Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  As a boy growing up in Reuben’s shadow, Manny adored his older brother. Until Reuben was sentenced to the state penitentiary for the murder of another Indian. Suddenly, Manny was a fifteen-year-old boy without a brother to show him the way to fight for his own rights. Manny always believed Reuben was innocent, but then he was found guilty for murdering Billy Two Moons. And Manny no longer had him to look up to.

  “You hungry?” Willie finally broke the silence.

  “Famished. Next you’ll be telling me Margaret Catches has you eating tubers or deer droppings. If that’s what you had in mind . . .”

  “Not hardly,” Willie laughed and led Manny back to the cruiser. Willie grabbed a Budweiser cooler from the trunk and sat in the shade of the car. “Aunt Lizzy knew you wouldn’t take a break, so she fixed a late lunch for us.” They sat on the ground with their backs against the car and the cooler between them. Willie passed Manny a sandwich and a bottle of Hires root beer.

  Before Manny unwrapped his sandwich, he grabbed his cell phone from his belt. Niles had left a message for Manny to return his call. Manny looked at the signal bars and frowned.

  “They don’t work so hot around the rez,” Willie said. “There’s not many phone towers around here because the cell company thinks us Skins use smoke signals and don’t need cell service.”

  “I thought the Apaches used smoke signals.”

  “Might as well have been all the way down there for as hard as service is to get here. I can have the dispatcher place a call.”

  “Naw. It’s just my boss reminding me about a new academy class in two weeks. He can wait. Now, let’s look at those crime scene photos,” Manny said between mouthfuls of turkey sandwich.

  Willie reached through the car window, grabbed the manila folder, and set it on the cooler. Manny licked a bit of mayo from his finger before he opened the folder. The top photo showed the overall crime scene, including where Jason had parked his maroon Lincoln Blackwood and where Manny had spotted the tire tracks.

  He placed the photo facedown and grabbed the next one. Jason’s body lay on the ground in front of the truck. Manny turned the picture to the light. A war club protruded between the skull plates at the top of his head. The stone head of the club was buried so that most of it was below the skull, with the shaft resting against Jason’s head. Manny knew about artifacts from a theft investigation on Standing Rock, but he was no authority on them. The single feather attached to the club’s shaft fluttered, animated because the wind had been blowing strongly the moment the picture was snapped. The effect made the scene come alive.

  The next photo showed Jason’s head cocked toward the cameraman. The hiakigle, the teeth setting in death, grinned at the photographer as blood pooled beside Jason’s cheek in the dirt. Manny had examined many crime scenes and photos of scenes in his years as an investigator, but even he had to put his sandwich down and look away.

  “Know anything about the war club?” he asked after a long silence.

  Willie finished his root beer and grabbed another from the cooler. “It’s authentic. Lieutenant Looks Twice said I’m nuts. He said it was a good copy produced by some Brulé in Piedmont. I took a course in Indian artifacts last semester, and I told the lieutenant it was original, but he doesn’t believe me. He’s calling in some expert from the Rosebud to verify it.”

  “Then if it’s original, it’s worth a bundle.”

  “A big bundle,” Willie agreed. “So why would anyone leave it buried in Jason’s head?”

  “You tell me.”

  Willie put down his bag of chips. “How about our man’s wealthy and wanted to make a statement that money means little to him. Or maybe he didn’t know it was authentic.”

  Manny nodded. “But why would the killer leave the club for investigators to find and process for latent prints?”

  Willie paused again. “Maybe the killer figured he had no chance of being caught. Thumbing his nose at us. Taunting us to catch him.”

  Manny nodded approval. “Or the club’s been wiped of prints. Or the killer’s never been arrested, and knows the prints wouldn’t be on file anywhere.”

  “Or wore gloves.”

  Manny agreed, and continued looking at the pictures. “What did your crime scene tech make of this?” Manny pointed to bruising on Jason’s left cheek and nose. “It’s apart from any lividity, and by the dark color it looks several days old.”

