The Spider's Web (17 page)

“You telling me them bastards aren’t in custody yet?”

“Every law enforcement agency in the county is looking for them. They’ll be arrested soon.”

“Soon! Soon! Soon isn’t good enough. My little girl’s in danger.”

“I suggested that she return to Jackson, but she insists on staying here until they are arrested.” She took a second, then went on. “It looks like Ned was part of a burglary ring with them. They probably killed him over some disagreement.”

“My little girl know about this?” For the first time, Vicky heard a note of fear sounding in the man’s voice.

“I’m afraid she did.”

“My God, the fed will pull her right in. I know how these investigations go. Cops, they’re all the same. Grasp at anything to solve a case, don’t matter if innocent people get trampled. You make sure they don’t trample her, understand?” He hurried on without waiting for a response. “I want her to go back to her condo in Jackson today. She has to get away from them killers, and she doesn’t need to be under the fed’s nose. Tell her to leave.”

“I suggest you tell her,” Vicky said.

“If I didn’t have commitments here with my television show, I’d come up there and take her away myself. I’m counting on you to look after her interests, and I want her in Jackson.”

“I’ll do my best,” Vicky said. She realized she was speaking into a dead phone.

THE DRIVE TO Lander was long and slow, the roads clogged with out-of-state cars and campers, tourists peering into the distances. Father John had passed a couple of vehicles, then settled back, resigned. It wasn’t possible to pass them all. “Jochanaan, ich bin verliebt” blared on the CD. He had meant to get away earlier, but it had taken longer than he anticipated to respond to the messages on his desk—arrangements for baptisms, parishioners admitted to the hospital, couples in need of counseling. He had made four phone calls trying to find a safe house for Roseanne Birdwoman before Betty Mock had called from California. She’d heard he was looking for a house—it seemed the moccasin telegraph even reached California—and she volunteered her own. She wouldn’t be back on the rez for another month.

He had called Roseanne and told her to stop at Betty’s brother’s place for the keys. There was nothing to connect Roseanne to Betty Mock. He reminded the girl not to tell anyone where she would be staying, and she had mumbled a tentative and frightened “okay” that sounded as if it had come from the dangerous depths of her situation.

He followed the traffic through Hudson and on into Lander. The town spread before him, wide streets of bungalows and evergreens. He made a left off Main Street and pulled onto the concrete apron in front of a boxlike building with Silver Electrical Company splashed in white paint across the plate-glass window.

Inside, a woman with a wide pink part in her gray hair sat behind a counter, studying the pamphlet in front of her. She looked up as he approached. A friendly look of surprise came into her face. “Aren’t you the mission priest?” she said.

“Father O’Malley.” He clasped his hands on the counter. On the white plaque next to the door behind her was the name Bud Silver. “Is the manager in?”

“You mean the boss.” She gave a little laugh. “We call him the boss around here ’cause he manages and owns the whole darn place. Need some electrical work at the mission?”

“Not that I know of,” he said. Something always needed attention, he was thinking. Leaking roofs, broken windowpanes, peeling paint, lights that flickered on and off in the corridor outside his office, as if there were ghosts in the place. “I’d like to speak with him, if he’s available.”

“Hold on.” She pushed backward and got to her feet, gripping the edge of the desk, then the back of the chair. She headed to the door, knocked once and let herself in. A couple of seconds later, a short, dark-haired man, with the build of a bull, came out, the woman smiling behind him.

“Bud Silver,” he said, extending a thick hand with an antelope head silver ring on one finger. “How can I be of help to the clergy?”

“I’d like to talk to you about Ned Windsong,” Father John said, shaking the man’s hand.

“Should’ve figured.” Silver nodded Father John around the counter and into his office. He shut the door and gestured to the folding chair that stood at an angle to the desk. Papers spilled across the surface. Some kind of spreadsheet took up the computer screen. The window behind the desk framed the backyard view of a yellow two-story house. “FBI agent said he was gonna stop by this afternoon,” he said, taking the swivel chair. “I thought you was him. You conducting your own investigation?”

“Not exactly,” Father John said. “I’ve known Ned since he was a kid. Used to play on the Eagles.”

“Good little outfit you got there,” Silver said. “Beat the socks off my kid’s team a few years back.”

