She hesitated. “He’s so old,” she managed, but in the way she said it, he knew that her thoughts had already jumped to something else. Her body seemed to stiffen as she gripped the edge of the chair and stood up. She barely came to his shoulder. She lifted herself on the balls of her feet, then stretched her neck until the top of her head reached his chin. She was staring up at him. “Mrs. Lambert’s the reason Trent started getting all weird, isn’t she?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Tell me the truth!” She spit out the words. “She got tired of the old man and got the hots for Trent. That’s why he told me to go back to the house, so he could meet her at the bar.”
“Listen to me, Edie.” Father John placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “The bartender said you were the one who was Trent’s girlfriend. Obviously, he never saw anything to make him think differently.”
The girl seemed to take this in. He could feel her shoulders begin to relax. “Don’t torture yourself,” he hurried on. “You said yourself that Trent would’ve come back to you. You knew him. Trust your own instincts.”
She started nodding, and for a moment, he thought she might break into tears again. He was barely aware of the sound of an engine cutting off. “You’d better go,” she said, throwing an anxious glance at the window.
Father John reached past his coat and withdrew the small notepad and pen from his shirt pocket. He flipped the pages until he came to a blank page; then he wrote down the mission’s number, tore off the page, and held it toward to the girl. “If you change your mind,” he said, “call me. I’ll come and get you.”
She hesitated, eyes darting between the small piece of paper and the window. Then her fingers closed around the paper. Keeping her gaze on the window, she lifted the bottom of her sweatshirt and stuffed the paper inside the band of her sweatpants.
Father John turned and let himself out the door. The white supremacist was coming up the sidewalk, making an arc around the elm. “What the hell you doin’ here?” Rizzo stopped, blocking the way.
“I don’t see that it’s your business,” Father John said. The man was all leather, metal, and reddish brown head. His arms hung out from his sides, fists curled like clubs.
“I’m making it my business,” Rizzo said. “You stay away from her. She don’t need no more Indians around here. You might be white but you’re one of ’em.”
Father John started walking toward the man. He was close enough to touch him—close enough to smell the odor of leather—before Rizzo stepped sideways, forming a narrow corridor between himself and the elm branch.
Father John slapped back the branch and kept walking. “I’d suggest you take good care of her, Rizzo,” he said as he passed.
He could feel the man’s eyes boring into his back as he got into the pickup and plugged the key into the ignition. Then he made a U-turn and started back toward Federal, the man’s eyes still following him. He could see him in the side mirror—one boot on the sidewalk, one in the snow, the elm branch slicing across his face.
A man who hated Indians, Father John was thinking. A man who might be willing to kill the people he hated. A sociopath. There was no guessing what a sociopath might do. Turn a rifle on human beings, pull the trigger. But . . . first he had to know where to find the victims, and Edie Bradbury didn’t know when Trent and the others had planned to visit the battlefield. I would’ve gone with him. I wish I would’ve died there. If the girl didn’t know, neither did Rizzo.
But somebody knew. He could picture Lou Crispin, propped on the straight-backed chair, drawing from his cigarette, grieving for his two sons, saying that Rex and Joe and Trent had gone to meet somebody at the battlefield on the day they had died. Somebody had planned to kill the Shoshones and pose the bodies to look like images in the old photographs of Indian battles. Somebody had wanted it to look like revenge killings—revenge for a massacre that happened more than a century ago.
The traffic was blurring past the side windows. The parking lots and storefronts and convenience stores, all were a blur. In his mind now was the image of Dana Lambert—the mass of curly black hair, the green eyes, and something in those eyes—an elusive quality, like a shadow passing through, that had struck him the first time he’d met the woman, as if she were watching the far distances that no one else could see. A young, beautiful woman married to an old man with a last chance at a best-selling book that could make them rich, watching, watching for a way to make it happen. What better way than to instigate a tribal war, like the century-old wars in the book. Dana Lambert understood the Bates Massacre, the tribal feuds, the old animosities that her husband had written about. She has been a great help to me.
And she’d gone to the Cowboy Bar and Grill, gotten to know the Shoshone students, earned their trust. At what point had she said, I can show you the battlefield. Show you how the wolf scouts had found the village in the canyon. Show you how the Shoshones and the troops had attacked, how Arapaho warriors had climbed over the boulders and fired down on the enemy to drive them away, but not soon enough. Not before the massacre had taken place.
Logical, he thought. The pieces fell into a logical pattern, but it was a theory; that was all he had. Where was the evidence? He had no evidence that Dana Lambert had taped the messages—how would she have done that? No evidence that she’d stolen Montana’s rifle.
Father John eased up on the accelerator, waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic. Then he jerked the pickup around in a sharp U-turn and drove north a quarter mile. He wanted to talk to the woman, test his theory, listen to what she might have to say about going to the Cowboy Bar and Grill. And there was so much you could tell by watching.
He took a right onto East Monroe Avenue and headed east out of town.
