Murder on the Red Cliff Rez (16 page)

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Authors: Mardi Oakley Medawar

BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
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Tracker was rubbing Joey's hand, giving him the
there
,
there
treatment as Nurse Sharon marched toward them. Having shared the experience of pre-op confessor, Nurse Sharon wasn't feeling especially steady, either, but the woman was still in charge of the night shift, thus required to remain scrupulous to duty. And with Joey Du Bey at any rate, she seemed much more agreeable with the idea of being a compassionate nurse.
“I'm taking him to the break room for a cup of coffee,” she informed Tracker. “Then I have to make certain he showers.”
Apparently these decisions were set in stone. Nurse Sharon helped Joey to his feet, slung an arm around his scrub-clothed waist and held his hand as she led him off. Tracker was left to stare at their backs until they disappeared.
The emergency room had become as still as a stagnant pond. Other than the beige walls, there was nothing for her to watch or even read. One boring minute after another crawled by. Finally, carrying his beloved baseball cap in his hand and dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, his boots, and a light jacket, David came striding into the open waiting area. His long hair, pulled back in a ponytail, looked wet. He stopped in front of her and slammed the cap down on his head.
While he was adjusting the cap he issued orders. “You're coming with me,” he said. “You and I are escorting the doc and Wanda back to the station.”
Tracker stood up from the hard plastic chair. “What about my uncle?”
David puffed air through his lips. “Ah, hell, he's asleep in one of the exam rooms. When we get back to the station, I'll have Elliott call your dad to come get him.”
“But Uncle Bert's a witness,” she insisted. “He should come to the station, too.”
David's patience was tapped dry. “Look,” he said sharply, “it's a small station, okay? And God knows once we get there, the place is gonna fill up fast.”
 
Even as David spoke the Red Cliff Police Department was already standing room only. The Tribal Chairman and the Bayfield County Sheriff were in the midst of a heated argument with Elliott Raven. The cause of the argument, Benny, stood with his hands cuffed behind him and in between two Bayfield deputies. Elliott was trying in vain to bring a smidgen of order to the situation, and Mel, head going back and forth between the chairman and the sheriff, sat slack-jawed on top of a desk.
A highly frustrated Michael wiped his face with his hands. Sheriff Bothwell wasn't interested in anything Michael had to say. Despite Michael's repeated assurances that Benny couldn't have possibly killed the BIA agent, Bothwell was satisfied he had the right man. Benny Peliquin was a serial killer. That was that, case closed.
Meanwhile, huddled in the farthest corner, Thelma Frenchette looked tiny in her chair. Her head bowed, arms on thighs, fingers entwined around a Styrofoam cup, she stared bleakly into a cup of coffee. She looked up as David ushered Ricky and Wanda into the station. Behind them came Tracker. Seeing her, Thelma's eyes livened a bit, then, noticing the file Tracker carried in one arm, Thelma's eyes went dull again.
The station was crowded and Tracker less than a couple of feet away, but because of the deputies containing Benny, she couldn't maneuver any closer to Thelma. She had to stand to the side, watching the older woman slide further into despondency. And Tracker understood the cause of her despair. In relinquishing the file, Thelma had failed Perry Frenchette. Failing Perry meant that Thelma's days as an exemplary member of the prestigious Frenchette clan were finished. Looking as if she wished she could just simply disappear, Thelma again gazed wearily into the cup of coffee.
David had walked headlong into the fierce argument, putting himself between his dispatcher, the chairman, and the sheriff. Elliott was noticeably relieved as the chairman and the sheriff, glaring at David, stepped back.
To the two deputies, David barked, “Take those damn cuffs off that man.”
Other than to shift their eyes toward Bothwell, neither
deputy moved. The sheriff spoke for them. “Benny Peliquin is now in my custody, under arrest for the double homicide.”
David exploded. “That's bullshit and you know it!”
Bothwell assumed a pained but calmer aspect. Fixing his attention on David, the sheriff proceeded. “This reservation is under my jurisdiction, and until I'm overturned in a court of law, what I decide is final.”
Using his first two fingers, David beckoned Tracker. Wedging herself through the bodies, she hastened forward. David ripped the file out of her arms, held it up, waved it in Bothwell's round face. “I've just upped the ante.”
“What the hell is that?” Bothwell demanded.
David breathed steam through his nose. “Let's just call it a list.”
Bothwell treated David to one of his hearty laughs, then cried, “Well, whoop-de-doo. The boy's got a list!”
“Yeah,” David said. “And your name's on it.”
Bothwell stopped laughing.
David stepped up to the sheriff, spoke as professionally as his simmering anger would allow. “You are under arrest for the willful destruction of federally protected land.”
The sheriff whirled away, yelling, “Damn you, Frenchette!”
Watching her illustrious in-law wilt before her very eyes caused Thelma to perk up. She knocked back the tepid coffee, set the Styrofoam cup down by her feet. Then she sat up in the chair, spine rigidly straight, hands folded in her lap, eyes bright and alert. Something terrible was about to happen to Perry. Considering the terrible way he had tried to use her, to involve her in whatever he was up to, then had spoken so callously to her and had made threats
against her future as a tribal employee, Thelma'd be damned before she missed one second of his ruin.
 
