Buffalo Bill's Dead Now (A Wind River Mystery) Read online

  BUFFALO BILL’S

  DEAD NOW

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Coel

  Catherine McLeod Mysteries

  BLOOD MEMORY

  THE PERFECT SUSPECT

  Wind River Mysteries

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  THE GHOST WALKER

  THE DREAM STALKER

  THE STORY TELLER

  THE LOST BIRD

  THE SPIRIT WOMAN

  THE THUNDER KEEPER

  THE SHADOW DANCER

  KILLING RAVEN

  WIFE OF MOON

  EYE OF THE WOLF

  THE DROWNING MAN

  THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR

  THE SILENT SPIRIT

  THE SPIDER’S WEB

  BUFFALO BILL’S DEAD NOW

  BUFFALO BILL’S

  DEAD NOW

  MARGARET COEL

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over

  and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Margaret Coel.

  Cover illustration by Tony Greco & Associates Inc.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

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  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  FIRST EDITION: September 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Coel, Margaret 1937–

  Buffalo Bill’s dead now / Margaret Coel.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58144-5

  1. Arapaho Indians—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.O347B84 2012

  813’.54—dc23 2012014769

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Luther Wilson who, as director of the University of Oklahoma Press, took an enormous chance on an unknown writer by publishing my first book, Chief Left Hand; and who, as director of the University Press of Colorado, published in hardback my first attempt at fiction, The Eagle Catcher. Which made all the rest of it possible.

  I circle around

  I circle around

  The boundaries of the Earth—

  Wearing the long wing feathers as I fly.

  Wearing the long wing feathers as I fly.

  As I fly.

  —Arapaho song from the 1890s

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE

  “I HEAR YOU’RE calling yourself Trevor these days.” The big man with bushy, steel gray hair and big hands with stubby fingers folded himself into the booth across from Trevor Pratt. A skinny guy, Hispanic, black hair slicked back from a horselike face, took the edge of the bench. The skinny guy looked familiar. Trevor bit off a chunk of hamburger and took his time washing it down with beer. Music had started thumping from the speakers tacked up on the walls of the Empire Lounge and two or three couples sauntered out onto the dance floor and began gyrating. Lights from traffic on Federal Boulevard flashed in the pane glass window alongside the booth.

  Trevor set the beer bottle on the table, leaned back, and stared at the big man. Hol Chambers hadn’t changed much in the last dozen years. A little paunch, a few extra pounds, the vein-traced nose and leathery look of a drinker, but not the kind of change that mattered, that went to the heart of things, not a change in character. Trevor could see it in the man’s eyes.

  “Do I know your friend?”

  “Raphael here? Raphael Luna. We partnered up a few times since you took that trip to jail. Tried to catch up with you that one time in Colorado.”

  “How’d you find me here?”

  The big man emitted a laugh that sounded like a truck motor starting up. “Come on, Trevor. You know the network keeps track of business associates. Let’s just say you were spotted at an auction, going by the name of Pratt. I started following your success.” He shook his head, as if he had thought of a tragedy that might have been avoided. “Nothing compared to what might’ve been yours.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Thought it was time to pay you a little visit. For old times’ sake. Cowboy at the ranch said you were dining out at the Empire Lounge.” Hol shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the skinny guy beside him. “Figured we’d join you. Have a little chat.”

  “Nothing to chat about.” Trevor pushed his plate into the middle of the table, swallowed the last of the beer and signaled the waitress for the check. The lounge was stuffy. Cigarette smoke swirled about the rafters and odors of burned tobacco, beer, and fried potatoes clogged the air. He felt old suddenly, and weary, as if the weight of the past had crashed onto his shoulders. He would never escape the past. He had come so far, built a new, legitimate life. The Bar Z Ranch, a couple hundred head of cattle, three cowboys on the payroll, pastures and meadows that wound into the foothills of the Wind River range. A house filled with museum-quality parfleches, pipes, bows and arrows, beaded moccasins, vests, tanned deerskin ceremonial dresses. He had never lost the passion for Indian artifacts, w
ith their mystical connection to the past. Each item belonged to him, and he had the sales receipts and other documents to prove their provenance. That was the biggest change from the past. He was a dealer now, collector and dealer. He bought American Indian artifacts from around the world—the quantity of artifacts in Japan, the Middle East, and Europe never ceased to amaze him. He never shipped a package to a foreign address without a dull sense of regret that the artifacts were leaving the place where they belonged. And yet, all of it tenuous, hanging by a thin thread. Mortgages on the ranch and stock that he scrambled to meet every month. He’d even borrowed to purchase artifacts, but the market had slowed. Museums and wealthy collectors were holding onto their money.

