“We found your fingerprints near where the bombing took place. Are you sure you want to continue to deny your involvement in this incident?” the deputy roared menacingly.
“I did not have anything to do with that bombing,” Sami replied tearfully.
“Sami, you need to come clean with your knowledge of this, it’ll be easier for you,” Makeeta suggested even-toned and without emotion, staring right through her.
“I’m telling you the truth. I did not have anything to do with that bomb.”
“Who are you covering for? Who are the co-conspirators involve in this?” the deputy retorted through gritted teeth, his face just inches from Sami’s.
Cathy’s stormy face showed up in the interrogation room. “You killed my sister because Makeeta broke up with you and was going to marry her, you little tramp.”
The reporter came into the interrogation room. “So, will you soon be arrested as his partner in crime?”
Voices were coming at Sami from all directions. Sami yelled, “No.”
Suddenly she bolted upward in her bed, realizing she’d had a nightmare about the interrogation. She looked at the clock. Rats, only six-thirty.
“No, I’m not going to allow you people to invade my home and my space.” She drew back the covers, got up, and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She went to her computer room to turn on her screen.
While deep in thought, she heard a soft knock at her back door. She knew it was Shadow Dancer. He was the only person who would stop by to talk to her at this time of the morning. She got up, put a robe on, and walked to the back porch and unhooked the lock to let him in with his two dogs.
“Good morning, Shadow Dancer,” Sami murmured. She yawned, her eyes still burning from lack of sleep.
“Good morning, Sami. I saw your light on and thought I’d stop by and see how yesterday went.”
“The meeting with the district attorney went okay. Makeeta and a deputy were also there, and I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Did they ask you to identify the suspect?” Shadow Dancer asked as he sat down at her dining room table.
Sami walked over and got another cup from the cupboard and poured coffee in it for him. “Yes, they asked me to identify him, and I identified him as the man I saw. Then they asked me to recount the events of that day.”
“Was it difficult for you to do?”
“Under the scrutiny of Makeeta, yeah.” Sami and Shadow Dancer each took a sip of their coffee. “To make matters worse, I ran into Cathy Shields—Carol Shields’s sister—and of course, she wasted no time in talking nasty to me. For whatever reason, Makeeta decided to step in, even though it’s really none of his business. He told her to back off, and Gail threatened her with a lawsuit if she started telling more tales about me.”
Sami reached down and stroked one of the dogs, then got up and pulled out some bones for them. They both came up to her and sat pretty so she would give them each one. She gave them each a bone, and they went and laid down by Shadow Dancer and chewed on them.
“I then decided to go to the post office and get my mail, and Makeeta followed me over there. He supposedly wanted to know if I was okay. After talking to him for a few minutes, I went out to my truck and a reporter came up to me and said some nasty things too.”
Shadow Dancer shook his head quietly in disbelief as she relived the details.
“Makeeta must be dating the district attorney now,” Sami remarked.
Shadow Dancer looked at her questioningly. “Why do you say that?”
“I stopped at the new Mexican restaurant to get a bite to eat and guess who walked in? Makeeta. He came up to my table and I asked him if he was tailing me and did he think I planted another bomb. He said no, he wasn’t tailing me, he was there with someone else and just stopped by on his way to his table. The person he was having lunch with was the district attorney.”
“Well, I know he has to work quite closely with the district attorney, so it might have been a business lunch.”
“Yeah, that’s true I guess. Anyway, the whole day proved pretty stressful for me, and I came home and fiddled around here for a while before going to bed. And because I felt overtired when I got in bed, the nightmares started again.”
“The same one?”
“Yes, only this time Cathy and that news reporter came in the room interrogating me too.”
“Hmm, I’m thinking that the nightmares may go away once this is over with and this Wilkes guy is put away for good.”
“I sure hope so, Shadow Dancer, but five years is a long time and I’m still having the dreams.”
“Wilkes has been roaming around freely, but now that he’s locked up, I think the dreams will become less and less.”
Chapter 4
Two weeks later, Sami got in her truck at about ten in the evening to head to Milne City to get her mail. She pulled up in front of the post office, parking parallel to the building, and walked inside to her mailbox. When she returned to her truck, a sheriff cruiser pulled up beside her. She walked between the cruiser and her truck and Makeeta got out of the cruiser.
“Sami, what are you doing out here this late at night?” he asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she uttered sarcastically.
“Why do you get your mail so late?”
“To avoid people like you,” she retorted curtly and continued to her truck and opened the door. She fumbled with her mail and some dropped to the ground. Makeeta bent over to pick it up at the same time she did. He grabbed the mail first and handed it to her.
“I was going to call you next week. I need you to come down to the sheriff’s office and see if you can pick out the perpetrator in a lineup,” Makeeta said. She climbed into her truck and he leaned slightly on her truck door, preventing her from closing it.
“I already picked him out at the district attorney’s office. You know that—you were there.”
