Murder on the Red Cliff Rez (13 page)

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Authors: Mardi Oakley Medawar

BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
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Tracker rose to Mushy's defense. “Well, he is a good boy! When he saw you coming up to my house with a gun, what was he suppose to think?”
Jerking away from Michael, David shouted, “That dog couldn't think its way out of a soggy paper bag.”
“You're only saying that because you know he doesn't like you.”
“Well, duh!” David jeered. “How's he suppose to like
me after you used my shirt to train him to attack?”
“I used a pair of your jeans,” she corrected. “Your shirt wiped up puppy pee.”
Michael was confused and in this state of confusion asked, “Hey? Are you guys married?”
Both turned, yelling,
“Gawain!”
(No!)
 
The men were sitting at the trestle table, two on either bench, with Uncle Bert dominating the discussion, while in the kitchen Tracker quickly threw together a pot of coffee. That done, she hurriedly came to sit at the table directly across from her uncle.
“Didn't hear nothin',” Bert said, his tone peeved. “That ain't unusual. My ears are so bad I can't even hear myself snore.”
Tracker nodded, knew that her uncle's deafness was the primary cause of his self-imposed isolation. Even though he'd become adept at lip-reading, he hated his disability so much he'd chosen to cut himself off from everything and everyone.
“My boys sure heard something, though,” her uncle was saying. Uncle Bert's boys were his pack of horrible hounds. “I thought they was hearing a raccoon or some such, an' I wasn't interested because I was tired because I just got back from fishing. I caught a big string of brownies. I just let my boys go on outside by themselves. They was gone a good long time and I didn't think nothing of that, neither. I was fixing to clean the fish when only two of 'em came back. I went looking for the other boys.”
He paused to take a drag off his cigarette, ignoring the overly long ash drooping off the end. Fastidious about such
things, Tracker watched the ash as her uncle exhaled and continued with his tale.
“Mostly what I thought was that the boys had tangled with a bear, so I grabbed up my rifle an' followed after the two that'd made it home.” The old man shook his head, let go a mournful sigh. The extended ash finally fell from the cigarette, landing on the table, disintegrating just outside the clean ashtray Tracker had slid near enough to catch it.
“My boys are like that,” her uncle said, oblivious to the mess, his frowning niece. “Whenever they get into trouble, they come fetch me. I knew them two was taking me to their brothers. They led me straight for the cliffs and I could see ‘em running just up aways, but I was lookin' mostly at the ground, checking for bear spoor. I looked up just in time to see Rusty, my best boy, leap straight up like he'd been gut-shot. Then he just flopped over. About that time, Sage, my other boy, got hit. I saw half his poor head get blown clear off.”
The saddened old man took a final drag off the cigarette that had burned down to the filter; then he ground it out in the ashtray. Tracker no longer cared that her uncle had made an ashy mess of her polished table. Those dogs of his may have been the bane of everyone else's existence, but they'd been his children. Seeing two of them shot dead would have been like receiving a stab straight through the heart. The old man rubbed a gnarled hand along moistening eyes.
Trying to save him embarrassment, Tracker switched the subject, touching her uncle's hand so that he would look at her, read her lips. “I called Dad.” Her uncle nodded,
letting her know he understood. Tracker continued. “I told him you were safe. You know, everybody's been out looking for you.”
The old man's eyes began to beam mischief as his lips curved in a sly smile. “I expect the ones doing the looking were mostly my enemies.” He croaked a wheezy laugh. “Ya know, the day I finally go toes-up, them guys are gonna have no one left to hate. Kinda reckon they'll be the ones who'll miss me most, eh?”
Tracker chuckled with him. Kindness was not the old man's strong suit. Shrugging the moment off, he looked again at David, speaking loudly and vehemently. “I was gonna get them dog killers, Davey. Was gonna shoot 'em deader'n snot. Didn't care if I got hung for it, neither.”
Uncle Bert grabbed the pack of cigarettes lying on the table. Taking one out, sticking it in his mouth, he leaned to the side, accepting a light from Benny, his bench mate. Blowing smoke toward the rafters, the old man once again began to rant.
“Anybody low-down enough to shoot a dog ain't fit to live. That's what I was thinkin' when all of a sudden this big son of a bitch comes out of nowhere. Had to be the biggest Chamook I ever seen in my whole sorry life. Just lookin' at him scared the blue piss right outta me. I was fixin' to draw down on him when three more Chamooks started comin' outta the brush. Four on one ain't fair, so I legged it. I ain't run so fast since I was a kid. I was going for home when I got to thinkin' that I was leading a bunch of strangers straight to where I live. That's when I started running the other way.
“It was after a couple of days of duckin' an' hidin' that I got kinda curious about those fellas, and that's when I
slipped back to the cliffs. You kids'll never guess what I saw goin' on down in the bay.”
Tracker touched his hand again. When he looked at her she said, “We already know.”
The old man gave his niece a scowl. “All right, miss smarty britches, but do you know who I saw right down there with 'em?”
“Could it have been our tribal attorney?”
Bert gleefully slapped the table and howled, “You're not even close, girlie!”
 
