The Thunder Keeper(33)
“Help me,” he said. “Give me the name.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know, Ali.” He reached out and laid a hand on the puffy jacket sleeve.
“He killed Grover. He’s gonna kill me, too.” The words came in a long wail. She yanked her arm away, jumped to her feet, and ran around the corner of the building.
He went after her, grabbed her arm, and swung her toward him. She was so light, it surprised him. A child trembling inside the puffy jacket. “Ali, I’m trying to help you. Who killed Grover?”
She tried to pull away, but he held on, and she stared up at him for several seconds, a mixture of fear and resignation behind her eyes. Finally the words came, like water breaking over a dam. His name was Eddie. She didn’t know his last name. A Pueblo Indian from New Mexico. Duncan and him got together at the Denver Indian Center. He was crazier than Duncan, but Duncan was gonna make a big score off him. One last score. Then they were gonna come up here and start over, just her and Duncan.
“I want you to tell this to Detective Slinger.” Father John kept his hand on her arm. He could sense the impulse to run, like an electric spark firing inside her.
“Tell the police? You’re as whacked as Duncan. What d’ya think’s gonna happen to me if I blow the whistle on Eddie? He’s still hanging around. I know it! I seen his brown truck on Main Street last night. He could be waiting for the right time to get me, like he did Duncan. Oh, God. Why am I talking to you?” She tried to wrench herself free again.
He let her go, but this time she didn’t take off running. “You shouldn’t be alone, Ali,” he said. “Go to the res and stay with your aunt. Take a few days off.” He nodded toward the brick wall.
“A few days off?” Contempt and incredulity flowed into her expression. “And then I get fired and don’t have a job. And my auntie’s got enough problems without me showing up with no money and some Indian after me.” She glanced past the parking lot to the traffic flowing along Main Street.
A chill ran through him. What had he done? Eddie could drive by, spot her talking to a white man in a cowboy hat—a cop, maybe. And she, the only one who could identify a murderer.
“Listen, Ali,” he said. She had started walking, and he stayed with her. “Tell your boss you need time off for an emergency. There’s a guest house at the mission. You can stay there until Detective Slinger picks up Eddie. You’ll be safe.”
“Leave me alone.” She surged ahead and broke into a run, slipping on the wet pavement, weaving between the brick wall and the bumpers of the parked cars.
By the time he reached the front, she was nowhere in sight, and he wondered if she’d ducked into the convenience store or kept running. Where? Where could she go that Eddie wouldn’t find her?
He slid into the Toyota and turned the ignition. The engine choked into life. He drove onto Main Street and headed north. A few minutes later he was speeding down Highway 789, the wind driving the rain over the hood of the pickup, wipers swinging across the windshield.
He replayed the conversation in his mind again and again. A man named Eddie staying in the area to kill anyone who could link him to Duncan Grover. Another man, Jimmie. The witness. The penitent.
It didn’t add up. Something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. If Eddie intended to kill Ali Burris, why hadn’t he done so by now? The girl was easy to find—he’d found her right away. What was Eddie waiting for? He could have killed Grover, then disappeared into New Mexico, into the Pueblos. Why was he still here?
Father John slowed past the flat storefronts and restaurants of Hudson, then sped up again on Rendezvous Road. There was no other traffic, only the rainswept plains stretching into the distances. A new idea began to form in his mind. What was it the man had said in the confessional? Something about the boss wanting to teach the Indian to mind his own business.
Maybe Eddie hadn’t killed Grover for revenge after all. Maybe there was some other reason, something that Ali Burris didn’t know about.
He turned east on Seventeen Mile Road, mentally ticking off his options. He could talk to Slinger again. He rejected the idea. What proof did he have? A confession that he couldn’t talk about. The stammered words of a girl scared out of her mind. Ali Burris would never tell the detective what she’d told him, and without her he had nothing.
Except—the name of a murderer.
By the time he turned into the mission grounds, he knew what he had to do. He was going to have to find a man called Eddie who didn’t want to be found.
He drove down the straightaway lined with cottonwoods that moved lazily in the rain. As he turned onto Circle Drive, he saw Father Don’s blue sedan parked in front of the administration building.