The Red Power Murders

by Thomas King

  “Great.”

  “And then there’s me.”

  There were patches of snow under the evergreens, but the path along the river was open. As he walked along, Thumps could feel his nose turning red and his toes turning blue.

  “They wanted me to be an artist. Like my father. Instead I became . . .”

  “An activist?”

  Dakota turned and smiled. “That’s not what my mother called it.”

  No, thought Thumps, mothers would want other things for their daughters. “They disown you?”

  “God, no,” said Dakota. “They loved me. They just wanted me to be more like them.”

  “That’s parents.”

  Dakota stopped and looked at the river. “I wanted to be more like Lucy.”

  There it was. The signal to begin the questions. Only now, Thumps wasn’t at all sure he wanted any part of this.

  “Noah didn’t kill Street.”

  “Sheriff and the FBI aren’t so sure about that.”

  “And Lucy wasn’t a mole.”

  Thumps hoped Dakota would start walking again.

  “But there was an informant. Do you know who Massasoit was?”

  “The Indian who helped the early English settlements in New England.”

  “At first we thought the FBI and the Salt Lake police were just getting lucky,” said Dakota, “but after a while, it was pretty clear that someone was tipping them off to our plans.”

  “Massasoit.”

  “Yeah. If we were going to go to Temple Square to protest the Mormon Placement Program, the police would be waiting for us. If we arranged a secret strategy meeting with AIM, the police would come in and break it up.”

  “Any idea who Massasoit was?”

  “No. That was the frustrating part. But Noah figured that it had to be someone high up in RPM or AIM. Especially after Clinton Buckhorn.”

  At first the name didn’t register. And then Thumps remembered. “The raid in Salt Lake.”

  “Buckhorn and two other guys kidnapped the CEO of Morgan Energy and broke into corporate headquarters.” Dakota bent down and picked up a stone. “They made it as far as Salt Lake. Only a few people knew where Buckhorn was hiding.”

  “At his cousin’s house. Reuben Justice.”

  “One of the guys was wounded. Reuben tried to help him, but he was in a bad way.”

  “Who knew?” Thumps tried to remember the events. “Noah and Lucy?”

  “Probably.”

  “Did you know?”

  “No. I wasn’t part of the inner circle. I was a . . . my mother called me a groupie once.”

  “That’s just mothers.”

  “She wasn’t completely wrong. I had this romantic idea of what the movement was going to accomplish.”

  “Everybody had the same idea.”

  “Anyway, someone tipped the FBI.”

  “And they raided Justice’s house.”

  “Buckhorn and the other two guys were killed.” Dakota picked up another stone. “So were a couple of FBI agents.”

  “And Lucy?”

  “Noah figured that the FBI pulled her and put her in one of those witness protection programs.”

  Thumps could see the logic, even if it didn’t make any sense. “If Lucy was Massasoit, and she tipped the FBI, then they should have known what they were walking into.”

  “I guess.”

  “Which means that either the FBI botched the raid, or Massasoit set them up.”

  “After the raid, Lucy disappeared. And so did Massasoit.”

  “Which made it look as though Lucy was the informant.” Thumps knew the answer to the next question, but he asked it anyway. “But you didn’t believe it?”

  “I knew her,” said Dakota simply and without emotion. “She wouldn’t have done that.”

  The wind had picked up. Dakota stepped into him, almost touching.

  “We should go back.”

  Thumps wanted to hold Dakota, as he had when he took her to the train all those years ago. It had seemed a comfort for her at the time. Perhaps it would be a comfort for her now.

  “Why do you think Mitchell Street came to Chinook?”

  “I don’t know.” Dakota took another step forward and brushed Thumps’s cheek with her scarf. “Noah thinks it was Street who sent the death threat.”

  Thumps took his hands out of his pockets and put his arms around Dakota. “I’m cold.”

  Dakota settled in against him and laid her face against his. “Are you going to try to save me again?”

  “From what?”

  “From Noah.” Dakota smiled. “From myself.”

  “You could walk away,” said Thumps. “Start over. Take up art, the way your folks wanted.”

  “I’ve come too far.” Dakota looked back at the low skyline of the town in the distance. “I wouldn’t know how to get back.”

  “What are you doing after the reading?”

  “This another date?”

  “If you like.”

  The wind and the cold were behind them as they walked back to town. Neither of them spoke, as though they had run out of things to say. But Thumps had more questions, some he had intended to ask, some that had appeared on their own. For now, they could wait. If Street had meant to kill Noah, then Noah was safe, and the sheriff would have to try to find out who had killed Street. And why. But if Street had been killed by the same person who wanted Noah dead, then the business of murder had only begun.

  SIXTEEN

  Thumps left the Volvo in the hotel garage and walked to the sheriff’s office. He would have preferred to spend the rest of the day with Dakota, and she might have said yes, but Thumps knew Hockney would want to see him before the evening’s activities began.

  “About time.”

  Asah was sitting in the spare chair next to the coffee pot.

  “Did I miss anything?”