34
FATHER JOHN HAD circled the neighborhood twice—the tidy ranch-style homes, the clusters of elms and limber pines—before he spotted the blue sedan in the driveway of the redbrick house that squatted back from the road, across an expanse of open, snowy fields, as if the house had once commanded a larger plot of land and was holding on to what was left. He followed the drive across the yard and stopped behind the sedan. The front door to the house had a glass and metal storm door that gave the place the look of a bastion. The storm door rattled as he knocked.
It was a moment before the inside door opened. The professor’s head snapped backward. Little lights of recognition seemed to snap on in his gray eyes. “Father O’Malley,” he said, his voice muffled against the metal and glass. Bracing himself on his walking stick, he pushed the storm door open. “I had no plans for visitors this Sunday afternoon, but do come in.”
Father John ignored the veiled reprimand. “I’d like to talk to you and your wife for a few moments, professor,” he said. “It’s important.”
A second passed before the man stepped backward and swung his thin frame into the living room, reaching for the top of a chair, the edge of a desk, before dropping into an upholstered chair against the far wall. “I’m afraid you’ll have only me for company,” he said. “Dana has gone to take care of a few errands. Have a seat.” He waved a knotted hand at a chair.
Father John sat down, took off his hat, and hung it over one knee. He recognized the reproduction of Charles M. Russell’s Crossing the Missouri above the sofa. Bookcases lined with neat rows of books crawled to the ceiling on the left. Other books were stacked next to the lamp on the side table, and pieces of painted pottery had been arranged around the books on the coffee table. A clock was ticking somewhere, and odors of roasting meat drifted out of a doorway on the right.
But Dana Lambert wasn’t here. He felt his jaw clench with the sense of futility. What had he expected? To look into the woman’s green eyes and read the truth? Had he thought she might break down when she realized that he knew—a woman with nerves of steel, within reach of her goal? Did he expect her to confess? A penitent in the confessional? Had he really thought that she would hand him the evidence to prove his theory?<
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“I must warn you,” the professor was saying. “A few minutes is all I have. I have telephone interviews scheduled with radio stations around the country this afternoon.” He slid his gaze to the steel watch that hung like a bracelet on his thin wrist. “In ten minutes, I expect a call from a station in Washington, D. C. It has been most gratifying to see the tremendous interest in my new book. The publisher was forced to increase the print run to meet the great demand.”
He gave a sudden smile; then, just as suddenly, the smile disappeared. “Most unfortunate coincidence, I suppose, that Tribal Wars should appear when an actual tribal war is underway, due to the dastardly actions of an Arapaho.” He was shaking his head. “I’m very sorry about the strife, of course, but on the other hand, it comes at a propitious time. It has already drawn attention to my book, which will help people around the country understand the many differences among the Plains Indian tribes. It will finally dispel the stereotype of Indians—that they are all the same.”
The man drew in a breath and hurried on. “The reason you’re here, is it not? The local tribal war? I understand the Arapaho murderer was finally apprehended yesterday evening. Inconceivable to me that he and his lawyer were able to elude the police for so many hours.”
“Montana took Vicky Holden hostage.”
“Yes, yes, so they say.” Lambert flapped his hand toward the coffee table, as if he were slapping at a pesky fly. “How can I help you, Father O’Malley?”
“It’s possible the wrong person was arrested.” Father John was studying the man, watching for a reaction—the smallest twitch of a muscle, the pulsing of a vein, the sudden shift of his gaze. There was nothing.
“News reports suggest there is much evidence against this Montana.” The professor leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his chest, on firm ground now, confident of his opinions. The front of his tan shirt bunched against his flabby sleeves.
“Circumstantial evidence, Professor.” Father John pushed on. “If Detective Burton is wrong, the murderer could kill again. The conflicts between Shoshones and Arapahos could just be starting.”
“I must ask you again, Father. What is it you want from me?”
“I think that the killer was very familiar with the Bates Massacre.”
“Yes, yes.” The knobby hand flapped in the air. “One of my students. So you indicated earlier. I’m sure Burton has investigated each of the class members. When you showed me the message you received, I admit that I thought of Edith Bradbury. She has a way with words, which might suggest her as the author, and she had that horrid tough in black leather hanging around her. Naturally it made me suspicious.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“She came to see me after Trent Hunter and the Crispin brothers were killed. She told me she had to drop out of the class. I couldn’t help but notice the gauze bandages showing below the cuffs of her sweater. She sat in my office and wept, Father. Wept for quite some time, I would say, until I thought I would have to call for assistance. It was not an experience I wish to repeat. I have always made it a policy not to involve myself in the personal lives of students. She said she couldn’t imagine living without Hunter. It was then, I believe, that I came to the conclusion she was incapable of having had anything to do with the young man’s death, or with the deaths of the others, I might add.”
“It comes back to your class, Professor,” Father John said.
Lambert sniffed in a couple of quick breaths. “Why are you belaboring this point, Father O’Malley? The guilty Arapaho has been arrested. Frankie Montana shot four Shoshone men at the battlefield and left you the taped messages. The television news reported that Montana had previously worked in a radio station on the reservation where he must have made the tapes.”
“He hasn’t been to the station in two years.”
“He says?” The professor began to chuckle. His arms rose and fell on his chest. “And why, may I ask, would you believe anything the man says?”