David called the station, checking in. Elliott answered at the first ring. “Except for the sheriff hanging around and driving me screaming damn nuts, everything on this end is real quiet. I'll radio Joey and Mel an' tell 'em I found you, so it's okay for them to go home an' get some rest.”
“No, don't send them home.” David spoke hurriedly and Elliott was about to respond with his usual stream of questions when David sidetracked him. “How goes the hunt for our missing widow?”
“That's done,” Elliott answered proudly. “Found her with no trouble at all. She's in Oklahoma, but she's comin' back tomorrow. Her dad called me with their flight number an' everything.”
“Good job.” David paused, collecting his thoughts. “Listen,” he finally said, “I've still got a few more things to do and I'm keeping the deputy with me. Before you radio the guys, tell Bothwell to go on back to Washburn. We'll catch up with him in the morning.”
Elliott caught on in seconds. Bothwell, seated at the second desk, seemed to be involved with an article in a year-old
Field & Stream
magazine. Elliott wasn't fooled. “Yeah,
you do sound pretty bushed,” Elliott said. “Why don't you and that deputy go get a hot meal?”
He paused, pretending to be listening as he scribbled on a notepad. Lifting the pad at an angle, looking down and through the bottoms of the bifocals resting on the tip of his bulbous nose, Elliott seemed to be reading back what David had dictated.
“Okay, you're getting a burger at the Lanes, then bunking down at your place. You'll call in around five in the A.M. and you're authorizing overtime for me to keep the shop open.” Elliott set the pad down, spoke with a smile on his face. “Thanks for the overtime, boss. My wife's gums have been giving her fits and she hates the dentist over at our clinic. Makes me take her all the way to Ashland to see a dentist. Ya know, keepin' that woman's gums in her head is startin' to cost me a whole lot of money. What? Oh … well, talk to ya later then.”
David had been totally captivated by Elliott's improvisational ability. He had just enough time before his dispatcher hung up to say, “Elliott, sometimes you're worth your weight in gold.”
“Ten-four, boss.”
 
As both Benny and Uncle Bert looked completely done in, Tracker played mother, tucking them in separate beds. She assigned Benny the pull-out couch, Uncle Bert her bedroom. Because he missed his dogs so much, Tracker ordered Mushy to stay, pointing to his pallet she'd just laid out in its usual place at the bottom of her bed. Mushy, with a whipped-dog attitude, got the idea, but just to make certain that he stayed put, Tracker closed the bedroom door.
David was making another call as she came into the main room and caught Michael examining a wide variety of Indian antiques displayed on the wall. He seemed especially taken with the old lacrosse sticks mounted like an X.
She came to stand beside him. “Those belonged to my mother's father,” she said. “Back in the twenties, Red Cliff was the only place left in the world where lacrosse was still being played the way it was meant to be played, with very few rules and absolutely no padding or helmets. My grandfather was said to be one of the best players. He once finished a game even though he had to run with a broken leg.”
Michael looked obliquely at her. Her expression was impossible to read. But she had to be putting him on. No one could run with a broken leg. He snorted derisively. “That took guts.”
“Yes,” she replied airily, “guts are a Charboneau trait.”
 
Loath as she was to admit it, sometimes David was just too cool. He'd been extremely cool manipulating the deputy, convincing Michael that it was his very own idea to remain at the cabin in order to safeguard Uncle Bert and their prisoner, Benny.
David had shrugged and said, “Well, if you insist.”
Before Michael could think it out, realize that he'd been snookered, David had hustled her out. Now they were on their way to the Tribal Courthouse. They were in her truck, and without asking her permission, David slid behind the steering wheel, turning the key, which was still in the ignition. She was appalled that she'd allowed him to just do that as they sped down the gravel road; white birches lined both sides of the road, ghostly figures illuminated by the truck's high beams.
Tracker finally found her voice. “Won't we be breaking and entering?”
David sent her a brief sideways glance. “Nah. I'm the law, remember?”
In the panel's muted green light she saw his impish grin.
 
