The Drowning Man (19 page)

Father John slid the photograph back into the envelope between the pieces of cardboard. As he shut the door and pulled into a U-turn, he saw the headlights coming toward him. Beyond was the faint glow of lights from Riverton. The headlights started flashing—on off, on off. A horn blared, and Father John realized that the white SUV behind the headlights was Gianelli's.

He stopped at the side of the road and waited as the SUV swung across the lane, the headlights blinding him for an instant, until the vehicle pulled in ahead. A door slammed, and the agent walked back through the stream of lights to his passenger window.

“The caller said no feds, no cops,” Father John said.

“You get the evidence?”

“Someone could have been watching.” Father John gestured with his head in the direction of the old log cabin.

“The evidence, John. I asked the Riverton PD to keep an eye on you. We know you followed the Indian's car from the motel.” He held out one hand. “What do you have?”

“A photograph of the petroglyph with today's
Gazette.
Listen to me, Ted. The caller could have been waiting inside that old cabin. He told the Indian to toss this”—Father John tapped the envelope against the steering wheel, then handed it to the agent—“on the highway in front of the cabin. He picked a place where there wasn't anyone around.”

“Okay. We've got unmarked cars watching for the Indian. Maybe we're finally catching a break here. We ran into a wall on the license plates. They were lifted off a car in Denver two weeks ago. We find out where the Indian's staying, it'll lead us to whoever's behind this.”

“You arrest the Indian, it'll be all over.”

“I'm aware of the risks. Don't tell me my job.” Gianelli held up the white envelope. “Go on back to the mission.”

In the rearview mirror a dark shape, like a gathering force, was coming up from behind. Gianelli cocked his head sideways and stepped back, a reflex motion, Father John realized, as if the agent expected the force to collide with the pickup. In a rush of noise—whirring tires, straining engine—a dark truck with headlights off swept past, plunging toward the glow of Riverton and leaving in its wake watery images of metal and red taillights.

“The caller,” Father John said, but he was talking to himself. The agent had already snapped open his cell and was pressing it against his ear. “We have what looks like a brown pickup heading into town. No headlights. See if you can pick it up.”

Gianelli snapped the cell closed. It disappeared inside the pocket of his vest. “Go back to the mission, John,” he said again.

“Listen to me, Ted. The petroglyph…”

But the agent had swung around and was already lowering himself behind the steering wheel of his SUV.

A HANDFUL OF
people were scattered about the church for the early Mass, Ida Morning Star in her usual place in the front pew, Luke White half sitting, half kneeling behind her, a few other elders. Seated in the back were four or five of the younger generation—younger than the elders by a decade or so—who had started coming to daily Mass. But where were the other familiar faces? Connie Buckman and JoAnn Postings? Where was Norman Yellow Hawk?

“Let us pray together,” Father John said. There was the scrape of kneelers pushed back into place as the congregation shuffled to their feet amid the murmur of voices: “I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned…”

It was never routine, never automatic, moving through the prayers. Each time he said Mass, Father John thought, was like the first. And yet the sense of peace and quiet that drifted over him with the murmured prayers was familiar, as if he had stepped again into the quiet center of things away from the noise and confusion.

He'd been awake most of the night. Tossing about in the stuffy bedroom with the window thrown open and not a whiff of air moving, the bedclothes tangled on the floor somewhere, unable to stop the images moving through his head, like a DVD on automatic replay. The white envelope flying through the air and skidding over the highway, the photo of the Drowning Man. And the dark pickup speeding past after Gianelli had stopped him on the highway.

“No police,” the caller had said.

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty…” Father John could hear the sound of his own voice—half a word ahead—leading the congregation. His thoughts were still on last night. If the caller had been in the pickup, if he had seen him—how could he not have seen him talking to the fed?—he and the Indian would disappear, just like seven years ago.

“Dear Lord,” he prayed. Silently now, breaking the bread for the offertory. “Don't let the people lose any more than has already been lost.”

 

HE CROSSED THE
grounds in the first daylight, the sun already warm on his shoulders and the peace of the Mass settling like fine rain over the mission. The house was quiet, too. No sounds floating down the hall of water running, spoons clacking against pans, cabinets shutting. He found Father Ian seated at the kitchen table in a pool of light, working at a mug of coffee, the
Gazette
opened in front of him.

“Where's Elena?” he said.

