4

A BODY AT the home of T.J. Painted Horse. Father John pressed down on the accelerator and stared at the silvery asphalt rolling into the headlights of the Toyota pickup. The rear tires yawed and squealed around a curve.

Suicide.

It was hard to imagine. T.J. was one of the leading men on the reservation. He had been on the tribal council—the business council, the Arapahos called it—for four or five years, and before that, he’d represented Fremont County in the state legislature. Everyone knew T.J. and his wife, Denise. She taught third grade at Fort Washakie school, and she came to Mass almost every Sunday. Sometimes T.J. came with her.

Ahead, a single yellow light gradually separated into two headlights, coming closer. He let up on the gas pedal, blinded for a half-second as the headlights swept past. Then the moon came into view again, hanging in the sky outside the passenger window, bathing the open spaces that stretched around him in a pale, gray light.

Leading man. Father John couldn’t get the words out of his mind. He gripped the steering wheel hard. Leading men made enemies, and T.J. had spoken out against drilling for methane gas in the coal beds on the eastern edge of the reservation. He’d gone to Cheyenne to try to convince the state legislature to oppose the drilling. He’d made a trip to Washington, D.C., to convince the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When the plans continued to move forward, with the support of Senator Jaime Evans, T.J. had gone to the newspapers. There had been a rash of articles about the necessity of more environmental studies, and the BIA had finally agreed to consider another environmental impact study. But people on the rez were waiting for the jobs and for the per capita payments they’d get from the royalties, people who could have gotten tired of T.J. Painted Horse holding everything up.

Dear Lord, Father John thought. Suppose it wasn’t suicide. Suppose someone had decided to stop T.J. permanently.

Father John made a right onto Ethete Road. Another mile and he could make out the dense block of a house against the gray sky, light shimmering in the windows. Getting closer now. It might have been a party. Vehicles parked in front, dark figures milling about. A party interrupted by the police, red, blue, and yellow lights whirling on top of the cruisers.

He turned into the yard and corrected for another skid on the wood planks laid over the barrow ditch. He slid to a stop behind one of the cruisers and got out into the cold. The coroner’s SUV stood a few feet away. A couple of police officers stepped over the yellow police tape forming a barrier across the front of the house and came toward him, gloved fists clenched. Circles and stripes of colored lights whirled over their faces and dark uniforms.

“Chief Banner and the fed are inside, Father,” one of the officers said.

Father John nodded. “Okay if I go in?”

“They’re talking to T.J. in the kitchen, but I can take you to the bedroom . . .”

“T.J.?” Father John heard the relief in his voice sliding toward a new kind of horror. That meant . . .

“Coroner’s in the bedroom with Denise’s body,” the officer said.

Father John jammed both hands into his jacket pockets, vaguely aware of the cold prickling his face. “What happened here?” His voice sounded low and hollow.

“We’ll have to wait on the coroner’s report.” The other officer moved in closer. “You want the unofficial version? Looks like the woman put a nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol to her head two or three hours ago and pulled the trigger. She’s on the floor where T.J. says he found her when he got home from the office. You wanna say some prayers?”

Father John followed the officers into the small, tidy living room with sofa and chairs arranged around a TV, books lined up in the bookcase against the far wall, and on the table in front of the sofa, a briefcase that looked as if it had been dropped by accident, knocking the porcelain knickknacks askew. A murmur of conversation flowed through the archway from the kitchen in back.

As he headed into the hallway, he caught sight of the three men at the kitchen table—Chief Banner at one end, Ted Gianelli, the local FBI agent, at the other. T.J. sat between them, shoulders hunched, eyes locked on his hands clasped on the table. The man was in his forties, Father John guessed, with black hair combed back, curling over the collar of his tan shirt, and the profile of one of the leading men in the old photographs: hooked nose and prominent cheekbones, the handsome face frozen in sadness, as if he’d failed his people somehow and the enemy had invaded the village.

The officers were waiting halfway down the hall. Father John walked past them into the bedroom jammed with uniformed officers and several men in blue jeans and heavy jackets that hung open. Lying on her side next to the bed was Denise Painted Horse, dressed in black slacks and a light blue sweater, the color of the morning sky. She still had on her shoes, black and a little scuffed. For a crazy instant, he felt as if he’d blundered into the bedroom of a woman who’d decided to lie down on the floor and take a nap. She might awaken at any moment and find him staring at her shoes. Or the small, black pistol a few feet from her curled fingers.

A man in a dark leather jacket was darting about, snapping photographs. Two other men hovered in the corner, heads bent toward the notepad that one was holding. Down on one knee, close to the body, was Tom Enslow, the county coroner, gray-haired, with muscular shoulders beneath his flannel shirt, balancing a notepad on a bluejean-clad thigh.