  Willie grabbed the photo while he reached inside his shirt pocket and grabbed a can of Copenhagen. He put a pinch under his lip and offered the can to Manny. He shook his head and instinctively reached for the pack of cigarettes no longer in his shirt pocket. “Those bruises are old. Lieutenant Looks Twice and Jason got into a fight a few days ago when Jason was making unwanted advances on Aunt Lizzy.”

  “Why would Lumpy jump to Elizabeth’s defense?”

  “She says the lieutenant’s always had a thing for her.”

  Manny grabbed another photo of Jason lying on the ground beside his truck. “Blood splatter here.” Manny pointed. Willie leaned closer. “And here. It shows Jason faced his pickup when he got clubbed. That would coincide with those faint footprints facing his truck.”

  Willie opened his bag of chips. “How can you tell?”

  “A blood pattern shows a lot, like where someone stood or knelt at the time the weapon contacted the body.” He pointed out blood on the door and seat. “He was clubbed as he faced his truck. Probably leaning in. Blood cast off here shows he was hit twice.” Manny ran his finger over the arc along the outside of the pickup where blood mist had landed. “Here’s where the killer cocked the club for a second blow.”

  “Does that help us any?”

  Manny shrugged. “Jason turned to get something from inside his truck, perhaps. Maybe he was running from his attacker and started to dive in? Who knows why victims or killers do the things they do. We may never know.”

  Manny held the last photo to the light. A small revolver lay in the dirt several feet from Jason’s hand. “Was it fired?”

  “Once.”

  “Whose gun?”

  “Jason’s. The state issued him a concealed permit this spring, and the serial number matches the permit. Think he was going for it?”

  Manny nodded. “Either going for it when he got into a tussle with the killer, or going for it before the fight started. He might have shot his killer before he was attacked.”

  “Jeeza. Like a preemptive strike?”

  “Something like that. Find the slug?”

  Willie shook his head. Manny made a mental note to check the Pine Ridge and Rapid City hospitals to see if anyone had been treated for a gunshot wound today. “The lieutenant figures it went somewhere into the prairie and we’ll never find it.”

  Manny hated to admit it, but Lumpy was probably dead-on with that assessment.

  By the time they finished their lunch, the sun had dropped over the hill behind them. They stood and returned to the scene a final time. They walked around it and stared into the sun to catch shadows that would reveal anything they might have missed. Manny knelt along different points of the crime scene, and looked across dusty ridges, trying to pick up signs. Satisfied nothing remained, they climbed back into Willie’s patrol car and headed back to Pine Ridge Village.

  “Aunt Lizzy knew Jason Red Cloud pretty well,” Willie volunteered as he turned onto Highway 18. “They worked together on the resort project.”

  “Because Elizabeth’s the finance officer?”

  Willie nodded. “They worked together every day the past two months leading up to the ground breaking. Aunt Lizzy didn’t want to work with Jason’s executive assistant, Clara Downing, and insisted on dealing directly with Jason.”

  “Jason’s assistant and Elizabeth didn’t get along?”

  Willie shrugged. “I figure it was a woman thing.”

  “Woman thing?”

  “Sure. You know—that thing women do to each other when they don’t get along. When one wears a bigger diamond
than the other. One drives a nicer car than the other. One looks a little better in short skirts than the other one does. You know—women things.”

  “Sure.” Catfights from a dozen offices he’d worked out of came back to him. Women were far crueler than any man in an office could be. “Has anyone interviewed Clara Downing?”

  Willie shook his head. “I wanted to but I was assigned the shit detail of standing guard until the tech finished. She knew Jason as well as anyone.”

  “Then I’ll call her first thing. And where is Elizabeth living these days, so I can talk with her?”

  “Batesland.”

  “That’s a long drive into town every day.”

  “Twenty-six miles,” Willie confirmed. “About once a week she runs it. Bikes it a couple days a week to keep in shape.”

