“Horse manure?”
Fladeboe stepped up with the bag. “They found some on the carpet of the bank and outside the back door, and it had red horsehair and wild rice hulls in it.”
Eagle was indignant. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“Tell it to the judge, Johnny.”
Fladeboe had dated Wenonah in high school, and Eagle had disliked him since learning that. He was too much of a pleaser, a wannabe white boy, and here he was, going out of his way to help them screw over a fellow Indian. Deputy Barden stepped out onto the porch.
“Mr. Eagle?”
He turned. The deputy’s forehead jutted forward to form an officious shelf above his eyes. “We need you to step inside.”
“Okay.” Eagle couldn’t think of what they could have possibly found, and he began to wonder if they had planted some sort of evidence. He turned to Jacob, suddenly wanting a witness. “Come on, son.”
Jacob began to follow, but Grossman held up a hand.
“You stay here.”
Eagle looked into Grossman’s eyes and grew concerned. The man had unbuttoned his shirt collar.
“Why?” Eagle asked.
“Sir, inside. Now!” said Barden.
Grossman shot Eagle an edgy grin and shook his head, as if they were old friends and Eagle was being ridiculous. “He’ll be fine.”
***
JW THOUGHT ABOUT hiding out in the lean-to until they left, but realized the plan was too dangerous. If the money had been planted, the police would be looking for it, and if they didn’t find it in the house they would search the vehicles and the outbuildings. He had to get it to his trailer. He glanced out again and lifted the stretching bag of cash. Everyone had gone inside now except Jacob and Bob Grossman, who were talking to someone he couldn’t see.
JW ran for it. He crossed the road with the bulging sack and ran through the low brush on the far side, then in under the oak trees. Sharp sticks, rocks, and thistle barbs jabbed at his feet. His lungs burned with an uncontrollable urgency as he raced over the grassy gravel and up the wooden steps to his trailer, thankful for the partial cover of the oak trees. He opened the door, lifted the heaving bag in through it, and slipped inside, turning quickly to whip the door quietly shut. His arms and hands felt numb. He doubled over, heaving and sweating, trying to catch his breath.
He felt dizzy, and his vision broke up into swimming pixels. He swallowed and leaned over to look out the eating area window, to see if he’d been spotted. They were all still looking toward the house, and Eagle was nowhere in sight. He grabbed a dish towel and wiped his face, then leaned on the counter in front of the sink, catching his breath. Out in the middle of the road, he saw a bundle of cash fluttering in the wind.
He was at the trash can liner in two steps, and he immediately saw where the plastic had stretched and torn. He dropped the liner and looked out the window. He would have to retrieve the bundle. He glanced up at Eagle’s front porch and saw Grossman step away from the house and look out over the yard and the road.
***
BOB GROSSMAN WAS trying to get his heart to stop racing. The guys inside had found Eagle’s safe and had asked him to open it, while he was stuck outside with the kid. He turned and scanned the trees. Some Indian could be aiming a deer rifle at him right now, he thought. They had a grapevine. He noted how thick the trees were here, with an undergrowth of buckthorn and red sumac. A shooter would be virtually invisible. He shouldn’t have taken this assignment, he realized. Margie was right, it was too soon. But he was trying to impress Barden and Big Bill, to show them he wasn’t the paralyzed babbler that Barden had found lying in the wheat field, with nothing but a small flesh wound.
He turned back to the kid. It was the young ones who were the most dangerous. They had access to firearms, but they lacked judgment, and he was sure they had tried to gun him down once already. This one, Jacob Eagle, was a pot smoker and a thief, a living example of the kind of miscreant that had made his life miserable. The kaleidoscope of his mind shifted, and a new interpretation of recent events suddenly fell into place with shocking clarity—with this kid as the key.
“What’s your role in this?” he asked, his heart speeding with anticipation.
“We didn’t do anything,” Jacob replied.
