Murder on the Red Cliff Rez

by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  “Just wanted to check on you. Find out how you’re doing .”

  Thelma sighed dramatically. “Oh, this has just been the most terrible day. I’ve tried to nap, ya know? But every time I close my eyes—”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Perry snapped, not at all interested in Thelma’s inability to nap. Hunching forward, one hand cupped around the mouthpiece, he began speaking in a low, urgent tone. “Thelma, there’s something I need you to do.”

  “Me?” she squeaked.

  “Yes, you. You’re the only person I trust completely.”

  Thelma didn’t know whether to be flattered or terribly afraid.

  Elliott Raven felt that if he had to explain to the county sheriff one more time that he didn’t know where David or the sheriff’s deputy had gone, he would explode. He’d sent out Mel and Joey to find them and that was the best he could do. Now he had to get on with locating the runaway widow. Not equipped with a detective’s cagey mind, Elliott did what came naturally. He called information in Oklahoma. Hey, why not? Information was free, and as the P.D. was forced to survive on a tight budget, free was real good.

  Sheriff Bothwell poured himself yet another cup of coffee, the last stuff in the old pot. He grimaced as he drank the overcooked muck, blatantly eavesdropping on the dispatcher’s one-sided telephone conversations.

  Freddy Harold had caught hell because of that little girl being a witness. Now what she had or hadn’t seen no longer seemed to matter because the wood was out of the water and safely hidden in the lumberyard in Ashland. So in essence, Freddy’s most lucrative job to date was finished. The big boss had been something of a comfort to Freddy when he said that because Freddy had run the old man deep into the woods and the old man hadn’t been seen or heard from in days, he’d most probably died of exposure. Which was a good thing, because once the body was found, the whole thing would look just like some old Indian fart’s way of dying. Old people, the boss said, wandered off and died all the time. He’d said it was because of old-timer’s disease.

  On the matter of the girl, the boss had not been understanding at all. He’d yelled at Freddy, said he was nothing more than a brainless ape. The boss had gone on to say that the girl was now working with the police. The boss had given Freddy the girl’s name, Tracker. What a dumb name for a girl. But knowing her name hadn’t helped Freddy find her. While the last of the logs were being lifted, he’d driven around the small rez reading the names printed on the mailboxes. Not one of them had TRACKER on it. He was tempted to simply come right out and ask questions about her, but even with his limited deductive skills, he had figured out that on an Indian reservation the Indians would take it entirely amiss that a big white man was inquiring about where to find one of their own. Now that the logs were safe, the big boss no longer seemed concerned about the girl. But because the operation’s security was Freddy’s job and the girl had breached that security, her living to talk about it severely damaged Freddy’s reputation.

  That’s the thing that made Freddy just as mad as mad could be. His reputation as a bad guy was all he had, the only thing that earned him good money when other guys a whole lot smarter than he was worked as minimum-wage help in restaurant kitchens. If he couldn’t find that girl and shut her up for good, he might as well get used to a life of dishpan hands. This possibility was why he was currently spending big in the Isle Vista Casino, in the bar area known as the Lanes. Freddy was being very friendly with the Indians seated at Mug Row, listening to the stories the Indian commercial fishermen told. It was clear their stories were meant to be jokes because the Indians all laughed like crazy. Freddy didn’t understand half of what was being said, but he laughed heartily anyway. Then bought another round of beers, nodding as if he understood when the Indians all said, Megwiitch!

  The Tribal Courthouse was completely shut down when C. Clarence Begay unlocked the front door with a purloined key and slipped inside. For a good half hour he’d been a busy boy.

  He wasn’t busy anymore.

  Expression thoroughly surprised, C. Clarence now lay flat on his back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, his green chile-loving form less than a foot away from the taped outline of the recently deceased tribal attorney. Within the taped outline, a black stain had settled deep into the new powder blue carpeting. Now a fresher stain marked the woof and weave. The new carpet stain was caused by the small black hole in between C. Clarence’s bushy eyebrows. The neat round hole was deceptive. The back section of C. Clarence’s skull had been blown apart. Now not only would the office need new carpeting, because of the recent grisly wall spatter, it would also need a few licks of paint.

