The Spider's Web (9 page)

“How’s Ella?” Vicky said, stepping into the living room. The sofa and chairs were occupied by elders and grandmothers, balancing disposable cups and paper plates half filled with food on their laps. Little groups of people huddled together. A short, gray-haired woman holding a coffeepot moved about, refilling the cups thrust in her direction. A low buzz of conversation, like the noise of a beehive, filled the room.

Marie was shaking her head. “She’s in shock. Ned meant the world to her. Me, too, for that matter. He was all we had left of our brother. Jerry and I came over last night, soon’s we heard. She’s in the kitchen. She’ll want to see you.”

Marie spun around and cut a path through the crowd. Vicky started to follow when she felt someone tug at her arm. She turned sideways toward a young man, still a teenager with thin shoulders and an anxious look about him. “You remember me? Mervin Oldman?” he said.

“Sure,” she said. She knew the Oldman family. Berta Oldman would be his aunt. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Mervin. He had probably been a kid, a brown face in a sea of brown faces at a powwow.

“Ned was a good guy,” he said. He had black hair slicked back and shiny, and enormous hands that flared from thin wrists. “You gonna help find the guys that did it?”

“The fed will do that,” Vicky said.

“They shouldn’t get away with it.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

He shrugged. “I don’t want to say. I mean, they could be dangerous. They think I’m going around saying they killed Ned, they could come after me.”

“Have you talked to Agent Gianelli?”

The young man went quiet. He glanced around the room, as if to make sure no one was close. Then he leaned in and said, “He come to the house this morning. Asked a lot of questions. Roseanne said we gotta watch our backs.” He threw another glance about.

“Who’s Roseanne?”

“Roseanne Birdwoman. Used to be Ned’s girlfriend, ’til he got mixed up with that white girl in Jackson Hole and she followed him here. Broke Roseanne up real bad. I seen her a couple times with...”

“With the guys that might have killed Ned?”

Mervin gave a halfhearted attempt at a shrug. “Ned wouldn’t’ve liked it. He didn’t hang around with them guys after he got back. They come to the house last night with Roseanne. We was having a party. Bunch of people was there. No harm done.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“You gonna help get ’em get arrested?”

“I’ll do my best.”

He was so close now that Vicky could smell the coffee and tobacco on his breath. “Dwayne Hawk. Lionel Lookingglass. They’re not from around here. You know ’em?”

Vicky tried to put faces with the names, but the faces were blanks. “What’re they into—drugs?”

Mervin kept shaking his head, as if once he had started, he couldn’t stop. “I don’t do drugs,” he said. “I don’t hang with druggies.”

“I’m not accusing you. Why didn’t Ned like them?”

“I never asked.” His head was still shaking. A piece of black hair dropped over his forehead. “Ned was straight with me, give me good advice. Told me to stay in school, so I did. Graduated two months ago. I’ve been looking for a job. Ned was gonna get me lined up to be an apprentice. You know, so I could learn to be an electrician like him.”

Vicky had to look away from the earnest young face. She remembered reading somewhere that when one person dies, the whole world changes. “Is Roseanne here?” she said.

Mervin stepped sideways and surveyed the house. “I guess she hasn’t shown up yet. She spent the night at the house. Berta ran her home this morning.” He looked back at Vicky. “Like I say, she was pretty torn up over Ned breaking up with her. Now that he’s dead...” He began shaking his head again. “I don’t know how she’s gonna take it.”

At the periphery of her vision, Vicky could see Marie waiting in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the jamb, as if the jamb were necessary to hold her upright.

She set a hand on the young man’s arm. “Tell Roseanne to call me,” she said. It was possible the girl might know something that could lead to Ned’s killers, and it was also possible that she was too scared to tell Gianelli. At the edge of her thoughts, hovering like a shadow, was the image of a white girl caught up in a murder on the reservation.

She tried for an encouraging smile and left Mervin Oldman standing in the middle of the living room, the enormous hands dangling at his sides, and headed for the kitchen. Marie pushed herself off the doorjamb, and Vicky followed her past the dishes and plates of food that covered the countertops to the table in the far corner. The window framed a view of the Wind River range, brown, rolling humps lifting into an azure sky. White cotton clouds floated past. Ella sat at the table with two other women, all backlit by the sunlight framed in the window.

