The Spider's Web Page 3

  Father John shook his head. He had met Marie a number of times when she came to the mission with Ella. Sodality luncheon or carry-in dinner. Once he had come across them wandering through the exhibits at the Arapaho Museum. Marie and Jerry Adams were ranchers, he remembered Ella saying. Owned a spread south of Lander. “Marry a white man and get yourself a big ranch.” She had thrown her head back and laughed.

  “I’ll tell her you’re on the way,” the officer said. There was the click of the receiver dropped into the cradle. Out of the corner of his eye, Father John saw the officer walk past and resume his station at the front door. “Your sister and her husband should be here in about thirty minutes,” he said.

  “If Jerry finds the bastards that killed Ned,” Ella said, “he’ll wanna kill ’em.”

  JERRY ADAMS FILLED the doorway. Six foot tall with thick, rounded shoulders shoved inside a plaid shirt, a shaved head, prominent, red-veined nose and veiled eyes that surveyed everyone in the living room as Marie ran to the sofa and plopped down on the armrest next to her sister. Father John guessed the couple had made some phone calls, because the news had gone out on the moccasin telegraph. Ten minutes after Officer Henders had hung up, Janice and Lou Whiteman from down the road knocked on the door and traipsed inside, a shocked, half-awake look about them, Janice still in bedroom slippers, Lou tucking the tails of his shirt inside his belt. Then other neighbors and friends had flowed through the door, filling up the living room, bustling about the kitchen. The smells of fresh coffee drifted past the arched doorway. Officer Henders had left, and now it was just people gathered in grief, with Ella and her sister folded together, whispering and emitting little sobs, and people taking turns hovering over them, patting Ella’s shoulders.

  How many nights had he sat with the grieving in the years he had been at St. Francis Mission? Hardly the path he had laid out for himself all those years ago when he used to think about the future, as if the future were a physical object he could shape and control. He would be a professor, teaching American history in a New England college, close to his family in Boston, but not too close. A cottage on a quiet lane, a nice wife, and two or three kids. He hadn’t seen himself as a priest. And yet it didn’t just happen. At some point, he had understood there was something else for him. A ridiculous idea, the priesthood. He had fought it for years. Surely there was a mistake, the calling meant for someone else. But the understanding had remained. And finally he had accepted.

  Here I am, Lord. He always liked Isaiah. Send me.

  Jerry Adams shouldered his way past a group of people and planted himself in front of Ella. Father John got to his feet and waited while the man leaned over close and set both hands on the woman’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry.” He had a deep bass voice that seemed to rumble around his chest. “We’re gonna take care of you. See you got everything you need, just like Ned would’ve done. He was a good boy.”

  Ella nodded. She reached around and clasped one of the man’s hands and held on for a moment, biting at her lower lip, blinking up at him through tear-bleared eyes. “I don’t know who could’ve done it,” she said.

  “Don’t you worry about that, either,” he said. “Whoever done it is gonna pay, and that’s a promise.” He straightened up and turned to Father John. “You the mission priest?”

  Father John gave his name and shook the man’s hand. It was like placing his own hand inside a baseball mitt.

  “I heard Ned used to come around and talk to you, that right?”

  “Not so much lately,” Father John said.

  “I guess he had other things on his mind. You seen the body?”

  Father John nodded.

  “Ned ever talk about somebody wanting to kill him?”

  Father John was quiet a moment. Jerry Adams had deep-set black eyes that bored into him, waiting for the answer. Father John looked away. He had sensed something off-balance in Ned after he got back from Jackson Hole, but he had never imagined it might be this—that someone wanted to kill him.

  He locked eyes again with the man. “Ned was looking toward the future. He had pledged the Sun Dance.”

