Hidden Heritage (4 page)

He bought things at variance with the Fiene family's behavior. Just because he could, I suspected. There was a bright red Corvette carefully housed in one of the machine sheds. Keith didn't hold with show, so his son's extravagance surely hadn't set well with him.

When Tom first uncased his guitar I gasped at the intricate veneer and the mother-of-pearl inlays. Team that blatantly showy instrument with rundown boots, jeans that were not fake torn and dirty but came by their wear the hard way, and you have one complex human being. Outwardly, Tom was funny, witty, whereas Keith was solemn, a problem-solver and a worrier.

I supposed I owed it to Josie to call and tell her that this weekend might be a little stressful. She needed to know that while neither Keith nor I would be officially on duty, we were still on call in case of emergency and she might have to fend for herself among the siblings.

But I was in no mood to be lectured by my disapproving Eastern Kansas twin.

Josie is a registered consultant for our tiny county and had become involved with more crimes in Carlton County than most large towns experience per capita in a year. She didn't hesitate to remind Keith and me about the toll stress was taking on our lives.

In the beginning, my sister had not been in favor of my marriage. To put it mildly. But last spring she had a change of heart. Her acceptance of Keith came because both are incredible musicians. Tolerating Kansas, the land, the prairie was harder. The wind, the emptiness came harder yet. Her adjustment was helped along by Tosca, who was Mistress of the Universe out here and She Who Must Be Obeyed to the zillions of rabbits who lived in our windbreak.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the horror of another murder to deal with, or the challenge of dealing with a collection of difficult personalities, but the thought of Josie meeting Tom made my stomach roil.

Chapter Five

Wednesday morning I was back in the historical society office taking advantage of the peace and quiet to lay out pages. Our office manager, Margaret Atkinson, had taken a well-deserved day off. It was pleasant to work when there was no one else around. Last spring all of the Fiene family's systems had undergone a major upheaval. The first move had been to hire Zola. The second step was to put Margaret in charge of organizing everything but the county history books. She now kept track of volunteers, ordered the supplies, did the bookwork, and helped with research requests.

When I let Margaret start bossing people around she stopped criticizing everything I did. We had even managed to come up with enough money for her to have her own part-time secretary. The hired girl was still in high school and couldn't spell “cat” without using Spellcheck, but Margaret gained a new spring in her step after she was able to drop “my secretary” into conversations.

As I cut and pasted stories and inserted little newspaper clippings for fillers, I suddenly realized we had no immigrant stories in our books. How had I been that unaware? Victor Diaz's death had set me thinking about the impact of groups coming into Carlton County.

Inspired, I began a time line of events. Carlton County was organized in the 1880s. There had been a bitter county seat fight as there was in over half the counties in Kansas. However, there had been no bloodshed—just an exchange of inflammatory rhetoric among newspaper editors. The biggest issue had been the location of the county seat, because there were only two surefire ways to create lasting towns on the prairie: attract a railroad, or establish a town as the county seat.

Restless, I got up, walked outside into the hall, and gazed out the window at the end of the corridor. Below stretched a patchy carpet of drying grass. My office is technically a windowless vault once used to store old county records. In summer, the door is open to the main air-conditioned part of the courthouse, and with the help of a strategically placed fan, enough cold air filters in to keep the room comfortable.

Back at my desk, I loaded microfilm and started at the county's beginning. There had been five towns vying for the county seat and one of the critical issues was a good water supply. Digging a well was a terrible ordeal and a regular cause of accidental deaths. Wells were dug by hand. Sometimes men died from the deadly methane gas at the bottom, or the sides collapsed, or rocks became dislodged and crushed their heads. That is if they knew where water was to begin with. And there was only one way for pioneers to find out. A sure and revered method.

They used someone who could witch wells.

Wells. Still a charged issue out here.

At the beginning of summer, my very scientific husband wanted to drill a new well to water his cattle. He had hired a geologist who traced all the logical water sources and picked the most likely spot. The only question was the drill depth before he found water.

The evening before the drilling team was to arrive, I had been sitting on the patio reading, when an ancient pickup rattled up our lane. Keith was working in the machine shed. He hollered a hello and wiped his greasy hands on a shop rag, then walked over to the vehicle. An old man climbed out, along with the ugliest brown-furred three-legged mongrel dog I had ever seen. I stared. I knew who this man was.

Old Man Snyder.

