by Jeff Siebold
The Bakken Blade
A Zeke Traynor Mystery
Jeff Siebold
Copyright © 2019 Jeff Siebold
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Book cover design and interior formatting by Tugboat Design
ISBN-13: 978-1-7336387-0-8
ALSO BY JEFF SIEBOLD
Zeke Traynor Mysteries
Lilac and Old Gold
Bluegrass and Crimson
Ardmore Green
The Crisp Poleward Sky
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge Elizabeth Bruno, his editor, for her helpful comments and attention to detail. And, the author also wishes to again acknowledge Deborah Bradseth of Tugboat Design for her excellent creative work.
Dedicated to Karin. Always an adventure with you!
Chapter 1
Randy Cunningham drove his 2005 Honda Civic across the Little Missouri River on the Four Bears Memorial Bridge, heading home from work. It was just after seven in the morning, and he was tired, yawning loudly after the long night shift.
There’s no action after two AM, he thought to himself. Don’t know why I take the third shift. Only ones come in the casino are Indians, and they’re lousy tippers.
For two years Randy had been a dealer at the Four Bears Casino located on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation across the Little Missouri River from New Town, North Dakota.
It was just turning dawn outside, the opposite of twilight, and he kept his headlights on as he approached New Town, and further on, his home. Well, his present home, a single-wide trailer in a trailer park east of town with muddy dirt roads and heavy equipment parked between the trailers. Most of his neighbors were oilmen.
Randy yawned again, shook his head hard, and turned on the radio to keep himself awake. It probably wasn’t a great idea to have stopped for that boilermaker after work, he decided. He decelerated as he approached New Town, careful to stay legal. He couldn’t afford a speeding ticket, let alone a DUI. He was already behind in his child support, and he didn’t need more trouble.
The Civic eased into town a few moments later as North Dakota Highway 23 became Main Street in New Town. Ahead Randy saw flashing lights stopped on the side of the road and what looked like two cop cars. He made a quick decision and turned south on 89th toward the railroad tracks, then east on 2nd Street. He could take this route and circle around the cops. The turn took him into an industrial area across from the tracks, deserted at this hour. Still, he drove carefully.
Old metal and wood industrial buildings, equipment yards and junkyards full of abandoned vehicles were to his left. On his right were the railroad tracks, and just beyond them, giant storage silos used to load the trains. He was aware that streetlights were rare in this area of town. He looked at his watch. He’d be home in five minutes. He looked at the tracks again.
And then he saw it. Sitting on the tracks, sort of slumped, was the gray looking form of a person.
Randy slowed a bit, just to be sure the person was alright, whoever it was. Maybe a drunk, or a homeless person. There were a few in the area, some who rode the rails and dropped in and out of town. He stopped his car.
There was no movement from the direction of the tracks. It was eerily quiet and still. Randy looked around, but there was no one else, no other car or person in sight. He hesitated, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. The lump on the tracks had not moved.
Reluctantly, he pulled to the side of the road and shifted his Civic into park. He leaned over and took the flashlight from his glove compartment and tried the switch. The bulb lit up. He shook his head once, then opened the car door and walked toward the slumped figure.
* * *
As he approached the three sets of tracks running parallel he was overpowered by the metallic odor the light breeze blew his way. His mouth tasted like pennies, and as he drew near, he could see the lump was indeed a body. It was the body of a woman. She was naked and facing away from him, her shoulders rolled forward and her head bowed down. She was looking at the ground.
“Ma’am?” Randy called. “Ma’am, can I help you?”
As he stepped closer he smelled the deep rich odor of blood. He shined the flashlight at the figure. She was gray and cold looking in the morning light. Her black hair was in disarray. And there were small rivulets of liquid running down her back and arms. He moved closer and played the flashlight over the woman’s back.
Suddenly Randy realized that the woman was dead. And at the same moment he saw that she was skinless, that she’d been flayed. He turned and vomited violently.
* * *
“I believe it’s the backlash they’re concerned with,” said Clive Greene.
Zeke Traynor sat across the table from him at The Alibi restaurant, one of Clive’s downtown D.C. favorites. It was an easy walk from their Pennsylvania Avenue offices.
“A Native American woman is four times as likely to experience sexual abuse,” said Zeke, “than a woman who doesn’t live on a reservation. In some ways, it’s a travesty.”
Dressed in chinos and a coral linen shirt with rolled sleeves and beige Allbirds on his feet, Zeke was in full casual mode.
“How would you possibly know that?” asked Clive, biting the end of pork sausage from his plate of bangers and mash.
Zeke sipped his Black and Tan. “Just did some reading when I heard about the case.”
