The Spirit Woman (22 page)

The library looked the same as it had when he'd found Vicky and Laura almost a week earlier, except for the carton balancing partway off a shelf. The prowler had just gotten started, he thought. Another few minutes—he shuddered at the thought of documents and records from the past strewn about.

A loud scraping noise came from the entry. He stepped back into the corridor just as a figure dressed in black with the wide shoulders and slim waist of a man, a dark ski mask pulled over his face, threw himself out of a shadowy corner. He had walked right past the prowler! The man bolted toward the rear door, head thrust forward, as if some force were propelling him faster than his feet could get a purchase.

“Stop!” Father John ran down the corridor. The man was already fumbling with the door, yanking on the knob. Suddenly the door flew open, and he was gone.

Father John ran after him through the snow on the grounds behind the school. The man raced ahead, kicking back white, puffy clouds. Except for the whoosh of footsteps and the sound of his own breathing, there was only silence. The figure veered toward the river, weaving and dodging among the long shadows of the cottonwoods until the shadows blurred together, a gathering darkness outside the scrim of light.

Father John stopped. He stood absolutely still, his breath hard in his throat. From somewhere ahead came a faint, labored chuffing noise, like that of a small bellows. And then, only the rustle of snow dropping from the trees.

He turned back. Pain stitched his ribs together; his breath came in sharp gulps. He wasn't in as good shape as he imagined. He entered through the rear door, then threw the bolt. There was the sound of an engine cutting off in front. Red-and-blue lights flashed through the windows, creating a colored mosaic on the wood floor. He crossed the entry and walked outside just as two Wind River police officers rushed up the steps, Walks-On trailing along, sniffing and licking at one of the officer's hands. He must have left the residence door ajar, and the dog had nosed his way out.

“What's going on, Father?” the first officer said. He held a long, black flashlight that shot a column of yellow light over the porch.

“Someone broke in. He just ran out the back.”

“You run him off?” the other officer asked.

“I tried to catch him.”

“He might've had a weapon, Father.” Both men were shaking their heads. “What direction was he goin'?”

“Toward the river.”

“Maybe we can head him off,” the first officer said. As if they were yoked together, they swung around and hurried down the steps past the dog, who sauntered over to Father John and licked his hand.

“Some watchdog you are,” he said, rubbing the dog's neck. The passenger door was still swinging shut as the patrol car backed up. It cut a half turn, then started around Circle Drive.

Father John went back inside. The thump of his boots and the click of the dog's paws on the wood floor resounded through the corridor. In the storeroom, he found a large sheet of cardboard and a staple gun. He laid the cardboard over the broken window and shot in the staples. If Toussaint came back, he'd kick out the cardboard in two seconds, but it was the best he could do until Leonard, the caretaker, could replace the windowpane tomorrow.

 

He walked back to the library, Walks-On at his heels, and checked the cartons on the shelves, removing the lids, reassuring himself that the contents had not been disturbed. Then he checked the boxes stacked along the wall, the yellowed pages nestled quietly inside. “How fragile, the past,” he said out loud. Then he realized he was philosophizing with a dog. He headed outside, feeling almost sick with relief that Toussaint hadn't had the time to accomplish whatever he'd intended to do.

He locked the front door, aware for the first time of the icy temperature. Tires thudded through the snow behind him, and he turned in to the yellow headlights and followed Walks-On down the steps as the police car pulled to a stop. The officers jumped out.

“Sorry, Father,” the first officer said. “We missed the guy.”

“Saw his tracks.” The other officer now. “He made it to a vehicle he'd left over on Mission Road. Vehicle's gone. Any idea who he is?”

Father John nodded. “The same guy who ransacked the cultural center yesterday. He's after some documents I gave to Gianelli.”

The first officer snorted. “Well, he should've broke into the FBI office.”

“The agent will want to know about the break-in here,” Father John said.

“We'll take care of it, Father.” The first officer opened the passenger door and folded himself back inside. His partner was already behind the wheel. The engine spurted into life, wipers slashing back and forth as the car backed up, then stopped. The driver leaned out the opened window. “We'll keep an eye on the mission tonight, Father, in case the guy comes back. He doesn't know the materials he's after don't reside here anymore.”

Father John waited, one hand on the dog's head, until the police car had wound out of the mission grounds and disappeared past the cottonwoods. The taillights glowed red in the darkness, like two cigarettes burning down.

“Learned something about your new master,” he told the dog as they started for the residence. “Father Kevin McBride can sleep through anything.”

“I
'm not letting go of this gun, Father.” Alva had taken one of the side chairs, and Father John had pulled the other around a stack of boxes and sat down across from her, trying not to bump the woman's stick-thin legs clad in blue jeans. She gripped the floppy bag with one hand and brushed back a strand of black hair with the other. Her red coat draped open over a blouse the caramel color of her long, smooth neck. She was an attractive woman, he thought, despite the worry lines fanning from the dark eyes and the thin mouth set somewhere between apprehension and determination.

“Why did you buy it, Alva?” he probed. “Is Lester drinking again?” The man wasn't at last night's AA meeting. He wondered if Lester was still going to the anger therapy group.

Alva stared off at an angle beyond his shoulder, as if she'd anticipated the questions and prepared the answers, which she knew by rote. “He's trying to stay sober. He's been goin' to anger therapy, but the trucking company he started driving for is cutting back, and he's gonna get cut.”