  “Nothing much,” said Duke, working his mouth from side to side in his peculiar way that always reminded Thumps of oatmeal on the boil. “Special Agent Asah and I have been catching up on old times.”

  Duke and Asah didn’t know each other well enough to have old times. So, if Thumps had to guess, his money was on “old times” being Noah Ridge.

  “Special Agent Asah here has been telling me all about Salt Lake City, and guess what?”

  Thumps had all sorts of answers for “guess what” questions. “You guys know who killed Mitchell Street?”

  Asah did something with his face that was somewhere between a sneer and a smile. “I took a look at Street’s old case files.”

  “Evidently,” said Duke, “the FBI can send that sort of stuff over the internet just by pushing a button, and guess what Special Agent Asah found?”

  There was that “guess-what” question again.

  “You know who Massasoit was.”

  This time it was the sheriff’s turn to look amused. “Evidently, Street thought it was Lucy Kettle.”

  “So, there actually was a Massasoit. There really was a mole in RPM.”

  Asah reached over and poured himself a cup of coffee. Thumps thought about warning him, but he didn’t want to stop the conversation and then have to start it again.

  Besides, drinking the sheriff’s brew was probably good field experience.

  “Oh, Massasoit was real enough. And well paid.” Asah watched the coffee slip out of the pot like cold syrup. “Over a period of five years, the bureau paid Massasoit in excess of three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And Street was Massasoit’s contact?”

  Hockney leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs. “Tell him the interesting part.”

  “Lucy Kettle was from around here.” Asah put the cup on the table and stepped away. The man was a quick learner.

  Thumps concentrated on sounding surprised. “You’re kidding.”

  “Tell him the rest.”

  “Kettle had a brother. Man by the name of Grover Many Horses.”

  Hockney pulled his le
gs in and rolled the chair forward. “You ever meet Grover?”

  “Nope,” said Thumps, and this time he didn’t have to pretend.

  “Here you go,” said Duke, holding up a piece of paper. “You and Asah get Grover. I get the television stations.”

  “Television stations?”

  “As soon as Milo put his damn story on the wire, every network west of Newfoundland began calling me.” The sheriff went to the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. Thumps wondered if Hockney’s coffee could stay in liquid form at room temperature. “So, which of you puppies told Milo about Street being FBI?”

  Thumps looked at Asah.

  Asah smiled and shook his head. “Not guilty.”

  “That’s what they all say,” said the sheriff, without the hint of humour in his voice.

  “No reason to give the press something to feed on,” said Asah. “Just makes our work harder.”

  Hockney grunted and turned to Thumps.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “Well,” said the sheriff, “someone did, and the big three are sending crews to cover the reading and to interview anyone who was within shouting distance of Ridge or Street.”

  “What about the coroner?” said Asah.

  “Beth?” Thumps smiled and turned to see if Hockney was smiling. “It wasn’t her.”

  Asah shrugged. “Nobody else knew.”

  Not exactly right, thought Thumps.

  “Sonofabitch!” Hockney gave the desk a friendly punch. “Don’t suppose I have to guess why he would do something like that.”

  “Ridge?” Asah seemed surprised by the answer.

  “Makes sense,” said Thumps. “The publicity would help book sales.”

  Hockney turned on Thumps. “I’m getting real annoyed with your buddy.”

  “He’s not my buddy.” Thumps could see that there was no more fun to be had at this gathering. “I’m just taking his picture.”

  “Not anymore,” said Hockney. “You’ve been fired.”

  “Fired?”

  “Yep,” said Hockney. “Archie came by to ask me to tell you that, with the big boys covering the story, the library committee wouldn’t be needing you.”

  “Great.”

  “I told him to tell you himself.” Hockney put the coffee cup down and checked his tie in the mirror. “Sure as hell not a messenger service.”

  So far as Thumps could tell, Asah hadn’t touched his coffee. Watching it come out of the pot had been enough to make him think twice about the wisdom of trying to drink it.

  Asah got his parka. “I’ll drive.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Grover lives in some town called Glory,” said Asah.

  “We’re going to drive up there and ask him if he beat up Noah Ridge and killed an FBI agent?”

  “That’ll do for starters,” said the sheriff. “And if you don’t like the answers you get, arrest him. It’ll save me a trip. We can sort out the pieces later.”

  GLORY WAS AN old gold-mining town that had been saved from oblivion by Hollywood, though Thumps found it hard to believe that Hollywood could save much of anything. The town was down to its last few inhabitants when a film crew happened upon it, and the director pronounced the main street with its rundown but authentic turn-of-the-century storefronts perfect for the big battle scene, where the town itself would be blown to smithereens. On cue.

  The only problem with the plan was the female lead, a woman whose name Thumps could not remember, who took a liking to the town and the surrounding mountains. Before the director could plant the charges, his leading lady rounded up a flock of her friends from Los Angeles, who bought most of the land and declared Glory to be the next Palm Springs or Lake Tahoe or Carmel. The script was rewritten, and the town in the film and the town in real life were saved in the nick of time.

