Read Death Along the Spirit Road Online
Authors: C. M. Wendelboe
Death Along the Spirit Road (40 page)
“But that letter called Jason’s bluff.”
Willie nibbled on the outside edges of his MoonPie. “Jumping Bull sent Jason that letter threatening to expose him. He became obsessed about finding his address, and charmed information out of the new girl at the post office. He learned that Aunt Lizzy received Jumping Bull’s monthly checks in Pine Ridge under Clifford Coyote’s name, and figured Aunt Lizzy was Jumping Bull’s go-between. He snuck into her office one night a few weeks ago and tried finding Jumping Bull’s address.”
“The argument that Lumpy walked in on.” Manny stood and reached for his pack of cigarettes, but his pocket was empty. A Camel used to help him sort things out, like an obnoxious yet trusted friend at his side. “Lumpy said file drawers were strewn all over. Jason and Lizzy arguing fiercely. Did Jason find the address that night?”
“Now she thinks he did, and she’s carrying a powerful amount of guilt because she didn’t warn Jumping Bull that Jason might know his address in Minneapolis.”
Willie looked at his empty MoonPie wrapper, turned it over, read the nutrition facts. The young officer had matured with his interview of Elizabeth, but Manny had one last question that needed answering. “Did you ask her about Jason’s murder? If she could kill me, she could kill him, too.”
Willie dropped his eyes and stared at the floor. “She told me she didn’t know anything about Jason’s death, even though she hated him enough that she could have killed him. She knew all about his embezzlement of the tribe’s money and how he would implicate Erica if he was caught. Sure, she could have killed him, with considerable pleasure. But I don’t think she did.” Willie looked away. Manny knew Willie didn’t believe his aunt was in the clear on Jason’s death.
Manny put his fingers together, building a tent with them, as he often did when things came together in an investigation. He thought of his suspect list—when Lumpy blocked the doorway. He was backlit by the bright hall light, and he still had a fading purple stain on his right cheek from the thief powder. Manny swallowed down a smile.
“You think this is funny?” Lumpy said. “It’ll be on my skin for a month.”
“A week,” Manny said. “A week is more like it.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s what I remember when we used it back in the day, remember?”
Lumpy ignored him and tossed a manila envelope on the table between Manny and Willie. “FedEx overnight. Must be important.”
It was from the FBI lab in Quantico. Manny left it unopened on the table. “Thanks.”
Lumpy stood waiting for Manny to open the envelope. When he didn’t, Lumpy started to leave, then turned back. “Before I forget, Hotshot, your boss called.”
“And?”
“He didn’t say much, but he seemed to get pretty upset when I told him you were in Rapid City visiting your girlfriend.”
Manny could argue that Clara was not his girlfriend, but Lumpy probably didn’t know about Clara and was referring to Sonja. “What did Niles want?”
“Not sure,” Lumpy answered. “All he said is: ‘Two days. Things start in two days, you tell Manny Tanno that.’ And what the hell did you tell Nathan Yellow Horse when he interviewed you?”
“Why?”
“He left in a damned hurry. Didn’t say a word, just brushed past me.”
“Oh, I just hinted at some places where he might begin his story.”
Manny waited until the sound of Lumpy’s footsteps died down then propped his feet up on another chair and waited for Willie to continue. Elizabeth had told Willie more, and he was anxious to get it off his chest.
“Aunt Lizzy still has a thing for Reuben,” he said. “She got used to them being a couple, got comfortable being the woman of a local celebrity, even if he was a violent AIM celebrity. I think she protected him as much as she protected Erica.”
Willie reached into his briefcase and took out a bundle of letters held tight by a single deer-hide thong. Willie started untying the bundle when he dropped the letters. They scattered on the floor. “Pick one, any one, they’re all alike.”
Manny grabbed one postmarked SOUTH DAKOTA STATE PENITENTIARY, SIOUX FALLS, MARCH OF 1989.
“They’re all dated that way, up until Reuben was paroled from the penitentiary.” Willie pulled up a chair and sat beside Manny. “I’ll spare you reading them. Aunt Lizzy and Reuben never actually broke up, even after the murder. They were corresponding all those years he was in the lockup. And they’ve been intimate. They were divorced on paper only.”
“How’d you find these?”
“Aunt Lizzy asked me to pack her some clothes for her stay at the state hospital. I found these in Reuben’s old Marine footlocker in her bedroom closet.”
Manny picked up several letters, all sent during Reuben’s incarceration in the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
“She hid her love for him all these years because folks wouldn’t have trusted a finance officer who was involved with a convicted killer, especially one with Reuben’s reputation. And she added one thing when I asked her about Jason’s funding Erica’s college: She said Jason felt bad about Reuben going to the pen. She said that Jason loved Erica like she was his own daughter, and that Reuben knew from the beginning that Jason intended paying her way through college.”
“But Reuben just found out about it within the past few years.”
Willie shook his head. “She was quite adamant that Reuben knew it from the start, even if he told you different.”
“That’s just one more thing I will talk to Reuben about,” Manny said. “Now let’s see what Quantico has to say.”
He used his penknife to open the manila envelope overnighted from the FBI lab. As he watched Willie waiting expectantly to see the contents, Manny felt like one of those Academy Award presenters about to read the winner’s name. He pulled the lab slip out. “The ID section was unable to come up with a match between the latents lifted from Crazy George’s car and those of Jack Little Boy. Little Boy’s got six points on each finger, at the most.”
“How could that be?” Willie asked. He scooted his chair close and took the report. “Everyone has at least twelve points.”
