Eye of the Wolf Read online

  The man’s eyebrows shot up. He went back to scribbling on the pad a moment. “I spoke with the families last night after we got the IDs. Not easy delivering that kind of news. Guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Father John swirled the coffee in his mug, then took another drink. How many phone calls from the police in the middle of the night? Father, we got an accident. Couple of kids got in a fight, Father. Possible suicide, Father. Always the same request, Can you go to the family? He’d gone more times than he wanted to remember, numb with his own sorrow and the knowledge that he was about to transfer its terrible weight to the unsuspecting families.

  “How are they?” he said.

  “About like you’d expect. In shock, can’t believe it’s true. Said their boys were gonna meet somebody out at Bates. All I could do was tell them the truth. Their boys were shot to death out there. The coroner has ruled the deaths homicide.”

  The detective went quiet. He shifted around, took his coffee off the shelf and took another drink. “They’re angry,” he said. “It’s to be expected, but this is different.”

  Father John sipped at his coffee and watched the man over the rim.

  “They say an Arapaho must’ve killed them in revenge for what happened so long ago . . .” Burton shook his head. “Who cares what happened in the past?”

  “The country of dead people,” Father John said, almost to himself. The comment he’d heard from the time he’d decided to major in history at Boston College. “What kind of living you going to make if all you study is dead people?” his mother had wanted to know. But his father, sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee laced with whiskey, had grinned at him. “Always liked history, myself,” he’d said.

  “You’re the historian, John,” Burton went on. “Why in the name of all that’s sane and logical would anybody want to kill three Shoshones at an old battlefield?”

  Father John swiveled toward the window. The sun was glowing through the gray sky, and crocuses were poking through the snow at the edge of the sidewalk—spring trying to burst through. Still, it could snow again. And it occurred to him then . . .

  It occurred to him that the killer had wanted the bodies found before they were buried under the spring snow.

  He turned back to the man across the room. “I think the killer intended to link the three murders to the Arapaho massacre in 1874.”

  “Well, the killer did a good job of it. The families are saying things like, Arapahos did this and they’re not gonna get away with it. They said it to me! With all the relatives coming around, they’re just going to get more and more worked up. No telling what they might do. I talked to Chief Banner at the wind River Police and suggested he put more officers in the Arapaho areas.” Burton paused a moment, concern working into the hard set of his jaw. “What do you know about Frankie Montana?”

  “He comes from good people.” Father John was aware of the footsteps in the hall. A half-second passed, and then the whoosh of the front door opening and faint ripples of cold air sweeping across the floor as the door thudded shut. Ian would be in his office if anybody stopped by.

  “Doesn’t mean Frankie’s any good.” Burton leaned sideways and set his mug back on the shelf. “Been in his share of trouble. Would’ve been in more trouble if Vicky Holden hadn’t gotten the judge to let him go on a bond. She’ll probably get the assault charges dismissed, my guess. If Frankie does go to trial and is found guilty, the judge’ll banish him right then. Pretty serious, banishment. Doesn’t happen very often, but I get the sense that his own people are fed up with Frankie Montana. Makes me think that maybe he decided to avoid a trial by making sure the complainants never showed up. Gives him a powerful motive, wouldn’t you say? Coroner says homicides occurred sometime Saturday when Frankie says he was just hanging around. Not the best alibi I was ever handed. Then Saturday night, Father Owens gets that taped phone call.”

  Father John was quiet a moment. Maybe he hadn’t given Frankie Montana enough credit. Maybe the man was capable of planning the murders, especially if he wanted to make certain the victims wouldn’t testify against him. Still . . .

  “Why Bates?” he said.

  “Keep coming back to that, don’t we?” The detective gripped the armrests and levered himself to his feet. Pulling on the fronts of his leather jacket, he jabbed the ends of the zipper together. “Think I’ll have a talk with Hunter’s girlfriend. Maybe she knows who Hunter and the Crispin boys were gonna meet at the battlefield.” He zipped up the jacket, then patted at the pockets, finally extracting a pair of leather gloves.

