The Story Teller

by Margaret Coel

  Why hadn’t she seen it before? Todd must have taken the ledger book from the museum. Steve Clark had suggested the possibility, but she’d shrugged it away, not wanting to believe Todd would do such a thing. But what if he’d suspected the book was in danger? Suspected someone would destroy it? He knew the controversy over the Sand Creek massacre, knew the claims of at least one Cheyenne scholar. How could he not know? He passed the exhibit on Sand Creek every time he went into the museum. Something had filled him with so much fear he’d taken the book.

  And they’d come after him. But he hadn’t given up the book. So they’d gone after the girl who’d been staying in his apartment. And now—Vicky blinked at the debris strewn over the living room—they had come after her.

  She helped Marcy to her feet and gently steered her down the hallway and into the bedroom. Whoever had broken into the house had been here, too: sheets and blankets thrown across the floor, the naked mattress askew on the bed frame, clothes and shoes heaped in front of opened closet doors.

  Marcy stood in the middle of the room, like a patient waiting for the nurse to prepare the bed, while Vicky shoved the mattress into place and spread a sheet on top. Then she helped Marcy over to the bed and settled a blanket over her.

  “They did this because of me,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Marcy rolled over, wrapping the blanket around her. She didn’t say anything, and Vicky let herself out of the room, snapping off the light and closing the door softly behind her.

  She walked through the small house, locking doors and windows, turning off lights. She found her handbag and clasped it to her. In the kitchen, the same disarray: cabinet doors flung open, drawers hanging out, pots, pans, and dishes tossed about. Nothing untouched. She lifted a butcher knife from the floor and carried it down the hallway. If they returned, she told herself, she would fight them with all her strength.

  In the bathroom, she had to step around towels and bottles and shards of glass to turn on the tub. The smell of lavender filled the room as she sprinkled in bath crystals from one of the intact bottles. Stripping off her clothes, she let them fall over a wad of towels before sinking into the hot, creamy water. She lay back, the water lapping at her shoulders. The handbag lay on a little table next to the knife, close enough so she could reach it.

  First thing in the morning, she would take Smedden’s records and the diskette to Steve. Father John would be there—a logical, reasonable man. A priest. Together they would present the evidence that the book had been on the museum shelves last week. And the ransacked apartment, the girl’s murder, and now Marcy’s place ransacked—further proof that whoever had killed Todd was looking for the book. Steve would have to listen. And then a homicide detective would be looking for the killers. They would no longer be calling the shots.

  She felt herself relaxing. The Sand Creek ledger book was still intact, still capable of telling its story. The killers didn’t have it yet. They didn’t know where it was. But she knew. The moment she’d realized Todd had taken the book, she knew. He had placed it in the safest possible place, and tomorrow she and John O’Malley would go and get it.

  The water had faded to lukewarm when she lifted herself out of the tub, toweled off, and pulled on a clean T-shirt, letting the soft cotton fall over her body. She fixed her watch back onto her wrist: she would get up early.

  Picking up the bag and the knife, she turned off the light and made her way to the bedroom. In the dimness of a light shimmering through the bedroom window—a passing headlight, perhaps—she pushed aside the messed blankets and pillows, making a small space for herself. She shoved the knife under a pillow, then pulled a blanket over her, the handbag at her side. She fell into an exhausted and dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Something hard pressed against her arm; fingers dug into her, shaking her. She blinked herself awake, groping under the pillow for the knife. Where was it? Then her fingers found the hard, cold metal, the indentations on the handle. Gripping the handle, she roared upward, swinging out of bed, gulping in air, the knife in hand.

  The figure looming over her jumped back. “My God!” Marcy screamed. “What are you doing?”

  Vicky dropped the knife on the bed and sank down next to it. She was shaking. She made herself take several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, aware for the first time of the morning sunshine drifting past the window, Marcy holding a portable phone. She started to explain, to apologize.

  Marcy interrupted. “Steve wants to talk to you.” She handed Vicky the phone and walked out of the room.

