The Thunder Keeper (5 page)

“Y
ou may want to hold off on the brief,” Wes said. His voice cut through the elevator's soundless, downward pressure.

Vicky was quiet. She had every intention of finishing the brief, even if she had to do it on her own time. She would call Hazen to reiterate the importance of going ahead with the appeal.

The elevator doors swooshed open, and they walked wordlessly down the corridor to a spacious office that was all royal-blue carpet, dark leather sofas and chairs, and glass-topped tables with silver vases and figurines that winked in the overhead light. Beyond the desk, a wall of windows framed a view of the dark clouds threading like smoke around the tops of adjacent skyscrapers.

Vicky took one of the leather chairs and waited until Wes had sat down in the high-backed chair behind the desk. Loosening the knot of his dark tie, unbuttoning the collar, rubbing his neck. “You've been doing a fine job on the Navajo case,” he said. “No worries, I hope. No insecurities about being the only woman on the team.”

“This isn't about the case, Wes.”

The man's eyebrows shot up in a mixture of surprise and expectation. “No? What, then?”

“I got a call this morning from someone named Vince Lewis. What can you tell me about him?”

“Vince Lewis?” The lawyer let out a low whistle. “Very big man, Vicky. Vice-president of development at Baider Industries. What'd he want?”

“He wanted to see me this afternoon.”

“No kidding!” A grin started at the corners of Wes's mouth and spread into a full smile. Light danced in his gray eyes. “You know what this means?”

“I hoped you could tell me.”

“Baider Industries must be considering new counsel, and they're looking at Howard and Fergus.” Wes threw a glance around the office as if to locate the place whence such good fortune had come. “Baider's been represented by Michaels, Starcroft and Loomis.” He shrugged. “Nathan Baider and Loomis are friends from way back. But word on Seventeenth Street is that Nathan Jr.'s running the company now. Goes by the name of Roz, don't ask me why.” Another shrug. “Could be Roz convinced the old man to hire new counsel.”

So much had changed in the five years she'd been in Lander, Vicky was thinking. She was a half beat behind. She said, “I'm not familiar with Baider Industries.”

“No? Well, let me fill you in.” Wes laced his fingers together over the front of his shirt, the dark tie. “Big diamond mining company. Mines in Colorado, Wyoming, Canada. Mined some of the world's largest diamonds up there in Wyoming. The old man's a real immigrant success story. Fifteen years old when he got out of Germany two steps ahead of the Gestapo and landed in New York.”

Wes leaned back in his chair, warming to the subject. “Worked his way west to Colorado and spent ten years mining molybdenum at Climax. Soaked up everything he could on geology and went looking for diamond deposits.
There's gold, silver, lead, molybdenum, tungsten, phosphate, and probably a thousand other minerals in the Rocky Mountains. But diamonds? Nobody'd heard much about diamonds until Nathan Baider got into the business. You ask me”—he leaned over the desk—“Nathan Baider still calls the shots. He's not the kind to let go. The company's his baby.”

Vicky stood up and walked over to the large oil painting above the sofa: buffalo foraging in a snow-shrouded pasture. She turned back to the man at the desk. “If Baider Industries wants new counsel,” she said, “why didn't the vice-president call you or one of the other senior partners? I'm the low person on the totem pole here.”

Wes flashed her a tolerant smile. “Don't underestimate yourself. No doubt they've heard about you heading up the appeal on the Navajo case. Lawyers talk, you know.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile.

Vicky walked back to her chair, then to the painting again. She could always think better when she was moving, a gift from the old ones, she supposed. Crossing the plains, always moving through the vast spaces. They had to think while they were moving. She said, “I think Lewis wants to tell me something about the reservation.”

“Sit down, Vicky,” Wes said. “You're making me nervous. Baider's in the diamond business. They operate mines in southern Wyoming. You ever heard of diamond deposits on the res?”

Vicky dropped into her chair. “No,” she said simply. Oil, gas, gold, uranium, timber, water—the reservation was rich in natural resources. She'd never heard of diamonds.

“Let's imagine the conversation over at Baider Industries,” Wes went on. “Roz decides it's time for new counsel, somebody up to date on natural resource laws and
regulations. Any suggestions? Vince Lewis—his job is to keep track of such matters—says, ‘Sharp female lawyer over at Howard and Fergus handling
Navajo
v.
Lexcon
. Arapaho. Natural interest in natural resources.' ” He paused, grinning at her. “Roz says, ‘Go have a talk with that phenomenal lady.' ”

“At the Ship's Tavern?”

