by A W Hartoin
“Still? After all this time?”
She hesitated and then said, “The war never went away for some of us.”
That appeared to be true and it bothered me a lot. I killed Richard Costilla and his face haunted me. I assumed that would go away in time. What if it didn’t? What if I felt the same way in fifty years?
“Mercy?” asked Dr. Watts. “Are you doing okay? Still eating?”
“I was thinking.”
“Take my advice. It doesn’t pay to think too much.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t seem to be helping this group much. Just a couple more questions. Uncle Morty said there was an issue with soldiers’ bodies being robbed. Do you remember anything about that?”
Dr. Watts did remember, but she didn’t know who did it. All kinds of things were taken, from jewelry to personal sidearms.
“Cheryl Morris made a claim that her husband’s effects were stolen. What do you know about her? She was throwing daggers at our guys that first night.”
“She was very close to Robert’s wife. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon,” said Dr. Watts.
“There seems to be—”
She hung up. Dr. Watts was normally abrupt, but not that abrupt. She was in the middle of a health fair. Maybe it was nothing. But it didn’t feel like nothing. She changed the subject when I asked if she knew Lt. Morris. She must’ve known him, if she knew who his wife was close friends with.
I considered calling back as Wallace pulled me into the Indian area. Grandad was sitting at a table with the sales guy. Raptor and Aaron were at the other end of the table, digging through the box of barbecue.
Bark. Bark. Bark.
Grandad looked up from a sheath of paperwork and a bad little boy look passed over his face.
Great. What now?
Chapter Twenty
AARON TOSSED WALLACE a meaty rib and handed me a pulled pork slider. I didn’t take a bite. The mustardy Carolina sauce pooled in my palm, adding to the porky aroma.
Grandad didn’t look up again. He tried to cover the paperwork with his arm. Since it resembled a freckled broomstick, I knew exactly what he was up to.
“What’s ya doing’?” I asked, sweetly.
The sales guy looked up and glanced back and forth between me and Grandad, who ignored the question.
“Got some paperwork, I see. What’s that about?”
“Nothing,” said Grandad, still not looking up.
It wasn’t nothing. It was loan paperwork.
Go ahead, old man. Give that a shot.
I inhaled the slider and got weak in the knees. “What’s in this meat? It’s porky and…something else.”
“Duck,” said Aaron.
“Duck fat?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“Duck fat.”
I almost licked my palm, but there were at least three people filming Wallace the Wonder Dog attacking her rib like a starving wolverine.
“Smells great,” said Grandad. “Why don’t you go get some more?”
Aaron looked in the box. “Got plenty.”
“I want to give Dave some. Mercy can go back.”
The sales guy waved and then flushed when I gave him the I-know-what-you’re-up-to look.
“Wipes,” said Grandad. “Mercy, get some wipes, sweetheart.”
Raptor stopped stuffing her face and held up a packet of wipes. Swallowing hard, she said, “We have—”
I pushed her hand down. “I’ll get wipes.” I took off, practically jogging down the street, but Raptor chased me. “What are you doing? Did you find something out?”
“I found out that your grandma’s friends with Cheryl. Can you call her and ask her about Lt. Morris?” I continued on and then realized Raptor wasn’t tailing me. I turned and saw her heading back to the table. No argument. Nothing. Weird.
I ducked around a souvenir stand and dialed Steve. He didn’t answer. I left a message, saying who I was and that I needed to talk to him about Robert’s condition. I figured that would get me a call back. I waited a few minutes and no such luck.
Next, I tried Jeanette. She did answer, but I didn’t get to ask her anything. She was on a massage table, waiting for a guy named Boris to give her a Swedish massage. She did know who I was and told me that Steve was meditating out at some place called Bear Butte. He wouldn’t answer when he was meditating. I almost asked if meditating was another name for getting high, but I thought better of it.
“You gonna interview them?” asked Aaron and I about jumped out of my skin. “Don’t do that.”
