Wife of Moon

by Margaret Coel

  “Shoot.”

  Vicky took in a gulp of cold air. “Were there any disturbance calls to T.J.’s house? Any records of domestic abuse?” Gianelli would ask, and she had to know what Gianelli knew.

  A loud guffaw burst down the line. “A tribal councilman? If that’d happened, it would’ve been all over the rez. Next time he ran for election, people would’ve thrown his ass off the council. Look, I’ll check the records for you, but I’m telling you, there’s not gonna be anything there.”

  Vicky felt her muscles begin to relax. She thanked the chief, hit the end button, and slipped the phone back into her bag. Then she backed into the lot and lurched forward out onto the highway. She had to talk to T.J.

  14

  VERA STOOD IN the doorway, blinking with disappointment. Then she stepped sideways, her eyes running across the yard where Vicky had left the Jeep between two pickups. A cold gust of wind blew a cloud of dust across the stoop, and Vera lifted one hand and absentmindedly brushed at the front of her red blouse.

  “Is T.J. around?” Vicky asked.

  “I was hoping you was T.J.,” Vera said, stepping back into the house. “Come on in.”

  Vicky followed the woman into the living room, warm and thick with the smells of fresh coffee and fry bread. There was nobody in the room, but Vicky could see three women seated at the kitchen table in back, a scattering of coffee mugs and plates in front of them. There was a sense of interruption, as if conversation had stopped in mid-sentence. The women were staring into the living room.

  “I have to talk to T.J.,” Vicky said. “Where is he?”

  Vera threw a glance toward the kitchen, then took hold of Vicky’s arm and steered her into the hall on the right. The woman’s fingers dug through her coat sleeve and into her skin a moment before she let go and hurried ahead.

  Vicky followed her into a small bedroom and shut the door as Vera perched on the edge of a narrow bed, next to a table covered with snapshots in plastic frames. Pictures of Vera with her husband, who’d died five or six years ago; Vera with two children, grown now and living someplace else. A snapshot of T.J., about eighteen, posing in black cap and gown, the wind sweeping the skirt of the gown back against his legs. A memory went off in her mind like a flashbulb. A June day, the sun beating down on the field where the graduation had taken place, her gown as hot and heavy as a blanket.

  T.J. again, in an army uniform, taller, more confidant looking, a man standing in front of an old pickup. And T.J. and Denise hugging on a door stoop. It was as if the moments had been stopped in time, the light and shadows and feel of the air, the angle of shoulders and arms, the hopeful expressions forever fixed in the image.

  She realized that Vera was crying. “What is it?” she asked, sitting down on the bed beside her.

  “I been so worried.” Vera ran the palms of her hands over her cheeks. “T.J. went into the mountains this morning. Said he was gonna go crazy if he didn’t get off by himself so he could mourn for Denise in the old way. He already chopped off his hair and he’s gonna be crying and praying, all alone out there, blaming himself.”

  “Whoever shot Denise would have shot T.J. if he’d been there,” Vicky said. It was just as T.J. had told Gianelli yesterday. Councilmen got threats all the time. T.J. had just never expected anybody to carry them out, but Monday night, that’s what had happened.

  Vera drew in a long breath that whistled in her teeth. “There’s something else,” she said. “The fed’s gonna put Denise’s murder on T.J., and the thing is . . .” She hesitated.

  “What? What are you trying to tell me?” Vicky tried to keep the impatience out of her own voice.

  The other woman shifted around until she was facing her. She closed her eyes a moment and took in another gulp of air. “Denise was gonna divorce him, Vicky.”

  Vicky didn’t say anything. So that was what Denise had on her mind when she’d stopped her in the grocery store.

  “T.J. told me Denise wanted to call it quits, but that’s not what he wanted,” Vera went on. “Said he’d made a mistake, but he wanted to work things out.” The woman shrugged and looked away.

  “Mistake? What kind of a mistake? Another woman?”

  “It was over, Vicky. Didn’t mean anything.”