Last spring, he blew my gifted twin sister out of a fiddle contest. She hadn't thought it possible. I used my research skills to dig up what I could about him. He lived alone on a hardscrabble farm with land that didn't look like it could produce enough to feed a chicken during its best years. Since childhood he had been tugged away from work by fiddles and footsteps. Deep down, I wondered if he hadn't chosen the best life of all. He went where he pleased and showed up when he'd a mind to and the Gods of Commerce stopped in his presence. He floated above our lives, dipping, swaying, and playing that old wrecked fiddle.

He and Keith walked over to the geologist's well site. Keith gestured and waved at the equipment already in place. The old man nodded and went back to his pickup and took out a little forked tree branch and carried it over to the site. Then he grasped the two sides of the branch with the single prong in front and began to walk back and forth.

He shook his head. Keith threw up his hands.

Then Snyder moved further away from the geologist's spot. The stick suddenly dove toward the ground. Keith shoved a stake into the spot and tied a bandana around it. He took out his wallet and peeled off some bills. The old man took the money, shook Keith's hand, and whistled to his dog who obediently jumped onto the bed of the pickup.

Snyder spotted me and lifted his battered old fedora in acknowledgment, then off he drove.

“What was that all about? ” I asked, when Keith came in for supper.

He looked sheepish. “Old Man Snyder can witch.”

“Witch?”

“Water,” he said. “Some people can find water.”

“How?”

“They use a willow stick. For some folks if they hold onto a forked willow branch with both hands and walk out, the stick just naturally turns down over water.”

“And we paid a thousand dollars to a geologist, why? And you gave Old Man Snyder how much?”

“One hundred dollars.”

“And that stick he put in the ground is supposed to be where we can find water?”

His mouth quirked into his little half-smile. “Pass the mashed potatoes.”

I couldn't. I excused myself from the table and went into the bathroom, laughed until I cried, then composed myself. When I came out, Keith looked at me as though I were a misbehaving child.

“Don't believe in well witching do you?”

“Ahem. Well, I've never heard of it and your believing in it just surprised me.”

“How do you think early settlers found water, Lottie? They couldn't just dig a hole and expect water to bubble up.”

That stopped me. “I guess I've never stopped to think how. From a historical standpoint, I've cared more about
who
found water, not
how
.”

“Well, witching is the how.”

“But now? Surely there's a better way? Something more reliable?”

“There is. That's why I hired a geologist. But scientists don't know everything.”

“Hey, that's my line.” In fact, it was nearly always Keith who resorted to stone-cold logic.

But the better way wasn't. Two days later, the drilling teams sank a dry hole, and Keith asked them to try again before they left. He led the men over to the little red flag and they set up their equipment one more time, and struck water at a depth of about twenty-five feet.

I sensed there was some sort of weird connection between this old man's affinity for music and his ability to witch water.

“Oh boy,” I whispered. “I absolutely, positively, do not believe anyone has the ability to witch water.”

Taking myself in hand, I consulted the few notes on my time line, beginning with the county's first failed water well, then the decision to relocate Gateway City to lower ground where a well was dug at a reasonable depth.

I thought about Old Man Snyder as I read about the furious attempts to dig a well for the Carlton County seat. It was never stated, but a well witcher had surely been brought in.

I glanced at my time line and jotted down locating the water well as an important event in county history. Then I began to focus in earnest on the arrival of immigrants. Western Kansas had usually been settled in colonies. The state's reputation as The Great American Desert was enough to keep all but the hardiest of souls away. The English, Zola's people, didn't last long as a group.

They were followed by the Volga Germans—Germans from Russia. Keith's people. They were ideally suited for the prairie. When they arrived and stepped off the trains, they took one look at its expanse. It was just like Siberia.

They were ecstatic. They thanked God, erected a large cross in the center of the site selected for their new village, and proceeded to build some of the most gorgeous churches outside of Europe. One, the Cathedral of the Plains, is famous worldwide and has a priceless rose window.

Then came the French. One very wealthy Frenchman, Ernest de Boissiere, angry because he had been criticized for giving money to black children in New Orleans, marched off to Kansas and founded Silkville in Franklin County in Eastern Kansas. Although producing silk was a well-intended venture, it cost too much to import the worms, and de Boissiere went back to France. In Western Kansas, French Canadians founded Damar in 1880. The town had fewer than two hundred people now.

Discouraged by the sparseness of information about Damar, I realized I had better hustle before all of Western Kansas was depopulated. If the heat didn't kill folks, the failed crops might spawn a mass exodus. I smiled as I recalled a photo of a sign on a departing covered wagon: ‘In God We Trusted, In Kansas We Busted.”

