Death Etched in Stone

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “And maybe one of them lured him here and offed him,” Lumpy added.

  “Then what did the mythical stripper leave in?” Manny said and stepped around the car. He cupped his hands and yelled for Philbilly. He set his pole into a rod holder in the dirt and shuffled over.

  “Manny,” Philbilly smiled at Manny and Willie. The smile faded when he noticed Lumpy huddled inside his hoodie, and he nodded stiffly. “Lieutenant Looks Twice.”

  Lumpy jerked his thumb at the corpse. “What the hell do you know about this?”

  “Whoa!” Phil said, backing up, his hands raised in front as if fending off Lumpy’s accusing tone. Phil spoke fast, reverting to his thick Arkansas accent. “All’s I know is that this guy took my bait.” Phil laughed, but stopped when he noticed no one else did. “All right. Here’s the skinny. I came here about an hour before I snagged . . . ” he stared at the corpse, “ . . . what do we call him, John Doe?”

  “Close enough,” Manny answered. “Go on.”

  “’kay. Okay. When I came here, this Chevy was sitting where it is. No one around. I didn’t take nothing. You know me, Manny.”

  Manny nodded. Phil Ostert was perhaps the laziest and dumbest man he’d ever met. His parents had abandoned him at Big Bat’s convenience store as a teenager. They were returning to their home in Arkansas from working the turnip fields in Oregon when they saw their chance at Big Bat’s gas pumps. When Phil came out of the restroom, their pickup was gone. He remained one of the few people who could say they actually fell off the turnip truck. But he was honest, and Manny knew Phil had taken nothing. “So the Cavalier was here when you came,” Manny prodded.

  Phil looked at Lumpy when he answered, as if expecting the acting police chief to arrest him. Again. “I thought this thing crapped out here. You can understand how I figured that. Don’t hardly look like it can drive. Even I wouldn’t drive this thing.”

  Manny, Willie, and Lumpy all three nodded in agreement.

  “Anyways, I tossed my line out a few times and snagged him.” He nodded to the corpse. “I thought it was an old tire or a downed tree it was so heavy. Obviously, it wasn’t.”

  “Obviously,” Manny said. “How’d you get here?”

  Philbilly looked suspiciously at Manny as if he’d go tell his brother where the van was. Reuben had commandeered Phil’s old bread truck a couple months ago and refused to give it back for weeks. Reuben had liked it so much as it fit his huge frame so well. And Phil, like everyone else on Pine Ridge, was afraid of Manny’s brother, so he’d let Reuben keep it. Until Manny convinced Reuben a sacred man shouldn’t keep other people’s property. Especially when it involved driving around Pine Ridge with no license.

  “It’s hid in the trees over yonder.” Philbilly’s “yonder” was a stand of cottonwoods a quarter mile from where they all stood.

  “And no one was here?” Lumpy asked.

  “Just John Doe and me. A shame, too,” Philbilly said, his mouth drooping as he gazed blankly out into Oglala Lake. “He was the only bite I got tonight.”

  Chapter 2

  Manny watched the second-dumbest man he’d ever met run his police K-9 around the Cavalier. Donnie Rabbit patted the outside of the stolen car, encouraging his Malinois partner to alert if drugs were inside. Manny shook his head to get the image of Donnie out of his head. Last week when Manny was on the reservation for an extortion report, he’d checked in with Lumpy. They had been sitting around the coffee pot at shift change when Donnie opened a package he had been waiting for.

  “I wonder what this feels like?” Donnie had asked, fingering the new dog shock collar. “I wonder if it really hurts. I wouldn’t want it to hurt GoJo too badly. But if he barks too much . . . ” he’d trailed off, slipping the collar around his neck and clicking the latch.

  “I don’t think that’s a smart thing to do,” Willie had said.

  Donnie ignored him and sat upright in the chair. He started barking, each time failing to set the collar off.

  Bark: Nothing.

  Bark: Silence.

  Except the last time.

  Donnie barked loud enough that the probes pressing against his neck hit him with a full jolt of current. Donnie yelled and fell to the floor. Each time Donnie shouted, the collar would shock him again, making him convulse around the floor. Scream: Shock! Shriek: Shock!