The Tribal police department was normally closed and dark by this time of day, but as the day had been far from normal, lights blazed. Parked on a slant in front of the small building were two tribal patrol cars. Joey's and Mel's. They had either just performed their little errand or Elliott was still trying to explain it to them before they rolled.
In the parking lot just across from the P.D., David killed the lights on Tracker's truck as he steered into the parking lot for the Tribal Courthouse. He stopped at the back of the thoroughly dark building and shut down the engine.
At the front door David held a pin light in his mouth as he inspected the overfull key ring, trying the keys one by one until he finally slipped the correct key into the dead bolt, gave it a turn, and heard the muted snick. Pocketing the keys, removing the pin light from his mouth, he turned to whisper a warning. That was when he realized Tracker was no longer standing right behind him. He had no idea how long she'd been gone because when she put her mind to it, she could move with all the noise of a wisp of smoke. “Damn woman,” he muttered as he entered the building. Once inside, he made certain the door was locked again. True, he'd effectively locked Tracker out, but if she'd stayed put, that wouldn't have been a problem. He couldn't simply leave the office unlocked due to his fear of someone stumbling in while he was in the act of committing a felony. So wherever she'd gotten to, Tracker was on her own.
 
 
While David had been fumbling with the keys, Tracker had spotted something irregular just off to the side. Because of the rains, the lawn had been rendered slushy, much too soft to tread upon without doing damage, thus incurring the Tribal Chairman's wrath. But someone had dared to walk on the fragile lawn, someone unconcerned with sinking deep into the mud and trampling down the grass. Someone who preferred to edge along the office's perimeter.
 
David didn't freely admit this to anyone, but he was largely superstitious. It didn't help his phobia one little bit that the building was as black as the feathering of a death raven or that as he approached the ex-attorney's office he was hit by an odor strong enough to gag a maggot. Cupping his left hand over his mouth and nose, David opened the door with his right.
As Tracker stood outside the building watching David through the partially opened window, one side of her face was bleached by the light of the full moon. David, standing in the glow of a desk lamp, seemed rooted to the carpet as he stared at the floor, his attention fixed on something she couldn't see. To gain his attention, she tapped the windowpane once, then twice. David did not respond. Deciding on a more direct approach, she spoke through the two-inch gap between the sash and frame.
“Hey, sailor. Lookin' for a good time?”
David started violently, slapping a hand against his chest as he yelped, “Son of a bitch!” Catching sight of her, he was furious. “Damn it, Track! How long have you been out there?”
“About a minute.” Her tone changed, became crisp. “I don't know what you're doing in there, but I found a lot of stuff out here.”
He almost said, “There's a lot of stuff in here, too.” Instead he asked, “What sort of stuff?”
“I'm not telling until you give me a hand.”
David went to the window, raised it high enough to pull her through. Her feet had barely touched the carpet when the smell hit her like a bomb.
“My God!” she yelped, her hand flying to cover her nose and mouth. Behind this emergency mask she complained, “I can't believe they still haven't cleaned this place.”
“They did,” he said dryly. “But now they're going to have to clean it all over again.”
She gasped sharply, hand falling away from her face. Voice faint, she said, “You mean, there's …”
In the pale light David's eyes seemed impossibly large. “Oh, yeah.”
Tracker whispered, “Anyone we know?”
Nodding, David answered, “Uh-huh.”
 
Doc Ricky was not handling the current situation at all well. As the P.D. did not have a holding cell, Elliott was worried that the doctor's arm-waving would escalate, push the envelope on an already sticky situation. The tricky part was Mel. He'd stationed himself in front of the door, the office's only means of escape, and eyeing the doctor the entire time, he caressed the butt of his holstered sidearm. If the doctor suddenly decided he didn't want to be under arrest, made an attempt to leave, Elliott knew Mad Mel wouldn't hesitate. He'd shoot Doc Ricky, then giggle over the doctor's corpse. David badly needed to fire Mel. The boy just wasn't right. Elliott's one hope for disaster containment rested on Joey, who was sitting on a desk, speaking to the doctor in calming tones.
“One phone call,” Doc Ricky shouted. “I know I have the right to make one phone call.”
Languidly, Joey reached behind him, pulling the desk phone within easy reach. The doctor snatched up the receiver, index finger furiously stabbing the phone's buttons.
 