  Vicky got up and went to the window. It was edging toward dusk, and the moon shone white against the silver sky. In the shadows, clumps of wild grasses turned blood red. T.J.’s alibi was as transparent as air. Unless somebody saw him at the tribal offices Monday evening, he had the opportunity to kill his wife. And now this—God, T.J. hadn’t said anything about an affair. Opportunity and motive. Gianelli would have enough to get the grand jury to indict T.J. for murder.

  “Who is she?” Vicky turned back to the woman hunched over on the bed, one hand clamped over her mouth.

  “I never asked. I didn’t want to know. She was nothing but trouble, you ask me.”

  “What about the gossip?” Vicky gestured with her head in the direction of the kitchen.

  The other woman took a moment, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap now. “Nobody says anything to me. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t from the rez. T.J. was real careful, being on the business council. He had his reputation to think about. She called today.”

  “The woman called here?”

  “Wanting to talk to T.J. Sounded real upset. I said he wasn’t here, and she hung up. I knew it was her.”

  “Listen, Vera,” Vicky began, trying for a confidence she didn’t feel. A sense of unease was working through her, as if T.J. had become someone else, not the image of the man she remembered. She stepped over and set her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “If she calls again, ask her to call me. Tell her I’m trying to help T.J. And as soon as T.J. gets back, tell him I have to talk to him.”

  It was a moment before they started back down the hallway. Shadows bunched against the walls. Ahead, a thin stream of light flowed out of the kitchen and across the living room. The house was quiet, and Vicky wondered if the other women had left. But they were still there, as still as mannequins at the table. Vera hurried ahead and yanked the front door open.

  “Any news about T.J.?” a woman in a pink sweatshirt called out.

  “Not yet,” Vera shouted, beckoning Vicky through the door with her eyes.

  “Try not to worry,” Vicky said, stepping past the woman onto the stoop. The words hung between them a moment, limp and inadequate.

  Vera mouthed a silent thank you, then shut the door.

  The temperature must have dropped ten degrees, the moonlight swallowing the hint of warmth that had come with the sunshine. Hugging her coat around her, Vicky hurried for the Jeep. She was about to shut her door when the woman in the pink sweatshirt emerged from the house and ran over.

  “You don’t remember me,” she said, opening the passenger door and leaning inside. Her long black braids dangled over the seat.

  Vicky studied the woman’s face in the glow of the dashboard lights. High forehead, prominent nose, and tight, determined mouth. “Nancy?” she said.

  “Nancy Thomas. Used to be Whiteplume.”

  “I remember you.” It was starting to come back now. They’d gone to high school together, and the woman was connected to T.J. Probably a cousin.

  “I told Vera I needed cigarettes out of my pickup,” the woman was saying. “I wanted to talk to you. You’re defending T.J., right?”

  Defending wasn’t exactly right, Vicky wanted to say. T.J. hadn’t been charged with anything. “He’s my client,” she said.

  “Whatever. He’s in a big load of shit, you ask me, and Vera’s in total denial. She can’t believe her important brother could be a bastard. He’s been cheating on Denise for a year.”

  “Vera said it was over,” Vicky said. She wondered if the woman knew how long the affair had been going on.

  “Maybe you oughtta ask his girlfriend if it’s over.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I hear the gossip. Tall blond, a lot y
ounger than T.J. That surprise you?” She gave a little laugh and pulled at the pink sleeves. “I hear she works for Great Plains Insurance over in Riverton. I figure T.J. didn’t tell you about her ’cause he thinks it’s some big secret.”

  “Thanks,” Vicky said.

  “Look, I love Vera. We been through a lot of shit together, and I’m gonna be here for her no matter what happens. I think T.J.’s gonna get his ass charged with murder, and that’s gonna be real hard on Vera. Maybe he did it, I don’t know, but for Vera’s sake, I hope you make sure he gets a fair trial or whatever.” The woman backed away, closing the door as she went.

  Vicky turned the key in the ignition and listened for a moment to the engine coming to life in the quiet. By the time she’d turned the Jeep around in the yard, the pink sweatshirt had disappeared into the house.

