The Lost Bird (18 page)

D
arkness settled over the earth like a thick buffalo robe. The sky had turned violet; the moon and stars hazy pinpricks of light. Father John gripped the steering wheel and stared into the headlights washing across Highway 789. The cubelike buildings of Riverton flashed by, a procession of shadowy hulks. He wished he had one of his opera tapes. Puccini, to sort his thoughts by.

Something about Mary James’s story bothered him, like the wrong note in a perfect aria. A plausible story, except for the fact that her sister’s death had been ruled a suicide. He wondered if the beautiful woman who had sacrificed her own dreams for a brilliant sister had simply never been able to accept the fact that, in the end, her sister had chosen suicide.

And Father Joseph? Why had he run away? If Dawn had told him something in a counseling session, why didn’t he give the information to the federal agent after her death? It might have led to a different investigation, a different finding.

The Escort’s engine hissed into the quiet. There was another explanation, he knew. One that would support the woman’s theory. Dawn James hadn’t confided
in Father Joseph during a counseling session; she’d confessed to him whatever was bothering her. And he was bound by the seal of the confessional.

Father John saw the picture: a young priest, burdened by unwanted, unsolicited knowledge. How soon after he’d heard the woman’s confession had he started placing calls at universities around the country? When did he pack his bags, purchase the one-way train or bus ticket? He must have been ready to go because the day after Dawn James’s death, Joseph Keenan fled the area.

Father John’s hands relaxed on the wheel. He was alone on the highway now. The town had given way to shadows of scrub brush along the road and dark, vacant spaces beyond. Far ahead was a tiny stream of headlights. The explanation seemed logical. Except for one thing. Joseph Keenan had returned.

Father John swung right onto Seventeen-Mile Road. In the distance rose the dark mass of the mountains, the peaks lost in steel-gray clouds. He could imagine Gianelli’s reaction to this new theory:
You’re stretching, John. When you gonna realize the world doesn’t fit into some logical Jesuit order?
Or Banner:
Been my experience, John, things are usually what they seem. Some crazy guy’s got it in for you and killed the wrong priest.

But what if there was logic in the world? He found himself wishing Vicky were at the mission. Together they could examine Mary James’s story, probe for weaknesses and inconsistencies. Together, he knew, they would arrive at a stronger theory, one that might convince Gianelli and Banner that Joseph’s murder was related to a mysterious death thirty-five years ago.

But Vicky would not be waiting. That was reality.
Logical and necessary. He would not call her. The evening of Father Joseph’s murder, he had glimpsed the depth of her feelings, and it had left him shaken. She had hidden her feelings well. He had never guessed they mirrored his own. He had understood with the force of certainty that she would not come to the mission again and that he could not call her.

Megan would be at the mission. He’d promised that, tonight, they would have dinner and a long talk. He had no intention of burdening the girl with theories about murder. More than likely there was no connection between Joseph’s murder and the death of a young nurse more than three decades ago, except in the mind of Mary James. The killer might still show up at St. Francis Mission looking for him, and he didn’t want Megan to relax her guard.

He turned into the mission grounds. They were silent and empty. There were no vehicles about. Elena and Leonard would have gone home by now. He felt a pang of worry that Megan was alone. He glanced at his watch in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. Five minutes to seven; still early.

As he came around Circle Drive, he saw that the overhead light in front of the administration building was out. He made a mental note to ask Leonard to replace the bulb first thing in the morning. His headlights streamed over the concrete stairs and stoop, the black railing glistening like ice, the front door. Suddenly he realized it was ajar. Leonard must have forgotten to lock up.

He hit the brake pedal and jumped out. As he started up the steps, he sensed something wrong. He could smell it in the air, like drifting smoke. His heart lurched. Megan was alone.

He took the rest of the steps two at a time and flung the door wide open. As it swung toward him, he saw the splintered wood, the lopsided lock. Someone had forced the door.

“Megan!” he shouted, stepping inside. His hand found the switch, and light flooded the corridor, illuminating the framed photos lining the walls of the first pastors at St. Francis Mission, silent witnesses to his growing panic.

He hurried down the hall. “Where are you?” His voice sounded hollow and distant in the old building. He burst through the door to Joseph’s office, flipped the switch, and stopped. He felt as if the world had lurched sideways into a direction he couldn’t comprehend. Papers and folders littered the floor; file-cabinet drawers tilted precariously. The chair was overturned; the top of the desk swept clean. The computer was gone, and so was Megan.

He swung around, shouting her name toward the ceiling and the storerooms upstairs. He waited, listening. There were no sounds except the familiar creak of the building, the
drip-drip
of a leaky faucet, the thumping of his own heart. He forced himself to think logically. Someone had broken into the building, ransacked Joseph’s office, and taken his computer. But it probably happened after Megan left. She could be at the guest house or the residence.

He ran down the corridor and outside. Dodging past the Escort, he sprinted through the shadows of the alley between the building and the church, his breath coming fast and hard, his heart beating in his ears. The guest house was dark, but Megan’s car sat in front. The evening was quiet, except for the sound
of the wind hissing through the branches of the cottonwoods.

