The Ghost Walker (26 page)

“Father O’Malley,” he said. Then he explained he was a friend of Marcus Deppert’s.

“You got the wrong place.” The door started to shut.

“Let him in.” The male voice came from somewhere inside.

There was a moment with the door closed, with the muffled sound of a chain rattling. Then the door swung open. Beyond the girl stood Marcus Deppert.

29

F
ather John stepped into the room. There was a loud thud as the girl slammed the door. A lopsided lamp next to the sofa cast a dim light over the cushions, the wood block table, the dark upholstered chair, and brown vinyl floor. The odors of stale food and perspiration—the smell of fear—floated toward him.

Marcus looked as if he’d just gotten out of the chair. He wore a wrinkled blue-and-white-striped shirt, the cuffs of which hung loose around his wrists, blue jeans with the silver image of a buffalo at the belt buckle, and cowboy boots with scraped toes. Father John felt like a parent; he didn’t know whether to hug the young man—he was so glad to find him alive—or throttle him for causing so much worry.

He’d already been throttled. The dark bruise along his jaw and across one cheek, the abrasions around his mouth, and the blood-red whites of his eyes were evidence of that. “Are you okay, Marcus?” Father John asked.

Confusion came over the Arapaho’s face a moment. Then he raised one hand and patted his jaw. “Some white sons-of-bitches worked me over. Messed up my face. Cracked a couple ribs. Nothin’ fatal. Lucky I was wasted.” He shrugged, and Father John sensed it wasn’t
the beating that kept Marcus prisoner in this cavelike bungalow.

“Meet Jennifer,” Marcus said as the girl sidled over and took his hand, lacing white fingers among the brown. She was almost as tall as Marcus—about six feet—and dressed in tight blue jeans and a black sweater that clung to the contours of her breasts. She was barefoot. Tossing back her long brown hair, she stared at Father John out of dark, scared eyes.

He said to Marcus, “Your grandparents have been worried.”

The young man looked away, shifting from one foot to the other. “I been tryin’ to figure a way to go see ’em, make sure they’re okay, but I couldn’t risk it. They’re lookin’ all over the rez for me.”

“Who? Tell me, Marcus. Maybe I can help you.”

“Nobody can help. I seen what they did to Rich. They’re gonna do the same to me.” There was a catch in the young man’s voice. He sank down into the chair, pulling the girl onto his lap. She curled her body along his.

Father John perched on the edge of the wood block table. “Start at the beginning,” he said.

Marcus kept his voice low, almost a whisper. Rich Dolby came to him with a deal. Just like Rich, always lookin’ to score. Last time Rich got one of his big ideas, Marcus went to Leavenworth for three years. He should’ve told Rich to get lost, but he got sucked in. Besides, he wasn’t up to any other kind of work ’cause of the fuckin’ broken ribs. So what the hell. All he had to do was drive brand-new Jeeps to Denver and back for some nice money.

Father John interrupted. “Who hired Rich?”

Marcus shook his head. “He got orders from two
white guys. Gary and Ty, he called ’em. I don’t know last names.”

Father John drew in his breath. Whatever trouble Marcus and Rich were in, Susan’s friends were involved up to their eyeballs.

Marcus went on. “They gave Rich a certified check, and we went over and picked up a couple new Jeeps at Big Phil’s. We drove ’em back to Rich’s house.”

Jennifer nodded to confirm this fact.

“A few days later, Rich comes over, says the Jeeps are ready, and we gotta go.” Marcus emitted a small, scared laugh. “I swear, Father, I thought maybe we was gonna drive some big shots to Denver or somethin’, but there was nobody but us. Soon’s we got to Denver, we went to some warehouse by the railroad tracks and parked inside. All of a sudden guys come from everywhere and start crawlin’ all over the Jeeps, pulling out packages. There was packages everyplace—under the carpet and dashboard, taped in the compartment with the spare tire—real neat and tidy-like. I was totally shocked.”