Grossman examined his expression for any sign of guilt. “We’ve got a tip that says otherwise. Somebody saw your dad’s vehicle. Now how ’bout we back up and you tell me who set the town bank on fire?”
He took a step toward Jacob, studying him menacingly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jacob said. But Grossman could sense a falter in his answer, a lack of conviction that suggested he was lying.
“Did you take a shot at me?” He stepped in close and loomed over Jacob.
“No!”
“First you tried to burn the bank down, then you took a shot at me, and then you robbed it—”
“My dad got an eagle feather last night—”
Grossman poked him in the chest. “Bullshit. I don’t want to hear about it. Tell me about that bank fire.”
“I said I don’t know what you’re talking about!” The kid’s voice broke. He was sounding less convincing each time he spoke.
Grossman sensed that he was onto something, that he was nearing a moment when all the truth would come out into the open and order and peace could be restored. He worked to expand the beachhead. “I know your dad’s a banker, and his bank caught fire. You two must be feeling pretty angry about that. So you figured you’d take it out on the good guys.”
“No!” Jacob said, his voice still shaking.
“Town bank’s just trying to keep people’s money safe, they keep your tribal money safe, and you, you little fucking punk—”
“Bob!”
Grossman looked up and saw Barden inside the screen door. Barden shook his head and Grossman was suddenly aware of how he had the kid pushed up against the house with a hand against his shoulder. He nodded to Barden and backed off. “We’ll get you,” he said to the kid, and glanced out over the yard. “We’ll get you.”
He wanted the kid to know he was onto him. That he was going to watch him like a hawk. And he wanted to see what the kid would do, now that he was rattled. He turned back to him. “If you had anything to do with that fire, your ass is mine. You so much as shit outside this house and we’ll get you. We’re talking to people all over this reservation.”
He popped another stick of gum in his mouth and turned back to the trees.
The sumac leaves fluttered red as blood cells in the morning sunshine. But suddenly his eyes were drawn to something more urgent: a greenish-gray bundle in the middle of the road. His heart began to race again. He took a step away from Jacob, and a bite of recognition ran through him. He reached for the radio mike on his shoulder. “Dan, I need you to cover the kid for a minute.”
“Now what?”
“Just do it.”
“Ten-four.”
Barden appeared behind the screen door and Grossman stepped off the porch. He headed toward the road, his hand resting casually on his holster in case there really was somebody out there in the trees. He could do this, he thought with increasing confidence.
***
EAGLE HAD DONE the combination on the safe at their request, but when he was finished Olson told him to step away and not turn the lever. He backed up and got to his feet, and Olson knelt down and stretched on a pair of latex gloves.
“Sir,” he said, “is there anything I should know about the safe? Any trip mechanisms, or any firearms in there?”
“No, it’s just my papers and some cash—for the business.”
Olson glanced up at Richardson and placed his hand on the lever. Eagle watched him pause, close his eyes for a moment, and pull the safe door open. He inspected the inside, then looked up at Richardson and Fladeboe.
“Only papers, like he said. No cash though.”
This struck Eagle as wrong. He was sure he had put
eight hundred dollars in there to pay the ricers. He wondered if he had left it in his jeans in his rush to get ready for the ceremony.
“What’s in the baggie?” Richardson asked.
Olson pulled the baggie out and sniffed it. “Tobacco. It says organic Indian tobacco on the label.”
Eagle looked at Richardson and lifted his hands in an expression of incredulity.
“Why’s it in the safe?” asked Richardson.
“It’s sacred. I’m a pipe carrier.”
Richardson nodded, skeptically turning over a tiny piece of gum in his cheek.
Fladeboe lifted the Ziploc bag. “There’s wild rice in the horse manure,” he said. Richardson stepped up to examine it. He squeezed the bottom.
“Keep searching,” he said. “The money’s here somewhere.”
Fladeboe nodded and lowered the sack. Agent Olson stood.
