The Girl with Braided Hair (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Coel, Margaret

  Images of the girl in the alley flashed in her mind, like the frames of a black-and-white movie that she couldn’t stop watching. The man’s fist hitting and hitting, and Lucas rushing at him, and she behind Lucas, gripping the flashlight. The images always dissolved into those of a girl named Liz, alone in the Gas Hills with her killer.

  She said, “Diana Morningstar wants to talk to me again. Probably about the skeleton. I can’t let it go, Adam. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, and took a diagonal path past her to his office. She felt the vibrations running across the floor as the door slammed shut.

  She went into her own office, pulled her bag out of the lower drawer in her desk, and retraced her steps, hurrying across the reception room, out into the corridor and down the stairs. She crossed the entry and let herself through the glass door into the lingering afternoon heat that had accumulated over Main Street. Sun glittered on the windshields of passing vehicles, and exhaust belched from a truck, leaving a foul odor in the air. She walked around the corner of the building and threaded her way through the pickups and sedans parked in the lot.

  She spotted the windshield across the hood of a pickup when she was still twenty feet away. The sight stopped her cold. For a moment, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She had the sense that she’d stepped into a river, water rushing about her legs, the sandy riverbed receding beneath her feet. She had to lean against the pickup to get her balance. Then she started for the Jeep, not taking her eyes from the windshield—the large hole on the passenger side, the black lines fanning across the glass, the shards littering the hood and sparkling in the sun.

  A wooden bat lay next to the front tire, and a white piece of paper fluttered from the twisted wiper. She reached across the glass shards, slipped the paper free and unfolded it. One word scrawled in black: STOP. Her hand was shaking. She forced herself to tighten her hold on the paper to keep it from scattering away in the breeze. There was no one else in the parking lot, nothing but the collection of sedans and pickups parked in improvised rows. And yet she had the sense of being watched. She turned slowly, taking in the surroundings: one, two, three—eleven empty vehicles. Bordering the lot, the blond brick façade of her office building; the oblong window that framed part of the staircase. The alley on the right, weeds poking through the asphalt. Across the alley, the small buildings stacked against one another. The street on the left, traffic blurring past. There was the steady thrum of engines, the squealing of a brake.

  Then, moving into her peripheral vision: a figure on the sidewalk. She swung about and watched a young woman with an infant on her back disappear past the corner of the building.

  She made herself take a deep breath, turned back to the Jeep, and dug her cell out of her bag, her gaze moving between the shattered windshield and the bat. He’d left the bat as a warning. For an instant, she felt that her legs would buckle beneath her.

  She started jabbing at the numbers for Detective Coughlin’s office. Her finger slid across the keys, and she had to start over, forcing herself to focus on the first number, then the next.

  “What the hell…?”

  She nearly dropped the cell even as she registered that it was Adam’s voice behind her, Adam’s hand gripping her shoulder. She turned toward him and he pulled her close, enclosing her in his arms. She felt his heart hammering. “My God, Vicky,” he said. “Who did this?”

  “The killer.” She blurted out the word. “It has to be the killer.”

  “I’m calling the police.” Adam took his arms away and pried the cell out of her hand.

  “Detective Coughlin.” She gave him the number as he punched the keys.

  A moment passed. Adam studied the windshield, then his eyes fixed on the bat. She could read the thought moving across his face. The killer had used a bat to break the girl’s bones.

  17

  THE PARK WAS busy. Kids kicking soccer balls across the grass, families lingering over picnics at the tables, the sun arching in the western sky, the air still warm. Vicky glanced around, trying to spot Diana Morningstar sitting alone somewhere, maybe on a blanket, maybe on a bench at one of the tables.

  It was almost seven; Diana had probably waited for a while, then left, thinking she wasn’t coming. Vicky took in a couple of gulps of air. She was still out of breath. She’d walked the four blocks to the park—brushing aside Adam’s offer to drive her, and that was after she’d brushed aside his pleas to drop the matter and leave the investigation to Coughlin.

  The detective had agreed with Adam—walking around the Jeep, studying the smashed windshield, scribbling notes in a pad cupped in his hand. “You’ve done enough,” he’d said, picking up the bat and setting it in the back of his SUV. He placed the piece of white paper in a plastic bag and set it next to the bat. “Two messages. I’d say whoever it is, he’s serious.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam said. She hadn’t told him about the first note left on her dashboard in front of Coughlin’s office. She hadn’t wanted to listen to the arguments that she should stay out of the investigation.

  “Didn’t she tell you?” Coughlin stared at Adam—two men discussing her, as if she weren’t even there. “Same message two days ago. Arrogant sonofabitch put it inside the Jeep parked outside my office.”

  “Vicky, listen to me…” Adam said. A mixture of worry and fury blazed in his eyes.

  “I’m handling the investigation,” Coughlin cut in.

  Something changed behind Adam’s eyes then. The fury dissolved, but the concern remained. They both knew that no one on the rez was about to talk to Coughlin about AIM. After a few futile efforts, he’d have no choice but to file away the case.

