The Story Teller (13 page)

Shaking off the sense of accumulating losses, Vicky hurried across the boulevard, past lanes of traffic impatient to grind forward. As she joined the flow of students heading toward the North Classroom building, memories crashed over her. How nervous she had been when she’d walked this pathway the first time—what, thirteen years ago? At the entrance, she stopped to ask a student for directions to the history department, then rode the elevator to the third floor, jammed into the small space with students, briefcases, and books, the smells of perspiration and aftershave.

She found the office in the northeast corner: a long room not much wider than the corridor, with windows on the far wall that framed a view of downtown. A doorway on the right gave onto a small mailroom. Just inside, a rumpled gray-haired woman in a gray blazer and dark, pleated skirt was rummaging through one of the cubicles that lined the wall.

Vicky crossed to the desk in front of the window. A middle-aged woman with a cap of curly black hair sat hunched in front of a monitor, tapping out a furious rhythm on the keyboard.

“Yes?” The woman did not look up.

“I’m here about one of your students,” Vicky said.

Slowly the secretary tilted her chin up and lifted her eyebrows, as if she’d expected a student with the usual
type of problem and now realized she had to deal with someone else. Her fingers remained perched in midair above the keyboard.

Vicky told the woman her name, that she was a friend of Todd Harris’s family.

“What is it you want?” the secretary asked, a flat, noncommittal tone. It was obvious she had seen the article about Todd’s murder in this morning’s
Rocky Mountain News,
Vicky thought.

She said, “I’d like to speak to Todd’s adviser.”

“And who did you say you are?”

“A friend of the family.” The woman was stalling, trying to slot her into the appropriate category: trustworthy, untrustworthy.

“One moment.” The secretary set both hands on the arms of her swivel chair and leveled herself upright. Stepping quickly around the desk, she disappeared behind a door on the right with block letters on the pebbly glass:
DEPARTMENT CHAIR.

There was the muffled sound of voices: the secretary’s and a man’s. Suddenly the man’s voice shifted into a tone of authority. Growing more and more impatient, Vicky kept her eyes on the door until finally the secretary reappeared.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her. “We are unable to give you any information.”

“Perhaps I could speak to the department chairman,” Vicky said.

“I’m afraid he’s busy.” The woman hurried around the desk and sank back into her chair.

Vicky turned and rapped quickly on the door before pushing it open.

“Hey, wait a minute!” the secretary shouted as Vicky stepped into a room twice the size of the outer office. She had surprised herself. How had she come to be so rude? Her grandmother would be ashamed; this was
not the Arapaho Way. Was this what she had learned in the white world?

An angular man in a white, short-sleeved shirt with a pen poking from the pocket rose from behind a desk, as if it were a matter of great effort, and fixed her with a look of irritation. His eyes were large behind thick, wire-rim glasses.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Vicky said quickly, “but it’s important that I locate someone who can tell me about Todd Harris.”

“Yes, my secretary informed me.” There was a slight clearing of the throat, a searching for words. “It’s unfortunate about the student’s”—another clearing of the throat—“accident.”

Vicky swallowed back an instant dislike for this department chairman incapable of facing the true story—that Todd Harris had been murdered. “I’m a friend of the family,” she said. “I’m also an attorney.” She didn’t like dropping that piece of information unless the situation called for it. She was here as a friend, not in her professional capacity. The chairman rocked back on his heels, as if to realign his focus, and she saw her professional capacity had gotten his attention.

“My secretary didn’t mention—”

Vicky said, “I would like to speak with Todd’s adviser.”

The chairman cleared his throat again, a loud rumble. “Ms. Holden, please believe me, I would like to accommodate you. However, the police are conducting an investigation about this”—another pause—“unfortunate occurrence. Detective Clark was here earlier this morning. He instructed us not to discuss the student.”

Vicky felt a stab of doubt. Steve must have been here when the doors opened. Maybe she’d misjudged him, thinking he wouldn’t investigate Todd’s murder with the same determination he brought to every other investigation.
She said, “Detective Clark was probably referring to the media. I’m not from the media.”

“Ah, yes.” The man dipped his head, peering at her over the rim of his glasses. “I suppose the family is planning to sue the university for wrongful death. Of course, they would have no grounds whatsoever.”

“I hardly think they would do that,” Vicky said. “But we would like to know how Todd spent his last days. What was he working on? Who were his associates?” A reasonable story, she thought, hoping the chairman wouldn’t suspect she was determined to find out what had happened to the young man.

She saw by the slow smile crossing the chairman’s face that her motives were as transparent as glass. “Isn’t that the job of the police, Ms. Holden?”

“Yes, of course,” she said hurriedly. “My speaking to Todd’s adviser would not interfere with the police investigation.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to convince Detective Clark.” He picked up a folder and slapped it down on the desk. “If the detective gives permission, I suppose we can provide you with the adviser’s name. Until then, I must cooperate with the police.”

“I’ll be back.” Vicky pivoted toward the door. She retraced her steps through the outer office and into the corridor, ignoring the secretary behind the desk, the glare in her eyes.

She could be in Steve’s office in ten minutes, Vicky was thinking. But what would she tell him? That she intended to conduct her own investigation? That she didn’t trust him? She stopped at a window that overlooked the manicured lawns of the campus. A scattering of students walked along the path below. There might be another way to get the information she wanted.