Eagle spoke up again. “Can I just ask you gentlemen how horse manure equals probable cause?”
Richardson looked at him as if he might be offended, but his face was inscrutable. Then he inhaled and seemed to come to a sudden decision. “Last night someone broke into the North Lake Bank. Same bank, you might remember, that just had a fire. The officer out on the porch was shot by a fleeing suspect after that incident.”
Eagle swallowed. He knew this was dangerous territory. Law enforcement had spent the better part of the week trying to get information out of anybody and everybody on the reservation. He had never seen them so on edge.
“Whoever it was couldn’t crack the main safe, but they cut the night depository open and got away with a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars in a bank cash transfer,” Richardson continued. “Fortunately, they all had recorded serial numbers.” He seemed to be studying Eagle’s reaction to this.
“But what could I have possibly had to do with that?” Eagle asked.
“We got a phone tip. Someone saw your vehicle. A wild rice truck.”
Eagle’s mind leaped to JW. “Who saw it?” he asked.
“That’s not important at this point.”
“John White? Was that your tipster? The banker with the gambling problem?” Eagle could imagine JW stealing the money and trying to pin it on him.
“I can’t say,” said Richardson, but the name seemed like new information to him.
Eagle pressed his advantage. “Last night he could have been driving that vehicle without my permission. I was at a public ceremony in front of hundreds of people, being honored by the whole community, and then I was here at home with my son. When did this burglary happen?”
Jacob was shoved into the room by Grossman, who followed with Barden.
“Quit pushing me!”
“Shut it,” Grossman said, pointing toward him aggressively.
“Deputy, what’s going on?” Agent Richardson asked, his voice filled with irritation.
“This kid has a long history of trouble.”
“Now just a minute,” objected Eagle, but Grossman held up a hand to silence him, and with the other he held up a bundle of twenty-dollar bills. “I found this in front of the house.”
“It wasn’t in front of the house, it was out on the road!” Jacob yelled.
“The road in front of the house,” Grossman clarified, but his tone was patronizing and his teeth were clenching his gum.
Richardson took the money. He glanced at Olson, and Eagle saw Olson step closer to him.
“Look, I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Eagle said.
He saw Barden nod to Grossman, and Grossman step over to block the door, legs wide, chewing his gum. “Oh, come on! I’m telling you, I have no idea where that came from, and if somebody actually saw the vehicle as you claim it would have been John White who was driving it.”
Richardson took out a list of serial numbers from his shirt pocket. He glanced at Eagle, then scanned the list against the top bill in the packet. He looked up at Barden.
“Arrest him.”
“This is bullshit!” Jacob yelled. “He didn’t do anything!”
Grossman and Barden moved in on Eagle, crowding him toward the desk. “I’ve never seen that money,” he said. “I’ve never seen it!” He pointed at Grossman. “For all we know, he could have dropped it there! He harasses our community all the time, and he has it in for my son!”
Grossman stepped up behind Eagle, enveloping him in a cloud of body odor. He exhaled through his nose, and Eagle could smell his spearmint gum over the acridity as Grossman wrenched his arms firmly behind him and closed a pair of cool metal handcuffs around his wrists, clicking them a notch tighter than necessary. “You know what they say,” he said low in Eagle’s ear. “Nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Deputy Barden stepped up in front of him. “Look at me, Mr. Eagle,” he said. “You have the right to remain silent—”
“It’s all right, son,” Eagle said to Jacob, wanting to protect him from the idea that his father might have done something this wrong. “This is all a mistake. We’ll figure it out. I want you to go tell your aunt—”
Grossman snugged the handcuffs even tighter and wrenched Eagle’s arms painfully together behind him. “Listen to the man,” he said. Then Eagle felt him step back as Barden finished reading him his rights.
But as he did Grossman leaned over his desk and looked out through the blinds. “Hang on, Dan,” he said. And then, “What the hell?”
