The Eagle Catcher (7 page)

At one end of the room was the glass-enclosed deputy's station. Vicky knew the two deputies, a man and a woman, their eyes glued on a couple of closed-circuit television monitors that scanned every inch of the jail, even the parking lot and the roof. Usually she'd stop and chat, get their views on whatever it was that was going on, but not this afternoon. She didn't want to hear any speculation that Anthony Castle might have murdered his uncle.

“Banner in the conference room?” Vicky called out as she walked past the station and down the hallway.

“You got it,” a man's voice called after her. She held her fist in midair and took a deep breath before giving the conference room door a quick rap. Then she turned the knob and walked in.

Banner was standing in front of the window on the far side of the narrow room, a large, dark silhouette against the brightness outdoors. The new FBI agent was seated at the oak table that divided the room in half. He was writing in a small notebook that lay flat, a spiral spine of metal running between the lined, half-filled pages. He didn't look up.

Banner wheeled around as she shut the door, and she realized he had seen her drive up. The air conditioning hummed overhead.

“You know Jeff Miller, Vicky?”

“We've met,” Vicky said, recalling a brief introduction last week at the Lander Rotary club. It was as if she and the police chief were discussing someone who was not there.

“You here as Castle's attorney or friend?” Miller asked without looking up from his notebook.

Vicky pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. Before she had decided whether to respond to this white man, Banner said, “Could be Anthony's gonna need both.”

Miller laid his pen on the table and ran his hand carefully, almost caressingly, over the top of the opened notebook. Leaning back in his chair, he leveled his gaze at Vicky, as if expecting her to provide him with new material to consign to the pages.

“We got a murdered tribal chairman and a lot of evidence against one suspect,” the FBI agent said. His voice was tinged with a Southwestern accent.

“What evidence?”

“Look, Vicky,” Banner said, “I don't like this any better than you do. Anthony's a hell of a kid, but that temper of his just might've gotten him into real trouble this time.”

“What evidence?” Vicky asked again. Any patience she had for the BIA chief was fading fast. Both Banner and this white FBI agent seemed to think they had everything figured out.

“Anthony and Harvey got into a hot argument last night out at the powwow grounds,” Banner said.

“So?”

“So Anthony could've come back in the middle of the night and finished the argument.” This from the agent.

“That's conjecture.” Vicky kept her eyes on the white man across from her, his face red-blotched and creased from too much sun. She could see the sunburned scalp in the part of his hair.

“He took off when we went out to the ranch to pick him up for questioning,” Miller said. “Ran out the back door like a coyote with its tail between its legs,” the agent went on. This was the first Vicky had heard about Anthony running, and the fed seemed to sense this. He was enjoying himself. “Left us no choice but to arrest him on suspicion of murder.”

“You had a warrant?”

“I imagine the magistrate's gonna oblige.”

“On what grounds? Running out the back door?”

“Resisting arrest.”

“You had informed Anthony he was under arrest?”

Banner gripped both sides of the table and leaned over the end. “No, Vicky. We just wanted to talk with him. We weren't fixing to arrest him.” The chief shot a glance at the agent.

“So Anthony could hardly have been resisting arrest,” Vicky said.

“Let's cut the crapola, counselor,” Miller said. He placed his elbows on the table, made a tent over the notebook with his arms, and rested his chin on his knuckles. “Nobody runs unless he's got something to hide.”

Vicky sensed the strength in the man, the determination. She forced herself to keep her eyes on his. “There is some explanation.”

“How you gonna explain this?” Miller hoisted a large brown briefcase from the floor and set it on the table between them. Opening the lid, he pulled out a plastic zip-lock bag which he pushed toward her. A hunting knife lay inside. Leaning over, she could make out the initials AC on the silver band at the base of the handle.

“Behold the murder weapon,” he said.

“Well, might be the murder weapon.” Banner glanced again at the agent. “We won't know for sure 'til we get some lab tests done.”

 

The entry compartment was the size of a small closet. Vicky felt wedged in between the BIA police chief she had known all her life and this white FBI agent who had suddenly appeared in these parts, like a strange prickly pear cactus. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. They were standing still, but she had the sense of plunging downward in an elevator, of anticipating the inevitable hard stop.

How many times had she stepped into this compartment and waited for the electronic buzzer to swing open the door ahead and admit her to the inner sanctum of the Fremont County jail? On many of those occasions, John O'Malley had stood beside her, a tall presence looming over her, and she thought now what a calm and reassuring presence it was. She wished he were here now.

The buzzer rippled through the compartment like an electrical charge, and they filed through the opened door onto the gray concrete floor of the cell block. Directly across a narrow hallway stood another glass-enclosed station with three deputies watching other television screens.

One stood up, disappeared a moment, then reappeared outside the station. “This way,” he said, leading them down the hallway between whitewashed cinderblock walls. He halted in front of a cream-colored meta! door and slid a key into the lock. Pushing the door ajar, he said, “Knock when you're ready.”

Anthony rushed toward them, and for a second Vicky feared he would make a break for the door. Instead he stopped abruptly, arms dangling at his sides, like a little kid who didn't know what to do next. She put both arms around him and hugged him. He was taller than Lucas and more muscular. It had been more than a year since she'd seen either Lucas or her daughter, Susan.

Swallowing back the tears, she said, “It's going to be okay, Anthony. Just tell Chief Banner and Agent Miller what you know.”

“Have a seat,” Miller said. Swinging the briefcase he had brought from the conference room, he directed Anthony to the end of the oak table. The table covered most of the floor space in the narrow room. Miller and Banner settled in side by side while Vicky took a chair across from them. The agent plopped the briefcase onto the polished tabletop.

“I have the duty to remind you that you are a suspect in the murder of your uncle, Harvey Castle,” the fed began.