Clive nodded. “Ah, yes, the eidetic memory. Sometimes I forget, you being so…uh, normal in other ways, you know?”
Zeke smiled. “And two-thirds of the violent crimes on the reservations weren’t prosecuted last year. The prosecutors seem reluctant to take the cases.”
“It’s the responsibility of the FBI, you know, to police the reservations. And the Federal Prosecutors. It may not be exactly what they’re trained to do.”
“So they hired you?” asked Zeke.
“It’s a sore spot,” said Clive. “They need better results, but, well, the reality is that there are typically no federal offices on the reservations. Most of them are hundreds of miles away.”
Zeke nodded.
“The tribal councils, well, the feds say they don’t have much power,” Clive continued.
“The maximum sentence they’re allowed to impose for any crime is three years,” Zeke contributed,
absently. “Even for murder.” He shook his head.
“This is a particularly heinous crime, and they’ve hired us to consult, to keep the focus on it, to be sure the crime is solved,” said Clive. He shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth.
Zeke nodded. “Or be their scapegoat if it doesn’t work out quite right,” he added.
“Well, sure, that,” said Clive. “It goes with the territory.”
“What do we know about the crime?” asked Zeke.
“Order another Black and Tan, and I’ll tell you.”
* * *
“So from what they can tell, the woman has had a rough go of it,” said Clive. “She dropped out of high school in her sophomore year and has been on food stamps and welfare programs ever since. Three children by the time she was eighteen. Last year she moved out of her family’s rented home and moved in with her boyfriend. Into an apartment over near New Town, North Dakota. According to her mother, this was the third boyfriend in three years.”
“Also a Native American?” asked Zeke.
Clive nodded.
“What’s her name?”
“The girl? Her name was Jenny Lakota. She was a member of the Sioux tribe in western North Dakota,” Clive replied.
Zeke waited.
“She was killed with some sort of knife,” Clive said, flatly. “Apparently she’d been at a local bar, the Salty Dog in New Town. The FBI said the Reservation Police were called in when a fight broke out. The FBI checked, but the local police officers said there was no sign of her there at the bar when they arrived.”
“Where is this?” asked Zeke.
“The Fort Berthold Reservation,” said Clive. “It’s not the largest reservation, but law enforcement is undermanned there. Not enough of a police presence since the oil boom.”
“I imagine that many of the Tribal Officers quit to work in the oil fields,” said Zeke. “Average oil field job pays over $79,000 a year.”
Clive nodded, thinking. “Yes, that’s right, the police there are called the ‘Reservation Police Tribal Officers.’ I’d forgotten.”
“How did it happen?” asked Zeke.
“Apparently she left the bar when the police were called and found her way to a mobile home that was parked over by the elementary school a few blocks away. May have gotten a ride from someone. Some roughnecks, the oil kind, were in the trailer, already engaged in, eh, well, let’s say they were getting a leg over.”
“So she was raped?”
“According to the officers, she probably was. Possibly by several mingers.”
“And then she was killed,” Zeke said. “With the knife you mentioned?”
“She was found the next morning on railroad tracks next to the grain silos on the outskirts of New Town. It was a casino worker who found her when he was coming home from work. The casino is west, across the Little Missouri River.”
“That’s pretty open country. Not much cover,” said Zeke.
“Right,” said Clive. “The area’s mostly barren land with some small, gentle hills. Agricultural. She was closer to town, though.”
“How was she killed?” asked Zeke.
“Someone flayed her. Stripped her skin off. She bled to death or died of shock, not sure which one. I saw the pictures. Gruesome,” said Clive, suddenly done with his meal. He pushed the plate away.
Zeke shook his head slowly.
“It’s a high profile crime, you know. In an area where the feds and the tribes seldom see eye to eye,” added Clive.
“It’s horrific,” said Zeke.
“I’d like you to take point on this one,” said Clive. “They’re expecting you in North Dakota the day after tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s the pawnshop action. After that I’ll head to New Town.”
* * *
“It’s after six,” said Clive Greene, standing abruptly. “Time to go.”
Clive was tall, aristocratic and British in his worsted wool suit and rep tie. His tan moustache and hair were trimmed to perfection. He was in his Washington, D.C. office at the head of his conference table and surrounded by his A-team.
“I’ll man the communications,” said Sally, the youngish blonde sitting next to him. She had a slight figure and a wispy voice and was the best researcher in the industry despite her penchant to imitate Marilyn Monroe.
Kimmy, ex-Mossad and deadly, was also employed by Clive’s organization, The Agency. She sat restlessly across the table from Sally, fidgeting, her legs crossed under her in the chair.
“Let’s do it then,” said the fourth person in the room, Zeke Traynor. He stood and smiled at Kimmy, his slate blue eyes complimenting his longish blond hair and making him look anything but deadly.
