The Lost Bird (8 page)

“We don’t know how far this may go,” Father Rutherford went on. “This could be a hate crime against the Church.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, we don’t know. I want you to take a leave of absence until this is settled. Go to Boston. Visit your family.”

Father John set the front legs down hard and stared at the lamplight flickering against the blackness of the
window across the study. He’d gone to Boston in the spring. The last thing he wanted was another awkward visit with his brother, Mike. It was as if, after twenty-five years, Eileen still stood between them. His brother’s wife. The woman he would have married had he not gone into the seminary. That was the reason he hadn’t mentioned his theory about Joseph’s murder: the Provincial would send him somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“I can’t leave St. Francis,” he said, his tone firm. “There wouldn’t be anyone to say Mass. The fall classes and programs are already—”

The Provincial cut in: “I can’t have another priest killed. There are fewer and fewer of us, you know. I can’t take any chances.”

“Look, Bill,” Father John began, marshaling his argument into what he hoped would have the force of logic. “I know the FBI agent and the police chief here. They’re first-rate. They have some strong leads.” A bit of a stretch. Gianelli and Banner were groping in the dark. He hurried on: “They’ll have Joseph’s murder solved in a couple of days. There’s no sense in closing down the mission.”

The Provincial was quiet a moment. Then: “Do you have a gun?”

“Of course I don’t have a gun.”

“A rifle or something. Don’t you go hunting? Isn’t that what the Arapahos do?”

Father John wondered how far out in the wilderness the Provincial thought he lived. Did he think the Arapahos still hunted buffalo? He said, “I don’t hunt.”

“Let me make certain I understand. Should whoever murdered Joseph show up at the mission, you have no way to protect yourself. Is that true?”

Father John glanced at the lights dancing in the window, the blackness beyond. “Give me a couple days, Bill,” he said.

There was a long, considered pause on the other end of the line. “I don’t like it.”

“A couple days.”

The Provincial was quiet. “All right,” he said finally. “You’ve got two days and then—”

“Good.” Father John interrupted. He didn’t want to receive an order he would find painful to obey. “Let me know about the funeral arrangements.”

He hung up quickly and made his way down the darkened hall into the kitchen. The light above the stove cast a thin yellow glow over half of the room, leaving the other half in shadow. A soft snoring noise came from the corner where Walks-On lay on his blanket, his hind leg stretched back at an angle, as if to make room for the missing leg.

Father John lifted the coffeepot. It felt light in his hand. He slammed it down and whirled about, his gaze on the gray-shadowed cabinets, the counters. There was no alcohol at the mission. That was the first rule he set for every new assistant, even an eminent scholar like Joseph Keenan. No alcohol! What he didn’t explain was the fear behind the rule—his fear that he would be the one to consume any alcohol brought on the premises.

Now he wished a bottle were here, hidden in a cabinet behind the canned goods, wedged behind boxes of rice and pasta, stashed under the sink with the can of cleaner and bottle of dishwashing liquid. But there were no whiskey bottles in the kitchen. None at the mission.

Unless—the thought came like a light streaking
through the night sky—Father Joseph had brought a bottle with him. Why not? A man used to faculty cocktail parties and dinners, conference banquets. Joseph had nodded when he’d mentioned the rule, but the bottle might have been packed in one of the suitcases or cardboard boxes. It could still be here.

Father John hurried down the hall and up the dark stairs. Moonlight slanted through the small window over the landing and bathed the upstairs hall in a soft white light. He strode to the closed door halfway down the hall and pushed it open, flipping on the light as he stepped inside. Gianelli and Banner had left the room tidy: bed made up like an army cot, blankets tucked at the corners; books neatly arranged on the small bookcase; magazines stacked on the desk; shaving kit on the bureau. He flung open the closet door and swept one hand across the shelves above the hanging clothes, pushing aside a couple of sweaters, an umbrella. Nothing. He checked under the bed, behind the drapes, the usual hiding places. He knew them well. He pulled open the bureau drawers, lifting out the clean shirts and underwear. Then the desk drawer, rummaging through the folders. Still nothing.

He slammed the drawer shut and sank onto the edge of the bed.
My God
, he thought. What was he doing? Desecrating a dead man’s things, and for what? A drink. An almighty, all-powerful drink.

He switched off the light, closed the door, and made his way back downstairs to the kitchen. After brewing another pot of coffee, he sat at the table a long while, sipping on the steaming, black liquid. A calmness gradually came over him and with it the understanding that he could not wait for Joseph’s murderer to
try again. On edge, riven with guilt and thirst. Like a fly pinned to a board, awaiting the merciful blow. There would be no more murders. He understood what he had to do.

7

V
icky pointed the Bronco west on Ethete Road, darting in and out of the pale bands of moonlight. Clouds had rolled eastward to reveal a clear sky and a sea of stars. A rim of light outlined the high peaks in the distance, and flat, violet shadows drifted down the foothills like smoke.

She drove on automatic, her thoughts on John O’Malley. The killer had missed him this afternoon, but he would try again. After the mourners and well-wishers had driven out of the mission grounds, after Elena had finished tidying up and said good night, after Leonard Bizzel had checked the buildings and gone home, the killer would return. In the blackness of the night, when John O’Malley was alone.

Or would the killer wait for him to dash across the grounds to a meeting, or walk to the altar for Mass? Is that when it would happen? Or would there be another dying woman begging for the last sacrament? Vicky felt her whole body grow tense, her heart thump with the certainty that, if an emergency call came, he would go.