  Imogen was physically and emotionally exhausted. Her mother had taken over her lively children, leaving Imogen perched like a bird on the living room couch and holding a cup of hot tea in her shaking hands. She’d been inside the safety of her parents’ home less than five minutes when the phone started ringing. She did not need to be told that the call was from Wisconsin. She’d known that simply by the coldness in her father’s tone. Now, sipping the tea without tasting it, she tried to take in what he was saying, tried with no success to fit together the jumble of words, make some sense of them. Then her father hung up. He turned to stare at her for a moment, then lifted the receiver and placed a call. Unfortunately, this second conversation she understood only too well.

  “Yes, Northwest? I’d like to make two reservations for tomorrow morning’s flight to Duluth.”

  David was on the porch’s first step and Michael eased out of the scruffy trees, quickly sidestepping in the direction of the far corner of the cabin. Then all hell broke loose as the front door suddenly swung open and Mushy came bounding out. The big dog hit David squarely in the chest, knocking him flat on his back on the ground.

  Michael fired.

  Tracker screamed.

  Then she was running toward David, and Michael averted his aim, raising the gun high just as it fired a second time.

  David was cussing at the dog standing squarely on his chest. The dog weighed a ton and David feared his ribs would crack when Tracker appeared, grabbing the dog’s thick collar, yelling for him to heel. Through every second of the excitement a wizened, filthy old man watched from the front door, dark eyes wide as saucers.

  “Well, damn,” Uncle Bert said to the odd foursome. “I was just havin’ a nap.”

  Inside the living room, Benny took over the couch where Old Bert had previously been napping. Michael helped David examine himself for dog bites while Tracker knelt beside Mushy, petting him and repeatedly telling him that he was a good boy.

  “Yeah, right,” David said snidely.

  Tracker rose to Mushy’s defense. “Well, he is a good boy! When he saw you coming up to my house with a gun, what was he suppose to think?”

  Jerking away from Michael, David shouted, “That dog couldn’t think its way out of a soggy paper bag.”

  “You’re only saying that because you know he doesn’t like you.”

  “Well, duh!” David jeered. “How’s he suppose to like me after you used my shirt to train him to attack?”

  “I used a pair of your jeans,” she corrected. “Your shirt wiped up puppy pee.”

  Michael was confused and in this state of confusion asked, “Hey? Are you guys married?”

  Both turned, yelling, “Gawain!” (No!)

  The men were sitting at the trestle table, two on either bench, with Uncle Bert dominating the discussion, while in the kitchen Tracker quickly threw together a pot of coffee. That done, she hurriedly came to sit at the table directly across from her uncle.

  “Didn’t hear nothin’,” Bert said, his tone peeved. “That ain’t unusual. My ears are so bad I can’t even hear myself snore.”

  Tracker nodded, knew that her uncle’s deafness was the primary cause of his self-imposed isolation. Even though he’d become adept at lip-reading, he hated his disability so much he’d chosen to cut himself off from everything and everyone.

  “My boys sure h
eard something, though,” her uncle was saying. Uncle Bert’s boys were his pack of horrible hounds. “I thought they was hearing a raccoon or some such, an’ I wasn’t interested because I was tired because I just got back from fishing. I caught a big string of brownies. I just let my boys go on outside by themselves. They was gone a good long time and I didn’t think nothing of that, neither. I was fixing to clean the fish when only two of ’em came back. I went looking for the other boys.”

  He paused to take a drag off his cigarette, ignoring the overly long ash drooping off the end. Fastidious about such things, Tracker watched the ash as her uncle exhaled and continued with his tale.

  “Mostly what I thought was that the boys had tangled with a bear, so I grabbed up my rifle an’ followed after the two that’d made it home.” The old man shook his head, let go a mournful sigh. The extended ash finally fell from the cigarette, landing on the table, disintegrating just outside the clean ashtray Tracker had slid near enough to catch it.