  The other supportive and compassionate officers in the room moved chairs out of Donnie’s way. They scrambled for their cell phone cameras, jockeying for position to capture the dumbest dog handler in the world.

  Donnie finally had succumbed to sheer exhaustion: when he could scream no more, the shock collar had fallen silent. And Donnie had feigned to rebuff his fifteen minutes of fame when a dozen officers all posted him and his dog collar to YouTube.

  “There was something inside this rat trap,” Donnie said, coaxing GoJo outside the car. Donnie grabbed a piece of hose and tossed it for him to fetch as his reward. “No telling what dope was there, but he went ballistic inside. And you know GoJo.”

  Manny nodded. Donnie and GoJo had accounted for over half the drug seizures on Pine Ridge. If GoJo whispered to Donnie there had been dope inside, there had been some once.

  Manny turned to check Willie’s progress. He crouched over the hood of the Tahoe taking a written statement from Philbilly. He couldn’t write well—Manny suspected he couldn’t write at all—so Willie wrote what Phil told him. They were just finishing when Pee Pee pulled up. He parked his evidence van alongside Manny’s car and stepped out. His eyes narrowed as he stopped and glowered at Philbilly before walking to the back of the van to retrieve his evidence kit. Manny caught the look and turned to Philbilly. “Pee Pee’s not very cheerful to you tonight. Thought you two were buds?”

  Philbilly looked around Willie. Pee Pee squatted next to the victim and opened his kit. Philbilly lowered his voice. “Pee Pee and the rest of the guys are mad ’cause I ain’t lined up any more gigs.”

  Philbilly, ever the get-rich-quick schemer, had talked Pee Pee and his band of four other musicians into making him their manager. He convinced them they needed a snappy name—which Philbilly had dreamt up somewhere in his vast, cavernous skull—and got them into playing modern pop, changing from the oldies they loved.

  And the outfits. Patent leather shoes and used movie usher coats didn’t fit in around Pine Ridge. So far, they had played the Legion in Hot Springs. And nowhere else.

  “I just can’t understand it.” Philbilly looked around Willie again, making sure he was out of Pee Pee’s sight. “The band plays pretty good.”

  “They do,” Manny said. “I’ve heard them tune up and practice in Frankie Little Bird’s garage. Pee Pee’s drums go so well with the rest of the group, it reminds me of pow wow music.”

  “Then why haven’t we gotten more work?” Philbilly asked. “There are events begging for someone to play. But not us. I even tried hustling a gig at a funeral in Mission.”

  “No one wants rock music played at a funeral,” Manny said.

  “Then weddings.” Philbilly said.

  Willie shook his head. “For starters, change the name of the group. No one wants to have at their wedding—”

  “Hey, Manny! Willie!” Pee Pee yelled, motioning them over.

  “I’d better go back to fishing,” Philbilly said, and ran for his fishing pole still stuck in the rod holder.

  Willie knelt beside Pee Pee. “What ya got?”

  Manny stood looking over Willie’s shoulder.

  Pee Pee adjusted his headlamp to shine into the victim’s open eyes. Brownish-black discoloration on the sclera of the eyes caused the corpse to stare back with an eerie challenge to find his killer.

  “There’s our homicide.” Manny said.

  Willie bent closer. “I don’t get it.”

  Pee Pee grabbed his pen out of his pocket protector with an exagger
ated flair. He used it to trace around the victim’s eyes. “This dark band across the whites of the eyes means the eyes dried out.”

  “Jesa,” Willie said. “I’m guessing if this guy was floating in the water, his eyes wouldn’t have dried like they did.”

  Manny nodded. “Drowning victims usually go face down.” He patted Pee Pee on the shoulders. “Good eye. No pun. It means our guy might have died some other way besides drowning.”

  Willie massaged his chest, his breaths coming slow from the exertion. “What do you mean, ‘might have’?”

  “Just one more piece in our puzzle,” Manny shrugged. “Now all we got to do is find out where the other pieces are.”

  Willie’s breaths came slow. His recovery was coming along. But Manny wasn’t convinced Willie should have returned to work so soon, even if Lumpy insisted they were shorthanded. “So it doesn’t mean he was murdered?”