“Ned was preparing to dance in the Sun Dance,” Father John went on. “His Sun Dance grandfather ...” The man’s eyebrows shot up, and Father John said, “The elder who was teaching him the prayers and rituals asked me to see what I could find out about why he was killed.”

Silver nodded. “He was a darn good electrician’s apprentice.”

“How long was he here?”

“Five months, one week, six days. Hired him right out of that training program in Casper. His uncle, Jerry Adams, gave me a call, wanted to know if I had a place for a new apprentice. Now mind you”—he leaned sideways over the armrest and lowered his voice, as if there were someone else in the office—“I don’t cotton to hiring Indians. Not that I’m prejudiced, you understand.”

Father John nodded. The prejudice was leaking out of the man.

“But they can be trouble. Take off for ceremonies and what have you. Grandmother gets sick, they can’t come to work. But times are changing, and I’m trying to change with the times. Look at the individual, I tell myself. Everybody don’t come outta the same mold. Besides, Adams was vouching for him. And I gotta say, I admired the kid. Got himself enough gumption to go off and learn a trade so he could make a living. Guy had just quit on me, so I put Ned on the crew. Did real good, too. Always wanting to learn more. Wanted to know every last detail about everything. He could make electricity dance any direction he pleased. Wasn’t anything he wasn’t catching on to. Wire a new house, install security systems. You name it.”

“Why did he leave?”

“Now that’s the real puzzle. I had some big jobs coming up, and he marched in here one morning and said, ‘Bud, you been real good to me, but I gotta move on.’ I said, ‘What the hell you talking about? You got a steady job here.’ All he said was it was personal. Needed to get his life straight, something like that. Said he had connections in Jackson Hole, so he was going up there and work at Sloan’s Electric. I gave him a good recommendation.”

“Ever see him with anybody?”

“Yeah.” Silver’s head bobbed up and down. “I betcha I seen him with the two guys I heard killed him. A couple of scary Indians, you ask me. Come around a couple times when Ned was loading his van out back. Got into a shouting match, then they took off. Driving a white truck. I intend to tell the FBI agent.”

“Can you identify them?”

“You bet. He shows me pictures I’ll pick ’em right out.” He leaned over the armrest again. “You ask me, they was the reason he wanted out of here. You know, the personal thing.”

Father John didn’t say anything. It was possible there wasn’t anybody else in the burglary ring—that Hawk and Lookingglass had gotten Ned involved. He had to look away a moment. Silver was bound to find out about the ring. He had trusted Ned. He would probably never trust another Arapaho.

“Thanks for your time,” he said, starting to get up.

“There was another guy,” Silver said. “Seen him once. Drove a dark pickup, wore a cowboy hat. Pulled in while Ned was loading up. Getting ready to wire a remodel on a big house up in Sinks Canyon.”

Father John dropped back onto his seat. “What did he look like?”

“Stayed inside the pickup. Never got a good look at him. Could’ve been just about anybody.”

Father John thanked the man again and left him standing in the middle of the office, saying how he hoped the killers would rot in prison. He retraced his route to the rez; the traffic thinned out a little. Still he had to pass a series of vehicles so as not to miss the Eagles practice. He had a gut feeling that whoever the cowboy hat was, it was another member of the ring, maybe the one with enough power and persuasive gifts to draw Ned Windsong into something he didn’t want to be in.

 

 

“TAKE A LOOK at that kid!” Amos Whitebull called as Father John hurried down the sidelines. He was late; practice had started fifteen minutes ago. Amos’s son, Randy, played first base, and Amos had been helping coach the team all season. Their record was 7-2 so far, but Saturday they faced the Riverton Rangers, the toughest team in the league.

Amos was grinning and waving toward the pudgy kid winding up for another pitch. Marcus White Owl. “Our secret weapon,” he said. “Batter gets all relaxed, thinking he can’t throw hard, but he can throw some serious heat. He may be small but all his strength’s in the lower half of his body, and that lets him really fire the ball in. Look at that!”

The kid opened up with a pitch that just missed the outside corner of the plate. The batter swung and missed. He was doing a little circle dance of frustration.

“Choke up and focus on the pitch!” Father John called.