Enslow leaned over Denise’s head a moment, then peeled backward and jotted something in the notepad. It was then that Father John saw the dark, sticky mass in the black hair behind Denise’s right ear. Little red tentacles reached from beneath her head into the gray carpet, like grasping, bloody fingers. He looked away, aware for the first time of the faint smell of blood. Folded over the back of a chair in the corner was a white quilt with a blue-and-yellow star in the center, like the star quilts he’d seen in Arapaho homes across the rez. Draped over the armrest was a flimsy, pink robe that Denise might have tossed there at some point in an ordinary day.

“There you are, Father.” Enslow pushed to his feet. “We’re about finished here. You want to bless her before we put her in the body bag?” There was a weary, off-key note in the man’s tone, as though the job would never be normal, never routine.

Father John walked over to Denise. He felt the muscles tighten in his stomach, his mouth go dry. The woman’s eyes were open, locked in shock and fear. She looked sunken in death, smaller than he’d remembered, and more vulnerable, her skin almost pale, like plastic. She’d been beautiful. Lively and intelligent, quick to express an opinion. Every fall—usually on a day flooded with sunshine with leaves shimmering red in the cottonwoods—Denise brought her students on an outing to the mission. A yellow school bus full of kids shouting and laughing, snapping the jackets they’d untied from their waists at one another. They’d head down the dirt road between the church and the administration building, he and Denise walking in front, the kids shouting behind. Past the guest house and into the stand of cottonwoods along the banks of the Little Wind River. It was here, Denise would tell the students, waving both hands toward the cool expanse of shade, that the people had camped when they first came to the reservation. Chief Black Coal and Chief Sharp Nose themselves had chosen this sacred place. The kids would become quiet, wide black eyes taking in the trees and underbrush dappled with sunlight, the river rippling over the rocks. In those moments, he could almost sense Denise’s love for Arapaho history taking root in the kids.

“Tell us about the church,” she’d say, turning to him as they walked back, and the kids would circle around as he told about how the Arapahos had built the church themselves and painted the walls in Arapaho symbols. At that point, the kids usually started telling him about the symbols: red and blue geometric lines for the roads in life, blue circles for the sacred center, white tipis for the people, brown V-shapes for the buffalo.

Ah, Denise. He made the sign of the cross over the still body. What kind of darkness had engulfed you? “Loving and merciful God,” he said, “please accept this beautiful woman that you created into your presence, forgive her sins whatever they may be, and let her share in the everlasting joy and peace that is yours alone. Amen.”

The chorus of amen’s startled him, breaking as they did into the silence. Father John nodded to the coroner, who was already unfolding a large, gray plastic bag, then stepped past the other men and went back down the hall. Chief Banner stood in the middle of the living room, talking to two officers, a serious, subdued tone. Then, dismissing the officers with an impatient wave, he turned toward Father John. He might have been a chief in the Old Time, Father John thought, or one of the warriors in the Curtis photographs, with black hair; high, thick cheekbones; and the humped nose of the Arapaho. A stocky man, medium height with broad chest, wide shoulders, and big hands that hung beneath the cuffs of his navy-blue uniform shirt. A thin silver wedding ring was embedded in a fleshy finger. The man had headed up the Wind River law enforcement as long as Father John had been on the reservation. “God help me, I love the job,” he’d once told him. “I want to get the bad asses out of here.”

“You saw her?” Banner asked.

Father John nodded. “How’s T.J.?”

“Pretty broken up.” The chief gestured with his head toward the kitchen. Through the archway, Father John could see T.J. still at the table, face dropped into his hands.

“Gianelli’s been talking to him.” There was resignation in Banner’s voice. Unexplained deaths on the reservation fell within the FBI’s jurisdiction, even probable suicides, which put Gianelli in charge, a fact that, Father John knew, rankled the chief.

“T.J. claims he was working late tonight on council business,” Banner went on, nodding toward the kitchen. “Came home about nine, found the front door unlocked. Not unusual. You know how Arapahos are.” He shrugged. “People wanna come in and help themselves to your stuff, well, they must need it real bad. T.J. says he was surprised to see Denise’s car out front because she was supposed to be at the college in Casper for a teacher’s workshop today and tomorrow. He walked back to the bedroom, and that’s when he found her.”

Gesturing again toward the kitchen, he said, “Go on in. Man’s gonna need all the consolation he can get.”

The minute Father John stepped through the archway, he could see that T.J. was sobbing silently, chest heaving, shoulders shaking. He walked over and put one hand on the man’s back. “I’m sorry, T.J.,” he said.

At the far end of the narrow kitchen, Gianelli was leaning over the counter, writing something in a notepad. He had on blue jeans and a leather vest that hung open over a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up over thick forearms. He glanced around and gave Father John a half-nod. There was a flicker of weariness in the man’s eyes.

T.J. shuddered beneath his hand, then flattened his own hands on the table and looked up, eyes blinking in the light. Moisture glistened on his narrow, brown face. He seemed older than a man in his forties, with lines at the corners of his eyes and the collar of his tan shirt standing out around his thin neck. “There’s no call for Denise to shoot herself,” he said. “Why’d she do it, Father?”

