Hallowed Ground (Julie Collins Series #2)

by Lori G. Armstrong

  Or taken a gun blast to the head. The horror of it hung on the fringes of my subconscious every damn day.

  “Since I talked to you will you do me a favor?”

  “Depends.”

  “When you find Chloe call me and let me know she’s okay.”

  “I can do that.”

  Cindy had made it halfway to the door. The lace petticoats beneath her denim skirt swished when she turned. “Linderman will get away with this, won’t he?”

  I couldn’t lie. I said nothing.

  Without another word, she went back to work.

  CHAPTER 26

  GREASY EGGS, FATTY BACON, WHITE TOAST SOAKED IN butter, hash browns fried in lard. When I craved the breakfast of cardiac patients, I went to The Road Kill Café.

  I’d arrived late, in hopes of avoiding the ranchers’ morning coffee klatch. No such luck. Several guys who knew my dad gave me that imperceptible nod, which meant they’d seen me, but didn’t want to talk to me.

  Maurice, Dale, and Don didn’t bother with the ol’ tip of the Stetson.

  I caught snippets of conversation regarding the protest. However, the main topic of discussion was Red Granger’s murder.

  I’d left Martinez a message on his cell. He phoned back, but I could scarcely hear him over the din in the café. The call lasted a minute, at best.

  Misty, a gorilla of a woman with five kids and no dental plan, lingered while she reheated my coffee. Chattered about her second cousin Hal, who’d hired a PI in the early 1980s to track down his good-for-nothing wife.

  Evidently the wife had skipped town with his Chevy truck. Good riddance, according to Misty. The one-sided dialogue stretched into a detailed dispute about a doublewide trailer, seersucker curtains, and ended with an anecdote about an incontinent Pekinese named Mumbles.

  I listened, mostly because I doubted anyone else ever did.

  Plus, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Someone hollered for more coffee.

  The salt and pepper shakers rattled on the Formica counter as Misty sashayed away.

  A steady flow of men entered and joined the group in the back room. Ranchers, business owners from Butte City, the Lutheran minister from up in the northern corner of the county.

  When Bud Linderman and his gang loped in, I knew I’d stayed too long. What was he doing here? He didn’t live in the county and this café wasn’t renowned for culinary delights.

  I lit up, fascinated with how he’d shouldered his way into the close-knit group. Within minutes he’d tried to wrest control. He hadn’t seemed compelling enough to pull it off, judging from our only meeting. Then again, he did own a boatload of businesses. Somewhere along the line he had to have perfected the art of the schmooze.

  What did he want from these guys? To prove he was just another simple working class man, who shared their concerns about problems surrounding the new casino? Offering his support? Financial, perhaps?

  Made me want to puke. Bud’s only interest was self-interest.

  Apparently my fellow Bear Butte County neighbors agreed. Pretty soon after he’d arrived, cowboy hats went back on, boot steps thumped and shuffled out the door.

  I’d decided to wait to leave until Bud and his lackeys were gone. Not that I was avoiding him. Okay, maybe I was. I’d wanted a quiet, uneventful morning for a change. Locking horns with Linderman would guarantee my day would get off to a crappy, possibly violent start.

  Lackey #1 elbowed Bud. Murmured something. Bud’s gaze traveled to me in the last booth.

  The eggs in my stomach scrambled, but I merely stared at him over the chip in my coffee mug.

  He moseyed toward me. The cowboy Bobbsey twins took up defensive positions at the counter by the door.

  Everyone else in the diner had disappeared. We were essentially alone.

  Shit.

  “Ms. Collins,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed and slithered in the booth anyway. “Been meaning to stop in and talk to you.”

  “Yeah? I’ve been meaning to stop into the sheriff’s office and talk to him about you.”

  The carpet above his lip didn’t move one whit. Staring in his brown eyes reminded me of gazing into a mud puddle.

  “Pity about Rondelle, isn’t it?” Linderman sighed. “As you know, the last time we spoke I was afraid this might happen to her.”

