Dead Poor

by M. K. Coker

  DEAD POOR

  A Dakota Mystery

  M.K. Coker

  Copyright © M.K. Coker. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover Art by Glendon S. Haddix of Streetlight Graphics.

  Edition: April 2018

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The Dakota Mystery Series:

  Dead White

  Dead Dreams

  Dead Wrong

  Dead Quiet

  Dead News

  Dead Hot

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In memory of Brett Wilk—homeless no more.

  CHAPTER 1

  Barf bucket dangling from one hand, Lori Jansen trudged up the worn trail that snaked up to the overlook of Grove Park. In the cover of gnarly old trees with bark rougher than Eda County back roads, branches grasped at her. She was just out of their reach—but not for long. Shoulders hunched, she didn’t bother to glance up at the beauty shimmering around her as the crushing weight of darkness lifted—for the day, not for her.

  Each footstep was a struggle as her scuffed dollar-store sneakers crunched over tattered brown leaves curled up into themselves, grinding them into the packed dirt. All she wanted was sleep. The bucket hit the side of her leg in a rhythmic throb that matched the twinges from the stitch in her side. A whip-poor-will called from somewhere deep in the darkened woods below.

  Whip-poor-Lori, more like.

  Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

  The answer to that verse, she’d decided years ago, was no. Any value she’d possessed had long ago been ground into the mud under her mother’s heel, like the bright ribbon Lori had gotten for that long-ago feat of memorization. Her mother had used summer vacation Bible schools as free childcare.

  Don’t let those holy rollers mess with your mind. You gotta learn to use them before they use you. Trust nobody.

  Only when Lori reached the rise into the grassy clearing of the overlook did she raise her head. Blowing bangs out of bloodshot eyes, she pushed back the hood of the gray hoodie she’d inherited from her son. Hand-me-ups, she’d told him, making him laugh, as at eleven, he was already taller than his mother.

  But Bobby hadn’t been laughing lately. Neither had she.

  Buck up, girl, her granddad’s voice told her. A new day’s a new slate.

  After rubbing the grit from her eyes, she took a moment—just a moment—to take in the new day. The blue, rose, and orange pastels were a softness she’d never known in her own life. And she realized that she had company—and not the usual dainty doe or a strutting turkey.

  A stocky man with a steel-colored buzz cut sat in a lawn chair just outside a sleek silver RV. The sun nudged up over the horizon on the endless Dakota plains below and shaded it red. The man looked right through her as he sipped from a hefty ceramic mug that steamed in the cool air of the October morning. Even from the path, she could smell the scent of freshly ground coffee, and her stomach rumbled.

  Maybe she’d faded right away in the night. Yeah, right. She kicked a fallen branch from off the trail. She should be used to being invisible to people like him. Sitting there like he didn’t have a care in the world in a vehicle that must’ve cost several times more than the home she’d just lost, he saw beauty. She saw crap. Day after day. All for eight dollars and sixty-five cents an hour.

  She stalked up to the closest of the two wooden vault toilets, the men’s. Neither was much bigger than the outhouse at Granddad’s farm. Grabbing hold of the door handle, she parted her lips to breathe through her mouth. She’d learned that trick real quick. She pulled opened the door—the creak always made her think of house of horrors at Halloween. At the screech, the RVer finally deigned to notice her, frowning deeply as if wondering if she were some kind of pervert. A trans-whatever.

  She raised the bucket in answer, resisted the urge to lift a middle finger, and went inside. She reached for the cleaning supplies kept in what she called her barf bucket. That was just what it’d been when she first started this job.

  Flies swarmed from the inside. She backed out in a hurry, almost gagged on a few of the critters, and wondered what they’d found to feast on so late in the season.

  Whatever it was, it was more than she’d had. When had she last eaten? Dashing away flies, she went back into the—what did those old movies that Granddad had watched call it? The beach? No, the breech. He’d acted like he’d been there himself, but the truth was, he hadn’t even been born until it was all over. Vietnam, that was his war, but he’d never talked about it, except once when he’d said he would have taken some pride in putting Hitler down. He wasn’t sure he’d put down anything but his health on the rice paddies. Agent Orange had taken Granddad down over a decade ago—that and heartbreak.

  Lori put down the bucket, pulled on her gloves, and took out the Pine-Sol and scrub brush. The toilet was little more than a covered hole in a piece of plywood, once painted white, now yellowed to the color of pee. She flipped up the cover, and the light of the single naked bulb reached down into the deep vault below.

  Her high, piercing scream echoed off the concrete slab floor.

  Instead of a mound of turds and soggy tissue, a bloated face stared up at her from a couple feet down, sightless eyes dulled by death, mouth gaping open and full of...

  Oh, shit.

  Whirling, Lori barfed into the bucket as the RVer rushed in, fists high. Turning from judge to savior, he pulled her over to his makeshift camp, called in the law, brought her a blanket when she couldn’t stop shaking, and insisted she sip some of the dark, rich coffee he’d brewed in his solar-powered RV.

