The Supernaturals (23 page)

“Hard thing to look at, isn’t it?” he said to the young man, who removed his hat and then turned and looked at John, carefully keeping his gaze away from the examination table.

The sheriff stepped away from the door and walked around the table to watch the two men. He was tempted to stop whatever it was Lonetree was up to, but his instincts held him back.

“She had most of her clothing on when I found her. It made me sick.”

Lonetree nodded and patted the deputy on the back. “Deputy Jennings, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did good work tonight. I wish I had dependable men like you on the Rez.” He smiled and looked at the sheriff. “Hell, we wouldn’t have any crime at all.”

“Just lucky, coming across that Indian like I did.”

“That Indian?”

“The suspect, I mean. No offense to you, sir.”

“No offense taken, Deputy. That was a stroke of luck, coming across a murder and rape in that alley. Do you always check the alleys on that side of town?”

“As often as I can, yes sir.”

John lightly pinched the deputy’s shoulder, then patted it again. “Say, that’s a nice set of rings.”

Jennings looked down and nervously switched his wide brimmed hat to his other hand. John wasn’t looking at the deputy’s hand any longer, but at the embroidered badge on the man’s jacket.

The sheriff slowly unsnapped the holstered weapon at his side.

“We’ve had some disagreement here, Deputy. Maybe another set of trained law enforcement eyes can sort it out for us.” John held his hand out, gesturing for Jennings to face the girl’s body. He kept his large hand on the boy as he led him over to the mid-point of the stainless steel table. “This impression right here...do you have any idea what that could be?”

The deputy leaned in and looked at the backward L indentation on the girl’s chest. He cleared his throat.

“No, sir…I uh…no, I don’t know.”

“Falling stars,” John said. He looked away from the body and released the boy’s shoulder.

“Sir?” The deputy looked up.

“Nothing. Just a dream I had a few nights ago,” John smiled. He looked at the sheriff and let the smile fade. “Deputy, you say Randy Yellowgrass was leaning over the body when you found him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind Randy was intoxicated. You know, drunken Indian and all that. But I find it hard to believe Randy was capable of doing this. Especially since Betty was his very own cousin.”

“I didn’t know that, John,” Kimble said, staring at his deputy.

“Yeah, well, in all honesty, that’s neither here nor there, sheriff. Cousins have killed cousins long before this. However, there is one thing... That damn dream I had, falling stars…Well, they were falling around Betty, of all people.”

“There’s some who say John here has certain…” the sheriff looked from the deputy to Lonetree, “abilities. We laugh it off most times down at the station.
Dream-walking
they call it.”

“Indians—what are you going to do?” John asked jokingly. But he quickly advanced on the deputy, reaching inside Jennings’ uniform jacket, past the embroidered star, and ripped free the metal badge pinned to the officer’s shirt. He took Jennings by the arm and threw him toward Betty Youngblood’s body. The deputy turned in indignation as he slammed into the autopsy table, shaking the dead girl’s body violently. John Lonetree placed the star-shaped badge on Betty’s chest—right into the imprint of the backward L. “Falling stars, Deputy Jennings.”

“Goddamn!” the sheriff said. He pulled his nine-millimeter out of its holster.

For a split second, John didn’t know who the sheriff was going to point the weapon at. He was relieved when he saw it was Jennings who was being covered.

“When you held her mouth closed, you broke her teeth off with your rings. And then after you cut her breast off, you cut her throat.” John grabbed the deputy by the jacket and deftly removed Jennings’ own weapon. He tossed it to the shaking coroner, who juggled it and finally caught it. “After that, you thought it was safe enough to fuck this little girl—after she was dead!” he said through clenched teeth.

“You fuckin’—” the sheriff said, taking very close aim at his own man.

“Then you cut her up some more, didn’t you? But you didn’t count on the badge you were wearing…the star. It made that backward L shape. Add three more of those L’s and you have a five-pointed star.”

“Jesus,” the coroner said. He looked like he was close to going into shock.

“I think if you look in the back of his cruiser, or search his house, you’ll find the uniform he was wearing when he murdered this little girl. The knife he used on her is more than likely in the sewer or a lake. The doc here will be able to extract his DNA from Betty’s body.” He shook Jennings one last time, tossed the deputy aside like a rag doll and stormed out of the examination room.

An hour after
Jennings was taken into custody for the rape and murder of Betty Youngblood, Sheriff Kimble found John Lonetree sitting on the curb, leaning against a parking meter.

“I’ve never in my life seen or heard anything like that.”

Lonetree looked past the sheriff, up toward the night sky. The nights held a chill that was getting ready to morph into outright cold, as the middle of October approached.

“Cursed is what I am,” John said. He took a shuddering breath. “The curse of Dream Walking has always been with me, my mother, and grandmother.” He finally looked at the sheriff. “It really sucks.” He pulled his gun, and then his own badge from his Levis jacket and handed them to the sheriff.

“What’s this?”

“I want you to give them to the tribal council for me. I can’t go back and face them.”

“Why? You have nothing to hide. You did good John—real good. You made me look like a fool.”

“Van, making a redneck like you look like a fool isn’t that difficult a task, and not something I aspire to do very often.” He shook his head. “I had the dream of Betty and the falling stars, and didn’t act on it. I’m not tired of my red blood, but I’m tired of being numb inside and not recognizing things for what they are. I guess I refused to act because I was almost ashamed of being an Indian. That has to stop.” John rose slowly to his feet.

“Where will you go?”

Lonetree pulled the telegram from his jacket pocket.

