Killing Raven (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  Gianelli turned, walked over to the Blazer and, leaning through the opened window, grabbed a radio. There was a scatter of static, a high-pitched whine. Holding the radio close to his mouth, he told somebody—probably the state patrol—to locate a woman named Mo Pearson, driving a truck . . . He glanced at Father John.

  “Chevrolet. Brown.”

  The agent repeated the information. “She could be sixty miles outside of Riverton in any direction,” he said, then set the radio into place below the dashboard. “She ID the loan sharks?” he asked, turning back.

  Father John shook his head. “They approached her husband in the casino parking lot.”

  Neither spoke for a moment, Father John could almost see the propositions clicking together in the other man’s mind, rolling toward a logical conclusion. Monroe’s men stopped people in the casino parking lot. The loan sharks stopped people in the parking lot. Ergo . . .

  “Maybe Captain Jack decided to work both sides of the fence.” Gianelli kept his gaze on the riverbank littered with whiskey bottles and beer cans. “Maybe the Captain started loaning people money, making it hurt enough to teach them a lesson, and making himself a nice little profit on the side. Clever.” He shook his head, as if the criminal mind never failed to surprise him. “Some guys, if they decided to go straight, could run General Motors.”

  “Then why shoot himself?”

  The agent was working his jaw back and forth, as if he were forming the words to a new and unfamiliar idea. “Maybe the Captain’s rangers decided to take over the business.”

  That was possible, Father John thought. Lela Running Bull believed her boyfriend capable of murder.

  He let a moment pass before he said, “Pearson wasn’t the only one mixed up with loan sharks.”

  This got Gianelli’s full attention, and Father John told him about Catherine Bizzel and how she’d embezzled money.

  The agent walked a few steps away, then swung back. “I knew we’d have nothing but trouble soon as gambling got here. Pearson did business with loan sharks and ended up shot in the head. Now a little old lady like Catherine Bizzel is doing business with loan sharks. What next?”

  He took a step closer. White spots of anger flashed in the man’s eyes. “Names, John. I need names. Catherine has to talk to me.”

  “She wants to talk to Vicky first.”

  “Ah. Vicky.” Gianelli jammed his hands back into his pockets. “I see. Catherine Bizzel’s committed embezzlement and fraud at a Riverton bank, and Vicky’s going to suggest a deal. Catherine will cooperate in a homicide investigation and the district attorney won’t press charges.”

  “You’re pretty good, Ted.”

  “You and Vicky come up with this strategy?”

  “I haven’t talked to Vicky.”

  “What’s the difference? You two don’t need to talk. You communicate telepathically, or some such thing. You think the same.”

  “Catherine’s a good woman, Ted. She deserves another chance.”

  “Maybe so. Doesn’t mean you and Vicky can’t be a pain in the neck.”

  27

  IT HAD BEEN more than an hour since Vicky had left the message on Gianelli’s answering machine. Most of that time she’d spent at the copying machine in the outer office, making duplicates of the notes she’d scribbled while talking to Myrna Hancock and Alan Peterson, the list she’d compiled of the supply and equipment companies owned by Lodestar’s umbrella company and a man named Mickey Vontego, and the résumés of Kingdom’s managers. She’d slipped the copies into a file folder, which she set on a stack of papers at the edge of her desk. The originals went into another folder, the one she intended to give to Gianelli. She wrote Casino on a Post-It note and slapped it on top. Fifteen minutes ago, she’d left another message with Gianelli before she started rereading the pages in the folder.

  The knock at the front door, intruding as it did into the quiet, made her jump. She took a couple of breaths, then walked through the office, opened the door, and froze. She’d assumed it would be Gianelli. Instead, she was facing a white man in a light-blue shirt and trousers who looked like a bear, with a massive head above the rounded shoulders and thick chest and a belly that strained against his black belt. It was Felix Slodin, the pit boss that Lexson had brought from Mississippi to back up Dennis Light Stone.

