The Spider's Web

by Coel, Margaret

  And yet he wasn’t the only one with misgivings. What was it Ella had said? Maybe she had something to do with it? Other people on the rez probably thought the same thing. She closed her eyes against the sharp fact that what she had said in the office was often true: sooner or later, outsiders were turned upon. She had never meant to say it to John O’Malley.

  She backed into Circle Drive, then shifted into forward and drove to the guesthouse. She stopped next to the pickup. It was quiet except for the sound of the wind swooshing through the wild grass and moving in the cottonwood branches. She was about to knock on the door when it opened a few inches and Marcy peered around the edge. “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

  “We need to talk.” Vicky waited, and when the girl didn’t move, Vicky placed her hand on the door and pushed it open. Shadows swallowed the living room—tee shirts, jeans, towels tossed over the sofa and chair, bottles of fingernail polish and lotions crammed on the little table. “We can talk outside, if you prefer,” she said.

  Marcy started forward, and Vicky stepped sideways, making room for the girl on the stoop. Marcy pulled the door shut and folded onto the top step. She leaned forward, hugging her bare knees. A silver watch with tiny diamonds that Vicky hadn’t noticed her wearing before looked like a bracelet on her thin arm. She wore her cutoff jeans, ragged at the edges, and a white tee shirt that outlined the knobs of her spine. She was barefoot, her feet turned inward, pigeon-toed. Bright red polish shone on her toenails. “Why are you here?” she said. “The SOBs that killed Ned got arrested and want to drag me into it?”

  Vicky sat down beside her. The question came like a bolt of lightning. “Why would you think that?” she said.

  The girl shifted toward her. Her eyes were dull, encased in black bruises. “Isn’t that what everybody’s saying? Everybody hates me here. They want me sent to prison for something I never did.”

  “That’s not true.” But there was truth in it, Vicky knew. “In any case, I intend to see that doesn’t happen.” She took a second before she went on.“I want you to think hard. When Hawk and Lookingglass burst into the house, what exactly did they say?”

  “Roseanne Birdwoman was probably waiting outside. Don’t forget her.”

  “Were they looking for stolen items?”

  “What? I don’t know?”

  “The house was ransacked, Marcy. They were looking for something.”

  Marcy dipped her head into her knees. “I don’t know anything about this,” she said out of the side of her mouth, her voice slurred.

  “You never saw any of the stolen items? You don’t know what they were or where Ned might have kept them? Except for that one time in Jackson where Hawk and Lookingglass took cartons out of Ned’s truck. Is that right?” Vicky held her breath. The less the girl knew, the harder it would be for Gianelli to tie her to the burglary ring or, for that matter, to Ned’s murder.

  “All I know is what he told me,” Marcy said.

  “He told you?” Oh God. This wasn’t good.

  “Told me he had some stuff he was gonna unload. Never said where he got it. I put it together.” Her head sprang back and she stared straight ahead. “I’m not stupid. I mean, when he gave me this watch, I said, ‘Wow! Where the hell did you get this?’ All he said was, ‘Never mind.’ I didn’t need to know.”

  Vicky reached over and lifted the girl’s arm. The watch was beautiful. She had no idea of what it must be worth—more than she could imagine spending on a piece of jewelry. Stolen from a home outside Lander or from one of the vacation homes in Jackson Hole. She had a sinking feeling, as if she were bobbing about on the hard concrete stoop. Marcy Morrison had accepted a piece of jewelry from Ned that even she admitted she wondered how he could afford. Gianelli could make the case—it would be easy—that she had accepted goods knowing they must have been stolen, which would make her an accomplice.

  “It’s the only thing he ever gave me,” Marcy said. “Course when we got married, he was gonna give me a gold ring. He said he had it ready.”

  Vicky sank against the black metal railing. “Did he ever actually tell you he had stolen the jewelry?”