“Yes, but for added security, if you can identify him in a lineup, that would leave the jury with absolutely no doubt about the identity. We want to seal the case up and close any gaps or loopholes that the defense might grab on to.”
Sami let out a sigh. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable coming down to the sheriff’s office to do this. How do I know you won’t arrest me?”
Makeeta looked at her questioningly. “Why would I do that?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because you think I helped create the damn bomb that went off?”
“I thought we were past this, Sami. I cleared you of any suspicion of involvement in the case.”
“Yeah, well, what I don’t understand is why if you didn’t believe me five years ago, you would believe me now,” Sami said, holding her raw emotion in check.
“I don’t recall ever saying I didn’t believe you, but I had an investigation going on and I needed to rule everyone out.” Makeeta’s voice hardened.
“You didn’t rule me out...you brought me into the station the minute I was released from the hospital. I had intense pain, needed my medication, and you kept me there for hours. Did you conveniently forget about that?” Sami asked, looking him up and down from her side vision. He still had a beautifully proportioned body. He wore a blue jean shirt, with his badge pinned to his pocket, and tight-fitting jeans. His face was ruggedly handsome, with shoulder-length black hair. “You should have sent one of your deputies out to talk to me two weeks ago, you should have known that I wouldn’t be interested in talking to you about anything.” She wanted to get this conversation over with so she could leave.
“I thought it would be easier for you if it was just you and me,” he said quietly.
“After what you put me through, you thought it would be easier for me? What planet did you come from?” she asked incredulously. “Besides, you weren’t alone, you brought the district attorney and another deputy with you.”
“Okay, maybe I made a bad judgment call there,” he confessed. “But I’m here now to ask you to come to the
station and see if you can identify the perpetrator.”
“When do you want me to come down?”
“As soon as you can,” he answered crisply.
“All right, may as well get it over with. I’ll be there tomorrow at ten, is that okay with you?” she asked sharply.
“Tomorrow at ten would be just fine.” Makeeta smiled thinly at her.
“Okay, now if you’ll excuse me, I want to get out of here.”
Makeeta stepped away and walked back to the cruiser.
* * * *
Sami arrived at the sheriff’s office promptly at ten as she said she would. She walked into the building and up to the counter. An older deputy manning the counter gruffly said, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I have a meeting scheduled with the sheriff to look at a lineup,” she replied, her voice tense.
“Your name?” the deputy asked.
“Sami Parker.”
“All right, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Sami watched him as he walked further into the building to get Makeeta. She wandered around the waiting area, looking out the window, and she recalled the last time she’d been there. The doctors had ordered her on complete bed rest, because medically speaking, she needed it. She’d suffered a broken hip, along with some other broken bones, and she had shrapnel scars all over her body that were very painful. The sheriff had taken her from the hospital and brought her directly here, then put her in a locked room and held her there. She’d almost cried in agony, not having her medication yet.
“Hello, Sami.” Makeeta’s voice, quiet as always, intruded on her thoughts.
She spun around swiftly. “Let’s get this over with,” she snapped, not even bothering to greet him. The other deputy who had been with Makeeta at the district attorney’s office a few weeks ago showed up next to him.
“Okay, follow me.” Makeeta turned and opened the gate next to the counter and held it open for her.
They walked back toward the county jail, and Sami looked around. They’d remodeled it. Nothing in the back looked the same as it did five years ago. Makeeta guided her into a small room with a two-way mirror in it. After Sami and the deputy came in, Makeeta closed the door. It was standing room only with no place to sit.
The deputy pushed a button on the wall and spoke into the microphone mounted next to it. “Please bring out the prisoners.”
Five men were brought into the room on the other side of the mirror.
“Okay, Sami, take your time, and look at each one, and tell me if you recognize one of these men as being the man you saw at the Glacier Pharmacy five years ago,” Makeeta instructed in a low, even tone.
Sami looked at each individual, examining them slowly. When she got to number five, she recognized him instantly.
“Yes, number five,” Sami said as she pointed at him.
The other deputy asked, “Are you sure, Ms. Parker?”
“Yes, number five is the man I saw at the Glacier Pharmacy prior to the explosion five years ago.”
The deputy pushed the button again and said, “They can be taken back to their cells now.”
As the inmates walked out, Sami turned to Makeeta. “Do you need anything else from me?”
“No. Thank you for coming in, Sami. This will solidify our case significantly.”
She nodded slightly and started to walk away. Makeeta walked out behind her, and as they came upon the front office, Bethany Ford, the local area’s newspaper reporter stood standing there waiting for the sheriff.
“Hello, Sheriff. Can you give me an update on what’s happening with the Glacier Pharmacy bombing case?” As she spoke, she looked over at Sami. Sami remembered the woman accosting her a few weeks ago.
“There is not anything new on the case since you last interviewed me, Beth.”
