The Story Teller (18 page)

In the bedroom, Vicky found a note from Marcy on the dresser.
Pat Michaels called. Meet him at eight tomorrow morning. Said you know the place.

17

P
earl Street hummed with early rush-hour traffic, but the sidewalks were vacant. Most of the shops and restaurants wouldn’t open for another couple of hours. The only activity, Vicky saw as she parked the car, were the customers going in and out of a small, white-brick building with
BAGELS
arched across the plate-glass window. Several people sat at round metal tables on the sidewalk, drinking coffee, peering at folded newspapers.

Vicky recognized the man at the far table—the slight, muscular build, the hawklike nose and thick glasses in pinkish frames, the cropped gray hair. Pat Michaels threw her a smile as she walked up. Pulling himself halfway to his feet, a kind of bow, he said, “You haven’t changed, beautiful.”

“I was thinking the same about you, Pat.” Vicky slid into the chair across from him.

“Yeah, I’m still beautiful,” he said, dropping back onto his seat. He nodded toward the foam cups and plastic bag bulging with bagels. “Hope you brought your appetite.”

Vicky reached for one of the cups, popped the tab, and took a long sip before pulling a bagel out of the bag. There was the clean, light feeling of morning in the air, with columns of sunshine and shadow lying across the sidewalk. The sun felt warm on her arms.

Pat took a sip from his cup before reaching into his shirt pocket and bringing out a small notebook. He pushed the glasses down over the hook in his nose and began flipping through the pages, peering over the rims at the cramped writing. Finally he stopped. “Found what you want,” he said. “Rachel Foster. Born Rachel Wentworth, Denver, 1943.” He glanced up, eyebrows raised. “Name ring any bells?”

Vicky swallowed a bite of bagel and shook her head.

“One of Denver’s oldest families. Owned half the town at one time. Cyril Wentworth came to Denver in the Gold Rush. Figured out he’d make a helluva lot more money selling supplies to the other fool gold seekers than he was gonna make panning gold in some freezing mountain stream.” The investigator looked down, checking his notes. “Opened store on Larimer Street in 1859. Died thirty years later. Left only son good chunk of downtown property.” A glance upward. “That would be Rachel’s grandfather.”

Vicky let out a long sigh. “You’re telling me the curator came from a wealthy Denver family. I could have guessed as much.”

“Hold on,” Pat said, still peering over the glasses.
“Used
to be wealthy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Real-estate crash decade ago pretty well wiped out the Wentworth fortune.” He gave a little shrug. “Rachel’s brother started speculating. Leveraged the family properties to develop skyscrapers and shopping malls. Took a major bath. Lost everything old Cyril had worked his butt off for.”

Vicky was quiet a moment. Then: “How did Rachel take it?”

Nudging his glasses back into place with an index finger, the investigator said, “Had a little chat with a friend of hers who let it slip how Rachel was mad enough to kill her brother. Turned out he beat her to it.
Shot himself. Then Rachel’s husband of ten years divorced her. Cash cow had gone dry.” The investigator closed the notebook and slipped it inside his pocket. “Rachel moved to a little apartment and went to work as a research assistant at the museum. Worked her way up to curator. She’s no dummy.”

Vicky washed down the last bite of bagel with another sip of coffee. She’d met women like Rachel Foster—wealthy women who had lost their wealth. The big house and car, the designer clothes and country clubs—gone. It was as if they had awakened in a strange country where they didn’t know the customs, couldn’t understand the language. What would such a woman do if she saw the chance to reclaim her wealth and rightful citizenship, her identity? If she came across a ledger book lost for years in the museum? A ledger book worth $1.3 million?

“What do I owe you, Pat?” Vicky said.

“Next time you’re in town, you can take me to breakfast.” The investigator crumpled the bagel bag and tossed it into a nearby trash can. “Or you could tell me what you’re looking for.”

Vicky leaned back and drained the rest of her coffee, eyes on the man across from her. Always the investigator. Curious about everything. “An Arapaho artifact seems to be missing from the museum,” she said. “A ledger book.”

“No kidding?” Pat bit his lower lip a moment. “A ledger book would bring some big bucks over on Book Row. But I don’t see Rachel Foster involved in anything like that. She’s got a good record. Might be hard to work for—couple of staff people say she’s a real dictator—but she’s efficient and organized. Since she came on board, the museum’s increased its collections and gotten a lot of grant money. Trustees love her. Just gave her another five-year contract.”

As Vicky started to get to her feet Pat reached out
and took her hand. “This got something to do with that Indian kid they found in the river?”

“I’m afraid so.” She pulled back her hand.

“Good God, Vicky.” The investigator was on his feet. “Stolen ledger book. Murder. Whoever’s behind this is gonna be a determined and vicious son of a bitch. Police get paid to hunt down sons of bitches. Stay out of it! You get in a killer’s way, you don’t know what could happen.”

He was wrong, Vicky thought. She knew exactly what could happen. She had seen Todd’s body at the morgue. “Thanks for the warning, Pat,” she said as she turned and started for the car, ignoring the alarm and frustration in his eyes.

*   *   *   

A few people occupied the pews at St. Elizabeth’s Church—a scattering of mourners, Vicky thought as she slipped into a back pew. Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows on the side walls, casting a tinge of orange, green, and brown over the wooden pews, the tiled floor. A faint smell of lilacs hung in the air, which was hot and stuffy, despite the fan softly whirring on the right side of the altar.