  Father John got to his feet. “Did anybody notify the girl that Hunter is dead?” She would take the blow hard, he was thinking.

  “Riverton Police might’ve gone to her place,” the detective was saying. “No matter. It’s been all over the radio, and it’s on the front page of this morning’s paper.”

  Father John walked over and opened the door. He hadn’t seen the paper yet, and last night, he hadn’t needed to turn on the radio. The moccasin telegraph had delivered the news.

  “Listen, Burton,” he said, following the other man into the entry. “Before you go to her place, let me stop by and see how she’s doing, will you?”

  The detective pulled on his gloves and yanked open the front door. He glanced back. “I guess I can pay a call on Professor Lambert first, but I’ll want to talk to the girl today.”

  “I’ll go see her first thing,” Father John said.

  Burton nodded, then, head forward, like a bull shooting into the arena, he propelled himself outside. He’d reached the sidewalk when he turned around. “Something else,” he called.

  Father John stood in the doorway, his breath floating into the outdoors.

  “Maybe you can visit the Hunter and Crispin families.” The man thrust out a gloved hand, as if he wanted to forestall any objections. “I know they’re Shoshones and you’re the Arapaho pastor, but maybe you can help cool down some of that anger.”

  Father John told the man that he’d drive over to Fort Washakie after he saw Edie Bradbury. Then he shut the door, went back into the study, and riffled through the papers on his desk until he found the sheet on which he’d jotted down the girl’s phone number. He lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers. The phone was ringing into a void, he thought.

  He went back into the hall, set his cowboy hat on his head, and grabbed his jacket. He was still pulling it on as he hurried toward the pickup parked under the cottonwood in front and shrouded in a thin layer of snow.

  FATHER JOHN FOUND the house in the middle of the block, a small cube with a sideways tilt, rails of melting snow on the peaked roof, stripes of gray paint peeling off the siding. The stoop looked as if it had detached itself from the front. The house had probably been an outbuilding at one time for the dilapidated Victorian on the corner, he thought. He’d driven down Pershing and halfway back before he’d spotted the blue sedan protruding from behind the house. Chances were that Edie Bradbury was home. There were no tire tracks in the drive, no footprints in the thin blanket of snow that lay over the front walk.

  A woman had emerged from the Victorian and begun shoveling the driveway next to the house. He parked at the curb and headed up the sidewalk, conscious of the woman’s eyes on him. When he glanced around, she turned away, lifted the shovel, and went back to scraping the driveway, the rasp of metal on concrete breaking through the neighborhood quiet.

  He knocked on the door. A clothespin was clipped to the black metal mailbox on the wall that jutted at a right angle to the stoop. He could see the tops of envelopes in the box. He knocked again. “Edie?” he called.

  No reply. Nothing but the clinking of the shovel. Maybe the girl wasn’t home after all. She could be staying with friends. Friends would know that she would take the news of Trent’s death hard. Why was it that he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was alone and she was inside?

  He cut a diagonal path through the snow in the front yard toward t
he woman still working the shovel.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  She propped the end of the shovel against the concrete. She was probably in her fifties, but she might have been older; it was hard to tell. A narrow, weathered face dipped into the collar of her oversized brown jacket. Her black galoshes were buckled halfway, and the flaps brushed at her baggy trousers like the wings of a crow. She stared at him with hooded eyes flooded with distrust.

  He told her that he was the pastor of St. Francis Mission. Ignoring the look of surprise that flashed through her expression, he gestured with his head toward the little house with peeling paint. “Do you happen to know Edie Bradbury?”

  It was like turning on a spigot. Oh, she knew Edie, all right. The woman cupped one gloved hand over the top of the shovel and listed toward the handle. Nothing but a lot of trouble since that girl rented the shack out back. People coming and going at all hours, cars ripping up and down the street. Hangs out with Indians, Edie does. One of them Indian’s pickups was parked out in the front at night. Used to have a white boyfriend. Wore one of them black leather jackets with all them metal chains hanging about. Least he wasn’t Indian.

