Death on the Greasy Grass (22 page)

Manny shrugged. “We'll know once we find Degas and I can interview him.”

“You mean arrest him?”

Manny nodded.

“Can you at least tell me if you've located the journal?”

“Not yet.”

“It must contain something important to have started these killings.”

Manny turned and faced Wilson. “Levi Star Dancer's journal contains some . . . interesting things.”

Wilson's eyes narrowed, and the veins at the side of his head started throbbing. “How could you know what the journal contains if you can't find it?”

“I talked with a man that read it.”

“What man?”

“For now, just a man.”

Wilson moved closer to Manny, looking down on him, an imposing figure, a figure used to having his way. “What did the journal have to say?”

“You don't have any idea?”

“None,” Wilson answered, but he looked away and his voice wavered. Gone was the tone and timbre of the seasoned politician, replaced by a face as devoid of emotion and flat as the scalp locks in his glass display case.
He knows just what the journal contains.

C
HAPTER
29

As Manny topped the first tall hill east of the Star Dancer Ranch, his cell phone beeped. Lumpy had left a message to call and Manny hit speed dial.

“You took your sweet ass time getting back to me, Hotshot.”

“Cell service is no better here than at Pine Ridge. What you got?”

“A letter from the Marine Corps for you that came here to Pine Ridge for some ungodly reason.”

“I figured I'd be working there more than out of the Rapid City office. Certainly more than here at Crow Agency. Guess I was wrong.”

“Marines probably want you to enlist.” Lumpy laughed. “At your age, that'd be interesting.”

Manny had sent a request to the Marines for service records on both Sam and Wilson. “What's it say?”

“How the hell should I know? I don't open other people's mail. Haven't you heard, that's a federal offense? I do that and some hotshot FBI agent will have to spend more time here than I'd like.”

“Just open it and read it to me.”

Lumpy swore at the other end between paper rustling. “Cut my damned thumb opening the envelope.”

“Just man up and tell me what it says.”

After long moments Manny was certain Lumpy had fallen asleep. “Well, what's it say?”

“I'm still reading.”

“Is English your second language? Tell me what it says.”

“Looks like Sampson Star Dancer and Wilson enlisted in the Corps a month apart in 1967, and both went to boot camp in San Diego.”

“They would, living in the western part of the country. What else?”

“Sam was shipped straight to 'Nam out of basic. 0311 it says.”

Grunt.
Manny found himself nodding. From what Reuben had told him, nearly every Marine coming out of boot camp went to 'Nam as infantry. Wilson had been one of those “nearlys.”

“Wilson got selected for Officer Candidate School.”

“And went straight to 'Nam right out of OCS I'd wager.”

“Seems like it.” Lumpy swore into the phone again, and Manny imagined him sucking blood from his thumb. “Wilson was assigned to Sam's rifle company right out of the chute. Looks like they served under a First Lieutenant Osmon.”

“Any trouble with either of them?”

More rustling. “Just one speed bump.”

“Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

“What?”

“Is this twenty questions? Just tell me what the hell their service records say.”

“Okay.” Lumpy dropped something, accompanied by another round of swearing. “Here's the skinny. This Osmon got the company shot up in some firefights. Testimony by Naval Intelligence was that Osmon was a real screwup. Had complaints up the ass from the Marines of Echo Company. Command did nothing about them. So it looks like someone solved the problem for them.”

“How's that?”

“Someone fragged Osmon in the crapper.”

“And Second Lieutenant Eagle Bull was next in line to lead the rifle company?”

“You guessed it,” Lumpy answered.

“Was Wilson a suspect?”

“Doesn't look like it. Wilson and Sam corroborated each other's whereabouts—they were in a poker game at the time. Looks like they interviewed everyone in the company, but no one knew who lobbed a fragmentation grenade into the shitter while Osmon sat reading
Stars and Stripes
.”

“Killer ever caught?”

“Doesn't sound like it.”

“Thanks,” Manny said, then: “Anything new on Willie?”

Lumpy choked, and Manny imagined tears leaking from his bloodshot eyes. Just as they'd be if Manny was there with Willie all night. “They drained his lungs twice since you left. Sergeant Hollow Thunder's guarding Willie's room. I'm heading up to Rapid to spell him now. Good thing you took his dying declaration,” Lumpy added and disconnected.

Manny looked at the dead cell phone for a moment before pocketing it. Had Second Lieutenant Eagle Bull fragged his own CO? Manny recalled what Emile Beauchamp said Levi Star Dancer had written about Conte Eagle Bull killing his companion. Given the history of the Eagle Bulls, it wasn't a far stretch to imagine that Wilson had killed a fellow Marine, with the only other person knowing Wilson had lied being Sam, supposedly in a poker game with him. Dual alibis. Too pat.

And had Sam slipped far enough that he'd stooped to blackmailing Wilson on the eve of his senatorial election? The drive to drink caused men to do some desperate things.

As Manny's thumb poised to hit Stumper's speed dial, Manny prayed he'd have information that would allow him to leave Crow Agency and return to Willie's bedside.

C
HAPTER
30

“We found Itchy.” Stumper's voice rose an octave. “Finally.”

“Good. Get him ready in the interview room and I'll be there . . .”

“I said we found him, but the only thing he's ready for is an autopsy. His own. We found Itchy deader'n shit.”