Vicky let her eyes roam over the people ahead: Doyal and Mary in the front pew, several grandfathers and grandmothers around them, a group of older white men who looked like professors. She spotted Emil Coughlin among them, arms folded across his chest, head turning from side to side as he glanced about. The rest looked like students—a few whites here and there, clusters of Indians. It struck her that Julie could be among them, but she had no idea what the girl looked like.

Then she spotted the young black-haired woman sitting alone in a side pew near the front, head bowed over something in her hand—a missal, perhaps. Suddenly the head jerked up, and Vicky saw it was Tisha Runner, the
girl she’d met yesterday at the Indian Services Office. The girl who claimed she didn’t know Todd Harris. Why was she at a memorial Mass for someone she didn’t know? If she had lied about Todd, maybe she’d also lied about his roommate.

Vicky decided to join the girl. She started to slide out of her pew just as the drums began pounding—a steady
thump, thump, thump,
like that of her own heart. She remained in her place. Three old men had taken seats around the small drum near the altar. There was a shuffling noise, a shifting of atmosphere, as people got to their feet and two elders started up the aisle. Behind them was John O’Malley, tall and redheaded, wearing a white chasuble embroidered at the edges in geometric designs—the Arapaho symbols of life. His hands were pressed together in prayer.

The elders gave little bows before slipping into a front pew while Father John walked to the altar and faced the congregation. “We’ve gathered here to pray for the soul of Todd Harris,” he said. His voice resonated through the church.

Vicky kept her eyes on the priest as he began the prayers of the Mass, head bowed, hands clasped. She was glad he had returned to the people, that he was here when Todd’s grandparents needed him, that he would be at St. Francis Mission when others needed him. She didn’t want to think of what it might have been like if he hadn’t returned, if she never saw him again: a kind of death.

Voices rose around her: Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.

Then quiet filled the church, broken by the whirring of the fan, the clearing of a throat, a little cough. “The souls of the just are in the hands of God,” Father John said. Then he began talking about Todd, how he’d gloried in his life and used the talents God had given him to serve others, how he had touched everyone who
knew him. A low sobbing noise came from the front pews where the grandmothers and elders sat as Father John walked over to a chair angled next to the altar and sat down.

“Father, I want to talk.” An elder’s voice mingled with the whir of the fan. A commotion followed as the old man worked his way into the aisle. Now, Vicky knew, was the time for the criers—like the men who had gone through the villages in the Old Time, crying out the news, telling what had happened, urging the people to be of strong heart.

The old man stood in front of the altar, gazing out over the church, thin brown arms dangling from the sleeves of his plaid shirt. “This was a good boy,” he said. “Just tryin’ to do right. People shouldn’t forget him, now he’s gone to the ancestors.”

The next elder was already beside him. Then a line of old men, one after the other, walked to the altar and cried out the same message. A good boy. Don’t let your heart get discouraged. Gotta keep going on. Finally they filed back into the pews, and Father John resumed the Mass.

When he finished, the drums started again, loud thuds in the hushed quiet as Father John walked down the center aisle. Vicky watched the pews empty behind him, people following him toward the door. Suddenly she realized she’d lost sight of Tisha Runner. The girl wasn’t in the crowd. She must have gone out a side door.

Darting out of the pew, Vicky hurried up the side aisle. She found a door inside a small alcove. On the other side was a hallway that led past the sacristy to an outside door. She pushed it open and stepped onto a shady stretch of lawn next to the church. People were already getting into cars and pickups on the street; a brown pickup pulled out in a grating of gears. The girl was nowhere.

Vicky walked across the lawn to the front, where students and elders pressed around Father John, stretching out their hands. She saw the way he took each hand and held it a long moment—a comforting touch, she knew.

Emil Coughlin seemed to be awaiting his turn, standing back, surveying the crowd. He had the look of a professor about him—the dark blazer over a blue shirt and loosely knotted tie, the wrinkled slacks. Catching her eye, he walked over. “Nice to see you again, my dear,” he said, extending his hand. His grip was as firm as she remembered.

He smiled at her. “Any luck finding that roommate of Todd’s?”

“Not yet,” Vicky said, taken back by the question. The professor had said he had no interest in the personal lives of his students.

“I hoped she might be here.” His eyes went to the group hovering around Father John. “The police say some fool broke into Todd’s apartment and stole his computer. Must have had the only copy of his thesis, since they didn’t find it in any papers. Todd did some solid work. I would hate to see his research disappear. His roommate might know if he kept a backup disk somewhere else. Smart thing to do, you know. And Todd was a smart kid. Trouble is, the roommate seems to have disappeared.”

Vicky was quiet a moment. They had reached the same conclusion: Julie might know something about the thesis. She said, “It’s possible Todd found some very significant information.”

“Absolutely!” The professor nodded. “He was a first-rate researcher.”

“He may have discovered the Arapaho ledger book in the museum.”

“My dear,” Emil began in a pleading tone, “I’ve explained to you there is no such book—”

Vicky interrupted. “It exists, Emil. And it tells the story of Sand Creek.”

The professor rocked back on his heels. “That would be a significant discovery, indeed,” he said. Raising his head, he gazed at some point beyond her. “It would have changed the entire thrust of Todd’s thesis. I find it quite puzzling that he did not mention such a find to me.”