“That's bull,” Anthony said.

“Where were you last night after midnight?”

Anthony clasped his hands together and laid them on the table in front of him. Vicky saw the raw stubbornness and barely contained rage in the young man's eyes. It wouldn't have surprised her had he blurted out that it was none of their business.

“Just answer him,” she said.

“I spent the night with a friend.” Anthony's lips hardly moved.

Miller had pulled the little spiral notebook out of his inside jacket pocket and flattened it on top of the table. He was already busy filling in the first couple of lines on one page. “Name?” He didn't look up.

“I left the powwow about eight o'clock and didn't go back. So it doesn't matter who my friend is.”

Miller glanced up sideways, locking eyes with the young Arapaho at the end of the table. “Not good enough. I need a name,” he said. Anthony didn't flinch.

Vicky saw it all in a second's flash, as if a moving picture had fast-forwarded in front of her. Anthony had spent the night with a girlfriend, and the girlfriend was someone he wanted to protect. That meant she was from around here, and, more than likely, she was white. If Anthony didn't want to divulge her name, no power on the face of the earth was going to make him do so even if he had to sit out the rest of his life in Leavenworth for a murder he didn't commit. Vicky felt the muscles tightening in her throat.

“You've got your answer,” she said to the agent. “My client has an alibi. He was with a friend at the time of his uncle's murder. Should you come up with any real evidence against him, backed up by scientific tests, which is doubtful in the extreme since he's innocent, we will supply the name.”

She shifted in her chair toward Anthony and shot him a look meant to warn him against blurting out “the hell we will.”

Miller bent over his notebook. “Refused to answer,” he said, pen scratching the paper.

Banner leaned forward. “You and Harvey get into some kind of fight last night?”

“No fight. Argument.”

“What kind of argument?”

“What kind?”

“Yeah. What was it about?” the chief persisted.

Anthony drew in a long breath, as if to pull in a string of thoughts. “About how, for no good reason, he changed his mind about buying the Cooley ranch, about how some oil company will probably buy the ranch now, and Arapahos will never get back what used to be ours. That's what it was about.”

“You expect us to swallow some bull story that you and your uncle got into a violent argument over some land deal?” Miller had stopped writing, but kept his pen poised over the next empty line.

“That's your characterization,” Vicky said, laying her forearms on the table. She felt more relaxed, more in control now that she knew Anthony had an alibi. “There's no evidence the argument was violent.”

“You want violent arguments? Why don't you talk to Ernest Oldman?” Anthony's words came like a blast from a shotgun.

“What are you talking about?” Banner asked.

Anthony shrugged. “Ernest got into a lot of arguments with Harvey this summer. They were all violent. Last week he came out to the ranch drunker'n a skunk. Stood out at the gate and shouted his head off 'til Harvey went out. I went out, too, case Harvey needed help. You never know about drunks.” He shot a glance at Vicky, took a deep breath, then went on. “He was shouting something about his per capita being cut way back and Harvey not taking care of it. Like it was Harvey's responsibility.”

Vicky pushed back against the hard wooden slats in the chair. She'd heard that several wells on the reservation had stopped pumping this summer. Ernest wasn't the only Arapaho to wake up one morning and feel the effects of even a few oil pumps standing mute as dead trees. When the oil companies decided to shut wells down, there wasn't much the business council could do. That didn't mean somebody like Ernest, who depended on the $200 or $300 per capita payment coming to his family every month, wouldn't be furious at the chairman of the council.

“Ernest hates Harvey,” Anthony went on. “He might've gotten drunk and decided to do something real stupid, stupider than usual. Why aren't you questioning him? Why isn't he in this ...”Anthony clenched his jaws. “Why isn't he in jail?”

Banner drew in a long breath and turned sideways, looking straight at the FBI agent's profile. “He's right about Ernest feuding with Harvey. Goes back to when Ernest fell out with his grandfather, Will Standing Bear. Will was real disappointed Ernest couldn't get his act together, with all his drinking. So he started taking an interest in Harvey. Harvey was his Sun Dance grandson, you know.” Banner looked as if he was about to launch into an explanation of how the elder had become Harvey's grandfather in the Sun Dance years ago and how that created a spiritual bond, which lasted a lifetime, but thought better of it. “Will helped Harvey get elected to the business council. Ernest's been jealous of Harvey ever since,” he said.

Vicky had forgotten about the falling out between Will and Ernest. It had happened at least ten years ago, about the time she had left the reservation to go back to school. The elders had enormous influence on who got elected to the business council. If things had been different, it might have been Ernest sitting on the council instead of Harvey.

“Do you really think Ernest could have ...” Vicky stopped. It was hard to imagine someone she'd grown up with as a murderer.

“We're asking the questions here, counselor.” Miller didn't look up, and his pen hadn't slowed down.

“That's what I was gonna find out,” Anthony said, ignoring the agent.

“So that's why you ran out the back door? So you could talk to Ernest?” Banner looked as if he had just slapped the last piece of the puzzle in place.

“I was afraid you'd jump to conclusions and think I murdered Harvey. You'd throw me in jail, then you could go home, pop a few beers and watch the Red Sox while Ernest roams around free as a deer. Just what's happened.” Anthony's words were crisp with sarcasm.

As if he hadn't heard, Miller opened the briefcase and pulled out the zip-lock bag. He pushed the bag down the table toward Anthony. “This look like Ernest Oldman's knife?”

“That's my knife,” Anthony said. “Harvey gave it to me on my fourteenth birthday. He had my initials engraved on it.”

“The lab will confirm that this knife was used to kill Harvey Castle,” Miller said confidently. He placed the bag back in the briefcase and snapped the lid shut.

“I haven't seen my hunting knife since July fourth,” Anthony said.

“You lost it?” Banner asked, hope tracing his face.