border.”

  Vicky was quiet a moment, collecting her thoughts. “Is it possible prospectors have been looking for diamonds without the tribe’s knowledge?”

  There was a long, considered pause. Then: “The res is a big place, Vicky. Lots of remote areas where nobody’s around.”

  She felt a prick of excitement. “So it’s possible. Someone could have found a diamond deposit.”

  “Anything’s possible, but you ask me, no prospectors are going to waste time and money looking for diamonds where they’ve never been found.”

  Vicky pushed on: “Has any one from Baider Industries contacted you?”

  “The diamond mining company?” A note of impatience sounded in the man’s voice. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

  She told him how Vince Lewis, the man in charge of locating new diamond deposits for the company, had contacted her. On the way to meet her he’d been killed. Murdered, she said.

  “Never heard of him.” Papers crackled at the other end. “Listen, Vicky,” the director went on, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to pursue this. Word gets out that somebody thinks there’s diamonds here, it’ll be like the gold rush. Hordes of people tramping around the res with shovels and Geiger counters. There aren’t any deposits in this part of the state. Talk to Charlie Ferguson in Laramie. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

  “Who?”

  “Geology professor at the university. Knows every rock and mineral in the West. Any possibility of diamonds in the geological formations on the res, Ferguson would know about it. Hold on.” The line went dead for a couple seconds. Then the director’s voice again: “Here’s his number.”

  Vicky scribbled down the number, thanked the director, and hung up. She stared at the phone. Either Adam Elkman didn’t know about any deposits, or he was lying, maybe taking a kickback himself from Baider Industries to keep a deposit secret. She didn’t think so. Elkman had been the natural resources director for three years; the people trusted him. And he’d sounded genuinely surprised when she’d mentioned diamonds.

  And yet. . . There were miles of open plains on the reservation where men and trucks could dissolve like flecks of dust in the atmosphere. A small crew could prospect for diamonds without anyone knowing, except the owner of Baider Industries. And Vince Lewis, who died before he could blow the whistle.

  If there were diamonds on the reservation. She was chasing a phantom. She had no proof of the existence of diamond deposits within two hundred miles of the reservation.

  She picked up the phone again and dialed the number Elkman had given her. After a woman answered—“Geology department”—she was connected to an answering machine. “This is Professor F
erguson. Please leave a message.” She told him who she was, asked if she could see him tomorrow, and left her number.

  From the corridor came the sounds of a printer whirring, the subdued voices of people passing by. A phone rang in a nearby office. The intense busyness of Howard and Fergus.

  She stared at her own phone, wondering again what Vince Lewis’s wife might know about his work. Vicky could still see the auburn-haired woman weaving down the brightly lit corridor toward her dying husband. A little chill ran through her. If Jana Lewis had any idea of why her husband had been killed, her life could also be in danger.

  Vicky pressed the intercom button and asked Laola to get the address for Vince Lewis’s wife.

  Within a couple minutes Laola was in her office again, flapping some sheets of paper. “Phone book lists V and J Lewis on Vine Street.” She laid one sheet on the desk. “And the answering service took a message yesterday from Father John.” The second sheet dropped on the first. “He’s looking for a Pueblo Indian named Eddie. Hangs around the Indian Center. Thinks the Indian might know something about the suicide at Bear Lake.”

  Vicky took the second sheet and scanned the message. Please call me. She hadn’t talked to John O’Malley since she’d moved back to Denver. There had been no legitimate reason, no excuse, to call him. Now the suicide at Bear Lake. And John O’Malley, looking for the truth about what had happened there. He understood. No warrior would kill himself in a sacred place, on a vision quest. She felt a stab of guilt that she wasn’t there to help.

  “You heard about the lawsuit?” Laola said.

  “What lawsuit?” Vicky picked up the phone and started tapping out the number at St. Francis Mission.

  Laola leaned over the desk. “Moccasin telegraph,” she began in a confidential tone, “says some woman’s filed a one-and-a-half-million-dollar sexual misconduct suit against the priest at St. Francis.”

  Vicky dropped the receiver into the cradle. Assistant priests came and went, but for almost eight years, John O’Malley had been the priest at St. Francis. She could imagine some woman falling in love with him. She could imagine that. But he was a priest; he kept his vows. She knew him—she had thought she knew him. Was it possible she’d been wrong? That she didn’t know him at all? How could that be? A kind of numbness was spreading through her.

  She realized dimly that Laola was staring at her, watching for her reaction. She needed some time to reconcile her own sense of John O’Malley with this new image. “See if you can get Mrs. Lewis for me,” Vicky said, making an effort to keep her voice steady. No matter what may have happened, he was trying to find the truth about Duncan Grover’s death. She decided to drop by the Indian Center after work and see if anyone knew a Pueblo Indian named Eddie.

  The secretary turned and walked out of the office. In half a minute the phone buzzed, and Vicky lifted the receiver. There was a click, followed by the electronic hum of another answering machine and a woman’s voice: “We aren’t here, but please leave a message. We really want to talk to you. Have a great day.”

  Vicky hung up. She wondered how Jana Lewis spent her days. Banging on Steve Clark’s door demanding that he solve her husband’s murder? Huddling with a lawyer about her husband’s estate?

  She would drop by the house on Vine Street later, before she went to the Indian Center. If Jana Lewis was in, she would ask to speak with her a moment. It was always better to catch a witness off guard.

