Buffalo Bill's Dead Now (A Wind River Mystery)

by Margaret Coel

  The screened door banged shut and Wilma leaned so far forward that Father John put out his hand, afraid she might tumble from the chair. He had set his cowboy hat on his knee, and he had to grip the brim with his other hand to keep it from blowing away. “After Robert walked over, those white guys took off. But I seen them talking to other people.” She was whispering, the words barely audible in the wind. Father John scooted his chair forward.

  “Anybody you know?” he said.

  Wilma sat very still, holding her breath. “Sometimes the younger generation all look the same. If you don’t keep up with them, know what I mean?”

  He knew, he told her.

  “They was just wandering around, stopping people. Oh, I kept my eye on ’em, ’cause I didn’t want them heading out to the trailer. I swear, if they’d gone in that direction…” She let the thought trail off, but he got the idea. The old woman would have gone after them and challenged them with a rock or stick or whatever she could pick up. She would have screamed her head off.

  “I think they talked to that young Merryman,” she said. “Never liked him even when he was a kid. Used to come around here and get Robert to go riding with him. Them two kids rode their ponies all over the rez, up in the mountains, out on the plains. They’d be gone all day. Then he sort of disappeared. You ask me, he should’ve stayed disappeared. Instead, he shows up some years ago and tried to get Robert in a lot of trouble. Robert told him to get lost. Heard Merryman went to prison.

  “No sense in reliving old history.” Robert’s voice boomed from inside the house. Father John wondered whether the young man had overheard his grandmother or was just issuing a peremptory remark.

  Wilma leaned back in her chair and shook her head. She was breathing hard now, her chest moving up and down with agitation. There wouldn’t be anything else, Father John thought, but he had something: Cam Merryman had spoken to the two white men at the powwow two weeks ago.

  Robert slammed out the door and dropped onto the webbed chair, a blue plastic glass in one hand. Ice cubes tinkled as he sipped at the tea. Wilma didn’t take her eyes off him. After a moment, he wiped the back of his hand across his lips and said, “This about the artifacts, right?”

  16

  FATHER JOHN WAITED. Finally Robert said, “Fed’s already come around asking a lot of questions.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Wilma seemed to choke on the words. For a minute, the tension between the woman and her grandson snapped like electricity.

  “What difference does it make? I get myself the first decent job ever, and they won’t leave me alone. Come around first time anything goes wrong. I’ll be real lucky if the airport don’t fire me.”

  “Airport?” Father John said.

  “Baggage handler.” The young mad nodded. “Loading and unloading baggage and cargo.”

  “Were you working Monday when the artifacts arrived?”

  “You might say I was the last one to handle the cartons. That’s why the fed come to see me and the other handler on duty. We off-loaded the cartons. Hell, we didn’t know at first what was inside. Just three cartons to us.”

  “How did you figure out they contained the artifacts?”

  “They were shipped from Germany. Wasn’t no secret the artifacts were arriving. You had to be dead not to hear the news.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “You sound like the fed,” Robert said.

  “He wants the artifacts back,” Wilma said, a touch of scolding in her tone.

  “Me and another guy off-loaded them and set them on the tarmac. A truck was supposed to come pick them up. Pretty soon the boss paged me and told me, soon’s the truck arrived, to help load the cartons, then ride over to the warehouse and help unload them.” Robert’s voice was flat, like an atonal aria, Father John thought. He could have been talking about cartons that contained nothing but air. “Delivery truck was gonna pick ’em up in the morning.” He went on. “We stacked them inside the warehouse with other cartons and baggage waiting for pickup. Some of ’em probably waiting for a plane the next day to Billings or someplace. That’s all I know.”

  “Were the cartons lightweight?”

  Robert took another drink of tea, scrunched up his forehead and studied the rim of the blue glass a moment. “Heavy enough,” he said. “Not like empty cartons.”

  “How long were they on the tarmac?”

