Risky Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  I took a cane-back rocker and Dot sat on the edge of a hard-back chair.

  “David’s not here,” she said. “He’s gone to the Oconaluftee Village to see Robbie Ledford.”

  “What’s Robbie doing there?” Romero asked.

  “He works after school burning canoes.”

  I sat quietly, not understanding the conversation.

  “Swifty working there too?”

  “Yes. Danny demonstrates the blowgun for the tourists.”

  I noted how Dot didn’t refer to her son by his nickname. Most mothers never accepted a nickname conferred upon their children by those outside the family.

  “Barry, Robbie’s a boy Swifty’s age,” Romero explained. “Since the village stays open in October through leaf season, some of the kids have part-time jobs after school. They play roles in the portrayal of a 1760 Cherokee settlement.” He turned to Dot. “Did Robbie say he knew where Swifty went?”

  “No. They all heard about Jimmy at school and Danny left at lunch. No one’s seen him since.”

  “Why did your husband go to the village if you already learned this from Robbie?”

  “David wanted to see Robbie face-to-face. He thinks Robbie must know more than he’s telling, and he wants to look him in the eye.”

  “Kids will protect each other,” Romero agreed. He looked at me, inviting a comment.

  “Mrs. Swift, did your son have a bicycle at school?”

  “No. The bus picked him up at the end of the road.”

  “So, he left school on foot.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Are any of his friends old enough to drive?”

  “Not that I know of. Danny mainly hangs out with boys his own age. Mostly members of his ball-play team.”

  “Is there any place at the Cherokee Boys Club he might be hiding?”

  Dot Swift leaned forward in her chair. “We drove by after Danny didn’t come to the village to work. No one had seen him.”

  “I’ll swing by again,” Romero promised. “Maybe he’s holed up in a storeroom or something.”

  I didn’t know what relevance the boy’s disappearance had to my case other than Jimmy Panther’s murder could have triggered it. Still, I wanted to help if I could.

  “Do you have a photograph of your son?” I asked.

  She rose from the chair and went to a bookshelf at the end of the room. She took down a rectangular piece of pottery that was a picture frame. The eight-by-ten featured a grinning Cherokee boy standing in front of a roughly cut open field. He held a wooden stick with a circular webbed pocket at one end. A beaded headband pulled his black hair off his high forehead. He stood shirtless, the ball-play stick angled across his chest.

  In the field behind him, other boys were frozen in mid stride as they ran—some with shirts, some without.

  “Nice looking kid,” I said. “How old’s the photo?”

  “About a month. He was playing a team from one of the other towns. Danny had a great game.”

  “Did your son ever take part in any of Jimmy’s protests?”

  “No,” she said emphatically. “While David and I agree with some of what Jimmy is fighting for, we didn’t go along with his confrontational tactics. Jimmy never let the kids get involved.”

  “How did your son feel about Jimmy?”

  “Danny idolized him,” Dot said. “Second only to his father. Sometimes I think David was a little jealous.”

  It sounded like Swifty didn’t need a father figure, but as an only child, he might take to Jimmy as a big brother. “Is it fair to say he would be very upset by Jimmy’s murder?”

  “Devastated.” Again, the tears flowed. “But not as devastated as I will be if something’s happened to him.”

  Romero looked pained by the woman’s distress. “We’ll find him, Dot. Don’t you worry. And I’ll talk to Robbie myself.” He stood. “Anything else?” he asked me. His tone told me my answer should be no.

  “One other thing if it’s not a bother. Could I see your son’s room?”

  Tommy Lee had told me always check the bedroom of a runaway. Sometimes there could be clues through magazine clippings or saved pictures as to the child’s destination.

  “Yes,” Dot said. “But he didn’t leave a note or take any of his things. He didn’t know Jimmy had died when he left for school yesterday.”

  “It’s a good idea, Dot,” Romero said. “We might learn something.”

  She led us down a short hall to a bedroom at one end of the mobile home. A single bed with a plain brown blanket was underneath a window overlooking the front yard. Over a dresser on the opposite wall hung twin ball-play sticks crossed like blunt spears. A desk with a goose-necked lamp sat under a smaller window in the trailer’s end wall. Three books were stacked on the desk. I picked up the top one. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Not unusual reading for Swifty’s age. Below it was The Hunger Games, also popular with teenagers and shot in the western North Carolina mountains. The third book wasn’t in the bedroom of many readers of any age. Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living.

  “Is your son reading this for a group activity?”

  “No. It’s his own interest. Danny likes nothing better than being in the forest.”

  I flipped through the pages but no notes or bookmarks fell out. “So, he’s read it?”

  “That and at least ten others,” Dot said.

  The boy could probably outlast a Special Forces patrol, I thought. Unless he’s been injured, he’ll come in when he wants. I looked around the room again. No toys, no video games. I dropped to my knees and looked under the bed.

  “He doesn’t keep anything under there,” Dot said.

  I pulled out a ball-play stick.

  “I don’t know where that came from,” Dot said. “Maybe he was making it.”

  To my uneducated eye, the wood looked older than the sticks above the dresser. The webbing or whatever they called it at the end was worn and broken.

