Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5)

by Joseph Flynn

  All that exposed flesh revealed not even the hint of a goose-bump.

  Then again, Coyote wasn’t subject to human frailty. Bodaway, wearing a parka, sipped continuously at the hot cocoa he’d ordered. He was trying to use the cup he held to warm both his hands and his insides. He wasn’t sure if he consumed all the cocoa that Marlene would allow him to have a refill. Even so, he felt compelled to finish his drink before it grew cold.

  Marlene turned her head from watching the sparse traffic, pedestrian and automotive, pass by and turned her gaze on Bodaway. She said, “Tall Wolf is looking for me.”

  “Why?” Bodaway would be hugely grateful if Coyote forgot about him.

  “Because he’s noticed I’ve left Washington and didn’t say goodbye.”

  Bodaway couldn’t stop himself from saying, “He was expecting a fond farewell?”

  He immediately regretted his words. It wasn’t wise to get snarky with Coyote.

  To his great relief, she only smiled, but even that revealed her terrible canine teeth.

  “We’re not friends, Tall Wolf and me,” she said, “but we have become something in the way of companions. Co-dependent perhaps.”

  Marlene took a sip of the black coffee she’d ordered.

  She’d decided that morning not to pursue a stealthy approach to Tall Wolf’s parents. They’d likely not be taken by surprise anyway. So she chose to make plain her presence in their town. Let them come to her. Her appearance in Santa Fe wouldn’t be headline news in their morning newspaper, but they’d sense her proximity and find her.

  Once again yielding to impulse, Bodaway asked, “Do you miss Tall Wolf?”

  Rather than snap at him, figuratively or literally, Marlene said, “That’s a good question. He makes a point of irritating me, even challenging me, but …”

  “What?”

  “We keep each other alert,” Marlene said, “aware of the world and its dangers.”

  “There are risks even for you?” Bodaway asked with a hint of bitterness. “Why couldn’t you do to Tall Wolf what you did to me? Seize his throat in your teeth and piss on him?”

  Marlene’s eyes flared, were no longer human in appearance, but had grown huge and canine. Worse, they showed rage and malice. Bodaway felt a new chill, deeper than what the weather had inflicted. He thought she might finally do him in right there.

  Only a man’s voice said, “Long time, no see.”

  Marlene’s head whipped around and standing in front of her she saw Hayden Wolf.

  At his side stood Serafina Wolf y Padilla.

  Tall Wolf’s mother and father.

  Marlene turned to Bodaway. “Wait for me in the car.”

  He left without a moment’s hesitation, glad to escape, even if only temporarily.

  Marlene looked back at Hayden and Serafina, the white man and the brown woman. Regardless of skin tones, she had not the slightest doubt that these people were Tall Wolf’s true parents. That only confirmed to Marlene that there were higher powers at work here. For all the legendary wiles and shape-shifting deceits she called her own, Marlene knew these people were not to be underestimated.

  There had to be a reason they’d saved an Indian infant’s life all those years ago.

  Even if neither they nor she knew exactly what it was. Not yet anyway.

  A young waitress stepped out of the café. Sensing the tension in the air, she asked Hayden and Serafina, “Would you like to come inside or have something out here?”

  Serafina, her voice as cold as the temperature, asked Marlene, “May we join you?”

  “I was waiting for you,” Marlene replied with a nod.

  Hayden told the waitress, “Another round of whatever she’s having.”

  Prometheus Laboratory — Washington, DC

  Kirsten, the receptionist, showed John into Dr. Lisle’s office. The head of the lab had returned to her workspace within seconds of the predicted time. Dr. Lisle looked up at John with an expression that featured both hope and anxiety.

  Before addressing what was foremost on her mind, she thanked and excused Kirsten, closed the door to her office and offered John a seat. While still standing behind her desk, she said, “Please tell me you have some good news.”

  John gestured to Dr. Lisle to take her seat.

