Merciless (5 page)

He shrugged. “Been too busy dealing with my own stuff to worry about someone else’s.”
His gaze dropped to my left hand. “You ain’t wearing his ring.”

“I doubt you’ve dropped to one knee and proposed to Verline, and you’ve been with
her longer than I’ve been with Dawson.”

“Ain’t the same thing. I know he’s asked you.”

No reason to lie. Dawson asked me to marry him every week. He just brought it up when
the mood struck him. But I kept hedging. Not saying no, but more along the lines of,
Can we talk about this later?

“Mebbe the fact you ain’t said yes means he ain’t the man for you.”

“As if I’ll take relationship advice from the old-timer who’s been divorced multiple
times and is shacked up with a girl who can’t legally buy a six-pack.”

“You got a mean streak, Mercy.”

“Like that’s news. Besides, you’ve had issues with every man who’s ever been in my
life, starting with my father.”

That shut him down.

Mitzi swung by with Rollie’s pie.

“What’s goin’ on at the FBI?” he asked after a bite of lemon meringue.

“Mostly procedural courses behind a conference table.”

He lifted a dark brow so high it moved his PI hat up an inch. “That’s it? I heard
Hoover’s henchmen are involved in the Shooting Star case.”

Nothing stayed secret for long on the Eagle River Reservation. “Yeah.
Didn’t take long for her to go from missing to dead.” I paused to sip water. “What
do you know about it?”

“Nothin’.”

Bullshit. Rumor was Rollie was more aware of rez happenings than the tribal cops.
I’d have to ply him with flattery to unlock his lips. “Come on. You’ve got your ear
to the ground. What’s your take on this?”

“I ain’t ever gonna snitch for the feds.”

“If you don’t want to give information to the feds, then why are you talking to me?”

Rollie’s gaze searched my face. “Mercy, we both know being a fed ain’t really you.
How long you think you’ll last in the FBI?”

I bristled. Why would he imply I’d fail after having the badge for only a few weeks?
“So I’d be better off pulling taps at Clementine’s?”

“Mebbe. At least when you were working for the
winkte,
you weren’t drinkin’ as much. And I guarantee what you see in this job will send
you straight back to the bottle.”

“How can it be worse than what I dealt with in the army?”

He curled his hands around his coffee cup. “The feds in Indian Country deal with the
bad stuff. The really bad stuff. Not just murders, but rapes. Child abuse. Sex crimes.
All the sick stuff most people, even the cops, on the rez turn a blind eye to.”

“Why is that kind of shit allowed to slide?”

“Because it’s easier to ignore it than admitting one of your relatives is capable
of raping a two-year-old. Or that burning a six-year-old with a cigarette is an acceptable
form of discipline. Or sexually assaulting an eight-year-old with beer bottles and
kitchen utensils is a form of entertainment. And those I mentioned? They’re not the
worst cases.”

Bile rose, and I swallowed it down with a gulp of water. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve watched how no jobs, no purpose, and too much
alcohol affect the tribe.”

“What if I can make a difference?”

Rollie raised his eyes to mine. “Because you’ve got a dab of Indian blood?”

I blinked at him. That was more than a little snarky coming from the man who’d encouraged
me to enroll in the tribe about eight months ago.

“Besides, you can’t make a difference. No one can. Watch yourself, Mercy, when you
go digging into this bad stuff. There’s always someone wantin’ to keep their sick
little secrets. There’s always someone wantin’ to prove they’re smarter than you.”

“Can you stop talking in riddles for one damn minute?”

He picked at the toasted meringue. As I formulated my next question, Rollie demanded,
“Did Latimer bring in the feds right away when she went missin’?”

“Why?”

“’Cause he’ll milk this tragedy for all it’s worth, even though he really don’t give
a damn about that girl.”

“No love lost between you and the tribal president?”

“He’s a self-serving prick who reeks of false piety.”

Harsh. “That doesn’t seem to be the general attitude on the rez. People have great
hopes he’ll implement changes.”

“Two words that mean nothin’ in politics: hope and change. Especially not when it
comes to his ideas.”