It was more than apparent that the Navajo was as dead as a door knocker, that any attempt at resuscitation would be a waste of effort. Given the sight of the recent paper storm, the office files strewn everywhere, it was also obvious that if any incriminating documents regarding the illegal log harvest had been found, they were long gone. David, worried the light had been on too long, that someone over in the P.D. would notice, switched off the lamp, snapped on the pin light, and guided Tracker out. Once they were in the hallway, the Tribal Attorney's door firmly closed behind them, the fresher air helped clear their heads.
“Okay,” he said wearily. “What stuff did you find outside?”
“Footprints. Someone went from window to window, probably watching the Navajo.”
“The shot that killed him didn't come from any window,” David said crisply. “It was too clean.”
“I didn't say the shot was fired from the window,” she insisted. “I simply said someone went from window to window. That person could have been the killer or just someone trying to get a peek at the murder scene. You know, like a curious kid, maybe.”
“I'm not buying that one, Track. Whoever it was wasn't just looking in out of idle curiosity.”
Tracker tossed her hands wide, slapped her thighs. A long time ago she learned that whenever David became argumentative,
it was best not to feed into his mood.
“All right,” David said mostly to himself. “Let's assume that the Navajo was here to get a look at poor old Jud's files. Then let's say Peepers wanted to have a look, too, and surprises said Navajo. Then of course Peepers has to kill him.”
“And Peepers did come inside,” she said softly.
“How do you know?”
“There's a partial footprint in blood that matches the prints outside.”
David removed his cap, scratched the top of his head. “Which would mean Peepers and the killer were after the same thing but weren't exactly on the same team.”
“Or, we're back to the curious kid wanting to get a look at a freshly killed person.”
Thoroughly frustrated, David slammed the cap back onto his head. “Damn, Track, stay with me on this. Forget the curious kid. There is no curious kid. What we have are two dead guys and about ten tons of missing white pines, and all we have as a near witness to anything is your loony uncle. We need something solid, something written down and—”
Tracker received a brain jolt. “Hildy!”
“What?”
“Hildy,” she snapped. “Hildy Blanc!” Tracker took off in a run. Hoping to prevent her from killing herself as she ran the dark hallway, David followed, fixing the narrow beam of his pin light just ahead of her running boots.
 
Hildy Blanc had been the Tribal Court Recorder for decades. Not only did she record all court sessions, she was also responsible for keeping the records for literally everything.
Hildy was a good soul but generally thought to be quirky. Actually, what Hildy was, was cunning. She knew that on a small reservation with few job opportunities, the key to her continuous employment lay in her own unique filing system. The harder her system was for anyone else to figure out, the more secure she was in her job when governing councils changed. The tiny office belonging to the Court Recorder had floor-to-ceiling shelves, each shelf stuffed with cryptically encoded files that made absolutely no sense to anyone other than Hildy. Because of the shelves, Hildy's tiny empire had no windows, so Tracker and David could snap on the overhead lighting. After their eyes focused, she and David stood looking at the shelves in horror.
“This will take years,” David groaned.
Trackers swallowed her anxiety. “How long can you hold the good doctor before you have to charge him?”
David checked his wristwatch, did a quick mental calculation. “About four more hours.”
Tracker took a deep breath, let it go. “Then we just start pulling paper. And neatness doesn't count.”
“Thank God.”
 
Receiver against her ear, mouth a tight line, Wanda listened. Behind her, her husband sat in the old wingback easy chair. After a long day of pulling a few reservation cars back from the brink of death, then finding ways to hold them together using little more than baling wire, the rez's one and only magical repairman was pure tuckered. He was also sipping a can of beer and getting steadily drunker as he watched television, the volume—as usual—too loud. Even though she knew he couldn't hear due to the television,
out of habit, Wanda stole a glance over her shoulder before speaking.
“Why should I help you?” she snarled, her voice low.
“Because I love you.”
That was it. The one line able to melt her like butter. Still she remained silent for a moment, letting him squirm.
“Baby?” His voice held a pleading edge.
“Ten minutes,” she said. Then she put the phone down.
 
