“Mind telling me what it was about?”
“Come on, Ted,” Father John said. She could hear the irritation in his tone. “What difference could it possibly make? You heard what Vicky said. Ben was angry at two Lakotas who ripped him off.”
The fed tapped the pen against the notebook, the new element still in his eyes. Vicky said, “Ben thought we should be a family again.”
Gianelli jotted something down. Then he said, “Eight-thirty, Ben would have been on Rendezvous Road. Did he say where he was going?”
Vicky shook her head. She’d feared Ben would stay in town and show up at her apartment. She’d thought it was Ben when John O’Malley had knocked. “He must have been on his way back to the ranch,” she said.
The fed agreed that was possible. Then, as if he were talking to himself, he said, “Shouldn’t be too difficult to get a line on the Lakotas. Stick out like sore thumbs. Every Arapaho and Shoshone on the res’ll know where they’re hanging out.”
But they won’t tell you. Vicky glanced at Father John and saw in his expression that he’d had the same thought.
The fed got to his feet, the quick, assured movement of the linebacker he’d once been for the New England Patriots. “If you think of anything, Vicky, anything at all, call me. Oh, and Vicky . . .” He made it sound like an afterthought, a clumsy attempt. She clenched her fists and waited for the rest of it. “I probably don’t have to tell you to stick around. Don’t leave the area. I’ll want to interview you again in the next couple days.”
“What are you inferring?” Father John was on his feet. “You can’t think Vicky had anything to do with Ben’s murder.”
“I’m not sure what to think at the moment. The investigation’s just gotten started. Fact is, Vicky was the last one to see Ben alive.”
“Wrong, Ted,” Father John said. (It was as if she wasn’t in the room: strange, having her own life discussed.) “The killer was the last.”
There was an awkward silence before the fed brought his eyes to hers. “Like I said, Vicky, stay where I can reach you.” Then he walked across the room and let himself out, closing the door softly behind him.
Vicky felt as if she was going to be sick. She, a suspect in Ben’s murder? It was ridiculous. Surely the fed didn’t believe her capable of killing the father of her own children?
The realization came over her like a slow-moving fever. It was exactly what he believed. She was the last one to see Ben alive. And Gianelli knew. He knew about the past. He knew why she had left Ben all those years ago.
“My God,” she said.
“Listen to me, Vicky.” Father John leaned over and set a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not guilty. You’re not responsible. Gianelli’ll trace the gun and find the killer.”
Vicky struggled to control the panic leaping inside her. She set her own hand on his. A moment passed before she felt steady enough to get to her feet. “I have to call Susan and Lucas,” she said.
“I’ll get you the phone.” Father John started toward the desk.
“Not from here.” She couldn’t call from here. She had to go home to her people where the spirits of the ancestors could strengthen her. Her mother had been dead five years now, but Aunt Rose was still alive. Her mother’s sister, which meant, in the Arapaho Way, that Aunt Rose was also her mother.
“I have to go to Aunt Rose’s.”
“I’ll take you.” Father John’s voice was soft and matter-of-fact. Rational. He understood. She always went to Aunt Rose’s when the world shook beneath her and she couldn’t get her balance.
“It’s okay. I’ll drive the Bronco,” she said, starting toward the hall. She had to pack a few things; she didn’t know how long she’d want to stay.
“I’ll follow you, then,” he said.
7
The screen door clacked into the silence that spread over the dirt yard behind the little white house. Vicky rearranged herself in the webbed chair and tried to shake off the sense of unreality that clung to her like a new skin. She watched Aunt Rose coming toward her: thick legs paddling forward, brown shoes raising little spitwads of dust. The morning sun blazing behind her made her pink housedress look as faded and gray as her hair. She held out a mug like an offering.
“You won’t eat,” she said. “Least you gotta drink something.”
Vicky thanked the old woman and took the mug. The smell of fresh coffee came at her like an aroma breaking through a dream. She took a sip. She’d been sitting out in the yard since before dawn, watching the sun float up out of the darkness and turn the sky violet and red. Gradually the colors had melted into a crystalline blue. She had asked the spirits to guide the father of her children to the ancestors.
