Wife of Moon (16 page)

THE HOUSE WAS
ablaze in the darkness. Light spilled through the front windows and the opened door. Blue, red, and yellow lights flashing from the roof of a police cruiser spiraled across the front of the house, and dark uniforms moved past the windows inside. A photographer was also moving about, snapping pictures, the white light flashing intermittently into the living room. Vicky watched Ted Gianelli walk in from the kitchen, like a shadow moving through the light.

She stood outside between the Jeep and John O'Malley's pickup, gripping the fronts of her jacket, struggling against the sense that she'd wandered into a nightmare and couldn't find the way out.

The police had come—three cars, one after the other racing down the road and turning into the yard, yellow headlights jumping over the ground, officers spilling out of the opened doors. She'd gotten out of the Jeep and stumbled into the headlights. “He's in the shed,” she'd heard herself shouting, and finally the officers had turned away
and started around the corner of the house toward the back, leaving her alone again with the images in her head.

After a long while, one of the officers returned and began asking her questions. What had brought her here? When did she arrive? Was anyone else here? She was trying to find the answers, gripping her jacket to keep from floating away, when John O'Malley's pickup pulled in next to the cruisers. The door slammed shut, and he darted around the cars, plunging past the headlights toward her.

She collapsed against him, grateful for the strength of his arms, the warmth of his breath in her hair.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“She's had a bad shock,” said one officer.

“You're shivering. You should be inside.”

“No.” Vicky shook her head against his chest, then stepped back. Something was warm on her cheeks, and she realized she was crying. She wiped at the moisture. “It's horrible what they did to him.”

“She found T.J.'s body, Father,” the officer said. “Around in back, in case you want to say some prayers. The fed's on his way, and the coroner'll be here any minute.” He nodded toward the house, as if he were urging him on. “Up to you.”

“Go ahead,” Vicky said when she saw Father John hesitate.

She could sense his reluctance in the way he removed his hand from her shoulder. “Why don't you wait in the pickup? It's still warm. Start the motor.” He pulled a key out of his jacket pocket and tried to press it into her hand.

Vicky waved it away. “It's okay.” She stopped herself from saying, ‘The cold air is real.'

A moment passed before she felt him take his eyes from her and start for the shed, the officer in step behind. And she was alone again. He had his responsibility, she told herself. There were the prayers, the rituals, all the trappings that he brought with him wherever he went. It was who he was—a priest. He could never leave them behind.

It was then that Gianelli's SUV came bumping across the yard. It
stopped next to her Jeep, and he was out in a second, ducking around the hood. “Vicky? That you? What the hell happened?”

He stopped, like a bronco jerked backward. “Are you hurt?” he asked, his tone softer, suffused with concern.

She shook her head. “The officers are out back,” she said.

“Can you tell me about it? You want to sit in the car where it's warm?” He tossed his head toward the SUV.

Vicky shook off the suggestion. They were the same, she was thinking. Gianelli and John O'Malley. All she had to do was get warm and she'd be fine. She didn't want to get warm, to have the image settle in. “T.J. called me two hours ago. He asked me to come to the house, but when I got here, he was already . . .” She could feel the warm moisture on her face again.

“Let me take a look,” Gianelli said. “We'll talk later.”

She wasn't sure how many minutes had passed—twenty? thirty?—before Gianelli stepped through the front door, took her arm, and guided her into the living room. It was as cold as the outdoors. They sat on the sofa and he produced a notebook that he placed on the table in front of them. “Tell me what you know about this, Vicky,” he said, his pen poised over the white page. “Start at the beginning. Why did you come here?”

She started going over it all again, the images flashing in her mind as she talked: the phone call in the night, the fear and urgency in T.J.'s voice, the house, the shed. All of it.

When she finished, the agent stopped writing and glanced around at the uniforms and the plain-clothes policemen still milling about the living room. Then he asked, “What exactly did T.J. say when he called?”

“That they had killed Denise.”

“He said
they
?”

She nodded. That was right. T.J. had said
they.
“They tortured him, didn't they? He held out, didn't he? He didn't want to tell them whatever they wanted to know until . . .” She gulped back the sob erupting in her throat. “Until they made him.”

“What else did T.J. say? What did they want from him, Vicky?”

“I think they were looking for old photographs.” It was John O'Malley's voice coming through the blur of the living room.

The agent swiveled his head around. “Old photographs?” He shook his head. “So now you're telling me that somebody cut T.J. and put a bullet into his brain for old photographs?”

“It's probably what they were looking for at Christine Loftus's apartment.” Father John sat down beside her, and Vicky felt his arm slip across her shoulders again. “Are you all right?” he asked. When she nodded, he said to Gianelli, “They didn't find what they wanted at Christine's, so they came here. They waited until T.J. showed up so he could show them where the photographs were.”

