by Jeff Siebold
“Well, thanks for picking me up,” said Zeke. “We can talk on our way to New Town.”
Cord, preoccupied with the readings on the instrument panel, said nothing.
A few moments later he taxied the plane onto the tarmac and down to one end of the runway. He tested the brakes, revved the engines, and throttled back while he positioned the Duchess on the runway. Nose pointing to the southeast, he accelerated and, at about 160 knots, the plane slowly lifted into the air.
* * *
“Just to recap, we still don’t know much about the victim,” said Zeke. “She was Native American. She was living with and fighting with this Sam Bearcat guy. She had three kids, who were staying with her mother. And she worked at the Family Dollar store.”
“Yessir,” said Cord.
Zeke looked at him.
“Where did she live? She and Sam?” asked Cord.
“They had an apartment heading west out of New Town. Just past the river,” said Zeke.
“That’s the Chief Four Bears Apartments,” said Cord.
“Low income?” asked Zeke.
“Yessir, government subsidy. And she was on food stamps. He claimed some sort of disability. Playing all the angles.”
“Do we know where her people live?” asked Zeke.
“Her mom stays in New Town. She rents a small house on 6th Avenue. Works at the Cenex.”
“Cenex?” asked Zeke.
“It’s a convenience store. Next to the West Dakota Inn Motel.”
“Have you got a car in New Town?” asked Zeke.
“Yessir, a Crown Vic.”
“Let’s head over there and talk with her mom. I want to get a feel for who Jenny was.”
* * *
The Cenex was a gas station-convenience store located on the north side of Main Street, east on the way out of town. The adjoining parking lot was stacked with heavy equipment, work trucks with iron and steel attachments painted in primary colors. Cord pulled through the gas pump islands and found a parking spot in front of the building.
The front windows were covered in colorful signs advertising the North Dakota Lottery and a variety of different flavors of beer, including a new, orange pilsner.
Zeke opened the door for Cord, then followed him into the small space. An electronic bell signaled, and the woman behind the counter called out, “Hello!”
Cord said, “We’re looking for Miriam Lakota.”
Wearily and without much emotion, the woman said, “You’re a cop.”
“FBI,” said Cord. He took his I.D. from his pocket and flashed it at her.
She nodded it away. “Yeah, I figured you’d be coming by. It’s about Jenny, right?”
Cord nodded and said, “We’re sorry for your loss, ma’am.” He sounded subdued.
“They arrested Sam for it,” said Miriam. “But I don’t think he could’ve done it.”
“No?” asked Zeke.
“No, he wouldn’t take the time, you know? Whoever did this had a lot of time, and a lot of motivation. Otherwise, why bother?” She shook her head. “It’s almost…what do they call it, a symbol?”
“A ritual,” said Zeke.
“Yeah, that,” said Jenny’s mother, pointing at Zeke. “Or a religious thing.”
“Have you ever heard of anything like this happening around here?” asked Zeke.
The woman stopped moving for a moment, thinking.
“You know, maybe,” she said. “A few years ago a girl went missing. They said she was a wild one. Part Indian and pretty independent. She’d had a boyfriend, but he was killed in a drive-by shooting, I think. I remember something about that…”
“She was murdered?” asked Cord.
“She was found dead. They didn’t say that she was skinned, exactly. At worship they said that the girl’d been laid open, clean before the Lord. Something like that.”
“What else do you remember about it?” asked Cord.
“It was the talk for a few months. They didn’t find the person who did it, best I know. That’s been three or four years.” Then she turned away from the men and called across the store, “I’m gonna take my break now, Alice.”
From behind a tower of twelve-packs stacked floor to ceiling Zeke heard, “OK, honey.”
* * *
“I thought you’d want some privacy for your questions,” the woman said after they’d stepped out of the shop. “She don’t need to know all my business anyway.”
Cord nodded as if he agreed.
“The incident you just mentioned, the Indian girl who was killed a few years ago,” Zeke started, “tell us what you know about her.”
Miriam Lakota shrugged and looked away for a moment, organizing her thoughts.
“It’s been a while,” she said, shaking her head. “Lemme think.” She took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Was she found in New Town?” asked Zeke, prompting.
“Well, yes, she was,” said Miriam. “But not by the railroad. She was found up north near the Evans Site.”
“The Evans Site?” asked Cord.
“Yeah, up north of town. They said it was some kind of an archeological campsite or something. It was a big deal when they found it.”
“Not so much now?” asked Zeke.
“Well, we have a lot more people here now. And the oil is what everyone’s interested in, one way or another,” she said.
Zeke nodded. “Do you remember anything else about it? About the murder?” asked Zeke.
“Well, we don’t get very many murders around here. Years ago, when I was a girl, there was some oil, but not like today. And no real money, so there was nothing worth fighting about. There were maybe half as many people living here as there are now, and most everyone was poor. Farmers, mostly.”
“How old was the girl that was killed?” asked Zeke.
“Well, I remember that she was about my daughter’s age. Maybe in her mid- to late-twenties.”
“Did you know the girl’s family?”
