The Shadow Dancer (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  9

  LAW OFFICES OF VICKY HOLDEN.

  The old-fashioned sign on the front lawn mimicked the house, with curlicue posts that matched the gin-gerbread trim on the eaves. Vicky parked at the curb and hurried up the sidewalk. After four months in a Denver skyscraper, she could hardly believe her good luck to find a bungalow zoned for offices on the corner of a quiet, residential street. On the front door, below the beveled glass, was a bronze plaque engraved with her name. She let herself inside.

  “Oh, my!” Esther Sundell, the secretary she’d hired two weeks ago, rose from behind the desk in what had once been the living room. Her hands fluttered a moment, then clasped together. She was in her fifties, with dark brown hair fading into gray, cut just below her ears. About her own height, Vicky guessed, five-foot-six, but stouter, with broad shoulders and a thick waist concealed under the oversized blouses that she favored.

  The day Vicky opened the office, Esther had appeared at her door. She was related to Laola, she’d said, Vicky’s former secretary, although Vicky still wasn’t sure how she was related. She needed a job, and Laola had told her that Vicky needed a secretary. She’d hired the woman on the spot.

  “I didn’t think you were coming in,” Esther said, a trace of anxiety in her voice. She was still nervous about getting everything just right.

  “I’m not in.” Vicky opened the French doors to her private office in the former dining room. She’d called early this morning and left a voice mail, knowing she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work. That was before she’d realized she was at the top of Gianelli’s suspect list.

  “Then I did get your message right?” There was obvious relief in the woman’s voice. “You’ve had about twenty calls. I said you were out for the day. I canceled your appointments for this afternoon.”

  Vicky thanked the woman, dropped her bag on the desk that straddled the space between the window and the French doors—a dining table would have stood here—and adjusted the white, horizontal blinds. Slats of sunshine shot across the walls and gray carpet.

  “I just wanted to say . . .” The secretary was standing in the opened doors, hands gripping the knobs. “Well, I heard about your ex-husband. It’s all over the news. Radio, TV, big headline in the morning paper. If there’s anything you need, all you have to do is ask.”

  Vicky perched on the leather chair she’d hauled from Lander to Denver and back to Lander again, under the impression that she could haul a piece of home around with her, and gave the secretary a smile that she hoped would end the conversation. She reached for the phone.

  Esther remained between the doors. “Ben Holden must have been a wonderful man. Foreman at the Arapaho Ranch! And my, so handsome in the newspaper picture. Like one of the Indians in the movies.”

  Vicky gestured with the receiver. “An important call,” she said. God, even in death, Ben could attract women.

  “Oh, of course.” The hands fluttered upward like birds scared out of a nest. Then the woman backed into the front office, pulling the double doors with her until they clicked shut. Her shadow moved across the glass panes.

  Vicky tapped out the number for Howard and Fergus, her former firm in Denver, and asked for Wes Nelson, the managing partner.

  There was a brief silence, then the familiar voice at the other end. “Tell me you’ve had enough of small-town practice and you’re ready to come back to the big time.”

  Vicky was struck by the irony. She’d wanted to come home, and yet, if she’d stayed in Denver, she wouldn’t be a murder suspect now. “Something terrible has happened,” she said. Then she told him about Ben, spilling out the details of the scene at the restaurant, the shooting on Rendezvous Road, the fact she did not have an alibi.

  “Whoa, Vicky,” he interrupted. “You telling me the feds think you had something to do with this?”

  She said it looked that way and forced a little laugh.

  “You need a good criminal lawyer, Vicky. We have the best in the region. Who do you want? I’ll send anybody you name.”

  Vicky stared at the piles of papers on her desk. No Seventeenth Street criminal lawyer would want to set aside a mountain of work, drive three hundred miles to Lander, and hold her hand through a ridiculous investigation. She said, “I’m thinking about a couple of lawyers in the area.” She gave him the names. Wes had connections throughout the region. “Who would you recommend?”

  “You think one of the firm’s lawyers wouldn’t jump at the case?”

