The Thunder Keeper by Margaret Coel Page B

the oatmeal Elena had set before him—Father John heard the front door slam and, a moment after that, tires crunching the wet gravel on Circle Drive.
    â€œWell, I told you so.” Elena plunged a plate into the soapy water in the sink, disappointment etched in the set of her shoulders. Father John understood. Don Ryanwasn’t just another priest in a passing parade. Here for a few weeks, a year, then moving on. He was . . . well, he’d seemed to like the place.
    â€œWhat makes you think Father Don won’t be back?” He heard the doubt creeping into his own voice.
    â€œI told you before. He was never here,” Elena said after a moment. “His spirit was somewhere else.”
    Father John finished the oatmeal. Considering. So many priests through the years. Elena knew. He was going to have to cut back on the summer programs, limit them to what he could handle. Until the Provincial found another assistant. He would be even busier than he’d imagined. Which meant he had even less time than he’d thought to convince Detective Slinger that Duncan Grover was murdered.
    He thanked Elena for breakfast and asked her to tell anyone who stopped by that he’d be back later. Then he headed down the hallway, grabbed his jacket and cowboy hat, and left for Lander.

12
    T he Equitable Building spread over a quarter block at the corner of Seventeenth and Stout streets, massive stone towers with marble-paved floors and 1890s Tiffany stained-glass windows. Vicky found Baider Industries on the directory and rode the bronze-trimmed elevator up several floors.
    She’d called this morning to make an appointment with Nathan Baider. The founder of Baider Industries may have turned the company over to his son, but the old man was still calling the shots, Wes had said. If anyone knew why Vince Lewis had wanted to see her, she suspected it would be Nathan Baider.
    â€œMr. Baider’s schedule is full today.” A woman’s voice on the phone.
    â€œTell Mr. Baider I witnessed Vince Lewis’s murder,” she’d said.
    â€œMurder!” A gasp burst over the line. “Mr. Lewis was in an unfortunate—”
    She’d cut in: “Tell Mr. Baider what I said.”
    After a long pause the woman’s voice had returned. “He’ll see you right away.”
    Vicky emerged into another marble-paved vestibule and let herself through the glass doors across from theelevator. Instantly she was enveloped in the hushed silence of dark blue walls, clusters of chairs, and polished tables. Large photographs lined the walls on either side of a window that framed a view of the parking garage across the street.
    â€œMay I help you?” An attractive woman somewhere between thirty and fifty, with stylishly cut blond hair that brushed the collar of her red suit jacket, rose from behind the mahogany desk.
    Vicky handed her a business card, which the woman studied for a couple of seconds, snapping the card between her red-tipped fingers. Finally she set the card down and said, “Wait here,” letting herself through the door on the right.
    Vicky strolled over to an arrangement of photographs behind the desk, western landscapes with white-peaked mountains and sunshine streaking the endless plains. Above the landscapes, the clear blue sky.
    On each photo, small white arrows pointed to barely perceptible disruptions in the earth. She leaned closer, studying the areas beneath the arrows: gouges, clumps of buildings, roads flung through the wilderness, trucks, and bulldozers. She realized the photos had been shot from a great distance—from airplanes, maybe even satellites.
    Beneath each photo was an engraved gold plate: CRIPPLE CREEK MINE , CANADA ; JENNISON MINE , CANADA ; and three mines in Wyoming— LEMLE , BRIDGER , KIMBERLY .
    She crossed to the opposite wall. Here the landscape photos were replaced by photos of various-sized diamonds shimmering in the