Michael, now sitting on top of the desk alongside his new best pal Benny, looked as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. On the other side of Benny was Tracker. David, standing in the center of the squad room, was holding forth as Mel, a rifle held across his chest, stood guard over the seated sheriff and Tribal Chairman. Directly behind the desk, and seated next to Thelma Frenchette, were the two now thoroughly flustered Bayfield County deputies. The only thing keeping them in the chairs was Michael's assurance that he would take any and all heat this little wander down the Yellow Brick Road might engender. And as he was somehow related to the lieutenant governor …
 
Tracker was antsy, squirming around. Michael leaned forward, looking around Benny. He didn't know her all that well, but he'd learned enough in the last hours to know when she was fuming. He reached across, touched her leg. Gaining her attention, he mouthed, “What's wrong?”
Frowning with all her might, she stabbed her index finger in the air, as if her finger were a knife pointing at David. Michael's blond head snapped back, eyes widening in surprise.
“He's getting everything backward!” she urgently whispered.
David heard her. As did Bothwell, who turned enough of his bulk to look at her over his shoulder. With a forced laugh the sheriff said, “You tell him, gal!”
Tracker's eyes met David's. She couldn't ever recall seeing him so angry, his expression so … cold. David turned
at the waist and let the file fall from his hand. It landed on the nearest desktop with a thump. “Yeah,” he said, tone wintry, “why don't you just stand up and point out where I've gone wrong.” His icy black eyes touched hers again. “It's what you do best.”
David, boiling with rage, had issued a challenge. And to make sure she accepted, had thrown in the barb. The small squad room was thick with tension, all eyes on her as she slid off the desk.
“I only meant to point out,” she said, hating the shake in her voice, “that you're putting the murders ahead of everything.”
David sneered. “Oh, pardon me for thinking the death of two men are important.”
“Well, of course they are,” she snapped. “But why they were killed is even more important.”
Her voice wasn't shaking now. Everyone, with the exception of David, had ceased to exist. Tracker spoke only to him.
“It was easy to blame Benny for Jud because Thelma”—Tracker waved an arm in Thelma's direction—“said Benny was the last one to see him. That they were having a loud
argument when she left.” She turned to Thelma, and Thelma nodded rapidly.
“That's right,” Thelma hurriedly supplied. “I heard them all over the building.”
“When you were turning off lights and making certain the building was secure.”
“Yes. I do that every evening before I leave.”
“So,” Tracker encouraged, “to your knowledge, other than yourself, Jud, and Benny, there was no one else in the building.”
Thelma sat ramrod straight, head high. “There was no one else,” she declared. “I absolutely know that for a fact.”
“What about the parking lot?” Tracker pressed.
Thelma was thrown by the question. She floundered for a moment, a hand going to her lips. Hesitantly she ventured, “I—I …” Her eyes popped wide. “Wait! There was a car in the lot. I remember wondering …” She looked at Doc Ricky, and in a whisper, finished, “ … who was sick.”
Ricky shook his head while smiling an odd smile. Wanda clutched his arm, hung on tight, tried to gain his attention. Ricky wouldn't look at her.
“Man! The medical examiner did it,” Mel exclaimed. “Talk about a killer returning to the scene of the crime!”
Elliott exploded. “Shut up, Mel.”
But David was looking hard at Doc Ricky, remembering his excessive nervousness while on the scene. His anger when Michael insisted the body be transported to Ashland for autopsy. The autopsy report wouldn't be ready for another two or three days. Plenty of time for Ricky to head out. The very thing Joey had said it looked to him that the doctor was in the middle of planning when he and Mel
picked him up for friendly questioning on the matter of his being seen on the recovery barge.
David's mind went back to the recent confession of the huge man Tracker had brought down with an arrow. He mused aloud, “So, Rick … you're the big boss, eh?”
“No,” Tracker interjected, “he's not.”
David shot back furiously: “Aw, come on, Track. We've got him cold.” He began ticking off the facts on his fingertips. “His car was seen in the courthouse lot. He was seen on the barge. He—”
“ … didn't do it,” Doc Ricky finished. Having gained their full attention, Ricky stretched out his long legs, did everything but yawn in their collective faces. “I have more than enough witnesses to vouch for the fact that I was at the hospital all that night. Hell, I was still with patients when I got the call to come to the courthouse.”
David was livid. “Maybe you have witnesses for murder number one, but what have you got for murder number two?”
“Same-o, same-o.” Ricky was arrogant.
David wasn't persuaded. “Then how do you explain Thelma's seeing your car?”
Pursing his lips, Ricky shrugged. “Can't.”
“You have the only set of keys?”
“Yes.”
“You give them to anybody?”
“No.”
Exasperated, Tracker interrupted the sideshow. “He didn't have to give anyone the keys.” Heads turned to her. More than a little tempted to thump David, she cried, “You're not thinking again. You're not asking yourself
who on Red Cliff has a key to
everyone's
truck or car.”
David looked as if he'd just been slapped. Ricky broke out laughing. Wanda DuPree began to sob. Michael jumped off the desk, and beginning with Bothwell, began arresting damn near everybody.
 
