The Lost Bird (17 page)

“Joseph’s murderer is still free,” the Provincial said, a musing tone. “Well, I’m going to have to insist—”

Father John stopped him. “What are the funeral arrangements?”

He heard the long sigh at the other end of the line. “The funeral will be here, in the Jesuit cemetery. We were in touch with the Lander coroner. He expects the body to be released soon. With the case still unsolved,
John, we have no choice except to close the mission. It’s only temporary. As soon as the murderer—”

“Wait a minute, Bill. You gave me two days.”

“Yes, well, I believe the time is about up.”

Father John drew in a long breath. He picked up a pencil and began tapping it against the edge of the desk. “People here remember Father Joseph from before,” he said, a different approach. The pencil made a sharp drumroll. “They’ll expect a memorial Mass.”

“Offer the Mass this afternoon. You can leave tomorrow.”

“You can’t rush something like this.” The harshness in his tone caught Father John by surprise. “The Arapahos will expect a solemn, well-planned liturgy. The elders will want to speak, and they’ll need time to prepare their remarks. We’ll have to arrange for the singers and drummers.”

“Are we talking about Mass?”

“Of course we’re talking about Mass,” Father John said. “The way the Arapahos expect the Mass to be said.”

There was another long sigh. “You’re stalling, John.”

“Give me a few more days. The FBI will have the murderer by then.” He wished he felt the confidence he heard in his voice.

The Provincial didn’t reply for a moment. “You have until Saturday, John, at which time I will expect you to be on a plane for Boston.”

Father John flipped the pencil across the desk. Three days! He exhaled a deep breath. “Look, Bill, I’ve been wondering about something. You said Joseph came here to die.”

Another silence. Then: “A figure of speech. I believe Joseph was prepared to die.”

“But why here? Did he tell you?”

“Not in so many words. He remembered the mission fondly. It was obvious by the way he spoke. Perhaps he regretted leaving so precipitously.”

Father John set his elbows on the desk. “What are you saying?”

“Well, naturally, I took a look at the record of his previous assignment at St. Francis before sending him there again. An exemplary record, I might add. He started numerous programs, ran the school with an iron hand. Students turned in excellent scores on national tests. Even though Joseph’s assignment was for the usual six years, he left quite suddenly after about a year.”

“Was there an explanation?” Father John asked.

“A philosophy position became available at Marquette University. He was a philosopher, you know.”

Father John was quiet, considering. Then he asked the date that Joseph had left.

“You want the exact date?” A note of exasperation crept into the Provincial’s voice. “Is that important?”

“Possibly.”

“Wait a moment. Joseph’s file is here somewhere.” In the background was the sound of a drawer squealing on its runners, the rustle of papers. Then the Provincial’s voice: “Arrived at St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation, October twelfth, 1963.”

“When did he leave?”

Another rustle of papers. “Resigned December twentieth, 1964.”

Father John lifted his hand and squeezed the bridge of his nose. What had he expected? That Father Joseph
had resigned immediately after the suicide of Dawn James? That he had been mad with grief and guilt? False propositions yield false conclusions, and he had started with the proposition that there had been some kind of relationship between Joseph and the woman.

He dragged his thoughts back to what the Provincial was saying, something about December 20 being the official date. “He left a couple months earlier. Actually departed the mission on September twenty-six.”

Father John thanked the Provincial and slowly replaced the receiver. His hunch was correct. Joseph Keenan had left the mission the day following Dawn James’s suicide.

•   •   •

The gray light of evening crept over the north side of Riverton, broken by the occasional headlight of an oncoming car, a lamp flickering inside a house. Father John drove past rows of bungalows that duplicated one another, shadows crawling over the sidewalks and lawns. He parked in front of a tan-brick bungalow that sheltered under a giant oak. A porch light resembling a carriage lantern glowed at the door, and a thin light outlined the curtains at the front window.

The front door swung open as he came up the sidewalk, leaves crackling under his boots. Framed in a rectangle of light was a slim woman, with short, blond hair, wearing a silky, shimmering blouse and pleated skirt that revealed well-shaped legs. She kept one hand on the door and stretched the other toward him. “Father O’Malley. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Her grip was surprisingly firm. He guessed her age at about sixty. An attractive woman with honey-colored
hair, light eyes, and finely sculpted features that bore the faintest trace of makeup.

Abruptly she withdrew her hand and waved him into a cozy living room. A brick fireplace covered the opposite wall, flanked by a pair of upholstered chairs. In front of the window on the right was a tufted, low-slung sofa. A black cat curled on the middle cushion. Lamps sent a dim, suffused light throughout the room. On a table near the door was a cluster of photos: young girls on horses and bicycles, leaning against a fin-tailed car, clowning, laughing.

“My sister and I,” the woman said, following his glance. Then, indicating one of the chairs by the fireplace, she said, “Please have a seat, Father. I’ve made fresh coffee.”

The woman disappeared through the shadows of a small dining room that opened off the living room. In a moment she returned, carrying a silver tray that rattled with a coffee server, bowls, cups and saucers, spoons. She set the tray onto the small table in front of the sofa, poured two cups of coffee, and handed him one. A tiny spoon lay on the saucer. Wordlessly, she lifted a creamer and sugar. He shook his head.

“Ms. James,” he began as she let herself down next to the cat.

“Mary.” She lifted her cup and took a sip, her eyes on his. “You were correct in assuming I wanted to talk to you about the priest who was murdered. Shocking.”

Father John took a drink of coffee. His finger barely fit into the handle of the china cup. “Was Father Joseph a friend of your family’s?” he prodded.