  Jerry Adams waved a hand between then. “Foolhardy thing, I told him. Takes a good year to prepare. He was cutting it short. You gonna run a marathon, you don’t cut the training short, not if you want to cross the finish line. Three days and nights those dancers have to fast. Don’t take any liquids, not even water. Have to learn all the ritual and prayers. I tried to tell him it wasn’t for him, but Ned was stubborn.” He threw a glance around the room, and fixed his gaze on two young men. “You seen any of Ned’s friends yet?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  The man shrugged. “Guys he hung with before he went off to Jackson Hole? Lionel Lookingglass, Dwayne Hawk. Used to have an Arapaho girlfriend, Roseanne somebody.”

  “Roseanne Birdwoman,” Ella said. “Always thought he was gonna marry her.”

  “I heard he planned to marry the girl he met in Jackson Hole,” Father John said. Then he told Adams that the girl had been in the house. Two men had burst in, struck her, and killed Ned. They had ransacked the house.

  Adams looked away. He slid his jaw sideways and kept his eyes on two elders settling themselves on straight-back chairs that someone had brought from the kitchen. A blue vein pulsed in the center of his forehead. Finally he looked back. “She can identify them?”

  “Possibly,” Father John said.

  “What you say her name is?”

  He hadn’t said, Father John realized. “Ned didn’t tell you about her?”

  “Marcy Morrison,” Ella said. She took a moment to blow into a wad of tissues. “Must’ve had his reasons for not telling folks about her.”

  “Where’s she now?” Adams asked.

  “Riverton hospital,” Father John said. He watched the man for a couple of seconds—he’d met men like this before, sure of themselves, in control. He added, “The police have her under protection.”

  4

  DAWN TRACED THE eastern horizon when Father John parked adjacent to the portico with the lighted sign overhead that said Emergency in red letters. An ambulance stood under the portico, the rear doors hanging open. He caught a glimpse of the gurney and an array of small steel cabinets as he walked past. He let himself through the double-glass doors. Behind the counter on the right, a dark-haired woman with rimless glasses and narrow shoulders sat hunched over a computer screen. “Help you?” she said without looking up.

  He was about to give his name when she jumped to her feet. “Oh, Father,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t realize it was you.” She shot a glance toward the glass doors, and he looked around, half-expecting to see someone else coming in. The sky was getting lighter. The asphalt in the parking lot sparkled like diamonds. Except for a few vehicles, the lot was empty. “Don’t get a lot of visitors this time of morning,” she said. “You here about Marcy Morrison?”

  Father John turned back. “How is she?”

  “I’ll get the nurse.” The woman leaned over, picked up the phone, and pressed a key. “Father O’Malley’s here,” she said. She replaced the phone and gave him a sympathetic smile. “You knew the young man that got killed?”

  He nodded. He had to blink at the contrasting images in front of his eyes: Ned, striding across the field in the middle of Circle Drive, waving and calling, “Hey, Father.” Ned, lifeless on the blood-soaked bed.

  The metal door on the far side of the entry swung open, and a woman in green scrubs, with sandy-colored hair, walked over. She was about thirty, he guessed, but something in her eyes made her seem older. “I’m Jan Peters,” she said. She kept her hands at her sides. “I’ve been looking after Marcy Morrison.”

  “How is she?”

  “Traumatized.” She shook her head. “Fiancé murdered in front of her eyes. She has some bruises where she was struck, but fortunately her injuries are minor. No sexual assault.” She drew in her lower lip and took a moment. “The two men were probably in a hurry to get a
way. She was lucky.”

  “May I see her?”

  “Well,” she said, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. “No visitors, except for family, as long as the killers are on the loose. There’s an officer outside her door. But I’m sure we can make an exception for you, Father. The poor girl doesn’t have any family in the area.”

  She swung around and headed toward the door she had come through. Father John followed her down a wide corridor paved with gray vinyl and lit with the white light of fluorescent ceiling bulbs. She wore foamy shoes that made a squishy noise on the vinyl. They turned past the plaque on the wall that said Rooms 100-110. Seated outside a closed door was a blue-uniformed police officer. He got to his feet as they approached.

  “All right if Father O’Malley sees her?” the nurse said.