  Father John had to interrupt to ask if she’d seen Edie leave the house today.

  For a moment, the hooded eyes followed a pickup passing in the street, leaving a trace of exhaust and the smell of gasoline rippling through the air. Finally, she looked back. “I guess I got better things to do than keep track of the comings and goings of trash like her.”

  He doubted that was true. Thanking the woman, he headed back along the trail of his boot prints. He pounded hard on the door, his gloved fist making a hollow noise against the flimsy wood. It struck him that anybody could put a shoulder to the door and knock it open. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the woman still leaning against the shovel, watching him.

  He knocked again, then tried the knob. To his surprise, it rolled to the left. “Edie,” he called, pushing the door open. He stepped into the small living room, with green and white webbed folding chairs scattered about the brown vinyl floor and, against the wall on the right, a desk made of upended cartons and a plank. Several books were stacked on top around a small lamp with a white plastic shade. Beyond the desk was a closed door, and beyond that, in the corner, a sink poised over a collection of metal pipes that bent into holes gaping in the wall. Next to the sink, a cookstove sat on top of a half-sized refrigerator.

  He stood very quiet for a moment, listening, but there was nothing but the muffled noise of the scraping shovel and the sound of a vehicle moving through the slush on the street. He walked around the desk and opened the door.

  13

  THE BEDROOM WAS swallowed in a half-light, with what looked like a blanket tacked over the window. Edie Bradbury lay on the bed, dressed in blue jeans and a black tee shirt, head twisted into the pillows, her thin neck white against the edge of her shirt. Her arms were flung to the sides, like two thin, bloodied sticks, hands as small as a child’s, curled into fists. Beneath her arms, strips of pink bedspread had turned brown with blood.

  In two steps, Father John was at the bed. Leaning over the girl, placing his fingers along her neck, looking for a sign of life. He could see the slashes in the flesh of her arms, like markers made at one-inch intervals between the wrists and elbows, then disappearing under the sleeves of her shirt. The girl’s mouth hung slightly open, her lips bluish white.

  There it was, a pulse as faint as the breath of a whisper against his fingertips. He placed his palm in front of her mouth, his own breath stopped in his throat until he felt the exhalation of her breath on his skin.

  “It’s Father John, Edie,” he said, running his hand lightly over her forehead and pushing back the damp, golden hair. Her forehead felt feverish. He glanced about the room. A column of daylight fell past the edge of the blanket over two cardboard boxes pushed against the wall, filled with books and papers. Another box with items of clothing spilling over the sides stood in the corner. Next to the box was a half-opened door. He could see the white corner of a bathtub.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  The girl let out a breathy moan that sounded as if it had taken all of her strength. He smoothed her hair above her forehead, then went into the bathroom. There were two frayed pink towels tossed over the rim of the bathtub, and he gathered them up and carried them back to the bed. He folded the towels and laid them over the length of the girl’s arms, pressing gently. Her eyes fluttered open, then closed again. She moved slightly. On the bedspread under her hip, he spotted the glint of a small razor blade.

  He went back into the bathroom. In the little cabinet beneath the sink, he found a small towel, which he soaked in cold water and wrung out. Folding the towel, he carried it back to the bed and laid it on the girl’s forehead. “I’m going to get help,” he said, leaning over the girl.

  She moaned again and rolled her head. Her lips began to move, as if she were struggling to give shape to the words stuck in her throat. “He’s dead,” she whispered.

  “God, what’s happened now?”

  Father John looked around. The woman from the Victorian stood in the doorway, the flaps of her rubber boots hanging out. She gave the door a shove, clacking the knob against the wall.

  “Stay with her,” he said.

  “Stay with her? What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  “Somebody try to kill her?”

  Father John took the towel from the girl’s head. The cloth was hot and sticky. “You can help by soaking this in cold water.” He thrust the towel into the woman’s hand. “I’ll be back.”