  Vicky could feel her heart still pounding. She checked to make sure the handbag was in the bed before pressing the on button and muttering a good morning she didn’t feel.

  “Where the hell were you last night?” The detective was shouting.

  She told him she’d gone to Sand Creek.

  “Sand Creek? For God’s sake, Vicky. Why didn’t you call me when you got back?”

  “It was late, Steve.”

  “You think whoever trashed Marcy’s house was after her? They were looking for you, Vicky, and whatever they think you might have. You were nowhere around. Marcy didn’t know where you’d gone. I’ve been worried as hell.”

  “I know what they’re after,” Vicky said. “They’re looking for the Sand Creek ledger book.”

  The line went silent. Then: “That’s what I figured you’d say.”

  She was quiet a moment, debating whether to tell him she knew where it was. Last night, she’d been so certain, but now she saw the certainty for what it was: a hunch, an instinct. And this was a man who wanted proof. He didn’t even believe the ledger book existed. Show me the proof, he’d told her. She would find out first if the book was where she thought it was.

  She said, “I’ve got the proof the ledger book was in the museum collections last week.”

  “I’m at my desk,” he said.

  Vicky pushed the disconnect button, then punched the numbers for Regis. Brother Timothy’s voice came on the line, and she asked to speak to Father O’Malley.

  “Ah”—a long drawl—“the good father has left us to return to his mission.”

  “He left?” Vicky blurted.

  “I’m afraid the good father’s assistant was called away yesterday. A death in his family, I believe. There was no one at the mission. Naturally Father John felt it incumbent to return. He asked me to explain to you. Oh, yes. He said you would know what to do.”

  “When did he leave?” Vicky asked.

  “An early riser, Father O’Malley. He was gone at dawn.”

  Vicky thanked the old man and hung up, trying to hold back the sense of abandonment flooding over her. He would not have left unless it was an emergency, and St. Francis without a priest was an emergency. She glanced at her watch. Almost nine o’clock. He could be halfway home by now, provided the Toyota pickup didn’t break down. She made a couple more calls. In a few moments she had a reservation on the noon flight to Riverton. She would be there by one.

  She dressed in jeans and T-shirt, pulled on her sandals, and threw the rest of her things into the carry-on. Barring any major traffic holdups, she could drive downtown, meet Steve, give him Todd’s diskette and the Smedden record book, and still get out to DIA in time to turn in the rental car and catch the plane. She picked up her carry-on in one hand, her black bag in the other, and hurried down the hallway.

  Marcy was in the kitchen pointing out the damage to a young man with a clipboard—an insurance adjuster, Vicky guessed. She waited for a break in the conversation, then told her friend she was leaving.

  “Hold on a minute,” Marcy said to the young man. Then she walked out front with Vicky. The sun blazed yellow out of a startlingly blue sky. A dog barked somewhere, a lawn mower whined—neighborhood sounds.

  “I’ve been a terrible guest,” Vicky began.

  Marcy shook her head and placed a hand on Vicky’s arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I wish we’d had more time to visit, but last nig
ht—well, at least last night we had a little heart-to-heart.”

  “I’m sorry about your house, Marcy.” Vicky kept her voice soft. “And about you and Mike.”

  Tears welled in Marcy’s eyes. She turned away a moment, running one finger along both cheekbones. She looked like an overweight child, Vicky thought: shoulders hunched inside a baggy blue shirt, blond curls springing out of a clip on top of her head. After a moment she looked back. “I didn’t sleep much last night. All this”—a wave toward the house—“is a big bother, but at least it’s fixable. But Mike and I, well, that’s Humpty-Dumpty. I can’t put it back together, so I’m going to have to go on. There isn’t any safe space I can crawl into and hide, is there?”

  That was true. There was no safe space. “You’ll be okay, Marcy,” Vicky said, laying one hand on her friend’s arm. She gave Marcy a smile and hurried down the sidewalk to the Taurus. She’d lost precious time—it couldn’t be helped. She’d have to drive like hell to keep to her schedule.