“Her older sister used to babysit Jenny sometimes,” said Miriam Lakota. “When she was little. Sister’s name was Cheryl, Cheryl Black.”
“And the girl who died?”
“Casey Black.”
“You said they didn’t catch the killer?” asked Zeke.
“No, never did. It’s a shame…”
“Did she have any other siblings?” asked Cord.
“Casey? She had a younger brother, too. He went away to college a few years after that. Kansas State. He never came back here.”
“Is Cheryl still around?”
“She is. I see her at the Jason’s grocery every once in a while. I think she got married and moved out to Van Hook.”
“Van Hook?” asked Cord.
“By the lake.”
“Mrs. Lakota, we need to ask you some, uh, sensitive questions now,” said Cord.
“I know. Believe me, honey, I know. But people are just going to do what they want to do. You can’t change their minds.”
“No, ma’am,” said Cord. “We’ve talked with a lot of people, but some of it will be better coming from you.”
“So, ask…”
“Jenny was living with Sam Bearcat,” said Cord, starting.
“They say he killed her. She couldn’t say no, was her trouble. If a man gave her some attention she’d get all excited and dreamy and start thinking about marriage and such. She moved in with that Bearcat man a few months ago. But he wasn’t no good.”
“And her children?”
“She has three. I guess I should say she had three,” she said.
“How old are they, Mrs. Lakota?” asked Cord. He was taking notes.
“Pretty young. They’re all in elementary school.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“A boy, seven. Then a girl, six, and another girl, five. All different daddies.”
“We heard that they’ve been staying with you, ma’am,” said Cord.
“Just for a while, until Jenny could get situat
ed. It’s tough for a single mother to get by.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Zeke. “What was she like?”
“She was a good girl, really. But when she was on those drugs, well, you wouldn’t recognize her. That girl had a mouth on her!”
“What drugs did she favor, ma’am?” asked Cord.
“I’m not for sure,” said Miriam Lakota, “but from what I heard, it was probably meth. There’s a lot of it around here. And oxycodone, I’d guess.” She frowned. “I had a bottle of pain pills from when I hurt my back, that was about a year ago or so, and Jenny came over to see the kids one day and when I looked in the bottle later, there was only one pill left. Out of ten, and I hadn’t used but one of them.”
“You’re sure Jenny took them?” asked Cord.
“Oh, yes, sir. I asked her about it, and she started swearing at me, cussing me for accusing her. Oh, the mouth on that girl! And when she wasn’t stealing drugs, she was stealing money. You couldn’t leave anything sitting out when Jenny was coming by.”
“Were you able to get help for her?” asked Zeke.
“She didn’t want it. She was too hard core. Got to the point that, if you didn’t have pills or money, she didn’t have time for you,” said Miriam Lakota. “She’d just drop off the kids and go back to her apartment with that Sam Bearcat.”
“Sam’s been arrested,” Cord started.
“Don’t I know it?” said Miriam Lakota. “Word travels fast around here. But like I said, I don’t think he could have done it. He’s just not that patient.”
Chapter 12
The stick-built house in the middle of the Lakeside Trailer Park was a one-story affair, yellow with brown trim. It looked as if it had been built in the 1970s, although it was neat and fairly well maintained. There were three cars parked in front of the small garage.
Zeke and Cord approached the front door of the house and Cord knocked loudly. There was no doorbell. They heard, “Just a minute,” from inside the house, and a few moments later the front door opened.
“Can I help you?” asked a man, maybe sixty and small, wiry. He was wearing formless blue jeans with a too-long belt pulled tight through the belt loops. The end of the belt was tied in a knot. His shirt was flannel, and his shoes were black, steel-toed work boots. His yellow and green ball cap read “John Deere”.
“I’m the FBI,” said Tillman Cord. “Are you the owner here?”
“I reckon I am,” said the man. “I’m Nathan Douglas.” He held out his large calloused hand and shook first Cord’s and then Zeke’s hand.
“How can I help you two?”
“We’re here about the green trailer,” said Cord. “Need to know more about who rented it from you.”
The small man squinted a bit and then got a gleam in his eye. “This has to do with the dead girl, right? No other reason you’d be poking around up here.”
“It does,” said Zeke. “Did you know her?”
“The man who rented that trailer from me, he’s in jail right now. So I’m not getting any revenue for it. And the Tribal Police told me I can’t rent it to someone else being as it’s associated with that girl who died.”
“What’s his name?” asked Cord.
“Charlie Whitefoot,” said Douglas.
“What’s he in jail for?” asked Cord.
“For drugs, I think.”
“Know anything about the girls who hang out there on the weekends?” asked Zeke.
“I work nights, four to midnight, so no, I’m not here at that time. I wasn’t aware that anyone was staying over there until the police told me.”
* * *
The crime scene tape was tattered by the wind, but it still blocked the door to the green trailer. The white trim on the trailer had yellowed years ago, and tin foil was visible covering some of the windows from the inside. The large padlock still hung from the hasp that some police deputy had affixed to the outside door.
“This place looks even better the second time around,” said Cord, shaking his head. “Hope we don’t catch anything.”