  He had come to my office to express his “concern” about Rondelle, in an underhanded attempt to get info on the disk. Then it hit me. If I ratted on him to Sheriff Richards about the visit, the sheriff would see it exactly the way Bud had intended for anyone to see it: Rondelle had become involved in something sketchy with her new employers.

  Slimy toad.

  If I stupidly got insistent with the sheriff about Linderman’s true motive, wanting the disk, it’d play right into Linderman’s hands too. Then he could point the finger of blame for Rondelle’s murder right back toward the Carluccis. It proved she’d seen something. She’d had evidence. She’d paid the price.

  Linderman wasn’t aware Rondelle had been leading him around by the nose ring like a prize-winning steer. He didn’t care what was really on the disk. In the end he’d get exactly what he’d wanted: the Carluccis gone, just like he warned me he would.

  Which made him one of those toxic kinds of toads.

  I felt warts popping up all over my body.

  “How is that little girl dealing with her mother’s brutal death?” he asked.

  Bud didn’t know I hadn’t found Chloe.

  On the other hand, he hadn’t found her either.

  Color me ten shades of relieved.

  “What were you doing back there, Linderman? Inciting them to riot?”

  He caught my abrupt subject change. It didn’t faze him. “They don’t need me for help on that. Seem pretty riled up already.” He stretched his arm along the table next to mine. “Why are you here? You protesting the casino too?”

  “Hardly. What the Sihasapa tribe does with their land is their business, not mine.”

  “Bet that doesn’t make you popular around these parts.”

  This pseudo-friendly chitchat set my teeth on edge. “Unlike you, I don’t care. But if you’re here in the interest of community service, where’s your camera?”

  “What camera?”

  “The one you used at Smart Start.” I lowered my coffee cup. “Or do you just use it to take pictures of little girls?”

  Linderman’s body went board stiff; I could’ve ironed on him.

  “Those pictures you showed to Rondelle and Donovan? Skating awfully damn close to kiddie porn, Uncle Perv.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I stirred cream in my coffee, though I drink it black, for something to do with my hands besides wrap them around his red neck.

  “Thought you were a straight-shooter, Bud. I know you sent Rondelle to work at Trader Pete’s. I’ve gotta tell you, I saw firsthand how the Carluccis reacted when they thought Rondelle was spying for the Hombres. Not pretty.”

  “What do the Hombres have to do with anything?”

  My brows lifted. “You mean you don’t know?”

  Irritation splashed in those muddy pools. “I’ve no intention of playing twenty questions with you.”

  “Me either, ’cause it’ll only take one answer. Rondelle’s brother Harvey is the chief enforcer with the Hombres.” I paused to let the reality sink in. “For being practically family, you sure as hell didn’t know much about hers, did you?”

  Black hairs poked through the fish white skin covering his hand. His fingers adjusted his bolo tie. “Your point being?”

  “If I bring up the photos with the sheriff, he’ll feel compelled to investigate. When he connects them to you and that poor girl, Cindy, that you browbeat into helping you … well, you’ll probably be safer in jail than in Harvey’s hands.”

  “What photos?”

  “The ones your rodeo clowns rammed in
Donovan’s face after they beat the living hell out of him.”

  Linderman smirked. I fought the urge to bean him in the head with the steel napkin dispenser.

  I continued winging my way through the conversation. “You know, I thought you were a smart guy. But having a set delivered to Rondelle at Trader Pete’s? There was your mistake. Shouldn’t have let her keep them.” I blew on my cold coffee. “Maybe I oughta burn the whole damn box of stuff she sent me. I can’t prove you snapped those pics anyway.”

  “You are a very bad liar, Ms. Collins. You’ve got nothing.”

  I smiled, slightly sheepishly. “Okay. You caught me. I’m a habitual liar. I don’t have the pictures. I don’t know where Chloe is. I don’t have the security disk with Little Joe Carlucci meeting with, gosh, was it two or three members of the South Dakota Gaming Consortium? In the upstairs meeting rooms at Trader Pete’s.” I sighed with disgust. “Sometimes I lie so much it even makes me sick.”