She peered into the darkness beyond the sweep of headlights, pulling her thoughts back to the moment,
surprised that she could have missed the narrow sign for Stewart Road. She knew the geography of the reservation—the swells and dips of the earth—as well as she knew the contours of her own body. She searched the shadows for a familiar landmark.

Suddenly she spotted the thin silver pole glinting at the edge of the moonlight. She tapped on the brake and turned onto the gravel road. Another half mile, and she was parking in front of a frame house that rose like a small butte out of the dirt yard.

She rapped at the door, hugging her black bag to her chest against the cold snap of the wind. “It’s Vicky,” she called, knowing Aunt Rose would have heard the scrunch of gravel, the hum of the engine in the night.

The door slid inward and an elderly woman with a round, fleshy face and narrow, dark eyes stood in the flickering light of a television. Two fleshy arms reached out for her. Vicky could sense her own thinness in the older woman’s embrace. Then she felt herself being pulled inside, as if her aunt wanted to protect her from the cold wind, or whatever had brought her to the door.

Vicky clung to the older woman. Everything about her was familiar: the blue-print housedress, the black hair streaked with gray, smelling of wildflowers and wind. Her mother’s sister, which, in the Arapaho Way, meant Rose was also her mother. When her own mother had died three years ago, leaving her stumbling in space, unable to get a foothold, it was Aunt Rose who had led her back to herself.

“You had your supper?” The woman stepped back, assessing her with narrowed eyes.

She gave her head a little shake, and Aunt Rose took
her hand and led her through the living room, past the television propped in front of a plaid-upholstered recliner, past a little table covered with family photos and into the kitchen.

They sat at the wood table pushed against the window next to the counter. Vicky nibbled at the cold fried chicken and buttered bread Aunt Rose had extracted from the refrigerator while the older woman sipped at a cup of tea and talked about the weather: winter was coming, but, oh, September was beautiful. The teakettle made a small hissing sound over the laughter bursting from the television. She went on: the wild grasses so pretty, all golds and coppers. The sky turning softer blue every day.

“Real sad about Father Joseph,” Aunt Rose said, finally turning the conversation to the matter that they both knew had brought Vicky to her door.

Vicky was quiet. She sipped at the hot tea, wondering at the cold fear still inside her, like a chunk of ice in her heart. “What if the killer made a mistake?” she said, finally giving voice to the fear. “What if he shot the wrong priest?”

A look of comprehension crept into the older woman’s expression, followed by shock and disbelief. “You sayin’ the killer was after Father John?”

“He drives the Toyota.”

“Nobody wants to hurt Father John.” Aunt Rose shook her head, as if to banish an intolerable idea.

“Father Joseph had been at the mission only two weeks. Why would anyone want him dead?”

“He used to be here.”

“Thirty-five years ago.” Vicky got to her feet and began to circle the small space that divided the refrigerator and stove from a bank of cabinets. “I remember.
I was in the second grade. He used to visit the classroom and tell us to be good students, a credit to our families. Do our people proud.”

“He was a nice man.”

“Well, he didn’t know anything about kids.” Vicky slapped the palm of her hand on the counter. “He was arrogant and—” She swallowed, surprised at the idea that had come to mind. “A little scary.”

“Scary?” Aunt Rose threw her head back and gave a little laugh. “He was real shy, that’s a fact. Used to talk in big words. Half the time nobody knew what he was talkin’ about. I heard he went away to become a professor in some university. Maybe they understood him there.” She reached out and grabbed Vicky’s hand. “He had a good heart, Vicky. Used to drive all over the res, just like Father John, checkin’ on people, seeing who might need help. Soon’s he come back, he went out visitin’ people, just like before.”

Vicky exhaled a long breath and nodded toward the phone on the counter. “What have you heard?”

Aunt Rose shook her head again. “Moccasin telegraph’s so loaded, it’s likely to fall down. But nobody knows anything. Nobody can figure it out. An old man like that. Who’d want to kill him?”

Exactly
, Vicky thought, withdrawing her hand and starting to circle the kitchen again. The cold knot of fear tightened within her. It wasn’t Father Joseph the murderer was after. She swung around and faced the older woman. “Maybe it was Sonny Red Wolf who tried to kill Father John,” she said.

“What makes you think so?”

Vicky stared at the older woman.
She hadn’t disagreed.
“Sonny wants whites off the reservation. St.
Francis Mission has been here more than a hundred years. It’s a symbol of white presence. Father John is a symbol. Last summer Sonny blockaded the mission. Banner had to run him off. That must’ve made him angry—the Arapaho police chief helping the white mission.” She smiled to herself at the irony.

Aunt Rose got to her feet, picked up the teakettle, and filled both of their cups. Little curls of steam rose in the air. After setting the kettle back on the stove, she pulled two tea bags from a box on the counter and dropped them into the cups. Sliding back onto her chair, she said, “Sonny Red Wolf don’t speak for folks around here. He had his way, we’d all be livin’ in the Old Time, out huntin’ buffalo. Well, I don’t wanna spend all day butcherin’ buffalo meat and tannin’ hides, thank you very much. I like my modern-day comforts.” She tilted her head toward the television noise in the living room. “Besides, there ain’t enough buffalo left.”

Vicky felt the conversation lurching into small talk. “Have you heard any talk about Sonny?” she asked.