Wife of Moon

24

THE HOUSE WAS ablaze in the darkness. Light spilled through the front windows and the opened door. Blue, red, and yellow lights flashing from the roof of a police cruiser spiraled across the front of the house, and dark uniforms moved past the windows inside. A photographer was also moving about, snapping pictures, the white light flashing intermittently into the living room. Vicky watched Ted Gianelli walk in from the kitchen, like a shadow moving through the light.

She stood outside between the Jeep and John O’Malley’s pickup, gripping the fronts of her jacket, struggling against the sense that she’d wandered into a nightmare and couldn’t find the way out.

The police had come—three cars, one after the other racing down the road and turning into the yard, yellow headlights jumping over the ground, officers spilling out of the opened doors. She’d gotten out of the Jeep and stumbled into the headlights. “He’s in the shed,” she’d heard herself shouting, and finally the officers had turned away and started around the corner of the house toward the back, leaving her alone again with the images in her head.

After a long while, one of the officers returned and began asking her questions. What had brought her here? When did she arrive? Was anyone else here? She was trying to find the answers, gripping her jacket to keep from floating away, when John O’Malley’s pickup pulled in next to the cruisers. The door slammed shut, and he darted around the cars, plunging past the headlights toward her.

She collapsed against him, grateful for the strength of his arms, the warmth of his breath in her hair.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“She’s had a bad shock,” said one officer.

“You’re shivering. You should be inside.”

“No.” Vicky shook her head against his chest, then stepped back. Something was warm on her cheeks, and she realized she was crying. She wiped at the moisture. “It’s horrible what they did to him.”

“She found T.J.’s body, Father,” the officer said. “Around in back, in case you want to say some prayers. The fed’s on his way, and the coroner’ll be here any minute.” He nodded toward the house, as if he were urging him on. “Up to you.”

“Go ahead,” Vicky said when she saw Father John hesitate.

She could sense his reluctance in the way he removed his hand from her shoulder. “Why don’t you wait in the pickup? It’s still warm. Start the motor.” He pulled a key out of his jacket pocket and tried to press it into her hand.

Vicky waved it away. “It’s okay.” She stopped herself from saying, ‘The cold air is real.’

A moment passed before she felt him take his eyes from her and start for the shed, the officer in step behind. And she was alone again. He had his responsibility, she told herself. There were the prayers, the rituals, all the trappings that he brought with him wherever he went. It was who he was—a priest. He could never leave them behind.

It was then that Gianelli’s SUV came bumping across the yard. It stopped next to her Jeep, and he was out in a second, ducking around the hood. “Vicky? That you? What the hell happened?”

He stopped, like a bronco jerked backward. “Are you hurt?” he asked, his tone softer, suffused with concern.

She shook her head. “The officers are out back,” she said.

“Can you tell me about it? You want to sit in the car where it’s warm?” He tossed his head toward the SUV.

Vicky shook off the suggestion. They were the same, she was thinking. Gianelli and John O’Malley. All she had to do was get warm and she’d be fine. She didn’t want to get warm, to have the image settle in. “T.J. called me two hours ago. He asked me to come to the house, but when I got here, he was already . . .” She could feel the warm moisture on her face again.

“Let me take a look,” Gianelli said. “We’ll talk later.”

She wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed—twenty? thirty?—before Gianelli stepped through the front door, took her arm, and guided her into the living room. It was as cold as the outdoors. They sat on the sofa and he produced a notebook that he placed on the table in front of them. “Tell me what you know about this, Vicky,” he said, his pen poised over the white page. “Start at the beginning. Why did you come here?”

She started going over it all again, the images flashing in her mind as she talked: the phone call in the night, the fear and urgency in T.J.’s voice, the house, the shed. All of it.

When she finished, the agent stopped writing and glanced around at the uniforms and the plain-clothes policemen still milling about the living room. Then he asked, “What exactly did T.J. say when he called?”

“That they had killed Denise.”

“He said they?”