Marie pulled out a chair across from her sister, and Vicky sat down. Immediately, Ella laid both arms on the table and stretched out her hands. Vicky set her own hands on top of them. The woman’s hands felt chilled and lifeless. She was aware of Marie sliding a cup of coffee onto the table.

“Appreciate your coming.” Ella looked past Vicky, across the kitchen. “I feel like I’m floating on everybody’s strength, ’cause I don’t have none of my own.” She took a moment and studied Vicky’s hands before she nodded at the women on either side of her, “You know Linda Rigs and Patsy Yellowman?”

Vicky gave a nod and smile to each woman. Black hair, both of them. One tied in braids that rode down the front of a red blouse, the other curling over the shoulders of a white tee shirt. Cousins or second cousins to Ella and Marie. It was hard to keep the relatives in an Arapaho family straight.

“Where’s Ned’s fiancée?” Ella said. “Seems like she oughtta be here. Maybe she doesn’t know this is our custom. Everybody that loves Ned is gonna come by, say how sorry they are, say how much they’re gonna miss him.”

“She’ll be released from the hospital today,” Vicky said. Then she told her that Marcy would probably remain in the area, since she’s a witness. She hurried on: “I’m sure she’ll do everything she can to help Agent Gianelli find Ned’s killers.”

Ella pulled her hands free, questions popping in her eyes. She glanced at the women beside her, and Vicky saw the look of encouragement they gave her. Then she squared herself at the table and said, “I been thinking, maybe she had something to do with it. Maybe that’s why the fed don’t want her getting away.”

Vicky sat back and took a sip of coffee. This was what Larry Morrison feared. Sooner or later, someone would start to wonder if the white girl had anything to do with the murder of an Arapaho man. She told Ella that the girl’s father had hired her to look after his daughter’s interests.

“Interests?” Ella said. “Like getting away with murder?”

“What makes you think Marcy’s involved?” The other women were nodding. Obviously they had been discussing the possibility. They had all agreed.

Ella let her gaze drift sideways over the edge of the table. “I never liked her. First time I seen her, I got a bad feeling. She showed up here like she owned the place, said she was gonna marry Ned. She wanted to know where he was. I didn’t tell her. I figured if Ned wanted her to know, he’d tell her. Few days later I stopped at Ned’s with some extra groceries, the kind of cereal he always liked and a bag of apples. She was there. I don’t mind saying, it sure surprised me when this blonde girl with green eyes opened the door. Okay, I said to myself. Ned was getting ready to tell me in his own time. She took the groceries. Even offered to give me some money, but I said, no, no, they’re for Ned. She said he’d come by and see me.”

“And did he?” Vicky said.

“Yeah.” Ella nodded and went back to following the edge of the table, pulling the memories together, Vicky thought, imagining Ned. “He didn’t say anything about her. Finally I asked him, ‘So, you gonna get married?’ He didn’t say yes or no. All he said was he was real busy preparing for the Sun Dance.” She let out a little sob at this piece of memory and set the palm of her hand against her mouth. “He wanted to take part in the Sun Dance for a long time, but he didn’t feel worthy.”

“He told you that? He didn’t feel worthy?”

Ella nodded. “I told him that was silly. He was as worthy as anybody. But he said no. Not yet. When he got back from Jackson Hole, he said he wanted to try to become worthy. That was all he wanted to do. He was making changes in his life, he said.”

Vicky took another sip of coffee and waited. After a moment, Ella went on, “There were things Ned never wanted me to know. That’s the truth. I don’t like to think about it.” She let out a little sob. “Things he might’ve done he wasn’t proud of. But he was trying to do better. That was Ned, always trying to do right, even if he was doing wrong. When he started preparing for the Sun Dance, that was his way of taking a stand. From then on, he was just gonna do right. The Sun Dance was gonna give him the courage.”

“Wouldn’t Marcy have been part of the changes?” Vicky said. “Why do you think she would want Ned killed?”

Ella shifted forward and gripped the edge of the table, as if the table might prevent her from floating away. “I been turning everything over in my mind, trying to make sense out of it. Maybe she didn’t like Indian ways. Maybe she didn’t like living on the rez.”

“But she was living with him,” Vicky said. “She was looking forward to a wedding down by the river.”

