There could be others. The blackjack pit boss. An Arapaho from Oklahoma. What had Lexson said his name was? Dennis . . .
Dennis Light Stone.
Vicky walked back through the dining room—another table occupied by two more tourists, a long-legged waitress in a short, black uniform scribbling in a notepad. Into the casino, past the rows of slots toward the gaming tables. The noise faded behind her. She stopped at a craps table. Four players sat across from a man in a white shirt and black vest, watching the dice roll over the green felt. “Twelve,” the dealer called, sweeping in the chips of those players who had bet wrong.
Vicky wandered to the next table, where another craps game was in progress. Six players, one grinning and raising his fist in salute to whatever gods of luck had just paid a visit. She headed into the blackjack area. It was quieter here, players seated on stools, hunched over the half-moon-shaped tables, cards spread in front, and dealers slapping down other cards, pulling in chips, shuffling, dealing again, the action fast and concentrated.
Vicky waited until two players at a table got up and wandered off. She stepped closer.
The dealer, a middle-aged white man with a black toupee and a southern drawl, nodded toward a vacant seat.
“I work in the legal department.”
“Ah.” The man nodded. “That Arapaho lawyer they brought on.”
“Who’s the pit boss on this shift?”
“You don’t know?” The man was shuffling a deck, then snapping down cards, as if to keep his fingers and wrists flexible. “Thought all you Arapahos got together at powwows or something. Usually, it’s Dennis Light Stone. Good man, Dennis. Been in the business a long time. Come here from Colorado. Me, I’m from Mississippi. Worked in a Choctaw casino, then started knocking around, going from casino to casino.” He shrugged. “Way to see the country.”
“Where can I find Light Stone.”
The man stopped laying out the cards and stared across the room. “Popular guy, Dennis. You’re the second person today to come around asking for him. Some priest playing at Sheila’s table wanted to find him.”
“Some priest? You mean Father O’Malley from the mission?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Did he say why he was looking for Dennis?”
The man shrugged. “Wanted to talk to him, I guess. Same as you.”
Vicky glanced around, half-expecting John O’Malley to emerge from the tables. Now that she knew he’d been here, the place seemed filled with him—the look of him, the way he walked, the way he smiled at her. She wondered why he’d been looking for Dennis Light Stone.
“Haven’t seen Dennis around last few days,” the dealer was saying. “Must’ve taken some time off. See that guy delivering the fill to Sheila?” He shifted his gaze toward the bulky man with the close-cropped blond hair, who was handing a box to the dealer at the adjacent table—a woman with a blond braid wrapped into a ball at the back of her head.
“The what?”
“Fill. Table needed more chips, so the dealer signaled Felix—he’s the pit boss with Dennis gone. Felix went to the cage and got the extra chips.”
“Who is he?”
“Felix Slodin. Been knocking around casinos like me. We worked together down in Mississippi.”
Vicky thanked the man and started back through the casino. So Dennis was just another Arapaho, with a good job and somebody to back him up, somebody who’d worked for Lodestar Enterprises in the past. As she started down the rows of slots, she sensed something change in the atmosphere. Her skin felt warm and clammy, as though a spotlight had turned on her. Someone was watching her.
She glanced around. Tourists hunched over the slots, or milling about, looking for the next payoff. Then, as if her eyes were drawn upward on their own toward the white glow of the ceiling lights, she saw the blank, cream-colored wall high over the casino. But it wasn’t a wall, she knew. It was the one-way window in Lexson’s office. She could imagine the manager standing there, hands in the pockets of his slacks, looking down on the floor.
Watching her.
Vicky fought the temptation to wave, to let him know that she knew.
She hurried back through the hotel lobby and stepped into the elevator.
THE DOOR TO Adam’s office was open, and Vicky caught a glimpse of him as she walked through the waiting room. He was leaning back in his chair, tasseled black loafers crossed on the corner of the desk, head bent toward the legal-sized document folded over his hand.