That didn’t sound like differing philosophies; it sounded personal. “How long have
you known Latimer Elk Thunder?”

“Since before he became a white man in Indian skin.”

For Rollie that was an unforgivable offense—in men, anyway. “Are you guys business
rivals or something?”

“Since he owns the only gas station on the rez, he ain’t got no rivals.”

“So were you rivals over a woman? You said some nasty stuff about my dad because you
believe he stole my mother from you.”

He harrumphed and ate another bite of his pie.

“So you weren’t in love with his wife and she threw you over for Latimer?” I joked.

“Not hardly. I ain’t ever been impressed with her, either. Though she’s
awful damn impressed with herself.” His black eyes met mine. “How was the niece killed?”

That was an abrupt subject change. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

“Was she brutalized before her body was discarded like an unwanted animal? Or after,
at the dump site? I’m betting after.”

“Who told you this?”

He clammed up when Mitzi refilled his coffee.

“How did you know?” Dammit. I shouldn’t have let that slip. “Are you having some kind
of visions like John-John?” I demanded.

Rollie snorted. “If I did, I sure wouldn’t tell nobody.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

He shoveled in a bite of white fluff. Then pointed his fork at me. “I didn’t tell
you nothin’. I hazarded a
guess
.”

Outwardly, I managed a bored look. Inwardly, I imagined snatching away his pie.

“Ain’t ya gonna pull that high-handed fed crap and threaten to haul me in if I don’t
cooperate?”

I offered a half shrug. “You haven’t actually given me any useful information, Rollie.
You’re just guessing, right?”

“Guess you don’t know that Arlette Shooting Star ain’t the first dead girl to show
up around here, and I doubt she’ll be the last.”

My jaw nearly hit the table.

Before I could formulate a response, he was gone.

O
n the drive home I couldn’t help but wonder what Rollie’s angle was. How could the
FBI not be aware of other female deaths on the reservation that might relate to the
Shooting Star case?

The crotchety old man had a bug up his butt about all law enforcement agencies—especially
federal—since the American Indian Movement, known as AIM, uprisings in the 1970s.
He refused to admit whether he’d been involved in the AIM violence. But given his
issues with the government after his military discharge during the Vietnam War, I
wouldn’t be surprised if he’d masterminded some of the shit that’d gone down.

My dad hadn’t been sheriff during those rocky years, so I hadn’t known details about
the outbreaks of fatal violence until I’d studied the case histories and investigations
during my training at Quantico.

Since I’d already been assigned to an FBI office with multiple Indian reservations
in the jurisdiction, I’d had to take extra classes on racial sensitivity and honoring
traditional Indian customs within the confines of federal laws. Not even being a registered
member of the Eagle River tribe had let me klepp out of the courses.

Although I’d been armed with information after the lectures, nothing I’d learned about
that turbulent time was cut and dried. Emotions ran high, untruths abounded, subterfuge
on both sides culminated in tribal members and FBI agents dying. Not a particularly
proud moment for either AIM or the FBI. But I had a better understanding of Indian
resentment . . . as well as the feds’ frustration.

So I had to question Rollie’s motive in telling me to look deeper. Was he trying to
lead me off course? And if so, why?

At home I flipped on the TV and my laptop, nestling into the living room couch with
a beer. I started my Internet search wide, going back twelve months, using the keywords:
Indian reservations, women’s deaths, accidents, violence.

1,379 results popped up.

Well, wasn’t that a kick in the ass. I narrowed the search to the local papers in
western South Dakota and retrieved more manageable data. I started clicking on links,
copying pertinent ones into a separate document.

Three obituaries from last year caught my notice. Each a month apart. The first one
was for Tunisia Broken Arrow, age twenty-two. Nothing in the obit about cause of death.
The second one for Minneola “Mimi” Diggeman, age thirty. Again, nothing in the obit
about cause of death. The third obituary was for Delia Moss, age twenty-seven. No
listed cause of death.

How could all of these young women have died of natural causes? I cross-referenced
the time frame, and none of the names were listed as car accident victims. Illness
possibly? Or suicide?