  Robert shook his head. “What, you and the fed go to the same school? Nobody bothered them on the tarmac. You can see the area from the airport. Anybody try to open the cartons and take out the artifacts would’ve been spotted by—oh, I’d say a dozen people.” He held up a hand. “Next questions? I already know ’em. Yes, there’s an old guy that’s worked at the warehouse forever. Alan Newsome’s his name. Leaves at six o’clock. Last of the planes has come in for the day by then. It’s not DIA, you know. Only get a few planes a day.”

  “I assume Newsome locks up?”

  Robert nodded. “There’s a keypad on the door and an alarm inside. I know ’cause it went off once while I was working night shift. You should’ve seen the guys scurrying around trying to shut it off. Anyway, there’s security comes around all night. You ask me, nobody grabbed that stuff out of the warehouse. They got it somewhere else.”

  “You told Gianelli this?” Father John hoped that was the case, but it if weren’t, he was going to have to convince Robert to do so.

  “Yeah. Told him about the white guys I seen bothering Grandmother, too. Soon’s I went over, they took off. He wanted to know if I could identify them. What’s he think? I’m blind?” He shrugged. “All the time I’m talking, the fed kept watching me. Had that look on his face like, You got something to do with this? I was one of the last guys that handled those cartons before they got delivered to the mission. So that puts me right up there on the fed’s bad list.”

  “What about the other handler?”

  “He ain’t Indian.” Robert drained the tea in his glass, puffed his cheeks and blew out a stream of sugary smelling breath. “Fed comes around again, I’m outta here.”

  “No, Robert.” Wilma turned sideways and clamped a hand over her grandson’s arm. “You’ll look guilty, and you didn’t do anything.”

  “Your grandmother’s right,” Father John said. “Look, if you think the fed is harassing you—” He paused. Gianelli had always played fair, he thought. But the fed was determined. “Call Vicky Holden. She’ll help you.” He got to his feet and set a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Stop by the mission anytime you want to talk.”

  Father John waited, but Robert didn’t say anything. Finally he thanked Wilma and started around the house toward the front. Behind him, he heard the old woman huffing out of her chair. Footsteps hurried after him. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. “I understand why you’re worried,” he said.

  “This isn’t just about the stolen artifacts.” She was out of breath, her chest blowing like a bellows. Little beads of perspiration popped on her forehead. “Those white guys killed that rich white rancher, ain’t that right?”

  “It’s possible,” he said.

  “So if the fed thinks Robert had something to do with stealing the artifacts, he’s gonna think Robert’s up to his neck in murder.” She turned halfway around toward the backyard, and Father John followed her gaze, half expecting to see Robert coming toward them. There was nothing but the breeze scudding over their footprints.

  Wilma gave a little shudder. “I could go talk to the fed, tell him what happened at the powwow.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Father John said. “Another thing, Wilma. There’s a vault in the basement of the museum, if you’d like to store your grandmother’s dress for safekeeping.”

  The old woman gave him a quick nod. He watched as she pulled herself around and headed for the backyard. The sounds of Puccini spilled around him. He got inside the pickup, started the ignition and backed into a U-turn. The wind blew some of the heat through the opened
windows. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wilma hurrying back, yellow dress blowing against thick legs that worked like pistons. He stepped on the brake.

  “There was somebody else,” she said as she came up to his window. “I saw those white guys talking to that new guy on the rez. You know, the Arapaho that works at the museum. Eldon…”

  “Eldon White Elk?” he said.

  “That’s the one.”

  THE TWO WHITE men could be anywhere, Father John was thinking as he guided the pickup between the ruts in the dirt road. Hiding out in an abandoned barn or falling-down house or motel, lost in the great open spaces, biding their time until… what? They could steal another artifact? Anything was possible, he guessed, but it wasn’t logical. Why would two men who stuck out like patches of snow on the summer prairie hang around and risk being arrested, if they had possession of the artifacts? He grasped at the shadowy thought forming at the edge of his mind. They didn’t have the artifacts. They were still looking for them. That would explain why they had gone to Pratt’s ranch. They thought he knew where the artifacts were. But why would they have thought that, unless Pratt was also involved?

