The Spider's Web Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Coel

  BLOOD MEMORY

  Wind River Mysteries

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  THE GHOST WALKER

  THE DREAM STALKER

  THE STORY TELLER

  THE LOST BIRD

  THE SPIRIT WOMAN

  THE THUNDER KEEPER

  THE SHADOW DANCER

  KILLING RAVEN

  WIFE OF MOON

  EYE OF THE WOLF

  THE DROWNING MAN

  THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR

  THE SILENT SPIRIT

  THE SPIDER’S WEB

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Margaret Coel.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Coel, Margaret, 1937-

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-45991-1

  1. O’Malley, John (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Holden, Vicky (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Fiancées—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Serial murderers—Fiction. 5. Wind River Indian Reservation (Wyo.)—Fiction. 6. Arapaho Indians—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.O347S555 2010

  813’. 54—dc22

  2010008231

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  In memory of Bill

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Virginia Sutter, Ph.D., and Jim Sutter for generously advising me on the Arapaho Sun Dance. Merle Hass, director, Sky People Higher Education, was gracious and hospitable as always in making me welcome on the Wind River Reservation. Fred Walker in Boulder took the time to talk to me about various weapons and suggest the type that different characters would be likely to use. My nephew John Dix read over the baseball scenes and made helpful suggestions on what Father John should do and say. Father Tony Short, S.J., was kind enough to share some of his experiences as former pastor of St. Stephen’s Mission on the Wind River Reservation. My friends Karen Gilleland, Beverly Carrigan, Sheila Carrigan, and Carl Schneider read the manuscript in various stages and offered wonderful and insightful comments, as did my husband, George, always my first reader. And the late Bishop Bernard Sullivan, S.J., one of my first writing teachers, a wise and gentle man whose memory inspired the character of Bishop Harry Coughlin. My agent, Richard Henshaw, and my editor, Tom Colgan, were, as always, most helpful and encouraging.

  Niatha: The Arapaho word for spider,

  a creature capable of mysterious things.

  Also the word for white person.

  1

  A WASHED-OUT SKY spread over the reservation, and darkness was coming on fast. The humps of the Wind River range loomed like dark smudges on the horizon. Ahead, the asphalt road crawled over the rises that passed for hills on the plains. Every now and then the truck’s engine gave a raspy cough, as if it might spit out the dust churning beneath the wheels. The taste of dust drifted through the open windows.

  Roseanne Birdwoman shifted her gaze between the two men in the front seat. Lionel Lookingglass, bent over the steering wheel, stiff black hair bristling from the ponytail that trailed down his white tee shirt past the knobs of his spine. Dwayne Hawk, riding shotgun, black hair cut short above the missing piece of his left ear. Gray lines of sweat ran around the thick neck of his red shirt. Outsiders, both of them. Showed up on the rez about a year ago. They were talking to each other now. Grunting noises lost in the wind, punctuated by nods and Dwayne’s fist thumping the dashboard, nothing she needed to know about. The sour smells of beer and sweat cut through the dust.

  She adjusted her legs in the cramped backseat and looked out at the brown plains rolling past. God, what had possessed her to come with these losers? She could have said no thanks, when the white truck skidded into the yard, barely missing the wood stoop. “Party time, Roseanne,” Lionel had yelled. “Over at Berta’s place. Get your ass out here.”

  Why had she gone outside? They would have driven off and forgotten about her. They would have found some other girl. But she had been so lonely. Sitting around the house when she wasn’t dragging herself to work, listening for the phone to ring over the drunken rants of Aunt Martha or the loud snoring noises when she finally collapsed. Sometimes Roseanne would think the phone had rung. She would pick it up, her heart pounding, hoping it was Ned. But there would be only a buzzing noise. She had loneliness to thank for the fact she was now on her way to a stupid, drunken party.

  The truck took a sharp right turn that sent the rear end into a skid. Roseanne crashed against the door, aware of metal biting into her ribs. They were on a side road that had faded into a dirt washboard. The lights of Arapahoe twinkled in the dusk ahead.

  “What are you doing?” She gripped the front seat and pulled herself forward.

  Dwayne turned halfway around and gave her a raised-eyebrow look. “Don’t you wanna
see Ned?”

  “You didn’t say we were picking up Ned.”

  “He’s back on the rez, ain’t he? Time he got out and enjoyed himself.” Dwayne was looking at her out of slanted eyes. “You still got the hots for him,” he said.

