The Spider's Web (6 page)

“I meant, what’s going on with you?”

Annie sat back and clasped her hands in her lap. The screen had come alive, icons popping on the purplish background. “Robin’s back,” she said. “Out on parole. He was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday. Said we had to talk.”

Vicky glanced away for a moment. She had seen herself in Annie that day five years ago. On her own after she had divorced Ben Holden, two kids to support. She had left her kids, Susan and Lucas—so small then, little brown faces forever etched in her mind—with her parents and fled to Denver to go to school so that she could take care of them. Waitressing tables, sending home most of what she earned, pushing through college, then law school, seeing her kids for a day or two, a stolen week now and then.

And now Annie’s ex-husband was back, just like Ben Holden had tried to come back.

“Let me guess,” she said. “He still loves you. Wants another chance. Everything will be great.”

Annie put a fist against her mouth and stifled a sob. “Trouble is, I’d like to believe him. He’s the kids’ dad.”

“What about Roger?” Vicky said, tipping her head in the direction of the front bedroom that served as his office. Whatever was between the Arapaho secretary and the white lawyer, they had been discreet, and Vicky was grateful for that. The ups and downs of her own relationship with Adam had roiled the office enough.

“He doesn’t know.” Annie shivered and pulled her shoulders forward. “He had to stop by the county court to file some documents this morning. I’ve got to pull myself together before he comes in.”

“You don’t have to make any decisions right away,” Vicky said. She had never met Robin Bosey, but she could picture him: tall, handsome, charming and drunk, shouting, fists flailing. The image always blended with the image of Ben Holden. “Just because he wants to come back,” she said, “doesn’t mean you have to take him back.”

“I feel so guilty,” Annie said.

She got to her feet and set a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Don’t forget what it was like before,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you that things will be different.” She waited a moment before she said, “You’re okay now. You’re safe. Your kids are safe. Anytime you want to talk...”

Annie nodded. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and scooted her chair closer to the desk. “Mr. Morrison’ll be here any minute.”

Vicky went back into her own office and sat down at her desk. She planned to spend most of the morning revising the logging contract between the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes and the Martinson Corporation, and the black text filled her computer screen. She had just started working when the phone buzzed. She picked it up and told Annie to show in the new client. Then she exited the contract.

Larry Morrison stood six foot three and looked to be in his mid-forties—close to her own age, with a wide, pink face and curly gray hair that made him look like an overgrown, mischievous boy. He advanced on her desk and extended his hand. A diamond set in a wide gold band glimmered on his finger. Vicky stood up and shook hands. Her hand felt thin and fragile in his grip.

“How can I help you?” She motioned him to the side chair and waited until he had sat down before she resumed her own seat.

“I’m here about my girl,” he said. “Looks like she might’ve gone and gotten herself mixed up in a mess, and I want her protected.” He turned his attention for a moment to creasing the pressed seams of his khaki slacks between his thumbs and index fingers. “You know who I am?”

Vicky studied the man a moment: the dark eyes set far apart, the fine nose that was like a woman’s. Something familiar about him. A celebrity of some kind, perhaps. An actor or entertainer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“You ever heard of the Glory and Success Ministries? Reverend Morrison, founder and pastor. We reach twenty million souls every week from the palace cathedral in Tulsa with the good news that the wealth of the earth belongs to the poorest of the poor. All you gotta do is trust in the Lord and work hard, put your shoulder to the plow like the Bible says, and allow the wealth to come your way. It would appear you haven’t tuned in to the Glory and Success Sunday services.” He waved a hand between them. “Neither here nor there. What I want is a top-notch local lawyer to look after my little girl’s interests. I’d stay right here myself and make sure nothing happens to her if I didn’t have the work of the Lord to do. But I believe the Lord puts helpers in our path, and it’s our job to recognize them. From what I hear around town, anybody need a lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the reservation would be a fool not to hire you.”

“Who is the girl?” Vicky said.

“My only kid, Marcy.” Morrison widened his eyes and stared at a point beyond her shoulder a moment. “Got in the middle of a nasty situation last night. Indian boyfriend she took up with got shot on the rez. Marcy seen it happen. Couple other Indians had it in for the guy. Knocked her around a bit, but she’s okay. In shock, what you might expect. Hospital’s gonna release her today.”