  “What is it?” She pulled the door closed beside her.

  “Vicky Holden? Mr. Lexson’d like to talk to you.”

  “Tell him I’ll be at the casino tomorrow.” Tomorrow, she was thinking, she would call Lexson and resign. Then she would take the information she’d compiled for Gianelli to the Business Council.

  “Why not invite Felix in?” From behind, a man’s voice, easygoing and polite.

  Vicky swung around.

  Neil Barrenger, operations officer at the casino, stood in front of her desk, gray head tilted sideways, eyes peering at her through wire-rimmed glasses, as if he were about to deliver a report at a meeting of employees. A hint of irony played at the corners of his thin mouth. He gave her a friendly smile, but the determination, the falseness underneath, sent a cold spasm through her.

  “What do you want?” she asked. The edge of the door hit her as the other man stepped inside. He kicked the door shut behind him.

  “As Felix said, Vicky, Stan’s called a meeting. He’s sent us to bring you to the casino.”

  “I’m waiting for Ted Gianelli,” Vicky said. “Maybe you know him? The FBI agent? I thought he was at the door.”

  There was an almost imperceptible exchange of glances between the two men before Barrenger said, “Stan would appreciate your bringing the diskette of the contracts and the personnel records you stole.”

  Vicky walked back to her desk, conscious of the men closing in behind. She pushed a computer key, popped out the diskette and handed it to Barrenger.

  “Tell Stan Lexson I resign,” she said.

  The other man, Felix, peered around his boss’s shoulder. They studied the diskette a moment, Barrenger turning it over in his hand as if the square of plastic and metal might divulge its contents. “Personnel records?” Barrenger said.

  Vicky picked up the file folder she’d intended for Gianelli and, sliding off the Post-It note, handed it across the desk.

  The man smiled. “I’m sorry, but your resignation’s unacceptable,” he said. “The van’s in back. Stan doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We can make this easy, or we can make it hard. Your choice.” Felix started around the desk, like a panther stalking her, a glint of anticipation in his eyes. He would prefer the hard way, she thought. And yet, it was the relaxed, gray-haired man a couple of feet away—holding the file folder and diskette, headed tilted to the side—who made her shudder. Behind the careful control, she could sense the cold, implacable will.

  “Lead the way,” she heard herself saying.

  Barrenger nodded her into the kitchen.

  As Vicky reached down to open the lower desk drawer, Felix grabbed her arm. “I want my bag,” she said.

  He stepped back. Vicky lifted out her black bag with one hand and, with the other, slid the Post-It note onto the desk blotter. Edging past the desk, she could see the black letters she’d scribbled earlier: Casino.

  She followed Barrenger out the back door, across the yard, and through the gate to the alley, the other man behind her, so close that when she stopped at the white van, she felt his hand jab the small of her back pushing her forward. She grabbed the door handle to steady herself. He stayed close, his shirt scratchy against her arm, his breath sour over her, as Barrenger slid open the side door. Felix gripped her arm and pushed her into the backseat.

  She scrambled into a sitting position and moved into the far corner. Barrenger crawled in beside her, Felix got in behind the steering wheel. He swore at the engine that spurted and died before finally turning over. The van jumped forward, swerved past the link fence, and headed down the alley.
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  “I can’t tell you how sorry we are that things didn’t work out,” Barrenger said. He stretched his arm over the back of the seat and let the tips of his fingers brush her shoulder. “We had high hopes for a long and mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Vicky said.

  He gave a little laugh and lifted his fingers. They came out of the alley and turned onto the street. Rows of bungalows passed outside the windows, firs and spruce fluttering in the breeze. A kid pedaled a bicycle down the sidewalk.

  They were heading north on Main Street now, flowing with the sedans and pickups. Nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary. Vicky stared out the window, searching for a familiar face—anyone she might wave to—among the people walking past the storefronts. No one she knew. No one who might say later—later! When would that be?—“I saw Vicky Holden in the backseat of a white van. The driver, a big-headed guy. The man in back, light, curly hair. Just happened to get the license . . . ”

  There was the sound of a cry, and Vicky realized it had come from her. She was alone. She might have been a spirit moving through town, invisible.

