The Spider's Web (10 page)

“Vicky Holden.” Vicky held out her hand. The girl hesitated a moment before she slid a small hand across Vicky’s palm.

“Nice to meet you,” the girl said, stepping back into the small room. Thick shadows lay over the sofa and side chair, and the air was filled with the smell of soap. “Father John called and said you were on the way.”

Vicky followed her inside and shut the door. “We need to talk,” she said, ushering the girl over to the worn, comfortable chair in the corner, an impulsive gesture, she realized, like a flashback to the times she had spent curled up in the chair as a fugitive in the guesthouse.

The girl sank into the cushions and pulled her feet up beneath her. She crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Is it okay if we don’t talk about it?” she said. “It’s too terrible.”

Vicky perched on the sofa a few feet away. “I understand,” she said. “But if I’m going to help you...”

“What do I need a lawyer for? I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re a witness,” Vicky said. “Until the investigation is closed, everyone’s a suspect.”

The girl unfolded her hands and spread her fingers. “They put that stuff on my hands. Daddy said they were looking for gunshot residue. They’re not going to find any residue. I didn’t shoot anybody.” Her face folded into tears. “I wish I’d had a gun,” she said, fingertips mopping at the moisture on her cheeks. “I would’ve shot those bastards before they killed Ned.”

“Your father has hired me to protect your interests,” Vicky said.

“Don’t bring my father into this!” The girl spit out the words. “Daddy’s only concerned about himself and his precious ministry, and all those millions of people that think he’s God strutting around the stage with his fancy ruffled shirt and big diamond ring. What he’s concerned about is keeping any scandal out of the newspapers. You know: TV Evangelical’s Daughter Mixed Up in Murder.” She shifted into a cross-legged position. Bony knees pressed against the armrests. “Oh, did he forget to mention that part?”

Vicky took a moment. An image had moved at the edge of her mind from five or six years ago. Her own daughter, Susan, nineteen years old and on drugs, anger running through her at the lost years when Vicky was in Denver. But Susan was twenty-five now, clean and happy, working in LA, almost mended.

It could be the same for Marcy Morrison, she was thinking. The broken places could begin to mend.

She said, “Your father doesn’t want any harm to come to you.”

“He’s got you convinced at least.” Marcy blew out a stream of air. “Let’s make a deal,” she said. “We don’t talk about Daddy.”

“And you’ll tell me what happened last night?” Vicky waited. A blank look had come into the girl’s face. “I need to hear from you exactly what took place.”

“Agent Gianelli already asked me,” she said, a sulky frown creasing her forehead.

“All the more reason for you to tell me.”

Marcy stretched out her neck and rolled her head around. Finally, she said, “I heard ’em driving up, so I went to look out the window ’cause Ned hadn’t said anybody was coming over. They busted through the door. They were inside before I knew what was happening. Two Indians, shouting, ‘Ned! Where are you, you bastard!’ Stuff like that. They had a gun. I was scared to death they were gonna shoot us. Ned was in the bedroom, and I tried to keep ’em from going in there. That’s when they hauled off and let me have it, slammed me up against the wall. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. They started pulling open the drawers, tossing things around, like they were crazy. I heard Ned shouting, ‘Get out!’ There was a loud gunshot. He quit shouting, and they ran past me out the door.”

“Did they both have a gun?”

Marcy shook her head. “Just the big guy with a ponytail. The other guy’s the one that hit me.”

“What did you do?”

“I crawled into the bedroom. Ned was on the bed.” She lifted her hands to her face and sobbed quietly, the thin shoulders shaking, as if she were waking from a nightmare, Vicky thought. She fought the impulse to go to her and cradle her in her arms, the way she had cradled Susan and Lucas when they had awakened screaming from the childhood demons that had invaded their dreams.

“Make it go away,” the girl said, slurring the words. “Make it so it didn’t happen. Ned was all I had. He was everything.”

“I know this is hard,” Vicky said.

“Do you? Do you really think you know what I’ve been through?” Marcy threw her head back against the chair. “Nobody cares what happened to me. I got hit hard,” she said, brushing a hand over the red bruise. “Maybe they kicked me or something. My ribs are sore. I feel terrible.”