  Manny could appreciate the distance. Since getting back into his running regime, the best he had been able to do was the 20K Run for the Homeless back in Langley. “Bet she still runs marathons.”

  “Big-time. She’s taken the Black Hills Classic three years in a row.”

  “Still a runner.” Manny laughed. “Well, she’ll give me hell when she sees how I let myself go. But if we’re this close to her house, let’s drop by and visit.”

  Before Willie could turn around, the dispatcher ordered him to respond to the powwow grounds on the west end of Pine Ridge. A drunk had staggered into the middle of the road trying to flag down passing cars.

  “I’m on an investigation,” Willie radioed back.

  A brief lull followed before Lumpy’s voice blared across the police radio. “You want to see your retirement, you’ll do your follow-up another time. Take that drunk call.”

  Willie apologized to Manny.

  “No need. Let’s just say it’s your lieutenant’s way of keeping his fingers in the investigation.” Lumpy would love to see the Living Legend fail. Niles’s Living Legend. At least that’s how Ben thought he always convinced Manny to take these cases. Flatter the Indian, and he’ll do anything, he wanted to tell Willie.

  They drove past Big Bat’s to the Y intersection. A man teetered in the middle of the road by the powwow grounds, and the headlights lit him up. “Henry Lone Wolf,” Manny breathed. For those who never remembered a face, Henry’s would be the exception. His bulbous nose was red and swollen, with deep scarring that looked like someone had used it for a bulletin board. His nose was perched between two close-set eyes, on cheeks that had more lines and spiderwebs than a Rand McNally. He glared at the police car.

  “I’d thought he’d be dead by now.”

  “He is,” Willie answered, and stopped within a cruiser-length of Henry. “He’s just so well pickled he doesn’t know it yet.” Henry danced in the middle of the road as he yelled obscenities at the police car. “I figure ol’ ‘Lone Wolf McQuade’ will outlive us all.”

  As Willie walked toward him, Henry assumed his best fighting stance, balled fists held high in front of him, and flicked out slow, labored jabs at invisible opponents. He spied Willie and threw a limp right cross, and nearly lost his balance. Willie dodged Henry’s fist and spun him around and had him cuffed before Manny got out of the car.

  Willie eased him into the backseat behind the cage. “About Lone Wolf McQuade back there,” Willie explained. “Someone started teasing Henry that he was like that Chuck Norris character, the way he always fought us, and was always belligerent when we arrested him. Now every time we haul him in, Henry feels obligated to fight because of his nickname.”

  “And don’t you forget it, Officer With Horn,” Henry yelled from the back. He banged on the Plexiglas divider with his head. “That you Officer Tanno?”

  “It’s me, Henry. Long time.”

  “Too long. Heard you came back here to clean up that Red Cloud mess these local yokels can’t handle.”

  Manny listened to Henry vent. No use arguing with a drunk.

  Willie parked at the jail and opened the door for Henry.

  “Just wait a minute.” Henry jerked his arm from Willie’s grasp and turned to Manny.

  “What is it, Henry?”

  “These guys didn’t ask me, but I got information about that Red Cloud killing.”

  Manny waited for Henry to continue. “A week ago I was having a right good sleep in back of the tribal building. That girl of your sister-in-law . . . What’s her name?”

  “Erica,” Willie volunteered, then looked sideways at Manny.

  “Yeah. Erica. She and Jason had a terrible argument. Bad enough to wake me up. Nice night. The windows was open. It was like I was right there with them in that room they was so loud.”

  “Go on,” Manny said.

  “Well, Erica yelled that she was going to tell her husband everything. That things had gone far enough.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s it. They moved off into another part of the building and I didn’t hear the rest.”

  “What does this have to do with Jason’s murder?”

  Henry shrugged. “It was just suspicious. You know I’m good for it. I gave you good information once before, ’member?’Member when I told you that your brother, Reuben, was at Lizzy’s apartment the night Billy Two Moons was murdered?’Member?”

