The Drowning Man

by Margaret Coel

  “Perhaps,” he remembered replying, but he had never imagined the helpless love he would feel for a woman he’d yet to meet.

  “It’s not a bad thing, a broken heart,” the old priest had said. “It makes us human.”

  The only sound was that of his own tires raking the gravel. Ian’s blue sedan stood in front of the residence, like a beached boat at the edge of an empty sea. The carry-in supper for the volunteers who sang and drummed at Sunday Mass was on tonight’s schedule, but there weren’t any pickups about. He parked next to the sedan and got out, half expecting Father Lloyd to materialize out of the dusk. But the old man wasn’t there.

  The minute that Father John let himself into the residence, Walks-On came skittering down the hallway. He scratched the dog’s head a moment, then followed him into the kitchen where Father Ian was working on a plate of lasagna, a book propped open against the sugar bowl.

  “Sorry, I started without you,” he said, glancing up. “Elena left another helping in the oven, if you want some.”

  “I’ve already eaten,” Father John said. He walked over to the counter, the dog staying close, nudging him forward. He shook some dry food into the dog’s dish and set it on the floor, then lifted a mug out of the drying rack in the sink and poured some coffee.

  “Lloyd took a plate over to the guesthouse,” the other priest said behind him. “Didn’t want to stay around. Can’t blame him, I guess. Everything okay?”

  Father John sat down across from the other priest. Everything was not okay, he was thinking. “What happened to the carry-in supper?”

  Father Ian shook his head. “Martin Black Bull called and said they wouldn’t be having the supper here after all. He didn’t actually say, you understand, but I got the idea they’d decided to hold the supper somewhere else. Oh, almost forgot…” Ian set his fork down, stood up, and went into the hallway. He came back carrying a small notepad, which he slid across the table. “Message for you,” he said.

  Father John glanced at the pad. Scrawled across the top sheet was an address on the east side of Riverton. “What’s this?”

  “A man called about an hour ago. Wanted to speak to you.”

  Father John sipped at the coffee. He didn’t take his eyes off the unfamiliar address. Next to the address was the number 6.

  “Said there was a message for you at that address. I thought it very strange, John. What does he expect? That you’re going to drive across Riverton to get a message?”

  It was exactly what he expects, Father John thought. He stood up, folded the message, and stuffed it into the pocket of his shirt. And then he knew. The address was the motel where the Indian was staying. The man expected him to go to the motel and get the message from the Indian.

  “I’ll be out for a little while,” he said, heading back down the hallway.

  “What? Whoa, hold on a minute.” Ian’s boots thudded after him. “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about the stolen petroglyph.” Father John turned back to the other priest. “I’m going to a motel to pick up a message from the man who has the petroglyph.”

  “You think you should do that? You think you’ll be safe?”

  “There’s a cop watching the motel, Ian. I’ll be safe.”

  Before Father John banged out the door, he saw in the other priest’s eyes that he hadn’t convinced him any more than he’d convinced himself.

  THE BUTTE MOTEL sprawled like a derailed freight train at the back of a potholed parking lot. Father John turned into the lot and crawled in and out of the splotches of light from the fixtures mounted on metal poles, past the few vehicles scattered about—a pickup with a dent the size of a barrel in the door, a truck that sloped to the side, a battered-looking green sedan. Several cars parked at the edge of the road looked abandoned. He wondered which old truck or car the undercover cop was sitting in. None of the vehicles looked occupied.

  Father John pulled into the vacant slot in front of the unit with a black 6 hanging sideways on the door and curtains drawn across the window. He crossed the cracked sidewalk that pitched upward and knocked on the door. From inside came the drone of TV noise. He knocked again and glanced around. Nothing moved in the shadows. A band of cream-colored light clung to the edge of the dark sky.

  “It’s Father O’Malley,” he said, leaning closer. It occurred to him that Ian might have written down the wrong number. He was about to walk toward the end unit where an overhead sign alternately blinked OFFICE and VACANCY in orange neon lights when a loud guffaw erupted from the other side of the door. He waited a moment. Another guffaw, and he realized that it came from the TV.

  An odd sense came over him then. It was as if the TV noise were crackling into the dusk and shadows that the motel had gathered into itself. He knocked again, then tried the knob. It turned in his hand, and he inched the door inward. “Hello?” he called. “Anybody here?”

  “Now what’d ya say? You comin’ with me or not?” the TV voice demanded.

  “You crazy, man? We stick our heads out there, he’s gonna blow ’em off.”

  Father John shoved the door open and stopped. Light from the television on top of a dresser flickered through the shadows, across the walls and the carpet, and over the body of the Indian toppled onto the bed like that of an animal that had stumbled into death. The blanket falling off the bed beside him was soaked in blood.

  “So we sit tight and wait until he comes for us. That your plan?”

  Father John patted the wall for the light fixture. His fingers finally found the switch, which he pushed upward. Light exploded into the room. He looked around, waiting for someone to rush past the opened door to the bathroom, except that light was flooding into the small bathroom, and he could see that no one was there.

