The Story Teller (15 page)

Emil Coughlin drained the last of the tea and set the glass on the tray. Uncrossing his legs, he leaned forward, a look of conspiracy on his face. “I’m sure you did not come here, my dear, for the sole purpose of inquiring about an unfortunate student. I received a call from Rachel Foster yesterday. She informed me I would most likely hear from you. Evidently you believe the museum has managed to lose an Arapaho ledger book which, if it existed, I can assure you, would be worth a great deal of money.”

Vicky held his gaze. “The book was not in the inventory.”

“Of course not,” the professor said. Suddenly his voice had a harder edge. “The museum never owned such a treasure. Would that it had. It might have sold the ledger book to the Smithsonian or the Field and enjoyed a more secure financial base today.”

“The museum exhibited the ledger book in 1920,” Vicky said.

The professor shifted back into the cushions. “So you say. I’m sure Rachel Foster explained the museum has no records of the book. Your evidence, I believe, consists of a story told by a very old man.”

Vicky tried to curb her annoyance. What he said was true; her evidence was weak. “Charlie Redman is the tribal storyteller. He remembers accurately and tells the truth.”

“An old man can make mistakes.” The professor was shaking his head. “I spent the last two months verifying the tribal provenance for the Plains Indian artifacts in the museum. In almost all instances, the museum’s identifications were correct. We did find a few Arapaho artifacts mislabeled as Cheyenne, however,
and vice versa—an explainable error, given the close alliance of the two tribes.”

Vicky felt a prick of excitement. She moved forward. “Did you find a Cheyenne ledger book?”

“My dear.” Emil Coughlin held up one hand. “Let me quell the fond hope I detect in your voice. What you imagine is not the case. There is no ledger book in the museum.”

“Then what became of it?” she persisted.

“May I make a suggestion?” The professor hurried on, as if no response were required or expected. “Several local museums date to the last century. One may have owned an Arapaho ledger book in the past. Perhaps your investigation would bear more fruit were you to contact other museums and ask them to check their records. Undoubtedly your storyteller saw the ledger book somewhere else.”

“Tell me,” Vicky said, getting to her feet, “is there another museum with white marble columns across the front?”

Emil Coughlin was also on his feet, hands stuffed into the front pockets of the white slacks, a mixture of sympathy and exasperation in his eyes. “I’m afraid, my dear, I have no other suggestions.”

Vicky made her way back into the entry, footsteps padding behind her. She opened the door, allowing the afternoon heat to spill inside. Then she faced the professor. “Did Todd Harris help you verify the Arapaho artifacts?”

Emil Coughlin glanced beyond her shoulder, as if to pluck the answer from the outdoors. “He spent a few hours on the project. I’m afraid that was all the time he had.”

Vicky thanked the man and hurried toward the car, gravel snapping under her heels. By the time she had backed around the driveway, he had retreated inside.
The closed door gave the house a vacant look, like a prop in some extravagant movie.

The steering wheel felt as hot as a branding iron in her hands as she guided the Taurus down the mountainside, her thoughts on what Emil Coughlin had said. Julie was Todd’s roommate. Did that mean she was more than a roommate? A lover? Vicky blinked back the idea. How could that be? Annemarie loved him, trusted him. Whatever Julie was to Todd, there was a chance she might know what had been bothering him; what had kept him so busy he had only a few hours to help identify his own people’s artifacts; what had sent him to the Wind River Reservation last weekend.

She curved two fingers over the bottom rim of the searing-hot wheel, trying to put herself in the girl’s place. What would she do? Alone in the city; roommate—boyfriend, perhaps—murdered. She would run back to the reservation, Vicky knew. As fast as she could. She would lose herself in the vastness, the endless spaces, and no one, not one member of her family, would tell the police where she was hiding.

She had to find Julie before she left Denver. It might be too late already, she thought as she curved off the mountainside. She pressed hard on the gas pedal and turned onto the highway, heading into the city.

14

V
icky squinted into the sun rays splayed against the windshield. The mid-afternoon traffic on Sixth Avenue was light but fast, and she clung to the right lane, allowing other cars to hurtle past in a haze of heat and exhaust. Inside the Taurus was cool; the air-conditioning emitted a low hum.

A half block from Todd’s apartment building, she spotted the yellow police tape strung around trees and bushes. Two police cars stood at the curb, and as she slowed down, a uniformed officer waved her on, a definitive gesture.

She drove past, then put the Taurus through a jerky U-turn and wheeled into a cramped space. The officer came down the sidewalk as she got out.

“Move on.” An order, meant to be obeyed. Waves of heat rose off the asphalt, enveloping her.

Vicky introduced herself. “I’m an attorney and a friend of the victim’s family,” she said, nodding toward the yellow tape behind him.

He narrowed his eyes, as if to bring her into sharper focus. “What do you want?”

Glancing beyond his shoulder, Vicky saw two other policemen step out of the building and walk down the sidewalk, each carrying a bulging plastic bag—filled with what? Evidence from the apartment? She took a chance: “Is Detective Clark here?”

The officer rocked sideways, studying her a moment. Finally he told her to wait. Stepping across the yellow tape, he strode diagonally to the front door.

Vicky followed as far as the tape barrier and stopped, aware of the other policemen nearby, their eyes on her. After a few moments, the first officer slammed out the door. “Two-B,” he said, throwing back his head.

The front door was propped open, allowing the summer heat to fold itself through the shadowy hallway and narrow stairway inside the entry. Vicky climbed to the second floor and started down another hallway sheathed in sunlight pouring through a window at the far end. The second door on the right stood open.