They leaned against her truck, watching cars pull out, bubble lights throbbing, sirens whooping, all of the occupants in the cars headed for Bayfield County jail and bologna sandwich suppers.
“Another thing you forgot,” Tracker said, exhaling cigarette smoke, “is that Arrow Man—”
“I still can't believe you shot him with an arrow!” David yelped. He flipped his cigarette away, the glowing red dot sailing into the area of the parking lot the milk-white glow of the single halogen light didn't reach. David pushed himself off the truck, stood facing her. “Don't you think that was just a little too Indianish?”
“I didn't have anything else.”
David grunted. “I'm still not buying it.”
Tracker waved an angry hand, took another lungful of nicotine. “Oh, who the hell cares. Are you going to listen or not?”
Defeated, David shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “I'm listening.”
Satisfied, Tracker continued. “Okay, maybe it slipped past you, but Arrow Man doesn't exactly click on all six cylinders. The clue to that one is his reference to himself in the third person. ‘Freddy wants this,'” she mimicked. “‘Freddy's afraid.'” She inhaled again, then tossed her cigarette in the same direction David had. “He got my attention when he said Freddy was afraid of that woman. At the
time I thought he meant the nurse, but then I noticed that he wasn't acting afraid when she was present. In fact when he got mad at me, he seemed more than glad to be left alone with the nurse while I went off to look for you. But he was still fearful, enough to confess all his sins to Father David. And why?” she asked rhetorically. “Because the woman he was afraid of would be with him in the operating room. In other words, Wanda.”
“How did he know to be afraid of her?”
“Killer recognition, David. It's as simple as that. Good ole Freddy had to have known Wanda. She barely allowed Ricky out of her sight. So the day Uncle Bert spotted him on the barge, you can bet your gums Wanda was there, too. But probably in the wheelhouse, which would explain why my uncle didn't see her.”
David knuckled his eyes. “Okay, she confessed to both murders and now she's clammed up until she can get a lawyer, but I still don't know why she'd kill Jud or the Navajo.”
“She did it for Ricky,” Tracker said flatly.
“He told her to?”
“No, she killed Jud because he was becoming a loose cannon, the talk of the rez. Ricky must have worried out loud that if you took Jud in for knocking around Imogen and he'd been drinking, well, that he might say a little too much on the subject of trees.”
“So she shoots Jud just to ease Ricky's worried mind?”
Tracker let go a sour laugh. “You'd be amazed what a woman will do for her man.” She quickly changed the subject. “But Wanda wasn't totally irrational. She used effort in distancing herself from the murders. She lifted Ricky's keys from her husband's master set so she could leave her
car in the hospital's lot for all to see while Ricky's was on the scene. The gun most probably belongs to her husband. That way, should things turn sour, she can point in two different directions and cry, ‘They did it!' And if she's as smart as I believe she is, that's exactly what she'll still do. Of course, she'll still have to contend with me. If you'll recall, I followed her footprints around the building and then found the same print in the office in the Navajo's blood.” Tracker looked smug. “I'll make a great witness. I think I'll wear my blue skirt to the trial.”
“What do you think she did with Jud's original file?”
“Oh, I don't think she ever saw it. I think the file we found is the original.” She smiled slyly. “If you wanted to hide something, where better than Hildy's files?”
David tossed back his head, smiling to the heavens. “Hell, you could lose anything in there.”
“Exactly. But after the many searches everyone did in Jud's office, it occurred to Perry where it most likely had to be. So he sent Thelma in. Just one more woman doing for the man she adores.”
