The Drowning Man (20 page)

“Am I to be a prisoner?”

“You will have no contact with any of my parishioners.”
My people,
he thought. “You will not go near any child. Not the Eagles, not any child. Do you understand?”

“I have no choice but to leave this dreadful place.”

“That's right,” Father John said, moving out of the old priest's way. “You'll leave as soon as I can arrange it with the provincial.”

Father Lloyd hesitated a moment, then started walking in the direction of the guesthouse, listing sideways a little, as if he were walking into the wind.

“Suppose he's innocent,” Ian said, his gaze on the old man's back. “What you just did is very unfair, unjust. At least you could have waited until you spoke with the provincial. Surely you don't think he would have sent a pedophile here…”

“It's exactly what I think.” Father John spun around and started after the priest. He passed him on the path and broke into a trot, retracing his route down the alley and across Circle Drive. The pickups and cars had vanished, leaving the mission empty, deserted, with nothing but the faint traces of footprints in the dirt and gravel around the drive. He bounded up the steps to the administration building, headed into his office, and grabbed the phone. Then he was punching in the provincial's number and tracing out a circle from the desk to the side chair and the window, then around the circle again, barely conscious of the front door slamming and Ian's footsteps in the corridor, his mind focused like a laser beam on the intermittent noise of a phone ringing thirteen hundred miles away.

A low, calm voice interrupted the buzzing noise: “Jesuit provincial's office.”

“This is Father O'Malley,” he said, still circling, catching sight of Ian planted in the doorway. “Get me Bill Rutherford.”

“I'm sorry, Father, the provincial…”

“Get him on the phone now.”

“This isn't the way, John.” Ian was a blur at the corner of his eye as he made another turn around the desk.

“Father, please be good enough to let me speak. Father Rutherford is not in the office.”

“Where is he?”

“I'm not at liberty…”

“John, for heaven's sakes…”

“I want to talk to him now.”

“I can take a message and have him get back to you the moment he comes in.”

Father John stopped pacing. He locked eyes with his assistant a moment; then he said, “You do that. You have him get back to me right away.”

“What shall I tell him this is about?”

“He knows what it's about,” Father John said before he slammed down the phone.

“John, do you really think…?” His assistant had a defeated look about him, shoulders sagging, blond head hanging forward.

“What do you think, Ian? Somebody named David Caldwell follows Lloyd Elsner to Denver, distributes flyers around the neighborhood, goes to the
Denver Post.
Then Rutherford shows up here and says an elderly priest needs a place to rest and recuperate, and three days after Elsner arrives, David Caldwell is distributing flyers around the reservation. What do you think?”

The other priest ran the palm of his hand across his cheeks, then cupped his chin and stared at the floor. “I don't want to believe it's true.”

Father John walked over to the window. The Eagles would be arriving in another couple of hours, pickups and cars gathering in Circle Drive before everyone headed to the Riverton ballpark, a procession of vehicles moving from the mission to town. Would they come, these kids? His kids to protect. Walks-On came walking around the residence, crouched down on a shady patch of lawn, and surveyed the grounds, rolling his head between the entrance to the church and the museum, a sentinel on alert, and yet the harm was already here. It had arrived unannounced and hidden.

“Believe it,” he said.

THE WYOMING STATE
Penitentiary sprawled in the west, a collection of squat, dun-colored buildings that shimmered on the brown plains like a mirage that could dissolve with the blink of an eye. To the north was Rawlins, a Western town of wide streets and sand blowing in the wind. The last remnants of the town—warehouses, gas stations, truck stops—had trickled down the highway and stopped a couple of miles back. Vicky exited the highway and took a left onto the paved two-lane road that shot like an arrow toward the penitentiary. Next to the road was a slab of pink concrete with gold lettering carved into the face, like the carved images on a petroglyph:
Department of Corrections. Wyoming State Penitentiary.

The road dead-ended at a metal gate that extended from the administration building, a blocklike structure of beige stucco that crept out from the other buildings. Vicky could see the smudge of a corrections officer's dark blue uniform moving behind the window next to the gate. She pulled into the visitors' lot and walked back to the building through cones of heat lifting off the pavement. Her own reflection moved across the black-tinted glass on the double doors at the front.

The entry was small, with walls of white concrete blocks and closed doors on either end. There was an oblong window in the wall that divided the entry from an office area where a woman with a mass of blond hair sat hunched over a desk. Vicky bent toward the opening at the base of the window, gave her name, and said that she was there to see Travis Birdsong.

The blond head bobbed from the papers sprawled over the desk to a clipboard holding a sheet with a list of names. She ran an index finger down the list, then looked up and gave a little nod of acknowledgment. Leaning toward an invisible microphone, she said, “Vicky Holden here.”

A couple of seconds passed before an electronic whirring noise cut through the air. “You can go in there.” The woman nodded toward the door on Vicky's right.