“You didn’t know you were delivering drugs?” Father John found that hard to believe, given Marcus’s history.

“I swear by my grandfather,” the young man said, a solemn look in his eyes. “I was mad as hell. I wanted to kill Rich myself for handin’ me a one-way trip back to Leavenworth. Then these guys at the warehouse throw in three big suitcases, make us sign for ’em, and we take off for the rez. We don’t stop for nothin’, not even gas, ’til we get to Cheyenne, and I say to Rich, What the hell’s goin’ on? Don’t worry, he says. It’s a real cushy deal. Gary and Ty produce the stuff, and all we gotta do is drive nice new Jeeps to Denver every week, and the boys in Denver ship the stuff around the country. Rich says Gary and Ty got the risk, but I figure, no way, we
got the risk. Police stop us, we got the stuff. I say I’m out, but Rich says, oh no, you’re in. ’Cause I’ve already made a delivery.”

Father John removed his cowboy hat and ran his hand through his hair, mentally filling in the blanks. Gary and Ty and Morrissey Porterfield, the man Vicky called “the professor,” were operating a drug lab somewhere on Wind River Reservation. But where? Not at the ranch house. There had been no sign of anything like that. That meant the lab could be anywhere in about four thousand square miles—in some abandoned barn, in an arroyo, a cave in the mountains. Without the lab there was no proof, only the story of a convicted felon.

“What kind of drug are they manufacturing?”

“Heroin,” Marcus said.

Father John blew into one fist a moment. That fit. It was probably heroin Susan was on. But heroin was a different matter from the kinds of drugs—the pot and amphetamines—that Marcus and Rich had been mixed up with in the past. Heroin was a big-ticket drug, controlled by outsiders, by powerful forces. Father John felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Who was Susan Holden involved with?

“Where are they processing it?”

Marcus was shaking his head. “Not processing. They’re making it. Leastways, it’s the same as heroin. Rich called it fentanyl. Users don’t know the difference. The beauty is, it’s cheaper to produce than heroin, but costs the same on the street. So the profits are way up there. ’Course, you gotta have a brain that knows how to make the stuff.”

“That would be the professor,” Father John said. The
pieces were clicking into place, like pool balls dropping into the pockets.

Marcus looked startled. “You know the professor?”

Father John ignored the question. “Where’s the lab, Marcus?”

The Arapaho let out a loud snort. “Like they’re gonna tell us? Me and Rich, we was flunkies. All we know was what they wanted us to know.”

That was probably true. Get two Indians with experience in peddling drugs to be the errand boys. “What happened after you got back from Denver?”

“We parked the Jeeps at Rich’s, and I got the hell out of there. A couple hours later, he comes to my place over in Easter Egg Village and hands me a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars for twenty-four hours’ work!”

“How many deliveries did you make?”

Marcus shifted in the chair, and Jennifer traced one finger along the side of his face. “Go on, tell him,” she said in the little-girl voice.

“One more. Last week. Same thing as before. We deliver the packages to the warehouse and load up some suitcases. Only when we stop for gas, Rich don’t shut up about those suitcases being filled with cash. Jesus, I told him. Keep it down. We’ll have every cowboy in Wyoming after us. I should’ve known he’d pull somethin’ stupid.”

Marcus glanced at the girl, then continued. “Like before, we take the Jeeps to Rich’s, and I go home to wait. Only this time Rich don’t come over. I’m thinkin’ he stiffed me. So I go lookin’ for him. I check out a couple parties, but he ain’t there. I go back to his house. Out in front are two pickups. Somethin’ about ’em made me kinda uneasy, so I parked my truck down the road a ways, and circled back along the creekbed. Soon’s I
snuck up to the back, I hear shoutin’ inside, and Rich, like, he’s cryin’. I slide open the kitchen window just enough so I can see straight into the living room.” Marcus blinked, as if he were seeing it still.