  She took that as a sign that any news he might have wasn’t good.

  Disappointment made sitting a necessity.

  “You haven’t been completely forthcoming with me, Doctor,” John said.

  She took that as an affront and stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just guessing now, but I’d be willing to bet a month’s pay that your laptop was not only stolen, it was also replaced by an identical model. Probably one that had all the same scientific data, inferences and future plans on it as the one you claimed was stolen.”

  Anger flashed in Dr. Lisle’s eyes. “It was stolen, goddamn it.”

  Unruffled, John said, “And it was also replaced, wasn’t it?”

  The doctor looked away and didn’t say a word.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” John said.

  She looked back at him, tears starting to form in her eyes.

  “How do you know … about the replacement?”

  “We both searched this building, remember? Neither of us found a hole or even a gap in the mortar big enough for a mouse to pass through. So how could three children get in and out of the facility and take a computer with them? Did a starship beam them down and back up?”

  A frown of disapproval was the doctor’s only reply.

  “Didn’t think you’d like that explanation,” John said.

  “I hope you have a better one.”

  “I think I do. Holograms, how’s that sound? You know what they are, right?”

  Still feeling defensive, she snapped, “Yes, I know what they are. But who could have produced holograms in my lab?”

  “The same person who swapped out a substitute laptop for your own.”

  “But how could they have copied all the —” Dr. Lisle bit her tongue, realizing she’d just admitted John was right. There had been a decoy computer left behind. She also understood that she’d just been duped.

  She said, “How did you know about the decoy?”

  He didn’t rub it in, only said, “You knew that the roof has weight sensors. As I believe you put it, ‘anything heavier than a chihuahua up there, you’d think an air-raid siren was going off.’ Then we searched this building together. I was sure then that you knew there weren’t any secret entrances.

  “So, after more time than it should have taken, I could think of only one reason why you weren’t completely forthcoming about all the details of the theft from the start, why you didn’t debunk the idea of small children stealing your laptop, and didn’t mention the existence of a substitute at all. You had something besides your medical research on your computer, something you didn’t want anyone else to know. The only question is whether that information is personal or criminal.”

  Lowering her eyes, Dr. Lisle whispered, “Personal.”

  “But not criminal?”

  “No.”

  “And you knew that the switch had been made when you tried to open your personal file and couldn’t find it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the personal file password protected?”

  “Yes, you get only two tries before the file is deleted.” She gave a flat laugh. “It’s more secure than all my research.”

  “How long ago did you realize the switch had been made?”

  “The day before I reported it.”

  “That must have been a hard day for you, worrying that both your professional and personal lives were in jeopardy, wondering what you could do to make things right.”

  Looking haggard now, she said, “It was.”

  “How did you hear about my great-grandfather?”

  “I read about him in the Washington Post. When he stole the Super Chief, I began writing to him. He told me when h
e would be released and that he was coming to Washington. I thought he could sympathize with my situation, and if he was smart enough to steal a train, maybe he could help me. I didn’t know about you, but when he suggested having you help, I didn’t think I could turn the idea down without it looking suspicious.”

  Dr. Lisle took a tissue from a desk drawer and blew her nose.

  She continued, “I didn’t know you’d be as smart as you turned out to be. I imagined you’d be just smart enough to get my laptop back and not go any further.”

  John smiled. “That would have been asking for a lot.”

  Despite her dismay, Dr. Lisle had to laugh. “A girl can hope, can’t she?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have more bad news, don’t you?”

  “Good and bad,” John said. “The theft had to be, at least in part, an inside job. That’s the bad news. The good news is the suspect pool is now a whole lot smaller.”

  Emily’s House — Los Angeles, California

  “You ladies want to excuse the lieutenant and me?” Terry Adair said.

  The LAPD captain had approached to within ten feet of Emily, Rebecca and Arcelia. The inflection in his voice turned his question into a statement. The look on his face was also telling Rebecca and Arcelia to get lost.