  “Family only,” the officer said. He gave a sideways nod toward the door. “You gotta be the next best thing.”

  The nurse ushered Father John into a room not much larger than a cubicle, like a thousand other hospital rooms he had visited: beige curtains pushed against the wall on either side of the narrow bed, plastic tubes and bottles dangling from a metal stand. Curled away from the door, a plastic tube jutting from the needle taped to her arm and a white sheet pulled to her shoulders, was Marcy Morrison.

  There were things about the girl that Father John couldn’t reconcile. She had seemed brittle and cocky and self-assured and a little spoiled the day she had driven into the mission. And something about her story not straight. Looking for her fiancé, a man who hadn’t thought to mention that she existed and hadn’t told her where he was.

  She stirred and looked over one shoulder. Reddish-black bruises circled her eyes, and a long red bruise ran across one cheek. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes. “You heard what happened?” she said. Gone were the snap and bravado. Her voice was as thin as a child’s.

  “Yes,” Father John said. “I’m very sorry, Marcy.”

  “He really loved me.” She squinted at something across the room, some image she might have wanted to bring into focus. “We set our wedding date. July twenty-second. After the Sun Dance.”

  “Are there any family or friends you would like me to call?”

  “Daddy says he’s gonna come.” She turned her head and closed her eyes. “That’ll be a first,” she said, her voice muffled in the pillow.

  Father John glanced at the nurse standing at the foot of the bed. “We called her father. He’s coming from Oklahoma.”

  “I wanna go home.” The girl’s eyes sprung open. “They say I can’t go anywhere. I gotta hang around and wait ’til they catch those two guys. I don’t wanna stay here. I never want to see the rez again.” She made a little motion, as if she wanted to sit up, then flopped back. “They’re keeping me against my will,” she said. “Tell ’em they can’t do that. I have rights, you know.”

  “Listen.” Father John tried for a soothing tone. “They could arrest the two men tonight. They’ll want you to identify them, then you’ll be able to go home.”

  “What if they don’t get them tonight? What about tomorrow, or next week, or next month? Am I supposed to hang around with some guard watching me?”

  “If you like, I can speak with the fed.” Where would she stay, Father John was thinking. A motel in Riverton or Lander, someplace on the reservation? Whoever had killed Ned could come after her. “There’s a guesthouse at the mission,” he said. There were always parishioners coming and going. The minute a couple of strangers showed up, someone would spot them. “You could stay there until the men are arrested.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed, gratitude and incredulity moving in her expression. “Daddy’ll get my pickup at Ned’s place,” she said, choking a little. “Soon’s he gets here.”

  “The doctor will have to release her,” the nurse said. “And there’s the orders from the fed, and the guard...” She nodded at the door.

  “I’ll speak with the fed,” he told her.

  THE FIERY RED sun lifted off the eastern horizon and the sky was streaked in reds, oranges, and pinks when Father John turned past the billboard that said St. Francis Mission and plunged through the shadows of the cottonwoods that lined the road. Tiredness dragged at his muscles. He could grab an hour or two of sleep before he started the day, he was thinking. Gianelli was probably doing the same; he would have spent most of the night at Ned’s house. Homicide cases were often solved in the first hours, Father John had heard him say many times, when evidence was either collected or lost. He would call the fed as soon as he got into the office.

  He wasn’t sure when he had first spotted the truck—a white Ford in the red-hued morning. Maybe out on Seventeen-Mile Road, several car-lengths behind. Or maybe the truck had been in the oncoming lane. Staring past the lower edge of the visor, he had missed it. But now it was diving through the shadows close behind, and he could make out the dark faces of two men, cowboy hats bobbing in the windshield. They looked young, in their twenties, most likely Arapaho. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror. They could be anybody. Any of dozens of young Indian men on the rez. Daily Mass wasn’t scheduled for another hour. They hadn’t come for Mass.