After a few seconds, he went on. “There were these two white guys. One’s got brown hair; the other’s kinda blond with this stubbly beard. They got Rich tied to a chair, and they’re hittin’ him. The blond guy, he says they’re gonna teach him what’s his and what ain’t. Rich is cryin’ hard. He’s got on that necklace he always wore, and the blond guy starts twisting it around his neck. When he let go, Rich is coughin’ like he’s dyin’. He tells ’em to go look on the closet shelf. The guy with brown hair goes into the bedroom and comes back with a box. ‘Half of it’s here,’ he says. The blond guy yells at Rich, ‘You motherfucker!’”

Marcus stopped talking and stared off into space, as if he were watching a movie. “Rich yells out, ‘Marcus got the rest!’ and that’s when hell really breaks loose. The blond guy grabs a star quilt off the sofa—Rich’s mom made it for him—and throws it over Rich’s head. Then he pushes a pistol, against Rich’s head, like this.” Marcus bent his head toward Jennifer. “The other guy’s yellin’, ‘No, man. Don’t shoot him!’ Jesus, I knew what was comin’ down, but I was frozen stiff. I couldn’t do nothin’.” Marcus dropped his head into his hands, and the girl slipped both arms around him, hugging him close.

After a few seconds, Marcus looked up. “I got the hell outta there. I must’ve run down the creekbed a couple miles. Then I circled back and got in my truck. But no way was I goin’ home, ’cause they’d be waitin’. That bastard Rich told ’em I got the other half. He must’ve hid it somewhere, thinkin’ if they got half of it, they’d
come after me for the rest and leave him alone. So I drove over here. Next thing I hear, my old girlfriend’s been killed. Jesus! What’d she ever do to them? She didn’t know nothin’ about it.”

Father John could hear his own breathing, mingled with that of the couple scrunched together in the chair. Somewhere a faucet was dripping. His theory was almost right. The blond guy who had gone to Annie Chambeau’s was Gary. He’d been looking for Marcus, hoping Marcus would lead him to Rich. Somehow he had found Rich, killed him, dumped his body on Rendezvous Road, and then retrieved it. And he was still looking for Marcus.

“What kind of pickups were in Rich’s driveway?” Father John asked.

“What?” Marcus blinked. “Just pickups. I don’t remember.”

“Think, Marcus. It’s important.”

“You said one was gray, right?” Jennifer said softly.

“Yeah, a gray Chevy.”

“The other?”

“I guess it was a Dodge. Yeah. A green Dodge.”

Father John placed his palms together, as if in prayer. Dear Lord. Ty had been following him since Monday, ever since he’d gone to Easter Egg Village looking for Marcus. Ty must have been watching Marcus’s house. He must have decided to follow the red Toyota pickup, hoping that sooner or later whoever had come looking for Marcus would know where to find him. But why had Ty rammed the Toyota on Seventeen-Mile Road? Out of frustration? Or had that been an accident? Had he just gotten so close, he’d slid into the tailgate when Father John had slowed down?

The next time he had spotted the green truck, it had
stayed a good distance behind, as if the driver wanted to remain inconspicuous. Like tonight, when the truck rolled north past Herb’s Place. Had Ty backtracked, come through an alley, and parked where he could see the parking lot? Had Ty waited and followed him here? Was he outside now?

“We’ve got to call the police,” Father John said.

“I thought you was gonna help us,” Jennifer said, a whine in her voice. “And besides, I don’t exactly have a phone.”

“No way.” Marcus managed to liberate himself and was on his feet, leaving the girl propped in the chair alone, like a mannequin. “They’ll send me back to prison. I’d rather be dead.”

Father John stared at the young man a moment. Nothing was worse for an Arapaho than to be locked up, confined to a small space. It was like death. Being alive meant being free to walk the earth, breathe the fresh air, and feel the wind sweeping over you. “A lawyer might be able to get you some kind of deal,” he said finally.