The woman shifted her gaze toward the shadows in the dining room. He could hear the cat purr in the
silence. Looking back, she said, “My sister, Dawn”—a glance toward the photos—“used to like to go to Mass at the Indian church. She often spoke of Father Keenan. When I heard about his murder, well, I began thinking . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she stole another glance at the photos. “She was such a wonderful girl, my sister.”

Father John saw that she was sliding toward the edge of tears. “Tell me about her,” he said gently.

“She was brilliant and very ambitious.” The woman stared at the photos. “I was the pretty one, but Dawn was the smart one.” Bringing her eyes back to his, she said, “I was also three years older, so after Father died, I helped Mother raise Dawn. I got a job after school at the movie theater, which was quite wonderful because, you see, I saw all the movies, and I always wanted to be an actress. The moment I graduated from high school, I intended to go to Hollywood and become a movie star.” She gave a little laugh that betrayed the faintest hint of regret. The cup rattled on the saucer in her lap.

Placing one hand over the cup to still it, she said, “Dawn always wanted to be a nurse, and Mother insisted we help her realize her dream. She was so intelligent, you understand. So, when I graduated, I took a job at the bank and helped to earn Dawn’s tuition. She graduated from Casper College and went on to nursing school. Well, she won every honor you can imagine. It was a decision I never regretted.”

The woman gave him a frank, proud smile, then went on: “Dawn was determined to repay me. I told her I didn’t expect anything, but—” She hesitated, smiling at the memory. “You had to know Dawn. She was very proud. She wanted to make her own way.
Once she set her mind on something, there was no talking her out of it. She got a job at the Riverton hospital, and every month she wrote me out a check. But she was impatient to pay off the debt. Eventually she found a much-better-paying job at the Markham Clinic in Lander. You’ve heard of Jeremiah Markham, haven’t you?”

The name sounded familiar. Author? Lecturer?

“The mother-and-baby doctor.”

“Ah, yes.” Father John had seen the man interviewed on television. “He practiced in Lander?”

Mary nodded. “His theories were quite unusual for the time. Dawn was thrilled to be working for him. She had the chance to travel quite frequently. Dr. Markham sent her to medical conferences in different cities. You see, he was determined to run the most modern, up-to-date clinic. Well”—the woman gave a little shrug—“all the traveling and long hours at the clinic made the job quite stressful. And then a number of babies died.”

Father John took a sip of coffee. Something moved at the edge of his memory: comments he’d overheard about the terrible year when the babies had died. He’d once asked one of the grandmothers what had caused the deaths, and she had talked about how the water ran red and foamy out of the faucets, about how the birds had flown away. The sadness had been so palpable, he hadn’t brought the matter up again.

“It must have been terrible for your sister,” he said. What the woman told him collided with his own theory. He’d feared that Dawn James had gotten involved with Father Joseph and that, out of grief and despair, she’d taken her own life. He was wrong. The despair had come from something much more profound. And
Joseph? The priest who held the funerals? Praying over the tiny caskets, one after another. Was that what had driven him away—the unrelenting sadness? Had he been counseling Dawn James when, perhaps, he had also been in need of counseling? Had he blamed himself for her suicide? All possible. But nothing explained why Joseph Keenan had returned.

“The FBI agent seized upon the deaths of the babies,” Mary was saying. “What a handy excuse! Dawn was depressed. The coroner ruled her death a suicide. Case closed. Another violent death on the reservation.” She thrust out a slim hand in a gesture of helplessness.

Father John set his cup and saucer on the table. “Are you saying your sister did not take her own life?”

“My sister,” she said, leveling her gaze with his, “was murdered, just like Father Joseph. I always believed she was murdered because of something she knew. Now I’m certain of it. Whatever it was, Father Joseph also knew.”

The quiet was broken by the soft purring of the cat, the ticking of a clock. “What makes you think so?” Father John asked after a moment.

The woman slid her own cup and saucer onto the tray and clasped her hands in her lap. “Dawn had fallen away from the church for a time, but in the last few weeks of her life, she’d found her faith again. She became a very devout Catholic, Father. She went to daily Mass at the mission. She would never have taken her life. She was very calm and optimistic about the future.”

Father John made an effort to keep his face unreadable. He was thinking that suicidal people often became
calm at the end. The decision made, they have only to await the opportune time.

Mary was shaking her head, as if she’d seen into his thoughts. “My sister had been depressed, I admit, but she had worked through her depression. She resigned from the clinic and was about to take her old job at the hospital. She stood in this very room and said, ‘Mary, I’m okay now. I’m happy.’”

The woman stared into the dining room, remembering. “The FBI agent couldn’t trace the pistol beside her body, so he concluded she’d bought it in a pawnshop. Imagine! A girl like Dawn wandering into some pawnshop and buying a pistol. Absurd!” She spit out the word. Little drops of moisture peppered the surface of the table.

Father John leaned toward her. “What makes you think your sister and Joseph both knew something?”

Mary James brought her eyes back to his. “I believe she confided in Father Joseph. I believe she’d been going to him for counseling. He was the one who helped her. That’s why she was able to take positive steps forward. Right after her murder, he went away. I think he was frightened that he would also be murdered.”

“Have you talked to Ted Gianelli, the FBI agent here now?” Father John asked.

The woman gave a brittle laugh. “For thirty-five years I have tried to get the FBI to investigate my sister’s murder. But the case is closed unless some new evidence appears. That’s why I called you, Father. Perhaps you can make the agent understand that new evidence has appeared. The man my sister confided in has been murdered.”

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