Aunt Rose unfolded the chair leaning against the house, dragged it over, and sat down next to her. Vicky steeled herself for the urgent, well-meaning pleas for her to pull herself together, think of the kids. The old woman had been fussing over her since she’d knocked on the door last night.
She’d been expecting her, Aunt Rose had said. The moccasin telegraph was buzzing with the news. Vicky had waved at John O’Malley, his headlights washing over the Bronco, and stepped into Aunt Rose’s arms. It was over now. She and Ben were over.
It had taken a while before she’d felt in control enough to call the kids. First Lucas. He was the stronger. He didn’t speak for a moment. The sound of his breathing, irregular and forced, had filled the line. Finally the questions had begun, like the questions of a warrior trying to determine the cause of an ambush. How? Why? Who?
She told him what she knew, and he’d asked more questions. She didn’t have the answers. After a while, the call had ended, and she’d rung Susan. Silence again, followed by screams that pulsed down the line. They’d talked only a few minutes, a breath of time, and there had been so much Vicky had wanted to say. But Susan had slammed down the phone, a punctuation, Vicky knew, to the anger her daughter harbored toward her—she was the one who had left the girl’s father—anger that had exploded in an inarticulate blame for her father’s death.
Susan was flying to Denver this morning, and she and Lucas would drive to the reservation. They’d be here this evening.
Aunt Rose’s voice droned beside her, something about the old religion. “Do you good to hear the preaching,” she said. “Take away some of the pain. Get your mind on the new world that’s coming.”
Vicky shifted sideways and gave the woman her full attention. “What are you talking about, Auntie? That cult in the mountains? Have you gone to the shadow dances?”
“Not the dances themselves.” A defensive note crept into Aunt Rose’s tone. “Only the Indians living up at the ranch take part in the dances. Every six weeks they dance for four days, like the Ghost Dancers in the Old Time. Wovoka gave Orlando all the instructions when he was in the shadow world. He promised that if the Indians dance, good things’ll happen. We’re gonna have our own land with plenty of trees and water and no whites telling us what to do. There’s gonna be all Indians in the new world, like Wovoka said.”
Vicky reached over and took the old woman’s hand. “Surely you don’t believe this nonsense.”
Aunt Rose flinched. “Nonsense? The Creator give us the Ghost Dance a long time ago. Sent Wovoka to show us the new way of praying. Now Wovoka’s sent Orlando. We gotta start praying again like in the Old Time, or the good things won’t happen.”
“Orlando is James Sherwood.” Vicky kept her voice measured and calm. “The Sherwoods were always”—she hesitated—“different. Remember? James’s father shot himself. His mother left the rez and died in a mental hospital in Denver.”
Aunt Rose was quiet a moment. “Orlando died, too,” she said finally. “He stayed in the shadow world a long time. He was with Wovoka and the ancestors. He’s a holy man.”
“Oh, Auntie.” Vicky stopped herself from saying that James Sherwood was crazy, Nokooho. She could still see the white-clothed dancers circling the parking lot, shoving collection baskets at motorists,
and people dropping in coins. People like Aunt Rose, naive and trusting. She was always taking people into her home. How many times had Aunt Rose taken her in? No place to go? Rose White Plume always had room. The tribal social services, the police would drop off people for a few days. Nothing official. It was just that everyone on the rez knew that Rose White Plume had a good heart.
“Promise me,” Vicky said, “that you won’t give the shadow dancers any money.” She could imagine the old woman, entranced by the preaching, snapping open her pocketbook and dropping a few precious dollars into the baskets.
“Now, Vicky, I got enough. What I don’t need . . .”
Vicky reached over and took the old woman’s hand. “You already give away what you don’t need. How many people have you fed in the last month?”
Aunt Rose tilted her head back and studied the sky. “Young couple with a baby drove up here from Oklahoma and got stranded. Couple kids fighting with their folks. Social services said they needed some cooling-off time.” She paused, still searching the sky. The list was growing, Vicky thought. “Two, three girls stayed for a couple days.”