  26

  A few uniformed officers milled about, telephones jangled, and the monotonous hum of conversations drifted from the roped-off area where a couple huddled with a teenage boy: Sunday-morning noises at the Denver Police Department. Vicky stood at the gate, staring at the elevator beyond. Lights flashed overhead: “3,” “2,” “1.” There was a loud ping, and the doors parted. Steve Clark stepped out, hurried over, and snapped the gate open.

  “You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” he said, ushering her toward the waiting elevator. A policewoman brushed past and entered ahead of them. Vicky stepped inside, and Steve planted himself beside her, one hand on her arm. She could sense his wanting to tell her something, but he was quiet. They were not alone.

  The elevator bumped to a stop, and he guided her into the corridor. A familiar route now: left turn through the door marked HOMICIDE. There was no one here. The office had a vacant, musty smell, like a church that had just emptied out. They crossed to Steve’s desk, footsteps clattering into the quiet.

  “What happened?” Vicky asked. She perched on the edge of the chair where she’d sat two days ago. Her handbag felt heavy on her lap.

  Sinking into the swivel chair, Steve glanced out the window a moment. A cloud as jagged as the mountaintops drifted through the clear blue sky. He looked back. “Night before last, somebody paid Tisha Runner a visit. Tore up her apartment.”

  Vicky brought one hand to her mouth. Her breath felt hot in her palm. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s dead, Vicky,” he said. “A friend dropped by yesterday morning and found her tied up on a kitchen chair.” He stopped. The sound of a telephone ringing somewhere floated into the quiet. “It didn’t take much,” he went on. “She probably died with the first blow.”

  Vicky closed her eyes. The image formed in her mind, like a color photograph floating up from the chemicals of a darkroom—the girl with black hair falling over her face, the girl who didn’t want to be involved with murder. Snapping her eyes open, she jumped to her feet and walked to the window. Tisha Runner—racing out of the Indian Center. Why hadn’t she run after her? Who had been waiting for her?

  Swinging around, she said, “The killers are after the Sand Creek ledger book. Todd wouldn’t tell them where it was, so they killed him and ransacked his apartment. Then they went after Julie Clearwater, who just happened to have stayed in Todd’s apartment. And then Tisha Runner.”

  Steve placed both hands on the arms of his chair and leveled himself upright, leaning across the desk toward her. “And then you, Vicky. And if they’d found you . . .” He brought one fist down hard on the desktop. A ballpoint skittered to the floor, making a sharp clack against the tile. “They would have done the same thing to you they did to the others. Whoever these thugs are, they’re vicious and they’re getting more and more desperate.” He stopped, nodding toward her vacant chair. “Sit down and tell me everything you know.”

  Vicky dropped back onto the chair. She reached inside her handbag and pulled out the Smedden record book and the brown envelope with Todd’s diskette. She handed them across the desk. “Here’s the proof you wanted,” she said. She explained what was on the diskette, what he would find on the last page of the record book.

  His eyes on her, he picked up the book and flipped to the last page. “‘Indian ledger book, colored pictures, taken from Arapaho warrior. Sweetwater Battle, 1866.’” He peered over the book. “This the proof you’re talking about?”

  “A rancher named James J. Smedden gave the ledger book to the museum in 1903, along with other papers and documents,” Vicky said. “Before he started ranching, he was a soldier. He was at the Battle of the Sweetwater.”

  Steve dropped the book on the desk. Questions and disbelief flashed in his eyes. “Who’s to say this ledger book is the so-called Sand Creek ledger book?”

  Vicky went over it again, the same story she’d tried to tell him two days earlier when his mind had been on drug deals gone bad. While she talked he picked up the book again and turned to the last page. When she had finished, he said, “And the Indian ledger book with colored pictures that rancher Smedden found is worth a million dollars?”

  “It’s worth one-point-three million,” she said, reminding him that the museum curator had known the exact value, all the while claiming the museum had never owned the book. “It’s the only Arapaho record of Sand Creek. It proves some of my people were massacred there, along with the Cheyennes.”

  Still the questions in his eyes: “What does this matter today? A massacre more than a hundred years ago?”