“New York, and then Pennsylvania—a house called Summer Place. An old classmate of mine from Harvard, we used to play football together. Anyway, he needs my help. I figure this is a good time for a vacation and a hard case study on what it is that I am. He needs help, and I need to get the hell out of here.”

“Help with what? What is Summer Place?” Kimble asked.

John had turned and started to walk away, but he stopped. When he turned back, he had a crooked grin on his face.

“It ate his grad student a few years ago. Leave it to Gabriel Kennedy to make my guilt seem small.”

John walked off into the darkness of the Montana night, his black hair gleaming in the moonlight. His cowboy boots clicked down the road leading away from the reservation, possibly forever.

The third member of Gabriel Kennedy’s team was on his way to New York.

Seattle, Washington

The man tilted the faculty ID so the heavyset bartender could see it clearly in the dim light of the filthy, smelly dive someone had the gall to name
Nirvana
. The bartender looked it over and eyed the man at the bar. The man wore a brown suit and a white shirt. His collar was open, and he wore no tie.

Instead of answering his question, the bartender poured a tap beer and walked away. The man in the suit sighed and placed the photo of Jennifer Tilden back in his coat pocket. He turned to leave.

“Let me see that again,” the bartender said. He had returned, and was wiping his hand on a wet towel.

The man in the brown suit reached into his pocket once more and produced the photo.

“You say she’s a what?” the burly bartender asked.

“She’s a professor of paleontology from the University of Oklahoma.”

“Get the fuck outta here,” the bartender said. He handed the picture back to the network’s detective.

“By your reaction, I assume you know her?”

The bartender looked around at the fifty people in the dingy bar. The Karaoke machine was blaring
Hit me with your best shot,
by Pat Benatar, and most of the dregs were watching the slovenly lady who belted the vocals from the small stage.

“Look, I can tell a cop when I see one. As much as I like doing my civic duty, I don’t want to hurt someone I know.”

“I’m not a cop. If you point her out, you’ll be doing her a big favor.”

“That right?”

As he waited for the bartender to make his decision, he watched the heavyset lady finish the song with a flourish. She seemed oblivious to the cat calls and boos from the rough audience. She stepped down with a graceful wave, as if her devoted followers were plastering her with applause.

“Look, she may be down and out, but everyone in downtown pretty much likes—?” the bartender paused and looked expectantly at the detective.

“Jennifer,” he supplied.

“We know her as Pinky—you know, her red hair.”

The man waited. He knew enough not to push the bartender. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Give me a draft while you think about it.”

“Look, we all know she’s a little whacked out, but she doesn’t need to be put away or anything. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. Hell, she’s hard on herself, no one else. These assholes here don’t know her like I do. I saw her once, before…well…before, is all.”

The man watched the bartender pull his beer from the tap.

“She’s right over there, in the corner booth,” he placed the beer down in front of the man, spilling the foam over the rim of the glass. “The one that looks like she’s passed out.”

The man turned toward the booth in question. The smallish woman sitting there was slumped over the table with her head in the crook of her elbow. Her red hair was recognizable from her photo, but it looked like she had diminished even further—she had already appeared almost emaciated in the picture. “Well, give me what she’s drinking,” the man said.

“She doesn’t drink.”

“I thought…I mean…she looks like she’s—”

“Yeah, well don’t do any more thinking,” the man said angrily. “She’s tired, is all. I’ve never seen her drink anything other than water. Ever.”

The detective started through the dingy bar toward the booth, dodging people who looked his way with indifference or mild hostility. He sat his beer down and the thump made the small woman jump, but she still didn’t look up from where her head rested on her arm.

“Doctor Tilden, may I have a moment?” When she didn’t respond, he sat down in the rickety seat across from her. He raised his voice and repeated the question.

Finally, she looked up. Doctor Jennifer Tilden had startling green eyes, ringed in red. She was clearly exhausted and could barely focus on his face.

“I don’t know you,” was all she said. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, as if she hadn’t had a drink of water for years. She looked at him more closely and then closed her eyes. She had fallen asleep.

“Doctor, I’ve been sent by—”

“Sorry buddy,” the bartender said. He took the smallish woman by the shoulders and shook her. “She’s on, and if I let her miss her spot, well...we don’t want to see her lose her temper.”

“Wha—what?” She came awake, if only barely.

“You mean she’s actually going to—”

“Yeah, she’s going to sing.” The bartender helped her to her feet. “Come on Pinky, wake up.”

The detective forgot about his beer as the woman was lifted from her seat in the booth. She wore faded blue corduroy pants, a small white shirt that had seen better days and a green sweater. Her short red hair looked as if it hadn’t been introduced to a hairbrush in weeks.

As she was helped to the small stage, the crowd became restless and started making catcalls. Several of the women and a few of the men called names at the small woman as she stumbled onto the stage. The bartender waved his bar-towel to shoo several of the patrons out of his way, and hopped down from the small raised platform.

Jennifer Tilden held the tall microphone with both hands as if it were a lifeguard and she were a victim of the rising and angry seas around her. Her head tilted forward and struck the microphone, producing a loud and piercing screech. That brought most of the patrons to their feet with even more boos and curses.

The heavyset woman who had been singing a moment before stood and shouted, “I got off the stage for that?”

The bartender waited with his finger on the button of the Karaoke machine. More boos, far more hostile than before, met the woman. She could only lean against the microphone stand, tilting first one way and then the other. Then her small hands started to move. She adjusted the height of the stand, still with her eyes closed. The bartender waited until the small woman pulled her short, red hair back slowly and deliberately. Then he pressed the button. Without looking up, she started to sing as the slow piano music from the Karaoke machine filled the room.