“I understand your wife often assisted you in class.”
The professor tilted his head to one side. His brow furrowed in confusion, and the light eyes became a thin line, as if he were trying to bring an explanation into focus. “Why do you ask about my wife, Father? She is a professional in the classroom. She maintains the appropriate distance between herself and the students at all times. She wouldn’t know anything about their personal lives. She certainly wouldn’t know why the unfortunate men were murdered.”
“She joined your students for hamburgers at the Cowboy Bar and Grill.”
The professor’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. He gave a shout of laughter. “Preposterous! My wife at a place called the Cowboy Bar and Grill? That is the most ridiculous statement I have heard in some time. Please, Father, be so good as to not insult either of us with such an outrageous accusation. My wife does not associate with students.”
“There are people who can identify her, Professor.” Father John kept his voice low, the counselor’s voice, encouraging, nudging the man toward a reality he didn’t want to accept.
“Those who say that Dana was at a bar are liars. Let me guess.” Lambert seemed to settle back into the cushion, relaxed, on solid ground again. “The liars are students, are they not? They are lying for their own reasons. Perhaps they wish to besmirch the reputation of a beautiful and brilliant scholar who has already achieved much more than they can ever hope to achieve. Perhaps they think that by lying about my wife they can diminish her. Gossip!” He spit out the word. “The oldest trick in the world, as you must know, Father. Diminish someone with gossip and you make yourself feel bigger. No thinking person takes lying, hateful gossip for anything other than what it is.”
The professor readjusted his arms over his thin chest, his gaze leveled on Father John for a moment, as if the matter were settled. Then he seemed to have a second thought. He said, “This is a matter of jealousy. Oh, don’t think I haven’t seen the way the young men’s eyes follow my wife in the classroom. I can read their thoughts: How did that old man get her?” He began chuckling, but there was a forced, unsure note in the sound gurgling in his throat. “They know so little and understand less. My wife has no interest in the immature antics of boys. It is a calumny that she ever joined them at the Cowboy Bar and Grill.”
The professor planted his walking stick in front of him and began pulling himself to his feet. He started listing to the side, and Father John jumped up. Reaching across the table, he took hold of the man’s arm to steady him, but Lambert yanked himself free. He straightened his shoulders and lifted himself to his full height. “I’m afraid this discussion is over,” he said.
“There’s something I’m wondering about, Professor,” Father John said, ignoring the man’s comment. “There’s a recording studio at the college, isn’t there?”
There was a long moment—the clock ticking into the quiet, the walking stick trembling beneath the professor’s grip, the blue vein pulsing in the center of the man’s forehead. “How dare you.” He spit out the words. “How dare you imply that my wife had anything to do with the homicides. If you ever utter such a slander again, I will see that my lawyers take the appropriate action. Do we understand each other, Father O’Malley?”
The phone had started ringing on the small table in the corner, but the man seemed not to hear. The gray eyes remained locked on his own. Finally, he said, “Get out.”
Father John turned to the door, aware of the man’s boots clumping across the room behind him. The ringing stopped as Father John pulled the door open.
“Yes, this is Professor Charles Lambert.” The strong, confident voice almost concealed the effort the man was making. Father John let himself outside and closed the door behind him.
He drove back into town, past the motels and warehouses and mobile parks. He knows. He knows. The words drummed in his head. Lambert knows his wife is responsible for taking the lives of four men, but he will never admit it. He will convi
nce himself that Frankie Montana is the killer. He will watch Frankie Montana stand trial, be convicted, and sentenced to a lifetime in prison, and Charles Lambert will go on denying that his beautiful young wife was involved in any way.
And the woman would get away with it. That was the thing. Father John pounded against the rim of the steering wheel and struggled to contain the disgust and anger boiling inside him. There were people who could place Dana Lambert at the Cowboy Bar and Grill, maybe even place her there the night that Montana’s rifle was stolen. The Shoshone students, the bartender, Edie Bradbury. But the Shoshone students were dead. The bartender? Different faces passed through the bar every day. How reliable could the man be? Edie Bradbury? A student jealous of the way her boyfriend had looked at the beautiful Mrs. Lambert.
Charles Lambert was clever, Father John thought, clever and protective.
But there was someone else who could place Dana Lambert at the bar, someone Lambert didn’t know about.
Father John turned into the mission and drove down the tunnel of cottonwoods. Through the trees on the left, he spotted a green pickup parked in front of the administration building—someone wanting to talk to a priest this afternoon. He turned right, followed Circle Drive around to the residence, and slammed out of the pickup. Across the yard and through the front door, taking a diagonal path through the entry to his study. Once there he dropped to one knee and began shuffling through the newspapers piled in a basket next to the side chair. There it was, Saturday’s paper with the photos of Trent Hunter, Joe and Rex Crispin, and Eric Surrell lined up beneath the headline: “Shoshones Murdered at Bates.” He yanked the newspaper out of the stack and headed back outside and across the grounds to the administration building. He could see the pickup flashing past the cottonwoods on the way out to Seventeen-Mile Road.
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