Sami sped by quickly and walked past Bethany and out the door to her truck. She hoped that Makeeta kept talking to her until Sami got to her truck. She didn’t know why, but when she got into her truck and locked her door, she felt physically drained.
Chapter 5
Sami drove her truck out to the main road, and then to the next dirt road that led to Shadow Dancer’s home. His place stood on the other side of the hill of her backyard, adjacent to her property. She felt she couldn’t navigate the hill today, so she decided to drive over. Shadow Dancer had invited her for dinner. He’d fixed venison, because she always enjoyed it and he always gave her leftovers.
She navigated the long driveway and pulled up to his home. He had a nice setting, with a beautiful log home situated between the pine trees. The dogs came running out to her wagging their tails, and she gave them each a bone.
“Hello, Sami.” Shadow Dancer opened the screen door to his house.
“Hi, Shadow Dancer. You have such a lovely setting here,” she replied.
“Thank you. I enjoy living here.”
Sami walked into his house and looked around. There were a lot of items that looked like Native American artifacts. The living room contained one recliner chair and a couch, along with a large flat screen television. On the fireplace wall, he had several family pictures.
Sami walked up to them and was surprised when she saw a picture of Makeeta on the fireplace mantel. She had never noticed it before. “You know Makeeta?” Sami turned around with her eyebrows knitted together.
“Yes, he’s my grandson,” Shadow Dancer responded quietly.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know, and he didn’t know that I knew you until a month or so ago, when he came to your cabin looking for you.”
“Do you talk to him about me?” Sami asked, her heartbeat hammering in her head.
“No. I don’t discuss you with anyone, and obviously I don’t discuss Makeeta with you.”
In all the years she’d known Shadow Dancer he’d never once said anything about family to her. “Do you know the Shields too?”
“Yes, Don Shields and my son, Albert, are best friends. I’ve known Don’s father since my youth.”
“All this time and you never mentioned any of these people as being your family or close friends, Shadow Dancer,” Sami exclaimed in disbelief.
“There were a few times I wanted to mention it to you, but I felt you would think I betrayed you or misled you. I value our relationship too much to jeopardize it.”
Sami felt a little better with the knowledge, but it seemed disconcerting all the same. It seemed to Sami that this knowledge put a different perspective on their relationship. She didn’t know if she could trust him again.
“Sami, all the discussions that we’ve had over the years are between us, no one knows about them, and no one knows how close we really are. I’m still the same person, except now you know I have family.”
“Well, it must have been very hard on you to listen to me talk about your grandson negatively and the Shields.”
“Not at all. I understood where you were coming from and what you were saying. Just because he’s my grandson doesn’t mean I agree with the way he handles certain things. As for the Shields, Cathy has a big mouth and she needed to be chastised years ago.”
Sami sat down at the dining room table as Shadow Dancer brought the food.
“So, you made the marriage arrangements between Carol and Makeeta?” Sami asked.
“No, I did not arrange that. In fact, I stood against that. My son and Don Shields made the arrangements. If I could arrange it, I’d arranged it so that you were my granddaughter-in-law.”
Sami smiled at that thought.
“Now, shall we talk about other, more pleasant things?”
Sami nodded and turned her attention to the meal. “This looks so yummy. What’s it called?”
It’s oven-roasted venison with veggies.”
She put a huge helping on her plate and then took a bite. “It’s delicious, as always. You’re a very good cook. Someday you’ll have to teach me how to cook like this.”
Shadow Dancer smiled broadly. “I’d be h
appy to share my recipe with you.”
After dinner, Sami sat on the couch with a glass of ice tea in her hand. Shadow Dancer put the dishes in the dishwasher, then he came in with his drink and sat in the recliner.
“Shadow Dancer, tell me a little about your tribe.”
“Well, we are indigenous people of the Great Plains, and originally we spoke the language of Algonquian. We have two tribes actually, the Southern Cheyenne tribe in Oklahoma and the Northern Cheyenne here in Montana. The Northern Cheyenne are known as Notameohmesehes, which means Northern Eaters. We were great hunters and had a good supply of meat to feed our people. We used to live in villages of earthen lodges, but as we became more nomadic, we started using buffalo-hide houses which we call tipis. We moved frequently to follow the buffalo herds, so our homes had to be designed to set up and break down quickly. We have our own government, laws, police, and services as if we are a small country. Here in Montana, we have our own reservation, which we own and have legal control over. Today, we have approximately four hundred thousand acres and ten thousand enrolled tribal members, but less than five thousand live on the reservation. We have a lot of activities that are opened to the public, which helps in educating people about our heritage. You probably heard about the legendary Battle of the Little Bighorn.”
Sami nodded. “I have heard of it. Do you have chiefs like you did back in the 1800s?”
“No, we have an executive branch, which consists of the president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer, and they are voted in. We have the legislative branch, who is also voted in, and we have the judicial branch.”
Delayed Justice Page 3