  “There isn’t a case,” she said, striving for more confidence than she felt.

  “Not yet, but it could go hard on you. I want to make sure the FBI agent plays by all the rules.” Wes was quiet a moment. “What about an attorney who used to be at the firm? UCLA grad. Hated to lose him, but like you, he wasn’t cut out for city life. Has firsthand experience dealing with federal agents on Indian reservations.”

  A memory stirred somewhere in the back of her mind. Indian lawyer at the firm two or three years ago. Substitute the University of Denver for UCLA and the lawyer’s résumé sounded like her own.

  “Adam Lone Eagle,” Wes was saying. “Lakota. Hails from Pine Ridge.”

  Lakota! One of the seven branches of the Sioux Nation. The largest tribe on the plains, fierce, warlike. They couldn’t be ignored. Her people had tried to stay out of their way, but there were times—after the massacre at Sand Creek for one—when Arapaho warriors had gone over to the Sioux to fight the whites.

  “Curious,” she said. “Ben had trouble with a couple of Lakota ranch hands before he was killed.”

  “Fed picked them up yet?”

  “He thinks they’ve already gone back to Pine Ridge.”

  “All the more reason you’re going to need Adam Lone Eagle. If they’ve gone into hiding, he might know how to smoke them out.”

  “Adam Lone Eagle.” Vicky let the name roll over her tongue. “Where do I find this warrior?”

  “Practically in your backyard. He’s with Grant and Bovee in Casper now.”

  That Indian lawyer. Vicky vaguely remembered the news flashing across the moccasin telegraph a year ago. Another Indian lawyer in Wyoming. Lakota. She’d put it out of her mind. Her people weren’t likely to hire a Lakota. She smiled at the irony. She was the one who was going to hire him.

  “How soon can you get to Casper?” Wes asked.

  Vicky glanced at her watch. Almost eleven. Casper was about a hundred and fifty miles away. “I can be there by two,” she said.

  The roofs of Casper twinkled in the sun ahead. She passed the turn to the airport and drove toward downtown through streets laid out more than a hundred years ago, wide enough in which to turn wagon trains. She found a parking place a block from the redbrick building with the white sign on the front: GRANT AND BOVEE, LAW OFFICES. Then she walked back, edging past a group of men in suits, two abreast, talking, laughing, gesturing, as if they owned the world, which they did, she was thinking. And Gianelli was like them.

  She pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the cool, spacious reception area, all marble floors and overstuffed chairs and tables with bouquets of fresh flowers. A middle-aged woman with a head of tight black curls and thin black eyebrows penciled above her eyes glanced up from behind the half-moon desk. Vicky gave her name and said she had an appointment with Adam Lone Eagle.

  “Oh, yes.” The eyebrows rose in two perfect arches. “Mr. Lone Eagle’s expecting you.”

  10

  Vicky followed the secretary down the corridor to the door with ADAM LONE EAGLE written in black letters on a wooden plaque. The door was half-opened, and the secretary ushered her inside. Standing by the desk across the room was a man probably in his forties, close to six feet tall, with muscular shoulders and chest that filled out his blue-striped dress shirt. His black hair was cut long and combed back, shiny in the light. He had a narrow face with prominent cheekbones, a long nose with a bump at the top, and a full mouth above the strong chin that curved into a little cleft. Hand
some, she thought, with the golden brown complexion of a man who lived in the sun, like a warrior in the Old Time.

  “Vicky Holden!” He seemed to rear back, the dark eyes appraising her. She saw the flash of approval in his expression. He started forward, took her hand, and led her into the office. “About time we met,” he said, not letting go of her hand. His grip was warm and firm. She could feel the strength in the man, and it gave her a measure of comfort and security that she hadn’t felt in so long, she’d almost forgotten they existed.

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” she managed, taking in the office around them: the soft gray carpeting and slatted blinds that blocked most of the sunlight, the polished desk that reflected the fluorescent ceiling lights.

  The man directed her to the chair in front of the desk, then walked around, taking his time—a signal, she thought, that there was nothing to worry about—and settled into the brown leather chair on the other side.

