Murder on the Red Cliff Rez

by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  While David had been fumbling with the keys, Tracker had spotted something irregular just off to the side. Because of the rains, the lawn had been rendered slushy, much too soft to tread upon without doing damage, thus incurring the Tribal Chairman’s wrath. But someone had dared to walk on the fragile lawn, someone unconcerned with sinking deep into the mud and trampling down the grass. Someone who preferred to edge along the office’s perimeter.

  David didn’t freely admit this to anyone, but he was largely superstitious. It didn’t help his phobia one little bit that the building was as black as the feathering of a death raven or that as he approached the ex-attorney’s office he was hit by an odor strong enough to gag a maggot. Cupping his left hand over his mouth and nose, David opened the door with his right.

  Twelve

  As Tracker stood outside the building watching David through the partially opened window, one side of her face was bleached by the light of the full moon. David, standing in the glow of a desk lamp, seemed rooted to the carpet as he stared at the floor, his attention fixed on something she couldn’t see. To gain his attention, she tapped the windowpane once, then twice. David did not respond. Deciding on a more direct approach, she spoke through the two-inch gap between the sash and frame.

  “Hey, sailor. Lookin’ for a good time?”

  David started violently, slapping a hand against his chest as he yelped, “Son of a bitch!” Catching sight of her, he was furious. “Damn it, Track! How long have you been out there?”

  “About a minute.” Her tone changed, became crisp. “I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but I found a lot of stuff out here.”

  He almost said, “There’s a lot of stuff in here, too.” Instead he asked, “What sort of stuff?”

  “I’m not telling until you give me a hand.”

  David went to the window, raised it high enough to pull her through. Her feet had barely touched the carpet when the smell hit her like a bomb.

  “My God!” she yelped, her hand flying to cover her nose and mouth. Behind this emergency mask she complained, “I can’t believe they still haven’t cleaned this place.”

  “They did,” he said dryly. “But now they’re going to have to clean it all over again.”

  She gasped sharply, hand falling away from her face. Voice faint, she said, “You mean, there’s …”

  In the pale light David’s eyes seemed impossibly large. “Oh, yeah.”

  Tracker whispered, “Anyone we know?”

  Nodding, David answered, “Uh-huh.”

  Doc Ricky was not handling the current situation at all well. As the P.D. did not have a holding cell, Elliott was worried that the doctor’s arm-waving would escalate, push the envelope on an already sticky situation. The tricky part was Mel. He’d stationed himself in front of the door, the office’s only means of escape, and eyeing the doctor the entire time, he caressed the butt of his holstered sidearm. If the doctor suddenly decided he didn’t want to be under arrest, made an attempt to leave, Elliott knew Mad Mel wouldn’t hesitate. He’d shoot Doc Ricky, then giggle over the doctor’s corpse. David badly needed to fire Mel. The boy just wasn’t right. Elliott’s one hope for disaster containment rested on Joey, who was sitting on a desk, speaking to the doctor in calming tones.

  “One phone call,” Doc Ricky shouted. “I know I have the right to make one phone call.”

  Languidly, Joey reached behind him, pulling the desk phone within easy reach. The doctor snatched up the receiver, index finger furiously stabbing the phone’s buttons.

  It was more than apparent that the Navajo was as dead as a door knocker, that any attempt at resuscitation would be a waste of effort. Given the sight of the recent paper storm, the office files strewn everywhere, it was also obvious that if any incriminating documents regarding the illegal log harvest had been found, they were long gone. David, worried the light had been on too long, that someone over in the P.D. would notice, switched off the lamp, snapped on the pin light, and guided Tracker out. Once they were in the hallway, the Tribal Attorney’s door firmly closed behind them, the fresher air helped clear their heads.

  “Okay,” he said wearily. “What stuff did you find outside?”

  “Footprints. Someone went from window to window, probably watching the Navajo.”

  “The shot that killed him didn’t come from any window,” David said crisply. “It was too clean.”

  “I didn’t say the shot was fired from the window,” she insisted. “I simply said someone went from window to window. That person could have been the killer or just someone trying to get a peek at the murder scene. You know, like a curious kid, maybe.”

  “I’m not buying that one, Track. Whoever it was wasn’t just looking in out of idle curiosity.”

  Tracker tossed her hands wide, slapped her thighs. A long time ago she learned that whenever David became argumentative, it was best not to feed into his mood.

  “All right,” David said mostly to himself. “Let’s assume that the Navajo was here to get a look at poor old Jud’s files. Then let’s say Peepers wanted to have a look, too, and surprises said Navajo. Then of course Peepers has to kill him.”

  “And Peepers did come inside,” she said softly.

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s a partial footprint in blood that matches the prints outside.”

  David removed his cap, scratched the top of his head. “Which would mean Peepers and the killer were after the same thing but weren’t exactly on the same team.”

  “Or, we’re back to the curious kid wanting to get a look at a freshly killed person.”