  VICKY WAS HEADING south on 287, close to the boundary of the reservation, the yellow cone of headlights sweeping into the dusk, when she realized that blue and red lights were flashing in the rearview mirror. She eased on the brakes and guided the Jeep to the side, watching the lights pull in behind her. She waited until the policeman in a dark uniform had crawled out of the patrol car and walked up to her door, then she rolled down the window and looked up into the sculpted face of Patrick Banner.

  “Dad said you want to talk to me,” he said. “Mind coming back to the patrol car?”

  Vicky turned off the engine and followed Chief Banner’s son. He opened his door and waited until she’d slid into the passenger seat before he settled himself behind the steering wheel. “I take it this is about T.J.,” he said, turning toward her. His dark blue jacket folded over the rim of the wheel. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s out there”—Vicky waved toward the dark expanse of foothills rising outside her window—“grieving for his wife. He’s not himself. He hasn’t been thinking straight.”

  Patrick tapped the rim with a gloved finger. It made a rhythmic, muffled noise. In the glow of the dashboard lights, he looked like a younger version of his father: the same long face and hooked nose, the hooded eyes settling on her. “Some guys like to go up to Moccasin Lake,” he said. “I’ll radio the sheriff up in Arapaho County. If T.J.’s in the vicinity, they’ll check on him. That all you wanted?”

  Vicky shook her head. “The chief said you were on patrol in Ethete Monday night,” she began. “Did you see anybody at the tribal headquarters after six-thirty?”

  Patrick stared out the windshield a moment, as if he were calling to mind the building and the parking lot. “Nope,” he said finally. “Nobody around. Excuse me.” He reached across her, opened the glove compartment, and drew out a black notebook. “Monday night,” he said, thumbing through the pages. “Here it is.” He shoved the notebook into the dashboard light. “Checked on the building at seven, nine, eleven, one A.M. Doors locked, lights off, and nobody around.”

  “What about the parking lot?”

  “Like I said, nobody was around. So what’s this all about? T.J. say he was at the office when his wife got shot?” He blew out a long breath. “They put me on the witness stand, I’m gonna have to swear that nobody was in the building that evening. Sure hope T.J. can come up with a better alibi. Maybe he’d better rethink where he might have been.”

  Vicky opened the door and started to get out. “Thanks, Patrick,” she said.

  Before she could close the door, he leaned across the seat. “Be careful, Vicky,” he said. “A guy like T.J. has made enemies. If one of them killed his wife, the killer could still be looking for T.J. And if he doesn’t find him, he could come looking for his lawyer.”

  Vicky shut the door and made her way back to the Jeep through the mixture of moonlight and headlights frozen in the cold air. She had pulled back into the lane and gone several hundred feet when she saw the headlights in the rearview mirror carve through a U-turn across the highway, leaving only the flickering red taillights that grew fainter and fainter until they disappeared into the reservation.

  15

  THE RIVERTON LIBRARY, a single-story expanse of red brick and peaked roofs, sprawled on the corner of a neighborhood of bungalows set back from tree-lined streets. Blue shadows crept across the lawn in front of the library. Father John parked at the curb and walked up the wide sidewalk to the entrance. It was quiet inside, except for the low voice of a woman reading to a small boy on a bench near the door. He crossed to the desk in the center of the large room. Book stacks fanned around the desk like the spokes in a wheel. The librarian, an attractive woman with dark hair and lively eyes—the same librarian who usually helped him when he came in—was already on her feet, watching him approach.

  “Another research project, Father?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  “What? You know you love researching the past. Once a history professor, always a history . . .

  “High school teacher,” he said, finishing her sentence.

  “All the same. I have to confess . . .” She paused and laughed, shaking her head. “Not that I really intend to confess any sins . . .”

  “I’m sure you don’t have any.”

  “Exactly. Not having any sins, I can only confess to sharing your love for history. Finding a new research project is like setting sail on an unknown sea. Where are you sailing today, Father?”

  “Back to 1907,” he said.

  “Ah, a very popular year.”

  “How so?”