  As soon as she made the decision, she felt better, calmer. What did it matter if John O’Malley had dropped his guard and gotten involved with some woman? He was human. People made mistakes. She had made her share. What difference would it make to her if he’d made a mistake? She had her own work, her own life. She intended to find out what Vince Lewis’s wife knew. And she had something for Jana Lewis: a warning that the woman could be in danger.

  19

  Vicky pointed the Bronco through the traffic spilling out of downtown Denver and turned left onto Speer Boulevard. The sun blinked in the rearview mirror, but black rain clouds were gathering over the mountains. Traffic was heavy, four lanes across, winding southeast along the banks of Cherry Creek. Ten minutes later the grounds of the Denver Country Club came into view outside her passenger window, the sprawling, gray-frame building a mute symbol of another century, built by the people who had displaced her own.

  Another left turn down a wide street. Rows of mansions passing outside. She parked in front of a redbrick Tudor separated from the street by a sweep of glistening wet lawn and bushes that dipped under cascades of yellow and pink buds. Fallen buds crunched under her heels as she walked up the sidewalk. She clapped the brass door knocker.

  There was no sound coming from the house, yet she had the sense that someone was there. She rapped again, giving the knocker a hard kick this time. Still no answer. She glanced at her watch—five twenty-six—and debated whether to wait or drive over to the Indian Center, see if anyone there had ever heard of Eddie, then drive back. The thought of driving across the city all evening filled her with dread. She knocked again.

  The door inched open. The auburn-haired woman from the emergency room peered through the crack. Slim, red-tipped fingers wrapped around the door’s edge. On the third finger was a wide gold band with a diamond the size of a marble floating in the center. “What is it?”

  Vicky told the woman her name and said she’d like to talk to her a moment.

  The crack widened, and the woman leaned unsteadily forward, still gripping the door. Her face was pale—no makeup, a puffiness around the eyes, which had the surreal color of green glass. She was in a blue terrycloth robe that bunched around her waist. Her dark, shoulder-length hair looked tangled and uncombed, as if she’d just lifted her head from a pillow. “I saw you at the hospital,” she said in a resigned monotone.

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “One of Vince’s whores.”

  “What?”

  “How dare you come here? You have no right—” The door started to close.

  “I’m an attorney, Mrs. Lewis.” Vicky placed a hand against the door. “Your husband called me the morning of his death. I was on my way to meet him for the first time when he was killed. I’d like to talk to you.”

  Jana Lewis blinked. A new wariness came into the green eyes. For the first time Vicky caught the syrupy odor of some kind of liqueur. The woman was slightly drunk. Finally the door swung open into a spacious entryway with shadows falling over the white and black floor tiles and running up the wide staircase. The woman tottered through an archway on the right, each step deliberate and focused. There was the sound of a clock chiming somewhere.

  Vicky hesitated, then stepped inside and followed the woman into a large drawing room with gray sofas and chairs against the paneled walls and a marble fireplace across from the entry. Oil paintings in carved wooden frames hung in perfect symmetry around the walls. The brass lamp on a side table threw a dim circle of light over an Oriental carpet.

  Jana Lewis positioned herself in front of the fireplace, one hand braced against the mantel for support. The other held a crystal goblet half-full of golden-brown liquid that shimmered in the light.

  “I get it now,” she said, comprehension moving behind her eyes. “You’re the divorce lawyer.” She spit out the words, and tiny flecks of moisture dotted the goblet. “Well, here I am, the wife you were going to dig up a lot of dirt on so that bastard could get my money.” She raised the goblet and took a long drink. “I’m almost sorry we’ll miss our little day in court. Ah, the justice to see Vince get what was coming to him, which was nothing. I would have taken him for everything he had. I would have ruined him. The company lawyers were on my side, you know. The damned best in the state.” A half smile of satisfaction came into the green eyes.

  Vicky said, “I’m not here about your divorce. Your husband arranged the meeting to discuss another matter.”

  The woman raised her eyes over the rim of the goblet. “Another matter? What could it possibly have
to do with me?” She bent over a small table, lifted a rounded bottle, and shakily refilled the goblet, then dropped into a chair. “I’m sure you don’t want a drink. You being Indian.”

  Vicky felt the sting, like a pellet spit into her face by a passing semi. What did the woman think? That every Indian was either a falling-down drunk or in recovery? She swallowed back the impulse to set her straight. “Your husband—”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “I assumed you were married.”

  “Legally. I haven’t thought of the bastard, when I thought of him at all, as my husband for a very long time. We hadn’t spoken in months.”

  “This must be hard on you,” Vicky heard herself saying. She was beginning to regret having come here. If the woman hadn’t spoken to her husband in months, it was unlikely she knew what he’d been working on.

  “Not really.” Jana Lewis’s voice lifted with a false bravado. “I’ve made a life without him. All I needed was the legal paper setting me free. Naturally I thought it would be a divorce decree, not a death certificate. But either way . . .” She raised the goblet in a mock toast and took another drink.

  “Forgive me,” Vicky said. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “Then why did you? Why did you come here? What do you want of me?” Jana Lewis set the goblet on the table. The brown liquid sloshed over her hand.

  Vicky walked over and perched on a chair. “I was hoping you could tell me what your husband”—she hesitated—“what Vince wanted to talk to me about the day he died. Did he ever mention a diamond deposit on the Wind River Reservation?”

  A flicker—no more—came into the other woman’s eyes, and then it was gone. “Diamonds on an Indian reservation?” She let out a sharp laugh and leaned toward the table to refill the goblet. “Vince would go to the moon if he thought there were diamonds there,” she said, “but I can assure you he never went to a reservation.”