  Thoroughly frustrated, David slammed the cap back onto his head. “Damn, Track, stay with me on this. Forget the curious kid. There is no curious kid. What we have are two dead guys and about ten tons of missing white pines, and all we have as a near witness to anything is your loony uncle. We need something solid, something written down and—”

  Tracker received a brain jolt. “Hildy!”

  “What?”

  “Hildy,” she snapped. “Hildy Blanc!” Tracker took off in a run. Hoping to prevent her from killing herself as she ran the dark hallway, David followed, fixing the narrow beam of his pin light just ahead of her running boots.

  Hildy Blanc had been the Tribal Court Recorder for decades. Not only did she record all court sessions, she was also responsible for keeping the records for literally everything. Hildy was a good soul but generally thought to be quirky. Actually, what Hildy was, was cunning. She knew that on a small reservation with few job opportunities, the key to her continuous employment lay in her own unique filing system. The harder her system was for anyone else to figure out, the more secure she was in her job when governing councils changed. The tiny office belonging to the Court Recorder had floor-to-ceiling shelves, each shelf stuffed with cryptically encoded files that made absolutely no sense to anyone other than Hildy. Because of the shelves, Hildy’s tiny empire had no windows, so Tracker and David could snap on the overhead lighting. After their eyes focused, she and David stood looking at the shelves in horror.

  “This will take years,” David groaned.

  Trackers swallowed her anxiety. “How long can you hold the good doctor before you have to charge him?”

  David checked his wristwatch, did a quick mental calculation. “About four more hours.”

  Tracker took a deep breath, let it go. “Then we just start pulling paper. And neatness doesn’t count.”

  “Thank God.”

  Receiver against her ear, mouth a tight line, Wanda listened. Behind her, her husband sat in the old wingback easy chair. After a long day of pulling a few reservation cars back from the brink of death, then finding ways to hold them together using little more than baling wire, the rez’s one and only magical repairman was pure tuckered. He was also sipping a can of beer and getting steadily drunker as he watched television, the volume—as usual—too loud. Even though she knew he couldn’t hear due to the television, out of habit, Wanda sto
le a glance over her shoulder before speaking.

  “Why should I help you?” she snarled, her voice low.

  “Because I love you.”

  That was it. The one line able to melt her like butter. Still she remained silent for a moment, letting him squirm.

  “Baby?” His voice held a pleading edge.

  “Ten minutes,” she said. Then she put the phone down.

  Tracker heard the front door of the building open, and for a second, she froze. David, on his knees as he rifled through a pile of folders, was oblivious. Tracker really could have used that fraction of a second, but because she’d wasted it, she was unable to close the door to the Court Recorder’s cubby before all the lights in reception flashed on. The lights were quickly followed by the sound of footsteps coming along the hallway. Then the footfalls stopped.

  “Hello?” a female voice quivering with trepidation hailed. “Is someone here?”

  It was David’s turn to freeze.

  “We’re going to have to front this out,” Tracker said, her words just a notch above hissing.

  Looking up at her, David was thinking quickly, none of the thoughts flitting through his brain good ones. There was another dead body in the Courthouse, and he, as police chief, should be entirely focused on the murder investigation. Instead, he was about to be caught on his knees rifling through tribal records.

  David did a bit of hissing of his own. “If you have any idea on just how we can brazen this one out, trust me, I’m all ears.”

  “You’re the law!” she whispered.

  His response was notably sarcastic. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but right now I’m a lawman about to be caught in a highly illegal act.”

  Tracker’s eyes hardened. “Sometimes you’re just too helpless.”

  “Is this where you slap me for my own good?”

  Making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, Tracker turned on her heel.

  Legs shaking, heart thumping like a drum, Thelma stood in the partially illuminated hall. The Court Recorder’s door was open and the lights were on inside. Thelma knew she wasn’t imagining the voices. She was not alone in what should be an empty building. Thelma was about to run away when Tracker darted out into the hall. Relief came over her in such a huge wave that Thelma very nearly keeled over. Yet as Tracker came toward her, Thelma rallied. “Do you know you scared me half to death?”

  Tracker came to a stop. “Sorry, Thel.”

  The muttered apology further fueled Thelma’s anger. “What are you doing here? And how did you get in when the front doors were locked?”

  Before Tracker could answer, both women heard a male voice say, “Thelma, the doors were locked because this is suppose to be a secured crime scene.” David showed an indignant face. “You mind telling me what you’re doing here this time of night?”

  Stepping to the side of Tracker, Thelma was at a loss as she stared at the Tribal Police Chief standing half in, half out of the Recorder’s office. Striving to regain the moment, Tracker moved to block Thelma’s view of David.

  Placing a hand lightly on the woman’s trembling arm, she said soothingly, “It’s all right. Just answer his question and I’ll make certain he doesn’t arrest you.”

  A great respecter of authority, Thelma proceeded to babble. “I’m here because of Perry.” Dabbing her eyes with a thoroughly used and wadded piece of tissue that seconds ago had been hidden inside her hand, Thelma sobbed. “I told him I couldn’t bring myself to come back inside this place, that I’m about to have a nervous collapse, but he said I’m the only one who can find anything in Hildy’s—”

  “What?”

