The Ghost Walker (29 page)

“And I shouldn’t have been so stubborn,” Vicky said, sadness in her voice. “Of course you were right. I should have tried to convince Susan to go to the police.”

“It’s not too late,” Father John said. “Maybe she knows something that will help.”

Vicky turned back to him. Moonlight washed across her face, and he saw the worry in her eyes. “What can that be? Susan and I have gone over everything. She swears she doesn’t know what Ty and the others are up to. They kept her drugged, fed her a story about starting a business. Some business.” Vicky shook her head. “Anyway, Banner and the feds have enough for a search warrant based on what Marcus told you. They’re probably all over Lean Bear’s ranch right now.”

“They have to find the lab, Vicky. There’s no proof, nothing to tie the white men to Marcus without the lab.”

Vicky stared out her window again. After a few seconds she said, “The lab is not in the house or in any of the barns out in the pastures. That would be too risky. Ben could show up at any time and discover it. It would be like him—when he isn’t drinking—to check on how they’re taking care of things. He’s a stickler for keeping everything in tip-top shape. No, the lab is somewhere else, somewhere not Ben or anyone else would think of going to, especially in the winter.”

Suddenly Vicky laid her head back on the top of the seat. “Oh, my God,” she said, drawing out the words. “I know where it is.”

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F
ather John kept his eyes on the Indian woman beside him, staring up at the roof of the cab, a smile playing at her mouth. The last piece of the puzzle, and she had figured it out. “Where?” he asked.

Vicky raised her head and turned toward him. “Last Tuesday,” she began, “when I drove up to the ranch to see Susan, the gate was closed. I was about to climb over when Gary came barreling down the mountain in a Chevy pickup. Down the mountain! I wondered at the time. There’s nothing at the end of the road except the top of the mountain and probably twenty feet of snow. But about three miles up is the turnoff to the upper pasture. It’s secluded, surrounded by mountain peaks. There’s a barn and a couple of small buildings. The lab must be in one of them. That’s where Gary had been. He must’ve come back to the ranch for something; maybe he forgot something. Anyway, he found me.”

It could be, Father John was thinking. But how would Gary and the others know about the upper pasture?

As if she had caught the drift of his thoughts, Vicky said, “It was one of Susan’s favorite places. It was where she learned to ride the gelding her father gave her on her eighth birthday. She probably told Ty all kinds of things about growing up on the reservation. She was in love
with him, John. Women tell those things to the men they love. Unfortunately Susan fell in love with the wrong man.” Vicky looked away again. “She’s not the first woman to do that.”

Father John leaned one shoulder into the window, took a deep breath, and blew it out. “Then it’s over,” he said. “Banner and the feds will find the lab.”

“No,” Vicky said, jerking upright. “They won’t find it. It’s not part of Lean Bear’s ranch. It’s a separate forty acres Ben inherited from his grandfather. A high mountain meadow good only for pasturing sheep in the summers. It was beautiful in the summers, filled with lupin and wild roses. We used to camp up there sometimes . . .” Her voice trailed off. “No one would know to look there. And anyway, a warrant for the ranch wouldn’t cover the upper pasture.”

“Banner has to be told,” Father John said, jamming the gear into reverse. The tires screamed as they dug into the frozen earth. He shifted into forward, then into reverse again, rocking the Toyota free from the wedge of snow. As they began backing through the ridged tracks, he rolled down his window and stuck out his head to keep the Toyota in the narrow road. He backed all the way to the guest house.

“I’ll call Banner and arrange to bring Susan in. She and I are supposed to fly out of here in the afternoon.” Vicky grasped the door handle, then hesitated. “I called that Jesuit friend of yours who runs the rehab hospital in Denver, Jim McCarthy. Only I spoke with his wife. She said they had a long waiting list. When I mentioned your name, she agreed to admit Susan right away. Tell me, how is it Father Jim McCarthy has a wife?”

Father John was quiet a moment. Then he said, “Jim
was laicized. I guess he met someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.”

“I see,” Vicky said, opening the door and sliding out.

No, she didn’t see, Father John thought, watching her disappear into the guest house. Jim McCarthy could no longer
be
a priest.

*    *    *

Father John punched in Banner’s numbers again, trying to ignore the sounds of metal pans banging and cabinet doors slamming in the kitchen. Elena had arrived and was obviously registering her displeasure over the fact that he had trespassed on her domain to brew himself some coffee. He took another sip from the mug as the disembodied female voice on the other end of the line solemnly assured him the chief would return his call the minute he came in. She had said the same thing an hour ago.