  “My boys are like that,” her uncle said, oblivious to the mess, his frowning niece. “Whenever they get into trouble, they come fetch me. I knew them two was taking me to their brothers. They led me straight for the cliffs and I could see ‘em running just up aways, but I was lookin’ mostly at the ground, checking for bear spoor. I looked up just in time to see Rusty, my best boy, leap straight up like he’d been gut-shot. Then he just flopped over. About that time, Sage, my other boy, got hit. I saw half his poor head get blown clear off.”

  The saddened old man took a final drag off the cigarette that had burned down to the filter; then he ground it out in the ashtray. Tracker no longer cared that her uncle had made an ashy mess of her polished table. Those dogs of his may have been the bane of everyone else’s existence, but they’d been his children. Seeing two of them shot dead would have been like receiving a stab straight through the heart. The old man rubbed a gnarled hand along moistening eyes.

  Trying to save him embarrassment, Tracker switched the subject, touching her uncle’s hand so that he would look at her, read her lips. “I called Dad.” Her uncle nodded, letting her know he understood. Tracker continued. “I told him you were safe. You know, everybody’s been out looking for you.”

  The old man’s eyes began to beam mischief as his lips curved in a sly smile. “I expect the ones doing the looking were mostly my enemies.” He croaked a wheezy laugh. “Ya know, the day I finally go toes-up, them guys are gonna have no one left to hate. Kinda reckon they’ll be the ones who’ll miss me most, eh?”

  Tracker chuckled with him. Kindness was not the old man’s strong suit. Shrugging the moment off, he looked again at David, speaking loudly and vehemently. “I was gonna get them dog killers, Davey. Was gonna shoot ’em deader’n snot. Didn’t care if I got hung for it, neither.”

  Uncle Bert grabbed the pack of cigarettes lying on the table. Taking one out, sticking it in his mouth, he leaned to the side, accepting a light from Benny, his bench mate. Blowing smoke toward the rafters, the old man once again began to rant.

  “Anybody low-down enough to shoot a dog ain’t fit to live. That’s what I was thinkin’ when all of a sudden this big son of a bitch comes out of nowhere. Had to be the biggest Chamook I ever seen in my whole sorry life. Just lookin’ at him scared the blue piss right outta me. I was fixin’ to draw down on him when three more Chamooks started comin’ outta the brush. Four on one ain’t fair, so I legged it. I ain’t run so fast since I was a kid. I was going for home when I got to thinkin’ that I was leading a bunch of strangers straight to where I live. That’s when I started running the other way.

  “It was after a couple of days of duckin’ an’ hidin’ that I got kinda curious about those fellas, and that’s when I slipped back to the cliffs. You kids’ll never guess what I saw goin’ on down in the bay.”

  Tracker touched his hand again. When he looked at her she said, “We already know.”

  The old man gave his niece a scowl. “All right, miss smarty britches, but do you know who I saw right down there with ’em?”

  “Could it have been our tribal attorney?”

  Bert gleefully slapped the table and howled, “You’re not even close, girlie!”

  David called the station, checking in. Elliott answered at the first ring. “Except for the sheriff hanging around and driving me screaming damn nuts, everything on this end is real quiet. I’ll radio Joey and Mel an’ tell ’em I found you, so it’s okay for them to go home an’ get some rest.”

  “No, don’t send them home.” David spoke hurriedly and Elliott was about to respond with his usual stream of questions when David sidetracked him. “How goes the hunt for our missing widow?”

  “That’s done,” Elliott answered proudly. “Found her with no trouble at all. She’s in Oklahoma, but she’s comin’ back tomorrow. Her dad called me with their flight number an’ everything.”

  “Good job.” David paused, collecting his thoughts. “Listen,” he finally said, “I’ve still got a few more things to do and I’m keeping the deputy with me. Before you radio the guys, tell Bothwell to go on back to Washburn. We’ll catch up with him in the morning.”

  Elliott caught on in seconds. Bothwell, seated at the second desk, seemed to be involved with an article in a year-old Field & Stream magazine. Elliott wasn’t fooled. “Yeah, you do sound pretty bushed,” Elliott said. “Why don’t you and that deputy go get a hot meal?”

