The Thunder Keeper(48)

He’d gotten the name from Grover’s girlfriend, he told her. An Indian girl, working in a convenience store, too scared to talk to the police.

“She can tie Eddie to Grover.” The urgency had returned. “Eddie could come after her, too. She could be in danger, John.”

Another conclusion they shared, he thought. He said, “If I can flush him out—”

“How are you going to do that?”

He stopped himself from telling her about the newspaper article. “Let’s just say I’m trying to locate him. If I get his name, Detective Slinger will pick him up for questioning.”

She was quiet, and he had the sense something else was on her mind. After a moment she said, “What about the lawsuit?”

He didn’t want to talk about the lawsuit. Just thinking about it filled him with a mixture of anger and shame. “My new assistant, Don Ryan—”

“Assistant!” she interrupted.

He felt as if he’d taken a fastball in his chest. Had she thought he was the target of the lawsuit? My God, what did she think of him?

“It was an affair, Vicky,” he said finally, keeping his voice steady. “He’d been counseling her. If the case goes to court, the woman will probably win. The provincial doesn’t believe insurance will cover all the damages.”

“Where does that leave the mission?”

“We’ll have to sell the land along the highway,” he heard himself saying. He felt as if he were talking about selling a part of himself. “There probably wouldn’t have been enough money to build the day-care and a new senior center, anyway.”

“Oh, John. You had such hopes . . .” She let the thought trail away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

So was he, he thought. “Listen, Vicky,” he went on, “promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t put yourself in any danger.”

“Same to you, John O’Malley,” she said.



Father John watched the ball arc high over center field. “Move in!” he yelled, cupping one hand over his mouth like a megaphone. The sound of his voice floated through the afternoon air, still damp from yesterday’s rain. But the sky was as crystalline blue as a mountain lake, and the sun was warm on his back. He’d called Eldon Antelope this morning to announce a practice, and this afternoon fifteen kids had shown up.

Now Randy White Horse was sprinting across the field, the small, intent brown face turned into the sun. He reached up and grabbed the ball out of the air, making it look easy.

“All right!” Father John shook his fist. He’d been pacing the field for almost two hours, drilling the kids on fly balls, grounders—whatever came their way. The field looked as if it had been plowed, with ridges of mud erupting through the barely dried surface.

“Weight back, eye on the ball!” Eldon Antelope shouted to the hitter. His son, Joseph, was on first base, jamming a fist into his glove.

So far the Eagles looked good, the way they were hitting the ball, shagging the flies, scooping up the grounders. Almost as if they’d played the last game yesterday instead of six months ago. Barring any unforeseen catastrophes—injuries or dropouts—they had a good chance of winning the league title. For a moment Father John felt like a kid again on the sandlots in Boston. The world could be crazy, an out-of-whack place, but everything was right on the diamond.

This would be a great season, he told himself, trying to ignore the uneasiness that had nagged at him since Vicky’s call last night. “Let her be safe,” he prayed silently, his eyes on the ball shooting past the pitcher’s mound out into center field. Randy was skidding sideways, and then he had it. His face stretched into a wide grin.

Father John gave him a thumbs-up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bulky figure of Matt Slinger walking down the third-base line: the rumpled slacks and open sport coat, the dark tie skewed sideways over the white shirt. The man’s shoulders curved forward in determination.

He’d been half expecting the detective since he’d read the headline in this morning’s Gazette: PRIEST DISPUTES SUICIDE. He flashed a signal to Eldon behind the plate that he needed a few minutes, then walked toward the detective.

“Hope this is important,” he said, closing the distance between them. “We’ve got a practice going on.”

Slinger planted his boots a couple of feet apart in the soft earth. His hands hung at his sides like baseball gloves. In one glove hand was a rolled-up copy of the newspaper. “You got some information about Duncan Grover’s death, you come to me, Father O’Malley, not some newspaper reporter.” He waved the newspaper between them like a baton.