The Spider's Web

by Coel, Margaret

  Officers stood in little groups, heads bent together. The subdued buzz of conversation filled the air like the noise of cicadas. Light glowed in the opened doors to the barn. Inside officers in gray uniforms milled about, snapping photographs, stooping to scrape something off the dirt floor and slipping it inside plastic bags. Gianelli came through the whirl of blue and red lights. “You made record time,” he said. “I just asked an officer to call the mission.”

  “Moccasin telegraph,” Father John said. One way or the other, the news of homicides and sudden deaths, accidents, suicides, made its way to the mission. “Hawk and Lookingglass?”

  “Officially, we don’t have the IDs yet. Unofficially”—the fed drew in a deep breath—“shot in the back of the head, execution-style. The killer wanted to make sure they were dead. See for yourself.” He nodded toward the barn.

  Father John made his way around the vehicles and two uniformed officers who stepped aside. Straight-faced, eyes shielded, they gave him a perfunctory nod, as if he were part of the crime scene, one of the regulars who could be counted on to show up, like the coroner. Inside the barn, past the uniforms, the two bodies sprawled face-down on the dirt floor, legs askew, arms flung outward, as if some memory lodged in their muscles had sought to run before the bullets tore off the back of their heads.

  He went down on one knee beside the bodies. My God! The thick-set neck and narrow shoulders of Dwayne Hawk, part of his left ear missing. The long, muscular torso of Lionel Lookingglass, the dirt-smudged bandage on his arm, the black ponytail splayed on the dirt. They were wearing the same clothes they had worn last night, the plaid shirts and grubby blue jeans, when Dwayne had turned the gun on Walks-On and threatened to take out Father John’s knees and elbows. Which did he prefer to begin with? The sole of Hawk’s left boot had a hole the size of a quarter, and Father John could see a piece of gray flesh. Surely there must have been someone who loved them. They must have families somewhere in Colorado or Oklahoma. Gianelli would notify the families; the coroner would arrange to send the bodies home for burial.

  “Dear God, whatever these men may have done,” he said out loud, realizing that the officers gathered around had been waiting for him to say something. “Have mercy on their souls. You alone are the final judge. You alone know the secrets of our hearts and the brokenness and the pain of our lives. You alone can forgive our sins. We beg your mercy on Dwayne and Lionel who stand before you, because your mercy is all we can trust in.”

  “Amen,” voices said around him as Father John got to his feet. Next to the rear wall, he could see the imprint of boxes or cartons that had been heavy enough to dig into the dirt floor. So this was where the burglary ring had stored the stolen items. An empty, forgotten barn. He wondered how long the items were kept before they were moved. Who made the arrangements to sell the stolen merchandise? Who had those kinds of contacts? Ned? Hawk or Lookingglass? Three Arapahos on a reservation? There was someone else, he was sure of it.

  The officers kept their places as he walked back across the barn and out into the black night air that had turned cooler, with the wind picking up. The light bars on the police vehicles had been turned off, leaving only headlights shooting over the ground. The driver’s door on one of the police cars stood open, and an officer straddled the edge of the seat, one boot planted on the dirt. A radio crackled and buzzed. Through the shadows and dim light, Father John spotted Gianelli huddled with a couple of men by the coroner’s van. He waited. There was something he wanted to ask him, although the fed wasn’t good at giving answers. Asking questions was what he did.

  Out on the road he spotted a single beam of light that gradually separated into two headlights. He waited as the headlights turned onto the track and juddered toward the barn. It was Vicky’s Jeep, but he had known that, he realized, when the vehicle was still on the road, as if he had sensed that she would be on the way. He walked over and opened her door as she pulled to a stop.

  “How did you hear the news?” he said. She slid off the seat, looking tired and a little defeated, not like herself. Even in the dim light, he could make out the shadows under her eyes.

  “The radio said the police had been called to a barn on North Fork Road where two men were reportedly shot to death. I had a feeling . . .” She broke off, then began again. “Hawk and Lookingglass?”