He slammed down the receiver and glanced up from the desk, startled at the silent specter in the doorway: Father Peter in the oversized black coat that trailed along the tops of his boots, his black fedora squashed into the rim of fuzzy white hair. Just returned from saying Mass for the old faithfuls. He looked stricken.

“Leonard Bizzel, a reliable source of information, informed me about Marcus Deppert and the young woman. I offered the Mass for the repose of their souls. ‘Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder . . .’”

Father John took another pull of the coffee. The gray light of morning filtered through the window, creating patterns of shadows over the walls and carpet, the wingback chairs. He had no patience for Shakespeare right now; he wanted Banner to call.

“
Macbeth
, act two, scene one,” Father Peter said, sadness in his tone.

The jangling phone mingled with the sound of the old man’s footsteps shuffling down the hallway. Father John pounced on the receiver. “Banner! What’s happened?” He wasn’t sure it was the chief until he heard the voice hoarse with tiredness.

“Listen, John,” Banner said, “we’ve checked out Lean Bear’s ranch. House, barn, outbuildings—totally clean. We didn’t find a crystal of fentanyl, heroin, or anything else.”

“What about the men?”

“Gone.”

Father John felt his heart sinking. “What do you mean?”

“Cleared out. No sign of them. We’ve got an all points out. Meantime, the feds are runnin’ the names through the computers, lookin’ for priors. We’re gonna get these dudes, don’t worry.”

It wasn’t reassuring, Father John thought. The police hadn’t ever located the gray Chevy truck after he had found the body—Rich Dolby’s body—on Rendezvous Road.

“What about the buildings in the upper pasture?”

There was a pause on the line. “What upper pasture? What’re you talkin’ about?”

“The forty acres up the mountain.”

“Jesus. You mean where Ben Holden used to pasture his sheep years ago?”

“That’s where they’re manufacturing fentanyl.”

Father John heard the sharp jabs of breath. “You know that for sure? You seen it yourself? You know somebody who’s seen it? You got any proof?” Anger mixed with incredulity in the chief’s voice.

Father John admitted he hadn’t seen it. There were no eyewitnesses, nothing except Vicky’s hunch.

“Vicky and Ben been divorced a long time,” the chief said. “What’s she got to do with this?”

Father John ignored the question. Vicky would be bringing Susan in soon. She could explain it herself. He said, “It’s there, Banner. Go back. You’ll find it.”

“What you’re sayin’ is the fed and I gotta go see the magistrate in Lander, who’s real happy with us right now ’cause we roused him out of bed before dawn to get a search warrant which turned up nothing. Absolutely nothing. And now you’re suggesting we ask him for another warrant? And on what evidence? That
you
know somebody who’s got a hunch the drug lab’s there.”

“Trust me, Banner. I’m sure Vicky’s right about this.”

“Well, it’s like this, John. We got a big problem. The magistrate was real reluctant to give us warrant number one. It’s not like we had hard evidence to connect three white guys with last night’s homicides. All we had was what Marcus told you—hearsay. And Marcus, poor son-of-a-bitch, wasn’t the most reliable Indian in the world. However, because of the homicides, the magistrate went out on a limb and gave us the warrant, along with a little warning against racial harassment.”

“What?”

“Harassing three white guys on an Indian reservation. After my boys went out there this week and had a discussion with Gary Rollins about where he was Sunday night when you spotted the body, he called an attorney and complained about harassment. And the attorney called the federal magistrate and said we were harassing whites for no reason. So, like I say, we were lucky to get one search warrant, and the magistrate’s
not gonna give us another without some hard evidence.”

“Who is the attorney?” Father John stared out the window at the snowy grounds glistening in the morning light. He knew the answer. He was waiting for the confirmation.

“Some big shot out of Los Angeles. Just the kind liable to file a big harassment case against the tribe. Shaffer, Shelby.”

“Sheldon?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

Father John’s hand tightened on the receiver. The wild supposition, the preposterous theory—it was right. “Listen, Banner, the three men could be at Nick Sheldon’s place in Lander. It’s the large red brick house on the north end of Martin Drive.”

The chief was quiet a moment. “This another one of your hunches?” he asked, then, hurriedly, “Okay. I’ll put in a call to Detective Loomis in Lander, ask him to check it out. Soon’s we get a chance to question those guys, one of ’em might decide to tell us about the lab. Then we’ll have something to take to the magistrate.”

Yeah
, Father John thought as he replaced the receiver.
And if no one talks, you’ll have nothing to take to the magistrate.

He was struggling into his parka when Elena came down the hallway, the laces of her black shoes flapping against the linoleum floor. “I got your breakfast ready.”

“Sorry,” he said, brushing past the old woman. He hurried out the door down the sidewalk, into the rays of sun breaking through the cold air.

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