  The girl turned sideways. Her eyes had become green saucers. “I told you, I didn’t have nothing to do with it.” She ran a finger over the face of the watch. “You think ’cause I’ve got this watch, the fed’ll think I was involved?” For the first time, a note of fear sounded in her voice.

  “If he asks whether Ned gave you anything, whatever you do, don’t lie,” Vicky said, trying for a calm, reassuring voice that would mask her own nervousness. “And don’t volunteer any information.” She was thinking that Marcy Morrison was capable of saying anything off the top of her head, even with Vicky sitting beside her. “Do you understand?”

  The girl looked as if she was about to burst into tears—small face scrunched, pink lips pulled in. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” she managed. “Soon’s those guys get arrested, they’re gonna lie. They’re gonna say things about me. It’ll be my word against theirs. What am I gonna do?”

  “Nothing. You let me worry about it.” Vicky got to her feet and went down the steps. She looked back at the girl still huddled over herself. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said. “Someone could recognize your pickup and follow you to the mission. Hawk and Lookingglass could hear where you’re staying.” The girl flinched backward, as if she had been hit. “I’m not trying to frighten you,” Vicky said. “Just stay close by until they are in custody.” She glanced around at the grounds—so peaceful and quiet. It was hard to imagine any danger here. “I’m sure your father would hire a guard—”

  “No bodyguard!” The girl jumped to her feet. Her legs were shaking; goose pimples were popping on her pink skin. “You don’t know my father. He wants to watch me all the time. He’d never take the guard away. I can’t have any guard!”

  “Okay.” Vicky put up her hand. “Call me if you need anything. And . . .” she hesitated. “Father John’s good to talk to, if you want somebody to talk to.”

  She left the girl standing on the stoop as she drove back down the alley. She wasn’t sure why she had mentioned Father John, except that—in the smallest moments—she had glimpsed something in Marcy Morrison that John O’Malley must have seen, something broken and patched back together in rough, uneven pieces.

  “LARRY MORRISON CALLED,” Annie said as Vicky let herself into her office. “I said you’d get back to him.”

  Vicky stood at the desk a moment, reading over the message sheet that Annie had handed her. Then she said, “How are things with you and Robin?”

  “Everything’s going to be fine.” Annie tossed her head back, and Vicky watched her trying for a confident stare.

  “The court issued a restraining order this morning,” Roger said, emerging from the hallway. He walked over and set a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Robin comes anywhere near her, all Annie has to do is call 911. And I have no intention of leaving her side.”

  Vicky let out a long sigh. He had no idea, she was thinking, no experience with the determination of men like Robin or Ben Holden. Annie had the experience; she knew Robin would never give up, that he would stalk her, stay on her every move, plead and promise until she weakened and forced herself to believe he had changed. But Annie had deferred her own judgment to the man patting her shoulder.

  “Be careful,” Vicky heard herself saying. Then she asked Annie to call Larry Morrison and went into her own office. She sat down at her desk and stared at the copies of the timber contracts arranged in a neat stack. She would check them over and have Roger deliver them this afternoon. The phone rang once, and she picked up the receiver. “Mr. Morrison,” she said. “I understand you called.”

  “How’s my little girl?” The voice was hurried and gruff.

  “I just saw her at the mission,” Vicky began.

  He interrupted. “Well, how is she?”

  “She’s scared,” Vicky said. “The FBI agent has interviewed her, and she identif
ied the killers’ photographs.”

  “You telling me them bastards aren’t in custody yet?”

  “Every law enforcement agency in the county is looking for them. They’ll be arrested soon.”

  “Soon! Soon! Soon isn’t good enough. My little girl’s in danger.”

  “I suggested that she return to Jackson, but she insists on staying here until they are arrested.” She took a second, then went on. “It looks like Ned was part of a burglary ring with them. They probably killed him over some disagreement.”

  “My little girl know about this?” For the first time, Vicky heard a note of fear sounding in the man’s voice.

  “I’m afraid she did.”

