The Spider's Web Read Online Free PDF Page B

dragged at his muscles. He could grab an hour or two of sleep before he started the day, he was thinking. Gianelli was probably doing the same; he would have spent most of the night at Ned’s house. Homicide cases were often solved in the first hours, Father John had heard him say many times, when evidence was either collected or lost. He would call the fed as soon as he got into the office.
    He wasn’t sure when he had first spotted the truck—a white Ford in the red-hued morning. Maybe out on Seventeen-Mile Road, several car-lengths behind. Or maybe the truck had been in the oncoming lane. Staring past the lower edge of the visor, he had missed it. But now it was diving through the shadows close behind, and he could make out the dark faces of two men, cowboy hats bobbing in the windshield. They looked young, in their twenties, most likely Arapaho. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror. They could be anybody. Any of dozens of young Indian men on the rez. Daily Mass wasn’t scheduled for another hour. They hadn’t come for Mass.
    Father John turned left onto Circle Drive and drove toward the administration building. The residence was on the right, but there was no sense in bringing the visitors to the residence. Whatever they wanted, they could talk in his office. But the truck made a sharp turn and sped around the other side of the drive. The left side of the bed was damaged.
    He pressed on the brake pedal, stopped in the gravel, and jumped out. The truck made another sharp right into the fields alongside the residence and kept going, bouncing across the baseball diamond that he and a group of kids had cleared that first summer at St. Francis, when he had decided to start a Little League baseball team. He knew baseball; he had pitched at Boston College. He could coach the team and keep the thirst away, he’d thought. He’d been wrong about that. Now he watched the pickup careening around the bases, churning up the field. Great swoops of brown dust rose about the tires.
    He got back behind the steering wheel, rammed the gear into reverse, then forward, and went after the white truck, aware of the bed shimmying, the chain on the tailgate banging. He bounced along the dirt road that ran next to the outfield, parked close to what was left of third base and got out. The truck ripped across home plate and headed for first, rocking on the chassis, trailing clouds of dust.
    “Hey!” Father John shouted, waving both arms. “Get out of here!”
    The truck had swung left, and he realized it was turning toward him. He jumped toward the pickup, yanked open the door, and got inside. He rammed the gear into reverse and bounced backward as the truck sped past. The windows were down, and the driver banged a fist on the door. Then the truck ground to a stop, pulled a U-turn, and headed for him again.
    In forward now, Father John floored the gas pedal and drove for home base. The old pickup balked and squealed over the dry earth. In the rearview mirror, the white truck was bending into another U-turn. Father John cut between the bleachers and home base and out onto the back road that connected the mission to Rendezvous Road. He could feel his heart pounding, the red heat of anger moving into his face. He skid to a stop, made another U-turn, and headed back to the mission. He could see the spire of the church swaying through the cottonwood branches. They would not drive him away!
    The diamond was on the right, the white truck carving a circle in the middle. Then it stopped, and Father John saw the rock fly out of the passenger window and land a few feet away. The truck started up again and sped toward the road he had taken. Then it spun left onto Rendezvous Road, black exhaust floating through the dust clouds.
    Father John got out and walked across the diamond. The rock was the size of a baseball, and clasped to it with a rubber band was a piece of paper. He picked it up and pulled out the paper.
    Smeared across the middle in thick