Vicky took a moment, watching the girl shifting about, squeezing her hands together. She wondered if Marcy was on drugs. “Did they give you something at the hospital?” she said. “For the pain?”

“They gave me some pills.” Marcy nodded toward the bedroom at the back of the house.

“Any other drugs?” Vicky said.

“You accusing me of something?”

“I’m your lawyer, Marcy. I need to know anything that could possibly implicate you in Ned’s murder.”

“What?” The girl’s legs sprang forward, and she jumped to her feet. “You think it was about drugs? You think Ned was dealing drugs?”

“I’m only asking what Gianelli’s going to ask.”

“He already asked me.” Marcy stood over her, hands hooked on her waist, and Vicky understood. This was the reason Larry Morrison had shown up at her office this morning wanting to hire a lawyer to look after his daughter’s interests. He had suspected that somehow drugs could be involved.

“I told him what I’m telling you,” the girl said. “Ned didn’t have anything to do with drugs. He was going into the Sun Dance. You can’t be on drugs when you do that.”

“What about you?”

The girl sat back down. She leaned forward and clasped her hands around her knees. “I got clean after I got away,” she said, not taking her eyes from Vicky’s. “Soon’s I escaped Oklahoma, I didn’t need drugs anymore. Then I met Ned in Jackson. You don’t need drugs when everything’s perfect.”

“Tell me about you and Ned,” Vicky said. “How did you meet?”

Marcy was looking at something inside her head now. The faint trace of a smile came into her face. “I got a condo in town. The manager sent him to install new smoke detectors. I gave him a cup of coffee, and we talked while he worked. I never met anybody like him. You believe in love at first sight?”

Vicky smiled. “When I was your age,” she said.

“Well, that’s the way it was. He felt the same way. I went out and bought a big crystal chandelier for the dining room so he’d have to come back. I had to buy a couple more fixtures before he finally asked if I wanted to see a movie or something, ’cause he was shy, you know. Him being Arapaho, and me white, that made him shy. But I could tell he felt the same way. That’s how it was with us. We could read each other’s minds. We didn’t even have to talk, ’cause I knew what he was thinking. Same for Ned. We both knew we would get married. Like we’d been waiting for each other all our lives.” She blinked at the tears that started bubbling again.

“I understand he came back to the rez a couple of weeks ago. Father John said you stopped by the mission looking for him. Didn’t he tell you where he was staying?”

“Why’s everybody making a big deal of it? So I didn’t write down the directions.” The girl’s voice was rising into hysteria. She pulled her hands into her lap. They were shaking. “He was waiting for me. He came and found me at the motel where I was staying and took me home with him. He loved me.”

“There’s something else Gianelli will want to know,” Vicky said. She waited until the girl looked at her. She could see the effort the girl was making to concentrate. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

“You think I didn’t want to?” The hands flew out; the white face contorted in anger. “Is that what everybody here thinks? That I didn’t want to get help?” She stopped and stared straight ahead a moment. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. Maybe I did call 911, I don’t know. Next thing I knew, boots were stomping around me, people were shouting. They put me on a stretcher and took me to the hospital.”

“It makes sense,” Vicky said. The girl had probably been unconscious. But a good prosecuting attorney . . . She shut down the thought. “Nobody’s going to make a big deal out of it.” She let the words hang between them a moment. She would make sure nobody made a big deal out of it, she thought, watching the girl settle back into herself, her chest rising and falling at a steadier rate. “Agent Gianelli would like you to look at photos,” she said. “I’ll take you to his office.” When the girl didn’t respond, she pushed on. “You want the men who killed Ned arrested, don’t you? It’s for your own safety, Marcy. You could be in danger.”

Marcy waited before getting to her feet, as if she didn’t trust her legs to hold her up. “What the hell,” she said. Then she scooped a small bag off the chest under the window and started for the door.