  His right hand manacled my left wrist so fast I gasped. A heavy boot slammed on each instep, immobilizing my feet.

  “Tell me where the goddamned disk is.”

  Jesus. My arm stung. “Fuck you,” I said through clenched teeth. “Let me go.”

  He twisted harder. “Stop pissing with me.”

  The fingers on my right hand inched toward the fork by his left elbow. “Let go of me right fucking now.”

  “Answer me.”

  My middle finger brushed the tines.

  The bell above the entrance jangled.

  I didn’t look away. Neither did Linderman.

  Boots scuffled. Before the commotion registered, a shadow fell across the table.

  “I’d advise you to let go of her if you ever plan to use that hand again, Linderman.”

  Bud peeled his fingers off my flesh and glanced up. Relaxed back in the booth, removed his feet and the snake oil salesman reappeared.

  I snagged the fork anyway.

  “Mr. Martinez. You’re looking good. Didn’t see you at the Deadwood Blues Festival. Missed a great show. Sorry about your, ah, employees losing the security contract to Little Joe Carlucci’s team this year.” He shrugged. “Just business, you understand, nothing personal.”

  In the sliver of space between Martinez’s lean hip and Bud’s bloated body, I saw No-neck had both of Linderman’s guys corralled.

  “Your understanding touches me,” Tony said.

  He leaned over.

  Linderman had to crane his neck to see him.

  “However, you touch her again? That ridiculous mustache will be the biggest piece of you they’ll ever find.”

  The menace in his tone made my bones quiver.

  Martinez stepped aside. His body language said, Get the fuck out of here.

  No-neck dragged the lackeys outside, one in each hand.

  Linderman scooted from the booth and glared at me before he clomped off.

  Misty waddled up to the booth and said to Martinez, “Coffee, sir?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  He glided in across from me. Watched as Misty poured him a cup and reheated mine. He smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  She was totally flustered by that smile.

  I knew exactly how she felt.

  My vocal cords had grown polyps.

  Martinez ripped open five packets of sugar and two creamers and dumped it in. He snagged my spoon and stirred.

  “You already eat?” he asked.

  Was he serious? He wanted to act like he’d just been delayed for brunch? Not that he’d threatened to kill someone in front of me? For me?

  No way. I’d suffered through enough avoidance in my life, especially with men. “Why are you here, Martinez?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  He sprinkled in another packet.

  “Think you’ve got enough sugar in there?”

  “No. Stuff tastes like shit without it.”

  I growled and angled across the table so he couldn’t ignore me. “Tell. Me. Why. You’re. Here.”

  He brooded and I wondered if he’d answer.

  “Didn’t like what I heard in the background when I called you. Came to check it out.”

  “Yeah? Well, I was doing fine on my own.”

  His gaze flicked to the fork clutched in my fist. “Looked like it.”

  The clever retort dancing on the tip of my tongue was forgotten the minute his fingers gently traced the red finger-shaped welts where Linderman had given me a snakebite.

  “It hurt?” he murmured.

  “A little.”

  Martinez’s eyes caught mine. He slowly lifted my wrist to his mouth and gently, thoroughly kissed those marks on the inside of my forearm before he set it back down.

  I was freefalling. I’d stepped off the edge of a cliff. I think I whispered, “Omigod,” before I hit bottom. I even dropped the damn fork.

  “What?”

  I blurted, “You scare the hell out of me, Martinez.”

  He waited a beat. Sipped coffee as murky as his eyes. “Same goes, blondie.”

  No-neck came back inside, muttered in Tony’s ear and then parked himself at the front door, even though we were the only ones in the joint.

  “Only one shadow today?”

  “Yep.”

  “You should buy a black T-shirt that says, ‘My bodyguard can beat up your bodyguard.’”

  “You’re the one who needs a damn bodyguard.”

  “Where’s the other guy? Don’t you usually have two?”

  “He’s watching Harvey.”

  “Why?”

  Martinez frowned.

  When he didn’t answer, I reminded him, “You make me tell you everything.”