Manny closed his eyes. A key witness—and the person who may have called Chenoa with the threat of the journal—was dead. “Give me the headline version.”

“Surveillance cameras at the Little Big Horn Casino caught Itchy playing penny slots yesterday. He looked more nervous than a cat in a Chinese restaurant playing that machine, looking around constantly, like someone was after him.”

“Sounds like the last time we spoke with him, climbing the walls, needing to score some crank.”

“I thought of that.” Clicking in the receiver, and Manny was certain Stumper had a toothpick jammed between his teeth. “But I looked at that surveillance tape until I was blue. Itchy kept shelling in pennies, looking around like he expected someone. After about an hour of playing, he jerked around and said something to someone in back of him.”

“Recognize who he was talking to?”

“Dead spot in their system. Anyways, Itchy left the pennies in the tray and ran out the door.”

“Check with the security guards?”

“Think we fell off the turnip truck yesterday?” Stumper snapped. “Of course I checked with them. All they remember about the guy that Itchy met was that he was wearing a yellow hoodie and you couldn't see his face. That's it.”

Manny leaned back in the seat, sweat rolling down his forehead, and he grabbed for his bandanna. He rubbed his eyes against a rising headache. “All right—where'd you find Itchy?”

“Moccasin Top found him under one of the bridges he slept under now and again.”

“Natural? Awfully cold last night after the sun went down.”

“Not unless you consider a hole in the back of his head big enough to put a pencil in natural.”

Just what I needed, another body to extend my sentence to Crow Agency.
“Got an estimate of the time of death?”

Stumper paused; the sound of paper shuffling made Manny's headache throb even louder. “Sometime yesterday, we're thinking. And we're basing a lot of that on the security camera catching Itchy running out of the casino.”

“Tell me someone heard the shot. Saw a car. Saw Itchy.”

Stumper laughed nervously. “The bridge is two miles from the nearest ranch. Six miles from Lodge Grass. No one we talked with heard a thing.”

“How did Itchy get to the bridge?”

“What?”

“The bridge?” Manny repeated. “Itchy didn't drive. And Mr. Spock damned sure didn't beam him over there.”

“Give me a break—I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest tracking a fresh shipment of meth that came in yesterday.”

“Well, look into it when you get a chance. What was he wearing?”

“Itchy's usual dress rags—blue jeans with more holes than OJ's alibi, and holey tennis shoes that matched. And that filthy watch cap he always wore to give lice a covered home.”

“Was what Itchy was wearing consistent with where you found him?”

Stumper paused again. “Shit!” he said at last. “His stocking cap was caked with dried leaves. Under the bridge is all dirt—there's no trees for miles.”

Manny knew Stumper hadn't been a lawman long enough to develop his street eyes, seeing things other people didn't. “And I'll bet there's little blood at the scene?”

Stumper cursed again. “Way too little for a head wound.”

Manny dabbed at the sweat on his face and neck, letting Stumper work it out for himself. “I think Itchy was killed someplace else. Stuffed under the bridge.”

“I think you're right.” Manny smiled, thinking how alike Stumper was to Willie, with gobs of confidence, yet willing to learn when the opportunity arose. As Stumper hung up, Manny leaned back and closed his eyes. Willie's image came through again, tubes stuck where they had no right to be, breaths coming in gurgling gasps, hanging on by a sinew. “Fight it, my friend,” Manny breathed.

He reached in the backseat to the CDs that Willie had packed for their trip. Harlan White Bird's homicide had started Manny on a journey he hadn't wanted: working Crow Reservation for Harlan's killer, along with Sam's. And now Itchy's murder. It would be a matter of hours, perhaps minutes, before the Billings SAC would call him and assign him Itchy's homicide as well. Unless Hard Ass Harris demanded Manny return to the Rapid City Field Office. Which was slim. He considered calling Hard Ass, but thought better: He could do little in Pine Ridge right now. His best shot at finding Degas was to remain on Crow Agency.

Manny needed relaxing music, and he rummaged through Willie's CDs. What he found was Willie's rock collection, and Manny loaded the first CD he grabbed: ZZ Top. He stuck it in the player hanging under the dash. Manny hadn't developed a taste for rock, but it did remind him of their trip from Pine Ridge to the reenactment, and Manny dearly wished he could turn the clock back a week.

He adjusted the volume, the heavy drumbeat reminding him of polka music. And of powwow drums. He closed his eyes and thought of Itchy. Where had he stayed these last days when he couldn't be found? With Cubby perhaps? Cubby didn't seem the benevolent type to let a druggie stay under his roof. Besides, he'd kicked Itchy out of the house years ago.

Manny thought that even Itchy didn't sleep under bridges unless he had no other place. He had crashed at Harlan's shop so many times, he could probably find it with his eyes swollen shut. But Stumper assured Manny that Harlan's building was sealed, with step-up patrols making security checks periodically. Still, Itchy had known the building, knew no one else would be inside, knowing there was a bunk with his bedbugs on it, waiting.

Manny turned the CD up and started for Lodge Grass, his heart only half into the investigation. Willie filled his thoughts, and he swore to Wakan Tanka
and the God of the Jesus people that he'd get with Reuben when he got back to Pine Ridge and sweat and pray for Willie. If his friend hadn't already traveled along the Spirit Road.