THE LOCAL FBI office sprawled across the top floor of a flat-faced brick building on Lander’s Main Street. Vicky found a parking place a half block away and guided Marcy Morrison past the novelty stores, boutiques, and coffee shops, aware of the images of a black-haired woman and a small, light-skinned girl flashing in the plate-glass windows. It was mid-afternoon, the sky a burned-out blue and the day’s heat rolling off the sidewalk. There was a lazy summer feeling to the traffic that flowed past—tourists on the way into the Wind River range to fish and hike and camp. People in shorts, tee shirts, and sandals, cameras bumping on their chests, strolled along the sidewalks. Flowers overflowed the planters at the curb, and the smell of geraniums drifted in the air.

She opened the framed glass door and ushered Marcy into the shadows of a small entry and up the narrow staircase. The girl climbed slowly, pulling herself along the railing. Vicky wanted to assure her, tell her everything would be all right, a comforting thought that may or may not be true. She didn’t say anything. At the top of the steps, she leaned in close to the intercom next to the pebbled-glass door. “Vicky Holden with Marcy Morrison,” she said. The girl slouched against the wall across the corridor. She still had on the white tee shirt and cutoff blue jeans.

The door opened, and Ted Gianelli, black hair silvery under the fluorescent ceiling light, waved them inside. Vicky waited as the girl rowed herself over, swinging her shoulders as if she were paddling a kayak in the Wind River. Gianelli turned and led the way down a corridor of shelves piled with books and cartons into the office itself. “Have a seat, ladies,” he said, motioning to a pair of side chairs. He walked around and sat down behind a desk, the surface lost under stacks of folders and papers.

“I’m representing Marcy,” Vicky said.

“So Mr. Morrison has notified me.” Gianelli clasped his hands on a stack of papers, rolling his shoulders, making himself comfortable. His face was immobile. He could be Indian, Vicky thought, taking in every detail—the clothes they wore, the expressions on their faces—giving nothing back. She had known the local agent for more than six years now, sitting across from him, bantering over the guilt or innocence, the evidence or lack thereof, of dozens of clients. She knew the way his mind worked, the logic with which he marshaled evidence and drew conclusions, a lot like John O’Malley. The two men had more in common than opera.

“Is my client a suspect?” she said.

“What?” Marcy turned sideways, and Vicky could feel the anger shooting from her eyes. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“The investigation is ongoing,” Gianelli said. “Nobody’s been cleared yet.”

Vicky reached over and set a hand on the girl’s arm. The muscles felt tight, capable of propelling the small body out of the chair. Keeping her eyes on the agent, she said, “Let’s get something clear. My client had nothing to do with Ned Windsong’s death. She saw the men who killed him, and she’s willing to cooperate to see that they are prosecuted.”

Gianelli nodded. He opened a folder, pulled out a stack of photos and handed them across the desk. “Recognize anyone?” he said to Marcy.

Vicky took the photos and held them out, but the girl kept her fingers laced together, her eyes on the floor. “I don’t want to look at those guys again,” she said.

“It will only take a moment.” Vicky held the photos in front of the girl.

“We want to pick them up before they can get too far away,” Gianelli said.

The girl’s head snapped back. “You think they left?”

“It’s possible.”

Marcy took hold of the photos then and stared at the image of a man with long, black hair and a pockmarked face. “I never seen this one.” She tossed the photo onto the desk and looked at the next photo and the one after that. All with black hair and dark skin and dark, wary eyes. Vicky wondered if they looked the same to a white girl.

Marcy held up the next photo. “He’s the one that hit me,” she said. She handed the photo to Vicky and studied another. “He’s the guy with the gun.” Vicky passed both photos to Gianelli.

“Dwayne Hawk and Lionel Lookingglass,” he said, laying the photos side by side as if he were dealing two poker cards. “Do you know them?”

“Why would I know them?” A whine came into Marcy’s voice.

“Seen them before?”

“Look, Ted,” Vicky said, “she’s ID’d...”

“I think so,” Marcy said.

The office went quiet. Vicky was aware of the traffic sounds floating up from the street below. She glanced at the girl clasping and unclasping her hands, the blonde hair draped like a veil along the side of her face.

“Tell me about them,” Gianelli said.

“They came to see Ned last week.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“I didn’t remember.” The whine came into her voice again. Vicky turned toward her, and she said, “I didn’t, Vicky, honest. You gotta believe me. I didn’t recognize them until just now when I saw the photos.”