“Jesus, John.” The agent threw back his head and stared up at the ceiling. “What are you saying? Somebody killed both Denise and T.J. for old photographs that are worth what? A thousand dollars each?”

“Maybe a lot more.”

Vicky glanced at Father John. She could almost read the tracks of thought crossing his face. He had put it together.

“Eric Loftus owns a gallery in Jackson,” Father John was saying. “People there can afford to pay a lot of money for vintage photographs. The man's been trying to find his wife.”

“Tell me about it. He's all over the place, intimidating people, making the investigation into her disappearance more difficult. After people meet up with Loftus, they're afraid to open their mouths about anything they might know. Suddenly the Arapahos who signed the guest book never heard of the Curtis exhibit.”

“Maybe he found her, Ted,” Vicky said. “Maybe she told him about the photographs.”

The agent began rubbing his hands together, and Vicky sensed that he was shivering. Death was like that. It froze something inside.

“Okay,” Gianelli said. So, you're telling me that the Painted Horses had some of those old photographs, and Loftus came here looking for them? You're saying that he killed Denise Monday night, then came
back tonight and killed T.J.? Only one problem with this scenario, John. Last Monday night, Loftus had an opening at his gallery in Jackson. Probably a hundred people will swear that he was there.”

“It's a short drive over the mountain,” Vicky said.

Gianelli went on, as if he hadn't heard. “The agent in Jackson said that Loftus was distraught about his wife missing. Said she'd walked out on him six weeks ago, and he'd been discretely trying to find her since, calling around, asking art dealers if they'd heard from her. Said she had a history of going off for long periods. Now you're suggesting he found her on the rez and learned that she'd gotten onto old photos that might be valuable. Okay. Okay.” The fed leaned over and scribbled a couple of more notes on the pad. “I'll lean on Eric Loftus and find out where he was this evening.”

He paused, his attention turned toward the open door and the van pulling into the yard. “Coroner's here,” he said. “No sense in you two hanging around, but . . .” He turned to Vicky. “I'll want to talk to you again tomorrow, see if there's anything else you remember after you get some rest. Try to get some rest,” he said.

“Has anyone told Vera?” Father John said. The tone of a priest, Vicky thought.

“I was hoping that you'd . . .” The agent shrugged. “Poor woman. First her sister-in-law, now her brother. It'll be a blow.”

Vicky could feel John O'Malley's gaze on her face. “I'll follow you home, first,” he said.

Vicky pushed herself to her feet and went outside, heading for the Jeep, aware that Gianelli and John O'Malley were close behind.
First,
John O'Malley had said, but then he would have to do his duty. He would go to Vera and deliver the horrible news and comfort the poor woman with his prayers and platitudes and tell her how God was with her, no matter what. She knew the words by heart; there had been times when he had used them on her, and she wondered if God had been with T.J. when they were cutting his arms to the bones.

“You're a priest,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “You have
your responsibility. Vera will need all the comforting she can get. I can get home just fine.”

She had the sense that he was going to say something, that he was swallowing the words. Then he turned and walked over to the pickup. In a moment, the vehicle heaved itself out onto the road, taillights blinking like exploding firecrackers. “I can have an officer follow you home,” Gianelli said.

“No need.” She gave him a wave, then walked around the Jeep and got behind the steering wheel. She was pressing the keys on the cell as she shot past the cruisers and turned onto the road; the image of Gianelli in the lights streaming around the house flashed in the rearview mirror. She pressed the phone hard against her ear, afraid she might lose courage and grope for the off key, and waited for the ringing to stop.

“Hello,” Adam said, an edge of impatience in his voice.

“It's Vicky.” It was hard to keep the wheel steady. She was shaking again.

“Vicky! It's not six o'clock yet. What's going on?”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called.” God, why had she called? Her index finger was dancing over the keys, searching for the feel of the off key.

“Don't hang up, Vicky!” Adam shouted through the phone. “What's happened? Are you all right?”

She held the phone close again and told him about T.J.

“Where are you?” he asked.

When she said that she was on her way back to Lander, Adam said that he'd be waiting at her apartment.

MADNESS!
WHAT HAD
she been thinking? Vicky lay very still, the sheet tangled about her, watching the daylight move past the curtains. It must be mid-morning. God, what had come over her? She'd seen dead bodies before. She'd seen people shot and beaten, but T.J. . . . The sight of him had unhinged her, and she'd fallen into Adam's arms, as if the warmth of his body could banish the images.

She made herself turn slowly, trying not to tug at the sheet. Adam was gone. His side of the bedcovers thrown back, the pillow still bunched up around the indentation of his head. The scent of him still in the air. A wave of relief came over her. She'd have time to make sense of what had happened before she had to face him again.