  “My God, the fed will pull her right in. I know how these investigations go. Cops, they’re all the same. Grasp at anything to solve a case, don’t matter if innocent people get trampled. You make sure they don’t trample her, understand?” He hurried on without waiting for a response. “I want her to go back to her condo in Jackson today. She has to get away from them killers, and she doesn’t need to be under the fed’s nose. Tell her to leave.”

  “I suggest you tell her,” Vicky said.

  “If I didn’t have commitments here with my television show, I’d come up there and take her away myself. I’m counting on you to look after her interests, and I want her in Jackson.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Vicky said. She realized she was speaking into a dead phone.

  18

  THE DRIVE TO Lander was long and slow, the roads clogged with out-of-state cars and campers, tourists peering into the distances. Father John had passed a couple of vehicles, then settled back, resigned. It wasn’t possible to pass them all. “Jochanaan, ich bin verliebt” blared on the CD. He had meant to get away earlier, but it had taken longer than he anticipated to respond to the messages on his desk—arrangements for baptisms, parishioners admitted to the hospital, couples in need of counseling. He had made four phone calls trying to find a safe house for Roseanne Birdwoman before Betty Mock had called from California. She’d heard he was looking for a house—it seemed the moccasin telegraph even reached California—and she volunteered her own. She wouldn’t be back on the rez for another month.

  He had called Roseanne and told her to stop at Betty’s brother’s place for the keys. There was nothing to connect Roseanne to Betty Mock. He reminded the girl not to tell anyone where she would be staying, and she had mumbled a tentative and frightened “okay” that sounded as if it had come from the dangerous depths of her situation.

  He followed the traffic through Hudson and on into Lander. The town spread before him, wide streets of bungalows and evergreens. He made a left off Main Street and pulled onto the concrete apron in front of a boxlike building with Silver Electrical Company splashed in white paint across the plate-glass window.

  Inside, a woman with a wide pink part in her gray hair sat behind a counter, studying the pamphlet in front of her. She looked up as he approached. A friendly look of surprise came into her face. “Aren’t you the mission priest?” she said.

  “Father O’Malley.” He clasped his hands on the counter. On the white plaque next to the door behind her was the name Bud Silver. “Is the manager in?”

  “You mean the boss.” She gave a little laugh. “We call him the boss around here ’cause he manages and owns the whole darn place. Need some electrical work at the mission?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said. Something always needed attention, he was thinking. Leaking roofs, broken windowpanes, peeling paint, lights that flickered on and off in the corridor outside his office, as if there were ghosts in the place. “I’d like to speak with him, if he’s available.”

  “Hold on.” She pushed backward and got to her feet, gripping the edge of the desk, then the back of the chair. She headed to the door, knocked once and let herself in. A couple of seconds later, a short, dark-haired man, with the build of a bull, came out, the woman smiling behind him.

  “Bud Silver,” he said, extending a thick hand with an antelope head silver ring on one finger. “How can I be of help to the clergy?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about Ned Windsong,” Father John said, shaking the man’s hand.

  “Should’ve figured.” Silver nodded Father John around the counter and into his office. He shut the door and gestured to the folding chair that stood at an angle to the desk. Papers spilled across the surface. Some kind of spreadsheet took up the computer screen. The window behind the desk framed the backyard view of a yellow two-story house. “FBI agent said he was gonna stop by this afternoon,” he said, taking the swivel chair. “I thought you was him. You conducting your own investigation?”

  “Not exactly,” Father John said. “I’ve known Ned since he was a kid. Used to play on the Eagles.”

  “Good little outfit you got there,” Silver said. “Beat the socks off my kid’s team a few years back.”

  “Ned was preparing to dance in the Sun Dance,” Father John went on. “His Sun Dance grandfather ...” The man’s eyebrows shot up, and Father John said, “The elder who was teaching him the prayers and rituals asked me to see what I could find out about why he was killed.”

  Silver nodded. “He was a darn good electrician’s apprentice.”

  “How long was he here?”