  He paused, pretending to be listening as he scribbled on a notepad. Lifting the pad at an angle, looking down and through the bottoms of the bifocals resting on the tip of his bulbous nose, Elliott seemed to be reading back what David had dictated.

  “Okay, you’re getting a burger at the Lanes, then bunking down at your place. You’ll call in around five in the A.M. and you’re authorizing overtime for me to keep the shop open.” Elliott set the pad down, spoke with a smile on his face. “Thanks for the overtime, boss. My wife’s gums have been giving her fits and she hates the dentist over at our clinic. Makes me take her all the way to Ashland to see a dentist. Ya know, keepin’ that woman’s gums in her head is startin’ to cost me a whole lot of money. What? Oh … well, talk to ya later then.”

  David had been totally captivated by Elliott’s improvisational ability. He had just enough time before his dispatcher hung up to say, “Elliott, sometimes you’re worth your weight in gold.”

  “Ten-four, boss.”

  As both Benny and Uncle Bert looked completely done in, Tracker played mother, tucking them in separate beds. She assigned Benny the pull-out couch, Uncle Bert her bedroom. Because he missed his dogs so much, Tracker ordered Mushy to stay, pointing to his pallet she’d just laid out in its usual place at the bottom of her bed. Mushy, with a whipped-dog attitude, got the idea, but just to make certain that he stayed put, Tracker closed the bedroom door.

  David was making another call as she came into the main room and caught Michael examining a wide variety of Indian antiques displayed on the wall. He seemed especially taken with the old lacrosse sticks mounted like an X.

  She came to stand beside him. “Those belonged to my mother’s father,” she said. “Back in the twenties, Red Cliff was the only place left in the world where lacrosse was still being played the way it was meant to be played, with very few rules and absolutely no padding or helmets. My grandfather was said to be one of the best players. He once finished a game even though he had to run with a broken leg.”

  Michael looked obliquely at her. Her expression was impossible to read. But she had to be putting him on. No one could run with a broken leg. He snorted derisively. “That took guts.”

  “Yes,” she replied airily, “guts are a Charboneau trait.”

  Loath as she was to admit it, sometimes David was just too cool. He’d been extremely cool manipulating the deputy, convincing Michael that it was his very own idea to remain at the cabin in order to safeguard Uncle Bert and their prisoner, Benny.

  David had shrugged and said, “Well, if you insist.”


  Before Michael could think it out, realize that he’d been snookered, David had hustled her out. Now they were on their way to the Tribal Courthouse. They were in her truck, and without asking her permission, David slid behind the steering wheel, turning the key, which was still in the ignition. She was appalled that she’d allowed him to just do that as they sped down the gravel road; white birches lined both sides of the road, ghostly figures illuminated by the truck’s high beams.

  Tracker finally found her voice. “Won’t we be breaking and entering?”

  David sent her a brief sideways glance. “Nah. I’m the law, remember?”

  In the panel’s muted green light she saw his impish grin.

  The Tribal police department was normally closed and dark by this time of day, but as the day had been far from normal, lights blazed. Parked on a slant in front of the small building were two tribal patrol cars. Joey’s and Mel’s. They had either just performed their little errand or Elliott was still trying to explain it to them before they rolled.

  In the parking lot just across from the P.D., David killed the lights on Tracker’s truck as he steered into the parking lot for the Tribal Courthouse. He stopped at the back of the thoroughly dark building and shut down the engine.

  At the front door David held a pin light in his mouth as he inspected the overfull key ring, trying the keys one by one until he finally slipped the correct key into the dead bolt, gave it a turn, and heard the muted snick. Pocketing the keys, removing the pin light from his mouth, he turned to whisper a warning. That was when he realized Tracker was no longer standing right behind him. He had no idea how long she’d been gone because when she put her mind to it, she could move with all the noise of a wisp of smoke. “Damn woman,” he muttered as he entered the building. Once inside, he made certain the door was locked again. True, he’d effectively locked Tracker out, but if she’d stayed put, that wouldn’t have been a problem. He couldn’t simply leave the office unlocked due to his fear of someone stumbling in while he was in the act of committing a felony. So wherever she’d gotten to, Tracker was on her own.