A cabinet door cracked shut deep in the apartment. Metal pans clanked together. “No,” she said under her breath. Adam was still here. She crawled out of bed and rummaged through the dresser drawers for clothes, then carried her horde into the bathroom, like a thief escaping into the night, and turned on the shower.

Ten minutes later, in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair still wet, she padded barefoot into the kitchen. She smoothed her hair back behind her ears as she slid onto the stool at the bar across from the stove where Adam Lone Eagle was scrambling eggs.

“Hungry, I'm sure,” he said, glancing sideways at her.

“Adam,” she began, stumbling for the words, combing her fingers through one side of her hair. “Last night was not a good idea. It shouldn't have happened.”

Adam kept his eyes on the lumpy yellow eggs blossoming in the pan. Finally he laid the fork down, stepped over to the bar, and leaned down so that his face was level with hers.

“Wrong on two counts,” he said. “It was this morning. And it was meant to happen.”

His gaze was like a laser boring into her, and Vicky struggled not to turn away. “The wrong time and the wrong reason, Adam,” she said. “I shouldn't have called you. It wasn't fair to you.”

“I'm glad you called.”

“I wasn't thinking straight. I wasn't myself.”

“I'd say you were very much yourself.” Smiling, tilting his head, as if she'd just said something ridiculous.

“We can't work together and sleep together.”

“Does that mean you're saying ‘yes' to the partnership? I don't see any reason why we can't practice law and be lovers. We're good at both.”

Now she looked away to keep from smiling at him.

Adam turned back and began dishing up plates of scrambled eggs, which he set on the bar. Then two mugs of coffee, a pile of toast, jam from the refrigerator, knives, and forks. God, the man thought of everything.

He pulled over another stool and perched across from her. “You should eat,” he said, waving his fork. “You'll feel better.”

Vicky worked at her coffee and pushed the eggs around her plate
for two or three seconds, wondering at the newness of the moment, like trying on new clothes and wondering how they might fit. She made herself take a bite of eggs.

“Would you like to talk about what happened to T.J.?” Adam asked.

Talk about it? She had to stifle a laugh. There was no talking earlier. She'd been crying, and Adam had been kissing her.

She said, “What they did to him was terrible.”

“I'm sorry you had to see it, Vicky.”

“I was sure T.J. was guilty, and all the time he was innocent.”

“You think you're the first lawyer to have that happen?”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

She got to her feet, carried her plate over to the sink and turned on the water, watching the last trace of yellow egg wash into the garbage disposal.

A jolt of surprise. Adam's fingers digging into her shoulders. She hadn't heard him come up behind her. “Stop blaming yourself,” he said. “Someone wanted T.J. and his wife dead. There's nothing you could have done to prevent what happened.” He led her back around the bar. “Councilmen have to make decisions that get a lot of people mad.”

Vicky crawled back onto her stool. “John . . .”

“John?”

“Father O'Malley thinks that T.J. and Denise might have had Curtis photographs that could be valuable,” she said. Then she told him about Christine Loftus, missing for four days now. How the curator had been looking for Curtis photographs taken at the same time that Curtis had shot the photographs of Arapahos in the museum exhibit. How she'd identified three warriors in the staged photograph of a village under attack. How she wanted to identify the woman who had been killed in the attack. “Her name was Bashful Woman,” Vicky said. “The daughter of Chief Sharp Nose.”

Adam held his coffee mug in both hands, his eyes watching her over the rim. “A chief's daughter killed. The people must have been outraged.”

“All three warriors were hanged at the agency. Witnesses swore they'd seen one of them ride up to Bashful's tipi before she was shot. The others were found guilty of conspiracy.” Vicky paused. “They claimed they were innocent, and none of them had a lawyer.”

“Whew!” Adam shook his head and stood up. He refilled their mugs. “That's a lot of outrage,” he said, straddling the stool again.

Vicky sipped at the hot coffee a moment. “Bashful Woman was the wife of a white man, Carston Evans. Senator Evans's grandfather, the man who started the Evans Ranch. It's not what you think,” she hurried on, reading the conclusion in his eyes. “After Bashful was killed, Carston married a white woman from Nebraska. The senator doesn't have a drop of Arapaho blood in him. What I don't understand . . .” Vicky hesitated. “A chief's daughter could have had her pick of handsome warriors on the rez. Why would she marry a white man?”

Adam laughed. “I'd call that a no-brainer, Vicky. She wanted everything that went with being a white man's wife. He was a rancher. He knew how to raise cattle and grow crops. He knew how the markets worked, things that Indian men were just learning. A white man had rights and freedom. He could move about, do what he wanted, live anywhere. He didn't have to worry about signs that read,
NO INDIANS ALLOWED
. He didn't have to ask the agent for permission to leave the reservation to visit relatives somewhere else. Wherever the white man went, his wife could go.”