  “We have a chance to do some real business,” Hol said. The waitress slid a check onto the table, and he told her to bring three more beers. “Arapaho artifacts from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Due to arrive in Riverton any day now, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. Raphael here sent me the newspaper article. Had Trevor Pratt written all over it. Raphael thought I might be interested in how you bought the collection in Berlin and was donating it to a third-rate museum at an Indian mission. I was interested, all right. I got a client nuts about Buffalo Bill stuff. Original Indian artifacts from the Wild West Show—you know how rare they are? Museums have grabbed most of it. Hasn’t been a collection on the market like this in years.” He gave a quick nod. “My client will write a check that’ll put us both out of the game. No more hustling, looking for the big score. You can retire on your ranch, buy all the artifacts you want.”

  “I’m not in the game,” Trevor said. “I paid my dues.” He set some bills on top of the check and started sliding across the booth.

  “Hold on,” Hol said. “You can’t be serious! Donating a collection like that to a museum at some Indian mission nobody ever heard of? That’s not the Tom Plink I used to know. Tom would never let a score like that get away.”

  Trevor reached the end of the bench and stopped. “It’s Trevor Pratt,” he said. “The artifacts are going home where they belong.”

  “You said you could talk to him,” Raphael said.

  “Shut up.” Hol spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ll tell you where the collection belongs. Real nice house, lots of windows, three, four stories, high up in the Spring Mountains, lights of Vegas in the distance, and the whole place a museum filled with stuff to knock you cold. Like I said, the client is nuts over Buffalo Bill and the Show Indians. He’ll pay any price. He wants the Arapaho collection.” He leaned back and waited while the waitress delivered three glasses of beer. Then he took a long drink, set the glass down and said, “You’re the new owner. You can make the collection go wherever you say.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “Finder’s fee, thirty percent of what the client pays. Don’t be a fool. Tom Plink would jump at this.”

  “Tom Plink has debts to pay.” Trevor started to his feet, then sank back. The idea of a windfall shook him to his core, enough to pay off the mortgages, hold on until the collectors and museums wanted to buy again. A last score. He felt a ripple of excitement slice through him.

  “You think you can give back what you stole fifteen, twenty years ago?” Hol said. “The artifacts we dealt with are gone. In the houses of collectors that appreciate them. You can’t bring them back to the tribes.”

  “I can bring back some things.”

  Raphael let out a giggle and Hol told him to stifle it. The music throbbed and thumped. The dance floor was full—a swaying motion of blue jeans, boots, and flowing skirts. A cowboy spun a girl who lurched sideways toward the booth. Trevor reached out to steady her, but the girl righted herself and headed back to the dance floor, hugging herself, giggling.

  “You haven’t changed,” Hol said. The words, low and distinct, sliced through the beat of the music. “Always the gentleman. What happened between you and Kim?”

  Trevor leaned over the table and brought his face close to the man. “You bastard! You should have gone to jail with me.”

  “You, being a gentleman, didn’t snitch on your friends. Good man. In case you want to know…” He took a long drink of beer. “Kim didn’t stick around. Evidently I wasn’t her type. Heard she got married. Somewhere in California. New name, new life, just like you. Water over the dam. I seen you had yourself a new gal in Colorado.”

  “This chat is over.” Trevor got to his feet.

  “Hold on.” Hol stood up beside him and moved in close, as if the conversation were just beginning. “All we need is information, and we’ll take it from there. I’ll see that you get your cut. Nothing will be traced to you. You can collect a million dollars in insurance.” He paused, but Trevor didn’t say anything. “I guessed right then.” Hol broke into a grin. “The collection is worth a million easy, even though an old horse trader like you paid the dealer—what? Half million?” He put up the palm of his hand before Trevor could say anything. “Don’t forget, we’re in the same business. Maybe on different sides, but the same. We saw in the newspapers how the Arapaho collection turned up in Berlin after a hundred and twenty years. Some dealer bought the whole collection from a developer that found it in the basement of a building he was about to bulldoze. We would’ve paid the dealer a couple hundred grand more than what you paid, but the fool had already signed a contract with you.”