The other priest shrugged, his gaze still on the paper. “Looks like the BLM is going to allow the logging companies to widen the road in Red Cliff Canyon. Vicky Holden is quoted as saying that the BLM has refused to extend the period for public comment. ‘The government agency demonstrates its willingness to allow the destruction of what is sacred to native people,' she says.”

Father Ian snapped the paper shut. “Surprised me Elena wasn't here when I came down for breakfast. I made the coffee.” He pulled a face. “Sorry. Never was very good at getting the ratio of water to coffee quite right. There's a little dry cereal left.”

Father John poured the bronze-colored liquid into a mug. He was thinking that Vicky must have decided that the only way to stop the road through Red Cliff Canyon was by appealing to the public. He shook some cereal into a bowl, tipped in the milk, then carried the mug and the bowl over to the table. “Did Elena call?”

The other priest shook his head and got to his feet. “I called her house, but nobody answered. She's probably on the way.”

Father John took a bite of cereal, listening to Ian's boots thud down the hallway and up the stairs. He couldn't remember Elena ever being late. She usually let herself in through the front door while he or his assistant was at Mass. When he got to the kitchen, coffee was brewing and the oatmeal was ready. There was a pile of hot toast on a plate. He glanced at his watch. If Elena wasn't here in thirty minutes, he'd drive to her house to make sure she was okay.

He pulled the
Gazette
across the table and scanned the front page as he finished the cereal, aware at some point of Ian pounding down the stairs. The front door slammed shut. He was still sipping at the coffee and reading through the article when the door opened. There was the sound of footsteps in the hallway again, hurried this time, as if his assistant were running.

Father John glanced around.

The other priest was gripping the doorjamb, his head bobbing into the kitchen. “You'd better come, John,” he said.

Father John jumped to his feet and followed the other priest back down the hall and out the front door. He saw the crowd gathered in front of the administration building, cowboy hats and black heads floating above the tightening circle. Several other people were hurrying over from the pickups and trucks that had pulled into Circle Drive. A couple of pickups had driven onto the grass in the center of the drive, and still more vehicles were turning into the mission, metal bumpers flashing through the stand of cottonwoods.

Father John burst ahead of Ian and started running across the grass, around the parked pickups. He spotted Elena huddled with a group of grandmothers. Norman Yellow Hawk stood at the edge of the crowd, his dark eyes following Father John.

“What's going on?” Father John said when he reached the man. The circle started to break up. People began drifting around, closing in—his parishioners, he thought, his people. He was aware of Ian elbowing his way through the crowd and of the silence that seemed to freeze everyone in place.

“You seen this?” Norman held out a piece of paper the color of the sky folded in half, and Father John realized that the others were also holding blue sheets of paper.

He took the paper and, not looking away from Norman, began unfolding it. He glanced down. The thick, black letters bolted off the paper like sand blowing into his face, burning and stinging his eyes.

BEWARE
PEDOPHILE PRIEST ON RESERVATION

Below was the photograph of a man in his forties, dark haired and handsome with the deep cleft in his chin, dressed in a black suit with a white Roman collar, smiling frankly into the camera, white teeth contrasting with his tanned skin. And the eyes—something about Lloyd Elsner's eyes, open and unflinching, yet veiled.

Father Lloyd Elsner is now at St. Francis Mission. He has
sexually abused many children. Do not allow your children near
the mission. He will ruin their lives.
This man is dangerous.
I know because I am one of his victims.

Typed at the bottom of the page was the name David Caldwell.

Father John stared at the photo of Lloyd Elsner taken at least thirty years ago. He was aware of the barely perceptible intakes and exhalations of breath around him, the way in which everything seemed suspended in a void—the circle of people, the mission grounds stretching away—and the rage rising inside him like molten lava erupting from the center of the earth. His heart was thumping in his temples.

It was a long moment before he managed to lift his eyes from the sheet of paper. He made himself take another moment, draw in a long breath, before he said, “This is a very serious accusation.” His voice sounded tight and choked. His saliva was hot. He tried to relax his jaw muscles. “I promise you I'll find out if there is any truth in it.” Then he turned and worked his way through the crowd, shouldering past Norman, past Elena, past the others who had trusted him. Trusted him. My God, this was their mission, their place, and they had trusted him.

“I assure you”—Ian's voice breaking through the quiet—“that neither Father John nor I would ever allow…”

Father John broke into a run, his boots pounding the loose gravel across Circle Drive, down the alley, the church and the administration building blurring on either side. He crunched the sheet of paper in his fist. He was near the guesthouse when he heard footsteps running behind him, and Ian's voice again: “Hold up, John.”

