The Dream Stalker

by Margaret Coel

  Gianelli went on: “Must’ve rolled his window down, probably cussin’ out the bastard for putting him into the pit. The killer put a bullet right in his face.”

  Father John motioned up the next batter. Then he turned toward the agent. “Just like the cowboy,” he said, thrust back into the thoughts that had consumed him all day. He couldn’t shake them. Not even baseball could completely banish them.

  Gianelli shrugged. “Yeah, probably coincidence. We found a .38 bullet lodged in the wall of the cabin, but no fingerprints or hair, except for the cowboy’s. Whoever the killer was, he didn’t hang around very long. Should have a report from the lab tomorrow on what kind of gun Bosse was shot with. Then we’ll know if there’s a connection.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Give me some time, John. Bosse was just killed this morning.”

  “I meant the cowboy.”

  Gianelli dug his hands deeper into his pockets. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay on it. But just now, with the murder of a tribal councilman, well, it’s a lot like having a governor or senator assassinated in your district. I’m getting pressure to solve this one fast. The reservation’s in enough of an uproar over that nuclear storage facility without somebody killing off the tribal officers.”

  Father John went into his batter’s stance, knees slightly bent, weight on his back leg, holding an imaginary bat: “Like this,” he hollered to the next kid up at bat.

  “Got a message you called this morning,” Gianelli said.

  The kid took a wild swat, missing the ball by two feet. “Settle down, keep your eye on the ball.” Keeping his own eyes on the hitter, Father John said, “I talked to Gabriel Many Horses’ sister.”

  The agent drew in a quick breath. “Got a report from Oklahoma he had a relative living up here. How’d you find her?”

  “Talking to people.” A strikeout. The next kid grabbed the bat, eagerness and determination on his face.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been talking to people, too. Difference is, they talk back to you.”

  “Her name is Alberta Cavanaugh,” Father John went on. “She lives on a ranch about fifteen miles south of Lander.” The agent had pulled a small notebook and pen from inside his raincoat. He began scratching some notes on the paper.

  “When can I hold the funeral?”

  “Anytime you like. Coroner’s made his report. Your cowboy only had a few weeks, turns out. Lung cancer.”

  Father John closed his eyes a moment, taking a deep breath. The dead man with no face was still his. Maybe that’s why he was so anxious to hold the funeral—to put them both at peace.

  “What if there’s a conspiracy,” Father John said, trying out the theory he’d come up with at Vicky’s. “A group of people who want the nuclear storage facility badly enough to kill anybody who gets in the way.”

  The agent squared his shoulders. “You think I haven’t thought about that? Doesn’t make sense for a couple reasons. First, near as I can tell, a lot of people on this reservation want that facility, with all the jobs and money. That makes for a damn big conspiracy. Second, Bosse was doing everything he could to make sure it got approved.”

  The hitter sent a fly ball high into the air; the right-fielder was after it, looking up into the sun, shielding his eyes with his glove. He had the ball! He threw to second, but the kid who’d been on first had already turned around and was sprinting back. “Good catch.” Father John threw one fist into the air. Then he motioned up the next batter.

  “Not everybody wants the facility,” he said, locking eyes with the agent again. “It’s possible Bosse changed his mind.”

  Gianelli was quiet a moment. “What’ve you heard?”

  “Just speculation.”

  “Yours?”

  “Vicky’s.”

  The agent raised both shoulders. “She’s dreaming,” he said. “She’d like to think the Arapaho councilmen will turn against the facility and convince the Shoshone council to do the same.”

  “It might be true in Bosse’s case,” Father John persisted. “And if it is, a group might have banded together to shut him up.”

  “Just who do you speculate is in this conspiracy?”

  Father John turned toward the field. Another hit; the kid who’d gotten onto first was now rounding for home as the batter sprinted toward second. The conspiracy theory was something he and Vicky had come up with; there was no proof. Yet Bosse was dead, and Vicky was in danger. He took a deep breath and plunged on: “Who’s got the most to gain?”