  “Let me see that,” Romero said.

  I sat on the floor and raised the stick to the giant towering over me. He moved the shaft laterally in front of his eyes.

  “I’ve seen this before. It belongs to Jimmy Panther.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “Would Jimmy have given it to him?”

  “Maybe.” Romero gave a slight shake of his head, cuing me to let it go. He turned to Dot. “Mind if I keep this? I’ll ask Emma for a positive identification.”

  “OK. But I know my boy didn’t steal it.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” Romero said. “And I’ll show it to Robbie. Maybe he’ll know why your son has it.”

  “It wasn’t there Saturday,” Dot said. “I dusted under the bed.”

  “Probably has nothing to do with anything else. But we’ll go straight to the village. You have a landline, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Dot went to her son’s desk and wrote the number on a sheet of paper. “Please call if you learn anything.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Romero assured her.

  We said good-bye and walked down the gravel road to the patrol car. Eddie Wolfe was heading to his Camaro when he turned at the sound of our footsteps. He eyed the ball-play stick.

  “Is that Swifty’s?”

  “No.” Romero stopped in front of Eddie. “It’s definitely not Swifty’s.”

  Eddie’s eyes widened as he studied the stick. “That’s Jimmy’s. Is Swifty back? Did he bring it with him?”

  Romero walked over to the patrol car and tossed the ball-play stick across the backseat. “Swifty’s still missing. We found the stick under his bed. Any idea why he’d have it?”

  Eddie stared at the patrol car. “No,” he finally said.

  Romero slammed the back door and signaled me to get in the car.

  “You don’t thi
nk Swifty’s the one who stole Jimmy’s collection?” Eddie asked.

  “Not for a second.” Romero got in and started the engine.

  As we pulled away, I looked back. Eddie stood frozen by the Camaro, watching our departure.

  “Is that the ball-play stick Skye mentioned?” I asked. “The one that’s been in the family so long?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how many greats in front of grandfather, but one of them fashioned it before the Trail of Tears. That’s pre-1838.”

  I knew the Trail of Tears had been the forced relocation of the Cherokee to Oklahoma so that Georgia could claim part of their land, the land on which gold had been discovered. President Andrew Jackson defied the U.S. Supreme Court and let the ethnic cleansing occur. Over thirteen thousand Cherokee were driven from their ancestral homeland in the winter of 1838 without proper clothing, food, or shelter. Between four and six thousand died along the forced march. It was a shameful blot on our history and national character.

  “Why are you so sure Swifty didn’t take Jimmy’s artifact collection?” I asked.

  “Because he would have had to have stolen it after Sunday night. Jimmy would have sent out a hue and cry if he’d found it missing. If Swifty didn’t learn of Jimmy’s death till noon yesterday, he couldn’t have made it to Jimmy’s on foot before we got there. By then the collection was already gone.”

  “So, what are you thinking?”

  “That the ball-play stick might pry loose Robbie Ledford’s tongue if he knows anything. How’s your time?”

  I checked my watch. Three thirty. “I’m OK. I need to meet my wife no later than five.”

  “Then let’s see where this ancient stick leads us.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When we hit the main road, my phone became an earthquake of vibrations, signaling that multiple calls had gone to voicemail while I was out of coverage.

  Romero smiled. “Either you’re very popular or you’ve got the noisiest belly I’ve ever heard.”

  I scrolled through the list of messages. Two were from the Sheriff’s Department, one from Susan, and one from the number I recognized as belonging to Darren Cransford. “I’d better check these.”

  I played Darren’s first. “Deputy Clayton, sorry to miss your call. It’s crazy here in the office. I’ll try to connect with you later.” I didn’t know which office was crazy because he certainly didn’t work at the one in DC. I decided not to get into a conversation over the phone with Darren in front of Romero. Instead I texted that I would call him at five.

  Susan left a message that she was back at the hotel and she would see me when she saw me.

  The calls from the Sheriff’s Department were from Tommy Lee and both shorter than Susan’s and Darren’s combined. “Talked to Luther,” was one; “ME Report,” was the other. I punched callback.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Riding with Romero.”

  “Rooster!” the detective sergeant interrupted. “I’m taking good care of your boy.”

  “Tell him it’s not you I’m worried about,” Tommy Lee said.

  I relayed the message and got a volcanic laugh in return.

  “Luther broke down when I talked to him,” Tommy Lee said. “He admitted lying about where he was Sunday night, but not because he had anything to do with Panther’s death. He said he just felt smothered in the house, couldn’t go into the kitchen where Eurleen died, and he needed to get out.”

  “Where?”

  “Up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. An overlook where he and Eurleen had their first picnic before they were married.”

  “In the middle of the night? You believe him?”

  “I want to. But I can’t without proof. Wakefield’s headed up there now looking for any forensic evidence to support Luther’s claim.”

  “Why did he lie?” I asked.

  “He says he didn’t want to appear foolish in front of you and Wakefield. Then when you told him about Panther’s murder, he knew his actions would look suspicious. He only told me because we had the testimony of the guard at the gatehouse.”

  “Did he change his story about when his children left?”