  A truck ground past on Seventeen-Mile Road ahead, and his hands burned against the steering wheel. He put the visor down to block out the red ball of fire moving across the sky. He had never gotten the feeling that Trevor Pratt wasn’t the man he claimed to be. A collector and dealer in Indian artifacts who believed that Arapaho artifacts from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West belonged with the Arapahos. But he had been wrong about people. The smiling, congenial, glad-handing and back-slapping people—easy to spot as phonies. Trying too hard, covering up something. It was the others, the Trevor Pratts, who had stumped him, he realized. The honest, well-intentioned. Whole. Later he had discovered the brokenness and realized their camouflage was even better, more practiced and smoother, than that of the glad-handers. They were better actors.

  He slammed on the brake at the stop sign. Seventeen-Mile Road was clear, but he didn’t move. His thoughts kept twisting around the fact that Trevor Pratt might not have been what he seemed. Finally he turned right and drove toward the large blue sign, like a billboard, that said St. Francis Mission. He saw the red and blue lights flashing through the cottonwoods the minute he turned into the mission grounds. In front of the museum ahead, beyond the field of wild grasses, were two sedans—Wind River police cars, lights gyrating on the roofs. He pressed down on the gas pedal and sped around Circle Drive. He pulled in next to the police cars. The pickup was still rolling forward as he jumped out and ran for the museum. He took the concrete steps two at a time. The big wooden door swung open just as he grabbed the handle. He could hear a sobbing noise from somewhere deep inside.

  “Here you are.” Bishop Harry held the door as Father John walked into the entry. “I’ve been calling your mobile,” he said. Father John remembered turning off the phone before he went to see Cam Merryman. A phone jangling into a conversation was always impolite.

  “What’s going on?” The sobbing came in loud, jagged bursts.

  “Museum’s been broken into,” Bishop Harry said. “Office ransacked. Blood on the floor. There was some kind of altercation.”

  “Where’s Eldon?”

  “The director seems to be missing,” Bishop Harry said.

  17

  “BE RIGHT WITH you.” The white-skinned, blond woman waved from the back of the store as Vicky let herself inside. The bell attached to the front door was still jingling.

  Vicky glanced around the shop. Every available space crammed with Victorian furniture and artifacts: velvet loveseats, gilded armchairs, Oriental rugs, brass lamps with fringed shades, china sets painted in intricate pink and rose designs, porcelain dolls in elaborate silk dresses. Despite the slight breeze blowing through the opened door in back, the shop had the stuffy feeling of small, closed-in spaces. There was an undercurrent of muted sounds: people streaming past the plate glass windows, footsteps clacking on the wooden sidewalks and voices trailing away; traffic humming on Dubois’ main street.

  The woman in back was occupied with two men who wrestled a credenza across the floor. Through the rear door, Vicky could see a truck with “Reliable Movers” emblazoned on the side. The woman looked older, thinner, and more drawn than the Julie Hyde in the photo on the internet. But there were still similarities. The light, curly-thick hair, the long face and deep, shadowed eyes.

  The woman waited until the men had finished loading the credenza, then she shut the door and rounded the counter of Victorian jewelry. She wore a flowery white blouse and a long blue skirt that swirled about her ankles. Strands of white pearls flowed over her chest toward the white belt, encrusted with glass baubles. “Vicky Holden?” she said. “I’m Julia.”

  Vicky nodded. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “No problem.” The woman tilted her head toward the plate glass windows. “If one of those tourists gets a yen for Victoriana and drops in, I’ll have to stop…”

  Vicky put up a hand and said she understood.