  “Redbull,” the agent said immediately. Then he added, “That rancher who owns the site where the facility will be built. He’ll be pulling in millions in lease money.”

  “Alexander Legeau.”

  Gianelli nodded, his black brows knitted into thought. “I already checked on both men. They’re responsible people. No criminal records. Nothing to throw suspicion on them.”

  “What about Paul Bryant?” Father John said. “His whole career could be riding on the facility.”

  “I ran a check on him, too. Comes from a prominent Chicago family. Already got all the money he could ever want. Seems intent on running his company. So why would any of these men take a chance on throwing away their lives?”

  “Several hundred million dollars.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the agent shrugged. “Always a possibility, I guess. People can get greedy. But why would Bosse decide to turn against the facility?”

  Father John shook his head. That was the hole in his logic—a hole big enough to march an army of warriors through. He had no evidence Bosse had changed his mind.

  Gianelli frowned, his brows in a thick, black brush above his eyes. “Conspiracy or not, John, somebody wanted Bosse dead. Agnes says he had a meeting last Sunday, and when he got home, he was mad and scared. Could be that’s why he changed his mind, but we don’t know for certain. We’re treading muddy waters at the moment.”

  Father John turned away from the field and faced the agent. “Bosse met with somebody last Sunday? Gabriel Many Horses’ niece said he was meeting friends at Betty’s Place last Sunday.”

  The agent snapped the notebook shut and stuffed it and the ballpoint into the inside pocket of his raincoat. He was shaking his head. “I talked to Betty. She says she never saw the cowboy.”

  “That’s what she says.” Father John let his eyes roam over the field again. There’d been a third out. He must’ve missed it. The fielders were running in to take their turn at bat; the other team slouched toward the field.

  “You think she’s lying?”

  “I don’t know for sure.” Father John was thinking he might know more later, if the woman called. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  “Yeah,” the agent said in a kind of snort. “I’d appreciate it.”

  As Gianelli turned to leave, Father John placed a hand on his arm. “I’ve been trying to reach Vicky all day,” he said. “I’m very worried about her. The killer is after her.”

  The agent looked back, worry and distraction mingling in his expression. “I know,” he said finally. “Maybe Vicky could—”

  “I’ve tried to talk her into going somewhere else for a while. She’s a stubborn woman.”

  “The worst kind.” The agent shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do with a woman like that. She’s likely to keep on fighting that facility, even if it gets her—”

  Father John thrust up one hand. “Don’t say it.”

  * * *

  It was almost dark by the time practice broke up. A line of pickups waited on Circle Drive, mothers come to haul the kids home. Father John let himself into the administration building and walked down the corridor, through the silvery shadows that flitted over the walls. The musty odor of old wood and plaster came toward him. The building was quiet, except for the groaning of a metal pipe somewhere. Geoff must have left for the residence.

  Father John threw the switch inside the door to his office. Light blazed across the room and glanced off the papers on hi
s desk, the beige telephone, the old leather chair. He picked up the phone and punched in Vicky’s home number again. No answer. He hit the cutoff button and tried her office. This time he got the answering machine. He left the same message he’d been leaving all day.

  He found the telephone directory under a stack of papers, located Cavanaugh, and dialed the ranch. Alberta answered, and he explained he could hold Gabriel’s funeral first thing Friday morning. “Whatever suits you,” the woman said. “Send me the bills.” The line went dead, and he set the receiver in place, haunted by the failures of love.

  The phone jangled under his hand, and he lifted the receiver again, praying it was Vicky.

  “That you, Father?” It was a different voice, but slightly familiar. “This here’s Betty.”

  Father John walked around his desk, untangling the telephone cord as he went, and dropped into the chair. He groped for a pen, then flipped open a yellow notebook to a blank page. “I’m glad you called,” he managed.

  She had already begun talking. “. . . fed come around askin’ all kinds of questions. And Chief Banner shows up. Just wants some coffee, he says, but he’s askin’ questions, too. It’s lousy for business, cops all over the place. Scares people off. So I don’t want no more cops around. What I’m gonna say, you can’t tell nobody I told ya, okay?”