Then the other priest was running alongside him, the man's hand grabbing at his shoulder. He veered away and ran onto the stoop in front of the guesthouse and drove his fist against the door.

“Take it easy,” Ian said. “You said yourself, it's an accusation. Let's hear what Father Lloyd has to say.”

Oh, that was sensible. Logical and sensible, Father John thought, and yet his heart was pounding in his ears. It could not be the truth—not here, not at his mission, among his people, his kids. There had to be some explanation. Lloyd Elsner would have to explain.

He knocked again on the door, aware that his assistant had crowded onto the narrow stoop beside him and was trying to shove him away. He pounded again and again. “Where is he?” Father John heard himself shouting.

“He's around here someplace, John.” Ian's grip was tight on his arm. “Priests have been falsely accused. It wouldn't be the first time a false accusation has been made.”

“Where'd he go?” Father John stepped off the stoop and started running again along the path toward the river. He knew where the old priest had gone. On a walk to the river, through the trees, circling the mission, then emerging out of nowhere. Out of the shadow world?

Father Ian was still at his side, the man's boots clomping in rhythm with his own, and Ian was out of breath; he could tell by the sounds of the man gasping for air as they ran, and that struck him as funny because, he was thinking, he could run forever. He could run and run until he found Lloyd Elsner.

And then the old priest was in front of them, winding through the brush, around the trunks of the cottonwoods, finally stepping out onto the narrow dirt path. The sun shone through his white hair like a halo. He stood still, surprise fixed in his expression.

Father John was struck by the odd sense of pity for the old man that started through his anger. He felt Ian's hand gripping his shoulder and heard the other priest's voice saying again, “We don't know if it's true.”

“I'll talk to him,” Father John told his assistant, not taking his eyes away from the old priest.

“My, my,” Father Lloyd said as Father John shook off Ian's grip and walked over. “What's happened?”

Father John handed him the crumpled blue sheet of paper. “This happened,” he said.

The old priest took a long moment, flattening the sheet, peering down at it, lifting it closer to his face. And as he read, Father John had the sinking feeling that the words on the blue sheet were true. An old man needing a place to stay, somewhere out of the way, somewhere that David Caldwell didn't know about.

Except that David Caldwell had found him.

Ian moved in closer. He might have been a bodyguard, ready to inject himself between the old priest and the pastor of St. Francis Mission. And yet that wasn't necessary, Father John thought, watching the expressionless look on Lloyd's face as he continued studying the flyer, the sagging jowls and the sallow, pockmarked skin, the brown liver spots on his hands. Not necessary at all. Lloyd Elsner was old and pitiful. Pitiful.

“He's a lunatic.” Father Lloyd shoved the blue flyer back toward him. “A stalker. He follows me wherever I go.”

“Is he the reason you had to leave Denver?” Father John said.

“Flyers all over the neighborhood.” The old priest made a halfhearted attempt at a shrug. “Went to the
Denver Post,
told them a big story. Looking for his fifteen minutes of fame, I suppose. He's really quite mad.”

“What happened?” Father John heard the tightness in his voice. He could feel his jaws clenching again. The man was lying, and he'd heard so many lies. Lies in the confessional, lies in counseling sessions, and after a while, they all had the same hollow sound.
Nah, I never did that. It wasn't me. Must've been somebody else, some misunderstanding. That's not what happened at all.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Take it easy, John.” Ian again, moving closer to the old priest. “He says the man's a stalker. Remember, other priests have been unjustly accused…”

“A lot of guilty priests have been accused.” Father John kept his gaze on the old priest. “Tell me the truth, Lloyd,” he said.

“The truth?” Father Lloyd gave a shiver of laughter. “The truth is that I have no memory of anyone named David Caldwell.”

“One of the students you counseled, Lloyd? How many others were there?”

“That's unfair, John,” Ian said. “We don't know the real story.”

“How many others, Lloyd? How many boys who came to talk to a counselor, the priest they trusted?” Father John could feel the heat of anger in his face. The office was almost ready. A drawer in the desk needed to be repaired, that was all. He'd already told a couple of parishioners that an experienced psychologist would be available to counsel their kids. He'd invited Father Lloyd to watch the Eagles practice. He'd planned on taking him to the game in Riverton this afternoon. Get the old priest out. Give him a change of scenery. God. God. God.

“I do not have to stand here and be badgered.”

Father Lloyd started to move past, and Father John blocked his way. “You will stay close to the guesthouse the rest of the time that you're here.”