The Thunder Keeper (11 page)

“A
dam Elkman's on the line.”

Vicky glanced up from the black print on the computer screen, struggling to switch her train of thought from the Navajo Nation brief she was working on. Laola stood in the doorway, an expectant look in the almond-shaped eyes. “You want me to put the call through?”

“Go ahead,” Vicky told her, surprised that she'd finally connected with the natural resources director on the reservation. Laola had been trying to reach him since yesterday.

While Vicky waited for her line to ring, she tapped several keys and sent the Navajo Nation brief to the other lawyers on the appeals team. Yesterday Jacob Hazen had called to say that the Navajos wanted to go ahead. The relief and satisfaction in the man's voice had matched her own. Once she had the other lawyers' comments, she'd make the last-minute changes. She intended to deliver her brief to the Tenth Circuit Court tomorrow.

There was a low buzzing sound, and she picked up the receiver. “Adam? How are things on the res?” It was never polite to get right down to business.

“Surprised to get a message from your office yesterday,
Vicky.” The man had the low-pitched voice of a TV announcer. “We figured you went off to the big city and forgot all about us.”

Vicky swiveled toward the window. Clouds were piling around the tops of nearby skyscrapers. Somewhere a plane was droning. She'd spent four years in Lander waiting for her own people to trust her enough to give her important cases, but the important cases had gone to firms in Casper and Cheyenne. She felt that her people had forgotten her.

The director went on. Lots of rain lately. Roads soggy. Cattle sinking in the mud. She told him about the rainy weather in Denver. Finally she asked if he'd ever heard of diamonds on the reservation.

A guffaw burst through the line. “You gotta be kidding! The Creator put all the diamond deposits down on the Wyoming–Colorado border.”

Vicky was quiet a moment, collecting her thoughts. “Is it possible prospectors have been looking for diamonds without the tribe's knowledge?”

There was a long, considered pause. Then: “The res is a big place, Vicky. Lots of remote areas where nobody's around.”

She felt a prick of excitement. “So it's possible. Someone could have found a diamond deposit.”

“Anything's possible, but you ask me, no prospectors are going to waste time and money looking for diamonds where they've never been found.”

Vicky pushed on: “Has any one from Baider Industries contacted you?”

“The diamond mining company?” A note of impatience sounded in the man's voice. “What's this all about, anyway?”

She told him how Vince Lewis, the man in charge of locating new diamond deposits for the company, had
contacted her. On the way to meet her he'd been killed. Murdered, she said.

“Never heard of him.” Papers crackled at the other end. “Listen, Vicky,” the director went on, “I don't think it's a good idea to pursue this. Word gets out that somebody thinks there's diamonds here, it'll be like the gold rush. Hordes of people tramping around the res with shovels and Geiger counters. There aren't any deposits in this part of the state. Talk to Charlie Ferguson in Laramie. He'll tell you the same thing.”

“Who?”

“Geology professor at the university. Knows every rock and mineral in the West. Any possibility of diamonds in the geological formations on the res, Ferguson would know about it. Hold on.” The line went dead for a couple seconds. Then the director's voice again: “Here's his number.”

Vicky scribbled down the number, thanked the director, and hung up. She stared at the phone. Either Adam Elkman didn't know about any deposits, or he was lying, maybe taking a kickback himself from Baider Industries to keep a deposit secret. She didn't think so. Elkman had been the natural resources director for three years; the people trusted him. And he'd sounded genuinely surprised when she'd mentioned diamonds.

And yet. . . There were miles of open plains on the reservation where men and trucks could dissolve like flecks of dust in the atmosphere. A small crew could prospect for diamonds without anyone knowing, except the owner of Baider Industries. And Vince Lewis, who died before he could blow the whistle.

If
there were diamonds on the reservation. She was chasing a phantom. She had no proof of the existence of
diamond deposits within two hundred miles of the reservation.

She picked up the phone again and dialed the number Elkman had given her. After a woman answered—“Geology department”—she was connected to an answering machine. “This is Professor Ferguson. Please leave a message.” She told him who she was, asked if she could see him tomorrow, and left her number.

From the corridor came the sounds of a printer whirring, the subdued voices of people passing by. A phone rang in a nearby office. The intense busyness of Howard and Fergus.