  “Shut up.”

  “She don’t like getting dumped for no white girl,” Lionel said. He was laughing under his breath. “No white girl’s gonna take your man. We’re gonna get him for you.”

  “Maybe the white girl don’t wanna let him go,” Dwayne said.

  “We’re gonna find out.” Lionel curled even farther over the steering wheel. The truck bounced and skidded over the hard earth before the tires settled back into the tracks.

  Then they were in Arapahoe, white frame houses and propane tanks passing outside, towels and sheets and blue jeans blowing on outdoor lines. Trucks and cars littered the dirt yards. She spotted a crumpled two-wheel bike with the seat jutting sideways. Another turn, and Lionel hit the brake. They slid to a stop a few inches from the corner of a yellowish, sun-bleached house. Lionel laid on the horn and stuck his head out the window. “Come on, Ned!”

  Roseanne felt as if the wind had sucked all the air out of the cab. The dry, dusty smells of the plains mixed with the sour odor of beer made her stomach turn over. She thrust her head out the opened window away from the house and tried to lean into the wind that washed across her face. Lionel was still shouting, and now Dwayne had joined in, shouting and beating a fist on the passenger door that sent the truck into a rocking motion.

  “He’s not here,” Roseanne heard herself say. “Let’s go. I need a drink.”

  “Truck’s here,” Lionel said.

  Roseanne pulled her head inside and looked at the house, the black truck parked next to it, the left reflector smashed, the bumper dented. The images spun like a whirlwind: last April, a cold evening, part rain, part snow, and snow banked along the roads, and the roads silvery with ice. They stopped at the convenience store at Ethete. Ned maneuvered the truck into a U-turn and backed toward the gas pumps. They’d had a couple of beers, and there was the hard bump and the squeal of metal against metal. Roseanne threw out both hands to brace herself against the dashboard.

  “Sonofabitch!” Ned had slammed out of the truck and walked back. She had expected him to get back in, gun the engine, and squeal the hell out of there before somebody came running out of the store, but the next thing she knew, he was filling the tank. The sounds and smells of rushing gasoline drifted through the cab.

  Ned had left for Jackson Hole not long afterward. “Construction projects going on there,” he’d told her, “and they need electricians. I got a job right in the town of Jackson.” She had nodded, trying to take it in through the dread building inside her because this was the end, she knew. He’d said he would send for her as soon as he got a place. Maybe they’d get married. Had he really said that, or had she imagined it? Heard what she wanted to hear? She couldn’t remember now.

  The truth was, Ned had wanted to go away for some time. Nothing had been going right, not the electrician’s job in Lander, not his plans to save the down payment on a ranch. That was his dream, a ranch. He had to get back on track, or he was gonna choke to death, he said. She felt the same way, with the dead-end job stocking shelves at Walmart. So his going would be the chance for both of them, only he hadn’t sent for her. When he came back a couple of weeks ago, she had gotten her hopes up again. They would be together, things would go on as before.

  Then the white girl showed up.

  “I’m gonna get him.” Lionel opened the door, kicked it back, and jumped out. He was drunk, pushing himself off the hood and staggering toward the house, finally lurching for the railing and pulling himself up the wooden steps. Dwayne got out and staggered after him.

  “Why don’t we just get the hell outta here,” Roseanne shouted. Then she pushed herself into the seat again and tried to ignore the tiny spark of hope firing inside her. Maybe the white girl had left. It made sense. She couldn’t have felt at home in the house where Ned grew up, where his grandfather died. All those memories everywhere she turned. Arapahoe. Arapahoe. Ned might come to the party after all, but he would take his own truck. She would run over and jump in beside him. They could talk, put things back the way they used to be.

  Lionel was shouting and pounding on the screened door that jumped and banged against the frame. The whole neighborhood was probably watching. Then Dwayne yanked open the door and pushed against the inside door. They fell into the house, bumping and clawing at each other. “Where the hell are you, Ned?” Lionel shouted.

  “She’s not gonna let him come,” Roseanne said out loud. The sound of her own voice gave her a jolt of surprise. She realized that, for a while, she had let herself believe that the white girl was gone. But the truth had come roaring back. She was still inside with Ned.

  Roseanne turned away from the house and stared out her window. The wind mowed down the tufts of wild grass that sprouted in the dirt yards. Her mouth had gone dry. She could have followed Ned, she was thinking. Nothing had stopped her from moving to Jackson Hole, finding another dead-end job, but Ned had promised to send for her. There was something important in that.

