by Neal Griffin
“Henry had royal blood. He was Indian. His people were all chiefs and warriors. He knew all about that. Was proud of it.” She pointed in the direction of Tia’s phone. “He’d never do that to himself. Never.”
Carla blew out hard; smoke climbed the wall, clouding the photographs. She stood quiet, staring ahead.
For an instant her gaze settled on the image where she and Henry stood side by side but then she snatched a different picture from the wall—the one where she stood next to the handsome, shirtless man. She returned to the couch, clutching the picture, and spoke with the cigarette bobbing in her mouth. “Henry was like his father. ‘All in for Indian,’ they’d say.”
She held the picture up for Tia to see as smoke continued to billow from her mouth. “Pretty back then, huh? All the boys wanted to get with me. And I mean all of ’em.”
Tia felt disgust but not surprise that Carla was going to make the death of her son all about her. She knew enough to let the woman talk. Useful information that would paint a picture of Henry’s life would soon begin to trickle out.
Carla kept staring at her younger, prettier self. When she spoke again, the tone of longing and nostalgia had disappeared, replaced by anger and resentment.
“Henry would never kill himself. Too much of his father in him. Full-blooded Chippewa. Big-shot Indian chief. Always carrying on about the Chippewa way. Like I gave a shit. But look at me,” she said, tapping the picture. “Beautiful, right?”
Tia didn’t figure Carla was done so she stayed quiet and waited. Carla stared at the image of her younger self for nearly a minute before she went on.
“When I got pregnant, Jerome, Henry’s father, moved us onto the reservation. Way up north in Minnesota, near the Canadian border. Jesus, those winters, you wouldn’t believe.”
The sugar from the soda and candy seemed to have kicked in and she kept talking. “’Course he didn’t ask my opinion, right? One Deer, they called him, like he was all something special. Said he knew I was going to have a boy. He was certain of it. Some kind of Indian spiritual bullshit. Said no son of his would be raised by white people. Big man. So off we went to live in the woods like some sort of damn savages.”
Carla stopped talking. The silence stretched on so long that Tia decided to prompt her. “So he was right, wasn’t he?”
Startled by the interruption, the woman stared at Tia, confused, as if she’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Tia reoriented her. “I mean, you had a boy? You had Henry?”
“Well, so what? I mean, fifty-fifty chance, right? Anyway, Henry turned out to be … well, different, not all big and tough like his father, the bad-ass Indian. Pretty soon, Jerome lost interest in both of us.”
“Where is he now? Jerome, I mean.”
“Dead,” Carla blurted out with a laugh, as though the memory amused her. “Ice fishing, drunk as hell and on thin ice in April. Dumb ass.”
She took another drag and kept talking. “No way I was going to live way the hell out there. Henry and I bounced around for a couple of years. It was just the two of us at first. Before long I met some guy. Well, a couple of guys, I guess.”
Her voice went flat as she continued, pointing at each of the children in turn. “I had that there older one when I was staying in Beloit. Little one was born over in Racine. Landed here a year ago.”
“And Henry?” Tia asked. “He lived here with you?”
“He came and went. Always has, but none of that matters a damn bit.” She spoke with conviction. “I’m telling you, lady, Henry would not kill himself. No way in hell.”
“Do you know why Henry was in Newberg, Carla? Why he’d be out in the woods?”
“How would I know? He don’t tell me nothin’. I told you. He was like his father. Come and go as he pleased.”
“Well, is there someone who might know?” Tia asked. “Friends, maybe? Coworkers?”
“Didn’t have no job. Not much in the way of friends, neither.”
“How about at school?” Tia asked.
“Dropped out last year. Then the law sent him up to that Lincoln School. You know the place I’m talking about? That juvenile hall kinda place?”
Tia nodded her head. “Once he got out of there, he just never went back to regular school. Said he didn’t need it, but I know other boys were always giving him a rough time on account of his size and all. He’s always been a little funny-looking.”