Vicky gripped the metal knob and pushed the door inward. It moved slowly on its hinges, like a slab of steel. She stepped into a large room with the same concrete-block walls, vinyl floor, and faint odor of antiseptic. Rows of lockers lined the wall on the left. Seated at a desk on the right was a security officer in a pressed navy blue uniform. He might be native, she thought, with dark complexion and black hair that shone under the fluorescent ceiling lights. He pushed an opened book across the desk, his face a mask. Columns of signatures and dates ran down the pages. “Sign there,” he said, handing her a ballpoint pen, then pointing to the first vacant line. His tone was as flat as his expression.

After she'd dashed off her signature and the date, the officer said he needed a picture ID. Vicky dug through her bag and handed him her driver's license, which he stared at for several seconds—glancing up at her, then scrutinizing the postage-stamp photo. Finally he slipped the license into one of the slots on a board next to the desk and removed a badge with the number 365 in black letters. He wrote the number next to her name, then pushed the badge and a key across the desk. “Leave your bag in the locker,” he said, dipping his head in the direction of the wall behind her.

Vicky stuffed her purse into the locker and handed the key back to the officer as the door from the entry opened. Another blue-uniformed officer—a woman in her thirties, sandy hair pulled back from a scrubbed face with a band of freckles on her nose and cheeks—came toward her, right arm extended. “Officer Mary Connor,” she said. Her hand was slender, her grip firm. “I'll be your escort. We go this way.” She ushered Vicky toward the X-ray screener across the room where the other officer had already stationed himself. The peeping noise startled her as she walked through the security frame.

The dark eyes in the masklike face rested on her for a moment before the man came around and picked up a wand. Vicky stood with her arms out—she knew the drill—while the officer ran the wand up and down about two inches from her body. “Belt buckle,” he announced. She unbuckled her belt and handed it to him. He nodded toward the door beyond the security station.

They were outside then, she and Officer Connor, standing on the hot pavement on the other side of the metal gate, the blue uniform still visible behind the window. A white van pulled up with another officer at the wheel and Vicky climbed inside. “Take any seat,” the woman said behind her. They were the only passengers.

The van made a U-turn and rumbled down the road toward a complex of buildings, moving farther and farther into the empty vastness of the plains, away from her Jeep and the highway she'd sped along, away from the town of Rawlins with sedans and pickups crawling through the streets and people going about their business, away from normalcy.

The van bumped to a stop in front of a smaller version of the administration building, and Vicky followed Officer Connor through the front door to another security checkpoint. A bulky officer with squared creases in his blue uniform shirt waited until she had cleared the security frame. Then he walked around and planted himself in front of the door beyond the checkpoint.

“Where's she gonna see the inmate?” This was directed to Officer Connor.

“Interview booth,” Connor said.

“I'd like to talk to my client in a private room,” Vicky said.

“This the first time you've seen him?” The officer knew that was true; it was obvious in the tone of her voice.

“I know his grandfather.”

“We suggest you conduct the first interview in a booth with a partition between you. You can see your client through the Plexiglas. You'll communicate by a telephone. It's for your own safety.”

“I prefer a private room,” Vicky said again. There was so much you could tell about a person, so much you could sense, when you sat across from him without a glass barrier to smooth the impression.

“Your choice. You'll wear a PMT.” The bulky officer with the creased shirt moved sideways toward a cabinet with rows of cubicles. He pulled out a black, rectangular object the size of a pack of cigarettes and handed it to Connor. It was the same as the objects clipped in both officers' shirt pockets.

“Personal Monitor Transmitter,” Connor said. “You'll keep this on you at all times. If you need assistance, you push the red button.” She held out the rectangle and pointed to the red button on top. “Any emergency, you pull this string,” she said, pointing now at the two-inch-long string that dangled from the bottom. “Responders will arrive within seconds.”

Vicky clipped the monitor to the waistband of her slacks and followed the officer outside and across a paved lot, surrounded by concrete walls and high metal fences topped with rolls of concertina wire. They stopped at the door to another building. There was a clicking noise. “They see us,” Connor said, glancing up at the small camera in the wall overhead. “The control room. Doors stay locked until they push a button.”

The officer opened the door and ushered Vicky into an empty, concrete-block room with a wide sweep of gray vinyl floor. They walked across the room to another door at the far end, waited for the clicking noise, then entered the visitors' area. There was furniture here, round white tables and neon blue plastic chairs scattered about, a daytime drama flashing on the television that hung from a frame under the ceiling. Two men dressed in loose white shirts and baggy pants, like hospital scrubs, lounged on chairs, staring at the screen. Stacked against the wall on the right were boxes of toys and games and two infant seats. Connor must have been following her gaze, because she said, “This is where families come to visit.”

An officer seated at the desk just inside the door handed Vicky another book with columns of scribbled names and dates. Vicky added her name to the last column.

“Birdsong, your lawyer's here.” The other officer shouted over the television noise.

A tall, angular man in white unfolded himself out of a chair, his eyes on the TV screen a moment before he swung around and worked his way past the tables toward them. Travis Birdsong was about thirty, she knew, but he seemed older, slightly stooped, with shadows of anger and defeat in the deep-set black eyes, a long face with a prominent nose and black hair that fell along the nape of his neck. He wore soft-soled white shoes that made a shushing noise on the vinyl.

