The Spider's Web (24 page)

The girl came closer. Long tan legs above thick-soled white sneakers, blue shorts, and a white tee shirt, a tennis bag slung over one shoulder. She looked as if she had stepped out of an ad for healthy outdoor living, with a spray of freckles across her nose and sunglasses pushed back on her head. “Marcy hasn’t been around for a while,” she said, turning a thoughtful look toward the closed door. “I heard she moved to the reservation with her fiancé. Ned somebody. Maybe you know him. You from the rez?”

“Vicky Holden,” Vicky said. “I’m an attorney.”

“Attorney? Is Marcy in some kind of trouble? Wouldn’t surprise me, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” The girl shrugged. She looked as if she had stepped onto a conveyor belt and regretted it. “It’s not like we were friends. I saw her around the building. And the courts.”

“Marcy played tennis?”

The girl gave a sharp laugh. “I wouldn’t call it that! More like, she tried to play. That’s when she was engaged to Dave, so she hung around the tennis club all the time. She certainly didn’t impress him with her tennis.”

“She was engaged to someone named Dave?” Vicky said, fitting this new piece of information into place. This must be the boyfriend that Larry Morrison had mentioned.

“Dave Hudson. Coaches at the club.” She tossed her head in the direction of building three and beyond. “Maybe he’s seen Marcy around, but I sure haven’t.”

“I didn’t get your name,” Vicky said.

The girl shrugged. “Gail,” she said. “Like I said, Marcy and I weren’t exactly friends. Come to think of it, except for Dave, I don’t think she had any friends. Good luck.” The girl brushed past and ducked into the stairwell. The tennis shoes thudded on the steps.

Vicky waited a moment before she headed down the stairs. The sidewalks were clear; no sign of Gail anywhere. She had disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. Just past the third building, Vicky spotted the domed roof of a tennis club and the white flash of Gail’s tee shirt as she emerged out of the shadows into a column of sunshine, then disappeared past the door to the club.

Vicky hurried along the walkway, aware of the sense of peace that pervaded the complex, the slopes of the Grand Tetons rising like a jagged wall of boulders and pines, and the sky an endless blue sea. The quiet was broken by a chirping bird and the buzzing noise of sprinklers watering the nasturtiums and petunias along the front of the club.

Seated behind the counter just inside the door was a young man who looked about twenty-five, with bleached-looking blond hair, skin tanned the color of bronze, and a name tag that said Kip. He glanced up as Vicky approached, a quizzical look in his blue eyes. “Help you?” he said.

“I’m looking for Dave,” she said.

“Yeah?” Kip did a half turn toward the computer screen and tapped at the keys. “Looks like he’s got a private over at a client’s court.” He turned back. “Usually stops in to check messages before he knocks off for the day. Check back in about an hour.”

“I’ll do that.” Vicky pulled the small leather wallet out of her bag and handed her business card across the counter. “Tell him I’d like to talk to him for a few minutes.”

“You a lawyer?” Kip said. He held on to a corner of the card, as if it had just caught on fire.

Vicky said she would be back in an hour, then started for the door. She turned back. “Would you happen to know where Sloan’s Electric is located.”

“Three or four blocks off the square,” he said, still staring at the card. “Turn north when you get back to town. It’s on the corner. You can’t miss it.”

 

 

THE AREA WAS easy to locate, an assortment of warehouses and hardware stores clustered together, a few blocks from the boutiques and restaurants. She spotted the sign painted across the window on the corner shop and pulled into the parking lot. The bell jangled as she pushed open the front door into a small reception area with a polished wood floor that reflected the light from crystal chandeliers dangling overhead. An older woman, heavyset, with curly blue-white hair looked up from a small desk. “Welcome,” she said. She had a bright smile that took ten years from her age. “How can we help you?”

“Is the manager in?” Vicky walked over to the desk, conscious of her footsteps tapping the floor.

“Curly?” the woman said. “Who shall I say wants him?”

Vicky gave her name, fished out another business card and handed it to the woman who was half-standing now, gripping the edge of the desk. She studied the card a long moment, something between annoyance and fear moving through her expression, and Vicky looked away. It always surprised her, the way people reacted to the words printed on the card: Attorney-at-Law. Then the woman headed for the door on the side. She was no longer smiling. The door slammed behind her, and Vicky could hear the quick, smothered exchanges. Finally the door opened and the woman stepped out. “Go on in,” she said.