“What do you expect from me?” Vicky said.

Morrison leaned forward and fixed her with a look that, she guessed, he used on the television cameras. “You kidding me? White girl on an Indian reservation in the middle of a murder? She’s gonna need legal protection, make sure none of them hotshot Indian policemen get the idea she had anything to do with it.”

Vicky lifted one hand. “The FBI will be in charge of the investigation.”

“FBI. Police.” Morrison shrugged. “All the same. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I wasn’t always walking around in fancy duds,” he said. “Before the Lord called me to his saving prosperity, I was a police officer for a few years down in Oklahoma. I know how things work. There’s an outsider on the premises, little girl too pretty for her own good, and some hotshot investigator gets the idea she had a part in her boyfriend getting shot. Easy to pin the homicide on her. Case closed.”

“Better start at the beginning,” Vicky said. Last night’s murder was probably on the moccasin telegraph, and Annie usually had the news by morning. But if Annie had heard anything, she had been too distracted by her own problems to mention it. “Who was murdered? Where did it happen? Where was your daughter?”

“Who was murdered? Some Indian, name of Ned Windsong. They was staying at his house in a place called Arapahoe.” He lifted the diamond-ring hand again. “Not that I approve of such goings-on, as a minister of the Holy Gospel, but human flesh is weak, and sometimes we gotta make allowances. They was gonna get married. Had a place all picked out on the rez for the ceremony, even though I said to Marcy, ‘Honey, you got the whole palace cathedral, if you want it. I’ll throw you the gosh-darnedest shindig the television congregation ever seen. Show ’em what the prosperity of the Lord can do.” But she told me her fiancé didn’t like showy stuff. They were gonna get married by the Wind River.” He rolled his shoulders as if he were working out a kink in his neck. “Neither here nor there,” he said. “Poor guy’s dead.”

“What happened at the house?”

“Like I said, two guys come in, knocked her outta the way and shot the boyfriend.”

“What about the weapon?”

“Used a gun, of course.”

“I mean, was any weapon found at the house?”

“Nah. Nah.” Morrison gave his head a quick shake. “Most likely took it with ’em.”

Vicky waited a moment before she said, “What kind if evidence would implicate your daughter?”

“Evidence!” He spit out the word. “That’s the point. There’s no evidence. All that leaves is a lot of conjecture and theories running around in the investigator’s head. Sooner or later, he’s gonna come up with the idea that Marcy could’ve planned the whole thing and arranged for them Indians to come to the house to kill her fiancé. Like I said, he’ll start leaning on her, pushing her to incriminate herself. A girl like Marcy! I always protected her, ever since her mother took off.”

He glanced sideways, as if he were looking for a different road to go down. Then he drew in a long breath that expanded the chest of his blue shirt, reconciled to the fact he had already started down one road and might as well continue. “Not that I’m laying any blame on my ex-wife for what she did. We was poor as church mice back then. I was starting my ministry on one side of the carport, and the truck was parked on the other. Never had more than fifteen people come by on Sunday mornings, but they give what they could. Dropped quarters and dimes on the collection plate. And you know what? They took the message to heart and began to see their lives change for the better. Pretty soon we was out of the carport and meeting in a parking lot, and the congregation just got bigger and bigger. I told ’em we’re gonna be meeting in the biggest, most beautiful cathedral in the whole world, and they believed. Only Janet, my wife, she quit believing. And one day she up and left. I never seen her since. Never heard of a woman of the Lord that could leave her kid, did you?” He hurried on. “I forgive her seven times seventy, like the Bible says. The Lord sent me LuAnn, my wife for eight years now, and she and I did our best by Marcy. I want you to see that her rights get protected in this. I don’t want her implicated in a murder she didn’t have anything to do with. You gonna help us out?”

