The Thunder Keeper(40)

Laola leaned over the desk. “Moccasin telegraph,” she began in a confidential tone, “says some woman’s filed a one-and-a-half-million-dollar sexual misconduct suit against the priest at St. Francis.”

Vicky dropped the receiver into the cradle. Assistant priests came and went, but for almost eight years, John O’Malley had been the priest at St. Francis. She could imagine some woman falling in love with him. She could imagine that. But he was a priest; he kept his vows. She knew him—she had thought she knew him. Was it possible she’d been wrong? That she didn’t know him at all? How could that be? A kind of numbness was spreading through her.

She realized dimly that Laola was staring at her, watching for her reaction. She needed some time to reconcile her own sense of John O’Malley with this new image. “See if you can get Mrs. Lewis for me,” Vicky said, making an effort to keep her voice steady. No matter what may have happened, he was trying to find the truth about Duncan Grover’s death. She decided to drop by the Indian Center after work and see if anyone knew a Pueblo Indian named Eddie.

The secretary turned and walked out of the office. In half a minute the phone buzzed, and Vicky lifted the receiver. There was a click, followed by the electronic hum of another answering machine and a woman’s voice: “We aren’t here, but please leave a message. We really want to talk to you. Have a great day.”

Vicky hung up. She wondered how Jana Lewis spent her days. Banging on Steve Clark’s door demanding that he solve her husband’s murder? Huddling with a lawyer about her husband’s estate?

She would drop by the house on Vine Street later, before she went to the Indian Center. If Jana Lewis was in, she would ask to speak with her a moment. It was always better to catch a witness off guard.

As soon as she made the decision, she felt better, calmer. What did it matter if John O’Malley had dropped his guard and gotten involved with some woman? He was human. People made mistakes. She had made her share. What difference would it make to her if he’d made a mistake? She had her own work, her own life. She intended to find out what Vince Lewis’s wife knew. And she had something for Jana Lewis: a warning that the woman could be in danger.





19


Vicky pointed the Bronco through the traffic spilling out of downtown Denver and turned left onto Speer Boulevard. The sun blinked in the rearview mirror, but black rain clouds were gathering over the mountains. Traffic was heavy, four lanes across, winding southeast along the banks of Cherry Creek. Ten minutes later the grounds of the Denver Country Club came into view outside her passenger window, the sprawling, gray-frame building a mute symbol of another century, built by the people who had displaced her own.

Another left turn down a wide street. Rows of mansions passing outside. She parked in front of a redbrick Tudor separated from the street by a sweep of glistening wet lawn and bushes that dipped under cascades of yellow and pink buds. Fallen buds crunched under her heels as she walked up the sidewalk. She clapped the brass door knocker.

There was no sound coming from the house, yet she had the sense that someone was there. She rapped again, giving the knocker a hard kick this time. Still no answer. She glanced at her watch—five twenty-six—and debated whether to wait or drive over to the Indian Center, see if anyone there had ever heard of Eddie, then drive back. The thought of driving across the city all evening filled her with dread. She knocked again.

The door inched open. The auburn-haired woman from the emergency room peered through the crack. Slim, red-tipped fingers wrapped around the door’s edge. On the third finger was a wide gold band with a diamond the size of a marble floating in the center. “What is it?”

Vicky told the woman her name and said she’d like to talk to her a moment.

The crack widened, and the woman leaned unsteadily forward, still gripping the door. Her face was pale—no makeup, a puffiness around the eyes, which had the surreal color of green glass. She was in a blue terrycloth robe that bunched around her waist. Her dark, shoulder-length hair looked tangled and uncombed, as if she’d just lifted her head from a pillow. “I saw you at the hospital,” she said in a resigned monotone.

“Yes, I was there.”

“One of Vince’s whores.”

“What?”

“How dare you come here? You have no right—” The door started to close.

“I’m an attorney, Mrs. Lewis.” Vicky placed a hand against the door. “Your husband called me the morning of his death. I was on my way to meet him for the first time when he was killed. I’d like to talk to you.”