“Ms. Holden.” The man stood behind the desk, staring down at the card he held in one hand. He was probably in his mid-fifties, with broad shoulders and extra pounds around his middle. His hair had receded into a horseshoe that curled above his ears. “I’m the manager here. Curly Dobbs. Is there some problem?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Ned Windsong.” Vicky closed the door behind her. The office was small and cluttered with papers and file folders that spilled over the tops of filing cabinets and piled around the desk.

Curly Dobbs started shaking his head. He dropped with a soft thud into the chair behind him and began rolling it from side to side. “Poor guy,” he said, motioning for her to take a side chair. “Bad luck, I’d say. Run into a couple of crazies on the rez. Should’ve stayed here. He was doing great right here. They caught them guys yet?”

“Not yet,” Vicky said.

“The FBI agent, what’s his name . . .”

“Ted Gianelli.”

“I’ve already told him everything I know about Ned. It’s not much. He only worked here a couple months. So why are you here? Is there some kind of lawsuit? I did not fire him, if that’s what you think. I treat all employees the same. Indian, white, black, Hispanic. Don’t make no difference to me, long as they do a good job. Ned was a real good apprentice. No complaints about his work. He left of his own free will, and I was real sorry to see him go.”

“Mr. Dobbs,” Vicky said. “I represent Ned’s fiancée, Marcy Morrison. She witnessed the killing.”

He gave a little nod, as if the explanation should make sense. “So what brings you here?”

“Did anything happen that caused Ned to leave?” Vicky said, studying the man’s expression for any hint that he knew Ned was involved in a burglary ring.

“Came in one afternoon after work and said, time to head back to the rez. I said, What’re you talking about? You need more money? What? Some of the guys harassing you? But he just said it was time to go. Wanted to get back to the Arapaho Way, whatever that means. Said he was gonna go home and prepare for the Sun Dance. Surprised me, ’cause he was doing real good. He was one of my most reliable employees. Soon’s he left the office, I called his uncle—”

“His uncle?”

“Old army buddy of mine,” the man said. “Jerry Adams. You know him?” He hurried on. “Rode into Kuwait together, Jerry and me, slogging rifles, a hundred and twenty degrees, dusty as hell. It was Jerry that called me and said his nephew was looking for a new job. Did I have any openings? Well, I can always use a good apprentice, so I said send him on up. When I told Jerry his nephew up and quit on me, well, he was as surprised as I was. Said he didn’t have any business doing that and he was gonna talk to him. That was the last I heard, until, well ...” He spread his hands. “I seen in the paper that Ned Windsong got shot and the FBI was looking for two Indians.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” Vicky said, getting to her feet. Ned must have confided in his uncle, she was thinking. Told him that he wanted to get away from the reservation, and Jerry Adams had helped him out. Odd, though, that he hadn’t told his uncle when he decided to leave Jackson. In any case, Curly Dobbs didn’t seem to know about the burglary ring.

She had started for the door when the man said, “That girl came around here a couple times.”

Vicky turned back. “Marcy Morrison?”

“Never knew her name.” He shrugged. “Blonde and real pretty. High-strung, though. A little crazy, you ask me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Seen her out in the lot.” He crooked his thumb toward the rows of trucks outside the window. “Her and Ned got into a big row. She was shouting and screaming. I seen her take her bag and whack him a couple times. It was a real bad scene, and it happened more than once. I told Ned, keep his personal life away from work. I didn’t want her around. No telling what somebody like that is gonna do.”

“What did Ned say?”

“He’d take care of it.” The man gave another shrug. “Wasn’t long afterward he came in here and said he’s quitting.”

Vicky left the man standing behind the desk and walked back through the front office, ignoring the questions on the face of the blue-white-haired woman. The late afternoon sun was beating down hard. She hurried around the building and slid into the Jeep, imaging Marcy Morrison swinging her bag at Ned, shouting, crying. She had a breakdown, John O’Malley had said. The word reverberated in her head:
breakdown, breakdown.
Whatever had happened at the mission, it wasn’t the first time Marcy Morrison had lost control.