  David’s bark had Thelma jumping almost straight up and straight out of her sensible shoes. Tracker grabbed the older woman’s cold hand and rubbed it briskly, sending both warmth and reassurance. Thelma sniffled into the tissue, then meekly squeaked, “Perry told me he needed a file from Hildy’s office.”

  Barely a minute after managing to put aside her case of the frights, Thelma suffered a relapse. For a space of moments she could only stare in shock at the mess Tracker and David had made of the Court Recorder’s little den. Squaring her shoulders enabled Thelma to regain a modicum of her formidable self. She stepped into the breach, a veritable whirlwind of efficiency. Moments later, all of the folders were crammed again in their rightful slots. With the exception of the folder requested by the Tribal Chairman. That folder was clutched against Thelma’s well-endowed bosom, as with one eyebrow slightly raised, she began to regard the pair before her with increasing suspicion.

  “There’s something here that smells just a little funny,” she said, eyes shifting between Tracker and David.

  “Oh,” David said, “that’d be the Navajo.”

  Tracker kicked his ankle.

  But it was far too late to whistle back David’s little faux pas. Thelma clutched the folder more tightly as she began cautiously sniffing the air. “My God,” she said, a tremulous edge to her voice, “something really does smell bad.”

  There was no doubt about it. With the advent of Thelma, the secret of another body in the Tribal Courthouse was well and truly out of the bag. On a brighter note, David now had the file he’d needed. Having pried it away from Thelma, he whipped through it like a dervish, finding in small print the name of a global company currently being sued in just about every country on the planet for a host of unethical practices.

  Nagaki Limited.

  That one name had been making national news at least once a week, each piece ending with the same file footage of Japanese businessmen doing their best to dodge cameras while Greenpeacers hollered, “Planet rapists!” None of the news reports had ever bothered David before. The Japanese company had only seemed to be bad news for the rain forests and the dolphins. Now his own people were about to feel the brunt of Nagaki’s illicit pilfering. Incensed beyond description, David gave the file to Tracker for safekeeping as he loped off to one of the offices to place a rather delayed call.

  The line rang and rang.

  There was no answer.

  The first shot had blasted out the front room’s picture window, shards of flying glass inflating the drawn curtains. The shot had missed Michael by inches. Benny, who was sleeping on the couch, instantly woke and rolled off the sleeper bed. More shots came through and Michael and Benny crawled across the bare wood floor, pulling the plugs of all the lamps that were on. Able to see only dimly in the darkened cabin, they scrambled for Tracker’s freestanding gun cabinet in the far corner. Michael would never again complain about North Woods women and their passion for guns. In between the sporadic shots, snores could be heard coming from the bedroom.

  Blessed are the stone deaf, Michael thought. For they shall die in their sleep.

  At the cabinet, Michael quickly learned that Tracker wasn’t in the habit of keeping the gun cabinet locked for safety. Ordinarily, he would have given her a stern lecture on the subject, but just at the moment he was simply too thankful for her negligence. Benny made a grab for the Winchester 70 just after Michael lifted out the lever-action Winchester 94.

  “Ammo’s in the drawer,” Benny said.

  The drawer was heavy, sliding out jerkily after several frantic tugs. A shot slammed into the brace holding up a moose rack and the trophy came down, hitting the floor with an ear-rupturing clatter.

  “Oh, man,” Benny whined nasally, looking nervously over his shoulder at the ruined treasure, “Track’s gonna be so pissed. She took that moose in Canada.”

  Another round zinged just above their heads and the two men slapped the floor. Then the telephone began to ring. Michael lifted his head just enough to make out Benny’s shadowy form. Michael had never, if one discounted the drunk with laughable aim, been in a shoot-out. He was scared half out of his mind, but at the same time flooded with an intense adrenaline rush. Somehow, as the telephone continued to shrill, he managed to keep his voice even. “You wanna get that?”

  The antique lamp on a small table exploded,
both men protectively covering their heads with their arms. Blissfully unconcerned, the telephone pealed on.

  “I don’t think it’s for me!” Benny yelped.

  Rolling onto his back, shoving a shell into the rifle, Michael said, “It’s probably a telemarketer anyway.”

  Benny’s rifle was loaded, ready to go. The phone persisted, demanding immediate attention. Benny looked at the telephone with pure disgust. “I hate those guys. Have you ever noticed they always call during the most inconvenient times?”

  David looked at the receiver in his hand with such a confused expression one would think he’d never seen a telephone before. Hanging up, he called out to Tracker, who was busy in the reception area settling an extremely unsettled Thelma. “Hey, Track? Did you pay your phone bill?”

  “Yes,” she hollered, annoyed.

  “Then why isn’t anyone answering at your place?”

  David heard running feet; then Tracker was in the side office looking at him accusingly. “What do you mean, no one’s answering?”

  “I mean no one’s answering.”

  “Are you sure you called the right number?”

  David exploded. “Of course I called the right number!” He was about to say a bit more, but there was no point.

  Tracker was gone.