“Vicky, Vicky.” The lawyer was shaking his head. “You've forgotten the street is a small village. Town criers always looking for news. So Vince meets you on neutral territory. Anybody who recognizes the two of you won't know what to think.” Wes shrugged. “He's your classic movie-star type—tall, dark-haired, good-looking. Has a roving eye that his wife ignores. The two of you are having a friendly drink, that's all. But if you're spotted at the Baider building, or somebody sees Lewis here, Michaels, Starcroft and Loomis'll have the news in ten minutes. I suspect Roz'd like to line up new counsel before he cuts any ties.”

“I don't know, Wes . . .”

“Trust me on this.” The man pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “The meeting is a preliminary interview. Lewis'll ask some discreet questions, gauge your response, and try to figure out if you'd like to represent Baider Industries. You've got a mighty big fish on the line, Vicky. Reel it in, and we'll see that you're amply compensated.”

Vicky hesitated. The uneasy sense that had gripped her during the brief conversation with Vince Lewis was still there. “He said it was a matter of life and death,” she told the man standing on the other side of the desk.

“Hey, Nathan Baider built the company with that attitude. Everything's a matter of life and death at Baider Industries.” He came around the desk, and Vicky got to
her feet and followed him across the office. He flung open the door and stood back, waiting: the friendly, relaxed smile, the little wink. She stepped out into the corridor.

“Let me know how the meeting goes,” he called.

She kept going in the direction of her own office, the closed doors and oil paintings blurring past like moving trains. She'd forgotten how the game was played—Wes was right about that. But he was dead wrong about Vince Lewis. She would meet the man at the Ship's Tavern and she'd find out what was going on at the reservation that was a matter of life and death.

I
t was almost three when Vicky struck out for the Brown Palace Hotel a block away, joining the knots of people scurrying along Seventeenth Street, umbrellas floating overhead. Skyscrapers rose around her, like the cliffs of a concrete canyon, the spires lost in the dense gray clouds. Rain spattered the pavement and pinged against the cars that crawled past, windshield wipers swinging in crazy rhythms. The air smelled of gasoline and stale food, so unlike the smells of sage and wild grasses that came with the rain on the reservation.

At the Tremont Place intersection, she waited for the light to change. The traffic spewed flumes of dirt-gray water into the air. Across the street, the doorman at the Brown Palace stood under the striped awning and blew on a whistle, beckoning a cab half a block away. The whistling noise was muffled in the sounds of the traffic splashing past.

On the diagonal corner, several men in dark raincoats stepped off the curb and started across Seventeenth Street, collars pulled up around their heads. Only one carried an umbrella. Vince Lewis. Tall, dark-haired, good-looking guy—movie-star type. Wes had gotten the description right.

The others made a precision turn to the right and headed down the side of the hotel, but Lewis kept walking toward the entrance, shoulders held back, dark, curly head held high.

The light turned green. As Vicky stepped off the curb in unison with the little crowd around her, she saw the black sedan bearing down Tremont Place. Instinctively she jumped back, stomach muscles clinched, fingers tightened around the strap of her black bag. She felt someone take hold of her arm and yank her out of the way as the sedan made a wide arc through the street, then bumped over the opposite curb and onto the sidewalk. She stood frozen in place. It was heading straight at Lewis. The man pedaled backward, holding out the umbrella, as if it might stop the oncoming destruction.

There was a thud of compacted weight against bones and flesh. The man was thrown upward, suspended above the hood a half second before he crashed into the windshield and crumbled onto the sidewalk. The sedan bounced over the curb and sped through the red light. Traffic squealed to a stop, tires sliding on the wet asphalt.

Vicky caught the last three numbers on the plate—672—and the make: a Camry.

She broke through the other pedestrians and ran to the man on the sidewalk. One leg bent sideways over the umbrella, arms flung out, dark hair wet and matted about his head. Blood spurted through a gash that ran from his temple along his cheek and laid open the pink raw flesh inside. There was a stillness, an air of resignation about him, as if he knew that the most vital part of him was preparing to leave and there was nothing he could do.

She dropped to her knees and curled her hand over the crown of his head to keep the spirit from departing, the
way she remembered the medicine man treating her grandfather when she was a child.

“Send an ambulance!” someone shouted into a cell phone.

“Let me through. I'm a doctor.” A man's voice came from behind. Vicky felt someone shove against her. Reluctantly she removed her hand and got to her feet. “Please don't leave,” she said out loud so that the spirit would hear.

A large man brushed past and dropped to one knee. He began probing the unconscious man's wrist, then the carotid artery. Seconds passed. Finally he removed his own raincoat and laid it over the prone man. A siren sounded in the distance.