  He was, he told her, a retired firefighter, and he’d seen a lot. But a body in a john? With its mouth stuffed full of crap?

  Never.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tired and wired, Sheriff Karen Mehaffey was still reeling from the shocking news when she and her part-time detective and younger half-uncle, Marek Okerlund, drove up one of the few hills in Eda County.

  She didn’t know when she’d last been to Grove Park, but she’d been a kid, maybe on a Girl Scout campout or at a Sunday church picnic in the shelter of the woods on a hot summer’s day. Just the thought of blackened brats and gooey s’mores made her stomach rumble l
oudly enough to raise her passenger’s eyebrows.

  “Should’ve picked up something at the airport,” Marek said, looking rested and relaxed after their flight from Albuquerque. While she’d been strapped in and hating every immobile second, her mind speeding faster than the plane, he’d slept like the dead, along with his young daughter.

  They’d left Reunion, South Dakota, a week ago for a job hunt and vacation after she’d lost a brutal election against a man who had as little care for the truth as he did for the people who’d elected him. She was returning as the duly elected sheriff after a recount, and the man she’d beaten was in the can—literally. Or so she’d heard from the last man standing—or woman, actually—on her roster when the call came in before change of shift.

  Josephine Lindstrom, the longtime secretary for the Eda County Sheriff’s Office, might retire for real after being left holding the bag—or badge. But before her flight home, Karen had told Josephine to roust the day-shift deputies, and they’d cordoned off the scene and held it until the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation showed up.

  Deputy Walter Russell, aka Walrus, with his bald pate and graying handlebar mustache, met them at the barricade at the fork in the road that led up to the overlook.

  Karen rolled down her window. “Sorry I had to pull you back so early from your vacation.” Walrus, his wife, and their three sons had been fishing at Lewis and Clark Lake near Yankton. “Tell Laura I’m sorry that I cut it short.”

  “Oh, she was happy enough to come back once Josephine spilled the recount results. Well, that and the boys were driving her crazy, and she was tired of gutting and eating fish. We’re both delighted you’re back on board, Sheriff. Neither of us were looking forward to me being on the night shift again at the highway patrol. Low man on the totem pole and all. Geez, they’re pretty strict about things, too.” He cleared his throat at her slow blink. “Not that you don’t run a tight ship.”

  One thing about Walrus: he never held a grudge and didn’t mind being ribbed. “I’m happy you put your hat back in the ring,” she told him. “I haven’t heard from any of the others.”

  “Kurt’s in the campground, taking statements. He hasn’t said squat about his future plans. Not to me, anyway.”

  Her day-shift deputies were the original odd couple, and they preferred bickering to talking whenever possible. She doubted she would have all of her roster back, though. They’d all made their plans based on her election loss. But she could hope. Finding good people willing to take low-paying jobs for long hours in a rural backwater wasn’t easy.

  After Walrus moved the barrier, she drove through and continued on up to the overlook parking lot, where she saw a brand-new SUV. She parked her vintage Corvette—an impractical vehicle for the Dakotas but a legacy from her deceased husband—between the black monstrosity and the DCI van. She got out, feeling like Cinderella at the ball, minus a fairy godmother to deck her out in the requisite finery. She’d had no time to change out of her vacation clothes of a frayed and faded red University of South Dakota sweatshirt and white-at-the-knee jeans. She hadn’t retrieved her official vehicle, either, when they’d returned. They had only taken time to drop Marek’s daughter off, along with his Silverado pickup, with Karen’s father before heading for the park. Karen felt less than official for a case that she’d considered just handing over to DCI.

  When a man with dirty-blond hair and gunmetal eyes met her at the path that led to the cordoned-off toilet, she hit him with her best shot. “I’ve got motive.”

  “Pathetic. Want out, say so.” Agent Dirk Larson glowered at her. “Welcome home.”

  The ex-Chicago cop who worked out of the Sioux Falls office of the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation was well-known for his bullet-style conversation. “You’re such a sap, Larson. But seriously, wouldn’t it be better if you took the case?”

  “I kissed you. Makes me suspect.”

  Karen rolled her gaze around to see if anyone other than her closemouthed half-uncle had picked up on that. But as most of her roster was out, there was little fear of being overheard except maybe by the young woman with a bucket and an older man by a silver bullet of an RV. Witnesses, she pegged them. “It still seems iffy.”

  “Would be stupid to kill the man before the recount. You’re not stupid.”

  That was more than Dirk Larson had thought when they’d initially met, butting heads over a crime scene that she’d inadvertently contaminated. Who knew they would end up locking lips—though no more than that, so far, especially as she’d just come within a hair’s breadth of taking a job in Albuquerque.

  “Dahl filled me in,” Larson went on, obviously in no hurry to return to the crime scene. “Alibi. Homicide. Balloon. Photo. Do your job.”