Zeke said, “Let’s knock on some doors.”
“We can, but we’ll likely scare the bejesus out of anyone who’s home,” Cord said, laughing.
The rest of the trailer park was equally seedy, with third-hand cars parked on the small, concrete pads in front of several trailers. Most of the cars had some damage, one with a broken window partially repaired with duct tape, one with a flat tire, and one truck with a precise vertical crease on the back of its bed gate.
“Well, let’s get to scaring,” said Zeke.
The closest mobile home with a car parked out front was two down from the green trailer with the yellow tape. It was a single-wide, and as Zeke and Cord approached, they could hear the drone of a television turned up too loud. Cord knocked authoritatively.
There was no response. He waited a moment and knocked again.
The volume on the television dropped suddenly, and they heard a doorknob being unlocked and turning. Behind the door, a young teenage boy looked at them accusingly.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Is your mom home?” asked Cord.
“No,” he said.
“Is she working?” Cord said.
“No, she’s not working. Who’re you?” asked the boy.
He was about five feet tall and ninety pounds, and his hair was matte black, obviously cut using a bowl of some kind as a guide. His right leg was in a cast.
“I’m the FBI,” said Cord. “Who’s home besides you?”
“You’re the FBI?” asked the kid. “The whole FBI?”
Cord looked at Zeke and rolled his eyes.
Zeke said, “I think you may be able to help us solve a crime.”
The boy said, “Why would I want to?”
“It’s a murder. The murder of that Indian girl down by the railroad tracks.”
The boy’s eyes shifted slowly from suspicious to excited. “Yeah?”
“What’s your name?” asked Zeke.
The boy hesitated a minute, obviously weighing the pros and cons of answering. Then he said, “Tyler. Why do you think I can help?”
“Well, Tyler,” Zeke said, “I’ll bet you’ve been laid up with that broken leg for a while, judging by the way the cast looks.”
“Yeah, a couple weeks. Doctor says I’ve gotta wear it for at least another ten days. It itches like crazy sometimes in there.”
“So you’re bored sometimes, right?” asked Zeke.
“Sure.”
“What do you do when you’re bored?”
The boy looked at Zeke and then looked away. He rubbed his nose. “Nothing. I just hang out and watch TV.”
That’s a lie, thought Zeke.
“Tyler,” Zeke said.
The boy looked up at him.
“What do you know about that green trailer over there?” He pointed to the trailer with the crime scene tape.
“Nothing. Sometimes people go there at night, but not since the police locked it up.”
“What kind of people?” asked Zeke, gently. “Like us?”
“No, not like you. You look like a cop,” he said to Cord. “And you look like a surfer.”
Zeke nodded. “These people were…?”
“Like oil field guys. Like the guys who work with the derricks. Or do the fracking.”
Zeke nodded again.
“They went there to get laid,” said Tyler, suddenly worldly.
“How do you know?” asked Cord.
“They were always talking about it. Loud talking, as they went in the trailer.”
“Whose trailer is it?” asked Zeke.
“The old guy who owns the park lives in the big house over there.” Tyler pointed to the house in the middle of Lakeside Trailer Park, across from his front door. “He rents it out, but the guy he rented to is in jail. So two girls were using it.”
“Girls?” asked Zeke.
“Yeah, they’re about the same age as my teachers,” he said. “They m
ostly come here on the weekends.”
“Right after payday,” said Cord.
“Guys stop by all the time. Sometimes other girls stop by, too,” said Tyler.
“What do you think is going on there?” asked Zeke.
“I don’t know. They like to party, I guess.”
“But you’ve got a clear view of that trailer from your window,” said Zeke, turning and eyeballing the space. “Do you ever see anything, uh, odd?”
Tyler looked away. “No, not really.”
“But…”
“Well, sometimes they get drunk. And sometimes they fight.”
“Out here?” asked Cord, looking at the space between the trailers.
“Sometimes, but mostly it’s inside. I can hear them real good, hollering and cussin’,” Tyler continued.
“When they come outside, what have you seen?”
“Mostly it’s the guys. They yell at each other for a while, and then they usually leave.”
* * *
“So, Tyler, what’s your last name?”
“Simpson,” said the boy.
“So, Tyler Simpson, where’s your mom?”
“She said she went shopping.”
“But…?”
“I don’t know. She could be visiting Bob.”
“Bob’s her friend?” asked Cord.
“Yeah. He lives over by the casino. She works over there.”
“At the casino?”
“Sure. She’s a cocktail waitress at Four Bears,” said the boy with some pride.
“How about your dad?” asked Cord.
“I don’t have one.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cord, automatically.
“Well I’m not,” said the boy. “He wasn’t no good anyhow. He was a cop.”
Zeke changed it up. “Were you home last Saturday night, Tyler? The night before that girl was killed on the railroad tracks?”
Tyler said, “Sure. The tribal cops asked me about that.”
“Did you see anything strange happen that night?”
“Yeah, I told ‘em. The two girls were here, like always…”
“You know that because…?” asked Cord.
“Their car was parked out front. It’s a green car. And they had the music turned up loud.”
