The Spirit Woman Read online

  Vicky made her way across the room, numb with apprehension. She shoved the door open. White enamel came at her—sink, toilet, tub with a pink curtain stacked at one end. Standing out in relief against the white tile floor, like rose petals scattered about, were blotches of blood. Laura was not there.

  Struggling to keep her thoughts rational, Vicky walked over to the nightstand. She stopped herself from lifting the receiver. Whoever had been here may have used the phone. She started for the door, taking in the room again—the pages torn from a notebook still on the table. No sign of the brown folder, no sign of Charlotte Allen’s manuscript and red leather journal.

  “Everything okay up there?” A woman shouted from the foot of the stairs.

  Vicky hurried down, her hands shaking on the railing. “Are you the landlady?”

  “Claire Shultz. I manage the place.” The woman had short, dark hair that framed a narrow face with large, anxious eyes. A gray jacket hung around her shoulders like a cape, sleeves flapping in the wind.

  “We have to call the police.”

  The manager stood riveted in place, eyes darting to the top of the stairs and back. Suddenly she turned and crossed the cement paving to the house. Vicky followed her into a boxcar-shaped kitchen with an arrow of light shining over the stove. The phone was wedged on the counter between two pots of purple African violets. She dialed 911 and waited, the buzzing noise accompanying the sound of her own breathing. When the operator picked up, she gave her name and explained that a woman, a professor named Laura Simmons, was missing from the Mountain House and that her room had been ransacked. There was blood in the bathroom. Claire Shultz gasped.

  Vicky hit the disconnect button and—on automatic now, holding her breath—tapped the number for St. Francis Mission. One ring, two, and then the familiar voice. “Father O’Malley.”

  “Something terrible’s happened to Laura.” She blurted out the words.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the Mountain House.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  She set the receiver in place and faced the manager. Struggling for the steady voice of the courtroom, she said, “Did you see anyone going to Laura’s apartment?”

  “This is a respectable apartment complex.” Claire Shultz was wringing her hands, a blank look of disbelief and shock in her expression. “Miss Simmons said she was a college professor.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  The woman’s eyes fluttered, and she reached back and gripped the edge of the counter, swallowing once, twice. “I told you, this is a respectable place. Since Miss Simmons didn’t say anything about being married, I didn’t like her having men coming around. I don’t approve of liaisons”—her tongue stumbled over the word—“between unmarried men and women. St. Paul to the Hebrews, chapter thirteen, verse four, says—”

  Vicky interrupted, “What men? Did you see them?”

  “Well”—Claire Shultz made a little clicking noise with her tongue—“I heard the cars comin’ and goin’ down the driveway. And I saw the man here last Tuesday night. Same man come around about an hour ago.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Big shoulders, lots of dark, curly hair, wild like one of them old hippies you see around the coffee shops.” He’s very handsome, Vicky, with thick, curly brown hair. My God, Vicky thought. The man Laura had just broken up with. The man who’d been calling and following her—stalking her—had followed her here. Vicky felt her heart take a jump.

  There was the sound of an engine cutting off outside, then the crackle of a police radio. Blue and red lights fluttered through the window behind the manager. Vicky pushed open the door and hurried across the cement apron. A tall, blue-uniformed police officer who looked about thirty was levering himself out of a white police car, a studied expression on his pale face. The radio sputtered behind him.

  “You the woman made the call?” he said, approaching her as if he had all the time in the world, as if Laura were not missing and there was no blood on the white tile floor.

  Vicky gave him her name and said she was an attorney. Then she told him what she’d found, that her friend was missing. Glancing at the woman huddled near the back door, she said, “This is Claire Shultz, the manager.”

  “Wait here.” The officer turned and started up the stairs, boots pounding on the wood steps.