Vicky stepped back through the crowd flowing around her like water, until she could no longer see the body sprawled on the pavement. A mixture of dread and nausea welled inside her. Stuck in her mind, like a still from a movie, was the image of the movie-star-handsome man in the black raincoat suspended over the hood of the sedan.

The siren grew louder, piercing the sounds of the rain on the sidewalk. A red-and-white ambulance drew alongside the curb ahead of the black squad car pulling in. Two officers in dark blue uniforms emerged from the car and shouldered their way through the crowd, shouting orders to stand back. Slowly a path opened, and the ambulance attendants hurried across the sidewalk.

“Anybody see what happened?” one of the officers shouted.

Several people raised their hands.

The officer produced a small pad from inside his jacket and began moving around the periphery of the crowd, asking questions, jotting notes in the rain.

“I saw it happen,” Vicky said when he approached.

“Your name?” His tone was calm, matter-of-fact, the narrow, reddish face unreadable.

She gave him her name, address, telephone numbers, and told him about the black Camry speeding up, jumping the curb, running down the man. The words spilling out, as if the horrible image in her mind might be washed away by the torrent. She drew in a breath and told him the last three license-plate numbers.

“It was deliberate,” she said, watching the stretcher being wheeled across the sidewalk toward the ambulance. “The driver wanted to kill him.”

“We'll need a complete statement from you tomorrow.” His eyes held hers a moment before he turned toward another woman who had raised her hand.

“Officer,” Vicky said. He glanced back. “I was on my way to meet someone named Vince Lewis. It may have been him.”

“Wait here.” He began shouldering his way through the cluster of silent people toward his partner. After a moment, he was back. “Driver's license says Vincent R. Lewis. You know him?”

“He was a potential client. It was an initial meeting.” She heard herself parroting what Wes Nelson had said earlier, struggling to make it sound convincing. “Where are they taking him?”

“Denver Health.” The officer was writing again, flipping over a page, starting another. “Like I said.” He raised his eyes to hers, “We're gonna want a complete statement tomorrow.”

Vicky nodded and turned toward the entrance of the Brown Palace. The ambulance was sliding away from the curb, its siren bouncing off the hotel's brown stone walls.

“Taxi, please,” Vicky told the doorman standing
limp-armed under the awning, eyes on the ambulance receding down the street.

He seemed to snap to attention. Stepping off the curb, he jammed the whistle between his lips and sent out a long, shrill noise that blended into the wail of the siren.

Vicky held the lapels of her raincoat closed against the chill passing through her and waited until a Yellow Cab pulled into the curb. Then she tipped the doorman and got into the rear seat. “Denver Health,” she said.

Ten minutes later she was hurrying along the covered walkway that connected the redbrick hospital buildings on the outskirts of downtown Denver. The rain beat on the roof, and the cold wind swirled through the walkway, bending the stalks of tulips that poked out of the pots on both sides. Inside the glass entrance, a middle-aged black woman was leafing through a stack of papers at the information desk. Vicky asked for the emergency room, and the woman nodded toward the escalator in the building's atrium.

Vicky gripped the arm hold as the escalator rose to the second-story balcony. Nurses and doctors in green scrubs hurried past the groups of people standing along the railing, staring down into the atrium, dejection and hope etched in their expressions. She followed the signs down a corridor to another desk, where another middle-aged receptionist sat hunched over an opened newspaper. Beyond the desk was a double-steel door with an intercom panel on the adjacent wall.

“Excuse me,” Vicky said.

The woman barely lifted her eyes. Vicky could see traces of pink scalp beneath the gray curls.

“Has Vince Lewis been brought in?”

“One moment,” the woman said, pulling a clipboard out from the newspaper and running a finger down a column
of names. “Vincent R. Lewis,” she said without looking up. “He was just brought in.”

“How is he?”

“You family?” Eyes still on the clipboard, as if the response was bound to be positive, but the question had to be asked. Regulations had to be followed.

“No.”

The gray head snapped back, and the woman peered up at her. “I can only give information to a family member.”

“You don't understand. I saw what happened.”

The woman seemed to study her a moment, making up her mind. Finally she reached across the opened newspaper and picked up a phone. “Your name?”

Vicky gave her name.

“You can wait over there.” She nodded toward an area across the hall from the steel doors while simultaneously pressing some keys on the phone.

Vicky walked over to the waiting area, the woman's voice trailing behind: “Someone named Vicky Holden's here about the hit-and-run victim. Says she saw the accident.”