  “Just me here. That’s always what it comes down to in the end, isn’t it? Should have learned a long time ago. Rely on yourself, Julia, ’cause you’re all you’ve got.” She waved a hand in the air. “Whatever.” She swung around and began clearing the seats of two red velvet chairs. A doll in a flowing dress was squeezed between two other dolls on top of a chiffonier; a pile of gilded-edged books was set on the floor. “This is about Trevor, I assume. We’d better sit down,” she said, claiming one of the chairs.

  Vicky took the other. The seat was stiff and scratchy with horsehair threatening to break through the velvet surface. “I’m sorry about Trevor,” she said.

  “So am I.” Julia kept her face as expressionless as the surface of a rock, a habit, Vicky knew, that required years of training. She had seen that lack of expression on the faces of her own people, honed by more than a century of having to accept what could not be changed. “How did you hear about me? Oh, the internet,” Julia said. “I keep forgetting about that monstrous intrusion into our lives. How can I help you?” She crossed her legs and in the space between them began dangling a white satin slipper with a thick, curved heel, the kind of slipper white women must have worn in the 1890s, Vicky thought.

  “I represented Trevor—”

  “So you said on the phone.”

  “I’ve had the feeling he might have known who took the artifacts. I was hoping…”

  “Authentic Arapaho regalia worn at performances of the Wild West with the famous Buffalo Bill himself! Oh, I read all about the artifacts coming to the museum at St. Francis Mission. I knew immediately that Trevor had to be the donor. I must say, it was very surprising.”

  “That he intended to donate the artifacts to the museum?”

  “No, no, no.” The satin foot did a little jingle. “Just like him to donate the artifacts. Trevor was on the road to redemption, or so he thought. What surprised me was the amount of publicity. I couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing some local yokel going on about the valuable artifacts found in a basement in Berlin, hidden for a hundred and twenty years, and how a local benefactor had purchased them for the museum. On and on and on. Same with the Gazette. Every week recapitulating the story. Artifacts coming. Artifacts coming. The thieves had ample time to make plans.” Julia uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “All a smart crook had to do was keep an eye out or pay somebody at the airport to make a phone call when the cartons arrived.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

  “I don’t think Trevor was happy about the publicity.”

  Julia gave a sharp explosion of laughter. “No kidding,” she said, sitting back and crossing her arms over the frilly white blouse. “He was very private. Worked quietly on deals, never breathed a word until artifacts were delivered. Last time I saw him was a few days before the publicity started. He didn’t say anything about the artifacts, but I knew him we
ll enough to tell something was up. You had to get inside Trevor by reading between the lines. I became an expert.”

  “You were partners for four years.”

  “He was my husband.” She shrugged and fixed her gaze on some point in the middle of the store. “Four years of misdirection in my life. My love and expertise, if I have to say so, is Victoriana. I ran a perfectly lovely little shop in a regentrified neighborhood in Kansas City. Hardly getting rich, but making a few bucks off the young professionals buying up old Victorian houses nearby. One day the doorbell jangled and I looked up from my desk and saw Trevor Pratt. It was like the earth shifted beneath my feet. Sounds stupid, but that’s the way it was. I took one look and knew that was my future. Turned out to be a short future. He said he was in the neighborhood, and he could never pass an antique shop. Especially one specializing in the Victorian period. He bought and sold Indian artifacts, he said, and often shops such as mine carried some. After all, artifacts came from the same period, 1830s to the turn of the century. Did I have any? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I had a collection of arrowheads in a framed case. Some farmer out on the Blue River had been picking them out of his field for fifty years. A lot of Indian battles on the Blue River, Trevor told me. I had a stone hatchet decorated with leather thongs and beaded ribbons that I’d gotten in an estate sale. He loved it. I could tell by the bland expression plastered on his face, as if he had seen thousands of hatchets and this wasn’t special. People do that with the things they like the most. They want you to think they’re gonna walk away if you don’t meet their price. But I knew he couldn’t walk away. He bought the arrowheads and the hatchet. You probably don’t want to hear all this.”

  “Please go on,” Vicky said.