“She was still Indian,” Vicky said.

“And he was a squaw man. But if he knew how to make money, white people might've swallowed hard, but they would've accepted him no matter who his wife was.” Adam focused on his coffee a couple of moments before he said, “The real question is, why did Carston Evans marry an Arapaho woman?”

“How about, she was beautiful?”

“No beautiful white women around?”

“She came from a respected family.”

Adam got up and walked back across the kitchen. He set both hands on the counter and stared at the empty egg carton and the bowl with a yellow line of raw egg hardening on the side. A small blue vein pulsed in his temple. Finally he brought his eyes back to hers. “How did Evans get his ranch?”

“Probably purchased it from the government,” Vicky said. She felt her own muscles tense. “A lot of local ranchers purchased reservation lands after the Dawes Act allotted lands to Indians and allowed the federal government to buy the excess lands and sell them to outsiders. We lost a million and a half acres from the reservation at that time.”

“Forget the Dawes Act.” Adam walked back and leaned toward her again. “The Burke Act of 1906 modified the Dawes Act. Indians deemed competent by the federal government were allowed to own their allotments in fee simple. If they'd gone to school and could read and write, the government considered them competent. They could buy and sell land like white people. They could inherit land and pass it on to their heirs.”

Vicky stood up. She felt as if an invisible horror had invaded the space between them. “You're suggesting that Carston Evans married an Arapaho woman for her land?”

“A chief's daughter probably went to school. She was literate. Most likely she had her own allotment, and her father might have given her some land.”

“My God, Adam, what are you saying? That Evans hired the three men to kill his wife?”

Adam shook his head. “You said they claimed they were innocent, and they didn't have a lawyer. Maybe they were innocent . . .”

“And Evans shot his own wife,” Vicky heard herself saying.

“What do you think went on in the West after the Burke Act was passed? White men saw a way of getting ranch land without laying
out any money. All they had to do was court an Indian woman who'd been to school and convince her she'd have a better life married to a white man. It probably didn't take much convincing. Do you think Bashful was the only woman to fall for a white man's promises? There was an epidemic of Indian women who died mysteriously after marrying white men. An epidemic, Vicky. And what did the white authorities do? They believed whatever the white husbands said: ‘My wife fell off the porch. Fell off a horse. She was cleaning my gun when it went off.' And all those white husbands inherited the lands allotted their wives.”

“Carston Evans testified that he saw Thunder shoot his wife. The magistrate believed him.” Vicky felt cold and nauseated, the way she'd felt last night after seeing T.J.'s body. She crossed her arms and, hugging herself, turned into the living room and started pacing. Back and forth between the front door and the bar.

Look at the moon sideways.
Grandmother's voice was in her head.
You can sometimes see the face of a white man with bushy eyebrows and down-turned mouth.
She stopped and found Adam's eyes again. “My people have a legend,” she said. “In the time before the Old Time, a beautiful woman was sitting outside in the evening with her friends. She looked at the moon and said, ‘I wonder what it would be like to marry Moon?' Moon heard her. He looked down and told her to climb into the sky, so she started climbing a lodgepole pine. The pine grew taller as she climbed, until she was in the sky. She married Moon. Soon she grew sad and longed for her people, but Moon refused to let her return to earth. So one day, she dug a hole through the clouds, found the tree, and started to climb down. Moon saw her. He threw a large boulder through the hole and killed her.”

In the quiet that engulfed the apartment, Vicky could almost sense the past—their past, hers and Adam's—invading the space around them, as if it was always a part of the present but only revealed itself in brief moments. She closed her eyes a moment, the sense of Bashful
Woman's presence so real that it seemed she could reach out and touch her.

After a moment, Vicky walked back and sat down again across from Adam. “They had a child,” she said.

“What happened to the child?”

“God, maybe he killed the child, too.” Vicky had to look away from this new image flitting across her mind. “What if Curtis happened to take a picture of Evans shooting his wife? What would a photograph like that do to Senator Evans's presidential ambitions?”

A couple of seconds passed before Adam said, “It happened a long time ago, Vicky. The senator isn't responsible for anything his grandfather might have done. It might embarrass the senator if it became public, but he would apologize and say how much he hated his grandfather's actions. The publicity might even help him.”

“The senator has Arapaho land, Adam. He has oil and gas that should have stayed with the tribe.”

“We're speculating here, Vicky. We don't know if Bashful's land became the Evans Ranch. You said yourself that Carston Evans could have purchased the ranch.”

“Maybe,” Vicky said. “But now I know where to look for the truth.”