Carla shrugged. “But he was right. He didn’t need that shit. Henry was smart. He was always good at figuring out ways to make it in the world. He was all kinds of resourceful, ya know? He didn’t have no patience for schoolwork or punching a clock.”
“Did any of his business involve, say, drugs? Maybe he supplied other people, not just you?”
“I don’t know nothing about that. Henry took care of me. But he did his own thing. Sometimes he’d be gone for a few days and I’d have to get the sheriff to bring him back.”
“Where would he go?”
“Just carousing. He was still a boy. A kid, really. He did what he wanted to.” Carla spoke with a trace of pride. “Tell ya this, though, he’d always come back flush with cash.”
Tia said, ready to wrap things up, “We’re going to need to positively confirm ID. Something like a driver’s license, social security documents. Medical records would be best. Do you have anything like that?”
“Medical records? Nah.” She gestured at her other children. “These ones I do, ’cause Social Services is always up my ass about it. But Henry? He never seen a doctor except for a few times up near Bemidji. His father took him. Told the doctors to fix him.”
“What’s that mean?” Tia asked. “‘Fix him’?”
Carla took another drag and looked down at the photo again. “I don’t know. Turned out he had some bone thing.”
“Bone thing?”
“I said I don’t know.” Exasperated by the questions, Carla’s undeveloped maternal extinct came through loud and clear. “He just—they called it something. It was a bone thing. Said there weren’t no fix for it. He’s just different is all.”
Tia had reached her limit. She stood. “That’ll be it for now, Carla. I’m going to head back to Newberg. We’ll do our best to figure out what happened.”
“I told you what happened.” She blew out a last cloud of smoke and jabbed her cigarette hard into an ashtray on the table. “Somebody killed him and I want to know who.”
“I know, Carla. You said that already.” Tia reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card. “This is my name and phone number. On the back I’m writing down the number of the medical examiner’s office. The autopsy was done this morning and—”
Carla sat up straighter. “Autopsy? You cut him up? You cut him all up without even telling me nothing?”
“It’s not up to you or me, Carla.” Tia realized she was enjoying the opportunity to remind Carla of her place in the world. “It’s the law. It’s part of the investigation. You said you wanted to know what happened, right?”
“No.” The woman could sound like a three-year-old. “I told you, I know what happened. Somebody—”
Tia cut her off. “Whatever happened, to figure it out, there needs to be an investigation. Part of that is the medical procedures.”
“What about his stuff?”
“Stuff?”
“Money, maybe? What about that?”
“His property has been seized. You’ll be able to petition for it later.”
Carla’s voice went from sorrow to desperation. “So he had money, then? How much? I need it.”
“Like I said. After the investigation is complete you can go to court.”
“How much?”
“A thousand dollars.”
Carla cracked a slight smile. “That’s my Henry. Like I said, always flush with cash. How long do you think it will be before I can get it?”
Tia didn’t need to hear any more. She knew what Carla was after. She stood and looked down at the woman on the couch. “It
’ll be a while. You probably ought to get over to the methadone clinic in Janesville.”
Suddenly looking afraid, the dead boy’s mother grabbed at Tia’s hand.
“Can you help out? Just a few dollars? It’s for the kids. I mean, they gotta eat.”
Beyond exhausted, Tia couldn’t take any more of Carla’s histrionic, self-involved bullshit. She’d done her job and was ready to go. The baby had fallen asleep, lying on the sheet on the filthy floor, and Tia could see dirt caked in the folds of the child’s neck and arms. The older one stared at Tia in a way that seemed to say, Take me with you.
“Sure, Carla, I’ll help you out,” Tia said. “Sit tight for a minute.”