Vicky drove out of the lot and headed back up the hill toward Alpine Meadows and the tennis club. There were places in the girl, she realized, that she hadn’t seen.

“YEAH, DAVE IS here.” Kip gestured toward the hallway that ran into the back of the building. “Go on out to the courts. You’ll see his office on the left.”

Vicky followed the directions down the hallway and through the glass door onto a platform with rows of chairs that faced two courts. Several spectators occupied the chairs, intent on the balls thumping back and forth. Women’s doubles on one court, men’s singles on the other. Gasps went up, followed by low sucking sounds, as if the spectators were trying to get their collective breath. The air was dry and stale.

She walked behind the chairs and knocked on the door with Dave Hudson in black letters on the pebbled-glass window.

“Come on in.” The voice sounded muffled, low-pitched and a little on edge.

Vicky stepped into an airy room that overlooked the outdoor courts. Gail was playing singles, her white tee shirt, blue shorts, and long legs flashing on the court. Across the room was a desk with a large polished surface that looked unused, and next to the desk, a tall young man with muscle-knotted arms and short-cut brown hair was bent toward a metal machine, stringing a tennis racket.

“You the lawyer wants to see me?” He gave her the sideways grin of a man accustomed to holding a woman’s attention with minimum effort. “What can I do for you? Nobody’s suing me, I hope. No players upset because they didn’t make Wimbledon.” He gave a snort of laughter at the little joke.

“I represent your former fiancée, Marcy Morrison.”

Dave Hudson brought a handle down hard and swung around, leaving the tennis racket balancing on the machine. The joking mood had passed, and in its place was the hardness of steel. He had blue eyes, so pale they were almost white. “What’s her beef? Breach of promise or some weird thing like that?” He took a moment, staring straight ahead, as if a new idea had materialized across the room. “Jesus, don’t tell me she’s pregnant. What is this? A paternity thing?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Vicky said. She could sense the tension melting out of him. Still the hardness remained in the set of his jaw. “I’m trying to find her. I hoped you might have seen her recently, or heard from her.”

Dave dropped into the chair behind the desk and ran a hand over the top of his stubbly hair. “You telling me she’s back,” he said finally.

“I take it that means you haven’t heard from her.” Vicky perched on an upholstered bench pushed beneath the windows.

“I don’t want to hear from Marcy Morrison,” he said. “Ever. Is that clear? You’re her lawyer, you give her the message. Better yet, don’t mention my name and remind her. I can only hope she’s forgotten me. Out of sight, out of mind, you know what I mean? So if that’s why you came around, to see if I know where she is, the answer is, I don’t. And I don’t want to know. End of discussion.”

He started to get to his feet, and Vicky said, “Marcy could be in danger. She witnessed a murder.”

“Murder?” He flopped back into the chair. “She saw somebody get murdered?”

“Her fiancé, Ned Windsong. Maybe you knew him?”

“That Indian she took up with? He got murdered? And she says she saw it?” He lifted both hands as if he wanted to stop an oncoming truck. “You believe that?”

“The FBI believes her. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, let’s see.” He flattened both hands on top of the desk and leaned forward. “Maybe because she’s psycho and a pathological liar. She lives in Marcy world. You ever go there, you’ll get as crazy as she is.”

“But you were engaged to her,” Vicky said. In her mind was the blonde girl, pressed in the corner of the sofa at the mission guesthouse, huddled into herself with fear. “You must have seen some good in her.”

“Let’s get something real straight,” Dave said. “I don’t know what was going on in Marcy world, but in the real world, we were never engaged.” He pushed away from the desk, got to his feet, and started walking back and forth, elbows crooked, hands jammed against his waist. Finally he stopped and faced Vicky. “You want the truth? I met her in Denver. I was coaching at a club, and she came in for lessons. She was lousy at tennis, two left feet, stumbling all over the court, couldn’t connect with the ball. But I admit, she was pretty good-looking, so I bought her a drink and we went out a few times. That was it. The extent of my engagement, ’cause that was all it took to see that she was nuts. So I quit calling, and that’s when all hell broke loose.”