  The van was speeding north on Highway 287 now, the pit boss drumming a pudgy fist against the steering wheel to the jazz music blaring from the radio. A line of RVs snaked ahead, and, from time to time, Felix swung out and passed two or three before darting back into the lane ahead of an oncoming truck or sedan.

  Ahead, the neon sign blinked against the blue sky, the giant-sized Indian warrior standing guard over the highway, the dice fluttering at his side. Felix turned beneath the sign and headed toward the casino entrance.

  And kept going. Past the curved glass doors, around the north side of the hotel and the service trucks parked in the back. He pulled in a few feet from a door that blended into the stucco walls, the same dusty color, no knobs or hinges. He jumped out and knocked on the door.

  Barrenger had already gotten out on his side. “Get out,” he barked, allowing the gentle, polite mask to slip and revealing, for the first time, the cold steel underneath.

  Vicky gripped her bag and stepped out into the heat radiating off the asphalt and the stucco building. She glanced around. There was no one about, no drivers in the trucks, no maintenance crews heading toward the Dumpsters at the far edge of the lot. But six or seven floors above, a man in a white shirt that billowed in the wind was leaning over the balcony.

  “Help! Help!” Vicky shouted. The words scraped at her throat, but she was shouting into the wind. The man looked off into the distance, and Barrenger’s slim fingers dug into her arm, pulling her through the door and into a narrow corridor. The door slammed behind them. Streaks of white light from the fluorescent bulbs overhead ran down the beige walls and across the green tiled floor. Except for the scuff of their footsteps, it was silent.

  Vicky tried to figure out where they were: The outside door was almost in the center of the building, on the east side, which meant the corridor ran parallel to the restaurant.

  Barrenger was still gripping her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh, hurrying her down the corridor. She jerked herself free. “Video cameras are recording us,” she said.

  “No cameras in the hallways.” Felix let out a loud guffaw from behind. “Just you in this here hall and two big, bad men.”

  Barrenger stopped at the metal staircase and waved Felix ahead, then Vicky. She started climbing, conscious of Barrenger close behind, the scrape of their heels on the steps echoing around the concrete walls.

  At the top was another door similar to the one outside: flush with the wall, painted the same beige color, no molding or hardware. Barrenger’s fist reached past and gave the door three short raps. It swung inward.

  They came out into the corridor on the second floor: elevator on the left, offices on the right. First, the legal office. She winced as they passed the closed door. At the far end, behind the double wood-paneled doors, was Stan Lexson’s office.

  And that’s where they were heading—marching, Vicky thought, shoulder to shoulder. She, wedged between the two men, their footsteps muffled now in the plush blue and red carpet. It was past quitting time for Adam and the accountants and bookkeepers and secretaries who worked behind the closed doors. The floor was deserted.

  Barrenger burst ahead and pushed through the double doors. They crossed the reception area, past the desk on the right, and stopped at the door with tipis and drums carved into the wood panels. He knocked, then opened the door and slid one shoulder past the edge. “We have her,” he said.

  28

  “COME IN.” IT was Stan Lexson’s voice, bored and disinterested.

  Barrenger went first, taking his time crossing the office to the man seated at the desk. The curved wall of glass behind the desk shimmered in the fluorescent lights. The operations chief laid the diskette and file folder down in front of his boss, then leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

  A couple seconds passed before Lexson waved the other man aside and got to his feet. He walked around the desk and leaned against the edge, stretching out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. “Good of you to come,” he said.

  “What’s this all about?” Vicky tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “They were gentlemen, I assume.” Lexson glanced from Felix to Barrenger. “Leave us,” he said.

  “If you need anything . . .” Barrenger began.

  “Just get out.”

