by Thomas King
Thumps knew of a photographer who had published a book containing nothing but photographs of water towers. One hundred and fifty pages, and so far as he could tell, water-tower architecture was not a varied art form. The towers in the book had been uniformly dull. The one on the reservation was uniformly dull. Someone had painted it blue, in an attempt either to brighten it up or to make it disappear into the sky. Not that it really mattered.
The band office sat to one side and was almost as dull as the water tower. The office had started life as a used double-wide trailer, and as more space had been required, single-wides had been added, sending the complex on a short tour of the alphabet. From an I, it became an L. Then a squarish C. And finally an E.
The band office was open. Roxanne Heavy Runner was waiting for him at her desk. An unexpected surprise.
“Hi.”
“You’re late.”
Roxanne was a large, fierce woman who reminded Thumps of a war movie. Some days she charged up hills and blew things to pieces. Other days she lay in wait and ambushed enemy columns. Today Roxanne was making heavy artillery noises under her breath. Thumps smiled and tried to make himself as inconspicuous and non-combative as possible.
“How can I be late?” Now that he was here, Thumps was not sure he wanted to see Claire after all. A dead body dropped into the middle of the band’s most ambitious economic project was not going to make her happy. Or reasonable.
Roxanne squeezed her lips together, lowered her eyebrows, and pretended to be a tank. “You better help her or else.”
“You still see that guy from Browning?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Roxanne waved him toward Claire’s office. “And don’t even think about saying no.”
Thumps squeezed by her desk, smiling all the while. As he opened the door, he was aware of a quick metallic sound behind him that could have been Roxanne snapping down on her fillings or pulling the pin on a grenade.
Claire’s office was dark and wrapped with simulated wood panelling, the pressboard and textured paper variety that came standard in every trailer. If he were feeling generous, Thumps would have described the room as spartan rather than depressing.
Claire, for all her good qualities, had no decorating sense. The furnishings consisted of a desk, a chair, six four-drawer filing cabinets, a low coffee table, and a blue floral sofa. The walls were bare. No diplomas. No awards. Not even a poster of a famous Indian.
Thumps had given Claire a black-and-white print of Chief Mountain in Alberta and a photograph of the Tetons he had taken just after a storm. Two of his favourite shots. And he had framed them. For some reason, he had expected that they would show up on the walls of her office, or at least in the reception area. Or in her home. But they had simply disappeared. Thumps was sure the photographs were alive and well somewhere, and he was sure he did not want to ask.
But it was her bookcase that bothered Thumps the most. On the shelves, Claire had stacked everything from government policy papers to books on agriculture to novels, with no regard for order, and whenever he came to her office, he was beset with the overwhelming urge to pull everything down, organize the piles into categories, and arrange each pamphlet and book alphabetically.
Claire was on the phone. She wasn’t talking, but Thumps guessed that the voice on the other end was Sheriff Hockney’s and that he was giving her a damage report. The death had all the makings of a public-relations disaster. Not that he could read impending disaster on Claire’s face. It remained impassive, as if she were listening to a message on an answering machine.
Claire normally wore her hair loose, but today she had pulled it back from her face and wound it in a single braid. Thumps wasn’t sure whether she had done this to look severe and formidable, or whether she had done it simply for convenience. He guessed the latter since Claire didn’t dress herself any better than she did her office. She didn’t wear makeup or jewellery, not even earrings, and she wore a dress only when she had to deal with politicians and bankers. Or when she had to go to a funeral.
Claire was tough and opinionated or pushy and unreasonable, depending on how you felt about strong women. Thumps told himself that he liked assertiveness. But then again, he liked moderation, too. And quiet. In the end, what had attracted him to Claire and what continued to intrigue him was the brooding intelligence that lurked just below the surface.
She put the phone down and looked across the desk at Thumps. For a moment he imagined that he saw her face soften. “Hello, Thumps.”
“Hello, Claire.”
“Good way to start a week.”
Thumps didn’t know whether she wanted him to agree or disagree, so he waited to see if she would give him a hint.
“What’d you think of the complex?”
“Looks great.”
Claire turned sideways in the chair. The muscles in her jaw and neck were not happy. “Do you know how long it took us to get the resort up and going?”
Thumps did know. Six years. Eight if you counted all the twists and turns that the tribe had been forced to take before the federal government had finally agreed to allow them to do what they should have been able to do without begging permission from anyone.
“Was it murder?”
Duke would certainly have told her that the man had been murdered. There was no doubt about that particular fact.
“Do you know who he was?” The question was disingenuous. Thumps was sure Claire knew.
For many Native groups, it was considered good manners to wait after someone spoke on the off chance that the person needed to catch their breath or might remember something else they wanted to say.
Claire didn’t waste any time. “Daniel Takashi.”
So, now the dead man had a name. That was a start. Not that the name rang any bells.
“Okay.” It was all Thumps could come up with on short notice.
“He’s been at the complex for the last three weeks programming and testing the computer.”