Ella stared straight ahead, as if she hadn’t heard.

“What about Dwayne Hawk and Lionel Lookingglass?” Vicky went on. “Did Ned have anything to do with them?”

Ella gave a quick shake of her head, like a reflex. “Far as I know, he never wanted those Indians around. Jerry hired them on the ranch last summer. Said they were more trouble than they were worth. Drinking, fighting. Beat up another ranch hand. They weren’t like Ned. Never see them two pledging the Sun Dance.” She shook her head again, slowly this time. “Ned was an electrician. Had a good job in Lander. Worked in some fancy houses. One time he drove me by a house up in the mountains outside town. Put in a chandelier as big as this table. Then went to Jackson Hole and got a better job in Jackson.” She rapped her knuckles on the tabletop. “There wasn’t any way he was friends with losers like Hawk and Lookingglass.”

THERE WAS A familiarity about St. Francis Mission, the cottonwood branches arched above the narrow road, the glimpse of buildings past the tree trunks, the white steeple against the blue sky. Vicky guided the Jeep around Circle Drive toward the administration building, feeling as if she were coming home. It had been several weeks since she had been here. She parked next to the old red pickup, hurried up the concrete steps, and let herself in the wooden doors that groaned on the hinges.

“I understand my client is your guest,” she said, leaning into the front office. John O’Malley was at his desk, bent over a fan of papers. He jerked his head up, and the familiar smile creased his face. His eyes came alive. She could have closed her own eyes and seen everything about him—the reddish hair fading a little, the smudges of gray at his temples, the sculpture of his features, the squareness of his chin.

“Vicky!” He got to his feet. “How are you? Have a seat. How about some coffee?” All of it spilling out as he cut a diagonal path across the office to the coffeepot on the metal table behind the door. The smell of recently brewed coffee permeated the air.

“No, thanks.” She moved into the office, catching him with a cup in one hand, a half-full carafe of coffee in the other. “I’m here to see Marcy Morrison. You’ve probably heard that I’m representing her interests.”

“I’ve heard.” John O’Malley set the carafe and cup down and faced her. It struck her that his eyes were the color of blue wildflowers. “She’s staying in the guesthouse.”

“What do you know about her?”

He shook his head. “Not much. She came here two weeks ago looking for Ned.”

That was strange, Vicky thought, and she could see in John O’Malley’s eyes that he had formed the same conclusion. She stepped back and dropped onto a hardwood chair. “She didn’t know where her fiancé was?”

Father John sat across from her. “She said she didn’t have directions to the house where he was staying. No one would help her, including Ella.”

Vicky let it pass. Some things didn’t make sense, looking from the outside. People moved through the days working things out the best they could. “Anything else about her?” she said.

“I suspect she’s still in shock,” Father John said. “Her father brought her here a couple hours ago. She seemed angry with him. Maybe she was just expressing her anger over Ned’s murder, and her father happened to be a handy target.”

“Maybe she resents the fact that he’s not staying to look out for her himself,” Vicky said. “She’s a witness to a murder, and Gianelli probably hasn’t ruled her out as a suspect. He wants her to view some photos on the chance she can identify the men she claims burst into the house and killed Ned,” she said, standing up. “I’d better go meet my client. I know my way to the guesthouse.” She put up one hand, but John O’Malley was already on his feet. She was aware of his footsteps behind her in the corridor. His hand shot around and pulled open the front door.

She gave him a wave and hurried down the steps. In a couple of minutes, she parked in front of the guesthouse sheltered in the shade of the cottonwoods. There were times in the past when she had fled to the guesthouse, the sounds of the mission floating through the walls—people coming and going, calling to one another, vehicles crunching the gravel, and the wind whistling in the trees. It was a place of refuge. A white face peered past the edge of the front window, then disappeared.

Vicky knocked at the door. Inside, a phone rang twice. Then she heard the girl’s voice, muffled and tentative, like the voice of frightened child, saying, “Okay.” After a moment, the door opened. The girl stood perfectly still, blonde hair hanging about a small, pretty face with wide green eyes circled in black and a purplish bruise running across her cheek. She wore a tee shirt that showed her pink midriff, and faded cutoff jeans. She blinked into the sunshine. “You’re my lawyer?” she said.