The Spirit Woman (24 page)

They reached the top of the slope, then cut around a windblown snowdrift with stalks of dead grasses and thistles poking through. “By the way,” Gianelli went on, “I tried to reach Vicky this morning. Secretary said she didn't know when she'd be in. You heard anything from her?”

Father John began shaking his head, aware of the little knot of worry in the pit of his stomach. “I haven't seen her since Saturday night,” he said, half to himself. “She was very upset.” Suddenly he knew where she had gone.

He rounded the hood of the pickup and called back to the agent standing at the edge of the road. “I'll tell her about Laura.”

 

Father John jammed down on the accelerator and turned south on 287, hardly aware of the ponderosa slopes flashing by, the white plains rolling away from the highway. A left turn, heading east now, the sun glistening on the hood. Five miles later he saw the white frame house ahead, just off Ethete Road. The Bronco was parked at the side.

As he slowed for the turn into the yard, Vicky came out the front door and headed around the corner, the long black coat sweeping around her. He could tell by the slope of her shoulders that she had already heard. She grabbed the door handle on the Bronco, then swung around, her eyes watchful as he pulled in behind and got out.

“It's Laura, isn't it?” she said, walking toward him.

He told her that he'd identified her, that the body had probably been removed by now.

Vicky's face dropped into both hands and her shoulders caved forward, shaking with silent sobs. He placed his arms around her. “I'm so sorry,” he said, holding her gently.

After a moment she stepped back. “How bad was it?”

When he didn't answer, she raised a fist to her mouth and gave another sob. “Toby Becker did that to her.” She spoke slowly, an automatic response. Her voice was shaking with the cold.

“Can we go inside?”

Vicky threw a wary glance at the house. He understood. What would Aunt Rose make of the fact that he was the one who had come for her, instead of Ben?

Taking her arm, he led her around to the passenger side of the Toyota. After she'd slipped onto the seat, he got in behind the wheel. A remnant of warm air still clung to the cab. He started the motor and waited until the hot air began to pulsate through the vents. “You'll feel warm in a moment,” he said.

“You think so?” She was still shivering. He fought against the urge to reach for her again.

“I've been trying to call you,” he said.

“I know.”

“I want to apologize for the other night.”

“You said the truth. No need to apologize for the truth.”

“I had no right.”

“You have every right, John. I've given you the right over the last few years, haven't I? I would have called you before you left. I didn't want things to end like that.” She slid sideways toward the door and stared at some point beyond the windshield. “Laura was defenseless. How could she defend herself against a man like Toby Becker, unless she had a gun.”

Father John winced at the thought. He looked away, staring out his window at the plains folding into a sky striped gray and blue. He'd talked Alva out of the gun to keep her from shooting Lester. What if Lester attacked her again? Suddenly he was aware of the silence between them, of Vicky's eyes on him.

“What is it?” she said.

He brought his eyes back to hers. Then he told her he'd taken Alva's gun and put it in his desk drawer for safekeeping.

She cupped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I had no idea she was so desperate. It could have been Alva out on Sacajawea Ridge.” She went quiet a second. “It could have been me. Lester wouldn't mean to do it, of course. And Ben would never mean to do it. You know that, don't you?” He could see that she was fighting for control.

“I know you can't report Ben.” He hesitated, then forced himself to go on. “But you have to leave him.”

She smiled. “Well, you know everything, then, don't you, John O'Malley? And just when you're about to go away.”

Now it was his turn to remain quiet. Finally he said, “Gianelli will have an arrest warrant for Toby Becker as soon as he gets the lab report on some prints. He agrees with you that Becker probably killed her.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I'm not sure it matters.” Father John grasped the rim of the wheel with one hand and let his gaze rest on the dull metal of the Bronco's bumper. “All we have is a theory that two historians, twenty years apart, ran into the same man who promised them some important evidence, then killed them. Not exactly enough to send Gianelli's investigation into a different direction. ‘Give me a name,' he told me.”