  He nodded, then told her they had been shot in the back of the head. Executed, it looked like. Then he blurted out what he’d been thinking: Ned had also been executed, even though he’d been shot in the chest.

  “The same weapon?”

  That was the question he wanted to ask Gianelli. “I don’t know yet,” he said.

  Vicky crossed her arms and hugged herself, as if she were freezing. The black bag she always carried hung off one shoulder. She looked small and vulnerable: such brave determination about her. “Marcy didn’t go to Jackson,” she said. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No,” he said, looking back. The girl had wandered through his mind all day: at the get-together in Eagle Hall after the funeral, during the afternoon meetings, the counseling sessions with parishioners. He had found himself looking around at the sound of a engine, half-expecting the red pickup to appear on Circle Drive, the girl herself walk into his office or head for the guesthouse. But she hadn’t come.

  He realized Vicky was saying something about the girl’s former fiancé, and he pushed back his own thoughts. “His name is Dave Hudson,” Vicky said. “Coaches tennis. He and Marcy met in Denver, and when he moved to Jackson, she followed him.”

  “Followed him?” Father John said. Another image of the girl worked its way into his head. The wind moving in her blonde hair, the long, tanned legs, and the lost look about her. “Where can I find Ned Windsong?” she had wanted to know the day she came to the mission. The fiancé who had left without a forwarding address. “The way she followed Ned here?”

  Vicky was quiet, glancing around the vehicles, the uniformed officers moving about, the coroner and his assistant disappearing inside the barn. “She’s my client,” she said finally. “I’m here to protect her interests, not make judgments.”

  But she had already made them, he knew. He could see the worry behind the confident stare she gave him. “I talked to his boss in Jackson,” she was saying. “You were right about Ned moving there to start over. The manager said he’d gotten a call from Ned’s uncle, Jerry Adams. Turns out, they were old army buddies. Jerry said his nephew was looking for a job, and the manager agreed to take him on.” She stopped, not taking her eyes from his.

  “Adams got him the job in Lander, too,” he said. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Except that he was looking after his wife’s nephew. Marie and Ella probably nagged him about helping Ned. Anyway,” she said, hurrying on, “Ned was a good employee. The boss was sorry to see him leave. He has no idea of what Ned and the others were up to. Ned told him he was moving back to the rez to start over. I think he did intend to make a fresh start. Leave the past behind.” She took a moment before she said, “I’ve wondered if he would have confessed.”

  She wasn’t talking about the confessional, Father John knew. “I don’t think he would have gone to Gianelli and implicated the others,” he said. “But I think he was wrestling with it. It was one thing to implicate himself, it would have been something else to send others to prison.”

  “But they couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t snitch,” Vicky said, half to herself. “So Hawk and Lookingglass killed him, and now they’re dead. Maybe for the same reason, to keep them quiet.”

  “Vicky, I’m glad you showed up.”

  Father John wasn’t sure when Gianelli had walked over, but the fed was standing beside them, a bulky shadow backlit by the headlights. “I want to set up an interview with your client,” he said. “Tomorrow, first thing. My office or yours, either way.”

  Vicky did a half turn toward the agent. “Surely you don’t believe Marcy Morrison had anything to do with this,” she said,
nodding toward the barn.

  “Everything’s still on the table,” Gianelli said. “Coroner’s best estimate is that the two men in there have been dead for about twenty-four hours. Marcy Morrison left the mission yesterday evening. Where did she go? How did she spend her time? Simple questions that I’m sure your client won’t mind answering. She’s still the only witness to Ned Windsong’s murder, and she identified Hawk and Lookingglass as his killers. They came to the mission last night looking for her. Maybe she decided to take matters into her own hands and go looking for them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Vicky said. “She didn’t know where they were hiding. Had she known, she would have said so. She wanted them arrested.”

  “Somebody knew,” Gianelli said, and Father John saw the way he focused in on Vicky, slipping into another mode. This was what the man was trained for, interrogating people, gauging responses, reading the meaning behind the words. “Somebody with a disguised voice made an anonymous phone call from the Ethete convenience store a couple of hours ago and suggested I go looking for Hawk and Lookingglass at the abandoned barn on North Fork Road.”

