The Thunder Keeper

by Margaret Coel

  She stepped out onto Stout Street, dialing Steve Clark’s number as she went. It surprised her when the detective picked up; she’d expected an answering service.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said, weaving through the business suits walking along the sidewalk.

  “How about lunch?” There was an eagerness in the detective’s voice that gave her a stab of discomfort. “One o’clock?” He named a restaurant in the Pavilions.

  “I’ll be there,” she said.

  13

  Diners jammed the restaurant on the Sixteenth Street Mall, an assemblage of business suits in earnest conversations. Vicky spotted Steve Clark in a booth against the far wall. She waved away the maître d’ and started through the maze of tables, snatching pieces of conversations as she went: . . . stock options? . . . the new partner . . . close the deal.

  Steve caught her eye and jumped to his feet with the quick agility of a cowboy dismounting a horse. He was dressed in what she used to call his uniform: blue blazer over light blue shirt, subdued detective tie, tan slacks. Smiling at her. The laugh lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. One hand crunched a red napkin.

  “You look beautiful.” He waited until she’d settled across from him before resuming his own seat. The intense look in his eyes made her uncomfortable, aware of herself: the shoulder-length black hair, the dark, almond-shaped eyes, the tiny bump at the top of her nose—the Arapaho bump—the dark skin that had caused a few heads to follow her as she’d come through the restaurant.

  A waiter in a white coat was sweeping about the table—welcome, welcome—pouring ice water, delivering menus. The sounds of tinkling ice cut through the buzz of conversations from nearby tables. After they’d ordered—club sandwich, pasta salad—Steve said, “It’s good to have you back.”

  “Good to be here.” The words rang hollow and superficial to her ears. She’d agreed to lunch; she hadn’t considered that he might misconstrue her intentions. It had been a dozen years since they were undergraduates, two outsiders bumping into each other on the CU-Denver campus. He, fresh from a stint with the navy SEALs, and she, fresh from the reservation, the ink still wet on a divorce decree and two children back home with her mother.

  “Here’s to us,” he said, lifting the water glass.

  “Us?” There had never been “us.”

  “We’re having lunch again. Just like old times.”

  “Here’s to lunch,” she said, clinking his glass.

  “What made you leave Lander?” he said after a moment. “The shooting?”

  Vicky leaned against the back cushion and waited until the waiter had set the pasta in front of her, the sandwich in front of Steve, then grated Parmesan over her plate with a cheeriness that struck a discordant note in the muted atmosphere that had settled over the table.

  “How did you know?” she said when the waiter moved away.

  “Reports come into the department.” He shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. After a moment he said, “Discharge of firearms resulting in death in the Rocky Mountain region. I snagged the report with your name in it.”

  “The man was about to shoot a friend of mine,” she heard herself explaining. The same explanation she gave herself in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.

  “Certainly justifiable, Vicky. Anyone would have done the same. Give yourself some time.” He held her eyes a moment before taking another bite of the sandwich.

  Vicky tried the pasta. It was lukewarm, with a congealed buttery taste. Finally she said, “What have you found out about the Lewis homicide?”

  “What makes you so sure it’s homicide?” He sounded mildly amused.

  “I saw it happen, Steve.”

  “We don’t know yet what caused the accident.”

  “I have a theory.”

  He set his sandwich down and regarded her. “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “Listen, Steve,” she began. “I believe it’s possible that Baider Industries has located a diamond deposit on the reservation.”

  “Diamonds?” The amusement had changed into surprise. “That would have made the headlines.”

  “This is still the Old West,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Prospectors still jump claims the way they used to jump the old gold and silver claims. Nathan Baider knows how the game is played. If his people located a new deposit, he’d keep it secret until he was ready to file a claim.”

  Steve pulled his mouth into a tight line of disapproval. A second passed. “You want me to buy a theory that Vince Lewis was killed because he was about to blow the whistle?”

  “It makes sense.” She struggled to ignore the questions in his eyes and hurried on before the theory she’d been constructing collapsed. “Baider could be waiting for a ruling on a very important case that’s in the federal courts, Navajo Nation v. Lexcon.” She explained the district court ruling. How the tribes didn’t necessarily own the methane gas on their lands. How the ruling was a wedge other companies could use to claim that tribes might not have total control of other natural resources on reservations. How Baider could claim the Arapahos and Shoshones on the Wind River Reservation didn’t control any diamond deposits. She told him she was working on the appeal. The Navajos had to appeal. “Baider could be waiting to file a claim, hoping he won’t have to pay royalties.”

  “If what you say is true”—the detective was shaking his head—“Lewis would come in for a share of the profits. Why blow the whistle?”

  Vicky sat back against the booth. She didn’t have the answer. She could feel the theory starting to crumble, as if the ground were giving way beneath her feet.

  “Look,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “you could be right. Maybe it was homicide. We won’t know until we find the driver.”

  “What about the license?”

  “Lifted from a Chevy van at the airport,” he said. “Oldest trick in the book, Vicky. Some guy wants to cover his tracks, so he cruises the outlying lots. Security’s not as close. Anybody knows his business can lift a pair of plates in about two minutes. Salesman got back from Florida and didn’t know he was driving without plates until the state patrol pulled him over on I-70. You’d be surprised how many people drive out of lots without checking to see if they still have plates.”