“Huh?”
“You snuck up on me.”
Aaron just stared.
“You’re so weird. Has anyone ever mentioned that?” I asked.
“My sisters.”
“I bet they did. I need to go out to someplace called Bear Butte, but we have to sneak off.”
“Why?”
“Because Grandad will try to stop me and I have to interview Steve. He’s out at Bear Butte.”
“Take the truck,” said Aaron.
“I really don’t want to take that bloody truck.”
“Your truck.”
“Doesn’t Sean have it?” I asked.
Aaron stared at me. It was kinda disappointing. He’d been talking more lately. By more, I mean he’d started speaking in complete sentences. Occasionally.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you know where Bear Butte is?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” I looked it up on Aaron’s phone and it wasn’t far from Sturgis, only about 15 minutes. “Where’s the truck?”
“Huh?”
I punched his flubbery shoulder. “Where is my truck? We have to get to Bear Butte.”
He trotted off without a word. Now that was the Aaron I knew and loved.
We found my truck parked illegally on a side street. Tickets decorated the windshield and I slapped my forehead. “Aaron!”
“What?”
I whipped six damn tickets out from under the wipers and waved them under his nose. “I have six tickets. It says ‘No Parking’ right there on that sign.”
He shrugged.
“This is going to cost me six arms and a leg. You know I don’t have cash to spare.”
“Tommy’ll fix it.”
“Dad doesn’t fix my tickets. He says I’m an idiot and that’s it.”
“He fixes mine,” he said.
“My father, Tommy Watts, fixes your tickets? You ride a scooter. How many tickets could you possibly get?”
“I’m slow.”
“You get tickets for driving too slow? Never mind. That actually makes sense. Okay. It’s your job to get my dad to fix these tickets.”
“You can do it.”
“No, I can’t. Dad doesn’t do crap for me. You, apparently, are a different story.”
Aaron blinked extra slow behind his dirty glasses. “I got a new pepper for you to try.”
Blackmail. I should’ve known. “You did this on purpose. Sean just happened to leave it under this sign? I don’t think so.”
“It’s a good pepper.”
“A pepper. Why don’t I think it’s just a pepper?”
He shrugged. “I take this lemon gremolata and—”
“And add crab.”
“A beautiful blue soft-shell.” He swayed and clasped his hands over his protruding belly.
I poked him in the chest. “I am not eating that crab. I hate crab.”
“You got tickets.”
“Something’s wrong with you. People line up to eat your food. Give them that disgusting crab.”
“I like you,” he said.
“I honestly don’t know why.”
“You hate crab.”
“Damn straight.”
He stared at me.
I grabbed the keys out of his grubby crab-slinging hands. “You can’t make me like crab.”
“I can.”
“The recipe doesn’t exist.” I unlocked the door.
&nb
sp; “I’ll create it.”
I slid in my truck and started it with a stomp on the gas pedal. “I’m not eating that crab. Not gonna happen.”
“You got tickets,” said Aaron.
“How about this? If you don’t fix those tickets, I will never, ever, eat a bite of your food again. Not a burger. Not a fry. Nothing.”
“You love my burgers.”
“There are other burger joints.”
His mouth fell open and I cackled before slamming the door and pulling out. There was a big thump behind me. Aaron stood in my truck bed, looking confused about how he got there. I rolled my eyes and yelled, “Hold on!”
Aaron dropped down and I hit the gas. What a weirdo!
Google maps led me out to a small mountain with a mini ranger station at the base. I drove up to the station and stopped in a swirl of dust that the increasing wind kicked up across the scrubby plain.
“Good afternoon,” said the ranger, a young woman with a wide smile that increased when she got a look at me. “Mercy Watts?”
“Yes,” I said, dreading what she might say.
“Where’s Wallace?”
I smiled back, relieved. “Eating barbecue back in Sturgis.”