  “True.” He sighed. “Honestly? Because he’s freaking me out. He’s beyond grief. It’s not like him not to talk to me, about Rondelle or anything else. Just keeps getting worse.”

  I’d been living with the same situation for the last few months. I waited to see if Martinez would confide in me or if he’d clam up, like Kevin.

  “The thing is,” he continued, “I know what he’s going through. He won’t let me help him and it drives me—how did you put it—bat shit.”

  I threaded my fingers through his.

  The move surprised him. He glanced up before he tightened his hold on our joined hands.

  “I know. Kevin hasn’t been talking to me about Lilly. When she was first diagnosed and he knew she was going to die I thought I’d be able to help him. He didn’t want my help. Then or now.”

  The understanding of that kind of loss, the experience of grief passed between us.

  Another shift pulled us, this one no more subtle than the first.

  “Do you realize that this is the first time we’ve been together outside of a bar? Or some kind of fight? Or stumbling across …”

  Dead bodies.

  I shuddered.

  Martinez swept his thumb across my knuckles.

  My stomach swooped again. “Weird, huh?”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said, watching me with lazy intent. A predator who’d finally cornered his prey.

  How much longer would he wait before he pounced?

  Why wasn’t I panicked and running for my life?

  I stared at him for a couple of seconds, then dropped my gaze to the black scuffmarks on the chrome barstools beside us.

  “Think about it, okay?” he said.

  “I have been,” I admitted.

  “Good.”

  He released my hand.

  “Watch your back at the protest. Steer clear of Linderman if he’s there.”

  “No problem. What will you be doing?”

  “Checking on a couple of things in Spearfish.”

  A lead on this case he wasn’t sharing? “Regarding Chloe?” I asked a little sharply.

  “No.” He stood, withdrew a crumpled twenty from the pocket of his Levis and tossed it next to my bill. “Hombres business.”

  He walked out the door flanked by No-neck.
>
  What had I gotten myself into? Where was that gut reaction that I’d made a huge mistake?

  CHAPTER 27

  MY SENTRA CHUGGED AS I DROVE TO THE BEAR BUTTE Casino construction site to see who’d shown up for the protest. Despite my father’s claims, I doubted many people would bother.

  Was I wrong.

  All types of vehicles, family cars, pickups, motorcycles, shiny new SUVs, beat-up vans, even a couple of old blue school busses lined the gravel road. I had to walk two miles to reach the outer edges of the crowd. More like a half-mile, but my lungs complained just the same.

  Once I’d labored up the last dirt mound, throngs of people swam into view. The deep thump of a bass drum provided the backbeat. The collective, high-pitched chanting reverberated, sending chills down my spine, as it did every time I heard those mournful cries.

  Were they members of the Medicine Wheel Society? Or another Sioux tribe?

  I craned my neck to see how far the crowd stretched.

  The protesters had made an arc, which from afar resembled a crooked smile. The drummers were front and center, as were the sign carriers. Not many. Apparently they’d condensed their messages down to three basic points. I couldn’t read the words from where I stood so I wound my way through the assembly until I reached the front.

  The first sign read: COWBOYS AND INDIANS UNITE, and was held by a young rancher.

  The second one, gripped tightly in an elderly Native woman’s gnarled hands said, MORE INDIAN GAMING DOES NOT = MORE PROFIT FOR TRIBES.

  The third, and biggest said, KEEP MATO PAHA HALLOWED GROUND FOR ALL PEOPLE.

  Again, the amount of people and diversity of those people who were boldly and clearly showing opposition to the casino construction shocked me. I’d gotten used to apathy.

  However, the owner of Brush Creek Construction wasn’t indifferent or taking any chances. Five enormous road graders blocked access to the structure. Even those hulking steel machines wouldn’t provide much protection if the mob decided to rush the building. Smart move, keeping the workers off site.

  So where were the members of the Sihasapa tribe who’d pushed this casino through? Why weren’t they here, defending their decision? The responsibility for this controversy was on their shoulders, not the construction company that was merely trying to complete the job they’d been contracted for.