  They stayed put. Rebecca took out her phone. She started a video recording, showing Adair, Emily, Arcelia and herself. The captain understood that his presence was being documented in the world’s most popular medium: moving pictures with sound.

  He wasn’t pleased, and was foolish enough to let his displeasure show on his face.

  Worse, he vocalized his feelings. “Put that damn thing away.”

  Rebecca said, “Emily?”

  “Keep the video going.”

  Nicely put, Rebecca thought. “Keep shooting,” might have been intentionally misconstrued, and things could’ve gotten ugly fast.

  “There’s no need for that, Em,” Adair said, his anger now tinged with the note of a plaintive whine. “You can send your friends inside or we can go in and they can stay out here. Whatever you want.”

  Emily took a step forward and said evenly, “What I’d really like, Terry, is for you to understand that I no longer want to see you. Leaving the LAPD means I no longer have to do that professionally. In personal terms, I don’t want you to come to my house. I don’t want you to call, text or email me. No snail mail either. I don’t want you to follow me while I’m driving. I don’t want you to harass me in any way. When I told you we were through, I meant it. Now and forever, amen.”

  The captain’s face contorted and went red. He looked as if he wanted to rebut what he’d heard, to explain to the damn woman that she, in fact, loved him as much as he loved her. She just hadn’t realized it yet, but she would soon. Perhaps right after he roughed her up a little.

  Only he couldn’t do that with two witnesses watching and a video being made.

  So he lashed out verbally. “You sure put out for me enough.”

  Emily nodded. “More than enough. Once was one time too many.”

  Arcelia laughed, involuntarily but aloud.

  Adair scowled at her, might have said something insulting or even threatening, only Rebecca wasn’t going to let that happen. She laughed at the captain, too.

  Adair’s head swiveled from Arcelia to Rebecca and back.

  “You two bitches just bought yourselves a world of trouble.”

  Arcelia stuck out her tongue at Adair.

  Rebecca thumbed her nose at him.

  The captain clenched his fists but didn’t raise them.

  He told Emily, “We’re not done, you and me.”

  “You’re done around here, buddy,” a voice called out.

  Everyone turned to look. A hard-faced middle-aged woman with short gray hair stood on the front lawn next door. She was a commanding presence all by herself, but the AR-15 semi-auto rifle she carried easily also drew a good deal of attention.

  “Is that SOB bothering you, Emily?” she asked.

  “He’s trying not to take no for an answer, Colonel. That and making none-too-subtle threats to my friends here.”

  “Hit the road, shitbird,” the colonel told Adair.

  “LAPD, you old bitch. Put that weapon down before I shoot you.”

  “USMC, sonny. If things get real around here, it won’t be me going down.”

  For Adair’s benefit, Emily added, “The colonel is an Operation Desert Shield veteran, won a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Besides all that, her family has money.”

  “And the video is still running,” Rebecca said.

  Arcelia said, “And on top of the rest of that stuff, I just called 911. We ought to be hearing sirens real soon. You know, coming from cops who don’t have a misplaced crush on anyone.”

  Adair looked at all of the women, naked hatred in his eyes, finishing with the colonel.

  Her weapon wasn’t pointing at him, but she had it right.

  She’d drop him if he went for his gun.

  He turned on his heel and started for his car, breaking into a run for the last few strides. He was gone before the patrol cops could arrive, but their siren was now audible and closing in fast.

  Emily turned and waved to her neighbor. “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “You’re welcome, neighbor. You really quit the cops?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have another job?”

  “Private investigator. Working with Rebecca and Arcelia here.”

  “Good. But, Emily, you know my family isn’t rich. We’re reasonably successful working people, that’s all.”

  “Psychological warfare, Colonel.”

  The older woman grinned and gave a salute.

  She was back inside her home when the LAPD black-and-white pulled up at the curb.

  Emily asked Rebecca, “Can you back up your video?”