A computer programmer. Thumps didn’t think computer programmers were in the same category as lawyers and bankers and politicians—professionals you might well consider dragging behind your car. And while he had not met many computer programmers, he was reasonably sure that they were an inoffensive bunch. Like bran flakes or vanilla pudding. Why then, would anyone want to kill one? Especially in Chinook. Thumps had seen his share of assholes, but even first-rate ass holes would have to break a sweat to make a mortal enemy in three weeks. Unless, of course, the killing had nothing to do with anger or passion and everything to do with politics. He didn’t like where this line of thinking was headed and tried to turn it in another direction.
“The sheriff wants to talk to Stanley.”
“Stick?” Thumps tried to pretend that he had never even thought of the possibility. “That’s crazy.”
Claire stood up and walked to the window. Against the bright prairie light, she seemed no more than a dark silhouette.
“Duke just has to touch all the bases.” He tried to sound reassuring, but the words came out flat.
Claire opened the sliding door and stepped out on the small porch. Thumps knew he was supposed to follow. She hadn’t asked, but there was little doubt what she wanted. It would be hard enough saying no to Claire across her desk, from a safe distance. Standing close to her with nothing but fresh air between them would make it almost impossible.
Thumps compromised and went as far as the sliding door. “It’s routine. If I were in charge, I’d want to talk to Stick.”
“He went fishing.” Thumps could tell when Claire was happy, and he certainly knew what angry sounded like. But the woman talking to him now was neither. She seemed subdued, quiet. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said . . . desperate.
“Where’d he go?” Thumps didn’t know exactly when Takashi had died, but he was betting that the results of the autopsy would set the time of death sometime on Saturday.
“Blac
kfoot Falls.”
Blackfoot Falls was rough country. A perfect place to take a fly rod. A perfect place to get lost. “Good fishing up there.”
Claire leaned against the railing and turned away from the wind. Thumps always thought that she went out of her way not to show her emotions. Not to Thumps. Not to anyone.
“Stanley wasn’t involved,” she said, her voice flat and emotionless. “But I don’t want Hockney finding him first.”
Thumps knew how many Native people felt about the police. Even in the best of circumstances, there was a deep-seated suspicion that came out of a long history of difficulties. Claire knew better, but old fears are hard to shake. Once Thumps had been stopped in Yellowstone Park for speeding, and he could still remember how he had sat in the car, tense, both hands on the wheel, making sure he didn’t make any sudden moves or give the ranger any cause for complaint.
“When did he go?”
“Yesterday.” Claire wrapped her arms around her body.
Thumps let his breath out gently. Being Claire’s lover could be hard at times. Being her friend and trying to help her son at the same time could prove to be impossible. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Roxanne was waiting for him when he came out of the office. “Well?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Indian people help each other.”
This was Roxanne’s favourite line. It wasn’t particularly true, of course, but Roxanne believed it, even lived it, and she expected that everyone else did, too.
“I’m going to help.”
“Then what are you standing around for?”
The car was an oven. Thumps rolled down all the windows and watched the hot air inside the car get pushed out by the hot air outside the car. As he waited for the space to become habitable, he tried to put a positive spin on Stick’s situation, without much success. Claire’s fears were well-founded. Duke would be looking at Stick because of his involvement with the Red Hawks and the protest. As soon as he discovered that Stick had disappeared at the same time that Takashi had turned up dead in the condo, the sheriff would look at Stick even harder.
It had been difficult for Claire to ask for his help. He knew that. And while he did not relish the prospect of playing police once again, he also knew that he wasn’t going to say no.
The good news was that Thumps now had a couple of leads. The dead man’s name. His occupation. And why he was at Buffalo Mountain in the first place. Thumps could guess at other bits of information. Al had pointed him in the right direction. If Floyd Small Elk was driving Takashi around, then Takashi had probably been staying at Shadow Ranch, which meant a room and personal effects.
As Thumps slid into his car, he was faced with at least three choices. One, he could go into the mountains and try to find Stick. This wasn’t his first choice. If Stick had gone fishing, he could be almost anywhere on the river. If he had gone to the mountains to hide, no one was going to find him.
Two, Thumps could go to Shadow Ranch and nose around. If he was fast enough he might even beat Duke to Takashi’s room. This option was potentially dangerous. Even if the sheriff didn’t know where Takashi was staying, it wouldn’t take him long to find out. And if Duke found Thumps in the room of a dead man, there would be questions that Thumps wouldn’t be able to answer.
Or three, he could go back to Buffalo Mountain. After all, it was the scene of the crime. Takashi could have gotten to the resort any number of ways, but almost all of them went through Cooley Small Elk, and the sheriff had no doubt questioned him. Thumps wasn’t sure how Cooley felt about the law, but if he had as little love for it as his brother had, there was the chance that he might tell Thumps something he had neglected to share with Hockney.
Thumps could feel his eyes begin to droop as he left the townsite and rumbled onto the lease road. All the clever television shows to the contrary, murder was generally a messy but simple matter. Jealousy, anger, greed. Husbands killed wives. Drunks killed their best friends. Business partners killed each other.