  He moved closer to the bed. The Indian lay on his side, black hair splayed like a feathered headdress, one arm thrown behind him, the other hanging off the side, as if he’d been asleep when he’d died. He had on blue jeans and a white shirt, matted with blood across his chest and sleeve.

  “I don’t know about you, but I like livin’, man. You ask me, we sit tight.”

  God. God. God. How many times had the man been stabbed? And with what? A knife? “Have mercy on his soul,” Father John said out loud, the sound of his voice a counterpoint to the TV voices.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not hangin’ around here waitin’ to die.”

  Father John backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. Then he broke into a run down the sidewalk toward the flashing neon sign. He yanked open the glass door and threw himself toward the counter on the other side of the room. Behind the counter, a squat, bald man in a tee shirt with arms the size of clubs crossed over his chest stared up at the TV under the ceiling in the corner. The same crime show was blaring.

  “Hey, you ready? I’m ready.”

  “Get the police.” Father John shouted over the TV voices.

  “What?” The bald head swung around, and red-rimmed eyes blinked over the countertop. “Who the hell are you?”

  “A man’s been killed in number 6.” He was still shouting. “Get the police.”

  But the police were already here. Through the rectangular window alongside the counter, he saw a man in blue jeans and light-colored shirt running across the patch of dirt that divided the parking lot from the next lot. He hopped across a short fence and kept coming.

  “What the hell you talkin’ about?” The bald man pushed himself upright, one hand groping toward the telephone on the ledge beneath the counter.

  The door crashed open behind them. “Police!”

  Father John swung around and faced the man in the light shirt. He was in his thirties with hard, intense eyes that took in the entire room. And the officer knew who he was, because he said, “What’s going on, Father?”

  “The Indian in number 6 has been murdered,” Father John said.

  At that, everything went into fast-forward: the officer whirling about, darting through the door, rushing past t
he window, shouting into a radio. The motel clerk, banging on the counter, shouting, “Murdered! This is a reputable place. Jesus, the boss hears about a murder, I’m gonna get fired. Gonna be my ass. Why’d you have to get the police? We could’ve taken care of things.”

  “Hold on.” Father John tried to get the man’s attention, but the clerk was hopping about, throwing up both arms, eyes darting around the room. “Listen,” he tried again, leaning over the counter. “The police are going to ask you some questions. Try to think. Did you see anyone go to the Indian’s room?”

  The man stopped hopping; his eyes seemed to come into focus. “What am I? His keeper? I don’t know what he’s up to. Last night, I heard his car leave. He kept it parked out back, crazy Indian. He come back real fast, probably went and got himself some food. Booze, probably. I figured he was holed up in the room on a drunk. Not my business. Paid up through Tuesday, that’s all I care.”

  Sirens had started up, a cacophony of noise in the distance, gradually moving closer. Sometime during the day, Father John was thinking, someone had gotten into the room and killed the Indian. Yet the police officer had been parked in the next lot with a view of the motel. He must have seen someone entering the room.

  Father John started for the door. Noise of the sirens cascaded into the parking lot, and red, blue, and yellow lights flashed across the window. He turned back. The clerk was bent over the counter, a fist thumping the surface. “You going to be all right?” Father John said.

  “Imelda.”

  “What?”

  “Cleans up the rooms. I was thinkin’ about her cart.”

  “What about it?” Father John moved back into the room.

  “Said she was cleanin’ number ten down at the end this morning. She comes out, and somebody’s rolled her cart halfway down the motel. Had to go get it and push it back. Some kids playin’ a joke, she said.”

  “Where does she keep her keys?”

  “Shit!” The clerk brought his fist down hard on the countertop. “I tol’ her a hundred times, don’t hang the keys on the cart. Got in the way of her cleanin’, she said. Some fool can walk off with ’em, I tol’ her, but she kept doin’ it anyway. So some fool got her keys, got into the Indian’s room. I’m gonna fire her ass.”

  Got into the room by impersonating the cleaning woman, Father John thought. That took some thought, some planning. And that meant the killer knew the police were watching the room. He let himself out through the door and started toward the police cars piling up in front of number 6. An ambulance had pulled in behind the cars, and dark figures were darting past the swirling lights, moving in and out of the room.

  The bulky figure of Ted Gianelli broke away from a group huddled next to one of the cars and came down the sidewalk toward him. “How come you’re the one that found him, John?” he called out. He was still several feet away. “You want to explain that?”

  Father John stepped forward and told him about the phone call that had come in to the mission this afternoon when he was out.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I came here to get the message, Ted.”

  “Yeah? We haven’t found anything in the room that looks like a message.”

  “The Indian was the message.”

  “You’re talking in riddles, man. Make sense, will you?”

  “The caller had instructed me not to bring in the police,” Father John said.

  Light flashed past the opened door of number 6. A man in a plaid shirt, probably with the coroner’s office, slipped past, carrying a folded gray body bag. Father John felt as if something heavy were wedged against his heart. He’d been wrong. The caller had been watching from the old cabin when Behan tossed the envelope onto the highway. The caller had seen him talking to Gianelli at the side of the road. He’d understood the Indian would be under surveillance, so he’d found a way to get into the room and kill him to make certain he couldn’t talk to the police.