  “My client has nothing to hide,” Vicky said. Father John caught a faint flicker of worry in her eyes. “She wanted nothing more than for Ned’s killers to be brought to justice.” She stopped, and in the way that she turned toward the barn, he understood the rest of her thought: now that has happened. “As soon as I contact her, we can arrange the interview,” she said, turning back.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “She’s scared. She thinks they’re still after her, and she’s gone to a safe place. When she hears the news, she’ll call me.”

  Gianelli nodded, but there was skepticism in his narrowed eyes. He did a slow turn and was about to start walking away when Father John said, “Was the same weapon used to kill Ned?”

  The fed looked back and drew in a long breath. “No casings anywhere. Whoever did this was careful to pick them up. Ned was shot with a .380 caliber. I suspect those two in there”—he nodded toward the barn—“had a whole arsenal. We might find the .380 around here someplace.” He shrugged, then headed across the dirt yard toward the barn.

  “What difference does the weapon make?” Vicky said. “Hawk and Lookingglass killed Ned. I take it they didn’t kill themselves, which means someone else is responsible.” She halted again, as if she kept coming upon arroyos that were too wide and deep to cross. No matter which way she turned, another arroyo opened up. Marcy Morrison had disappeared last night and the girl had a motive to kill the two men sprawled on the floor in the barn.

  “It’s possible that whoever else was in the burglary ring killed Hawk and Lookingglass,” Father John said, wanting to ease the worry in her eyes. But he couldn’t shake his own uneasy feeling about the girl. What might she have decided to do to save herself? What was she capable of?

  “Marcy’s sure to call tomorrow,” Vicky said, as if she were trying to convince herself. “If she happens to call you ...”

  “I’ll tell her you’re waiting to hear from her.”

  She nodded, and even in the shadows, he could see the mixture of apprehension and concern working through her features.

  He waited until she had gotten into the Jeep, backed up and turned down the track, headlights flashing, red taillights flickering. Then he got into the Toyota and fished his cell out of the glove box. In the faint light spilling out of the box, he checked his watch. Ten minutes to eleven. He gripped the cell and thought about Roseanne, hiding out in a house that she hoped Hawk and Lookingglass would never stumble onto. She could have heard the news on the radio and figured out that two men shot to death in an old barn had to be Hawk and Lookingglass. She could be asleep by now.

  He started to put the cell back in the box, a different picture forming in his mind. Roseanne, sitting up half the night, dozing a little, jumping at any nighttime noise—the sound of a rabbit skittering outside, the far-off howling of a coyote. He punched in the number of her cell and started the pickup while he waited the couple of seconds for the connection. Then the buzzing noise of the ringing phone, followed by her voice saying: “I’m not available. You know the drill.”

  He set the cell back in the glove box, closed the door and eased the pickup down the track, over the hard ridges and out onto the road. In the side mirror, he watched the dark shadows of the official vehicles and milling figures recede in the diminishing glow of light.

  29

  FATHER JOHN SLOWED past the pastel-colored houses that rose like specters in the night. It had been a while since he had visited Betty Mock’s house. Her daughter had gotten married in California, and he had stopped by to tell Betty he wished them a lifetime of happiness. A few months ago, he heard the couple had gotten a divorce and Betty had gone to California to help with the new baby.

  He spotted the house with the rectangular flower box next to the stoop and thought of the petunias overflowing the box and how Betty had followed him outside and dumped a glass of water on the flowers. He parked close to the stoop and got out. The house was dark and vacant-looking. A few dried stalks poked out of the flower box. He waited a moment, giving Roseanne a chance to peek past the curtains and see who had driven up. The sound of the pickup pulling into the dirt yard had probably frightened her. Perhaps she wasn’t inside, and the thought gave him an uneasy feeling. He stood absolutely still, waiting, unsure what he was waiting for. A dog yelped in the distance, or perhaps a wolf. The other houses down the road were dark and quiet. He might have been the only man on the reservation.

  Still no sign of Roseanne.

