The Dream Stalker (22 page)

“Just speculation.”

“Yours?”

“Vicky’s.”

The agent raised both shoulders. “She’s dreaming,” he said. “She’d like to think the Arapaho councilmen will turn against the facility and convince the Shoshone council to do the same.”

“It might be true in Bosse’s case,” Father John persisted. “And if it is, a group might have banded together to shut him up.”

“Just who do you speculate is in this conspiracy?”

Father John turned toward the field. Another hit; the kid who’d gotten onto first was now rounding for home as the batter sprinted toward second. The conspiracy theory was something he and Vicky had come up with; there was no proof. Yet Bosse was dead, and Vicky was in danger. He took a deep breath and plunged on: “Who’s got the most to gain?”

“Redbull,” the agent said immediately. Then he added, “That rancher who owns the site where the facility will be built. He’ll be pulling in millions in lease money.”

“Alexander Legeau.”

Gianelli nodded, his black brows knitted into thought. “I already checked on both men. They’re responsible people. No criminal records. Nothing to throw suspicion on them.”

“What about Paul Bryant?” Father John said. “His whole career could be riding on the facility.”

“I ran a check on him, too. Comes from a prominent Chicago family. Already got all the money he could ever want. Seems intent on running his company. So why would any of these men take a chance on throwing away their lives?”

“Several hundred million dollars.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the agent shrugged. “Always a possibility, I guess. People can get greedy. But why would Bosse decide to turn against the facility?”

Father John shook his head. That was the hole in his logic—a hole big enough to march an army of warriors through. He had no evidence Bosse had changed his mind.

Gianelli frowned, his brows in a thick, black brush above his eyes. “Conspiracy or not, John, somebody wanted Bosse dead. Agnes says he had a meeting last Sunday, and when he got home, he was mad and scared. Could be that’s why he changed his mind, but we don’t know for certain. We’re treading muddy waters at the moment.”

Father John turned away from the field and faced the agent. “Bosse met with somebody last Sunday? Gabriel Many Horses’ niece said he was meeting friends at Betty’s Place last Sunday.”

The agent snapped the notebook shut and stuffed it and the ballpoint into the inside pocket of his raincoat. He was shaking his head. “I talked to Betty. She says she never saw the cowboy.”

“That’s what she says.” Father John let his eyes roam over the field again. There’d been a third out. He must’ve missed it. The fielders were running in to take their turn at bat; the other team slouched toward the field.

“You think she’s lying?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Father John was thinking
he might know more later, if the woman called. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“Yeah,” the agent said in a kind of snort. “I’d appreciate it.”

As Gianelli turned to leave, Father John placed a hand on his arm. “I’ve been trying to reach Vicky all day,” he said. “I’m very worried about her. The killer is after her.”

The agent looked back, worry and distraction mingling in his expression. “I know,” he said finally. “Maybe Vicky could—”

“I’ve tried to talk her into going somewhere else for a while. She’s a stubborn woman.”

“The worst kind.” The agent shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do with a woman like that. She’s likely to keep on fighting that facility, even if it gets her—”

Father John thrust up one hand. “Don’t say it.”

*   *   *

It was almost dark by the time practice broke up. A line of pickups waited on Circle Drive, mothers come to haul the kids home. Father John let himself into the administration building and walked down the corridor, through the silvery shadows that flitted over the walls. The musty odor of old wood and plaster came toward him. The building was quiet, except for the groaning of a metal pipe somewhere. Geoff must have left for the residence.

Father John threw the switch inside the door to his office. Light blazed across the room and glanced off the papers on his desk, the beige telephone, the old leather chair. He picked up the phone and punched in Vicky’s home number again. No answer. He hit the cutoff button and tried her office. This time he got the answering machine. He left the same message he’d been leaving all day.

He found the telephone directory under a stack of
papers, located
Cavanaugh,
and dialed the ranch. Alberta answered, and he explained he could hold Gabriel’s funeral first thing Friday morning. “Whatever suits you,” the woman said. “Send me the bills.” The line went dead, and he set the receiver in place, haunted by the failures of love.

The phone jangled under his hand, and he lifted the receiver again, praying it was Vicky.

“That you, Father?” It was a different voice, but slightly familiar. “This here’s Betty.”

Father John walked around his desk, untangling the telephone cord as he went, and dropped into the chair. He groped for a pen, then flipped open a yellow notebook to a blank page. “I’m glad you called,” he managed.

She had already begun talking. “. . . fed come around askin’ all kinds of questions. And Chief Banner shows up. Just wants some coffee, he says, but he’s askin’ questions, too. It’s lousy for business, cops all over the place. Scares people off. So I don’t want no more cops around. What I’m gonna say, you can’t tell nobody I told ya, okay?”

Father John hesitated. Then he laid down the pen. “Okay.”

“That cowboy you was askin’ about? I didn’t wanna say nothin’ when you was here ’cause the coffee shop was full up. Them tables got big ears.”

“I understand.”

“Soon’s I heard about Councilman Bosse, well, I got to thinkin’ it might’ve been that cowboy in here Sunday afternoon, but I don’t know for sure. He looked like he’d been out on the range his whole life, you know what I mean? Clothes all dusty and boots fallin’ apart. He sat over by the back wall kinda outta the way, like he wanted his privacy, ‘cept he was glad enough for me to keep comin’ over with the coffeepot. He was here about an hour. I figured he was waitin’ for somebody
’cause every time the door opened and somebody come in out of the rain, he jerked his head around and took a long look. Then he’d go back to drinkin’ coffee and coughin’. He had this really bad cough, like he was on his deathbed or somethin’. If he’s the guy that got murdered, Jesus, he really was on his deathbed.”