  Father John hesitated. Then he laid down the pen. “Okay.”

  “That cowboy you was askin’ about? I didn’t wanna say nothin’ when you was here ’cause the coffee shop was full up. Them tables got big ears.”

  “I understand.”

  “Soon’s I heard about Councilman Bosse, well, I got to thinkin’ it might’ve been that cowboy in here Sunday afternoon, but I don’t know for sure. He looked like he’d been out on the range his whole life, you know what I mean? Clothes all dusty and boots fallin’ apart. He sat over by the back wall kinda outta the way, like he wanted his privacy, ‘cept he was glad enough for me to keep comin’ over with the coffeepot. He was here about an hour. I figured he was waitin’ for somebody ’cause every time the door opened and somebody come in out of the rain, he jerked his head around and took a long look. Then he’d go back to drinkin’ coffee and coughin’. He had this really bad cough, like he was on his deathbed or somethin’. If he’s the guy that got murdered, Jesus, he really was on his deathbed.”

  “Did you tell Gianelli or Banner about this?”

  The line went quiet. Father John was afraid the woman had hung up. Then the voice came again, tentative: “They was askin’ if I’d seen somebody usin’ the phone out front Monday night. How could I see anybody from my house five miles away? I didn’t connect the old cowboy with the guy that got murdered ’til I heard Bosse got murdered, too.”

  “Why is that?” Father John heard the edge in his tone. He felt as if some kind of pattern was beginning to emerge.

  “After the cowboy drunk up most of my coffee, he goes into this real bad coughin’ fit and stands up, all bent over like, you know, holdin’ onto his chest. He throws some money on the table and goes out the door. Ten dollars, he leaves me. I mean, Jesus, for a pot of coffee? That’s when I knew for sure he wasn’t from around here.”

  “Betty, what’s the connection to Bosse?”

  She paused a moment. “Well, I seen the cowboy standin’ out in the rain by the gas pump, shufflin’ his feet like he was waitin’ for somebody. After a while, this pickup drives up, and he gets in.”

  “Was Bosse in it?”

  The line seemed to go dead. Finally the woman said, “You gotta promise, Father. You ain’t gonna tell nobody I said they was together. They’re murdered, the both of ’em. And if the cops think I seen ’em together, they’re gonna hightail it back here and ask more questions and all my customers, well, they’re just gonna disappear—”

  Father John interrupted, “Are you saying the cowboy got into a pickup with Matthew Bosse?”

  The woman gasped. “I’m scared, Father. If the moccasin telegraph starts sayin’ they was both here, the killer’s gonna think I might’ve heard ’em talkin’. I didn’t hear nothin’. I don’t even know for sure the old guy was the one got murdered.”

  Father John was quiet, weighing his words. After a second he said, “Gianelli’s a friend of mine, Betty. You can talk to him about this, and nobody will know. He’ll protect you. You can trust—”

  “I’m not talkin’ to the feds!” she shouted. “I’m tellin’ you ’cause you was askin’ about the cowboy. I feel sorry for the old guy. He had a good heart and give me ten dollars. And the cops’ll turn this reservation upside-down lookin’ for the councilman’s killer, but maybe they’ll just forget about the old cowboy. I just wanted somebody to know they was together, and soon’s they find Bosse’s killer, maybe they oughtta see what the killer knows about the old cowboy.”

  Father John thanked the woman, said he appreciated the information, said he also wanted to see justice done for the cowboy. Images flashed in his mind, not of the body slumped in the cabin with half its face shot off, but of the cowboy riding across the mountain meadow to see his sister, hitching a ride to the coffee shop, waiting at the back table—for Matthew Bosse.

