The Story Teller

by Margaret Coel

  Still the drug angle, Vicky was thinking. She doubted Mary Ellen Pearson’s comments would change Steve’s mind. Once he got hold of a notion, he was like a bloodhound pointed in one direction. There would be no turning aside, not without some kind of irrefutable proof that he was on the wrong trail. She said, “I was hoping to find Todd’s adviser.”

  Mary Ellen Pearson scooted the chair into the well of the desk and rummaged through a stack of folders. She pulled out a small booklet and, touching her index finger to her tongue, pushed through the pages. “Aha. Here it is, Professor Emil Coughlin.”

  It took a moment for Vicky to place the name: Emil Coughlin, the consultant the Denver Museum of the West had hired to verify the Plains Indian objects. What was it Rachel Foster had said? The museum always hired experts. It made sense, Vicky thought. Todd would have wanted an expert to advise him on his master’s thesis.

  “Where can I reach Professor Coughlin?” Vicky asked, hoping her tone was respectful. The old woman was clearly as appalled by Todd’s murder as she was.

  Mary Ellen Pearson tilted her head. “Why, his office is down the hall.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” Vicky said, getting to her feet.

  “Oh, you won’t find Emil in his office,” the other woman said hurriedly. “He isn’t teaching this summer. I believe he leaves for Japan soon.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  The professor slowly lifted herself out of the chair and leaned across the desk, shuffling through another stack of papers, eventually extracting a thin, brown booklet. She flipped it open and, after a moment, read off a telephone number and an address Vicky knew was on Lookout Mountain.

  Dropping the booklet onto the disarray on the desk, Mary Ellen Pearson said, “I’ve only seen Emil Coughlin on campus once since summer session got under way. I don’t imagine he will be of any help.”

  She was probably right, Vicky was thinking. And Steve Clark could have already talked to him. In which case, the professor wouldn’t tell her anything he might know about Julie or any other students Todd had associated with. Still it was worth a chance. She debated about calling the professor, then discarded the idea. It would be easy to turn her away on the phone. But Emil Coughlin might find it hard to slam the door in her face if she showed up at his home on Lookout Mountain.

  13

  The Taurus balked on the climb up Lookout Mountain, and Vicky pressed hard on the accelerator coming out of the curves. Denver sprawled below, creeping eastward onto the plains in a blue haze of heat. Rock-strewn hillsides swept past her window, opening occasionally onto views of canyons that led deeper into the mountains—canyons her people had once traveled to hunt buffalo in the mountain meadows. On top of the mountain, she knew, was the grave of Buffalo Bill, a buffalo killer. A hero to whites because he’d helped to destroy the animals that had sustained her people.

  She slowed on a straightaway, squinting in the sunlight at the names on mailboxes at the edge of dirt driveways. She was almost past a driveway when she spotted COUGHLIN. Stomping on the brake pedal, she skidded toward the rim of the road and backed up, then slipped the gear into drive and crawled up the driveway. At the far end, in an expanse of wild grasses and aspen trees, stood a turreted, white stucco house, like a Moorish castle perched on the top of a ridge.

  Vicky parked in the graveled circle looping in front. As she got out, a slightly built man stepped through the black-lacquered front door. He was dressed in a yellow polo shirt and white slacks, as if he might have been on his way to the golf course.

  “Ah,” he said, extending his hand. “The Arapaho attorney from the Wind River Reservation. Good to meet you, my dear.”

  “Professor Coughlin.” Vicky was surprised he knew who she was. The man’s grip was strong, the forearms muscled and suntanned. He was probably in his fifties, she decided, with thinning, sand-colored hair combed over his scalp and light gray eyes.

  “Please call me Emil. May I call you Vicky?” He was smiling; tiny squint lines burrowed into the suntanned face. “I’m much too old to bother with meaningless formalities.”

  “You can’t be that old,” Vicky said, retrieving her hand.

  The man patted a strand of hair into place. “Perhaps not, my dear. Although one feels life is quickly passing by, and so much still to do.” He nodded toward the door. “May I offer you some refreshments on this stifling hot afternoon? We must refresh the weary travelers who appear at our tipi, must we not, my dear? That is the Indian way, I believe.”