  Vicky hugged her coat around her. The wind was sharp, chilling her to the bone. Headlights trailed down the driveway as another police car pulled in behind the first. The doors swung open and two detectives lifted themselves out and walked over. Vicky recognized the tall man with the slight build, the hunched shoulders, and hollow space in his chest beneath the lapels of a tweed topcoat. Bob Eberhart. She had worked with him on numerous cases; anytime an Indian got into trouble in town, she got the call. A fair man, Eberhart. He treated Indians the same way he treated everybody else.

  “What’s going on, Vicky?” he said, walking over.

  She began explaining: a friend from Colorado, a professor named Laura Simmons, was gone. There were signs of a struggle. She tilted her head toward the second story of the garage.

  “Stick around a couple of minutes.” Eberhart threw out the request as he and his partner started up the stairs. In a few minutes he was back, a small notepad clutched in one hand, pen in the other. “You say the missing lady’s a friend of yours?”

  Vicky nodded. The first police officer had come down the stairs with the other detective, two broad-shouldered men flanking Eberhart, blocking out the faint light in the kitchen window. They kept their eyes fixed on her and she went on: “Laura’s car isn’t here, and I’ve been trying to reach her since Wednesday.”

  “Well, I taped her messages on the door.” The manager had walked timidly forward and was standing off by herself, leaning into the conversation. “I figured she’d come back sooner or later.”

  Vicky stared at the woman. What had she been thinking? The messages had accumulated for two days; why hadn’t she notified someone? She’d told the woman she was Laura’s friend. She could have called her.

  Looking back at Eberhart, she said, “Mrs. Schultz said a man was here earlier. It could be Laura’s ex-boyfriend.”

  Eberhart shifted his gaze to the middle-aged woman. “You see the man?”

  The manager nodded slowly. “Three nights ago he come around.”

  “You saw him again tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said haltingly. “A fine-looking man, I’d say.” She raised one hand. “Please understand I don’t approve of single women inviting men into their apartments. This is a very respectable, Christian establishment—”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Could you identify him?” Eberhart’s voice was insistent, honing in.

  “Oh, no. I make it a firm policy never to get involved in my guests’ private lives.”

  That was the truth, Vicky thought. She hadn’t even bothered to notice that a tenant was missing.

  “We’ve got the messages,” Eberhart said, nodding toward the other detective. “Looks like three from you, Vicky. One from your friend Father O’Malley. We’ll check out the others.” He took in a quick gulp of air. “What kind of car your friend drive?”

  Vicky told him: a blue SAAB, she wasn’t sure of the year. Not new. Then she said, “Her ex-boyfriend’s Toby Becker, an English professor at the University of Colorado. Laura had just broken things off with him, and he followed her here. He’s battered her in the past.”

  Eberhart’s expression remained the same. She knew he’d taken a bullet in the chest once. Nothing else could jolt him. He wrote something on the pad, then, peering at the manager: “You see what he was driving?”

  “I believe so,” the woman said. “One of them sports cars. A black BMW, I’m pretty sure.”

  “There’s something else, Bob,” Vicky went on. “Laura had a manuscript of the biography she’s working on and a red leather journal. They’re not in the room.”

  “They could be with her.”
>
  Vicky flinched at the image of Laura, beaten, bleeding, clinging to the brown folder with the precious documents, forced down the stairs and into her car.

  She said, “Laura was trying to find a man on the res who has an important document that she needed for the biography.”

  “A man on the res? Give me a break, Vicky. You got a name?” Eberhart kept his eyes on her, pen stopped over the notepad.

  “Toussaint.”

  “First name? Last name?” The pen tapped impatiently.

  “I don’t know.” She told him about Charlotte Allen. There could be a connection.

  It sounded preposterous, she thought, as flimsy as the last traces of snow dissolving in the wind. A man who may not even exist, breaking into Laura’s apartment, attacking her, forcing her to go with him.

  Eberhart drew back the front of the topcoat and—slowly, slowly—tucked the notebook and pen in the inside pocket. His eyes mirrored her own doubt. The man who’d been here was Toby Becker. The manager had seen him.