  Vicky felt a little surge of excitement. “So, whoever killed Lewis went to a lot of trouble to make the car untraceable,” she said. “Someone at Baider could have arranged for a killer to run Lewis down before our meeting. That explains why the Camry came out of nowhere. The killer was waiting somewhere down the block.”

  “Whoa, hold on there.” Steve set his own cup down. Brown liquid sloshed into the saucer. “You’re like an eighteen-wheeler runaway coming off the mountain. First rule in an investigation, don’t get married to one theory. The guy driving the Camry could’ve lifted the plates for some other reason. A burglary, or a drug deal. His mind’s on the big deal coming down when he jumps the curb and hits a pedestrian who happens to be Vince Lewis.”

  “You believe that?” Vicky made no effort to stifle the astonishment in her voice.

  “Until we find the driver”—he held her gaze—“anything’s possible. We’re running a check on recent arrests and complaints. We’ll see if a black Camry figures in any other reported crimes. And we’re following some other leads.” He tapped his fingers on the table, as if he was trying to make up his mind how much to divulge. “Turns out Lewis’s wife, Jana, served him with divorce papers three days before he was killed,” he said finally. “Alleged infidelity. Could be Lewis was looking for a good divorce lawyer when he called you.”

  She didn’t believe it. A man like Lewis could hire the best divorce lawyer on Seventeenth Street. When she didn’t say anything, the detective went on: “The widow gave us the names of a couple of Lewis’s girlfriends. We interviewed them. Seemed pretty broken up by the guy’s death, but you never know. One could have wanted to settle an old score.”

  He lifted his cup and took a
long sip, regarding her over the rim for a long moment. Then he set the cup down. “Turns out the grieving widow is due to collect on a big insurance policy. Three mil. Could be she wanted to make sure Lewis didn’t have time to change the beneficiary.”

  Vicky glanced around the restaurant—waiters hovering over tables, diners getting to their feet. Her theory could still be right. Lewis had called her, an Arapaho attorney. She brought her gaze back. “I heard Roz Baider was taking over the company. How did that affect Lewis?”

  Steve let out a long sigh. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  The buzz of conversation, the sound of glass tinkling, drifted between them a moment. Finally he said in a lowered voice, “Lewis climbed the ladder to vice-president of development and Nathan Baider’s right-hand man in only three years. He was hard-driving and ambitious. A profile that would probably fit a lot of guys in this dining room.” He nodded at the tables stretching toward the maître d’s station. Some were empty now.

  “Nobody knows what’ll happen when another man takes the chief’s seat, but Roz made it sound like Lewis would be part of the reorganization.”

  “Reorganization?”

  Steve shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time a son decided he could do things better.”

  Vicky sat quietly for a moment, only half-aware of the flashes of white jackets bobbing past. “Suppose,” she began, “that Lewis wasn’t going to be part of the reorganized company. Maybe he’d want to blow the whistle about a secret diamond deposit.”

  Steve was shaking his head. “Sweetheart, you’ve been watching too many detective shows.” He leaned over the table, so close she could smell the mustard and coffee on his breath. “Nobody at Baider Industries mentioned anything about Lewis being out. Just the opposite. He was the brains. Roz needed the man.”

  Vicky felt a longing to be back in Lander, at the café on Main Street, John O’Malley across from her, examining her theory piece by piece, looking for the logical pattern. There was always a pattern.

  The waiter appeared with a small black folder, and Vicky dug in her bag for a couple of bills, which Steve waved away. “It’s been a long time since you had lunch with me.” He slipped a credit card into the folder. “Look, Vicky,” he said, “I understand your worry. I’ll have another talk with senior and junior Baider. Maybe they forgot to mention a diamond deposit on the res.”

  “Will you let me know what you find out?”

  He was signing the charge slip, collecting his card. He looked up. “I’ll let you know.”

  They slid out of the booth at the same moment, and he ushered her through the maze of tables and into the courtyard that connected the Pavilions’ shops to the Sixteenth Street mall. She could feel the firm pressure of his hand on the small of her back as they walked down the concrete steps to the sidewalk.

  “I’d like to see you, Vicky,” he said, guiding her to one side, away from the crowd. The shuttle swooshed along the mall.

  “As soon as you find out—”

  “Forget the Lewis case a minute. You’re unattached, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “So am I. So what’s wrong with two unattached people, a beautiful woman and a so-so guy, getting together?”

  Vicky raised one hand, but before she could say anything, he said, “You know I’ve been attracted to you since you bumped into me on campus. That was deliberate, right?” He grinned.

  “Deliberate?”

  “You saw me coming through the door. Next thing I know, I’m picking up your papers and notes all over the stairs. You got my attention all right.”

  Vicky threw her head back and laughed. “It could’ve been an orangutan coming through the door, Steve. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  A small shadow of pain crossed his face.

  “I’m very glad it was you,” she said hurriedly. “You did such a good job of getting all of my notes before they blew away, and—” She paused. “You’ve been a good friend.”