  “We’ll know more when Doc Gruesome examines him.”

  “Who is this him?” Pee Pee asked, digging into his evidence kit for water sample bottles. “Who is this floater?”

  Willie shrugged. “He had no ID on him. I got dispatch putting out a five-state BOLO. Hopefully we’ll get a hit on a missing person.”

  Pee Pee finished his photographs and measurements. He started gathering up his evidence kit, bagging specimens he’d taken from the victim’s nails and from the water, and he stood. “Now we just wait for the coroner to give our guest a ride.” The Bureau of Indian Affairs contracted with the medical examiner out of Rapid City, Dr. Grooson, to perform autopsies. For as many dead people as Pee Pee Pourier had processed, he avoided autopsies like he avoided alcohol. “Funny we didn’t find any ID on him.”

  “We patted him down lightly before you came,” Manny said, “but we didn’t want to disturb him much before you got here.”

  “And I checked pretty good, too. Nothing.” Pee Pee had butterflied the victim’s trouser and jacket pockets and had left them inside out.

  “Nothing in his pockets inside the jacket?” Manny asked.

  Pee Pee stopped. “I’m guessing not.”

  “Did you look?”

  “I didn’t realize jackets had inside pockets.”

  “Quality ones do.” Manny squatted next to the victim and looked up at Pee Pee. “You got to start shopping somewhere besides Goodwill.”

  Manny carefully peeled the victim’s jacket back. Cold and wind had frozen ice on the jacket, stiffening it, and it came away with a crunch when the flakes of ice broke away. Manny stuck his fingers in an inside pocket, and pulled out a hard, flat object. He shined his flashlight on a frozen waterlogged piece of yellow paper.

  “Well, it sure isn’t an ID,” Pee Pee exclaimed.

  Manny agreed. He held the yellow brochure to the light, turning it over, the ice beneath his fingers thawing. “You got a paper bag?”

  Pee Pee handed Manny a small brown bag from his evidence kit.

  “Better grab a box where you can get some padding under this thing,” Manny said. “When it thaws out it’ll be a soggy mess.”

  Pee Pee slipped the paper inside a thin, flat box. “I’ll stick this in some ice. Thaw it out back at the lab where I can control it. I might be able to read something on it when it dries.”

  “You need any more help?” Willie asked.

  Pee Pee shook his head and nodded to where Philbilly stood casting his line out. “Just keep that idiot away from me.”

  “Philbilly said you guys had a falling out because of your band?” Manny said.

  “At the least.” Pee Pee walked to the water’s edge and scooped up more water in a small sample bottle. “If the group doesn’t get a paying gig soon, we’ll be broke. And be stuck with those goofy uniforms Philbilly talked us into buying.”

  “Look at the bright side,” Willie said, stepping out of striking range. “You can always get a part time job at one of the Rapid City theaters. I hear they’re always looking for experienced ushers.”

  Chapter 3

  Manny and Willie sat in the examination room waiting for the always fashionably-late Doc Grooson. “At least Philbilly got a gig set up for Pee Pee and his boys. At the Hot Springs Legion again, thanks to Reuben.”

  “Reuben? I thought Bud Myerson had his fill of Reuben last time?”

  “He did,” Manny said. “That’s what got Pee Pee another gig.” In the summer, Reuben had heard that the manager of the American Legion wasn’t honoring Indian akicita like he did the wasicu warriors. Reuben’s sacred man persona—with maybe a dash of his old enforcer persona—had kicked in, and he rode his pony all the way to Hot Springs to have a talk with Bud. By the time Manny arrived to take the ranting Reuben away, he had frightened away all the Legion’s customers.

  “Whenever you need a favor . . .” Bud had thanked Manny that night. Manny didn’t figure he’d ever need a favor.

  But yesterday, Manny had called the marker in.

  “No way I’m going to let Pee Pee’s band play here again. With a name like that.”

  “That favor you owe me—”

  “All right. All right,” Bud said. “I’ll pass the word that I’m having live music. I’m just not going to tell anyone who it is until they get there.”

