The Thunder Keeper(25)
“Thank you for seeing me,” she began.
He cut her off: “What’s this about Vince being murdered?”
Vicky said, “I saw it happen. The black Camry deliberately ran him down.”
Baider drew in a long breath that expanded the fronts of the blue shirt. “About thirty other people saw it happen, Detective Clark says, and nobody else calls it murder.” He allowed the word to settle between them, his eyes steady on hers. “It was an accident, Ms. Holden. Some drunk weaving down the street, couldn’t tell the curb from a white line. Hit-and-run, that’s what it was.”
“I was on my way to meet Mr. Lewis when he was killed,” Vicky hurried on. There was little time. She half expected the secretary to appear and announce the meeting was over.
“Yes, yes.” The man waved one hand over the desk. “So you informed me after the accident. If Vince made an appointment with you, it must have been personal business.” He shrugged. “In any case, it no longer matters.”
“It was a matter of life and death,” Vicky said. “Someone killed him to keep him from talking to me.”
Baider was quiet a long moment. He seemed to be staring at some image behind his eyes. “A very large assumption. What’s your evidence, Ms. Holden?”
“Lewis’s own words.” She was thinking how she would demolish a witness on the stand for offering such evidence. How can you be certain of what Mr. Lewis meant? She hurried on: “Lewis’s job was to locate new diamond deposits, am I correct?” Slowly now, feeling her way, groping to express the idea that had been nagging at her since she’d learned that Vince Lewis was dead. “Is it possible he located a diamond deposit on the Wind River Reservation?” It sounded preposterous, even as she spoke.
Baider shook his head. “You’re correct about Lewis’s job. We’re always looking for kimberlite pipes that may be diamondiferous. Maybe you know the world market can no longer depend upon diamonds mined in Africa. Deposits in places like Angola, Congo, and Sierra Leone have been taken over by rebels. They’ve been flooding the world market with so-called conflict diamonds to finance their bloody wars. Damn conflict diamonds amounted to seven hundred million dollars a year until the industry got a certification program. Now diamonds traded on the world market gotta have certificates proving they didn’t come from rebel-held mines. Not as easy as it sounds.”
He shook his head and held up one hand, like a teacher about to make his point. “Much easier to certify diamonds mined in the United States. When we find a pipe, we file a claim. We have dozens of claims on the southern Wyoming border. The area is rich in diamond deposits. None in central Wyoming, I can assure you.”
Slowly the man levered himself out of his chair. “I’m sure Lewis’s accident was a great shock to you, Ms. Holden. I understand the urgency of your desire to find an explanation, but take some advice from a man who’s knocked around a bit. Accidents happen. Sometimes nobody’s to blame. Let it go, and put your mind to rest.”
The door swung open and the woman in the red suit leaned into the office. “Your meeting, Mr. Baider,” she said.
Vicky stood up, reached across the desk, and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you for your time,” she said. A waste of her own time, she was thinking. If what Baider said was true, there were no claims filed on the res, no records of any deposits. She was chasing phantoms. And yet, Vince Lewis had died trying to tell her something that affected her people.
She walked back through the office, the secretary’s footsteps knocking behind her, and rode the elevator down. As the bronze doors parted, she spotted a younger version of Nathan Baider crossing the lobby—same height and build, same ruddy cheeks, tousled black hair that would be gray in a few years. Roz Baider, she guessed. The man was in a deep conversation with the stocky man beside him.
Suddenly Baider turned toward her. There was a flash of recognition in the man’s eyes, and she wondered if Nathan had told him about her. For half a second she thought he might approach her. Instead, he resumed the conversation with the other man. They swung past a planter and walked hurriedly to the entrance, wing tips tapping out a staccato rhythm on the marble.
It struck her that neither Nathan Baider nor his son wanted her to know why Vince Lewis had called, but she had her own theory, and that theory was beginning to take on a strength beyond its likelihood. For a brief moment she allowed herself to wish that John O’Malley were here. They could sit down together; she could test her theory against his logic. She considered calling him, then dismissed the idea. Not talking to him had made it seem easier to be so far away.