Detective Steve Clark, in pale blue shirt and dark slacks, stood in the center of what looked like an ordinary student apartment. Railroad-flat style: living room, bedroom, and kitchen aligned in a row. Two doors on the left probably led to another bedroom, a bath. Except in this apartment, there was an upended sofa, an upholstered chair rammed against the wall, a bookcase turned on its side, and books and papers strewn across the wood floor.

“My God,” Vicky said.

The detective shot her a look of sympathy. “We found this last night after we ID’d the body. Somebody was looking for something. What brought you here?”

Vicky turned her eyes to him, trying to ignore the piles of clothes and blankets littering the floor in the far bedroom, the cabinet doors hanging into the kitchen, the pots and dishes and cans of food tumbling over the counter. “I just heard that Todd had a roommate. Someone named Julie.”

Shaking his head slowly, the detective took a step toward her. “I know what you’re up to, Vicky. I got a call this morning from the history chairman over at CU-Denver. Why won’t you trust me? I want to find the killer as much as you do, and I want to get a conviction.
I don’t need well-meaning amateurs like you running around and . . .” he stared at her a long moment. “Well, frankly, you could screw up the investigation.”

Vicky said, “She’s Lakota.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re talking about the roommate now, are we?”

“She might talk to me. She’s going to be nervous about talking to you.”

“I don’t bite.”

“You wear a badge and a gun, Steve.”

He raked his fingers through his hair a moment, a weary gesture. “You’re too late. She’s gone. There’s no sign of her in the apartment. Neighbors say she was only around the last couple weeks while Todd was on one of his research trips. She could have been house-sitting, watering plants.” He gave a quick shrug.

Vicky glanced about the debris-strewn room. There were no plants.

“Maybe she crashed here awhile,” Steve said, following her gaze. “You want my best guess? When trouble started to come down, she hightailed it out of here. Probably back on the reservation by now.”

How could she blame the girl? Vicky was thinking. She made a little circle, sidestepping the debris. “What were they looking for?”

Steve pursed his lips. A handsome face, she thought. Strong chin, kind eyes. “Best guess?” he said after a moment. “Drugs, cash, maybe both.”

There it was again; the same theory. Another dead Indian. A drug deal. “Oh, God, Steve,” she said. “Don’t you understand? Whoever killed Todd is going to a lot of trouble to make it look like a drug deal, and you’re buying it!”

“Wait a minute.” His tone was sharp, the detective tone she’d seldom heard him use. “It looks like he owed some people. After they killed him, they came here for
payment. Believe me, Vicky”—his voice softened—“I’ve seen a hundred cases like this.”

Vicky crossed to one of the side doors and pushed it open. Another bed torn apart, another desk with drawers hanging out. Papers littered the floor. Shouldering past the detective, she walked through the kitchen and into the back bedroom. The mattress lay exposed on a narrow, metal frame, clumps of white foam poking through the slits that zigzagged across the top. Against one wall was a desk swept clear of papers or any other reminder a student had once studied there. She stepped closer. A faint trace of dust outlined a dust-free square the size of a computer. “Todd’s computer’s missing,” she said.

“You know for sure he owned one?”

“He was a graduate student, Steve. He was writing a thesis.” She glanced back at the desk. The thesis would be on the computer, possibly on backup diskettes. There were no diskettes anywhere.

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose a moment. “The most valuable thing in this apartment is a TV on the kitchen counter that might bring fifty bucks, if some pawnshop felt charitable. So if the victim owned a computer, whoever ransacked this place grabbed it. Next best thing to cash.”

“What about copies of his thesis?” Vicky stooped over and picked up a wad of papers—handwritten notes, torn scraps—a jumble of nonsense.

“We found a lot of notebooks and some manuscripts,” the detective said. Stepping toward her, he reached out and took her hand. His touch was warm. “Trust me to do the right thing here, will you, Vicky?”

When she didn’t reply, he dropped her hand. “If you should happen to find the roommate . . .” he began, an edge to his tone. “I’m not suggesting you keep nosing around, but if you happen to run into her, you’ll call me, right?”

Vicky closed her eyes a moment and tried to grab onto the idea at the edge of her mind. Whoever had ransacked Todd’s apartment had taken the computer and any back-up diskettes that may have contained his thesis. Why would anyone want a graduate student’s thesis? Is that why Todd was killed? For a thesis? It didn’t make sense. She said, “I’ll do everything I can to make sure the bastard who killed Todd Harris spends the rest of his life behind bars.”

“Vicky, Vicky.” A patient repetition, a kind of demand for attention. “You’ll call me, right?”

“I’ll call you, Steve,” she said.

He bestowed a long, appreciative smile on her before leading her out of the narrow apartment and down the stairs. Outside they walked past the shade lengthening over the sidewalk and into the bright sunshine at the curb. He held the door as she slipped inside the Taurus. Bending toward her, his face close to hers, he said, “Could we put all this aside for a couple hours and have dinner tonight?”

“I’m sorry, Steve,” she began, searching for the words to let him know gently she did not want to reconsider the decision she had made a dozen years ago.

“Level with me,” he said. “You’re involved with somebody else, right?”

She gripped the handle and pulled the door away from him. She thought of the white man who’d asked her to move to Chicago. A nice man, a company president, but he was not for her, and last week she had told him so. She glanced up at the detective awaiting her answer. “Yes,” she said, “I’m involved with somebody else.” It seemed the easiest way.