  He ushered her into an entry swept with white walls and a black-tiled floor. Urns filled with fresh flowers occupied the pedestals at the base of a wide staircase that led to balconies and open spaces overhead. “I hope you won’t worry about being alone with a not-so-old man whose wife, I’m afraid, has taken herself off to the boutiques. We leave for Japan in a few days, and she tells me she has nothing to wear. She’ll be terribly sorry she missed your visit, I’m sure.”

  “Emil,” Vicky began. “I’ve come about—”

  “I know.” The professor tilted the flat of one hand. “My colleague Professor Pearson called. Poor woman! Obsessed with a mugging she saw the other night. Convinced the victim was Todd Harris, when most likely there’s no connection.” He gave his shoulders a quick shrug. “Muggings occur occasionally, I’m afraid. After all, the campus is part of a modern city.”

  Another shrug, and the professor led her past the staircase into a sitting room that stretched across the rear of the house. A pair of blue leather sofas faced each other across a marble-topped coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a patio that ran to the edge of the ridge. Beyond was the city, the glass skyscrapers of downtown winking in the sun.

  “A refreshing glass of iced tea for the lady?” Emil Coughlin said, bowing slightly before retreating through a doorway in the side wall. Vicky strolled to the opposite wall, drawn by the Indian artifacts arranged on the glass shelves: parfleches covered with pictographs in muted reds and blues; medicine bags and moccasins covered in beads in geometric symbols.

  “Do you like them?”

  The professor’s voice startled her. She swung around as he set down a tray with tall glasses of iced tea, lemon slices wedged onto the rims. “Please sit down,” he said, indicating one of the sofas.

  “The artifacts are very beautiful.” Vicky let herself down into the soft blue leather. Her hand trembled as she took the glass he handed her. It always gave her a start to come unexpectedly upon objects made by her people.

  “Not museum quality, I’m afraid.” The professor sat on the sofa across from her and took a long drink from his glass. “I always place the best pieces I find in museums where they can enrich everyone. These pieces”—a little nod toward the glass shelves—“are leftovers, I’m afraid. Hardly representative of the fine craftsmanship of the Plains Indians.”

  Leaning back into the cushions, his glass balanced on one white thigh, the professor went on: “Tell me, my dear, what is your interest in the murdered student?”

  Vicky took a sip of tea: herbal, flavored with raspberries. “I knew him from the day he was born. He and my son were childhood friends.”

  “My sincere condolences to you,” Emil Coughlin said. “And to his family. Please tell them what a fine young man I thought he was. I was shocked to read the article in this morning’s paper.”

  “The police think it was a drug murder,” Vicky said, watching for his reaction.

  The professor sighed. “Unfortunately ours is a drug culture, is it not? Nevertheless, as his adviser, I knew Todd fairly well. It would surprise me greatly if he had succumbed. Unless . . .” He frowned, furrows deepening in the tanned forehead, as if a new thought had occurred to him, one that required much effort. “Unless he chose drugs as a means of escape.”

  “Escape?”

  The professor stared at her a moment. “Most students figure out how hard they must work to graduate. That becomes the extent of their efforts. But Todd was intent and determin
ed. Worked much harder than necessary, I daresay, which placed him under a great deal of stress. Yes, I would say he was highly stressed. I had been somewhat concerned about him, I must admit.”

  Vicky took a long sip of the tea, thinking how neatly the professor’s theory meshed with Steve’s. “Did you know any of his friends on campus?” she asked.

  “Oh, my dear, I make it a firm policy not to involve myself in the private lives of students, or allow them to involve themselves in mine.” He crossed one leg over the other and swung a brown Docksider along the side of the coffee table. “I believe Todd had a roommate. Someone named Julie. Perhaps if you locate her, she could give you the information you want.”

  Vicky returned her glass to the tray. The ice made a little clinking noise. No one had mentioned a roommate. Not even the old woman at Todd’s apartment building.

  “A student?” Vicky asked.