David looked at her, smiling that heart-melting smile of his. “I was just wondering. Does shooting a Chamook in the butt with an arrow qualify as something a woman would do for the man she adored?”
Tracker's face puckered. “Put a sock in it, David.”
“Hey, I was just asking.” He turned and leaned against the truck, settling close to her.
They looked up at the stars for several moments. The night was clear, the air sharp. Tracker accepted his warmth without complaint. “Arrow Man of course meant Bothwell,” she said tiredly, “when he talked about the big boss.
Big, in Arrow Man's mind, meaning fat. And when you think about it, who else has the connections? Or knows the area and the day-to-day habits of Red Cliffers better? He needed Jud to do the contracting, Frenchette to wangle the nearby legal clear-cutting operation so that the equipment would be in place, and the Navajo to keep the BIA at arm's length.”
“So where did Ricky fit?”
“That's something only Ricky can tell us. If he ever will,” she amended. “But my best guess is that he simply caught on and went after the money.”
“Blackmail, eh?”
“Sort of. But with Ricky”—she shook her head—“my gut says he wanted the money for altruistic reasons.”
David looked speculatively at her. “You know, now that you mention it, he was getting a lot of big budget approvals. I bitched about Frenchette laying new carpet all over everything, but the truth is, I was more resentful that all Ricky had to do was ask for any new thing he wanted, while I couldn't even get my department a decent coffeepot.”
“Well,” Tracker sighed, moving away from him, “there you go then. The mystery of our tribal budget is finally solved.” Stretching her arms over her head, she yawned, “I'm pooped.” Arms settling at her sides, she said, “I'm ready to go home and have a nice hot bath.”
David took the hint. Pushing away from the truck, he began walking away. “Enjoy it, babe. You earned it.”
“And don't forget the two hundred dollars in tracking fees,” she yelled at his back.
Laughing, David kept walking.
Elliott was leaving, packing it in for the day. “Hey,” he said as David walked through the door. “That Bjorke guy wants you to call him. He sounds upset again.”
“Ah, God,” David groaned. “What now?”
“Jailbreak maybe. Tell me in the morning.” Elliott was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
David went to a desk, punched the speed-dial button for Bayfield county sheriff. Michael answered, sounding hysterical. “You are just never going to believe this.”
“What?”
“I'm the new sheriff!”
David grinned. “Excuse me? How did you get elected so fast?”
“I'm appointed,” Michael fumed, “by my own asshole uncle. Did I forget to tell you he's the lieutenant governor?”
“Yeah, you did kinda forget that one.”
Michael didn't care. “Well, he is. And as Bothie still owes two years in term, I'm stuck serving them out.”
“Hey, congratulations!” David laughed.
“Suck salt and die, Lameraux.” Michael slammed the phone down.
Staring at the receiver in his hand, David continued laughing.
 
At twelve P.M. on the next day, Imogen was a hollow shell of herself as she came off the plane, walking unsteadily beside her father. She was fully expecting every law officer in the state of Wisconsin to meet her at the end of the tunnel. What she did not expect was Benny, standing there with a bouquet of flowers. And with a cry she ran to him, flinging herself into his arms.
“Welcome home, honey,” Benny said against her neck.
 
 
She'd spent the entire morning cleaning her cabin, trying to put right the things that last night's shoot-out had damaged. Her father and brothers would be coming soon to repair her windows. Dressed in a sweat shirt and jeans, Tracker enjoyed the calm before the family storm descended. She was taking a break, sitting on the top stair of the front porch steps sipping coffee and stroking Mushy's shaggy fur. A minute before she'd heard a hunting eagle's scream. Now she was listening to the woodpeckers tapping at bugs high up in the trees. With the warmth of the sun on her face, Tracker breathed contentedly.

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