They exited the office single file and moved quickly to their respective stations, Sally to her computers and Clive, Kimmy and Zeke to the operations area of the building.
* * *
Fifty minutes later, the three agents were parked across the street from an unassuming retail store in a one-story strip mall of indeterminant age. Clive was in the driver’s seat, and Kimmy sat next to him. Zeke was sprawled casually in the backseat. It was dusk.
The store looked like a resale shop, with odd musical instruments, rifles and televisions displayed in the front window. There was a striped curtain behind the display. On the floor, several open suitcases of unknown age held pots and vases filled with green plants and red and yellow flowers. There were bars on the windows and on the adjoining glass door. A sign in the window read, “Cassidy’s Pawn, We Buy Guns,” and beneath it, “A Pawn 4 All Store.” An “Open” sign hung on the door.
“Squint a bit and it looks like a money laundry, doesn’t it?” asked Clive.
Zeke smiled and Kimmy nodded as she bounced in the seat. Kimmy was just over five feet tall and weighed about a hundred pounds. She was dressed in a bright flowered skirt and a loose white blouse with three-quarter sleeves and breast pockets.
“They close at 7:30 PM today,” Clive continued, repeating a fact from the briefing. “Just a few minutes, now.”
The three opened their car doors simultaneously and set them back quietly against the car without engaging them. The bulb of the dome light had been removed, and Clive was careful not to bump the brake pedal and flash the brake lights as he got out.
According to plan, they each took a separate path. Clive circled the left end of the building to set up a rear perimeter and Kimmy veered right, up on the sidewalk and close to the window of a sub shop two bays down from Cassidy’s.
Zeke took a direct route, crossed the street and stepped up on the sidewalk. He was at the front door in two steps and pulled the glass door open, ringing the attached bells.
A plain looking woman, probably in her sixties, looked up at him from behind a counter. “Hello. Can I help ya?” she asked without enthusiasm. She was plump and obviously tired. Her gray hair was greasy and somewhat stringy, and her fingers were dirty. She was the only person in the room.
Zeke said, “I’m looking for Bart Conrad.”
The woman looked away, started to glance toward the back of the shop, then looked back at Zeke. “He’s not here,” she said in her flat voice. Dismissive, disinterested.
The interior of the shop was set up with glass counters along both walls and the rear. An open space for customers occupied the middle area. The walls were covered with pawned equipment of all kinds, and there were stacks of merchandise for sale everywhere. Zeke looked around a moment, then back at the woman. With a smile he said, “Sure he is.”
The woman shrugged and turned slightly to assure that Zeke could see the silver pistol in a holster on her large hip. The part that was visible looked like a Colt .45 Peacemaker.
Zeke tried again. “He knows I’m coming. We have an appointment.”
Just then, the doorbells rang again as Kimmy entered the pawnshop. She looked around quickly, then walked past Zeke to the counter in front of the woman.
“I don’t think so,” the woman said, ignorin
g Kimmy and looking intently at Zeke. “I think you’re a cop.”
“He’s in the back?” Zeke asked.
Kimmy leaned up on the counter on her stomach, far enough to slide the Colt out of the woman’s holster. Then, in a quick movement, she bounced back, her feet planted on the floor, and reversed the pistol. When she was done, it was in her right hand, pointing at the woman. She held her Jericho 941 in her left.
“Are you Cassidy? Or Mrs. Conrad?” Kimmy asked with what sounded like a giggle.
The woman said, “Oh, honey, you don’t want to do that…”
“Well, then, just keep your hands where I can see them,” Kimmy said.
* * *
Zeke stepped to the rear of the building, effectively trapping Bart Conrad between himself and Clive, who would be waiting out back by now. He ducked into the back room, which was filled with shelving holding more musical instruments, rifles, boxes of electronics of various kinds, and in one corner, a dusty drum set. Across the concrete floor was the exposed wood skeleton of an office built of two-by-fours and plywood and closed off from the rest of the space.
Zeke opened the wooden door and stepped into the makeshift office. Inside, there was a small metal desk with a computer monitor on it, a chair, and a two-drawer file cabinet. In the chair was Bart Conrad, his head down on the desk as if he were sleeping. But he wasn’t sleeping; he was dead.
Chapter 2
Despite seeing the gunshot wound to his right temple, Zeke quickly checked Bart Conrad’s neck for a pulse. There was none.
A small gun was visible on the floor beside Conrad’s chair. It was a .22 pistol fitted with a suppressor, and the room smelled as if the gun had been fired recently.
Zeke stepped out of the office and opened the metal door that led to the back alley. Clive Greene nodded to him and stepped in through the rear door of the pawnshop.