  “Funny thing,” he began. (Ah, the polite preliminaries would be observed. It increased her feeling of comfort.) “Wes has often mentioned you. Said we should meet. I was planning to drive over to Lander one of these days and introduce myself. Couple of Indian lawyers oughtta know each other, don’t you think?”

  He pulled a yellow pad across the desk and plucked a gold pen from a holder. His fingers were long and well-shaped; his nails trimmed and neat. He wasn’t wearing any rings. “Sorry to hear about your ex-husband.” He held her eyes a moment. “Terrible thing. Must’ve been quite a shock. Wes tells me you and Ben had dinner together before he was murdered.”

  “It was an attempt to have dinner,” she said. “It turned into a row.”

  “Not the first time, I take it.” He left his eyes on hers, and she saw that Wes had filled him in.

  “Now Ted Gianelli thinks you had something to do with the homicide.”

  Vicky relaxed into the chair. She was in competent hands. “He isn’t the only one,” she said. “Hugh, Ben’s brother, thinks I hired someone to kill Ben.” She paused. “I want you to know before we go any further. I did not murder my ex-husband.”

  “I didn’t ask you.” Adam was jotting something on the pad. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?”

  “We don’t have to prove your innocence. Gianelli and the U.S. attorney have to prove your guilt. That’s their job. My job will be to make sure they stay within the legal boundaries while they look for evidence.”

  “There isn’t any evidence, Adam.” Vicky stood up and walked over to the window. She pulled the slats apart. A column of sunshine lay over the street and sidewalk. A businessman hurried past, and at the curb, a woman was lifting a child out of a car seat in a van. An ordinary day, Vicky thought, except that the earth was shifting beneath her.

  “Why does that upset you?” There was a surprised note in the lawyer’s voice. “You know how the system works. You know I have to shield you from an indictment.”

  Vicky made herself take several slow breaths before she turned back. Adam Long Eagle was on his feet, fingers tapping the desk, dark eyes on her. “So, do we go forward?”

  She nodded and walked back to the chair.

  “We both know innocent people can be indicted and prosecuted,” he said. “All it takes is enough circumstantial evidence to put together a logical case. You’re in a precarious position. Abused ex-wife. You spent ten years married to Ben Holden, ten years of abuse. You’ve been divorced for ...”

  “Fifteen years,” she said.

  “Wes said Ben wouldn’t leave you alone, always wanted you back. That true?” The man hurried on without waiting for an answer. “You have no alibi for last night, and any dim-witted prosecutor can make the case that you had a motive.”

  Vicky walked back to the window. It was disconcerting hearing her own story from a stranger. “They found the weapon,” she said, looking back. “A twenty-two-caliber pistol. There might be prints. The gun can be traced.”

  The lawyer sat down and filled a couple of lines on the notepad. “Don’t count on it,” he said finally. “Killers don’t leave behind traceable guns with prints, unless they’re certifiably stupid.”

  That was true. Vicky pushed open the slats again and stared at the pickups and sedans passing outside. The pistol would probably be a dead end.

  “You own a gun?”

  She whirled around. “No.”

  “What about access?”

  “Access? I can buy a gun at any gun shop.”

  “Easy access. Anybody you know . . .”

  “Ben owned guns. Every rancher on the rez owns a gun. There are lots of people I know with guns. What are you getting at, Adam?”

  The lawyer stood up and came around the desk. “I don’t like it. Gun left at the scene.” He shrugged, but there was something forced in the gesture. “It might be traceable,” he said, a lack of conviction in his tone.

  “Yes.” Vicky heard the same tentativeness in her own voice. They both knew that whoever had waited for Ben on Rendezvous Road was clever and determined. Why, then, had the killer left the weapon?

  “From now on,” the lawyer was saying, “you do not talk to Ted Gianelli or any other fed, police officer, sheriff’s deputy, or detective. You talk to nobody about the homicide. Got it? When Gianelli calls, and he will call, your secretary will tell him to call me. All communication goes through me. And another thing, you don’t talk about the homicide to anybody else. Not friends or family. Nobody. I don’t want Gianelli picking up random bits of information that he might use against you. Is all this clear?”