“Megan!” he called, pounding against the door. He tried the knob; it sat cold and lifeless in his hand. Pulling a master key from the pocket of his jeans, he rammed it into the slot and pushed against the door, shouting her name at the shadows of the table and sofa bed inside. He stumbled over a chair, found the lamp, and turned it on. Light flooded the small room and eddied into the alcove that served as a kitchen. He took in the suitcase against one wall, the jacket slung over a chair, clothing piled on another chair. Megan wasn’t there.

He retraced his steps down the alley, past the Escort, and ran across the field to the residence, all thoughts erased from his mind except the safety of the girl. Throwing open the front door, he burst inside. The momentum carried him down the hall toward the light shining in the kitchen. Shouting her name: “Megan, Megan!” The table was set for two: plates, glasses, forks and knives, napkins. A note in the center of the table: Elena’s instructions, he knew, on whatever she had prepared for dinner and left in the refrigerator.

He whirled around and ran back down the hall. The door to his study was closed, and he slammed it open, knocking the side of his desk—a loud whack in the quiet. Still no sign of her. As he started up the stairs, a cold fear, like ice water, poured over him. The hall was dark, and he flipped the switch. Light bounced off the walls and ran along the carpet. He stopped at the first door—the guest bedroom. Pushing it open, flipping the switch, taking in the room at a glance. Bureau. Desk. Neatly made bed.

He moved to the next door—Father Joseph’s room—his eyes on the pencil-thin light seeping underneath. Gripping the knob, he threw open the door and called her name softly. “Megan. Megan.”

A part of his mind took in the spilled contents of drawers, the tangle of clothing and blankets, the books strewn about. What he saw was the slim figure on the floor: the long blue-jean-clad legs and white sneakers, the T-shirt, the mass of red-gold hair.

“No,” he said out loud, dropping to his knees beside his niece and placing one hand on her hair. “Oh, God, no.”

16

“
T
ake it easy, John.” Ted Gianelli’s voice floated through the emptiness of the Riverton Memorial Hospital emergency waiting room. They stood together on the hard vinyl floor, like two men waiting for a bus, Father John thought. No one else was there. A few minutes earlier the agent had come up the sidewalk into the light filtering outside through the glass entrance.

Before Gianelli arrived, Father John had been pacing the room, marking off the space between the entrance and the door on the opposite wall through which Megan, bundled on a gurney, small and helpless as a child, had disappeared. The reception area behind a counter next to the door gaped like an empty cave under the bright light. A nurse had been there when he’d burst in, shouting that his niece was in the car and needed attention. The same nurse had summoned the gurney, then followed it into the warren of tiny rooms that, he knew, crept behind the closed door. He was left with the muffled sound of footsteps and swinging doors and garbled, distant voices.

He’d called the police from the residence and told the operator to notify both Chief Banner and the FBI
agent. Megan had regained consciousness as he’d knelt over her. Eyes snapping open, as if she were awakening from a nightmare. He’d stroked her forehead and told her she was okay, praying it was true.

She was fine, she’d insisted. Just a knock on the head. She’d gotten worse as a kid playing volleyball and roughhousing with her brothers. No need for the hospital. He’d felt relieved that the blue eyes seemed normal, the dark pupils small circles. But when he’d helped her to her feet, she slumped in his arms. The walls were falling, she’d admitted. The floor was turning. He’d laid her on the bed and gone for the Escort.

All the way to Riverton, he’d leaned on the accelerator, fighting back the fury that rose inside him, choking him. Who could have done this to her? Hurt her? He did not want to meet whoever had done this. He could understand the blind instinct that would drive a man to lash out at another human being. He did not trust himself.

Megan was talking quietly, a disjointed rambling that he found hard to follow: She’d left the office after he did and gone to the guest house. At some point she must have gone to the residence. Yes, to have dinner with him. No one was there, and she was watching television in the living room. There must have been some kind of noise, she wasn’t sure. She’d gone upstairs to see about the noise. Yes, that must have been it. She couldn’t remember.

Father John had clenched his jaws. He wanted to scold her. Why didn’t she leave the residence? Lock herself in the guest house? Hadn’t she been listening to him? A killer was on the loose. He thought: this was what it was like to have a child. Consumed with rage because someone had hurt her, because she had
put herself in danger, and, at the same time, weak with relief that she was safe, that she was alive.

Now Father John started pacing the waiting room again. Gianelli lowered himself into one of the blue plastic chairs against the wall, produced a small pad and a pen from inside his suit coat, and began firing questions. Father John didn’t know the answers, only that Megan had been struck on the head and knocked unconscious.

Suddenly the door through which she’d disappeared swung open. A dark-haired woman with half-moon glasses perched partway down her nose and wearing a white smock stepped into the waiting room, hands gripping a clipboard. “Father O’Malley?” she inquired, peering over the dip of the glasses.

Father John crossed the room. “How is she?”

“I’m Dr. Ericson,” the woman said. “I believe your niece will be just fine.”

“You believe?” A cold space opened inside him.

“We can never be sure with head trauma. We’ve run her through the CT scanner. There’s no sign of a skull fracture or interior bleeding. There’s a mild contusion in the cerebellum area.” The doctor glanced at Gianelli, who had joined them. “In other words, she appears to have a concussion. I want to keep her here for observation tonight, in case of any problems, such as vomiting or seizure.”