  The electronic buzz of disconnection sounded, and Father John replaced the receiver. He leaned back in the leather chair. Why would a dying cowboy come to Wind River Reservation to meet with one of the tribal councilmen? Agnes Bosse might know. He made a mental note to ask her tomorrow when he went back out to the house to talk about the funeral arrangements. And there was someone else who might know—Clarence Fast, another cowboy from somewhere else who had sent his granddaughter to inquire about Gabriel’s funeral.

  He found the pen again and jotted down three names: Gabriel Many Horses, Matthew Bosse, Clarence Fast. Old cowboys, all of them. Maybe there was a pattern after all. But what was it? Two had been murdered, but only one was connected to the nuclear facility. And two weren’t even from around here. He decided to pay a visit to Clarence Fast—he’d promised to let him know about Gabriel’s funeral anyway.

  He drew a black line across the page. It was possible the murders had nothing to do with the nuclear facility. But if that was true, why was somebody trying to kill Vicky? Another black slash across the page. Nothing was making sense.

  He pushed in Vicky’s numbers again—her home, her office. He waited a long while on each call, listening to the phone ring into the emptiness.

  22

  Vicky left the tribal court and drove south on Highway 287 as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. Plumes of red, orange, and scarlet shot across the faded blue sky. The ponderosas climbing into the foothills, the sagebrush and clumps of wild grass—all were tinged with pink. Long blue shadows lay over the rises and swales of the earth.

  Myriad feelings bubbled inside her: confusion and frustration and sorrow, a sense of failure. She’d talked the tribal judge into dismissing the charges against one of the young men arrested at the riot. But the judge had ruled against her on Kenneth Goodboy. The assault charge would stand. Out in the hallway, she’d tried to explain to the young man’s family, tried not to notice the way they’d glared at her. They had expected a miracle; well, she didn’t work miracles.

  She heard that she’d had more success than the lawyer for the white protesters in the county court, a small comfort. The judge had dismissed the charges on the condition they leave the area. That gave her a certain sense of hope. With most of the outsiders gone, maybe the People could settle down to a reasoned discussion of the nuclear storage facility.

  She turned through the familiar streets of Lander, her thoughts on the facility. So much anger and dissension. And now a tribal councilman murdered. The fact sent a chill through her. What difference if Bosse had championed the facility or decided against it? Nobody deserved to die for what he believed in.

  Leaving the Bronco at the curb on Main Street, Vicky climbed the shadowy stairway outside her office, briefcase in one hand, raincoat under her arm, purse hanging from one shoulder. The e
vening was beginning to settle in. From behind the parapet near the stairway came a dim light, but the corridor ahead was dark. Her heels snapped against the wood as she walked toward her office. She made a mental note to ask her secretary to have the bulb in the ceiling fixture replaced. Setting the briefcase on the floor outside her door, she rummaged through her bag for the key.

  From inside came the muffled jangle of the phone. She stabbed the key into the lock, but the ringing stopped just as she opened the door into the dark interior. She was about to pick up her briefcase when she heard the scrape of footsteps on the stairs. She stood still, hardly breathing, staring down the corridor. Suddenly a large figure rose out of the stairway and started toward her, silhouetted by the light behind. It was a man in a dark raincoat, hands at his sides.

  She stepped into the office and slammed the door. Her hand found the knob, and she jammed in the lock button. Then she realized she’d left her briefcase in the corridor.

  She opened the door partway and reached down for the briefcase, a black hump on the floor. “Hello,” the man said. She did not recognize his voice. He was standing over her—her eyes took in polished shoes, pant legs with crisp creases, the hem of a dark raincoat. She gripped the hard leather handle of the briefcase, aware of her heart pounding, and raised herself up, facing the intruder.

  “Paul Bryant,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Vicky swallowed hard as she groped for the switch next to the door inside her office. Light cascaded around them, flashing in the man’s eyes. “I was hoping you’d return to your office,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Bryant?” Vicky held her place in the doorway. She willed her heart to resume its normal pace.

  He smiled, showing a row of white teeth, a dimple in his left cheek. “My question first. You ran out of Blue Sky Hall last night without answering my question.”

  “What question is that?” Vicky felt a surge of annoyance and impatience.