As he glanced up, his feet thudded against the floor. “Vicky! Wait up.”
She was already through the door to the other office and reaching for her black bag in the desk drawer.
“How’d it go?” Adam stepped inside and shut the door. “You see the video?”
Vicky fixed the strap of the bag over her shoulder and turned to face him. “What’s going on here, Adam?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Assault! Lexson and Barrenger think they can discredit Jack Monroe’s accusations by having his men charged with assault.”
“It was assault. You know that.”
“Tommy Willard said that Matt Kingdom controls the good jobs at the casino.”
“There’s no truth to that accusation. I told you, Monroe wants to close down the casino. His men will say anything if they think it’ll stick.”
Adam stepped toward her. “I’ve been going over the employment contracts, Vicky. If there were anything wrong with the way we hire people, don’t you think I’d have detected it by now?”
“What about Lexson and Barrenger? Who are they, Adam?”
He moved toward her. She could smell the scent of him, a mixture of soap and aftershave and the faintest hint of perspiration. “They’re men who know how to run casinos. They’ve run casinos for other tribes. The company they work for loaned the tribal council eighteen million to build this place and sent Lexson here to manage operations. They have the management contract for seven years. Do you think Lexson would do anything to jeopardize the company’s eighteen million?”
Vicky crossed the office to the windows outside. The sky was as placid and blue as a stilled sea. A small plane curved close to the foothills, disappeared, then reappeared—like a blackbird circling its prey.
What Adam said made sense. Tommy Willard worked for Captain Jack Monroe, whoever he was. A man who’d tried to stop Indian casinos and, when he failed, launched his own personal vendetta. Suppose that was all it was? A vendetta.
She turned back to the Lakota who stood with his hands at his sides waiting, the quiet, patient look of her own people on his face, as if he would wait forever, if it were necessary. “Where does Monroe get the money to pay the rangers?” she said.
Adam shrugged. “He’s a nutcase, Vicky. Who knows where he gets the money. Maybe he’s wealthy. What does it matter? We can’t allow him to destroy the casino. Look,” he took a step toward her. “Lexson knows how to take care of Monroe. We have our own work to do.” He hesitated. “You’re not going to quit, are you?”
“No, I’m not going to quit,” she said, brushing past him and opening the door. Not until she found out who else had sham management jobs and whether they were also connected to Matt Kingdom. “I’ll have the first batch of contracts ready in the next couple days,” she said over her shoulder.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” Adam said.
Vicky turned back.
“We can talk about this.” He hurried on. “You’ll see there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You’re suggesting a business dinner?”
“Business and—” he gave her a wide smile. “Pleasure.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that mixing business and pleasure is a bad idea?”
“I never believe half of what people tell me. How about that place in the foothills? Say about seven o’clock?”
Vicky left her eyes on his a moment. Finally, she said, “Why not.”
13
“YO
U HAVE A hotel reservation?” A woman with black hair, worn long and swept back like a veil, came along the other side of the registration desk toward him. She was strikingly pretty, Father John thought, probably in her thirties and dressed modestly, almost like a nun, in a navy blue skirt and blouse, with a silver bar pinned on the collar. Theresa was etched in black letters across the bar.
“Are you Theresa Light Stone?” Father John asked.
The woman halted in mid-step next to the computer that emitted a low buzzing sound, like the buzz of a fluorescent light. She gave him a wary look.
“I’m Father O’Malley from St. Francis Mission,” he added hurriedly. “I’d like to talk to you.” He watched the wariness in her expression dissolve into fear, and then her face froze, as though she was preparing herself for a blow. A priest. Priests delivered bad news. She glanced about, as if she wanted to summon help: the upholstered chairs across the lobby, the newspaper opened on a side table.
The look of fear dug in deeper. “Nothing’s happened, has it, Father? Everything’s okay, isn’t it?”