Realizing I needed to do a lot more research on the French before I moved on to Bohemians, I listed steps for tracking down material.

All these groups were third- and fourth-generation Americans now. Some, like the Volga Germans, took great pains to preserve their heritage. They had put up with extreme prejudice when they first arrived. They dressed and talked “funny,” and were accused of working cheap, depriving other settlers of needed wages until they could make a homestead productive. Through hard work, brilliant management, and intense religiosity, they ended up owning most of the farmland in Ellis County, and a good part of Sheridan County.

Now the Mexicans were enduring the same hostility experienced by the Volga Germans, and subjected to group judgment rather than individual assessment on their merits.

Tapping my pencil against the desk, I realized I could help. All it would take was a volley of shared stories. The whole community would benefit. There was no limitation on submitting family histories. Ancestors didn't have to be wheels in the community or property owners. I continued my time line and noted the year each group had arrived.

I rose, and refilled my coffee cup. I can usually focus without my attention wavering, but the image of Maria Diaz kept crossing my mind. I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, then took myself in hand.

The African Americans were next. They came in colonies after the failure of Reconstruction. I jotted down the names of some of their leaders and then was interrupted by the phone.

Sam didn't bother to say hello. “We've been summoned. Dimon wants us in Topeka tomorrow.”

I jolted to attention. “Why?”

“Didn't say.”

It had been difficult to convince the KBI that we were not a bunch of fools out here. Although I had finally established a good relationship with a few of the members of the team, two were my favorite: Nancy Sparks and Frank Dimon. Dimon was a severe man who seldom smiled, but he was fair.

“Talk about bad timing.”

Obviously my goal of concentrating on immigrants was shot all to hell. I couldn't even remember the next group to arrive. Not Mexicans. I was sure of that.

I put my work away and drove home, mentally reshuffling preparations for a weekend teeming with stepchildren, my sister, grandchildren, and various friends in the community.

Chapter Six

Agent Dimon ushered us in and beckoned toward a chair. His tidy desktop gleamed and his office always smelled as if someone had just sprayed it with lemon wax. I was out of uniform and wore gray twill slacks and a free flowing white linen top. My feet were chilly in sandals. Combined with long silver earrings and silver bracelets, I felt frivolous in the presence of this lean, austere man who still called me “Miss Albright” as though “Lottie” would invite too much familiarity.

“I'm sure you've wondered why I asked you to come here. Would you like coffee before I begin?” He said this with the self-conscious air of someone who knew he was supposed to be hospitable when he simply wanted to cut to the chase.

I never refused coffee. He went out into the hallway and came back with a large ceramic cup. Dark-skinned, with short black hair, Dimon was handsome enough. I imagine a number of women had set out to scooch closer to his work-centered soul, and failed.

“The KBI ran into some problems when it was called in to investigate your most recent murder.”

I smarted at the “most recent” jab.

“I'll put all the cards on the table at once. We don't have to resources to keep doing this. We're suffering from budget cuts like everyone else. We've had to dispatch men to your county that we needed in Johnson County.”

“We can't help that,” Sam said. “It's our right to call in the KBI.”

“Your right, maybe. But it just isn't working. We would like to start a regional crime center.”

“Regional?”

“Yes. You already have a regional coroner system out there.”

The “out there” sounded like our county was located on Mars.

“That's different. Every county elects its own sheriff. It's the law.”

“It doesn't have to be the law. It won't be too much of a challenge to talk the legislature into going with a regional system.”

I said nothing. This was between Sam and Dimon.

“Sure this isn't personal?” Sam asked quietly.

Dimon flushed. “No. Water under the bridge, Sam.”

I didn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about.

“It's not just your county, but you've got to admit you have a dismal track record. A third murder in the last eighteen months.”

I jumped in. “Now wait just a minute, Frank. We can't stop murders, but you're the one who brought up track records. The bureau was called in for both of the previous cases, but it was Sam who eventually solved them.”

“With your help, Lottie,” Sam said.

“And the bureau had filed them under some open case file and then walked away.”

“Well, what did you expect us to do? Leave a man out there full time?”

“That's the point. We're the full-time people,” Sam snapped.

“Sam, I assure you there is nothing personal here. But you can't keep this up forever.”

Sam's eyes narrowed at the veiled ageist remark. “Maybe not.”

He was struggling to keep his voice even. He automatically patted his shirt pocket for the pipe he had left in the car. “I don't think a regional center is a workable idea, Dimon. Anything else you want to discuss with us?”