  The professor swirled his glass of tea, contemplating it, as if were a snifter of brandy he was about to sip. “I’m afraid I can be no further help,” he said finally.

  Vicky glanced out the windows at the stalks of meadow grass along the edge of the patio, swayed back in the summer heat. If Julie lived in the apartment, where was she? And why had Todd been working harder than even his adviser thought necessary? What was he working on?

  Turning her eyes back to the man across from her, she said, “Tell me about the thesis Todd was writing.”

  Emil gave his glass another swirl, a nervous gesture, Vicky thought. “Most interesting topic,” he said. “Todd set out to identify the exact locations of Arapaho villages and battlefields in Colorado. He did exhaustive research.” Another sigh. “Visited every site he documented. About two weeks ago he made a swing through the southeastern part of the state. Quite a few sites there.”

  “Sand Creek is there,” Vicky said.

  The professor shook his head. “Ah, yes. The infamous Sand Creek. Todd was determined to document the fact that Arapahos were killed there. I had approved his outline and bibliography. I was looking forward with much anticipation to the finished thesis.” Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed—a quick, dry chortle. “It would have destroyed the career of my distinguished colleague, Bernard Good Elk.” He gave a little wave—a matter of no importance. “An arrogant man, Good Elk. He’s been proclaiming for months now that Sand Creek was a Cheyenne affair. Of course he’s wrong, but he’s so adamant, he might convince the government bureaucrats who are in charge of allotting land to the descendants of people who were attacked. In any case, I don’t know how much luck Todd had. I tried to call him after he got back. Spoke with his roommate. Todd was never in.” He shook his head. “Such a hard worker. I did worry about him.”

  Emil Coughlin drained the last of the tea and set the glass on the tray. Uncrossing his legs, he leaned forward, a look of conspiracy on his face. “I’m sure you did not come here, my dear, for the sole purpose of inquiring about an unfortunate student. I received a call from Rachel Foster yesterday. She informed me I would most likely hear from you. Evidently you believe the museum has managed to lose an Arapaho ledger book which, if it existed, I can assure you, would be worth a great deal of money.”

  Vicky held his gaze. “The book was not in the inventory.”

  “Of course not,” the professor said. Suddenly his voice had a harder edge. “The museum never owned such a treasure. Would that it had. It might have sold the ledger book to the Smithsonian or the Field and enjoyed a more secure financial base today.”

  “The museum exhibited the ledger book in 1920,” Vicky said.

  The professor shifted back into the cushions. “So you say. I’m sure Rachel Foster explained the museum has no records of the book. Your evidence, I believe, consists of a story told by a very old man.”

  Vicky tried to curb her annoyance. What he said was true; her evidence was weak. “Charlie Redman is the tribal storyteller. He remembers accurately and tells the truth.”

  “An old man can make mistakes.” The professor was shaking his head. “I spent the last two months verifying the tribal provenance for the Plains Indian artifacts in the museum. In almost all instances, the museum’s identifications were correct. We did find a few Arapaho artifacts mislabeled as Cheyenne, however, and vice versa—an explainable error, given the close alliance of the two tribes.”

  Vicky felt a prick of excitement. She moved forward. “Did you find a Cheyenne ledger book?”

  “My dear.” Emil Coughlin held up one hand. “Let me quell the fond hope I detect in your voice. What you imagine is not the case. There is no ledger book in the museum.”

  “Then what became of it?” she persisted.

  “May I make a suggestion?” The professor hurried on, as if no response were required or expected. “Several local museums date to the last century. One may have owned an Arapaho ledger book in the past. Perhaps your investigation would bear more fruit were you to contact other museums and ask them to check their records. Undoubtedly your storyteller saw the ledger book somewhere else.”

  “Tell me,” Vicky said, getting to her feet, “is there another museum with white marble columns across the front?”

  Emil Coughlin was also on his feet, hands stuffed into the front pockets of the white slacks, a mixture of sympathy and exasperation in his eyes. “I’m afraid, my dear, I have no other suggestions.”