  Manny “’membered.” He had arrested Henry on a public intox charge as he lay passed out across the border from White Clay. Reuben had pleaded guilty to the Two Moons murder eight years before, and Manny desperately wanted some piece of information, some new bit of evidence to hold high and tell everyone his brother didn’t kill Two Moons. Manny believed then that Henry lied to reduce his jail time, just as he was doing now.

  “And what do you want for this pearl of information?”

  Henry smiled. “Just to be released by Thursday. That’s payday here, you know.”

  The ruse hadn’t worked when Manny was a tribal officer, and it didn’t work against Willie now. He steered Henry down the long corridor to the booking counter, while Manny walked to Lumpy’s office and plopped down in his velvet Elvis, relaxing his eyes until Willie came back from booking Henry. When they got outside, Willie asked about Henry.

  “You think there’s anything to your brother and Aunt Lizzy being together the night Two Moons was killed?”

  “Tell me, did you believe Henry when he told us about Jason and Erica arguing? Could he even remember anything as drunk as he is now?”

  Willie shook his head. “I see your point.”

  “Henry always maintained he saw Reuben with Elizabeth that night. When he told me that, he was in the same shape he’s in now. A man who hates authority like Reuben would never have confessed unless he did it.”

  Willie dropped Manny off at his rental and he followed Willie to the housing. He was beside his door before Manny could turn off the polka music.

  “Second door on the right.”

  Manny dipped into his pocket for the keys. “We’ll meet up tomorrow after I visit your aunt.”

  Willie drove away and Manny fumbled with the key.

  “Manny.” A soft voice stopped him.

  Desirée Chasing Hawk sashayed out of the apartment next to the one Lumpy arranged for Manny. Her sheer teddy stopped just above her knees, enough to give Manny a look at the finest pair of legs he had seen since high school.

  “Manny. You going to just stand there? After twenty years, I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me. You’re still as hot as you were in high school.”

  Manny sucked in a quick breath as her perfume, applied so that just a hint of it reached him, reminding him of what gifts she might offer a man.

  “I must not have been as hot as Lumpy.”

  “Water under the bridge.”

  “You live here?”

  She laughed. “Yep. In the apartment next to the tribe’s. When Leon told me you would be staying next to me, I thought I’d orgasm. Come in and we’ll uncork a bottle of wine. Catch up on each other.”

  Manny wanted to accept her offer. Wanted to go inside. Wanted to catch up on her. B
ut Desirée always had her own agenda, and the last thing he needed now was for Desirée to distract him. Even if she was a sexy distraction. “Take a rain check?” Manny dropped the keys. Fumbled for the lock. Dropped them again. “Another night. I got to get up early.”

  She stepped toward him just as he found the lock. “Tomorrow night,” she called after him as he slammed the door behind him. He stood with his back against the door, panting faster than a lizard on a hot rock.

  “You asshole, Lumpy. You could have given me any other apartment.”

  Tomorrow he’d have words with him. Right after he talked with Clara Downing and Elizabeth about Jason Red Cloud. And even though he discounted Henry’s tale of the argument Tuesday night, he would ask Elizabeth about Erica’s fight with Jason as well.

  CHAPTER 3

  Manny squinted the entire twenty-six miles to Batesland. When he started for Elizabeth’s this morning, he had clutched the sunglass case. Now the glasses were missing in action, and his temples throbbed from the morning headache.

  Willie said this had been a dry year, but some crops had thrived. Off to the left, cornfields stood higher than his car. To the right, green alfalfa fields flourished in the heat.

  The smoothness of the road eased his headache. He marveled at the highway, one of the few newer blacktopped roads on Pine Ridge. As a tribal policeman he’d driven this same road faster than he had a right to. Most reservation roads back then were little more than dirt paths or two-tracks, and he’d dreaded going to emergency calls. He was constantly afraid the cruiser would drop into a rut or pothole and come apart at the high speeds. And he often lost his sunglasses in the commotion of fighting to maintain control. The memories made him squint all the more, and he held his hand above his eyes.