“Did you tell Gianelli or Banner about this?”

The line went quiet. Father John was afraid the woman had hung up. Then the voice came again, tentative: “They was askin’ if I’d seen somebody usin’ the phone out front Monday night. How could I see anybody from my house five miles away? I didn’t connect the old cowboy with the guy that got murdered ’til I heard Bosse got murdered, too.”

“Why is that?” Father John heard the edge in his tone. He felt as if some kind of pattern was beginning to emerge.

“After the cowboy drunk up most of my coffee, he goes into this real bad coughin’ fit and stands up, all bent over like, you know, holdin’ onto his chest. He throws some money on the table and goes out the door. Ten dollars, he leaves me. I mean, Jesus, for a pot of coffee? That’s when I knew for sure he wasn’t from around here.”

“Betty, what’s the connection to Bosse?”

She paused a moment. “Well, I seen the cowboy standin’ out in the rain by the gas pump, shufflin’ his feet like he was waitin’ for somebody. After a while, this pickup drives up, and he gets in.”

“Was Bosse in it?”

The line seemed to go dead. Finally the woman said, “You gotta promise, Father. You ain’t gonna tell nobody I said they was together. They’re murdered, the both of ’em. And if the cops think I seen ’em together, they’re gonna hightail it back here and ask more questions and all my customers, well, they’re just gonna disappear—”

Father John interrupted, “Are you saying the cowboy got into a pickup with Matthew Bosse?”

The woman gasped. “I’m scared, Father. If the moccasin telegraph starts sayin’ they was both here, the killer’s gonna think I might’ve heard ’em talkin’. I didn’t hear nothin’. I don’t even know for sure the old guy was the one got murdered.”

Father John was quiet, weighing his words. After a second he said, “Gianelli’s a friend of mine, Betty. You can talk to him about this, and nobody will know. He’ll protect you. You can trust—”

“I’m not talkin’ to the feds!” she shouted. “I’m tellin’ you ’cause you was askin’ about the cowboy. I feel sorry for the old guy. He had a good heart and give me ten dollars. And the cops’ll turn this reservation upside-down lookin’ for the councilman’s killer, but maybe they’ll just forget about the old cowboy. I just wanted somebody to know they was together, and soon’s they find Bosse’s killer, maybe they oughtta see what the killer knows about the old cowboy.”

Father John thanked the woman, said he appreciated the information, said he also wanted to see justice done for the cowboy. Images flashed in his mind, not of the body slumped in the cabin with half its face shot off, but of the cowboy riding across the mountain meadow to see his sister, hitching a ride to the coffee shop, waiting at the back table—for Matthew Bosse.

The electronic buzz of disconnection sounded, and Father John replaced the receiver. He leaned back in the leather chair. Why would a dying cowboy come to Wind River Reservation to meet with one of the tribal councilmen? Agnes Bosse might know. He made a mental note to ask her tomorrow when he went back out to the house to talk about the funeral arrangements. And there was someone else who might know—Clarence Fast, another cowboy from somewhere else who had sent his granddaughter to inquire about Gabriel’s funeral.

He found the pen again and jotted down three names: Gabriel Many Horses, Matthew Bosse, Clarence Fast. Old cowboys, all of them. Maybe there was a pattern after all. But what was it? Two had been murdered, but only one was connected to the nuclear facility. And two weren’t even from around here. He decided to pay a visit to Clarence Fast—he’d promised to let him know about Gabriel’s funeral anyway.

He drew a black line across the page. It was possible the murders had nothing to do with the nuclear facility. But if that was true, why was somebody trying to kill Vicky? Another black slash across the page. Nothing was making sense.

He pushed in Vicky’s numbers again—her home, her office. He waited a long while on each call, listening to the phone ring into the emptiness.

22

V
icky left the tribal court and drove south on Highway 287 as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. Plumes of red, orange, and scarlet shot across the faded blue sky. The ponderosas climbing into the foothills, the sagebrush and clumps of wild grass—all were tinged with pink. Long blue shadows lay over the rises and swales of the earth.

Myriad feelings bubbled inside her: confusion and frustration and sorrow, a sense of failure. She’d talked the tribal judge into dismissing the charges against one of the young men arrested at the riot. But the judge had ruled against her on Kenneth Goodboy. The assault charge would stand. Out in the hallway, she’d tried to explain to the young man’s family, tried not to notice the way they’d glared at her. They had expected a miracle; well, she didn’t work miracles.

She heard that she’d had more success than the lawyer for the white protesters in the county court, a small comfort. The judge had dismissed the charges on the condition they leave the area. That gave her a certain sense of hope. With most of the outsiders gone, maybe the People could settle down to a reasoned discussion of the nuclear storage facility.

She turned through the familiar streets of Lander, her thoughts on the facility. So much anger and dissension. And now a tribal councilman murdered. The fact
sent a chill through her. What difference if Bosse had championed the facility or decided against it? Nobody deserved to die for what he believed in.

Leaving the Bronco at the curb on Main Street, Vicky climbed the shadowy stairway outside her office, briefcase in one hand, raincoat under her arm, purse hanging from one shoulder. The evening was beginning to settle in. From behind the parapet near the stairway came a dim light, but the corridor ahead was dark. Her heels snapped against the wood as she walked toward her office. She made a mental note to ask her secretary to have the bulb in the ceiling fixture replaced. Setting the briefcase on the floor outside her door, she rummaged through her bag for the key.