  He’d provided a succinct summary of her last several hours. She’d been up in a balloon—a giant blue chicken of a balloon—in a blue-blue sky in Albuquerque for a dawn ascension and was about to accept a job there after helping close a homicide case when the county commissioner, Harold Dahl, had called her on her cell. He’d asked her to take a photo of herself and Marek up in the balloon and send it to him. What was that? Three hours ago? No, it was less, with the time change.

  They’d been able to get on a military flight directly into Sioux Falls without all the usual delays, though they’d hustled to get themselves and their luggage there in time. Being ex-Army did have its perks.

  Beside her, Marek rubbed at the rough goatee that made him look like a strung-out Byzantine saint with the broad Slavic slashes of his cheekbones and dark corn-syrup hair. The pale-blue Okerlund eyes were pure Scandinavian, though. Well, that and cop, but he came by that naturally, as the county had never had anyone other than an Okerlund at the helm of justice—a link of generations that she’d nearly broken. And while she carried her deceased husband’s name with pride, she’d listed herself as Karen Okerlund Mehaffey on the ballot, just in case anyone in the county didn’t know. And still, she’d lost, at first count, by thirteen unlucky votes.

  At the time, she’d been hurt by the unexpected backhand from people she’d worked hard for and lived among but also relieved to be rid of the vitriol flung at her. She could do better—and she had—in other jobs that didn’t include being denigrated at every turn. Neither her father nor her grandfather had weathered that kind of election.

  But her opponent, Robert Leonard “Baby” Bunting, was now dead. And someone had killed him. That made it her job, her duty, to find who’d committed the crime, even if she had no idea how to feel about the whole thing after the recent yo-yo of events.

  “Where’s Tisher?” Marek asked. Good question. The coroner should be on the scene.

  Larson scowled. “Came, declared dead, got the heck out.”

  Tish had a lead foot, the weightiest thing in his tall, spindly body. She wasn’t sure how many tickets he’d gotten—or how many had been forgiven—for speeding to the aid of the bereaved, as he was a mortician as well as the county coroner. “Cause of death?”

  Larson’s scowl grew. “Left us to find that out. Said he’ll be back for transport.”

  That would be to the morgue in Sioux Falls for autopsy. Yet it had been hours since the body was discovered. She tugged on her ear, sure she’d misheard. “You haven’t pulled out the body yet?”

  “Waiting for you.” His nose wrinkled. “Jessica!”

  From inside the DCI van, a young woman with a ridged scar along one cheekbone emerged, holding a laptop. “What’s your hurry?” Gone were the days when the DCI trainee walked in awe of her boss. Then she caught sight of Karen. “Oh, hi, Sheriff. How was Albuquerque?”

  Karen poked her tongue into her cheek. “Getting pulled into a homicide case sort of derailed the vacation part of the program. Nice people, though, and beautiful skies.”

  A faint line crossed the young woman’s untouched brow. “But you’re glad to be home?”

  “Not at the moment.” Karen contemplated the ancient vault toilets that looked unc
hanged from her childhood memories. A place she’d never visited twice, even if she’d had to dig a pit in the woods with her hands and wipe with leaves. “Really, Larson, waiting for us wasn’t necessary—or your usual MO. How do you even know it’s foul play?”

  Marek gave her a sidelong glance, and Jessica gave a muffled laugh before Karen’s brain caught up with her mouth.

  Foul. “Ha ha.”

  “Foul, any way you look at it.” Larson’s mouth twitched before turning down. “Time of reckoning.”

  With a groan, Jessica ditched her laptop and handed out white protective suits. They had one in Marek’s towering size—eight inches over Karen’s six-foot-one—but only because they’d special-ordered them. That the suits came with masks—something she’d always considered overkill—was now a blessing.

  When Karen took her turn at the crime scene, she doubted she would have survived more than a few seconds if she hadn’t had a barrier against the stench.

  “What I want to know,” Karen said as she stumbled away from the overwhelming smell of crap and death, “is how the hell someone got him in there. I mean, really, it’s a small hole, right? And he’s not a small man.”

  A shaky voice said from behind, “The cover is hinged. You can lift it.”

  Karen turned to the woman with a blanket around her thin, quaking shoulders. “You were the one who found him?”

  “Yes, I’m Lori Jansen. I clean the johns.”

  Jansen was less common than Jensen and far more uncommon than Johnson in Eda County, but Karen couldn’t place the woman. She looked to be in her twenties, but washed out, as if those years had put her on spin dry. Her legs looked longer than her stubbier body, as if she’d been stunted just at her growth spurt. “I went to school with a Jimmy Jansen from Dutch Corners,” Karen said. “Is he a relation?”

  Rather than putting the witness at ease, as Karen intended, the question made Lori tense. “I’ve got no relations.” The phone that was clutched tightly in her hand vibrated. She didn’t take the call, but if possible, she looked paler. “I’ve got to get to work. My boss called me five times already.”