“The Rangers’ll have a tough time handling Marcus,” Amos said, still grinning. It was contagious, Father John knew, the excitement of a one-pitch hurler who could shut down a youth baseball team.

“I thought we’d focus on scratching out runs however we can,” Father John said. He waved the next kid up to bat, David Oldman, short and round-faced, with big black eyes that squinted toward the pitcher’s mound as he adjusted the bat. Father John moved in closer. “Get a comfortable grip,” he called. “Bend your knees a little, keep your weight back and your eye on the ball.”

Marcus delivered another fast ball, but this time, the batter was ready. Father John watched him shift his weight through his hips, the way they had practiced two days ago, transfer the power of his stocky body, and accelerate the bat through the hitting zone. The ball arched out to left field. Another kid ran underneath, glove lifted, and snagged the ball out of the air.

David was close to first base. He stopped mid-stride, turned around and headed toward home, shoulders slumped. “Good hit,” Father John called. “Connect like that on Saturday, okay? The Rangers can’t field the way we do.”

At the edge of his vision, he saw Bishop Harry hurrying down the sidelines. He motioned the next kid up and went to meet the old man. “What is it?” he said, closing the distance between them.

“I believe you might want to talk to your guest,” the bishop said. “She came to the office. Highly distraught.”

“Where is she now?”

“I saw her walking back toward the guesthouse. Her pickup is still there.”

Father John thanked the old man and walked over to home plate where Amos was showing the next batter how to bunt the ball by squaring to the pitcher and getting the bat out in front of the plate. “Can you take over?” Father John said.

The man lifted his head without changing his stance. “No problem,” he said.

The bishop was past left field when Father John caught up and took off running for the guesthouse.

THE DOOR AT the guesthouse hung open. Father John leaned inside. “Marcy?” he called. “Where are you?” Silence gripped the house, and the faint, acrid smell of whiskey floated over him. He went down the steps, glancing about the grounds. The pickup was still there, which meant the girl was somewhere. Across the graveled alley was a stand of cottonwoods and brush bisected by a narrow, dirt path that led to the banks of the Little Wind River.

He cut across the alley and started down the path. He had gone a good twenty yards before he spotted the small prints of what could be sandals, worn by someone so lightweight, they barely disturbed the dirt. He started running. “Marcy!” he called.

The path ran straight, then bent into a little curve, and as he came around it, he spotted a flash of white in the trees ahead. The sounds of the river bubbling over rocks interrupted the quiet. He called out again. She stopped and glanced back, then started running. He took a diagonal route through the trees and came out alongside her. “Hold on,” he said.

She darted sideways and leaned over, gulping in air and holding on to her side. The blonde hair fell forward. Her face was red, eyes black and swollen. She pulled herself upright, squared her shoulders and backed away. She stared at him, with a fixed, glassy look as if she had never seen him before. He could smell the whiskey. “Where are you running to?”

The girl shifted from one foot to the other. It was warm in the shade of the trees, a hot breeze passing through, yet she looked cold, thin arms hanging at her sides, knobby knees below her shorts and dust piled over her sandals. She started blinking. “Get away! Get away!” she yelled, backing up, throwing out her hands.

“Marcy, it’s me, Father John. I’m not going to hurt you. Tell me what’s happened.”

The glassy look returned to her eyes, and he had the same uneasy feeling that a stranger was staring at him.

“Talk to me, Marcy,” he said, moving toward her. She started screaming, tilting back her head and howling. He took hold of her shoulders. “Stop it,” he said. “Try to get control of yourself.”

She stopped screaming and blinked up at him. He could feel the tremors running through her. “What’s going on,” he said.

“They’re gonna crucify me.” Her voice might have been that of a little girl.

“Who? What are you talking about?” He let go of her shoulders and kept his eyes on hers.

She waited a long moment, taking in gulps of air. Finally she said, “They’re gonna make me part of a burglary ring, say I knew all about it. The guys that killed Ned are gonna lie and say I was in on it. My father told me how it was when he was a cop. Killers always want to make a trade so things will go easy for them, and they’ll trade me. Agent Gianelli will love that, won’t he? Daughter of famous evangelist connected to burglary and murder. I can see the newspaper headlines. It’ll be all over the internet, TV, everyplace. All because of this!”