  “I paid what he asked,” Trevor said. He was thinking that he had paid all he could borrow by mortgaging the rest of his own collection. “The artifacts are going back to the Arapahos.”

  “Oh, yeah. Still full of high-minded ideals.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to help you steal Arapaho artifacts,” Trevor said, but Hol wasn’t listening. He was going on about a win-win proposition, how the artifacts would be preserved in a climate-controlled environment, enjoyed by generations of well-heeled and appreciative owners. Who knew how the artifacts might be preserved in a two-bit museum? He was only thinking of the artifacts, what was best for them. Hol Chambers could have been a politician.

  Now Hol was talking about a time schedule, and Trevor tried to concentrate on the man’s words. “All I need from you is shipping information. Flight numbers, schedule for when the artifacts leave Berlin and reach Denver. Flight number from Denver to Riverton and arrival time. You got all that information. All you gotta do is arrange to store the artifacts in an airport warehouse overnight, before they can be trucked out to the mission. That’ll give us our chance.”

  Trevor could feel the stiff smile cracking his face. Simple. In return for the schedule in his desk drawer and a telephone call with instructions to house the artifacts in a warehouse for a few hours, he could collect a million dollars in insurance money, another two thirds of a mil from Hol, and the ranch would be free and clear, his own collection secure. It surprised him, the way temptation could rise up like an old, familiar hunger and start to gnaw at his insides, take him over, push him off balance.

  “Get outta my face.” Trevor could feel his fists clenching, the nails biting into his palms. “If anything happens to the artifacts, I’ll…”

  “You’ll do nothing,” Hol said. Raphael was also on his feet. Both men leaned in close. “We’ll swear you were in on it. You gave us the information.”

  Trevor slammed a fist into Hol’s jaw, then dodged Raphael’s fist and caught the man in the throat with his elbow. The music was still pounding, but the swaying on the dance floor had stopped, and out of the corner of his eye, Trevor saw three cowboys heading for the booth. Raphael bent over, coughing and sputtering. Hol had collapsed into the booth. Trevor could feel the man’s eyes fixed on him like laser beams.

  “You’re a dead man.” Hol mouthed the words.

  “Little business taken care of,” Trevor told the cowboys as he shouldered past. The waitress was huddled across the lounge, but she jumped forward and pushed the door open for him. He strode out into the chilly Wyoming autumn.

  1

  THE PICKU
P RUMBLING past the administration building sent a tremor through the old walls. Father John O’Malley set his pen down and pushed the notes he’d been making into a neat stack. Topics for next month’s sermons, ideas for the men’s club he’d started this fall, agenda for the social committee meeting this week. Five parishioners in the hospital, six new mothers who needed help with diapers, blankets, and baby food, a dozen elders who might run short of food this winter. Plus notes he’d written on the budget, never his strong point. What was it the provincial said? He ran St. Francis Mission on a hope and a prayer? Some truth in it. His business plan was to make lists of what the mission needed and pray for miracles. The donations always arrived, checks for five, ten, even a hundred dollars from people he had never heard of. Help the Arapahos on the reservation the scribbled notes said.

  He hurried outside and down the concrete steps. The black pickup slowed in front of the Arapaho Museum at the far curve of Circle Drive. He broke into a jog along the drive, past the turnoff to Eagle Hall and the guest house, past the white stucco church decorated in the blue, red, and yellow geometric symbols of the Arapaho people. It was the third Tuesday in September, the Moon of the Drying Grass, as Arapahos kept time, and the sun was hot, the sky crystal blue. Gravel crunched under his boots and wild grasses in the center of the drive swayed in the wind. He liked autumn best, the trees and brush, the earth itself, engulfed in flames of red, orange, and gold.

  St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation had been home for almost ten years. Still a surprise, when he thought about it. A Boston Irishman, a Jesuit priest on the fast track to an academic career teaching American history at Boston College or Marquette University, at home in the middle of Wyoming on an Indian reservation with a Plains Indian tribe he had only read about in the footnotes of history texts. One day he would be assigned somewhere else, but he was here today.

  The driver’s door swung open just as he reached the pickup in front of the old gray stone building, the mission school once. The school had closed decades ago, with not enough Jesuits or money to keep it going. A few years ago he had turned the building into a museum of Arapaho history and culture. The wind whistled in the banner stretched over the front porch. Printed in black on a red background were the words: “Arapaho Artifacts from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. September 21 to January 10.”