She leaned on my window and asked, “Are you still investigating those murders?”
“I am. Have you, by chance, seen an older man, blond, mid-seventies, come by here?” I asked.
“This week, there are about a thousand of that guy around here. What does he drive?”
“I have no idea. He’s supposed to be meditating.”
“The butte is a good place for it. It’s a sacred site to the local people.” She gave me a short lecture on respecting the offerings that people left on the butte and said it was a one-point-eight mile trek to the summit. Great.
She looked up at the sky. “If you’re going, you’d better high tail it. Looks like we’ve got a doozy coming in. You don’t want to be caught up there in a storm.”
“Thanks.” I paid the fee and put the permit on my dash.
“By the way, it’s illegal to have people ride in the truck bed,” she said.
“I know, but he jumped in there.”
“Do you know him?” She glanced nervously behind me, where Aaron was peering through the back window.
“He’s my partner.”
“I thought Wallace was your partner.”
And she looked so intelligent, too.
“Er…Wallace is a pug that enjoys peeing on my feet. Aaron helps me. Sort of.”
“Really? He looks like he sleeps under bridges,” she said.
“And this is a good day,” I said before driving up the winding road past a herd of buffalo, some cactus, and a tremendous assortment of rocks to a small museum in a two-story wooden lodge. Five cars and six bikes sat in the parking lot, but none of them were from Ohio.
I parked and told Aaron that I was going to check out the museum just in case Steve had a rental car. He climbed out of the bed, tumbling into the dirt but jumping up like nothing happened.
“I would’ve helped you get out,” I said.
“Why?”
“Never mind. You better be thinking about those tickets and what you’re going to say to my dad.”
He shrugged and we went in the door to find a surprisingly new museum with another ranger behind the gift counter. He smiled automatically and then lit up. “Mercy Watts. What are you doing up here?”
“Looking for a Vet.” I described Steve and wished I had a picture of him. It would make things so much easier. “He’s supposed to be meditating.”
“He’d go to the summit for that, but all the people I’ve had in the last few hours have been pairs. There’s an older gentleman upstairs. Unless he’s left.”
“Thanks,” I said and he put a pad of paper on the counter. “Can I have your autograph? My wife will flip.”
“Your wife?” That was a new one.
“She’s been following your career since you went to Honduras. She says you’re a full-figured feminist hero.”
I wasn’t sure what to think. I never thought of myself that way. Maybe I had to look up feminist. I definitely wasn’t burning any bras, except the bad ones and I wouldn’t exactly call what I was doing heroic. More like a job under duress. “Okay.” I signed his pad and thanked Amber for all her support.
Then Aaron and I went through the small museum, glancing at the exhibits and wishing I had more time to browse. Aaron’s phone buzzed and I handed it to him as I went up the stairs to the second floor. It had fewer artifacts, but the view through the tall glass windows was stunning. I could imagine the wild west in that desolate, yet beautiful place. The clouds were gathering and rolling over the butte in a purple menacing thunderhead, casting the plains in shadow. There was one older man reading a plaque, but he wasn’t Steve.
I turned back to the view, wondering what to do next. The sky transfixed me and I couldn’t move until Aaron tapped me on the shoulder. “Raptor’s mad.”
“When isn’t she?” I asked.
He held out the phone, but I so wasn’t in the mood. “Tell her just to stick with Grandad. We’re coming right back.”
The ranger with the interesting wife jogged up the stairs. “Did you find him?”
“No. I guess his wife was wrong,” I said.
He came up and stood beside me. “Is he a suspect?”
“Yes. I’ll have to go find the wife.”
“Do you think she could be in danger?” he asked.
That thought had never occurred to me and I dismissed it. “If anything, they’re in it together.”
He crossed his arms. “And she told you that he was up here?”
“She said he was at Bear Butte.”
“That doesn’t have to mean here,” he said.
Ah, crap!