  “The file’s already on the cloud.”

  Omaha Indian Reservation — Nebraska

  The Omaha Tribe of Northeastern Nebraska originally lived in the Ohio River Valley, until it was displaced by the Iroquois Confederacy: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes. These six tribes took many other native people into their cultures by means of warfare, adoption of the children of vanquished combatants, and by extending shelter to other displaced native peoples.

  The Omaha chose to move west rather than fight or be absorbed by the Iroquois. The Omaha also never fought against the United States military, but they did assist the Union during the Civil War. In a scant measure of gratitude, the government established a reservation for the Omaha that was but a small fraction of the size of the lands they traditionally claimed.

  Perhaps inspired by that heavy-handed swindle, many newly arrived 19th-century white settlers followed suit and made further inroads into Omaha land by buying individual properties from Native landholders, paying pennies on the dollar in value. It was all perfectly legal in Western terms, and utterly without conscience.

  That was the legacy real estate tycoon Brice Benard tried to extend into the 21st century when he and a soil scientist in his employ, Darnell Elston, Ph.D., went to see the Omaha’s Chief of Tribal Administration, Thomas Emmett. The three of them met in Emmett’s office.

  He offered his guests coffee, which they both declined.

  He helped himself to a cup of Colombian blend.

  Then Emmett listened closely to the story his white visitors had come to tell him. Unlike the illiterate tribespeople of the 19th century who’d sometimes sold their land for a wagonload of whiskey, Emmett was a graduate of Creighton University. True, he’d won a football scholarship to the school and was one of those big lugs who played the offensive line, but he was nobody’s fool and had kept up with all his classes, graduating cum laude.

  He told his visitors, “I read the letter Dr. Elston sent me. It says, Mr. Benard, that in looking for land to develop on either side of the Omaha Reservation, the doctor’s people found …” He pau
sed to pick up the sheet of paper on his desk and put on a pair of reading glasses. “I better read this from the source, so I get it right.

  “‘Inputs from sources such as the deposition of long-distance, atmospherically-transported aerosol particles from fossil fuel combustion and other sources such as the contaminants in fertilizers were found in such significant amounts as to be hazardous to human health.’ Is that right, Dr. Elston?”

  “It is,” Elston said with a nod.

  “It’s even more than that,” Benard added.

  “It is?” Emmett asked.

  Benard said, “The most recent tests showed frightening amounts of arsenic.”

  Emmett took his glasses off and laid them on his desk. “Arsenic? That certainly is frightening. Where’d that come from?”

  “The common sources in this country are the residues from burning coal and mining gold,” Benard said. “Haven’t heard of anybody hitting a bonanza lately, but people around here burned coal for quite a while.”

  “So the contamination could be widespread,” Emmett said.

  Dr. Elston replied, “It undoubtedly is.”

  Benard added, “But I’m only interested in the areas adjacent to your tribe’s land, Mr. Emmett.”

  The chief said, “According to Dr. Elston’s letter, Mr. Benard, you also have an interest of sorts in the Omaha tribe’s land as well. You’re offering to do a …” Emmett put his glasses back on and looked back at the letter. “A bioremediation of our land for as long as it takes to clean up the soil, or technical words to that effect.”

  “That’s right,” Benard said.

  “Pardon me for asking, sir, but wouldn’t that be a fairly expensive, time-consuming task?”

  “The cost would run seven figures at a minimum and more likely eight figures.”

  “So, we’re talking millions and millions of dollars.”

  Benard said, “Yes, we are.”

  Emmett leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on what had once been a substantial middle. His wife had forced him to go on a diet centered on fruits and vegetables. He got to like it, and he lost a lot of useless weight. Felt halfway young again.

  Thing was, he felt right this moment like he had at the start of his diet, about to go down a road he wouldn’t have chosen for himself. Only this time he had even greater doubts about the outcome. Didn’t think he’d like the result at all.