Vicky sat back. She had handled cases like this in the past, before the firm had hired Roger Hurst to handle what Adam called “the little cases” so that she and Adam could concentrate on protecting the rights of Indian tribes to the oil, gas, water, timber, and minerals on Indian lands, the important cases. She could hear Adam’s voice in her head: Let Roger handle it. But this was the reason she had gone to law school in the first place—out of some naïve belief, she supposed now, that she could protect the rights of innocent people, make certain the force of the justice system didn’t sweep away somebody who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had wanted to help her people on the Wind River Reservation. But here was a white man asking her to help a white girl on the reservation.

“Where can I find Marcy?” Vicky said, getting to her feet.

Morrison stood up and held out both arms, as if he could embrace her across the desk. “FBI agent wants her hanging around for a while,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides. “She can identify the killers. I’m gonna move her into the mission for a few days. You know the priest, Father O’Malley? You think she’ll be safe there?”

“I know Father O’Malley,” she said. Of course John O’Malley would be in the midst of this. He always knew what was going on with her people, usually before she did. They had worked on dozens of cases together, the white priest and the Arapaho lawyer. “He’ll do everything he can to keep your daughter safe,” she said. “But you should understand she’s in a dangerous situation until her fiancé’s killers are arrested. She is under no obligation to stay here. She could return home with you.”

“No. No.” Morrison lifted one hand. “Better Marcy stays out of the media glare. Soon’s she IDs their photos, those two jokers are gonna be behind bars. I just want you to make sure nobody puts her there with ’em.”

“MY HEART IS falling down to the ground.” Donald Little Robe’s voice was raspy with sorrow. He was in his eighties, a wiry, work-hardened frame folded into the corner of the sofa. He had white hair caught in braids that flowed down the front of his red shirt and a face crosshatched with wrinkles. Blue shadows circled his narrow, black eyes. “Ned was a good boy,” he said. “He was walking straight.”

“I know you’ll miss him.” Father John sat on the edge of a chair across from the old man. The July sun poured past the white curtains, splashing the linoleum floor and shining on the surface of the lamp table. He had driven to Ethete this morning—the clarinet glissando of
Salome
blaring from the CD player beside him—to see the old man who had been preparing Ned for the Sun Dance, knowing that in the hour and a half in which he had managed to catch a little sleep, shower, and down a couple cups of coffee, Donald Little Robe would have heard the news on the moccasin telegraph.

“First time he came to see me,” Donald said, the black eyes blurred in memory, “I listened with one ear. I knew the boy since he was small as a grasshopper. Seen him go straight and seen him go crooked, so I waited to see how he was going now. I didn’t say anything. Next day he came back. Sat right there where you’re sitting.” He tipped his head forward. “Said he wanted to start over, leave the past behind. I didn’t say anything, and he went away. Third day, he was back. Said it was his last chance. He was falling down crying, asking for help. He wanted to go into the Sun Dance. I spoke to him then, ’cause I knew he was in earnest. I said, ‘My boy, the other dancers have been preparing for most the year. You have little more than a month. It will take all your time. You must work hard. You’ll have to learn the prayers and rituals and understand what they mean to our people. You have to dance for three days. No food. Nothing to drink. You have to get your body and spirit ready.’ ‘I’m ready to leave the trouble behind, Grandfather,’ he said. So I started teaching him three weeks ago. Now he’s dead.”

The old man blinked in rapid succession, as if he wanted to refocus. “Looks like the trouble came and found him. Couple Indians shot him, I heard.” He leaned forward, stiff-backed, the gray head tilted to the side, and for an instant Father John saw the image of the white truck careening across the mission grounds, out over the baseball diamond, the rock with the message flying out the window. “Boy like Ned had a lot to give the people,” Donald said. “What do them killers have? Nothing but destruction.”

“Did Ned say what the trouble was?”

The old man dropped his eyes to the gnarled hands clasped in his lap. After a moment, he lifted his chin and fixed Father John with the steady look that reminded him of the look an elderly Jesuit professor used to shoot straight into the core of him. “Folks talk to you in the confessional,” he said. “They’re looking for forgiveness. It’s between you and the sinner and God, ain’t that right?” His smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. “Trouble is, the authorities could walk away from this,” he said. “Push it off, like it’s not important. Indians killing Indians. Don’t let ’em do that, Father.”