Tia stepped back outside and found the night had turned as dark and black as her mood. She walked past the GTO and halfway down the drive before she took a deep, cleansing breath. The stench of the trailer seemed to follow her, clinging to her hair and clothes. She pulled out her phone and hit “redial” and pressed it to her ear. Too late she remembered the contact with the carpet and cursed under her breath, moving the phone away from her face. A voice came through and she recognized the twang, with the sounds of a ball game in the background. Her head buzzed with anger and resentment, and she had to remind herself that her feelings had nothing to do with the man on the other end of the phone.
“Hey, Deputy,” she said, putting on her professional-cop attitude and concealing her emotions. “It’s Suarez again. Sorry to bother you, but I need you to send some of your people out here to the Hayes place. And bring Social Services. Got a couple of kids who need to be taken into protective custody.”
The deputy said Dispatch would get a patrol unit out to her right away. Walking back toward the trailer, Tia wondered if taking the kids away from Carla was too much. The woman had just lost her son. Then she heard Carla on the phone, her voice desperate and playful all at once.
“Come on over, then. You can stay for a while, right? We should party.”
Tia leaned against the hood of her car and stared up at the evening’s first few stars. She’d wait out here. She’d had more than her fill of Mrs. Carla Hayes and she was starting to think there was only one way to get free of it.
FOURTEEN
Tia opened the door and hoisted herself into the SUV. She plopped down in the seat, turned to the driver, and smiled. “Morning, you rat bastard, turncoat piece of shit.”
Travis smiled back and raised a cup printed with the image of a green mermaid. “Good morning to you, too. Want a sip?”
“I’d rather be waterboarded.” Tia knew he was messing with her. “Why you buy that nasty shit? Tastes like microwaved motor oil. You ought to go by Alex’s place.”
He shrugged. “I passed four of them on the way here. Just easier is all.”
“I thought you’d be in sunny California by now.”
“It doesn’t work that way and you know it.” Still holding a coffee cup, Travis made a sloppy, one-handed three-point turn in the driveway, nodding toward Connor’s pickup. “Where’s Connor?”
“Sleeping.” Tia strapped on her seat belt. “He’s back on night shift at the Pig.”
Connor worked at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store. He didn’t like his disability checks being his only income and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Tia be the only real breadwinner. Or what she liked to call “crumbwinner.” Tia knew it had been hard for Connor to go from marine sniper to gimpy grocery clerk, but the sad fact was, they needed the money. He’d been taking his organically grown vegetables to sell at the farmers market at the state capital in Madison on the weekends, but once he paid for his space and gas money, he just barely covered his costs.
Travis pulled back out onto the highway, heading for Copper Lake.
“You sure we have to do this?” he asked. “I mean, if we got this thing all dialed in for suicide, we could just write it up with an anonymous RP.”
“What?” Tia said. “You scared to go out there? Afraid I might ruffle some more godly feathers?”
“Not a bit.” Travis drove with a hand draped over the steering wheel and his elbow resting on the open window. He wore a white cotton shirt stylish enough that Tia figured Molly must have picked it out.
“I think we should at least make the effort,” Tia said, turning serious. “Figure out who found him to begin with and called it in. Even if we strike out, we can say we tried.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Travis said. “But what say I do the talking? You good with that?”
Tia looked out the window. “Okay by me. You speak that Holy Roller bullshit better than I do.”
“Because you don’t speak it at all.”
She could hear the judgment in his voice and turned to face him. “Come on, now. That’s not fair.” Tia broke into a muddled version of the Lord’s Prayer meant to be stunning in its irreverence. Travis shook his head and looked away. Mission accomplished.
The morning sun was bright but the air was still cool and crisp. Tia put the window down to enjoy the fresh breeze, proud of herself for resisting last night’s stronger-than-usual temptation. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, how hard it had been. Truth was, only the knowledge that Connor was at home and probably waiting up kept the car headed down the road without any stops. But even when he left for the graveyard shift an hour later, she managed to control the urge.
“So tell me again: Who was this kid?” Travis asked.
Tia had called Travis on the way home to fill him in on the development out of Rock County and the interview of Carla. By the end of their conversation both were feeling even more comfortable with the suicide assessment.