  He walked up the steps, knocked hard on the door and called out, “It’s Father John! Don’t be scared!” Dear Lord, the whole neighborhood had probably heard him. He leaned in close and said, “I have some news.”

  The door opened about an inch. A tiny voice came through the dark crack.

  “I came to tell you that Hawk and Lookingglass are dead,” he said.

  The door swung open, a lamp switched on inside, and Roseanne stood in the opening, light flowing around her. She had on jeans and a rumpled white blouse, and she gripped a large, overstuffed pack against her chest so hard that he could see the knuckles popping in her hands, as if the pack contained everything she had in the world. “Dead?” she said, backing up. Her bare feet stumbled on the linoleum floor before she sank against the wooden armrest of a sofa. “How did it happen?”

  He remained on the stoop a moment, then stepped inside, keeping the door open. The house was stuffy, closed up. The breeze moving through the door ruffled the pages of a magazine on the little table in front of the sofa.

  “They were found shot to death in the barn,” he said.

  “You saw them? I mean, how can you be sure?”

  “I saw their bodies.”

  “Oh God. Oh God.” She jammed a fist against her mouth and leaned onto the pack. For a moment, he thought she might slide onto the floor. “I did what you said.” She was shaking, and rocking back and forth, like someone in shock. “The fed will blame me. He’ll think I killed them.”

  “Why would he think that?” Father John said, but he saw her point. She had made the anonymous call from Ethete, just as he had suggested. Whoever had killed Hawk and Lookingglass had known where to find them. If Gianelli knew she was the caller, he could suspect her of having something to do with the murders.

  “I didn’t know they’d be dead,” she said. “It’ll look like I did it ’cause they were chasing me, threatening me. They said they’d kill me if I snitched to the fed.” She gulped in some air and stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Oh God. You told him?”

  “I didn’t tell him, Roseanne.”

  “He doesn’t know they were after me?”

  “Not unless you’ve told someone else who might have told him.”

  She dropped her forehead onto the pack and grabbed at her hair with both hands. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know who I’ve told stuff to. I can’t remember what I might�
��ve said at Ella’s or Berta’s. My whole life’s in the gutter. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who I am.” She was crying now, her shoulders shaking. “I just miss Ned so much. Why did this have to happen? I was too scared to go his funeral this morning. I was so scared Dwayne and Lionel would be looking for me.”

  “Listen to me, Roseanne.” Father John pulled over a metal folding chair and sat down. “Hawk and Lookingglass are the only ones who threatened you. They’re both dead.” He stopped himself from saying she needn’t be afraid anymore. He wasn’t sure it was the truth. “You should still be careful,” he said, “until Gianelli arrests the killer.”

  “She did it, the white girl.” Roseanne lifted her head and stared at him with tear-bleared eyes. “She killed all of them. Ned, Dwayne, and Lionel.”

  “What makes you so sure?” he said.

  “I been thinking a lot,” she said. “All I do all day and night is think about the night we went to Ned’s house, Dwayne and Lionel and me. They were gonna talk him into going to the party. He used to like parties, ’til he got back from Jackson Hole and started down a new road. Dwayne and Lionel figured he wasn’t serious. I just wanted him to come along, you know, so maybe him and me could talk and maybe it could be like old times. I was hoping the white girl was gone, ’cause he’d told me he was gonna make some changes. So I went along with Dwayne and Lionel. God, I seen their faces when they come out of Ned’s place. They looked like they’d seen a ghost, and I knew something bad had happened. They never would have gone back to that house if they knew Ned was there, dead. They didn’t know the white girl was gonna say they killed him.”

  Father John didn’t say anything for a moment, giving the girl a little time and space in which to gather herself. She was in shock, she was grieving. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it kept coming down to Marcy Morrison as the outsider, the one who was different, the one it was easy to blame. Ella blamed her, and Marie and Jerry Adams probably blamed her. For all he knew, every Arapaho on the reservation blamed her. But the evidence suggested she was as much a victim as Ned. She had been attacked, pushed against the wall. She had a bruised cheek and black eyes. But, unlike Ned, she was alive.