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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.”
    â€œMaybe.” 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.

5
    VICKY HOLDEN EASED the Jeep next to the curb in front of the brick bungalow that was now her office a few blocks off Main Street in Lander. A sheen of frost covered the blocklike sign in the front yard, so that all that was visible was her name and the meaningless words: ney at aw. She pulled the briefcase and black bag from the passenger seat, crossed the ice-tipped grass, and brushed at the sign until the words were clear: Attorney at Law. Cold specks of moisture prickled her wrists and sifted down into her gloves as she hurried up the steps to the porch and let herself inside.
    Annie Bosey, the secretary she’d hired a month ago, sat at the desk across from the brick fireplace in what had once been a narrow living room. The phone was pressed between the woman’s ear and shoulder; her fingers shuffled a stack of papers.
    Vicky gave the woman a nod and opened the French doors to her private office in the converted dining room with white paneling halfway up the walls and a wide window that framed the frost-linedjuniper in the backyard. She dropped the briefcase and bag onto the desk and shrugged out of her coat, catching a glimpse of herself in the glass door as she did so: shoulder-length black hair, still tinged with moisture, falling to her shoulders; oval-shaped face with the high cheekbones; the little crook near the top of her nose; and the eyes of her people—so dark they were almost black. She’d turn forty-five this year, and the admiring looks she still got from men never ceased to take her by surprise.
    Vicky combed her fingers through her hair, then tossed it back and walked over to the desk, aware of Annie’s voice hurrying to end the call. Twenty-five years old, divorced with two kids, a GED, and a résumé of low-paying jobs, Annie had shown up at her front door hours after the last secretary had given notice. Vicky hadn’t even put an ad in the Gazette. “Heard you need a secretary,” Annie had said. Of course, she’d heard. The moccasin telegraph flashed news across the rez faster than the Internet.
    The outer office had gone quiet, and Vicky realized that Annie was standing between the French doors, bracing herself on the knobs, her mouth a round O, as if she were trying to catch her breath.
    â€œWhat is it?” Vicky took the chair at her desk.
    â€œIt’s so terrible about Denise Painted Horse.”
    Vicky felt a familiar hollow space opening inside her. She was the last to hear the gossip, it seemed. When she was married to Ben Holden and living on the rez, the gossip always raced to her house. That was a lifetime ago. She’d divorced Ben, left the kids—Lucas and Susan—with her mother and gone to Denver. When she came home ten years later, she was a lawyer— ho:x’iwu:ne’n —a woman who thought she could make herself a chief, the grandmothers said.
    â€œYou heard, didn’t you?”
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me.”
    â€œDenise shot herself