  “Five months, one week, six days. Hired him right out of that training program in Casper. His uncle, Jerry Adams, gave me a call, wanted to know if I had a place for a new apprentice. Now mind you”—he leaned sideways over the armrest and lowered his voice, as if there were someone else in the office—“I don’t cotton to hiring Indians. Not that I’m prejudiced, you understand.”

  Father John nodded. The prejudice was leaking out of the man.

  “But they can be trouble. Take off for ceremonies and what have you. Grandmother gets sick, they can’t come to work. But times are changing, and I’m trying to change with the times. Look at the individual, I tell myself. Everybody don’t come outta the same mold. Besides, Adams was vouching for him. And I gotta say, I admired the kid. Got himself enough gumption to go off and learn a trade so he could make a living. Guy had just quit on me, so I put Ned on the crew. Did real good, too. Always wanting to learn more. Wanted to know every last detail about everything. He could make electricity dance any direction he pleased. Wasn’t anything he wasn’t catching on to. Wire a new house, install security systems. You name it.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “Now that’s the real puzzle. I had some big jobs coming up, and he marched in here one morning and said, ‘Bud, you been real good to me, but I gotta move on.’ I said, ‘What the hell you talking about? You got a steady job here.’ All he said was it was personal. Needed to get his life straight, something like that. Said he had connections in Jackson Hole, so he was going up there and work at Sloan’s Electric. I gave him a good recommendation.”

  “Ever see him with anybody?”

  “Yeah.” Silver’s head bobbed up and down. “I betcha I seen him with the two guys I heard killed him. A couple of scary Indians, you ask me. Come around a couple times when Ned was loading his van out back. Got into a shouting match, then they took off. Driving a white truck. I intend to tell the FBI agent.”

  “Can you identify them?”

  “You bet. He shows me pictures I’ll pick ’em right out.” He leaned over the armrest again. “You ask me, they was the reason he wanted out of here. You know, the personal thing.”

  Father John didn’t say anything. It was possible there wasn’t anybody else in the burglary ring—that Hawk and Lookingglass had gotten Ned involved. He had to look away a moment. Silver was bound to find out about the ring. He had trusted Ned. He would probably never trust another Arapaho.

  “Thanks for your time,” he said, starting to get up.

  “There was another guy,” Silver said. “Seen him once. Drove a dark pickup, wore a cowboy hat. Pulled in while Ned was loading up. Getting ready to wire a remodel on a big house up in Sinks Canyon.�
��

  Father John dropped back onto his seat. “What did he look like?”

  “Stayed inside the pickup. Never got a good look at him. Could’ve been just about anybody.”

  Father John thanked the man again and left him standing in the middle of the office, saying how he hoped the killers would rot in prison. He retraced his route to the rez; the traffic thinned out a little. Still he had to pass a series of vehicles so as not to miss the Eagles practice. He had a gut feeling that whoever the cowboy hat was, it was another member of the ring, maybe the one with enough power and persuasive gifts to draw Ned Windsong into something he didn’t want to be in.

  “TAKE A LOOK at that kid!” Amos Whitebull called as Father John hurried down the sidelines. He was late; practice had started fifteen minutes ago. Amos’s son, Randy, played first base, and Amos had been helping coach the team all season. Their record was 7-2 so far, but Saturday they faced the Riverton Rangers, the toughest team in the league.

  Amos was grinning and waving toward the pudgy kid winding up for another pitch. Marcus White Owl. “Our secret weapon,” he said. “Batter gets all relaxed, thinking he can’t throw hard, but he can throw some serious heat. He may be small but all his strength’s in the lower half of his body, and that lets him really fire the ball in. Look at that!”

  The kid opened up with a pitch that just missed the outside corner of the plate. The batter swung and missed. He was doing a little circle dance of frustration.

  “Choke up and focus on the pitch!” Father John called.

  “The Rangers’ll have a tough time handling Marcus,” Amos said, still grinning. It was contagious, Father John knew, the excitement of a one-pitch hurler who could shut down a youth baseball team.