“See what I mean, Auntie?” Vicky said, but she was talking to herself. Aunt Rose had shifted her attention toward the front of the house, and Vicky turned in her chair.
Her heart jumped.
For an instant, she’d thought the man coming toward them was Ben: tall and fit-looking, hair as black as slate, narrow sun-browned face, sharp, handsome features. And the same eyes, shining with anger. His boots kicked up swirls of dust. Vicky set her mug, still half-full, on the ground, stood up, and faced Hugh Holden.
“I want to talk to you, Vicky.” He was a couple of yards away now.
“Hello, Hugh,” Aunt Rose said, a scolding note ringing in her tone. The Arapaho had ignored the proprieties and launched immediately into business.
Hugh Holden glanced at the old woman, but there was no recognition in his eyes, no deviation from his purpose. He came closer. Vicky could smell the sour mixture of coffee and cigarettes on his breath.
“What happened last night between you and Ben?” The man stood with fists clenched at his sides, white knuckles straining against the brown skin. He was like Ben.
Vicky stepped backward, a reflexive motion. The chair wobbled against her leg. “I don’t understand . . .”
“Bullshit. The fed says you and Ben had dinner. How come, Vicky? How come you were willing to have dinner with somebody you hated? Walked out on without so much as a go-to-hell. Broke up his family. Broke him up bad. Then, when he tried to get you to come back, all you could think about was some priest. That priest . . .” He drew in a long breath that flared his nostrils. “John O’Malley’s the reason you turned against Ben. What’d you decide? To get Ben out of the way so you and the priest can have your little romance?”
“That’s crazy, Hugh.” Vicky tried to keep her voice calm. She’d had this conversation before, but it had been with Ben. Ben had believed the same, and she had never succeeded in convincing him that there was nothing between her and John O’Malley, except friendship. He was her closest friend, that was all. He was a priest.
“God knows I never understood what kind of spell you put on my brother,” the man went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Years he carried the torch for you, sure you were gonna come to your senses and go back to him. Even made plans to add rooms on the cabin up at the ranch. Room for Susan. Room for your office.” He gave a snort of derision. “You being a lawyer were gonna want an office.”
“Hugh, listen to me,” Vicky began, struggling to wrap her mind around the magnitude of the fantasy world in which her ex-husband had lived. “Ben had trouble with a couple of ranch hands.”
“You’re the only trouble Ben had,” he said, spraying her face with pinpricks of spittle. “Why a restaurant in Lander, Vicky? So he’d be sure to drive across Rendezvous Road? You knew he was gonna be out there alone. You set him up.”
“What?” Vicky reared back. “How dare you!”
“I know what happened.” The man’s mouth twisted sideways. “You might fool everybody else, but you don’t fool me. You hated my brother. You didn’t want him bothering you, showing up in Lander, messing up your life. You wanted him dead.”
Aunt Rose stood up. “You’ve said enough, Hugh Holden. You’d better go.”
“How’d you arrange it, Vicky?” The man kept on. “Who’d you hire to shoot my brother? Skin? White man?”
“For godssakes, Hugh,” Vicky said.
“I swear on my brother’s grave you’re not gonna get away with it. I’m gonna be all over that FBI agent until he gets you convicted, and if the law doesn’t get you, Vicky, I swear I will.”
“I said, get going, Hugh Holden,” Aunt Rose shouted. “You ain’t welcome at my house anymore.”
Vicky made herself hold the man’s eyes until he’d turned away and started back along the side of the house. He was almost to the front when he stopped and looked back. “One more thing. The family’s gonna make the funeral arrangements, you got that? We’re gonna bury my brother like an Arapaho warrior. His kids are gonna be with the family where they belong, but you better not show your face. That’s a warning.”
Vicky felt as if her muscles and bones had fused together. She couldn’t move. Her eyes stayed locked on the Indian until he’d disappeared around the house. She was barely aware of the warmth of Aunt Rose’s hand on her frozen arm.