And then he'll get drunk. Father John knew the pattern. Such a thin line between sobriety and drunkenness, and losing a job was the perfect excuse to step over. He'd been wanting a drink since the provincial had called to say his replacement was on the way. The woman stiffened at the crack of the front door shutting, the footsteps in the corridor. Her eyes skittered to the door, as if Lester might walk in.

Father John leaned over and patted Alva's arm. “Father Kevin,” he said. Beneath the folds of her coat sleeve, he could sense her muscles begin to relax.

“Shooting Lester won't solve any problems,” he began, searching for the logic to change her mind.

“He comes at me—”

He interrupted. “He'll take the gun away, Alva. You'll only give him a weapon to use against you.”

The woman flinched, as if he'd tossed her a fastball she wasn't expecting. Then she issued what passed as a laugh and shook her head. “Not if I shoot him first.”

Father John kept his eyes on hers. Another tack, another stab at logic: “If you shoot Lester, Alva, you'll go to prison.”

“Nobody's gonna send me to prison for protecting myself.” The line of her mouth tightened.

“Prisons are full of battered women who bought guns to protect themselves.” The logic, the relentless logic. “You're no different from them.”

She shifted against the back rungs of the chair, suppressing a shudder, and he pressed on. “What about your children? You have to think about them.”

Suddenly the woman's face started to crumble, like spider cracks running through glass, and she began to sob. “It's not that I wanna hurt Lester, Father. I love him and the kids.”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. “You'd better let me have the gun.”

She hesitated. Then, dropping her head, she fumbled at the bag. She reached inside and slowly pulled on an object that bulged through the fabric like a snake wiggling forward. “I just want us to be a real family again.” She had the pistol out now, a black metal tube shape lying loosely in her hand. “I just don't want him to hurt me anymore.”

He reached over and took the gun. It felt cold and inert against his palm, an instrument of death. He got up and put it inside an empty desk drawer. “You have the number for the Eagle Shelter, don't you?”

The woman was already on her feet, eyes glistening like black stones just beneath the surface of a river. “I don't know if I can get me and the kids away before . . .”

The thought hung between them and, for half a second, Father John wondered if he'd done the right thing, taking the only protection she had. He'd laid out the most logical scenarios, but events didn't always unfold logically, not with drunks. He was playing the odds, gambling with the woman's life.

“Look, Alva,” he began, searching for the words to allay his own fears as much as hers. “I'll call Lester this evening and ask him to stop by.”
Tomorrow he was leaving.
“He can talk to Father Kevin about some of the pressures he's under right now.”

Alva nodded and started backing toward the door, clutching the floppy bag to her chest. A small figure, almost childlike, nodding, thanking him. She was glad to get rid of the gun, she said. What a worry, always watching the bag so the kids wouldn't get it. Her hand fumbled for the knob and opened the door behind her. Yes, a good thing he'd talked her into giving it up. She never wanted it anyway. She stood in the doorway, nothing between her and a man's drunken rage. The image of Vicky slumped against the wall flashed in his mind. And Ben had stopped! What if Lester didn't stop?

“Thank you, Father,” she said again as she turned in to the corridor.

“Alva.”

The pencil-thin fingers wrapped around the edge of the door. She looked back.

“Maybe you should take the kids and go to your sister's for a few days until Lester gets a better handle on things.”

She stared at him with blank disbelief. “I don't think I'd better be tryin' to leave right now,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Father John sank into his chair behind the desk and tried Vicky's office. The secretary was expecting her at any minute, she said, a note of worry running through the explanation. It matched his own.

“Ask her to call me the minute she gets in,” he said. Then he called Lindy.

“Father John! What happened here?” There was a breathless anxiety in the curator's voice. “The window's broken; there's glass all over.”

He told her about the prowler. Then: “I want you to close the museum for a few days.” Toussaint could return. He didn't want the young woman there.

“What? I can't do that. The elders are coming to look at more letters.”

“Call them and explain that they'll have to wait a couple days.”

“But you're leaving tomorrow.”

“Lindy, I know what you're trying to do, and believe me, I'm grateful, but the provincial has already gotten enough old letters. They haven't changed his mind. We have to lock up the museum for a while.”

There was a long, considered silence at the other end. Finally the woman said, “The elders are already on their way. I'll close down at noon, okay?”

He said that was okay and hung up. He'd just started to pack the last drawer in his desk when Kevin walked in. “Hear we had some excitement here last night,” he said.

“Unfortunately the prowler eluded my grasp,” Father John said. He'd missed the other priest at breakfast this morning. He'd come over to the office early to finish packing and wait for Alva.

“Well, if you'd wakened me, I'm sure the two of us could've collared him.”

“Oh, I'm sure. I'll remember that if he comes back tonight.” He hoped Toussaint wouldn't be back.

“Prowlers, missing professors.” Kevin was shaking his head. “The provincial told me this was a quiet backwater. I'd get a lot of work done on my book.” He threw up both hands and, still shaking his head, turned back in to the corridor.

Father John resumed packing the box—the last of his personal things in the office—and was stretching a length of brown tape over the tops when the phone started jangling. He reached across the desk and grabbed the receiver.

“Father O'Malley,” he said, expecting to hear Vicky's voice. He tucked the receiver against his shoulder and smoothed down the tape.

“We just got a call from the BIA boys. Some Indian kid was riding his pony out on Sacajawea Ridge and spotted a blue SAAB.” Gianelli's voice was so quiet, he let go of the tape and pressed the receiver hard against his ear.

“The police found Laura Simmons.”