  Vicky made her way back into the entry, footsteps padding behind her. She opened the door, allowing the afternoon heat to spill inside. Then she faced the professor. “Did Todd Harris help you verify the Arapaho artifacts?”

  Emil Coughlin glanced beyond her shoulder, as if to pluck the answer from the outdoors. “He spent a few hours on the project. I’m afraid that was all the time he had.”

  Vicky thanked the man and hurried toward the car, gravel snapping under her heels. By the time she had backed around the driveway, he had retreated inside. The closed door gave the house a vacant look, like a prop in some extravagant movie.

  The steering wheel felt as hot as a branding iron in her hands as she guided the Taurus down the mountainside, her thoughts on what Emil Coughlin had said. Julie was Todd’s roommate. Did that mean she was more than a roommate? A lover? Vicky blinked back the idea. How could that be? Annemarie loved him, trusted him. Whatever Julie was to Todd, there was a chance she might know what had been bothering him; what had kept him so busy he had only a few hours to help identify his own people’s artifacts; what had sent him to the Wind River Reservation last weekend.

  She curved two fingers over the bottom rim of the searing-hot wheel, trying to put herself in the girl’s place. What would she do? Alone in the city; roommate—boyfriend, perhaps—murdered. She would run back to the reservation, Vicky knew. As fast as she could. She would lose herself in the vastness, the endless spaces, and no one, not one member of her family, would tell the police where she was hiding.

  She had to find Julie before she left Denver. It might be too late already, she thought as she curved off the mountainside. She pressed hard on the gas pedal and turned onto the highway, heading into the city.

  14

  Vicky squinted into the sun rays splayed against the windshield. The mid-afternoon traffic on Sixth Avenue was light but fast, and she clung to the right lane, allowing other cars to hurtle past in a haze of heat and exhaust. Inside the Taurus was cool; the air-conditioning emitted a low hum.

  A half block from Todd’s apartment building, she spotted the yellow police tape strung around trees and bushes. Two police cars stood at the curb, and as she slowed down, a uniformed officer waved her on, a definitive gesture.

  She drove past, then put the Taurus through a jerky U-turn and wheeled into a cramped space. The officer came down the sidewalk as she got out.

  “Move on.” An order, meant to be obeyed. Waves of heat rose off the asphalt, enveloping her.

  Vicky introduced herself. “I’m an attorney and a friend of the victim’s family,” she said, nodding toward the yellow tape behind h
im.

  He narrowed his eyes, as if to bring her into sharper focus. “What do you want?”

  Glancing beyond his shoulder, Vicky saw two other policemen step out of the building and walk down the sidewalk, each carrying a bulging plastic bag—filled with what? Evidence from the apartment? She took a chance: “Is Detective Clark here?”

  The officer rocked sideways, studying her a moment. Finally he told her to wait. Stepping across the yellow tape, he strode diagonally to the front door.

  Vicky followed as far as the tape barrier and stopped, aware of the other policemen nearby, their eyes on her. After a few moments, the first officer slammed out the door. “Two-B,” he said, throwing back his head.

  The front door was propped open, allowing the summer heat to fold itself through the shadowy hallway and narrow stairway inside the entry. Vicky climbed to the second floor and started down another hallway sheathed in sunlight pouring through a window at the far end. The second door on the right stood open.

  Detective Steve Clark, in pale blue shirt and dark slacks, stood in the center of what looked like an ordinary student apartment. Railroad-flat style: living room, bedroom, and kitchen aligned in a row. Two doors on the left probably led to another bedroom, a bath. Except in this apartment, there was an upended sofa, an upholstered chair rammed against the wall, a bookcase turned on its side, and books and papers strewn across the wood floor.

  “My God,” Vicky said.

  The detective shot her a look of sympathy. “We found this last night after we ID’d the body. Somebody was looking for something. What brought you here?”

  Vicky turned her eyes to him, trying to ignore the piles of clothes and blankets littering the floor in the far bedroom, the cabinet doors hanging into the kitchen, the pots and dishes and cans of food tumbling over the counter. “I just heard that Todd had a roommate. Someone named Julie.”