She reached for the radio dial and turned from his country music station to Latin. “Name is Henry Tyler Hayes. Like I said on the phone, seventeen, living in a single-wide down in Rock County. Dad’s dead. Mom’s a hype.”
“Nice way to be seventeen.”
“Oh, and get this. I forgot to tell you. The thing Mom is most busted up about?”
Travis looked at her, waiting, and she went on, “Losing her hook-up.”
He turned off the radio. “How’s that?”
“Henry kept her in H. She looks to have a pretty good habit.”
“So he’s a dope dealer, then?”
“Well, at some level, I suppose.”
“So what are you thinking?” Travis asked. “He was buying? Selling?”
“Hard to say. And then you come back to the suicide thing, right? I mean, who kills themselves with a thousand bucks in their pocket?”
“What, then?” Travis sounded a bit exasperated. “Now you’re with Livy?”
“Just keeping an open mind. But one thing’s for sure: the kid had a miserable life. That mother? Shithole of a trailer? If he did off himself, it was a pretty reasonable decision.”
“You talk to Livy? Catch her up?”
“Not yet.” Tia wanted to clear the air with Livy, but she wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. “I’ll get with her today.”
“Yeah, make sure you do. We all need to get back on the same page.” Travis said it like an order then his tone changed to something more personal. “Everything else go okay? You good?”
Tia went back to looking out the window. She understood that Travis felt like he needed to ask. He was a boss. He needed to make sure the department’s resident alcoholic and occasional basket case wasn’t feeling too much pressure. She understood but it didn’t change the fact she resented the hell out of it. She reminded herself, once again, it was a well-earned reputation that she had bought and paid for.
“Yeah, man.” She kept her voice humble. “We’re good. I appreciate your asking.”
“No, you don’t.” He gave her a sideways glance before turning back to the roadway. “Just be sure you get with Livy.”
The truth was, the interview of Carla had been bad enough, but the drama with the kids had been nearly more than she could stand. It didn’t matter how bad life might be, children would typically cling to their
parents. Better to hang on to the misery they knew than face the fear and uncertainty of the unknown. But when Tia had spoken to the four-year-old, who said her name was Rae, about leaving her mom and going away with two strangers, the girl calmly posed a simple question.
“Will there be food there?”
Taken aback, Tia answered, “Yeah. Of course, Rae. Good food. You can eat as much as you want.”
The girl had taken her little brother by the hand and looked Tia in the eye. “Okay. We’ll go.”
Carla, no doubt realizing the removal of the kids would have an immediate impact on her income, had pitched a major fit when Social Services showed up. Tia had pulled her off to the side and quietly reminded Carla what a search of the trailer by the Rock County deputies might reveal. The woman had immediately stopped complaining and instead tried to display some care and concern in front of the social workers.
“I know, babies. I know you’ll miss Mommy, but it won’t be for long.”
The drive back to Newberg had taken less than forty-five minutes—Tia had been afraid to go any slower. After a hot shower and a mug of chamomile tea, she went to bed exhausted. Connor left for his night shift and even though she had not slept in nearly twenty-four hours she tossed and turned most of the night. But by God, she’d made it. Thirty-nine.
They passed a few minutes talking about Molly and the kids until Travis changed the subject. “The background investigator from San Diego Sheriff’s? He roamed the hallways yesterday. Did he find you yet?”
Tia didn’t want to talk about it. “Nope.”
“Well, he hit up a bunch of guys. I’m pretty much the talk of the PD.”
“I’ll bet you are.” Tia did her best to sound upbeat but she still wasn’t used to the idea. She tried to play it off. “By the way, can you take Youngblood with you?”
“I knew you’d ask, but Molly said no way. She figures you’ll come around eventually. You two are perfect for each other. She thinks you’ll have beautiful kids.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Tia shivered in disgust. “She did not say that.”