Thumps thought about flipping a coin, but he wasn’t really interested in wandering around the mountains, and he certainly wasn’t keen to play cat-and-mouse with the sheriff in a dead man’s room. Besides the resort was closer.
While the murder at Buffalo Mountain had made a number of people anxious and cranky, Cooley Small Elk seemed to be taking the crisis in stride. When Thumps reached the main gate, he found Cooley propped against a tree, relaxing in the shade of the guard shack. Someone coming upon Cooley for the first time might have wondered about the brown grocery bags next to him. But Thumps had seen Cooley eat before, so it was no mystery. One bag was lunch, the other bag was garbage.
Cooley didn’t give any indication that he was going to move, so Thumps pulled the car off the road and got out.
“Hey, Thumps.”
“Hi, Cooley.”
“You come back to take more photographs?” Cooley fished a banana out of the bag. “You hungry?”
Thumps looked up at the condos. The parking lot in front of the building was empty. “I hear they figured out who the dead guy was.”
“Yeah,” said Cooley. “Now that was a real surprise. Who would want to kill a computer geek?”
“Beats me.”
“You know what?” Cooley polished an apple on his shirt and bit it in half. “They want to blame me.”
Thumps squatted down by the guard shack. Inside the grocery bag, he could see several sandwiches in fold-lock bags and what looked to be half a cantaloupe.
“They think I wasn’t paying attention.”
Thumps did not want to appear too eager. “This was Saturday morning?”
“Right.” Cooley dropped what was left of the apple into the garbage bag. “The guy drives in a little after ten. Then, after lunch, he drives away. No big deal.”
“He come out here every Saturday?”
“That was a surprise, too,” said Cooley. “First time that happened.”
Thumps got to his feet and stretched. “Floyd bring him in the limo?”
“Nope. He had one of those camper vans. And that sort of proves I’m telling the truth, right?”
“The camper van wasn’t in the parking lot.”
“Too straight.” Cooley brushed himself off. “If he had snuck back into the building like the sheriff thinks and got himself killed when I wasn’t looking, the camper van would still be in the lot.”
“So, how’d Takashi wind up in the condo?”
“That’s the question old Duke gets paid to ask.” Cooley reached into the bag. “You want a sandwich?”
“I’ll mention that to the sheriff when I see him.”
“No time like the present.”
“Hockney?”
“He’s at the computer building.”
The cop in Thumps was suddenly wide awake. “Thought he was on his way back to town.”
“He was,” said Cooley, “and then most of New York City showed up.”
“What?”
“In a helicopter, no less.” Cooley gestured toward the casino. “Corporate types. Old Duke is probably kissing their asses right now.”
“You know who they are?”
“Nope. Rich white guy, rich Asian guy, and a good-looking woman.” Cooley waved a hand in front of his face. “Smell like they’re from France.”
“You’re doing a great job.”
Cooley rattled around in the bag and came up with a sandwich. “Too straight.”
The helicopter pad had been built on an elevation at the far side of the casino and the parking lot. The helicopter that currently sat on the pad was one of those small, sleek numbers, black and silver and shiny all over. Thumps had flown in helicopters in California, but they had been the larger, clunkier versions that lumbered through the air, spotting speeders as they raced up Highway 101 on their way to the Oregon border. This one was built for speed and agility. Thumps had always suspected that corporate li
fe was not firmly anchored on moral bedrock, but if you were going to go to hell, riding in your own helicopter was certainly a comfortable way to get there.
Thumps was annoyed to find Duke at the resort. It made snooping all the harder. The sheriff didn’t jump through hoops for just anyone, so the new arrivals had to be important. Or at least interesting.
Given the “cost is no object” attitude that marked the condos and the rest of the resort, the inside of the computer building was surprisingly spartan. The walls were painted a middle grey that made the room feel like an overcast day. Thumps would have chosen cheerier colours, pale yellows or Wedgewood blues.
At the far end of the reception area stood a bank of tinted windows, and through the smoky glass, Thumps could see tiny lights flickering and the blue blink of computer monitors. The room looked like a set for a science-fiction movie. Stick was supposed to be a whiz with computers. Thumps had a hard time finding the on switch.
The computer room was heavy with the smell of paint. Duke was standing by one of the monitors, watching information scrolling down the screen. A young Asian man was seated at a keyboard, and a second man, a Caucasian with close-cut blond hair and light blue eyes, was standing behind him. Thumps had always thought that light-skinned people looked somewhat on the sickly and fragile side. But this man was anything but frail. He was lean and angular. His suit was tailored to fit an athlete’s body.
The woman was standing out of the lights by a row of squat, metal boxes that Thumps guessed were part of the computer system. She was tall with auburn hair, and the dark suit she wore was expensive. Some people might have been fooled into thinking that she was a secretary or a junior vice-something or other, someone along for the ride, but even though she was standing in the shadows, Thumps could see the steel in her eyes.
The Asian man saw Thumps first and stopped what he was doing, as if he had been caught out in some illegal activity. Duke caught the motion and turned.
“Hey, Thumps,” said the sheriff. “Guess it’s true what they say.”
“What’s that?”
“That Indians can sneak up on you without making a sound.”