  “It’s possible Laura and this Becker fellow had an altercation. He could’ve taken her to one of the hospitals,” he said, motioning toward the uniformed officer, who snapped to attention and walked over to his car. The officer perched on the driver’s seat, boots still planted on the driveway, and lifted a small black microphone to his mouth. Radio static burst over the hush of his voice. In a moment he walked back. “No record, sir, of Laura Simmons at any hospitals. She might’ve gone to a private doctor.”

  “She doesn’t know anyone here,” Vicky said, urgency cutting through her voice. “You’ve got to find her, Bob. She’s hurt.”

  “Well, we’ll get Becker’s plate number,” Eberhart said. “If he’s left the area, he could be heading back to Colorado. State patrol will pick him up before he reaches the border. We’ll have a talk with the neighbors and other tenants. Try not to jump to conclusions till we sort it out. I’ll let you know the minute we know anything.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vicky caught sight of the tall figure coming up the driveway, the long strides, the easy, confident posture. She went to meet him. “Oh, God, I’m glad to see you,” she said.

  “What happened?” Father John set his hand on her arm.

  She told him about the room, the blood. She told him that Laura was missing.

  She waited while John O’Malley explained to the detective that Laura had been at the Arapaho Museum late Wednesday afternoon, but she hadn’t kept an appointment with Theresa Redwing on Thursday.

  When he had finished, Vicky said, “Can we go somewhere?”

  “He could have killed her.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Father John said.

  Vicky sat across from him at the little round table, hands wrapped around a coffee mug, the black coat draped across her shoulders, her neck and face like polished copper in the overhead light. They were the only patrons in the coffee shop. From behind the counter, where the proprietor was wiping down an aluminum coffeemaker, came the late-night sounds of running water and clinking glass. The neon light had gone black outside.

  Vicky shifted against the red Naugahyde chair, a hint of reluctance mingling with the fury in her eyes. The man’s name was Toby Becker, she was saying. A brilliant writer, according to Laura, who just happened to be a batterer. She’d finally left him and was trying to reclaim her own life and finish her work. There was redemption in work. Did he understand?

  Father John nodded slowly, his eyes on hers. He had lost himself in work. It was the choice he had made, the vow he had taken.

  “Toby followed her here,” Vicky said. “It must have been Toby the landlady saw Tuesday night. He was determined to get her back. He wouldn’t leave her alone. She could have been staying somewhere else for a couple of days to avoid him. When she came back to the Mountain House this evening, he could have been waiting. It’s the most dangerous time for a woman, John, when the batterer figures out that the relationship is really over. Whatever happened, she took the manuscript and journal. They’re not in the apartment.”

  “The police will find him. Laura’s probably with him. She could be hurt, but she may be okay.”

  Vicky tilted her head back and stared at some point above his head. She was crying silently, the moisture glistening on her cheeks. He shifted sideways, pulled the handkerchief from the back pocket of his blue jeans, and handed it to her, feeling lost and helpless.

  “Nothing ever works out the way you want it to, does it?” She was dabbing at the moisture. “Someone always wants to change you, wants you to be someone different, for them.”

  Was she talking about Laura, he wondered, or about herself? Is that what Ben asked of her—to be someone other than who she was?

  Suddenly he realized she could be talking about him. That he should be someone different. For her. Was that what she was saying?

  He shoved the idea away. He was imagining things, hearing a melody that played only in his head. She was with Ben now.

  “I’m thinking about moving to Denver,” she said, her expression blank with acceptance. “My old firm has an opening. It’s the chance to handle the kind of cases I’d hoped to take on for my own people.”

  He felt as if she’d thrown her coffee in his face. He had assumed she would always be here; that later, when he was gone, he would think of her here. “It takes time, Vicky,” he heard himself saying, as if she were the white person, he the Arapaho, explaining how things were on the reservation. “They’re still getting used to you. A woman and a lawyer. You’ve broken the mold.” And then he understood what she’d been saying: her own people wanted her to be someone else.