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to move out of the doorway. She looked like a prison guard, bundled in the brown jacket snapped up to her chin, holding out the towel as if he’d handed her a dead animal. She stared up at him, her mouth forming a perfect O.

  “The bathroom’s in there.” He nodded toward the other door.

  Finally, pulling her mouth into a tight line, the woman moved past him, the jacket rustling as she walked. He could hear the water running as he headed across the front room. No sign of a phone. He searched the alcove that passed for a kitchen. There it was, almost hidden under a stack of plastic bags. He punched in 911 and counted the rings. Three. Four. “Come on,” he said out loud. Finally, the operator’s voice. He gave his name and said that a woman had cut her arms and needed an ambulance.

  “Where is she, Father?” There was a calm steadiness in the voice.

  He crossed the living room and stepped outside. God, there were no numbers on the house. He told the operator that he was on Pershing Boulevard, behind the Victorian on the corner.

  “We’re on the way,” the operator said.

  He pushed the off button, set the phone on the bookcase, and went back to the bedroom. The woman handed him the cold towel. “What happened to her?” she said, waving at the girl on the bed.

  He ignored the question and set the towel on the girl’s forehead. Then he ran his hand over the top of her head. Her hair felt moist, but she seemed cooler. “The ambulance is on the way,” he told her.

  The blue eyes fluttered open. “Let me die,” she whispered.

  “What’d she do? Try to kill herself?”

  “Could you get a glass of water?”

  “Not until you tell me what happened.”

  “She needs water, Mrs. . . .”

  “Teters.”

  “You’ll find a glass in the kitchen.” He waited until the woman had backed through the door. Then, keeping his voice low and calm, he said, “I’m sorry about Trent.”

  The girl’s eyes snapped shut. A thin line of tears ran back into her hair.

  He took a corner of the towel and patted at the moisture. “Try to be strong,” he said. “Try to live. You have Trent’s baby.” He hoped that was still true.

  The woman came back into the room and handed him a plastic glass of water. “You don’t have to
tell me that she tried to kill herself,” she said, her eyes fixed on the towels swaddling the girl’s arms. “I can see what she done. Cut herself up again.”

  “What are you saying?” From somewhere in the distance came the wail of a siren.

  “Oh, she tried this trick last fall. That young man, Jason, found her. Had the ambulance here. Whole neighborhood was out gawking.”

  Father John slipped one hand under the girl’s head and lifted it off the pillows. Holding the plastic glass to her mouth, he said, “Try to sip a little water.” He tipped the glass until she was able to draw in some water. Then, twisting out of his hand, she burrowed back into the pillows.

  “You ask me,” the woman said, “cutting yourself up is a mortal sin. That’s what I learned in Catholic school. A mortal sin to defile your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

  The clang of the siren came closer, bricks of noise battering the little house. “Would you mind going outside and directing the ambulance here?”

  “It seems to me that anybody who . . .”

  “Please, Mrs. Teters,” he said.

  The woman swung back through the doorway, the galoshes slapping as she walked across the living room.

  The wailing noise cut off, and in another moment, two men and a woman, all in blue uniforms, pushed into the bedroom. One of the men was carrying a canvas stretcher rolled between two poles.

  “You Father O’Malley?” asked the other man. He looked about twenty years old, slender with blond curly hair.

  Father John nodded. Then he told them that the girl was Edie Bradbury, that she’d slashed her arms with a razor, that she was conscious. And she was pregnant. He backed away as the medics closed in on the bed, lifting the towels on her arms and putting them back into place.

  The blond man looked back at him. “We’ll have to take her to Riverton Memorial,” he said. “Want to ride along?”

  Father John said that he would follow the ambulance. He walked back into the living room and waited. Through the open door, he could see the small groups of people forming out front, Mrs. Teters making her way from one group to the other, pointing toward the ambulance parked in the drive, waving toward the house. Other people were hurrying down the sidewalk, crossing the street around a couple of pickups that had slowed in front, drivers gawking at the house.