“There’s another Bear Butte? I have the worst luck.”
He pointed through the window. “She could’ve meant Bear Butte Lake.”
In the distance, across the main road, was a lake with some outbuildings and a couple RVs. I hugged him and grabbed Aaron’s hand, dragging him down the stairs. “Thanks! Got to go.”
“Raptor says hurry,” said Aaron.
“I’m always hurrying.”
I ran through the museum to the truck. Aaron tried to get in the bed. One of his sisters must’ve dropped him on his head. Repeatedly. I pulled him off the tire. “Get inside, nut job.”
“Oh.”
I pushed him in the cab and peeled out, racing down the road and startling the buffalo. The ranger stood in the road, waving to me. I slowed and rolled down my window.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“No. I think he might be at the lake,” I said.
“Stay in the truck. You don’t want to be out when the hail hits.”
I grinned and said, “I’ll think about it.”
“You could be seriously hurt.”
“As long as I don’t have to jump off anything, I should be fine.” I drove off and crossed the road to the lake, trying to spot Ohio plates at one of the parking spots.
“Come on, Steve,” I said. “Be here.”
My tires ground on the gravel road, kicking up rocks. I winced at every thunk. My poor paint job. Dad would never forgive me. Of course, there was the possibility of hail, but I couldn’t think about that. I had to interview Steve. Alone, preferably.
I turned in at the last lot. Parked under the shade of a knotty tree sat a Harley with Ohio plates. Score. I pulled up next to the Harley and told Aaron he could stay since it was looking worse. Thunder rolled in the west and thirty seconds later a crack of lightning lit up the sky over the distant hills, splitting into multiple forks.
“Holy crap!” I half expected to see Steve running up the trail from the lake to jump on his bike to try to make it back to town before it really hit the fan, but the place was deserted.
“He must be under that shelter over there.” That’s what I said, but I didn’t believe it. Maybe it wa
s the beauty of the place, wild and untamed. I hesitated, watching the wind swaying the trees and whipping the long grass.
You have to go. It’s your job.
I forced my door open against a gust of wind and Aaron grabbed my arm. “No.”
“Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”
He let go and got out. My partner. Braving the storm in a Bat Man tee and jean shorts.
I got out and the wind slammed the door so hard I winced. “He has to be here!”
Aaron gave me a look and my stomach twisted. He had a feeling, too. Raindrops began peppering the ground. Thunder cracked again and we dashed toward the lake.
“Steve!” I yelled.
Lightning cracked again, silver spiderwebbing in the sky.
“Steve!”
Nothing. We ran down the path next to the shore. The feeling got worse and worse. Thunder hit so loud that I stopped running and covered my ears. Aaron didn’t seem to notice. He just kept trotting along. The rain increased, drops as big as marbles.
I looked up. “Come on! Can I get a break?”
It poured, a real deluge. I guess not.
I chased Aaron, grabbed his hand, and dragged him toward some weird stone buildings. I shielded my face with my arm and could barely see. Each drop felt like an IM needle in my skin. We ran into the stone building, but it wasn’t a building really. It was a wall with a stone arch. A well-kept ruin.
“I can’t believe there’s no roof! Come on!”
Another wall with a metal door and stone pillar was across a cracked concrete floor. Beyond it was a solid wall with a small roof. I ran for it, jumping over the concrete blocks that lined the opening, but the rain was sideways so it was somewhat better.
I huddled under the small overhang and wiped the rain out of my eyes. “I can’t believe how bad this vacation is.”
Aaron pointed past me. I didn’t want to look. “What?”
He kept pointing and I slowly turned. There was a body lying in the corner. Facedown, but I knew in an instant that it was Steve. I dashed over to him, kneeling in the pooling water. There was blood on the concrete, but the rain was blasting it away. No pulse. The back of his head was bashed in. There were bits of brain matter being washed away along with the blood.
“Call 911!” I yelled at Aaron.