Dimon stared at Sam. The silence went on too long. Then he abruptly stood up. “Only that I want one or both of you at the Diaz funeral tomorrow. I don't want to waste valuable time and money sending one of our agents out there. Fax me a full report in the evening.”

“Why?”

Dimon shot Sam a withering look.

“I want to know who attends and if you notice anything strange.”

“All funerals are strange. My point is that Lottie and I would stick out like a sore thumb. We don't know anyone in the family. So we couldn't tell you if anyone is there who looks out of place. And some folks show up at every funeral. Just to see how the family is taking it.”

I groaned inwardly, knowing who would be doing this. If for no other reason that I would have to send the information using the historical society's fax machine.

“And I want a copy of the feedyard's schedule for six weeks before Victor's murder. Today, if you can get there before it closes.”

Sam nodded.

We all formally shook hands. As though everything was just dandy. But intuitively, I knew Dimon thought it was time for Sam to go in another way.

***

I kept my eyes on the road and drove five miles over the speed limit. “Mind telling me what that was all about? What was not personal?”

Sam reached for his pipe. I didn't stop him. Putting up with a little secondary smoke seemed a small price to pay for his acceptance of me as an equal.

He took his time tamping the tobacco, then shook out the match. “Dimon doesn't trust me to run a county the way he thinks it should be run. Happened before your time here. Gave him a black eye with the immigration folks. Ever hear of proxy marriage?”

“No.”

“Well, Kansas is one of the five states that allow them. A couple of men at the feedyard were from El Salvador and tried to rescue two women who were undergoing abuse in their own country. On two separate occasions, they smuggled the women in on trucks and sent them on to Denver. The weddings had already taken place by proxy and the women could legally stay in the country because they were married to a United States citizen.”

“Wow!”

“It happened twice before I found out about it. I shut it down immediately. Dwayne Weston was beside himself when he learned what was going on.”

“I'll bet he was.”

“Problem was, Dimon blew sky high that it had ever happened in the first place. Proxy marriages aren't supposed to be fake. It's illegal to bring immigrants into this county under a ruse.”

“Was money involved?”

“Oh, hell no. The women got good jobs and got a divorce—if they wanted to—in good time. But Dimon hasn't trusted me ever since.”

“So that explains your grilling Weston about the legality of his employees.”

“Yup. He told me it would never happen again. Just wanted to make sure.”

“I'll drop you off and head on out to the feedyard and fax the info to Dimon,” I said finally. “And attend the funeral tomorrow. It's only fair since you are going to be on duty this entire weekend.”

We finished the trip in gloomy silence.

***

I drove directly to the feedyard. Dwayne was in the office. He looked up from the phone and waved at me to take a seat when I walked into the room.

“No!” he yelled at the caller. “Goddamn it. I need you in Wyoming Thursday.” He slammed down the phone. “Damn drivers. Claims he needs off to take care of a home problem. He wouldn't have so many home problems if he went there at the end of his run instead of trying to keep up with two women.”

I raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry, Lottie. What can I do for you?”

“I wondered if I could have a copy of your duty schedule going back six weeks.”

“Sure.” He pressed the intercom and yelled at the office manager and told him what he wanted. We discussed the cattle market while we waited for him to bring the information.

Minutes later, Bart Hummel came in with a printout. Bart wore the pearl-buttoned western shirts and jeans that seemed to be the unwritten dress code for bull haulers and feedyard cowboys. Rumor had it that he was one of the best paid men in town, which could have been true, but it wasn't saying much because the town's wage scale was a disgrace. For that matter, his title of “office manager” was an understatement. He was Dwayne's go-to person and jack-of-all-trades. Tall, thin, he was as pale as a prisoner with the sleek rounded head of an eel.

The thing that impressed me the most about Bart was that his hands didn't shake.

On the few occasions when I had been around dispatchers for trucking companies, it was evident they were all a couple of days away from a nervous breakdown. Even police dispatchers earned the public's gratitude after a 911 call that ended well. But trucking dispatchers had to put up with irate customers, drivers, drivers' wives, mad farmers, and cattle buyers. Some of this I'd learned from observation and the rest I'd put together from Keith's comments when he was called to feedyards.