“Maybe our theory's just a good excuse for you and me . . .” Vicky hesitated, letting her voice trail off. After a couple seconds she went on: “We've spent a lot of time together working on different things. It's probably why you want to go.”

“Is that what you think? That I want to go?”

“I don't know what to think. I don't know why you're going.”

“You know,” he said, and he saw in her eyes that she did know. He was a priest. He allowed the thought to rest silently between them.

After a long moment she said, “We may be able to get the name of Toussaint.”

He exhaled a long breath. So this was not the end, this was not all there would be.

She was hurrying on: “There was a Shoshone woman here twenty years ago, a kind of unofficial tribal historian. Her name is Anna Scott. Charlotte Allen could have talked to her.”

The name wasn't in the journal, and he said so.

Vicky shook her head. “Charlotte casually mentioned other people. ‘Drove around the res today. Talked with a couple elders at the café,' that sort of thing. She carefully wrote down the names of people who gave her information. It may be a long shot, John, but we came up with nothing on Saturday, and now Laura's dead. I'd like to find the bastard who killed her. Maybe Anna Scott didn't give Charlotte any new information, but who knows what kind of information Charlotte may have given her?”

“Where does she live?” The name was unfamiliar. He'd never met the woman on the res, but there were many people he'd never met. He would never meet them.

“She's with her daughter in Casper.” A second passed. “Would you like to take the Bronco?”

“The Toyota's already warmed up,” he said, ramming the gear into reverse.

T
hey went over the theory as they drove north on Highway 26, climbing out of what the Shoshones called “the warm valley.” It was snowing lightly, drops of moisture flecking the windshield. Father John turned up the heat to keep the cold at bay. Still Vicky hugged her black coat around her, as if no amount of warm air could dissipate the cold.
Idomeneo
floated softly out of the tape player on the seat between them.

“It's preposterous,” Vicky said. “The only evidence we have is a name in Charlotte Allen's journal. Toussaint. Obviously she wanted to protect his real identity. It could be anyone. How can we ever prove who she was referring to?” She hesitated, then plunged on. “We know Toby Becker was stalking Laura. He probably came back Wednesday night and flew into another rage when she told him to leave. He started hitting her. Forced her into her own car. Drove her to Sacajawea Ridge, hitting her as he drove.” A note of hysteria seeped into her voice. “She was pleading with him the whole time—”

“Don't, Vicky,” Father John said, glancing over. She held his gaze a half second before turning to the window. The Neptune chorus floated between them. Outside the plains stretched away from the highway, shimmering silver in the snow. The sky was an endless patchwork of blue and gray floating above them.

She could be right, he thought, watching the asphalt coming toward them like a conveyor belt. Except for the patterns. Patterns were never random. There was always logic in them, if only he could grasp the logic.

A couple of miles passed before he said, “Both Laura and Charlotte wanted the memoirs.” Thinking out loud now. “They were beaten to death. The killer buried Charlotte and left her car on Sacajawea Ridge to throw everyone off. Maybe he didn't have time to take Laura's body somewhere else, so he tried to bury her on the ridge. He hid her car there.” He glanced over at Vicky. “It was the same man,” he said.

Vicky remained quiet, watching out her window. After a moment he felt her eyes on him. “Toussaint could have been waiting for Laura when she got back to the apartment Wednesday night. He must've demanded the journal, and when she told him she didn't have it, he went berserk and attacked her. He tore her things apart looking for it. After he'd killed her, he went to the cultural center thinking she'd left it there.”

“He broke into the museum last night,” Father John said. He told her what happened.

“He might've killed you, John.” There was a hint of panic in her voice. “He's already killed twice.”

“The point is, Vicky,” he said, coming back to the logic before it melted into the shadows of his mind, like Toussaint in the cottonwoods, “he doesn't know where the journal is, which means Laura didn't tell him. Why not? Why didn't she give it to him? Maybe she'd be alive.”