  Thumps couldn’t recall if the movie had been a success. Glory certainly had been. Almost overnight, townhouses and condominiums sprang up in the foothills around the town, and the wonderful old buildings on Main Street were bulldozed and replaced with wonderful new buildings that were exact replicas of the originals.

  “You know how to get there?”

  Glory wasn’t on the main road. And it wasn’t on the map. Word that the town had been saved evidently hadn’t reached the road-map makers in time, and current editions of the various travel atlases had a blank space where the town should be. Not that this omission bothered any of the residents. Thumps suspected that the rich did not mind the anonymity of not being on a map, that, for them, living in a non-existent place had a certain cachet.

  “You sure you know how to get there?”

  Asah was right to be concerned. The road Thumps told him to turn onto didn’t look at all promising.

  “Don’t worry. We hit pavement in about two miles.”

  The road to Glory had always been a dirt track, but with the advent of film and fame, all of that changed, and plans were drawn up for a four-lane boulevard accented by a raised interlocking-brick centre divide. With aspens set in iron gratework every forty feet.

  But as the landscape architects and the bulldozers and the pavers had moved out of town on their way to the main road, a dispute arose over part of the right of way, and the folks in Glory and the rancher who owned the land adjacent to the road, who had no appreciation for celebrities or tree-lined boulevards, all wound up in court. So far as Thumps knew, the case was still there, and the first mile and a half of the road remained in the same natural state in which the film crew had found it.

  “We on the reservation?”

  But once you got to the top of the first rise, the new road took over, and all the way down into the narrow valley, you could watch the buildings flash in the light and marvel at the magical powers of money.

  “Jesus,” said Asah. “Grover Many Horses lives here?”

  Actually, no one lived in Glory. Not year-round, that is. People with money, Thumps had observed, didn’t stay in one spot. They were nomadic, moving with the seasons. Migratory. And skiing vacations at St. Moritz and Banff aside, rich people tended to follow the sun.

  As they drove along the main street, Thumps had to remind himself that success should not be measured in terms of real-estate acquisitions and disposable income. Though from what he could see, no one in Glory believed this.

  “Look for the video store.”

  The Glory Video Emporium was not hard to find. It was on the main street, and it was one of the few storefronts that was still open. Grover Many Horses was standing behind the counter checking DVDs into the computer.

  “I’m looking for Grover Many Horses,” said Asah, making his voice sound as official as possible.

  “You found him.”

  Grover was a short, thin man with large hands that bore a striking resemblance to Vise-Grips. His hair and face were cut at angles, and when Thumps looked at Grover from the side, the man reminded him of Cherokee actor Wes Studi.

  Asah took his identification out of his jacket pocket and held it up so Grover could see it.

  “You guys actors?”

  “No, he’s really FBI,” said Thumps. “I’m a photographer.”

  “DreadfulWater,” said Grover. “Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Asah looked at Thumps as if he had somehow broken the law.

  “Yeah, old man Blood said you’d probably stop by.”

  “Moses?”

  “He’s my mother’s uncle. He said you’d want to ask me questions about Lucy.”

  Asah didn’t like being cut out of the conversation. “Actually,” he said, “I get to ask the questions.”

  Grover turned back to Asah. “You’re not Blackfeet.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t a complaint.

  “He’s Kiowa,” said Thumps. “But he’s okay.”

  Grover put the DVDs to one side. “Yeah,” he said, “well, make it quick, unless you want to pay me for my time.”


  Thumps could feel Asah bristle.

  “Mr. Many Horses,” he said, pitching his voice in the way that cops did when they wanted to make things sound official and serious, “you really want to piss me off?”

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  Asah leaned on the counter. “Do you?”

  Grover glanced at Thumps. Thumps shrugged and shook his head.

  “So, ask your damn questions.”

  Asah didn’t sneak up on the questions the way Hockney liked to do, and Grover didn’t try to slip around the edges as Thumps thought he would, and the interview was over in no time at all.

  Do you know a man named Mitchell Street?

  No.

  Do you know Noah Ridge?

  My sister worked with him in Salt Lake City.

  Do you have any reason to believe Mr. Ridge was responsible for your sister’s disappearance?

  Lucy said he was an asshole.

  Where were you evening before last?

  Here at the store.

  Where were you this morning?

  Home.

  Can you prove it?

  Nope.

  Nice clean questions. Nice clean answers. Asah rattled them off as if he had each one written on his cuff. Grover answered each one as though he were reading them off a teleprompter.

  Thumps waited until Asah had finished. “You got any good deals on movies?” he asked.

  Grover took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. “DVD or tape?”

  “DVD.”

  “Not too much left. The kids always clean me out just before they go back to school.”

  “Pretty good business?”

  “Little slow right now, but summer is great.”

  “You going to close it down over the winter?”

  “I just close early,” said Grover. “Summertime I stay open till one. After the long weekend, I generally lock it up around five.”

  “So, who told you Ridge was coming to town?”

  Grover picked up the stack of DVDs. “No one,” he said. “Saw it in the papers.”

  “You going to the reading?”

  “Maybe.” Grover lowered his eyes. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” said Thumps. “If Lucy was my sister, I’d want to meet him.”