  “The curator from your museum—what was her name? Christine something came in to look through the newspapers for 1907. I saw in the Gazette that she’s missing. My goodness.” The woman lifted one hand, as if to ward off an invisible evil, and glanced about the library. There was comfort in the rows of books, the certitude and quiet. “I hope she’s all right.”

  “Did Christine say what she was looking for?” The same thing he was looking for, he suspected. An explanation of what had happened in the Curtis village.

  The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid I didn’t ask, Father. She seemed very . . .” She hesitated. “I remember that she raced out of here after she finished her research.”

  “When was that?”

  “Let me think.” She studied the space above his head a moment. “Early last week, I guess. Sorry, I can’t be more help.”

  He smiled at the woman. It was possible that Christine had found the names she was looking for. A connection to the dead woman and the dead warriors, someone else to talk to, someone she might have been on her way to meet Monday night.

  He said, “I think I’ll take a look at the newspapers.”

  “You know where they are, Father.” He was already heading across the room for the door to the basement. “Light switch is on the left,” she called.

  He flipped the switch and plunged down a flight of stairs into a maze of shelves stacked with thick, leather-bound books. He could smell the dust and the old leather—familiar odors coming to him—as he worked his way past the shelves. In the far corner was a reading table with books stacked along the side and, next to the table, a copying machine. He stopped in front of a shelf of tall, thin books, a patchwork of shadows falling over the early editions of the Gazette. His gaze ran over the gold-embossed dates on the spines. 1890s, then 1900s. 1905. 1906. The next space was empty.

  He walked over to the reading table. Next to a sign that read LEAVE MATERIALS HERE was a stack of books, and on the top, a black leather book with golden numbers on the spine: 1907. He found a chair around the corner, sat down at the table, and opened the book in the middle. He smoothed the brittle, yellowed pages, feeling the old book begin to relax in his hands. He was thinking that Curtis had photographed the village in good weather. Cloudless sky. No snow on the ground. Which meant about a six-month window, from mid-May to mid-October. He eased the pages forward until the date at the top read May 16, 1907. His eyes hunted down the narrow columns, looking for a headline about the murder of a chief’s daughter or the deaths of three Arapaho men.

  N
othing. He kept turning the pages, working faster now, settling into a familiar rhythm from the hours he’d spent in archives, searching out obscure facts that made sense out of a small part of the past. The type was crabbed and hard-to-read. There were no photographs, only an occasional illustration to break up the small print. He had reached mid-September when he spotted a small announcement. Seattle photographer Edward S. Curtis expected on the Wind River Reservation some time in the next weeks. He has informed the agency that he will require an assistant while in the area. Indians who can read and write may wish to apply for the position.

  He slowed the tempo, scanning each page until he’d reached the middle of October. There, on the front page in the lower right corner, a small headline: RESERVATION MURDER. He scanned the inch-long article that said an Indian woman had been shot to death while the photographer, Edward S. Curtis, was taking pictures of an Indian village. “There will likely be moaning and gnashing of teeth on the reservation, since it appears the woman was the daughter of the famous Chief Sharp Nose. Mike Fleming, the agent on the reservation, is conducting the investigation into the death and talking to many witnesses.”

  Father John flipped through several more issues to a front-page headline that ran across three columns: INDIANS GUILTY OF MURDER IN DEATH OF CHIEF’S DAUGHTER. Below the headline were illustrations of three Indian men. Thunder was on the right, dimples etched into his cheeks. Father John read through the article. Three Indians were found guilty of murdering an Arapaho woman and sentenced to be hanged at the Fort Washakie agency. The murder occurred while the photographer, Edward S. Curtis, was taking pictures of a mock attack on a village that resembled an actual Arapaho village. Many witnesses testified that Thunder, posing as a warrior, rode close to the woman with his rifle just before she was found shot in the chest. The other so-called warriors, Ben Franklin and Alvin Pretty Lodge, were also in the vicinity.

  Father John followed the article to the next page where there was a large illustration of a log cabin next to a small tent at the foot of what looked like a mountain slope scattered with pine trees. The caption read: LODGING PLACE OF EDWARD S. CURTIS. THE VILLAGE STOOD NEARBY.