  “We’re conducting an investigation here, John,” Gianelli said. “We’re doing our job. We can’t foresee how some psychopath might react.”

  “Two men tried to shoot Vicky today,” Father John said.

  “I heard.”

  “They tried to run her off the road yesterday.”

  The fed didn’t say anything to that, and Father John waited a moment before he said, “We’ve lost the chance to get the petroglyph back. The caller will take off with it. The locals will melt back into their daily lives, just like seven years ago, and they’ll wait for the next chance to make a big score, if they don’t kill Vicky first.”

  Gianelli glanced back at the room, and in the play of light and shadow, Father John could see the man’s jaw working, but it was a long moment before he said, “Maybe not. My guess is that, as long as he thinks the tribes are ready to pay up, the caller will try to set up the exchange. He’s pretty confident that you’ll follow instructions now.” He nodded at the motel behind them. “You know what he can do. No way can you go in alone.”

  Father John watched the three men hoisting a gurney with the lumpy body bag on top. They headed across the sidewalk and between two police cars toward the coroner’s van. The rear doors hung open against the dim light suffusing the interior. Finally, he said, “It’s our only chance. You want the killers. The tribes want the petroglyph. Let me get the petroglyph before you come in.”

  Gianelli shook his head. “I don’t want you or anybody else ending up dead. You’re out of this. You take the call, and you call me. Understood?”

  Father John didn’t say anything. He turned and headed out into the parking lot toward the pickup.

  28

  IT WAS A tradition after Sunday Mass. Greet the pastor in front of the church, comment on the homily. Always polite comments, even from parishioners he’d seen dozing off in the middle. Usually the line stretched up the steps and back into the church vestibule, but not this morning. There had been only a dozen people scattered about the pews. Three or four white people from Riverton. A few Arapaho elders and grandmothers. No families, no children. The Mass was half finished when Norman Yellow Hawk had let himself in through the door and slipped into the last pew. Father John had understood. The councilman had come to make sure that Father Lloyd Elsner was still leaving.

  Father John had said the last of the prayers, taking his time, searching for comfort in the familiar words that fell around him like fine rain: What shall I give to the Lord for all the things that He has given to me? I will call upon the Lord. Praising, I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies. The Lord be with you and with your spirit. Thanks be to God.

  “Got the news about the Indian on the telegraph,” Norman said now, shaking his hand. There was a fierceness in the man’s grip. The elders were forming a circle around them.

  “Spirits are upset,” one of the elders said. “We’re not protecting them, way we oughtta. That’s how come the evil…” the old man gestured with his head in the direction of the guest house. “…came right into the mission. Wouldn’t’ve happened if the spirits had been watching.”

  Father John told the elders that Father Elsner would be leaving the next day. Across the sidewalk, the three grandmothers were huddled together, brown faces shadowed with concern. He knew they were listening to everything.

  It was then that he noticed the stocky white man walking across Circle Drive, thick arms swinging at his side. He didn’t look familiar. Not one of the people from Riverton he’d gotten accustomed to seeing at Sunday Mass.

  “We’ll never hear from him again,” Norman said, and for a moment, Father John thought he was referring to Father Elsner. “Guy that’s got the Drowning Man. He’s gonna take off like last time. Didn’t want to leave any loose ends, so he killed the Indian. Nobody around that might know what he did with the glyph.”

  “Gianelli doesn’t think so,” Father John said, but a part of him believed that Norman was right. The idea had circled through his head all night. The man with the glyph—t
he raspy voice on the phone—intended to take it to Denver or Santa Fe or Phoenix, or wherever he’d taken the last glyph, sell it on the black market, and take the profits himself. There would be no Indian to connect him to the locals. No Indian or locals to pay off.

  “How come you found the Indian?” Norman asked. The others moved closer, brown, wrinkle-streaked faces turning a little so that Father John could speak into their ears. He glanced at the white man, standing in front of the church next to the cottonwood, and said that he’d gotten a message to go to the motel. The heads of the elders nodded in unison, as if that made sense.

  “You heard anything today?”

  “It’s still early,” Father John said, but the councilman was nodding. He’d already proved his point. The stocky white man kept his eyes on some point across the mission, as if he were watching something in his head.

  “I’m gonna call Mooney, guy that runs the bank,” Norman said. “Have him come to the tribal offices this afternoon. Hope I can get him at home.” The elders were staring at the ground. The grandmothers pulled blank faces, mouths tightened into silent lines. “No sense in keeping that much money around any longer,” the councilman went on. “We’re not gonna be needing it for the glyph. Mooney can put it back into the bank.”

  “I’m sorry,” Father John said. It hadn’t played out right at all. No cops, the raspy voice had told him, yet he’d managed to lead Gianelli and the whole Riverton Police Department to the Indian. Now the man was dead, the Drowning Man probably lost.

  The little group started moving back, a circle pulling away from him. They turned almost in unison—elders, grandmothers, the councilman—and started for the pickups in Circle Drive. Father John waited until the engines coughed into life, one after the other, and the little procession of pickups had turned past the cottonwoods on the way to Seventeen-Mile Road.