He put up the palm of one hand in an attempt to reassure her, although he wasn’t sure himself that everything was okay. “I’ve been trying to reach your husband,” he said. “Can you tell me where I can find him?”
She looked stunned, as if he’d slapped her, and the slap had come out of the blue. She flicked her eyes toward the whoosh of the double doors sliding open at the entrance. A man with a garment bag hanging over one shoulder and a bulky briefcase in his free hand was coming across the lobby. Bringing her gaze back, she nodded toward the door at the end of the counter. “Wait in the office while I take care of this guy,” she said.
Father John walked over and let himself through the door into a short hallway. Another door led to a small room crowded with a couple of chairs, a wall of filing cabinets, and a desk. The computer on the desk was wedged between stacks of papers and folders that spilled over the surface onto the chairs.
It was several minutes before he heard the door in the hallway open and shut. Theresa stepped into the office and, gathering up the papers from one of the chairs, motioned for him to sit down. She walked around, gathered another stack, and dropped into the chair behind the desk, clutching the papers against her chest.
“Dennis came to see you, is that it?” She was nodding, as if she’d answered her own question.
“What are you talking about?”
This made her hesitate. She leaned forward and dropped the papers next to the keyboard. “I figured he’s . . .” she took in a long breath, then plunged on. “Pretty upset about us splitting up, so he went to talk to a priest.”
Father John was quiet a moment, trying to bring a new picture into view. Dennis was having marital problems. A man with marital problems might decide to get away for a few days to think things over. That could be all there was to it. He could be mistaken thinking that Dennis was hiding out someplace, or worse. Thinking that Dennis was dead.
He said, “I’m sorry you’re having problems.”
“Oh, the problems are gonna be gone, Father.” She gave a halfhearted shrug. “Soon’s the marriage is gone. It’s really quite simple, at least for me, but Dennis, well . . .” She shrugged again and pressed backward into the chair. “He kept saying how he didn’t want things to be over between us, how we’d come a long way and been through a lot. God, he had that right, or partly right. I’d been through a lot with that man. He said he was gonna change, but he was always telling me he was gonna change and quit screwing every bimbo that came within screwing distance.”
She gave the chair a quarter turn and stared at the window. Beyond, a line of cars and trucks blurred along Main Street. “Last year, down in Colorado,” she began, as if she were pulling the memory from the outdoors, “Dennis got involved with that nineteen-year-old stripper. Exotic dancer, she called herself. What a joke. I told him that was the end, but he said, no, Theresa, honey, we’ll go to the Wind River reservation and be with our own people and follow the Indian road. He said he had a job offer to be the pit boss at the new casino, and everything was gonna be just fine. Guess I don’t have to tell you what happened. First thing, he got himself a girlfriend.”
Theresa swung the chair back and stared at him. “You’re a priest,” she said. “You’ve never been married.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Let me tell you something, Father. You know when your partner is having an affair. And with Dennis, I’ve had lots of experience. I told him to get out and stay out. That was four days ago. I’m not surprised he went running to a priest. Problem is, Dennis doesn’t see why other women ought to come between us. ‘You’re the one I love, Theresa.’” The words came from deep in her throat. “I can imagine the story he told you to get you to come here.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Father John said. “Your husband never came to see me.”
A shadow of disappointment passed across the woman’s eyes. “Then what’s this all about?”
“Dennis could be in trouble,” Father John began, selecting his words. He didn’t want to alarm her, and yet . . . he wanted to find Dennis, talk to him, assure himself that the man was okay. “He hasn’t been at work the last four days, and Jack Monroe’s gang has been harassing . . .”
Theresa cut in. “They didn’t bother Dennis. Call themselves the rangers, but they’re nothing but park rangers, drunken Indians that hang at the parks. Get their kicks causing trouble. Dennis figured soon’s the casino was up and running good, they’d slink back into the muck they crawled out of. Think about it, Father.” She was shaking her head. “Thugs like Monroe, they’re not gonna close down the casino. Too many people need the jobs. Too many people making money. Besides . . .” she paused, some interior argument playing out behind her dark eyes.