“I'm Vicky Holden,” she said, holding out her hand.

The black eyes narrowed on her hand a moment, as if he were weighing the consequences of touching her. He glanced at Officer Connor before he finally shook Vicky's hand. She was surprised at the cool smoothness of his palm.

“You can talk here.” Connor called over her shoulder. The officer had already started walking past the windows and doors that ran down the left side of the visitors' rooms. “Number six,” she said, yanking open one of the doors.

Vicky started after the officer, conscious of the shush of Travis's soft shoes on the floor behind her. She let Travis duck past, then followed him into a room the size of a large closet with chairs facing each other across a table that took up most of the space.

“You sit there.” Connor ushered Vicky toward the chair next to the large red button on the wall. “Any trouble, hit that button. I'll be outside.”

Travis had already dropped into the other chair, as if he knew the routine. He'd had other visitors. He clasped his hands, set them on the table, and waited while Vicky sat down. Still waiting, with the patience of a man who had nothing but time, as Officer Connor backed out of the room and closed the door. The television noise disappeared, leaving the silence of a vacuum. The faintest odor of soap permeated the air.

“Your grandfather came to see me,” Vicky said.

For the first time, the hint of a smile started at the corners of the man's mouth. “Grandfather's been tryin' to get a lawyer to take up my case for seven years. They're all too busy, they say. Nothin' to go on. No new evidence to reopen the case. But he don't give up. Calls me every week and says, ‘Travis, don't give up. Some lawyer's gonna help us out.' In the meantime, I just do my time, keep my nose clean. So I tell him, ‘Don't worry about it. Three more years and I'm walkin' out of here,' but he says, ‘I ain't gonna be here that long, Travis. I wanna see you walkin' out.'”

Vicky leaned over the table. She could feel the PMT's hard plastic bite into her waist. “What happened the day Raymond was killed?”

“You gonna take my case?”

“I need your story, Travis.”

He shrugged. “That day was like every other day on the ranch. I herded some horses to the upper pasture to graze. Took most of the day. Started back for the ranch in the afternoon. That's when I heard the gunshot…”

Vicky put up a hand. “You were riding back when you heard the gunshot?” That hadn't come out in the trial.

“Yeah. I know a shotgun when I hear it. Out there, you can hear noise like that all over the place. Everybody heard it.”

“Andy Lyle, the foreman, heard it,” Vicky said. “That's what brought him to the barn.”

“Well, I got there first; that was the problem. Didn't see nothin' when I rode into the corral, so I left the mare and went into the barn. That's when I seen Raymond on the ground. Then I seen the blood. He was layin' in a puddle of blood, and I seen the shotgun beside him. Should've been in the rack on the wall, but it was on the ground. I got outta there fast. Started runnin'. I didn't know where I was goin'. All I knew was I had to get as far away as I could, 'cause everybody was gonna think I shot him.”

“Because you and Raymond had gotten into a fight the day before?”

“We got into lots of fights, me and him.” Travis unclasped his hands and began drumming his long fingers on the table, making a slow, rhythmic noise like the ticktock of a clock. “Raymond had a big mouth. Always blowin' hot air, tellin' me how to do the job, like he knew so much. I told him to lay off and he threw a punch. So we got into it. Didn't mean nothin'.”

Vicky didn't take her eyes from the man. An uneasy feeling had come over her, like a chill moving across her shoulders. The same feeling that gripped her in the courtroom when a witness was lying.

“Tell you the truth”—fingers drumming harder now—“I used that shotgun couple days before Raymond got shot. Andy told me to get the coyote that was botherin' the cattle. I knew my fingerprints were all over that gun.”

“What's the rest of the story?”

Travis hooked an arm over the back of his chair and surveyed the visitation area beyond the windows. Vicky followed his gaze: a white-clad inmate talking across a table to a young woman with black hair that fell down her slim back. “The rest of the story…” Travis shook his head and brought his eyes back. “I was runnin' full out, but Andy came after me in a pickup. I could see the highway—some cars and trucks whizzin' by. If I could've gotten out there, I could've hitched a ride to the rez. I could hear the pickup's engine screamin' behind me. I started zigzaggin', but Andy kept comin', like he was runnin' down a coyote. Drove up alongside me; he was grinnin' like a fool, keepin' that pickup right beside me. I'd swerve away, and that damn pickup was right on me.”

“You're telling me he ran into you?”

“I seen him grinnin'. I seen him jerk on the steerin' wheel. I jumped sideways and the front bumper caught me in the leg. Next thing I know, I'm rollin' on the ground and Andy's on top of me. Poundin' me with everything's he got. Finally, he gets enough and pulls me up. Man, everything was spinnin' around. My leg was hurtin' like hell. He pushed me into the pickup and drove back to the ranch. I don't know how long it was before a sheriff's deputy showed up. Andy pulls me outta the pickup. ‘Here's your killer,' he tells the deputy.”