  She explained again how the Cheyennes were trying to obtain reparation lands in Colorado, how the ledger book would prove Arapahos also had a right to the lands.

  Steve tossed the record book onto the desk and leaned back, staring at her. “So we’re talking about a ledger book worth a million dollars in its own right and probably worth a lot more as a historical record. And somebody decided to make it disappear—”

  “Todd may have taken it,” Vicky cut in. “He must have known it was in danger.”

  “Jesus, Vicky,” Steve said. “Danger from whom? I need names.” He picked up a ballpoint and pulled a pad across the desk.

  Vicky was on her feet again, pacing: chair, window, chair. There was the scratching sound of pen on paper as she told him about Bernard Good Elk, the reputation he’d built for himself on a false claim. Then she mentioned Rachel Foster again. “I happen to know she could use the money.”

  “You happen to know?” Steve looked up, pen poised over the pad.

  “An investigator friend.” Vicky shrugged. “Look, Steve, there’s no telling who Todd told about the book after he found it. He probably showed it to the research librarian. It would make sense; he pulled it out of the papers in the Smedden Collection, realized what it was, and called the librarian over right away.”

  “Librarian.” Another scratching noise, like that of a tiny mouse working its way over the desk.

  “He might have called his adviser, Emil Coughlin,” Vicky went on, “although the man says he hadn’t talked to Todd in the last couple weeks. He claims he never heard of the ledger book.”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah, well, looks like three people are dead because of a ledger book nobody heard of.”

  Vicky stopped in front of the desk. “Whoever killed them will destroy the book,” she said.

  “A million-dollar book?”

  “There’s already a buzz among the dealers on Book Row. The killers have gotten out the word; they’re angling for the best price.” Vicky heard the rising emotion in her tone. “And after the dealers get the book, how long—days, hours?—before the pages are cut out and shipped to collectors around the world? The collectors are waiting, Steve. That’s why the killers are desperate. They have to find the ledger book before we find it.”

  “We?” Steve jumped to his feet. “There have been three homicides. I appreciate the groundwork you’ve done and”—he drew in a long breath—“obviously I
should have listened to you sooner. But we’ll handle this from now on. I don’t want you involved. I don’t want any more nights like last night, wondering”—he stopped again, took another breath—“if yours was going to be the next body I fished out of the South Platte. I don’t want anything to happen to you, Vicky.”

  That’s when she told him she knew where Todd had hidden the ledger book.

  * * *

  A mixture of frustration and worry gripped Father John as he pointed the Toyota down the gray strip of asphalt receding ahead. The plains crept into the distances and melted into the rinsed-clean blue sky. Overhead, the sun hovered in a yellow-white blaze, clamping the earth in a vise of heat. The wild grasses swayed in the breeze. To the west, he could see the faint outline of the Wind River Mountains against the sky. He was almost home.

  He had found the message on the table in the entry when he’d gotten back to the residence last night. Father Geoff had been called home to Chicago; his father was dying. It was still dark when Father John pulled out of the parking lot and headed north on I-25 as the sun rose out of the east, flooding the sky with purples, violets, and reds. He’d turned west at Cheyenne, going deeper into Wyoming, the sun blazing behind him, piercing the rearview window and glinting in the mirrors. The soaring notes of La Traviata rose around him, and when the opera had ended, he’d fished through the glove compartment and extracted another tape—Don Giovanni—and turned north, plunging through the emptiness to the music of Mozart.

  He wished he wasn’t going home empty-handed. He’d left Father Geoff to deal with everything at the mission while he’d gone off on a wild-goose chase. Eventually his assistant, would hear through the Jesuit grapevine how Father John himself had sealed the museum’s fate by walking out on the provincial.

  Yet he would do it again. He did not regret yesterday. What he regretted was leaving Vicky in Denver, where she was likely to continue searching for the ledger book. He could only hope she would do the most sensible thing and take the Smedden record book and Todd’s diskette to Detective Clark first thing this morning. And then she could come home—he hoped she would come home. She would be safe at home; the killer was in Denver.