“Besides what?” he prodded.
She dropped her eyes and let out a long breath. “I shouldn’t tell you this. Dennis made me promise not to tell, but what the hell? He broke all his promises to me. Every single one,” she said, raising her gaze to his again. “Dennis carried a gun. If Monroe and his gang get too close, he knows how to take care of himself.”
Father John sucked in a column of air. This was bad. He’d wanted to warn Dennis that he might be in danger, but the man already knew he was in danger. He was carrying a gun!
“Where’s he staying?”
She was shaking her head. “Try his girlfriend’s.”
“You know who she is?”
“You want the truth, Father?” The woman gave him a too-frank stare. He forced himself not to look away.
“Truth is,” she went on, “if I knew who she was, I’d kill the bitch.”
He knew who she was, Father John was thinking. The girl back at the casino, worried about Dennis, asking him to let her know the minute he heard anything. And the truth was, Dennis’s girlfriend didn’t know where he was.
“When you find him,” Theresa remained seated behind the desk as he got to his feet, “give him a message from me. Tell him not to bother coming home.”
FATHER JOHN STARTED to tap out the telephone number at the FBI office on his cell as he pulled out of the parking lot, then gave it up, tossed the phone onto the seat, and turned left onto Main Street. With a little luck, he might catch Gianelli in his office. He parked in front of the flat-faced brick building with the gift shops on the ground floor and took the black-vinyl-covered stairs two at a time to the lobby on the second floor. He pushed the button on the intercom next to the wood-paneled door on the left. Cool air wafted from the vents overhead.
“Help you?” Gianelli’s voice boomed over the sounds of La Boheme. The agent was the only man in the area who loved opera as much as he did—and knew more about it, a fact Father John didn’t like to admit.
“John O’Malley,” he said into the speaker.
It was a moment before the door opened. “So you got my message,” Gianelli said over his shoulder as he led the way into an office with long, old-fashion
ed windows that overlooked Main Street. He dropped into the swivel chair behind the desk and motioned Father John to a side chair.
“What message?”
Cupping one hand around his ear, Gianelli swiveled toward the bookcase and turned a knob on the CD player. “Che gelida manina” faded into the background, a soft undercurrent of sound.
“Stopped by the mission,” Gianelli said. “Father George said you’d call as soon as you got in. Give me the whole story, John. No holding back. Everything you know about the Pearson homicide. Mo Pearson says some Indian on the reservation shot her husband, and you know who it is.”
Father John hung his cowboy hat on one knee. “She’s mistaken,” he said. And then he told the agent what Lela Running Bull had said, how she’d expected the body at Double Dives to be Dennis Light Stone, a pit boss at the casino who happened to be Arapaho, how Tommy Willard and the rest of Monroe’s gang had been harassing the man, and how nobody had seen him in the last four days.
“You telling me that Monroe’s gang went after Light Stone and shot a white man by mistake?” Disbelief was plastered on the agent’s face. “Come on, John. This isn’t a story from an opera. This is real life, man.”
“I just talked to Dennis’s wife . . .”
“Wife?”
“Theresa. Works over at the Rendezvous Motel. They’ve been having some problems, and she asked him to leave.”
“Aha!” Gianelli brought a thick fist down on the desktop. A pile of papers skittered sideways. “She threw him out, and he’s gone on a drunk somewhere.”
“Dennis has a girlfriend, and she hasn’t seen him either. She works at the casino.”
Gianelli tilted his chair back and studied the ceiling a moment, considering. “Captain Jack Monroe,” he said under his breath, “has turned into a royal pain in the ass. Looks like I’m gonna have to lean on the captain a little and find out what he knows about Pearson’s death and the whereabouts of Light Stone.”
Killing Raven (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 10