“You come inside now,” the old woman said. “I’m gonna get you some more hot coffee.” An engine growled into life, tires squealed. Vicky saw the blue pickup peel down the road ahead of a cloud of dust.
“He thinks I killed Ben,” she said. She had thought . . .
“Man’s crazy with grief. Don’t know what he’s saying.” Aunt Rose lifted her chin and locked eyes with her. “You are my sister’s daughter and you are my daughter. You had nothing to do with this terrible thing. You are not a murderer.”
Vicky felt the tears coming. The contours of the old woman’s face, the shape of her shoulders and arms blurred in the sun. She ran a hand over her cheeks.
“Let’s go inside,” she said, but Aunt Rose was staring toward the front of the house.
“Looks like we got another visitor.”
Vicky followed the old woman’s gaze. A white Blazer was slowing for a turn into the yard, a white man behind the wheel. The Blazer swung out of sight. She heard the engine cut off, the door slam shut.
“Well, it’s to be expected,” Aunt Rose said. “People gonna be dropping by all day. You go on inside. I’ll tell ’em you ain’t up to seeing folks just yet.”
“It’s okay, Aunt,” Vicky said. “It’s the fed. He could have news.” She started down the side of the house through the sunlight reflecting off the painted wood, aware of Aunt Rose hurrying behind her, gasping for air.
In the front yard, Gianelli was standing on the stoop, one fist in the air, as if he’d just knocked and was about to knock again. “Vicky,” he said, glancing around. “We have to talk.” Then, to Aunt Rose, “How are you, Mrs. White Plume?”
“You’d better come in.” Aunt Rose made her way to the stoop, brushed past the agent, and pushed the door open. “Come on, come on,” she said, beckoning the man inside.
Vicky followed. The living room was cool and smelled of coffee and the bacon and fried eggs that Aunt Rose had tried to get her to eat earlier.
“Sit down.” The old woman kept moving toward the kitchen. “I’ll get some coffee.”
Vicky sat down on the sofa. “What have you found out, Ted?”
The agent didn’t say anything for a moment. He was still standing, glancing around, the helplessness about him almost comical: white man in polished, tasseled shoes and blue sport coat, surrounded by a sofa and chairs that might collapse under his weight, a rabbit-eared TV, sunlight glinting on the glass that covered photos of the ancestors.
After a moment, he took one of the wood side chairs and fumbled for the notepad inside his blue sport
coat.
“Not a whole lot,” he said finally. “I want you to tell me again what happened last night.”
Vicky felt the muscles in her throat constrict. What exactly had she told him? How would he compare what she’d said then with what she said now? How would he construe her words? This was how suspects felt, she thought. She went through the story again: Ben preoccupied and angry, arriving late. They argued. He stomped out.
The fed looked up from the notepad. “You didn’t say anything last night about him throwing the dishes on the floor.”
Vicky was quiet a moment. “Obviously you’ve talked to people at the restaurant.”
“About a dozen witnesses saw the whole thing. All of them say Ben was out of control, but you didn’t tell me how bad it was. Why didn’t you?”
“We’d had similar scenes in the past.” God, she was on the witness stand. She was the defendant. “You know about the beatings, Ted. You know why I left Ben fifteen years ago. Everybody on the res knows. What are you getting at?”
“Witnesses say something else, Vicky.” The agent drew in a long breath and tapped his ballpoint on the notepad. “They say you were pretty angry, too. They say you followed Ben out of the restaurant. They say your Bronco followed his brown truck down Main Street. A good prosecutor might conclude that, over the years, you’d accumulated a lot of reasons to want Ben Holden out of your life permanently. A good prosecutor might think you followed him to Rendezvous Road.”
Vicky jumped to her feet. “You’ve known me for five years, Ted. We’ve worked together on cases. Do you really believe I’m capable of shooting someone?” She stopped. She had shot a man last year to stop him from killing John O’Malley. She had been capable.
She rephrased the question: “Do you think I’m capable of premeditated murder?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Rose in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes widened in fear, two mugs of coffee shaking in her hands.
The Shadow Dancer (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 6