There was a stale odor of hopelessness in the waiting room that permeated the gray carpet, the worn chairs, the tables with thumbed-through magazines scattered across the top. A pop machine and ice maker hummed in the far corner. Vicky sank into the chair inside the entrance, ignoring the young couple seated side by side across the room, the look of relief and expectancy in their faces, as if news of another tragedy might lighten the burden of their own. She didn't want to trade stories. She wanted to think. On the other side of the steel doors, a man who had been on his way to see
her
could be dying.

And it was no coincidence. She knew it with the cold certainty that gripped her when a witness was lying on
the stand. She had never tried to explain the knowing, never tried to fix a name—sixth sense, intuition—the way white people did. She accepted that she knew.

“I demand to see Vince Lewis.” The sound of a man's voice, angry and insistent, came from around the corner. Vicky stood up and walked back into the corridor. A short, broad-backed man in a gray suit, gray raincoat bundled under one arm, pounded a fist on the desk.

“I'm sorry, sir, but if you're not family—” The receptionist was gripping the newspaper. She looked as if she might burst into tears.

“I'm his employer. Tell your superior I have the right to see him.”

“Are you Nathan Baider?” Vicky walked over.

The man whirled about, the blue eyes sizing her up, she felt, then dismissing her: Indian woman. He looked younger than she'd thought at first, despite the red puffiness in his cheeks and the two vertical creases between his eyes. “Do I know you?” he barked.

“Vicky Holden. I had an appointment with Mr. Lewis this afternoon.”

The man continued staring. “Yes, I'm Nathan Baider,” he said finally. “You saw Vince this afternoon?”

Vicky shook her head. “I was on my way to meet him when he was hit.”

“You a friend of his?” Still trying to place her, Vicky thought.

She began explaining: she was an attorney at Howard and Fergus; Lewis had called—

He held up a fleshy hand. “We have a law firm that handles company legal business.” As he started to turn back to the desk, something behind her caught his attention.

“Jana,” he called, stepping past her.

Vicky glanced around. A woman with stylishly cut auburn hair pushed behind her ears and a determined control in the perfectly made-up face was coming down the corridor, her long black raincoat hanging open over a black dress.

“Dastardly thing to happen,” Baider said, taking her hand. “Don't worry. I'll see that the doctors do everything possible.”

“Where is he?” The woman withdrew her hand and walked over to the receptionist. “Where is my husband?” she said in a tone accustomed to being obeyed.

Baider was at her side again. “This is Lewis's wife,” he said. “I demand that you take us in.”

The gray-haired woman hesitated, then got to her feet, maintaining a space between herself and the stocky man as she came around the desk. She walked over to the steel doors and leaned into the intercom panel, throwing nervous glances over one shoulder. A buzzing noise sounded, and she pushed the doors open. Without waiting for the couple, who fell in behind, she headed down a corridor lit like an aquarium and lined with gurneys and steel poles that dangled plastic bottles. Slowly the steel doors closed.

Vicky checked her watch. Twenty to five. It would take forty minutes to get to DIA, longer in the rush hour. She'd never make it before Lucas's plane arrived. She found her cell phone in her bag and dialed information. In a few seconds she was connected to the airport, arranging to leave a message for her son, the old feeling of failure nudging its way into her consciousness. She could imagine the expectant look on Lucas's face when he arrived at the gate, the dark eyes darting about, the ready smile dissolving into disappointment and, finally, into acceptance.

There would be a page: “Lucas Holden. Please pick up
the white courtesy phone.” And the message:
Sorry. See you at the house.

Vicky walked back to the waiting area and sat down. The young couple stared into the center of the room with the absorbed resignation that, she knew, mirrored her own.

She would wait. She was the attorney Vincent R. Lewis had risked his life to talk to. She would not leave until someone came through the steel doors and told her whether or not he was alive.

“Vicky?”

She glanced around at the tall, sandy-haired man standing in the entrance. Steve Clark, an old friend from undergraduate days in Denver, now a police detective, dressed in tan slacks and navy-blue sport coat and white shirt, with the knot of his red tie slightly loosened at the collar. Still handsome, in a more mature way, still the confident smile and intense brown eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Walking around in front of her chair, he reached down and took her hand. The warmth of his palm against hers made her realize how chilled she was.

“I could ask you the same question.” She withdrew her hand slowly.

“I'm working on a hit-and-run case.”

“So am I.”

She drew in a breath and heard herself giving the same explanation she'd given Nathan Baider ten minutes before. When she finished, Steve took her hand again. “I didn't know you were back. Why didn't you call me?”