  She gave him a mirthless smile. “Exactly what I told Laura about Sacajawea. She’d stepped out, become like a chief, went ahead of the men. Not the way of an Indian woman. That was two hundred years ago, John. I’m not sure things have changed.”

  “Somehow I don’t see Ben living in Denver.”

  She laughed at this. “Riding a horse down the Sixteenth Street Mall? Rounding up a herd of cattle in the suburbs?” She pushed her mug to one side. “I didn’t ask him.”

  Father John didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally he told her that he was sorry it hadn’t worked out for her.

  “You can’t reclaim the past, John,” she said, slowly pushing her chair back and getting up. “I mean, you can’t live there anymore.”

  The words burned through the turmoil in his own mind. The academic world, the student-crowded halls, the lectures and papers and endless round of meetings. How could he live there again? He threw a couple dollars on the table and followed her outside.

  The air was heavy and cold with the expectation of snow. The wind whipped along the sidewalk and blew the skirt of her coat against his blue jeans as he walked her back to the Bronco, the click-click of their footsteps echoing off the brick-and-glass walls that lined the sidewalk. She seemed small beside him.

  He held the door and waited as she settled herself behind the wheel of the Bronco. She said, “I’ll go see Eberhart first thing in the morning.”

  “Call me as soon as you hear anything,” he said, closing the door.

  Snow clouds obliterated the stars and moon as Father John curved east on 789, cutting through Hudson, then north onto the reservation, Idomeneo filling the cab—the strange realism of Mozart. Father John’s thoughts careened from Laura to Vicky. They were friends. Vicky would be awake all night, consumed with worry. She’d be at Eberhart’s first thing in the morning. She wouldn’t rest until she’d found her friend, the pale, blond woman clutching a brown folder.

  She’d taken the folder with her, Vicky had said. He tapped one fist against the wheel, something gnawing at him, something not right—the rationality imposed on an irrational act, an attack on a woman. How in heaven’s name did Laura have time to grab the folder? And why did she want it with her?

  Unless, unless—tapping the wheel in rhythm to the music now, ordering his thoughts. Laura didn’t want to lose the manuscript
and journal. She was trying to keep them safe. But if she had been worried about them, wouldn’t she have put them somewhere else?

  That was it, he thought, giving the wheel a hard jab. A logical explanation for the documents not being in the apartment. Laura hadn’t grabbed them during the attack. She’d taken them somewhere else before Toby Becker had arrived.

  And then the logic collapsed, like the farthest reaches of the headlights in the darkness. Why would Laura want to protect the manuscript and journal from a former boyfriend?

  Suddenly he saw the problem—a false proposition. It wasn’t Toby Becker from whom Laura had wanted to keep the documents. It was someone else, and Father John had a pretty good idea where she might have taken them.

  18

  Father John left the Toyota in front of the residence a few feet from the Harley and walked through the splash of light to the museum. On Wednesday, Laura’s blue SAAB had been parked in front. Obviously Lindy had found the letters and called Laura. She would have seen at once that a museum devoted to the Arapahos was a safe place to store documents on the Shoshones. No one would look for them there.

  He let himself in with the master key. Thin slivers of light fell across the entry and ran into the shadowy corridor, which he followed to the library. He turned on the fluorescent ceiling light. The pile of cartons along the wall had dwindled, and new boxes lined shelves that had been vacant a few days ago. Wedged on a middle shelf was a large gray box marked ORAL HISTORIES AND LETTERS, 1900-1910.

  He tilted back the lid. The brown folder was almost obscured by the overstuffed folders in the front. He lifted it out and carried it over to the table. Inside he found the manuscript and the red leather journal.

  On the top sheet of the manuscript, in large print, was the title: Sacajawea: The Hidden Life. Below, in smaller print: By Charlotte Allen, Ph.D. He couldn’t read the entire manuscript—four hundred brittle pages. It would take all night. He started scanning the chapters, hunting for the gist of the story, the way he’d scanned hundreds of documents in the past when he was researching some question in history.