“Not if you’re a mason. Little Boy’s been bricklaying for the last eight years, according to his rap sheet. Eight years of constantly rubbing his hands against brick and mortar will erode fingerprints.”
“Then he could be Jason’s killer. There was only partial prints found on the war club along with Ricky Bell’s. We thought at first they were smudged prints, but they could have been Little Boy’s.”
Manny nodded. “And we can’t use even the partials if Little Boy is our man.”
He picked up the other sheet. The crime lab had failed to locate Reuben’s fingerprints. The sheet suggested they contact the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
“Jeeza! How could Reuben’s prints not be on file? He’s a felon.”
“Sealed, would be my guess. The Special Task Force on Organized Crime investigated AIM heavily in the 1970s. The Tenth Federal Appeals Court ruled they’d been unjustly targeted by the government, and most of their records were sealed. But that didn’t apply to state courts. I’ll call the state pen later and have them fax over Reuben’s print card.”
He returned that paper to the envelope and grabbed the last one. And whistled. “The .45 slugs Soske had sent to the lab from the Two Moons homicide matched that old cavalry Colt I seized from Jason’s office.”
Willie read the lab report over Manny’s shoulder. “Let me get this straight: Billy Two Moons was killed with the same gun Ricky Bell used to kill Alex Jumping Bull?”
“Looks like it.”
“But Reuben told investigators he tossed the gun after he killed Two Moons. How did Jason get Reuben’s gun?”
“Good question. Apparently, Reuben lied about tossing his gun, too.”
They sat, each lost in his own thoughts, until Willie broke the silence. “You know you’ll have to talk with Reuben again.”
Manny nodded. “Tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “Clara’s coming down in the morning, and we’re driving to Chadron for breakfast. I’ll talk to Reuben when I get back. But for now, all I want to do is get some shut-eye.”
“She forgave you after that article came out?”
“Finally,” Manny answered. “It took some work to convince Clara that Sonja Myers set me up for that photo op at the Rapid City bistro. I never had a woman get jealous over me.”
“How’d you explain all the messages from Sonja on your cell phone?”
Manny shrugged. “I told the truth. I said Sonja called but I never talked with her.”
“But you did, just yesterday.”
Manny smiled. “I had to tell Sonja about my exclusive interview with Nathan Yellow Horse, and that your lieutenant had more information on the case than I could give out.”
After Manny finished stretching his hamstrings, he cracked the door and peered out into the night. The single streetlight near his apartment burned yellow, and he was careful to throw the new deadbolt on his apartment door. His beginning pace was slower than usual, but he was able to work through the pain in his ribs. When he hit stride at just over a mile, the sweat drenched his sweatshirt. He had hit his zone, and he needed to think.
Tomorrow Elizabeth would be driven to the state hospital in Yankton where she would undergo evaluation to determine her fitness to stand trial. Would Reuben interfere? Would his love for Elizabeth overrun his love for his brother and result in his killing the one person who could testify against Elizabeth and send her away? Manny doubted that, but seeing Reuben’s anger flare yesterday, he knew the man was still capable of bad intentions.
A dog barked from a house up ahead and Manny strained to see in the blackness. What would Reuben’s motives have been for killing Jason? If he were dealing with the Reuben of the American Indian Movement days, he’d think hatred of the status quo was enough reason. But this was the Reuben who had served his time in prison, had somehow found the Lakota way, and now advised people in spiritual matters. Had Reuben been that jealous of Jason to think that Elizabeth was having an affair with him? Again, this was a different Reuben, yet still like the old Reuben in many ways.
Manny rounded the block on his last stretch to his apartment. Sweat flowed from every pore, and he had forgotten the pain in his side from the bruised ribs. He fumbled inside his sweatshirt pocket for the key while he slowed to a walk to catch his breath.
And stopped and listened.
The streetlight in front of his apartment was out, and he stepped on broken glass. He crouched low, crunching glass where someone had broken the light. Willing his breathing to slow, his heart to quit racing, he hunkered down at the base of the streetlight, straining, listening.
Footsteps grated on gravel between his apartment building and the next one. Manny took in deep, calming breaths as someone neared, and the glint of a blade reflected light from the apartment window above Desirée’s.
The figure wore a hoodie, but there was no mistaking Jack Little Boy by the way he filled out the sweatshirt, by the way he held his knife out in front of him. Like a predator, Jack picked his way cautiously in Manny’s direction, but Manny noiselessly circled the base of the streetlight. Jack’s head swiveled, trying to locate him, but Manny hadn’t been raised a victim. Jack searched aimlessly in the dark, unsure exactly where Manny was.
The knife scraped against the metal base of the light and Manny drew his legs beneath him. How long had it been since he wrestled another man? High school? He was grateful for that, and for the custody control classes the bureau required agents to attend annually.
Jack looked away and Manny saw his opening. He pushed off from the base of the light and sprang from his crouch. His first blow slapped the knife away and it clattered somewhere on the sidewalk a heartbeat before Manny found Jack’s neck with his forearm. His other hand slipped around to lock in a sleeper hold, one that would put the much bigger man out for the count. If he’d cooperate. Jack turned to Manny and dug his elbow deep into his injured ribs. The blow threatened to do what the stolen truck could not, and Manny lost his grip as he rolled away in pain. Jack reached down, clawing at Manny’s throat. Manny brought his knee up and connected with Jack’s nose. Blood spurted over Manny’s face and got into his eyes. Jack screamed, and Manny hit him on the side of the head before Jack disappeared into the darkness.
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