Richardson moved in front of Eagle and looked out as well. Eagle stepped back to make room, nearly tripping on Grossman, and looked out through the blinds. Smoke was billowing out of the windows of JW’s old blue trailer home, rising in gray tufts through the orange leaves.
34
Green and yellow flames shot high from all four stove-top burners, sending up smoke and sparks. The trailer was filling with a noxious cloud from the blackening curls of cash. JW stripped bands off the bundles in his hand and crumpled more bills to fuel the fire. He had opened the windows and the roof vent to let the smoke out and attract attention.
He reached into the trash can liner and pulled out two more handfuls of cash bundles and threw them full onto the flames like small logs. He coughed at the dappled cloud of smoke and ash that rose up and spread across the ceiling. He ducked to look up at Eagle’s porch from the window over the kitchen sink, catching a breath of fresh air. He wondered how long it would take before they noticed. He grabbed the dish towel and ran it under the tap as the cash burned hot and crackling next to him, then wrung it out and held it over his face.
***
GROSSMAN FOLLOWED RICHARDSON and the other officers onto the porch. Barden stepped out with Eagle.
“That’s John White’s place,” said Fladeboe.
“Who?” said Richardson, seeming surprised.
“John White. He’s the president of the bank,” replied Grossman.
“Well, get the hell down there!” Richardson ordered. “What the hell’s the bank president doing in the trailer?” What else have I not been told?”
Grossman began jogging down the walk. Smoke was pouring from the trailer’s open windows and a vent on the roof. He wondered if JW was really inside. Fladeboe jogged up beside him. They ran across the grass and up to the trailer home. Grossman stepped up the wooden stairs, his bravado returning, and pounded on the aluminum door.
“JW, you in there?” There was no answer, but they could hear someone coughing and choking.
“This isn’t right,” he said. “You sure this is John White’s place, not some fucking meth lab?”
“Yeah,” said Fladeboe, his face red. “I’ve been here before.”
Grossman was still skeptical, but he pounded again. “JW! We know you’re in there! Come on out!”
They could hear flames crackling just inside, and more coughing. Grossman unsnapped his holster and drew his gun. He thumbed the safety catch off and stood beside the door, his back to the trailer wall and his gun pointing at the sky. His heart was racing.
“You’ll have to come get me,
” they heard from inside, followed by more hacking.
Grossman nodded to Fladeboe, who also drew his gun. He took a breath as if preparing to jump into a lake, feeling suddenly shaky with adrenaline, then he whipped the door open.
A cloud of hot smoke engulfed him. Grossman stepped up into the hot interior, and through the smoke he saw JW covering his face with a towel and feeding bundles of cash onto a fire on the stove top.
“Hold it!” he yelled, his gun aimed at JW.
JW glanced at him and kept going. Grossman rushed him and they crashed onto the floor, the bundles scattering across the floor around them. Grossman was on top of him in the smoke, and JW was pawing at him like a wild animal. Grossman was choking, his eyes burning. He raised his gun and hit JW in the head with the side of the barrel.
JW yelled in pain and his arms bent up over his face to protect himself. “All right!” he barked, coughing desperately. “Get off me!”
Grossman saw that he had opened a gash over JW’s left eyebrow. “God damn it, JW, what the fuck—” he yelled, but then smoke filled his lungs and he started to cough and choke as he gasped in even more. His head was spinning.
JW seemed to recognize that Grossman was in trouble. “Get out, I’ll follow!” he said.
Grossman nodded, his eyes burning. He crawled off JW and headed for the door, his arms shaking, his eyes raining. Somehow he managed to look back and make sure JW was following.
***
JACOB STOOD ON the porch with his dad, Olson, Barden, and Richardson.
“Stay here, son,” Eagle said, eyeing the trailer.
They watched as Grossman, coughing, fell out of it. A moment later, JW followed, then stumbled shakily to his feet, holding a sagging dish towel. Fladeboe trained his gun on him and he raised his hands in submission.
Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) Page 26