  The screened door banged open. Lionel came out first, Dwayne pushing against him and both of them stumbling down the steps and plunging for the truck. Lionel turned the ignition as he slid behind the wheel. He gunned the motor and the truck jumped backward with Dwayne still righting himself on the passenger seat, struggling to pull the door shut. Then they pulled a U-turn and shot out onto the road.

  “What’s going on?” Roseanne leaned forward. “What happened in there?”

  “We gotta get outta here,” Lionel said. She could see the speedometer needle jiggling at fifty miles an hour as he sped down the bumpy dirt road. He took a sharp turn that flung the truck across a dirt yard, then wheeled out onto another hard-packed road, the truck rocking and dust ballooning along the sides.

  “Tell me!” She pounded a fist into Lionel’s shoulder. “Ned. What about Ned? Is he okay?”

  “He’s dead,” Dwayne said, looking sideways at her.

  She flung out her fist and connected with the hard curve of Dwayne’s jaw. He flinched and rolled his head against the door frame. “Jesus,” he said. “Take it easy.”

  “What do you mean?” She grabbed a fistful of Dwayne’s shirt. “Tell me,” she shouted.

  “He’s dead, Roseanne.” This from Lionel, gripping the steering wheel, peering down the ribbon of asphalt coming at them at eighty miles an hour. “Somebody tore up the place.”

  “He can’t be dead,” Roseanne said. “We have to go back. We have to help him.”

  “Don’t you get it? There’s no helping him. We gotta get away.”

  She was shivering with the tremors that had started in her legs and moved into her stomach and chest, and were now shooting into her arms. “Why?” someone said. It was the little voice she’d had as a child.

  “Somebody shot him,” Lionel said. “He’s on the bed, got a hole the size of a baseball in his chest. White girl’s dead, too, over in the corner.”

  Roseanne fumbled in her jeans pocket for her cell. “We have to call 911. They can help him.”

  She felt the hard edge of Dwayne’s hand cut against her arm. The cell bounced across the floor. “We don’t have nothing to do with this. The fed finds out we were at the house, what’d’ya think’s gonna happen? Lionel and me ain’t going back to prison, got it?”

  “You sure the white girl’s dead?” Lionel looked over at the man in the passenger seat.

  “She was dead.”

  “Maybe I seen her move a little.”

  “You didn’t see nothing.”

  “We’ve gotta get help.” Roseanne leaned down and ran her hand over the scraped floor, groping for the phone. She wrapped her fingers around the warm plastic and flipped open the top.

  “Shut that cell,” Dwayne said. “You know what’s good for you.”

 
Roseanne did as he said. She was shaking so hard, the cell slid out of her hand and thudded back onto the floor. Her mind was blank now, a big, vacant space that Ned Windsong had once filled.

  “We never went to the house.” Dwayne leaned back, ropy forearm hanging over the seat, fist clenched. “You got that? Anybody asks, that’s what you say. Long as we stick together, we’re okay. There wasn’t nobody around. Even if somebody seen us, they can’t prove nothing. It’ll be our word against theirs. You open your mouth, and you’re gonna be like Ned.”

  Roseanne could feel herself nodding like a robot. The sobs had started, rising in her throat like hard rocks that she could neither swallow nor spit out. Dwayne was a blurred face in the background moving under water. What was before her was the image of Ned Windsong and a hole as big as a baseball in his dear chest.

  2

  THE INSTANT THE truck topped the rise, Roseanne saw the lights flickering in the cottonwoods ahead. The booming noise grew louder, like the rumble of a train in the night. It was dark now, a few stars flickering in the black sky. She huddled in the backseat, afraid she would be sick. Ned might still be alive and she could do nothing—nothing—to help him. She could feel some part of herself already slipping away.

  Lionel must have been standing on the gas pedal because they flew down the road. Then a sharp turn, and they bounced across the borrow ditch and the rutted earth and skidded to a stop halfway between the trucks parked in the trees and the blocklike house with blue siding. Shadowy figures darted around the vehicles, in and out of the streaks of light from the campfires. Sparks danced in the air like fireflies. A thumping, undulating wall of noise from a CD player fell over the truck the instant Lionel cut off the ignition.

  Nobody moved. Then Dwayne turned around, lights striping his face. “We come straight here from your place. Got it?”