Tracker heard the front door of the building open, and for a second, she froze. David, on his knees as he rifled through a pile of folders, was oblivious. Tracker really could have used that fraction of a second, but because she'd wasted it, she was unable to close the door to the Court Recorder's cubby before all the lights in reception flashed on. The lights were quickly followed by the sound of footsteps coming along the hallway. Then the footfalls stopped.
“Hello?” a female voice quivering with trepidation hailed. “Is someone here?”
It was David's turn to freeze.
“We're going to have to front this out,” Tracker said, her words just a notch above hissing.
Looking up at her, David was thinking quickly, none of the thoughts flitting through his brain good ones. There was another dead body in the Courthouse, and he, as police chief, should be entirely focused on the murder investigation. Instead, he was about to be caught on his knees rifling through tribal records.
David did a bit of hissing of his own. “If you have any idea on just how we can brazen this one out, trust me, I'm all ears.”
“You're the law!” she whispered.
His response was notably sarcastic. “Maybe you haven't noticed, but right now I'm a lawman about to be caught in a highly illegal act.”
Tracker's eyes hardened. “Sometimes you're just too helpless.”
“Is this where you slap me for my own good?”
Making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, Tracker turned on her heel.
 
Legs shaking, heart thumping like a drum, Thelma stood in the partially illuminated hall. The Court Recorder's door was open and the lights were on inside. Thelma knew she wasn't imagining the voices. She was not alone in what should be an empty building. Thelma was about to run away when Tracker darted out into the hall. Relief came over her in such a huge wave that Thelma very nearly keeled over. Yet as Tracker came toward her, Thelma rallied. “Do you know you scared me half to death?”
Tracker came to a stop. “Sorry, Thel.”
The muttered apology further fueled Thelma's anger. “What are you doing here? And how did you get in when the front doors were locked?”
Before Tracker could answer, both women heard a male voice say, “Thelma, the doors were locked because this is suppose to be a secured crime scene.” David showed an indignant face. “You mind telling me what you're doing here this time of night?”
Stepping to the side of Tracker, Thelma was at a loss as she stared at the Tribal Police Chief standing half in, half out of the Recorder's office. Striving to regain the moment, Tracker moved to block Thelma's view of David.
Placing a hand lightly on the woman's trembling arm,
she said soothingly, “It's all right. Just answer his question and I'll make certain he doesn't arrest you.”
A great respecter of authority, Thelma proceeded to babble. “I'm here because of Perry.” Dabbing her eyes with a thoroughly used and wadded piece of tissue that seconds ago had been hidden inside her hand, Thelma sobbed. “I told him I couldn't bring myself to come back inside this place, that I'm about to have a nervous collapse, but he said I'm the only one who can find anything in Hildy's—”
“What?”
David's bark had Thelma jumping almost straight up and straight out of her sensible shoes. Tracker grabbed the older woman's cold hand and rubbed it briskly, sending both warmth and reassurance. Thelma sniffled into the tissue, then meekly squeaked, “Perry told me he needed a file from Hildy's office.”
 
Barely a minute after managing to put aside her case of the frights, Thelma suffered a relapse. For a space of moments she could only stare in shock at the mess Tracker and David had made of the Court Recorder's little den. Squaring her shoulders enabled Thelma to regain a modicum of her formidable self. She stepped into the breach, a veritable whirlwind of efficiency. Moments later, all of the folders were crammed again in their rightful slots. With the exception of the folder requested by the Tribal Chairman. That folder was clutched against Thelma's well-endowed bosom, as with one eyebrow slightly raised, she began to regard the pair before her with increasing suspicion.
“There's something here that smells just a little funny,” she said, eyes shifting between Tracker and David.
“Oh,” David said, “that'd be the Navajo.”
Tracker kicked his ankle.
But it was far too late to whistle back David's little faux pas. Thelma clutched the folder more tightly as she began cautiously sniffing the air. “My God,” she said, a tremulous edge to her voice, “something really does smell bad.”
 
There was no doubt about it. With the advent of Thelma, the secret of another body in the Tribal Courthouse was well and truly out of the bag. On a brighter note, David now had the file he'd needed. Having pried it away from Thelma, he whipped through it like a dervish, finding in small print the name of a global company currently being sued in just about every country on the planet for a host of unethical practices.

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