She stared at her own phone, wondering again what Vince Lewis's wife might know about his work. Vicky could still see the auburn-haired woman weaving down the brightly lit corridor toward her dying husband. A little chill ran through her. If Jana Lewis had any idea of why her husband had been killed, her life could also be in danger.

Vicky pressed the intercom button and asked Laola to get the address for Vince Lewis's wife.

Within a couple minutes Laola was in her office again, flapping some sheets of paper. “Phone book lists V and J Lewis on Vine Street.” She laid one sheet on the desk. “And the answering service took a message yesterday from Father John.” The second sheet dropped on the first. “He's looking for a Pueblo Indian named Eddie. Hangs around the Indian Center. Thinks the Indian might know something about the suicide at Bear Lake.”

Vicky took the second sheet and scanned the message.
Please call me.
She hadn't talked to John O'Malley since she'd moved back to Denver. There had been no legitimate reason, no excuse, to call him. Now the suicide at Bear Lake. And John O'Malley, looking for the truth
about what had happened there. He understood. No warrior would kill himself in a sacred place, on a vision quest. She felt a stab of guilt that she wasn't there to help.

“You heard about the lawsuit?” Laola said.

“What lawsuit?” Vicky picked up the phone and started tapping out the number at St. Francis Mission.

Laola leaned over the desk. “Moccasin telegraph,” she began in a confidential tone, “says some woman's filed a one-and-a-half-million-dollar sexual misconduct suit against the priest at St. Francis.”

Vicky dropped the receiver into the cradle. Assistant priests came and went, but for almost eight years, John O'Malley had been
the
priest at St. Francis. She could imagine some woman falling in love with him. She could imagine
that.
But he was a priest; he kept his vows. She knew him—she had thought she knew him. Was it possible she'd been wrong? That she didn't know him at all? How could that be? A kind of numbness was spreading through her.

She realized dimly that Laola was staring at her, watching for her reaction. She needed some time to reconcile her own sense of John O'Malley with this new image. “See if you can get Mrs. Lewis for me,” Vicky said, making an effort to keep her voice steady. No matter what may have happened, he was trying to find the truth about Duncan Grover's death. She decided to drop by the Indian Center after work and see if anyone knew a Pueblo Indian named Eddie.

The secretary turned and walked out of the office. In half a minute the phone buzzed, and Vicky lifted the receiver. There was a click, followed by the electronic hum of another answering machine and a woman's voice: “We aren't here, but please leave a message. We really want to talk to you. Have a great day.”

Vicky hung up. She wondered how Jana Lewis spent her days. Banging on Steve Clark's door demanding that he solve her husband's murder? Huddling with a lawyer about her husband's estate?

She would drop by the house on Vine Street later, before she went to the Indian Center. If Jana Lewis was in, she would ask to speak with her a moment. It was always better to catch a witness off guard.

As soon as she made the decision, she felt better, calmer. What did it matter if John O'Malley had dropped his guard and gotten involved with some woman? He was human. People made mistakes. She had made her share. What difference would it make to her if he'd made a mistake? She had her own work, her own life. She intended to find out what Vince Lewis's wife knew. And she had something for Jana Lewis: a warning that the woman could be in danger.

V
icky pointed the Bronco through the traffic spilling out of downtown Denver and turned left onto Speer Boulevard. The sun blinked in the rearview mirror, but black rain clouds were gathering over the mountains. Traffic was heavy, four lanes across, winding southeast along the banks of Cherry Creek. Ten minutes later the grounds of the Denver Country Club came into view outside her passenger window, the sprawling, gray-frame building a mute symbol of another century, built by the people who had displaced her own.

Another left turn down a wide street. Rows of mansions passing outside. She parked in front of a redbrick Tudor separated from the street by a sweep of glistening wet lawn and bushes that dipped under cascades of yellow and pink buds. Fallen buds crunched under her heels as she walked up the sidewalk. She clapped the brass door knocker.

There was no sound coming from the house, yet she had the sense that someone was there. She rapped again, giving the knocker a hard kick this time. Still no answer. She glanced at her watch—five twenty-six—and debated whether to wait or drive over to the Indian Center, see if anyone there had ever heard of Eddie, then drive back.
The thought of driving across the city all evening filled her with dread. She knocked again.