  “Last time they played there, only a handful of people showed. Mostly dudes from the old soldiers’ home.” Willie said. “Pee Pee’s going to go belly-up for sure.”

  Manny nudged Willie. “You could rescue the group.”

  “How?”

  Manny grinned. “You got a wedding coming up.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’ll have a reception and dance following. Clara tells me Doreen hasn’t booked a band yet.”

  “Whoa!” Willie scooted his chair away as if distancing himself from Manny’s suggestion. “I am not going to be remembered for having a group at my wedding with a name like that.”

  “Even you said they’re good.”

  “No.”

  “And Philbilly said he’d give you a price break.”

  “Never.”

  Manny was about to dig the jab deeper when whistling nearing the exam room brought them to their feet. Doc Gruesome walked through the swinging door sucking on a Snickers bar.

  “I heard you’d grown a handlebar,” Manny pointed to the pathologist’s bushy mustache.

  He licked caramel from his fingers as he opened his equipment locker. “I got tired of people making fun of my New York accent.” He twirled the beginnings of a long handlebar. “This will confuse them.”

  “Confuse?”

  Doc Gruesome smiled. “When was the last time you saw a New Yorker with a handlebar?” He tossed Manny and Willie gowns and face masks before slipping one on himself. He bent to the examination table and pulled back the plastic covering. He thumbed through the photos the lab tech had taken before he grabbed shears and cut the victim’s clothes. “You say he was fishing? No ID?”

  “Nothing. Just a soggy yellow brochure from somewhere we’ll probably never find out. The evidence tech is training a hair dryer on it as we speak.”

  Doc Gruesome read the first line of the incident report. “A fisherman snagged him out of Oglala Lake, and there was a fishing pole nearby.” Manny was reluctant to say more, wanting Doc Gruesome’s opinion after the examination.

  “Very unusual,” Doc Gruesome said after carefully cutting John Doe’s clothes off.

  Willie leaned over the table as the pathologist pulled the recording mic closer from its dangling overhead position. He pointed to dark colored lividity along one side of the victim’s body. “Lividity in water deaths is unusual due to the buoyancy of water.”

  “Then he didn’t drown,” Willie proclaimed. “I knew it.”

  “Not necessarily,” Manny said. He nudged Doc Gruesome. “I didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”

  “No
ne stolen.” He rolled the victim on one side and noted his findings. “This is called contact lividity.” Doc Gruesome pointed to white markings in the skin along the side and back contrasting with the dark surrounding area. “He laid against something that prevented blood from pooling there. It’s an unusual outline.”

  Willie leaned over. “What made it?”

  Doc Gruesome shrugged. “That’s your job. You find out what he laid against, and you might find out how the hell he could have drowned lying on his side.”

  Manny moved around to the opposite end of the examination table. The fixed post mortem stain showed where the victim had lain, dark coloration suggesting a fetal position. Not like any drowning Manny had ever investigated. “He must have lain there for some time.”

  “Stain fixes itself within eight to twelve hours,” Willie added.

  “Good,” Doc Gruesome nodded. “It does. Then there’s this.” He pointed to the victim’s hands and feet. Wrinkling of the skin went only to the tips of the fingers and outsides of the soles of the feet. “If he was in the water any length of time, this washerwoman effect,” he turned to Willie, instructing him, “would have been pronounced. Here we only have slight wrinkling. It tells me the man was in the water no more than an hour before he was . . . what would you call it?”

  “Snagged,” Manny said.

  “See?” Willie nodded. “He wasn’t drowned.”

  Doc Gruesome smiled. “Not necessarily.”

  Doc Gruesome grabbed his knife and handed it to Willie. “You want to make the Y-cut?”

  Willie backed away and shook his head.

  The pathologist grinned and turned to Manny. “There’s something else.” He set the knife and shears for cutting through the breastbone back onto the table and sat on a stool. He reached inside his lab coat and began peeling a Snickers wrapper back as he flipped his face mask up. “The lab tech noted that when John Doe here was wheeled in last night, rigor was just relaxing. And you can see he’s relaxed as all get out now.”

  Manny forced a smile. “Does he have a choice?”