  Lexson waited until the two men had filed past and closed the door, then he motioned Vicky toward one of the upholstered chairs around the glass table in front of the desk. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I apologize if my men made you uneasy. I’m afraid they sometimes get carried away with their duties. May I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea, whiskey?”

  There was the slightest tinge of a smirk as he spoke, and Vicky realized that she was supposed to have been uneasy. Barrenger and Felix were supposed to have gotten carried away.

  “What’s this about?” She dropped onto a chair and let her bag slide to the floor.

  “Two years ago,” Lexson set his hands gripping the edge of the desk and leaned toward her, “Lodestar Enterprises entered into a contract with the Arapaho Business Council. For our part, we were to loan the tribe eighteen million dollars to build the casino property. A lot of money, wouldn’t you agree? We would operate the casino and hotel for the tribe because, well, because, we know how to run casinos and hotels and Indian tribes don’t. We’ve been operating casinos for a long time. Bahamas, Las Vegas, Atlantic City. You understand what I’m trying to tell you? It’s in our own interest to see that the Arapahos make a lot of money.”

  He paused and braced himself against the desk. “We thought you’d make a nice addition to our team. You’d want the tribe to pay off the debt. Instead you started asking questions, looking into matters that were none of your business, which could make people think we’re not doing our job. Maybe we’re cheating on our partner.”

  “Are you?”

  Lexson lifted his chin and laughed. Then he cleared his throat. “What did you hope to find in the human resources records? The secretary knew within five minutes that the computer had been violated.”

  Vicky got to her feet and walked over to the glass wall. The floor below was crowded with tourists in shorts and T-shirts milling about, clustering around the slots. She moved along the window until she was directly above the tables. Knots of people sat hunched at the blackjack tables. Someone had won at craps, judging by the crowd pressing around.

  She turned back to the man who had shifted sideways against the desk. This was an interrogation, she realized, which meant that Lexson didn’t know how much she’d put together. All he had were suspicions—hunches—which, he hoped she would confirm. He was looking for information.

  Think, Vicky. She could almost hear her grandmother’s voice, as if grandmother were standing behind her. Think, before you speak. Words have power.

  She said, “There’s a
rumor on the rez that Matt Kingdom has placed his relatives in good jobs. I wanted to see if there was any truth to the rumor. The casino could be open for civil lawsuits. As a legal counsel, I’d have the duty to warn you.”

  “So? Are you going to warn me?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence.”

  “I see.” The look in Lexson’s eyes was as hard as stone. “Why were you checking on our suppliers?”

  Vicky tried not to blink; she made her face unreadable.

  Lexson smiled. “You have a friend in the Secretary of State’s Office, a Myrna Hancock, I believe. We also have friends there. We make it a point to cultivate friends in high offices everywhere we do business.”

  “As a legal counsel . . .”

  “Yes, yes. You were exercising due diligence . . .”

  “To make sure the companies the casino does business with are legitimate.”

  “And what did you find out?”

  “They appear to be legitimate.”

  “So your worries are allayed. You can go back to reviewing contracts without having to worry about all these extraneous matters.” He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. “You’re very clever, Vicky. Adam said you were clever, and he was right.”

  Vicky felt her stomach heave at the mention of Adam. How could he not be suspicious? How could he not question the hiring of unqualified people like Kingdom’s sister? Wonder about the companies that supplied everything to the casino? What kind of deal had Adam made with Lexson?

  The man leaned over her chair, his face so close she could smell the sourness of his breath. “I don’t believe you for a moment,” he said. “The question now becomes, what shall we do with you?”

  “Let me give you the answer. I’m resigning.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. The Business Council and elders would become suspicious. They’d think you found something that, shall we say, you couldn’t live with. There would be unfortunate rumors. The council might even remove Kingdom and appoint someone else to oversee our operations. I’m sorry, Vicky. You’re going to have to stay on as the Arapaho lawyer for a little longer. You’ll be our guest.”