The door inched open. The auburn-haired woman from the emergency room peered through the crack. Slim, red-tipped fingers wrapped around the door's edge. On the third finger was a wide gold band with a diamond the size of a marble floating in the center. “What is it?”

Vicky told the woman her name and said she'd like to talk to her a moment.

The crack widened, and the woman leaned unsteadily forward, still gripping the door. Her face was pale—no makeup, a puffiness around the eyes, which had the surreal color of green glass. She was in a blue terrycloth robe that bunched around her waist. Her dark, shoulder-length hair looked tangled and uncombed, as if she'd just lifted her head from a pillow. “I saw you at the hospital,” she said in a resigned monotone.

“Yes, I was there.”

“One of Vince's whores.”

“What?”

“How dare you come here? You have no right—” The door started to close.

“I'm an attorney, Mrs. Lewis.” Vicky placed a hand against the door. “Your husband called me the morning of his death. I was on my way to meet him for the first time when he was killed. I'd like to talk to you.”

Jana Lewis blinked. A new wariness came into the green eyes. For the first time Vicky caught the syrupy odor of some kind of liqueur. The woman was slightly drunk. Finally the door swung open into a spacious entryway with shadows falling over the white and black floor tiles and running up the wide staircase. The woman tottered through an archway on the right, each step
deliberate and focused. There was the sound of a clock chiming somewhere.

Vicky hesitated, then stepped inside and followed the woman into a large drawing room with gray sofas and chairs against the paneled walls and a marble fireplace across from the entry. Oil paintings in carved wooden frames hung in perfect symmetry around the walls. The brass lamp on a side table threw a dim circle of light over an Oriental carpet.

Jana Lewis positioned herself in front of the fireplace, one hand braced against the mantel for support. The other held a crystal goblet half-f of golden-brown liquid that shimmered in the light.

“I get it now,” she said, comprehension moving behind her eyes. “You're the divorce lawyer.” She spit out the words, and tiny flecks of moisture dotted the goblet. “Well, here I am, the wife you were going to dig up a lot of dirt on so that bastard could get my money.” She raised the goblet and took a long drink. “I'm almost sorry we'll miss our little day in court. Ah, the justice to see Vince get what was coming to him, which was nothing. I would have taken him for everything he had. I would have ruined him. The company lawyers were on my side, you know. The damned best in the state.” A half smile of satisfaction came into the green eyes.

Vicky said, “I'm not here about your divorce. Your husband arranged the meeting to discuss another matter.”

The woman raised her eyes over the rim of the goblet. “Another matter? What could it possibly have to do with me?” She bent over a small table, lifted a rounded bottle, and shakily refilled the goblet, then dropped into a chair. “I'm sure you don't want a drink. You being Indian.”

Vicky felt the sting, like a pellet spit into her face by a passing semi. What did the woman think? That every
Indian was either a falling-down drunk or in recovery? She swallowed back the impulse to set her straight. “Your husband—”

“Don't call him that.”

“I assumed you were married.”

“Legally. I haven't thought of the bastard, when I thought of him at all, as my husband for a very long time. We hadn't spoken in months.”

“This must be hard on you,” Vicky heard herself saying. She was beginning to regret having come here. If the woman hadn't spoken to her husband in months, it was unlikely she knew what he'd been working on.

“Not really.” Jana Lewis's voice lifted with a false bravado. “I've made a life without him. All I needed was the legal paper setting me free. Naturally I thought it would be a divorce decree, not a death certificate. But either way . . .” She raised the goblet in a mock toast and took another drink.

“Forgive me,” Vicky said. “I shouldn't have bothered you.”

“Then why did you? Why did you come here? What do you want of me?” Jana Lewis set the goblet on the table. The brown liquid sloshed over her hand.

Vicky walked over and perched on a chair. “I was hoping you could tell me what your husband”—she hesitated—“what Vince wanted to talk to me about the day he died. Did he ever mention a diamond deposit on the Wind River Reservation?”

A flicker—no more—came into the other woman's eyes, and then it was gone. “Diamonds on an Indian reservation?” She let out a sharp laugh and leaned toward the table to refill the goblet. “Vince would go to the moon if he thought there were diamonds there,” she said, “but I can assure you he never went to a reservation.”