  After Coughlin had finally driven out of the lot, she’d left Adam standing by the Jeep, pressing the keys on his cell for someone to replace the windshield. He would wait until the job was finished, he’d told her. Then he’d wait for her at her apartment.

  She walked across the grass, dodging a soccer ball, scanning the area for someone sitting against a tree or perched on a rock by the river. Children’s noises—laughing and shouting—filled the air. A guffaw went up from the little crowd around a picnic table. It hit Vicky that Diana might not have come. She doesn’t want anybody to see her talking to you. Something might have caused her to change her mind.

  Vicky started back across the grass. The soccer ball was rolling toward the river, five or six kids chasing it. Quiet descended over the crowd at the picnic table as she walked past. She was about to turn onto the sidewalk when someone called her name. A quick shout, a hushed yell: “Vicky!”

  She swung around. Diana Morningstar emerged from the clump of pine trees on the far side of the grass, head bent forward, hands thrust in the pockets of a sweat jacket. Vicky hurried toward her. “I didn’t think you were coming,” Diana said. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, gray strands tucked among the black. Light shone in her dark eyes as she glanced between the street and the park.

  “Sorry,” Vicky said. “Something came up.” She had no intention of telling her about the smashed windshield, the bat, and the message.

  “Let’s talk over here.” Diana pivoted about and headed back through the trees. Vicky stayed in her footsteps, ducking around the sharp-faced trunks, bending under a couple of branches.

  Parked on an apron of bare dirt was a brown pickup. Vicky could make out the tire marks where the pickup had bumped over the curb, driven around the trees and made a series of maneuvers until it faced the direction in which it had come. She could hear an engine gearing down, but the street was out of sight.

  Diana threw open the driver’s door and crawled in behind the wheel. She waited until Vicky had walked around the front and gotten into the passenger side before she pulled the door shut. The windows were up, and the instant that Vicky shut her own door, the cab filled with stale air that smelled of cigarette smoke.

  “What is it?” Vicky said.

  Diana held on to the steering
wheel with both hands. She stared through the windshield, her gaze scraping over the dirt and trees. Little beads of perspiration blossomed at her temples. Finally she looked over. “I’m scared,” she said.

  “What happened?” Vicky tried to push away the image of the bat. She swallowed hard, willing her own fear back into the shadows of her mind.

  “I heard the news on the radio, how the girl was killed in 1973, how she was Indian. And I’m thinking, somebody around here must know about her, and we can help the sheriff…”

  She broke off, and Vicky gave her an encouraging nod. She said that she’d thought the same thing.

  “So I called the girls and we decided to print up some flyers, put ’em around the rez. You know, nothing special. Just a headline about the girl’s skeleton in Gas Hills, asking anybody with information to call me. Anonymous, you know. I put my number on the flyers.”

  And this, Vicky understood, was the reason Diana was scared. “Who called?” she said.

  “First thing this morning—I wasn’t even out of bed—the phone started to ring. It was a man.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “Could’ve been anybody. I don’t know who he was, but the next time…”

  “The next time?”

  “He called three times, always the same voice. First time, he said, ‘This is a warning. Take down your flyers. Stay out of it,’ and he hung up. Thirty minutes later, he called again. ‘You get the message?’ Before I could say anything, he hung up again. I kept waiting for him to call again. I was late to work, ’cause I drove around and pulled down the flyers. He called me at work! I’d just sat down at my desk when the phone started ringing and I knew, Vicky, I swear I knew it was him again. I was shaking. He knows where I work! He must know where I live! I picked up the phone and said, ‘Who the hell are you?’ I was almost glad it was him. I mean, what if I’d said that to a customer? He said, ‘Good girl. Maybe you’ll stay alive.’”

  “Oh, God.” Vicky glanced away from the raw fear in Diana’s eyes. Someone was coming through the trees, and she felt the sharp prick of panic until she saw it was a kid after the ball. He scooped it up and headed back toward the grass.

  “I called the others,” Diana said. “I told them the detective was hard at work on the case and we didn’t need to worry. I don’t think they believed me, but we have to back off, Vicky. Don’t you think?”

  Vicky nodded. “It’s too dangerous,” she said, giving her the same advice she’d been given. She hoped Diana and the other women would take it.

  “I don’t know who he is, but he knows me! That’s all I could think of. I didn’t want to take a chance on him seeing me with you. He’d think I was still trying to find the murderer.” She drew in a sharp breath. “It could be him.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  Diana was glancing about and nodding. She’d let go of the steering wheel and started pulling at her fingers, as if she might wring out the dread and fear. She locked eyes with Vicky. “You’re gonna keep going, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve gotten some information,” Vicky said. “Her name was Liz. She was part of AIM. She’d been at Wounded Knee.”

  “Jeez!” Diana slapped the edge of the steering wheel. “You better stay out of it.”

  “I think I’m getting close to something, otherwise we wouldn’t have heard from him.”

  “He called you?”

  “He sent the same message.” Vicky tried for a reassuring tone. “Tell the others not to do anything more.”

  Diana hunched forward and dropped her face into her hands. The noise of her breathing—great hauls of air, in and out—punctuated the voices of the kids shouting beyond the trees. Vicky realized that Diana was crying. A moment passed before she flattened her palms against her cheeks and smeared at the moisture. Leaning against the door, she stared at some point beyond Vicky. “I feel so guilty,” she said.