Father John pushed a chair over with his boot and sat down next to the man. “Try to believe that God hasn’t forgotten you, T.J. He’ll help you through this.”

“God!” A low, guttural sound, like a death rattle. “Why’d God let her do it? I never gave her any cause to turn on me like that.”

Father John stopped himself from asking what he meant. T.J. was in shock. He recognized the symptoms—the vacant stare, the twitching hands.

“You’ll bury her?” T.J. said, as if this was something he couldn’t handle, the mundane tasks that lay ahead.

“Of course.”

“She’d want a traditional ceremony, too. She’d want to be painted.”

“I’ll talk to the elders. We’ll work it out.” The elders would place the sacred red paint on Denise’s face, so the ancestors would recognize her and take her into the spirit world. Without the paint, her spirit would wander the earth, lost and alone, frantic for eternity.

“The drums. She’d want the drums, and singers. She loved the old ways.” T.J. gave a little smile. “She was a traditional. We gotta bury her within three days.” A look of urgency crossed the man’s face. “That’s the Arapaho Way.”

Father John patted the man’s arm, trying to reassure him, despite the warning look that Gianelli shot across the kitchen. There would be no burial until the coroner issued his report and released the body.

“Oh, T.J.!” A woman’s voice wailed from the living room.

Father John glanced around. Vera Wilson, T.J.’s sister—small and determined-looking in a puffy green jacket, black hair tightly curled around her face—rushed into the kitchen and dove around the table. She threw both arms around T.J.’s shoulders and cradled his head against her chest.

“Oh, my God.” She was shouting. “It can’t be true. Tell me it isn’t true,” she went on, hardly drawing a breath. “What the hell was Denise thinking? Are you okay?”

“Look,” Gianelli said, moving a couple of feet along the counter. “We don’t know the cause of death yet. Denise may have taken her own life, but the coroner could find another cause.”

“Another cause?” Vera let go of her brother and turned to Father John. “What’s he saying, Father? Murder? He’s saying Denise could’ve been murdered?”

“It could have been an accident,” Gianelli said.

Vera grabbed hold of T.J.’s shoulders again. “You’re coming home with me,” she said. “I’m going to look after you.” Then, facing Gianelli, “I’m taking my brother home. Anything else you want to talk to him about, you can call his lawyer. Who you want for a lawyer, T.J.?” She leaned sideways, bringing her face close to her brother’s.

“Lawyer?” T.J. shifted around and stared at the woman. “Why would I need a lawyer?”

“You’re entitled to a lawyer,” Gianelli said. “I’ll want to talk to you again tomorrow.”

T.J. was quiet a moment. “I guess I can call Vicky Holden,” he said finally.

“That’s settled then.” Vera sucked in a breath, as if she’d been prepared to do battle and had found the battlefield deserted. “Come on.” She took T.J.’s arm, urging him to his feet.

The man started to sway as he got up, and Father John jumped up and took hold of his other arm to steady him. “I’ll help you out,” he said.

They walked through the living room—two guards propping up the condemned man, Father John thought. An officer draped a coat over T.J.’s shoulders at the door, and they worked their way out onto the stoop and across the yard to the light-colored pickup next to the coroner’s van.

Father John handed the man into the passenger seat while Vera ran around the front and crawled in behind the wheel. “I’ll come by tomorrow,” he told T.J. over the noise of the engine catching and growling. Then he shut the door and waited until the pickup had crossed the barrow ditch and turned left onto the road, headlights blinking in the moonlight.

He was heading around the other vehicles toward the pickup when he saw Gianelli walking toward him. “What do you think, John? Any trouble that you know of between T.J. and Denise?”

“What are you saying? You think that T.J. . . ?” Father John glanced out at the road. The taillights on Vera’s pickup glowed like tiny red coals in the distance. It wasn’t possible, he told himself, but something else was ringing in his head: Anything was possible.

“We haven’t found a note,” the fed was saying. “She wasn’t depressed or taking medications, according to T.J. People don’t up and shoot themselves without some reason.”

Father John locked eyes again with the man. “I’ve never heard of trouble between them. You think Denise was murdered?”

The agent didn’t say anything, and in the silence settling between them, Father John had the answer. “Look, Ted,” he pressed on. “T.J.’s done everything he can to prevent drilling for methane gas on the reservation. He’s made enemies. Maybe somebody came looking for him.”

“Maybe.” Gianelli didn’t sound convinced. “There won’t be any funeral until I get the coroner’s report and the investigation is closed.” He turned abruptly and headed back to the house.

Father John stared after the man. The wind had come up, giving the air a sharper bite. After a moment, he walked over and got into his pickup. He backed away from the other vehicles, then shot forward across the yard and onto the road. Ahead, the red taillights were swallowed by the night.