  “No. Did you get a hold of Darren?”

  “I missed his call. I’m calling him back at five. What about the ME?”

  I heard Tommy Lee shuffle some papers.

  “Nothing that reverses anything he viewed at the scene. Markings on the wrists are consistent with standard PlastiCuffs. Entry wound is consistent with a twenty-two and the slug ricocheted inside the skull. Markings can provide a ballistics match but I doubt we’ll find them in the system. Time of death still holds between midnight and two.”

  I heard a page flip.

  “There is one interesting item Tuppler uncovered back at the morgue. He found an arrowhead lodged in the waist of Panther’s jeans.”

  “Someone shot him with an arrow?”

  Romero yanked his eyes from the road and gave me a curious stare.

  “No,” Tommy Lee said. “It was trapped under his belt. Tuppler said it looked like Panther had been dragged through soft dirt. There was also a lot of dirt under his fingernails and on his clothing.”

  “Eurleen’s grave was fresh,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought. But Tuppler found high traces of mica that’s not present in the soil in that section of the cemetery.”

  “Lends credence to your theory that Panther was killed elsewhere.”

  “Yep. And we have that single arrowhead but I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “Maybe Panther caught whoever stole his collection and they fought. Could explain the dirt and the arrowhead getting trapped in his jeans.”

  “And then they kill him on Eurleen’s grave? Why would they do that? There are lots of ravines where they could have dumped the body.”

  I thought for a moment. Tommy Lee was right. It was more logical that Panther would have been killed in a confrontation with a thief than captured, cuffed, and executed. “If it wasn’t Luther, then someone knew enough about what happened at the cemetery to try and frame him.”

  “That’s the way I read it,” Tommy Lee agreed. “Where are you and Romero headed now?”

  “Oconaluftee Village.”

  “How’s that tie into Panther?”

  “Indirectly. I’ll brief you later.”

  “And you’re still on with Kevin and Archie?”

  “That would be a ten-four,” I said.

  “Barry, just make sure Kevin doesn’t get you into something that’s more than you bargained for. His instincts are great, but his self-restraint is nonexistent. And whether Tyrell’s connected to our case or not, remember he’s a cold-blooded killer.”

  My mind didn’t jump to Kevin or Archie, but to Susan. “Don’t worry. I will.”

  Romero bypassed Oconaluftee Village’s stone ticket stand. A guide was just starting with a small group of tourists. He wore a white tunic and red pants with a braided belt cinched over the tunic around his waist. A claw necklace hung midway down his chest. He spoke in an incomprehensible language I assumed was Cherokee. The visitors appeared confused and some laughed nervously.

  The guide saw Romero and waved. The detective said something in Cherokee and got a short burst of syllables in response. Then he grinned and spoke to his group. “What I’ve been saying is Welcome to Oconaluftee Village and the year 1760. What you’re witnessing is…”

  “Come on,” Romero said. “He’s with the weapons.”

  We walked past Indian women in native garb doing beadwork, others throwing river clay for pottery, a man striking flint to fashion arrowheads, and more women weaving baskets.

  “What are they using?” I asked Romero.

  “River cane and white oak. Each woman likes to develop her own patterns.”

  “When you spoke Cherokee,
were you asking about Robbie Ledford?”

  “Yes. He’s back at the blowgun demonstration.”

  “I thought he made canoes.” I remembered Robbie’s job in the village because three canoes in various stages of completion lay on our left. An older Cherokee with streaks of gray running through his hair tended a small fire burning in the center of one.

  “He usually does,” Romero said. “Not the actual fire, but he scrapes out the charred wood after it’s extinguished. You burn a small section, scrape the burnt remains, and then burn again. We don’t want Robbie being a role model for kids going home and burning out a log to make their own canoes. Our lawyers wouldn’t like it.”

  “So, you turn him loose with a blowgun?”

  Romero laughed. “Let’s call it a demonstration of a father teaching a son to hunt. And hollowed-out river cane is harder to come by than a pack of matches.”

  Ahead, a small group broke into applause.

  “Robbie must have hit the target,” Romero said. “But he’s not the shot Swifty is.”

  The applause died and the visitors moved on, leaving a tall man of about thirty beside a boy holding a river cane pole twice his height. The man’s hair was buzz-cut like Jimmy Panther’s. His tunic was the same style as the first guide’s, but red with a white-and-red beaded belt.

  The boy was pudgy. His round face was framed by black hair touching his shoulders. The smile generated by the applause vanished when he saw Detective Sergeant Romero.

  “How are you, John?” Romero asked.

  The man nodded. “Fine. It’s kinda slow.”

  “Tuesdays usually are. I need to talk to Robbie a few minutes.”

  John glanced first at the boy beside him and then at me. Romero didn’t bother with an introduction.

  “Robbie seems popular this afternoon,” John said.

  “Oh, yeah? Anybody besides David Swift?”

  Both John and Robbie seemed surprised Romero knew Swifty’s father had been there.

  “No,” John conceded. “Just David.”

  “Good. The next group won’t be here for a few minutes. Why don’t you take a break?”

  “Sure. Whatever you say.” John ambled off toward the village entrance.