Even as the woman spoke, Vicky knew it wasn't true. Something in the tone—the nonchalance, the note of dismissal—sounded forced and out of place. “You said you hadn't spoken to Vince in three months,” she said, slipping into her courtroom tone, as if Jana Lewis were on the witness stand. “How do you know he wasn't on the reservation recently?”

“Because I know his every move.” Jana Lewis waved the goblet. “Every restaurant and bar and whore's house. My private investigator will tell you he didn't go to any reservation.”

“Private investigator?” This was more than Vicky had hoped for—a PI following Vince Lewis, noting exactly whom he'd seen, whom he'd talked to. “You told Detective Clark?”

“And why would I do that? I called off the private investigator when I had enough to file the divorce. Besides it's not police business. The last thing I need is for the newspapers to hear about it.” She threw back her head and gave another forced laugh. “Oh, I can see the headlines. ‘Denver Socialite Hired PI to Watch Bastard Husband.' ” Shifting sideways a little, she took another drink. “Daddy's upset enough over the publicity about Vince's death. Not exactly a respectable way to go—run down like a dog. Daddy would have much preferred a more appropriate hunting accident. But, I say, what the hell, he's gone.”

Vicky leaned toward her. “Mrs. Lewis,” she said, “I believe your husband was murdered.”

The woman's head snapped around, as if she'd caught an unexpected blow. The liqueur dribbled over her fingers. She was staring wide-eyed, a fixed expression of disbelief and outrage in the pale face. “That's ridiculous! Vince's death was an accident.”

She looked away and started to get up—a shaky commandeering of the floor. She gripped a corner of the table to steady herself. The goblet tipped sideways, spilling liqueur down the front of the blue robe. “Please go,” she said.

Vicky got to her feet and faced the woman. “Mrs. Lewis, if your husband had located a diamond deposit on the reservation, for your own safety, please tell me.”

Jana Lewis gave a shout of laughter. “My safety? Don't be ridiculous.”

“If you don't want to talk to me,” Vicky went on, “then talk to Detective Clark.”

“Detective Clark”—an expulsion of breath—“is looking for the drunk that ran Vince down. If he's wasting time chasing some crazy murder theory, my father will see that he's removed from the investigation. We are not without influence in this town, Ms. Holden. Daddy'll have Detective Clark's job.” She pushed away from the table, reclaiming her footing. “Get out,” she said.

Vicky got to her feet and started for the door. She turned back. “Be careful,” she said. “Your husband was murdered, and your life may also be in danger.” She left Jana Lewis pouring another drink.

 

T
he Bronco's engine burst into life at the turn of the ignition. It had started to rain—a light misting that sparkled like diamonds in the headlights and pecked at the windshield as Vicky turned west onto Speer and worked her way into the fastest lane, making the lights as yellow switched to red, wondering if a wealthy woman with a powerful father would hire someone to kill her husband, even for a three-million-dollar insurance policy. It was
possible. Except that Jana Lewis had seemed shocked at the mention of murder.

And yet, the woman knew more than she'd admitted, Vicky was sure. Another picture was starting to emerge, like an image gradually taking shape in a developing tray: Nathan Baider following Jana Lewis down the hospital corridor.

Nathan Baider and Jana Lewis.

It would explain why the company's law firm would represent Jana in the divorce. Why Vince Lewis had wanted to dig up dirt on a wife who intended to ruin him. It could even explain why Lewis had wanted to blow the whistle on Baider Industries.

Vicky dug her cell phone out of her bag on the seat beside her and, at the next red light, tapped out Steve Clark's number. His answering service picked up. She said she had a hunch that Jana Lewis knew why her husband had been killed. “Call me as soon as you can,” she said.

In the distance, the shadows of the mountains merged into the rain-filled sky. She glanced at the dashboard clock. Almost six-fifteen. Marie Champlain would be in her office at the Indian Center, supervising the evening classes and meetings.

She made a right, circled beneath the Speer Viaduct and merged with the southbound traffic on I-25. A sheet of water billowed over her windshield from the tires of the semi ahead. She changed lanes and sped past.