  Father John turned left onto Circle Drive and drove toward the administration building. The residence was on the right, but there was no sense in bringing the visitors to the residence. Whatever they wanted, they could talk in his office. But the truck made a sharp turn and sped around the other side of the drive. The left side of the bed was damaged.

  He pressed on the brake pedal, stopped in the gravel, and jumped out. The truck made another sharp right into the fields alongside the residence and kept going, bouncing across the baseball diamond that he and a group of kids had cleared that first summer at St. Francis, when he had decided to start a Little League baseball team. He knew baseball; he had pitched at Boston College. He could coach the team and keep the thirst away, he’d thought. He’d been wrong about that. Now he watched the pickup careening around the bases, churning up the field. Great swoops of brown dust rose about the tires.

  He got back behind the steering wheel, rammed the gear into reverse, then forward, and went after the white truck, aware of the bed shimmying, the chain on the tailgate banging. He bounced along the dirt road that ran next to the outfield, parked close to what was left of third base and got out. The truck ripped across home plate and headed for first, rocking on the chassis, trailing clouds of dust.

  “Hey!” Father John shouted, waving both arms. “Get out of here!”

  The truck had swung left, and he realized it was turning toward him. He jumped toward the pickup, yanked open the door, and got inside. He rammed the gear into reverse and bounced backward as the truck sped past. The windows were down, and the driver banged a fist on the door. Then the truck ground to a stop, pulled a U-turn, and headed for him again.

  In forward now, Father John floored the gas pedal and drove for home base. The old pickup balked and squealed over the dry earth. In the rearview mirror, the white truck was bending into another U-turn. Father John cut between the bleachers and home base and out onto the back road that connected the mission to Rendezvous Road. He could feel his heart pounding, the red heat of anger moving into his face. He skid to a stop, made another U-turn, and headed back to the mission. He could see the spire of the church swaying through the cottonwood branches. They would not drive him away!

  The diamond was on the right, the white truck carving a circle in the middle. Then it stopped, and Father John saw the rock fly out of the passenger window and land a few feet away. The truck started up again and sped toward the road he had taken. Then it spun left onto Rendezvous Road, black exhaust floating through the dust clouds.

  Father John got out and walked across the diamond. The rock was the size of a baseball, and clasped to it with a rubber band was a piece of paper. He picked it up and pulled out the paper.

  Smeared across the middle in thick black marker were the words Stay out of it.

  5

 
ROSEANNE LISTENED TO the engine outside. A large vehicle, truck or SUV, turned off the road and ground across the hard ruts in the dirt yard. She pulled her knees into her chest and pressed herself into the corner. The walls bit at her spine; the chill of the linoleum floor ran through her. She had gone outside for a while last night, had a couple of beers, made sure Dwayne and Lionel saw her. A robot, going through the motions, couples dancing under the cottonwoods, moonlight flitting in the branches and the hard beats of music pounding in her ears, but in her mind she was still at Ned’s house, watching the front door, knowing something was wrong, feeling the wrongness even before Lionel and Dwayne had come running out. After a while she had slipped through the party back into the house and found the corner in the bedroom.

  She had spent the rest of the night there, listening to footsteps coming and going, the slurred, laughing voices, the gagging and retching in the bathroom, her thoughts on Ned. The ambulance might have gotten to the house in time. He could be alive. God, let it be. The shivering was like death coming over her. Her tee shirt was smashed against her chest with perspiration. She had wanted to cry. She should cry for Ned, but she had no energy for it, as if the thought of his death had sucked the life out of her. The window across the room glowed red with the dawn when she finally heard the sounds of the party winding down, cars and pickups pulling out of the yard. The sun was blasting the window now, and she could hear Berta snoring on the bed.

  The engine outside switched off. A door slammed, footsteps scuffed the dirt and pounded up the steps. The loud knocking on the front door sent tremors through the floor. Roseanne managed to get to her feet. Her legs felt wobbly, and she had to steady herself against the wall a moment before she stumbled to the window. A white SUV was parked a few feet from the house. The knocking came again.