I changed the parameters, going back twenty-four months, and found three more obituaries.
All young women, all dead within a month of one another. None of the obits listed
cause of death.

What the hell was going on? The only way to make any sense of this was to see the
tribal PD’s report logs. There’d be a written report for a suicide. As well as a written
report on a death due to exposure—I noticed these obits were mostly from the late
fall/early winter months.

I knew I’d have to bring this up with Turnbull.

My cell phone buzzed with a text message from Dawson:
Crushed under the weight of unfinished paperwork. Trying to catch up. Late night and
early-morning shift means I’m crashing in my office tonight. Sorry. Miss you.

I miss you, too.

I hated that our schedules didn’t mesh, but that would probably always be a wrinkle
in our private life together. No wonder cops had such
high divorce rates. I sucked it up, swallowing the missing-my-man girly whine, then
shut everything off and went to bed.

•   •   •

My sleep was fairly restful, considering the previous day’s disturbing events.

But as I drank coffee and looked at what the computer search engine had dredged up
the night before, I knew I needed to talk to Rollie again—before I brought up my suspicions
with Shay. Since we had interviews scheduled for first thing this morning, I’d drop
by his place at the Diamond T after work tonight.

Jake must’ve come by early because the dogs weren’t around when I stepped onto the
porch. I squinted at the sky. Another dreary day. The moist air seeped into my bones,
and I shivered. Wet cold is worse than dry cold. I’d take winter in the high plains
desert over winter in the supposed warmer clime of North Carolina. At least if it
snowed, the dulled, gray, lifeless tones of late fall would be hidden beneath a blanket
of white.

The parking lot at the tribal police station was nearly full—an odd occurrence this
early in the morning on the rez. I remembered to put my FBI parking tag on the dash.
Hopefully, that wouldn’t earn me a tire iron to the windows or headlights.

Inside, a dozen or so people crowded around the receptionist’s desk, arguing about
wrongful incarceration of a family member. I dodged fighting kids and skirted a hefty
woman in a wheelchair who was blocking the door. After winding my way through teetering
boxes in the hallways, any calmness evaporated once I reached the conference room.
I hated that I wanted Agent Turnbull here. I hadn’t dealt with the tribal cops much,
and I was still finding my footing as to who was in charge in what circumstance.

Officer Ferguson was kicked back, with her boots on the table and a file folder obscuring
most of her face. Those boots dropped with a thump when she saw me. “Sorry, Agent.”

“No problem.” I spied a coffeepot and poured myself a cup.

“Is your partner coming today?” she asked.

No surprise she’d be asking about Shay. The man’s amazing looks could’ve landed him
on the cover of a historical western romance, where the scantily dressed, brave Brave
held the virginal white girl in his big strong arms. “Special Agent Turnbull is not
my partner. He’s my supervisor. So I assume he’ll show.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” She gave me a curious look. “Do you think the reason we’re interviewing
Arlette’s friends is because we’re women?”

Oddly enough, that comment relaxed me, because I’d had the same thought. “Probably.
But I’ll take a dozen teenage girls in interview any day over one strung-out male
meth head.” I sat across from her and sipped my coffee. “Do you know these friends
of Arlette’s?”

She shook her head and slid me a file folder.

I skimmed the lone document. “Where’s the other girl’s statement?”

“That’s all we’ve got.”

I bit back a comment about the seemingly haphazard treatment of documents at the tribal
PD. When I glanced up, I noticed the curtain to what I’d assumed was a window was
now open. It wasn’t a window but a two-way glass to a viewing room. That’s where Turnbull
would be.

Three raps sounded on the door, and the receptionist stuck her head in. “Fergie? Are
you ready for Naomi Malloy? The Kicking Bird family has taken over the front office,
and she’s getting spooked.”

Officer Ferguson looked at me and I nodded. “Bring her in.”

After the door closed, I said, “So . . . Fergie, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I got that nickname after Fergie, the former Duchess of York,
became a household name, but before Fergie, from the Black Eyed Peas, became popular.”
She smirked. “But I’m sure you can see my resemblance to the latter.”

Redheaded Officer Ferguson was about five feet three and as curvy as a tipi pole.