  Vicky walked back to the chair, then to the window again. “So your strategy is to sit tight and act guilty,” she said. “That’s crazy. Ben argued with a couple of ranch hands. Lakotas.” She stopped pacing and locked eyes with the man.

  The lawyer reached back and dragged the yellow pad across the desk. “Names?” He gripped the pen and glanced up at her.

  “Roy He-Dog. Martin Crow Elk.” The names that Gianelli had given her were imprinted on her mind. “The fed claims they went back to Pine Ridge last week, but he’s wrong. Ben met with them yesterday.”

  “I know the families.” The gold pen moved over the notepad. “I’ll make a few phone calls to Pine Ridge and tap into the news. If they’re on the rez, I’ll hear about it.” He looked up. “You think they shot your ex-husband?”

  That was the problem. She’d been so sure. It had to be the Lakotas who followed Ben to Rendezvous Road. But she didn’t have any evidence. And Gianelli was right about one thing. Ben was a powerful man; he could have made other enemies.

  Vicky folded her arms and stared out the window. It was clear now—hadn’t she known all along? No one could know whether the Lakotas were guilty or innocent until they were found. And if they were still in the area, she was the one who would have to find them.

  She glanced back at the lawyer. “I’m going to ask around ...”

  “Haven’t you heard a word I said?”

  “We’re talking about my life, Adam.”

  “Let Gianelli do the asking around.”

  The office was quiet. Outside a truck geared down.

  “He won’t find the Lakotas.”

  The lawyer slapped the notepad down hard on the desk. It made a sharp, crackling noise. “If you want me to advise you, you have to play by my rules. That’s the first rule: Play by my rules.” He allowed the words to fill the space between them. “I have to know everything about you. How you spend your days. Who your friends are. That’s the way it has to be if I’m going to shield you from a murder indictment.”

  He reached back and withdrew a business card from a metal card holder. After jotting something on the card, he handed it to her. “My home number. You can call me anytime, day or night.”

  “In the meantime, what exactly am I supposed to do? Hibernate in a cave?”

  “Do what you normally do. Go to the office. Take care of clients. You must have work to do.”

 
; She told him about the report on the Wind River for the JBC. God, how could she concentrate on the report?

  “Good. Finish the report. See your friends and family. Go to Ben’s services.”

  “I’m not invited.”

  He stared at her a moment, as if he had to bring a new image of her into focus. “So Ben’s family really does think you’re responsible.” He drew in a long breath. “What they think doesn’t matter. We’ll stick to our plan.”

  Vicky slipped the card into her black bag. “What about your fee?”

  “The fee’s taken care of. Wes’s instructions were: ‘Don’t worry about the tab, just keep her safe.’ You’re going to be all right, Vicky. Trust me.”

  11

  Father John drove north out of Lander, the highway curving toward the foothills, then running straight into the parched, empty plains. Traffic was light: a couple of RVs with out-of-state plates, pickups with two or three Indians in the front seat. Father John squinted past the sunlight reflecting off the hood. “A moi les plaisirs” blared over the thrum of the tires on the road, the noise of the wind. He’d been drawn to Faust lately, the soaring, plaintive music and the story of a man who gave up his soul—and for what? What could be more important than your soul?

  He turned west out of Fort Washakie and started winding up a narrow ribbon of concrete. Below, the reservation crept toward the horizon, golden in the sun and peaceful, with small houses scattered about and roads that carved the land into large squares. Cottonwoods and willows marked the paths of the Wind River on the north and the Little Wind on the south. Where the rivers met, just east of the mission, was a cluster of greenery. He could see the church steeple rising among the cottonwoods.

  And then the road headed into a canyon. The pavement ended, replaced by a two-track with weeds and brush that scraped at the undercarriage. A thin forest of ponderosas and junipers sprouted on the slopes. He negotiated another turn. The high peaks, still covered in snow, came into view behind the ridge ahead. A barbed wire fence on the right ran to a small, log shack.