  “How about having dinner with a good friend?”

  Vicky looked away. A trio of men in dark suits glanced at them as they passed by. She’d been thinking about John O’Malley all during lunch, she realized. He had never said to her “have dinner with me.”

  “You were right earlier,” she said, bringing her eyes back. “I’m still running from what happened on the res.” She saw in his expression that he thought she meant the shooting. “I need some time.”

  “I’ve been waiting a long time. I can wait a little longer.” He made a halfhearted attempt at a shrug.

  She was about to turn away when his hand reached out and touched her shoulder, holding her lightly in place. “Promise me you’ll stay out of this investigation, Vicky. If it is homicide and the guy who killed Lewis thinks you’re trying to find out why, he could come after you.”

  “I promise not to do anything rash,” she said.

  “Don’t do anything at all.” A note of sternness in his voice.

  She smiled, then slipped past him and joined the knots of people on the sidewalk. She waited for another shuttle to glide past, trailing pneumatic sounds, then started across the bricked pathway, only half-aware of his eyes following her. She was thinking that a woman who had filed for divorce might be willing to talk about her husband’s activities at Baider Industries.

  14

  Detective Matt Slinger might have been a professional wrestler, Father John thought. The fleshy, pushed-in face, the nose that looked as if it had been broken once or twice, the thick mane of dark hair. He crossed the waiting room at the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department and extended his hand. “Father O’Malley,” he said. His smile was friendly and guarded. His grip hard. “Come on back.” He gestured toward the door he’d just come through.

  Father John followed the man down a corridor with fluorescent light washing over the gray walls and pebbled-glass doors. They emerged into a room the size of a large conference room. Papers and folders had been spread over the surfaces of three desks pushed against one wall in no particular order that Father John could see. Bookcases stuffed with folders, boxes, and books ran along the opposite wall. Across the room, rain spattered the two windows that framed a blurred view of the cars and trucks in the parking lot.

  “Have a seat.” The detective pushed a chair over to one of the desks, then took the barrel-shaped chair on the other side. Leaning back, he said, “So you’re the Indian priest I’ve heard about. Gotten yourself mixed up in a few homicides around here.”

  “Not by choice, I assure you.” Father John sat down and laid his cowboy hat on the tiled floor next to his feet. It always surprised him: Indian priest. He was an Irishman, from Boston, assigned to St. Francis Mission. He happened to like it there.

  The detective’s mouth turned up in amusement. “You think Duncan Grover’s death was another one of your homicides?” That was what Father John had told him when he’d called to make an appointment.

  “It’s a possibility.” He was treading a fine line. All that he knew he’d heard in the confessional. The rest was theory, with no evidence to back it up.

  “You a friend of the victim’s?” The detective rearranged his bulky frame and folded his hands over his stomach.

  Father John admitted he’d never met the man.

  “Friend of the family?”

  “No.”

  “Then what makes you think somebody killed him?”

  “I’ve been talking to people on the res,” Father John began, lining up his argument in a logical order. “Ben Holden told me Grover went to the Arapaho Ranch looking for a job. He agreed to hire him in a couple of weeks. A man planning to kill himself doesn’t go job hunting.”

  The detective shifted again. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Look, Detective,” Father John said, taking a different tack, “Holden believes Grover was in some kind of trouble in Denver. Somebody could have followed him here and killed him.”

  “Oh, Grover was in trouble, all right.” A slow smile burned throu
gh the detective’s face. “Had a robbery warrant out on him in Colorado. He’d been working construction jobs for a temp agency. Had quite a scam stealing jackhammers and compressors and stuff that he could sell for decent cash. The foreman at the last job got onto him and filed a complaint. Grover already had two convictions. Third strike, and he was looking at prison for a very long time. So he took off and came to the res, the way Indians like to do. Minute they get into trouble in the big white world, they come running home.”

  “Grover was from Oklahoma.” Father John didn’t try to conceal his irritation.

  “Wind River is Indian country.” The man was warming to the subject now. “Looks up Ben Holden, plays the good Indian, goes to stay with a holy man and learn Indian ways, hoping nobody’ll notice him.”

  “And kills himself? Come on, Detective. You’re describing a man who wanted to live.”

  “Not in prison, he didn’t. You ask me, Grover had one strong motive to kill himself.” He hunched forward. “Another thing, Father O’Malley, there’s no evidence of anybody else on that ledge at the time of death.”

  Father John glanced at the rain-smeared windows. The room was muggy and warm. He had to concede that what the detective said made sense. There was a certain logic to it. He might even have believed it if it hadn’t been for the man in the confessional.

  He said, “Grover may have a girlfriend in the area.” It was a gamble. He had no proof that the woman who had called Gus Iron Bear was Grover’s girlfriend. “She might be able to tell you if Grover was running from somebody.”

  “What girlfriend?”

  Father John told him about his conversation with Gus.

  The detective seemed to consider this. Finally he said, “Could’ve been anybody, Father. Some girl he met in a bar. If she was involved with the guy, why hasn’t she come forward, told us whatever she knows?”

  “Maybe she’s scared. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to the police.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know anything.” A flush of impatience came into the detective’s cheeks.