He glanced over again, this time catching the mixture of astonishment and comprehension in her face. “Laura wanted the memoirs, John.” She spoke slowly, testing the idea. “She was obsessed with the memoirs, and she was convinced Toussaint had them. She could have tried to bargain with him—the journal he wanted so desperately for the memoirs. That's when he flew into a rage.”

It could have been like that, Father John thought. And yet, and yet . . . something bothered him, a missing piece of logic. Gradually the logic began to emerge in the patterns. Toussaint had killed Charlotte Allen on the day she'd expected to get the memoirs; he'd killed Laura when she'd demanded the memoirs.

He struck the steering wheel with his fist. He should have seen it. Why hadn't he seen it? He was a historian. He said, “Suppose the memoirs don't exist, Vicky. Suppose Toussaint forged them.”

“I don't understand,” she said impatiently. “Charlotte Allen believed—”

“The will to believe,” he said. “The memoirs would be an incredible find, if they were real. They would make the reputation of any historian who found them. And they existed once. The agent's wife did record the stories of the old woman who said she was Sacajawea. But Theresa Redwing said no one in her family had heard of the memoirs surviving the agency fire. The Shoshones still had the stories. Only the historians wanted the written memoirs, a reality Toussaint obviously understood.” He looked over. In her eyes, he saw the logic of his argument.

“Charlotte Allen would have insisted on having the memoirs authenticated,” he hurried on, warming to the argument. “The notebook dated, the handwriting compared to samples of other writings by the agent's wife. No historian would take a chance on publishing a fake document.”

Mozart, rational and measured, filled the silence between them. “When Toussaint wouldn't agree,” Vicky said finally, “Charlotte realized the memoirs he'd given her were fake. But that doesn't explain why he killed her, John. He could have walked away.”

“Yes, he could have.”

A semi blurred past in the other lane, a roar of dust and moisture that spattered the windshield and obliterated the music. He turned on the wipers and washed out two half circles. They were on the outskirts of Casper now, rolling with the other pickups and cars past fast food outlets, gas stations, warehouses, and assorted motels and garages. He swung right onto a flat cement apron and stopped next to a gas pump.

While he filled the pickup, Vicky went inside to call Emmaline Kay, Anna Scott's daughter. He could see Vicky's image in the plate-glass window, head tilted sideways, receiver pressed into the black hair. She was still on the phone when he went inside and handed the clerk a couple of bills—the last of the gas money for the month. At least there'd be half a tank left for Kevin. He collected the change and waited until Vicky hung up.

“Anna Scott's in a nursing home,” she said as they crossed the pavement outside. A freezing breeze swept between the building and the row of gas pumps. He opened the Toyota door. “Her daughter's going to meet us there,” she said, sliding onto the seat.

 

Northern Acres sat back from the street beyond a swath of freeze-dried lawn and neatly trimmed evergreen bushes. Father John followed Vicky into the glass-fronted entry, where a stout woman with gray hair and a round, brown face rose from one of the upholstered chairs pushed against a sidewall. She wore a brown corduroy jacket and blue jeans, as if she'd spent the morning riding across a pasture, which, he thought, might be the case.

“I'm Emmaline Kay,” she said, walking over, giving them a steady, dark-eyed look. “You must be Vicky Holden and Father John from St. Francis. I've heard about you, Father.” A nod in his direction. “Oh, don't look so surprised. Phone company could learn a thing or two from the moccasin telegraph.” She babbled on, telling him about his own life: the people liked him, didn't want him to leave, what was the matter with the higher-ups that don't know their feet from the ground they're walkin' on, and why would they ever send that young priest rides around on some kind of motorcycle asking a lot of questions.

Vicky interrupted: “Could we meet your mother, Emmaline?”

“Oh, sure.” The woman shrugged. “This way.” She waved them into the corridor on the far side of the reception desk. “Mom was real glad she was getting some visitors from the reservation,” she said, looking back over one thick shoulder. “Nobody comes to see her anymore. 'Course her old friends are dead, and everybody else probably thinks Mom's dead.”