Stepping across the corridor, she turned into the stairwell, a chasm of whitewashed cinderblock walls that rang with the voices of students, the clump of boots
on the metal stairs. On the second floor, she turned left and strode down the corridor past a succession of closed doors. She stopped at the one with a small sign in black letters:
INDIAN SERVICES.
The office was where she had remembered.

Turning the knob, she let herself into a large room with an expanse of windows that framed the top branches of elm trees and the faint, snowy outline of Pike’s Peak in the distance. Several easy chairs and desks were scattered about. A group of students with black hair and the features of various tribes sat cross-legged in a circle on the gray carpet, books and papers arranged before them. A girl with black hair hooked behind her ears and a thin, narrow face looked up, then slowly unfolded herself and got to her feet. She came forward, a shy, watchful look about her.

“This looks comfortable,” Vicky began, opening the dance of politeness: the indirect revealing of herself, the appeal for trust. “Much nicer than when I was a student here.”

The girl pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen forward. She glanced over her shoulder, as if to gauge the reactions of the others. “Are you the police?” she asked, looking back.

Vicky was stunned. How could they think she was the police? She was one of them. She blurted, “I’m a friend of Todd Harris’s. I’m Arapaho.”

A look of recognition came into the girl’s face, as if she knew other Arapahos. They were of good heart. “Tisha Runner,” she said. “I’m Ojibway.”

“Did you know Todd?” Vicky glanced from the girl to the students on the floor behind her. They shook their heads in unison, looked away, bent closer to the papers. The girl shrugged. “I didn’t really know him,” she said. “Saw him around campus is all.”

She knew him, Vicky thought. Why wouldn’t she talk to her? What was she afraid of? That an Arapaho
had been murdered? That the same thing might happen to her? Or was it simply that Steve Clark had already been here, too, and had warned the students not to say anything.

“How about a girl named Julie?” Vicky persisted. “A Lakota.”

“Lakota?” The young woman repeated. Another glance at the others, as if one might be Lakota and should take the question.

Suddenly a young man with long black hair flowing over thick shoulders jackknifed to his feet. He hooked both thumbs into the pockets of his blue jeans and stared at her, a cold, defiant look in his eyes. “No Lakotas here named Julie,” he said.

“Are you Lakota?” Vicky asked. A guess, judging by the way he had hurtled to some imagined line of defense, like a warrior riding out to meet the enemy.

He gave a brief nod and rocked back a little, eyes on her.

Vicky dug into her handbag and pulled out a ballpoint and the leather case that held her business cards. She jotted Marcy’s number on the back of a card and handed it to the girl. “I’d like to talk to Julie,” she said.

“How am I gonna find some Lakota named Julie?” The girl attempted to hand the card back.

“I’m a friend.” Vicky kept her voice low, confidential. “You can trust me. Julie may know something that would help find Todd’s killer.” She was thinking Julie might help convince Steve Clark that Todd wasn’t on drugs.

Tisha Runner slid the card into her pocket, a slow movement, almost imperceptible. Vicky wondered if the others had even noticed. She smiled at the girl, then let herself out the door.

As she rounded the corner near the stairwell Vicky nearly bumped into the rumpled-looking, gray-haired woman who had picked up her mail in the history department
office a few minutes earlier. Still clutching a small stack of envelopes, the woman stepped forward. “Ms. Holden?” The voice was tentative. “I’m Professor Mary Ellen Pearson. I was hoping you would stop at Indian Services and that I would catch you.”

12

M
ary Ellen Pearson’s office was a windowless cubicle crammed with bookcases, a couple of chairs, a desk piled with books, papers, and folders. She closed the door after Vicky. The air turned heavy and stuffy, suffused with odors of dried paper and stale coffee and a chemical like fingernail polish.

“He didn’t tell you anything, did he?” the professor said. For an instant Vicky thought she was referring to the Lakota, then decided it was the history chairman.

“I knew he wouldn’t,” the professor went on. “I don’t care what the police say. Todd’s family has the right to know what happened. I saw it all, you know.” She crossed the office and sank into a chair pulled back from the desk.

Vicky perched on the hard edge of a straight-backed chair, her complete attention on the other woman—a grandmother, in the Arapaho Way, with lines randomly etched in a colorless face and milky-blue eyes. “Tell me what you saw,” she said, her tone soft and respectful, the tone she would have used to ask one of the elders for a story.

“Of course I didn’t know it was Todd,” the woman began, a mixture of grief and shock in her voice. “Last semester, he was in my seminar on the effect of white expansionism on Plains Indian culture, a very complex subject. . . .”

Vicky nodded.

The old woman took a quick gulp of air and clasped the arms of her chair. “Last Monday night,” she began, a slow remembering, “I had just finished teaching a seminar and was walking to the lot across Speer Boulevard. You know the one?”

Another nod. Vicky had left the Taurus there this morning.

The professor went on: she usually walked to the lot with a friend, but that evening her friend had taken ill and left early, so she was alone. Naturally she followed the main sidewalk and the well-lighted path over the little knoll at the edge of the lot.

The woman looked about the room a moment, as if to confirm the memory. She felt perfectly safe, she said, until she saw the man running along the knoll. The next thing she knew, he was running at her! Well, she didn’t need to say how it frightened her, a woman alone and, yes, of advanced years, although she never liked to admit how advanced because, don’t you know, they are always trying to push you out, even though you stay abreast of the latest research and know more, if the truth were told, than that young man who happens to be head of the department.