Wives were mad when husbands were late getting home from trips. Farmers and cattle buyers went ballistic if cattle were delayed from reaching the packing plant. Every hour caused shrinkage and affected profit. Some cattle went to kosher packing plants and were slaughtered in accordance with ancient rituals that affected the availability of empty pens for unloading. Lease drivers kept a skeptical eye on employed drivers to make sure they were getting their fair share of loads. Wives were mad if their paychecks were short because their husbands had drawn too many advances. Ex-wives were mad if the men
hadn't
written advances. To them. And they all took it out on the dispatcher.

Sam, Keith, and I had made a number of trips to this feedyard to serve garnishment papers on drivers' wages to collect alimony.

But when I did, Bart always simply said, “Good morning, Lottie,” glanced at the papers, signed the receipt form, got up, went to the right driver's cubby hole, tucked the garnishment in, and went back to his work. Knowing he would see it through to the end, I usually just tipped the brim of my hat and left.

This poker-faced nerveless man was the hub of this feedyard. Dwayne employed two full-time dispatchers and two bookkeepers and then they could hardly keep up. Second in command, after Dwayne, Bart controlled the whole operation.

I made a mental note to suggest to Agent Dimon that he call in the A team if they questioned Bart. I suspected he could pass any lie detector test because he would anticipate every question in advance and then work out answers that were plenty truthful enough. With just enough information to make law enforcement people go away so he could go back to work.

Silently, Bart handed me the monthly calendar for people working at the feedyard, wheeled around, and walked off to his office, which had a huge window facing the cattle pens. He thrummed his pencil on his desk, glanced at a piece of paper and start entering data. He hadn't allowed himself more than five minutes away from his desk.

“Thanks, Dwayne. Time for me to get on home.” I rose, turned to leave, then paused in the doorway. “I guess you know you haven't seen the end of this. We'll be back to question the employees and so will agents for the KBI.”

“Oh, Jesus. Why the KBI?”

“Because we had to call them in. That's our prerogative and our county doesn't have great investigative resources.

“Christ, this is all I need.”

I waited for him to explain. A feedyard wasn't exactly a business affected by bad publicity. “Don't you want to know what happened to Victor?”

“Of course,” he said. “But three times in two days now, I've had farmers who planned to custom-feed here, cancel, saying they were going with another place until things settled down.”

I glanced at the papers, thanked him, and drove to this historical society to get them faxed before the KBI office closed.

***

The funeral was Thursday morning. The church was sweltering. I wore a lightweight black linen suit with low-heeled black sandals. I meant to blend in, but even though I was a stranger among strangers, I felt miserably conspicuous in this Catholic Church. Although few people in Carlton County claimed to be friends with the Diaz family, Victor was the most well-known. I signed the guest book. People had come from all over the state. There was a smattering of Spanish surnames. Several Diaz family members from Texas and a couple from Johnson County.

Once inside, as Sam had predicted, I couldn't tell the extended family from professional mourners. I didn't know enough to differentiate who had always lived in Carlton County from those who had moved here recently.

I took a seat at the back and glanced at the attendees. There were people from the feedyard, and Dwayne Weston and his wife, of course, and Hugh and Estelle Simpson, who shared front row seats with Maria Diaz. There was no roped-off family section, as though Maria wanted to emphasize her aloneness. Stony-faced adolescent girls sat next to weepy middle-aged women. Friends of Maria? I had no way of knowing. Nuns in modern dress who had donned the headdress of their order were working their way along the rosary.

There was no air conditioning. Several women pulled bejeweled accordion fans from their purses. They had come prepared. Safe to assume they were members of this church. A number of men suffering in suits looked to be Victor's age. Some were accompanied by beautifully dressed women. Others sat next to women not so fashionably attired. High school classmates who had moved on, I guessed, or perhaps friends from college.

There could have been cattle buyers present or people Victor met at seminars, if he went to any. The state conducted compliance training for truckers. Were there similar workshops for feed lot owners? I made a mental note to ask Dwayne if Victor's job required travel. A large number of men sitting in a cluster wore starched jeans and dress western shirts. A sizable showing in all.

But bottom line, Sam was right. Maria might appreciate my attending her husband's funeral—this show of support. But it was a waste of time for Dimon's purposes. How would I know if someone “suspicious” was here today?

Conspicuously absent were Victor's sister, and his great-grandmother, Francesca Diaz.

I dutifully observed, quietly moved my feet to one side and shook my head, when others in my row got up to take communion.

I went to the burial and scrutinized the clusters of people who immediately formed groups. That was a much more accurate indication of some kind of affiliation than who they sat beside at a church.

Maria shook with sobs after the last prayer. Hugh and Estelle helped her to her feet. They stood to one side while people filed by to offer condolences.