She nodded. That was right. T.J. had said they. “They tortured him, didn’t they? He held out, didn’t he? He didn’t want to tell them whatever they wanted to know until . . .” She gulped back the sob erupting in her throat. “Until they made him.”

“What else did T.J. say? What did they want from him, Vicky?”

“I think they were looking for old photographs.” It was John O’Malley’s voice coming through the blur of the living room.

The agent swiveled his head around. “Old photographs?” He shook his head. “So now you’re telling me that somebody cut T.J. and put a bullet into his brain for old photographs?”

“It’s probably what they were looking for at Christine Loftus’s apartment.” Father John sat down beside her, and Vicky felt his arm slip across her shoulders again. “Are you all right?” he asked. When she nodded, he said to Gianelli, “They didn’t find what they wanted at Christine’s, so they came here. They waited until T.J. showed up so he could show them where the photographs were.”

“Jesus, John.” The agent threw back his head and stared up at the ceiling. “What are you saying? Somebody killed both Denise and T.J. for old photographs that are worth what? A thousand dollars each?”

“Maybe a lot more.”

Vicky glanced at Father John. She could almost read the tracks of thought crossing his face. He had put it together.

“Eric Loftus owns a gallery in Jackson,” Father John was saying. “People there can afford to pay a lot of money for vintage photographs. The man’s been trying to find his wife.”

“Tell me about it. He’s all over the place, intimidating people, making the investigation into her disappearance more difficult. After people meet up with Loftus, they’re afraid to open their mouths about anything they might know. Suddenly the Arapahos who signed the guest book never heard of the Curtis exhibit.”

“Maybe he found her, Ted,” Vicky said. “Maybe she told him about the photographs.”

The agent began rubbing his hands together, and Vicky sensed that he was shivering. Death was like that. It froze something inside.

“Okay,” Gianelli said. So, you’re telling me that the Painted Horses had some of those old photographs, and Loftus came here looking for them? You’re saying that he killed Denise Monday night, then came back tonight and killed T.J.? Only one problem with this scenario, John. Last Monday night, Loftus had an opening at his gallery in Jackson. Probably a hundred people will swear that he was there.”

“It’s a short drive over the mountain,” Vicky said.

Gianelli went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “The agent in Jackson said that Loftus was distraught about his wife missing. Said she’d walked out on him six weeks ago, and he’d been discretely trying to find her since, calling around, asking art dealers if they’d heard from her. Said she had a history of going off for long periods. Now you’re suggesting he found her on the rez and learned that she’d gotten onto old photos that might be valuable. Okay. Okay.” The fed leaned over and scribbled a couple of more notes on the pad. “I’ll lean on Eric Loftus and find out where he was this evening.”

He paused, his attention turned toward the open door and the van pulling into the yard. “Coroner’s here,” he said. “No sense in you two hanging around, but . . .” He turned to Vicky. “I’ll want to talk to you again tomorrow, see if there’s anything else you remember after you get some rest. Try to get some rest,” he said.

“Has anyone told Vera?” Father John said. The tone of a priest, Vicky thought.

“I was hoping that you’d . . .” The agent shrugged. “Poor woman. First her sister-in-law, now her brother. It’ll be a blow.”

Vicky could feel John O’Malley’s gaze on her face. “I’ll follow you home, first,” he said.

Vicky pushed herself to her feet and went outside, heading for the Jeep, aware that Gianelli and John O’Malley were close behind. First, John O’Malley had said, but then he would have to do his duty. He would go to Vera and deliver the horrible news and comfort the poor woman with his prayers and platitudes and tell her how God was with her, no matter what. She knew the words by heart; there had been times when he had used them on her, and she wondered if God had been with T.J. when they were cutting his arms to the bones.

“You’re a priest,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “You have your responsibility. Vera will need all the comforting she can get. I can get home just fine.”

She had the sense that he was going to say something, that he was swallowing the words. Then he turned and walked over to the pickup. In a moment, the vehicle heaved itself out onto the road, taillights blinking like exploding firecrackers. “I can have an officer follow you home,” Gianelli said.