  “There’s no reason.”

  “Nobody cares what happened to her, what she went through. What right did he have to end her life? He should pay, but he’s just gonna keep living his miserable life, laughing at everybody ’cause he got away with it.” She let out a shuddering breath. “l been having these dreams. I hear her crying, just crying and crying, only nobody’s there to help her.”

  Vicky laid her hand over Diana’s. “Listen to me,” she said. “We know more than when we started. We know her name.”

  “First name, is all.” A halfhearted shrug. “What’s that gonna do?”

  “She was Arapaho. She went to Pine Ridge. She sang songs. She had a child.”

  Diana squared herself against the steering wheel. The muscles along her jaw tightened; the blue vein in her neck was throbbing. She kept her eyes straight ahead. “He’ll come after us.” She snapped her shoulders around. “I can feel him watching me. He’s gonna be watching you, too.”

  “I’ve talked to Detective Coughlin,” Vicky said, hurrying past the truth. Whoever he was—the killer, someone protecting the killer—was already watching her. He’d already delivered his message. “He’s working hard on the case.”

  “What’s that mean? What’s that really mean?”

  “He’s contacting people on the rez.”

  “Jesus, Vicky. That’s not gonna do anything.”

  “The point is, he’s not dropping it.” Vicky took a moment. “So it’s okay, Diana. It’s okay for you to back away. I’ll tell Coughlin about the call.”

  “No! You can’t do that! He’ll find out. He’ll think I’m a snitch, and he’ll kill me for sure.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t bring you into it,” she said. Coughlin already knew that someone wanted to head off an investigation. He’d seen her windshield. He had the messages.

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “He’s not gonna give up. Soon’s he finds out some detective is nosing around the rez…”

  “Diana…” Vicky began, then swallowed back the sensible advice she was about to deliver. You’ll be okay. Everything will be fine. Don’t worry. What a bunch of lies. The man had left the bat behind. It was part of the message. He could smash her the way he’d smashed the windshield.

  In Diana’s eyes, Vicky saw that she was waiting for the sensible advice, ready to scoff and turn away. Any thread of trust she’d managed to cling to, any belief she still had in Vicky, would snap like the dried strands of a rope. “Maybe you should go somewhere else for a few days,” Vicky said. “Give Coughlin a chance to see what he can come up with.”

  “Go somewhere else? What about my job?” Diana turned toward the windshield again, and for a moment, Vicky felt as if the thread had snapped. Outside was nothing but the patch of bare dirt bordered by the trees and, beyond, the normal sounds of traffic trawling Main Street, as if everything were normal. As if a killer wasn’t walking around. “I got some vacation coming,” she said finally. “I guess I can go to my sister’s in Rawlins.”

  Vicky said that would be a good idea, trying for a sense of lightness, as if that would solve everything. A few days, she was thinking. What did a few days matter? The killer had gotten away with murder for more than thirty years!

  She pushed down on the door handle and was about to get out when Diana said, “He keeps calling!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Three, four times, all hang ups. No messages, thank God. But I know it’s him. I can feel it. He’s not gonna stop.”

  “Maybe you should go to your sister’s tonight,” Vicky said. Diana was nodding. She’d already reached the same conclusion. “Don’t tell anyone else where you’re going.” Still nodding, gulping sob-breaths, as if just the acknowledgment that she should leave made the danger more real and immediate.

  Vicky got out and waited until the pickup had turned past the trees, churning up little puffs of dust and leaving ridges of tire marks in the dirt. Then she made her way back across the park and started walking fast toward her apartment, hoping the fea
r might drain away in the movement of her arms and legs.

  SHE LAY VERY still. Her eyes roamed through the darkness in the bedroom. Looming against the walls, the chest of drawers, the vanity, two chairs piled with clothes—great hunks of black shadows. Slats of dim light worked past the window blinds and fell like spilled paint over the carpet. The apartment was quiet, apart from the soft, rhythmic sounds of Adam’s breathing. His arm lay curved along her hip; she could feel his pulse, steady and strong. But there was something else, she realized. Something that had awakened her. Something that was wrong.

  Vicky inched away from Adam’s arm, and when she did, his arm started moving, sliding back and forth. His fingers searched the crumpled sheet for her. She lifted herself onto one elbow and peered around the room—muscles tensed, her own hands clenched into fists—and waited for the shadows to re-form—into what? Into an intruder? Into the killer?

  But there was no one else in the room. Everything was the same as last night when they’d fallen into bed together, she and Adam, after she’d reassured him that, yes, it was best to leave the investigation to Coughlin—she and Diana had agreed—and surely Coughlin, staring at her smashed windshield, had gotten the message that the killer was still around. And no, she really didn’t want anything to eat—the odor of Chinese in the brown paper bags on the counter had made her stomach lurch because the truth was, she’d felt slightly sick hurrying back along Main Street, past the office and the vacant parking lot with tiny specks of glass glistening on the pavement where the Jeep had been parked—or had she only imagined the glass still there, a reminder that he was watching?