Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Stumper looked after Jamie’s disappearing form. “You wouldn’t have shot him, would you?”

  Manny holstered his gun, expecting Jamie to come back for round two. “He had bad intentions written all over him. Besides, you pay any attention to his feet? As big as Jamie is, he’s got pretty small boots. And he wasn’t just sleeping like he claimed.”

  “You don’t think Jamie was our shooter tonight? The guy that was holed up in the barn took off pretty fast.”

  “Just ’cause he’s so big,” Manny said as he rapped hard on the door, “doesn’t mean he’s not nimble.” He dropped the door knocker again. A voice called out, “Wait a damned minute.” And it wasn’t Cubby’s voice.

  The door swung open, and Wilson Eagle Bull stood with his tighty-whities inching a bit south over a slight paunch, revealing what Reuben referred to as “rear cleavage.” Wilson stood with mouth agape for long moments before he sputtered, “I thought it was Jamie.”

  Manny smiled and exaggerated giving Wilson the once-over. “I’m sure you did.”

  “Who is it, baby?” Chenoa glided down the winding wooden staircase, her sheer negligee clinging to shapes, barely covering legs that belonged to a twenty-something rather than a woman of fifty. She didn’t bother hiding taut nipples that threatened to escape the thin fabric.

  It was Manny’s and Stumper’s turn to stand with mouths agape, and Chenoa smiled at their discomfort. She slipped her arm around Wilson’s waist. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag or”—she nodded to the bulge in Wilson’s shorts—“it would have been if you hadn’t interrupted things.” Her smile faded. “Just what do you want at this time of night?”

  Wilson stuck his head out the door and looked. “Maybe they’d like to come inside in case someone else comes calling.”

  “Like Cubby?” Chenoa said, stepping aside. “He’s too busy doing his own thing.” She turned to Wilson. “Take them into the kitchen.”

  Chenoa turned and ascended the stairs while Wilson led them into the kitchen and nodded to stools situated around a breakfast counter. When Chenoa entered a few moments later, she had wrapped herself in a terry cloth robe and she handed Wilson one. The yellow and blue star of the Star Dancer logo adorned pockets on both robes. Wilson turned away while he hid his embarrassment and tied his robe shut.

  “So you got us dead to rights.” Wilson scratched his groin. “What you intend doing with it?”

  “Depends on what your answers are.”

  Wilson hung his head while a sly grin crossed Chenoa’s face, enjoying his predicament, and Manny realized Wilson running for the South Dakota State Senate meant nothing to her. And neither did Wilson. “What do you need to know?”

  “Who shot at us tonight?”

  Wilson looked sideways at Chenoa. Her smile faded and she leaned closer to Manny. “Someone shot at you? Are you all right?”

  Manny nodded. “We’re curious as to where all the players were.”

  “Players?” Chenoa sat on a stool next to Wilson, her bathrobe riding up over her thighs and revealing her legs again. She made no effort to cover them. “Players in what?”

  “Murders. Sam’s. Itchy’s. Harlan’s. They’re connected by only one thing—the theft of Levi Star Dancer’s journal. I’m looking at the two people who would profit the most if I failed to solve the murders. At the people who’d least want me to find that journal and return it to Harlan’s estate for public auction.”

  Wilson wiped his forehead with a dish towel. “I got nothing to gain by killing anyone. And neither does Chenoa.”

  “No?” Manny rested his elbows on the counter and formed a tent with his fingers. “How about the renowned Eagle Bull reputation?” He turned to Chenoa. “And the Star Dancer purity?”

  Manny eyed Wilson’s size thirteen slippers and nodded to Chenoa’s manicured, blue-painted toenails dangling from the stool. “I’d say you’re about a nine?”

  “No, I’m a size 36. D to be precise.”

  Manny felt his face warm. “I meant your shoe size.”

  Her grin widened. “I knew what you meant. Yes, I’m a size nine. Why?”

  “Our shooter tonight wore about a size nine cowboy boot, with a walking heel by the looks of the impression in the barn where he—or she—waited to shoot us.”

  “Lot of people wear size nine,” Wilson volunteered. “Cubby does, too. And Jamie’s shoes are not much bigger.”

  Chenoa scowled at Wilson and he turned red.

  “That true?” Manny asked. “Cubby wear a size nine?”

  “More like a nine and a half. And if your next question is could he shoot at you, he’s a ranch man. He’s got guns. And he knows how to use them.”

  “But is he smart enough?”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Manny paused, letting them think he knew more about the shooter than he did. “Is Cubby smart enough to set us up? Drive that Caddy that Degas rented to that creek bed, knowing we’d investigate all the blood inside. And call in an anonymous tip?”

  Chenoa tilted her head back and laughed. “I see your point. My husband’s capable of shooting at you, but I’m not so sure if he could have arranged something as complex as that.” She stood and grabbed a teapot and began filling it with water.

  Wilson stared at the floor until Manny asked him, “Who’d you fly to Pine Ridge tonight?”

  Wilson’s head snapped up. “What makes you think I flew back home tonight?”

  “Harvey said you did.”

  “Harvey? Even if he saw me, he wouldn’t tell anyone. The man’s got loyalty in spades.”

  “He got religion tonight.”

  Wilson leaned forward. “How’s that?”

  “He confessed to a holy man.”

  Wilson threw up his hands. “All right. I flew back home, but I flew alone. I had a fund-raiser in Rapid tonight, but it was called off an hour from home. I set down only long enough to give some paperwork to Harvey and I flew back here.”

  “Any particular reason you didn’t stay in Pine Ridge?”

  Chenoa sat beside Wilson and cradled a cup of tea in her hands. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Wouldn’t you come back,” Chenoa asked, “if the sex was so good even the neighbors had a cigarette afterward?”

  Manny looked away, aware that Chenoa’s smile widened at his embarrassment. “Tell me what you know about the journal.”

  Wilson shrugged. “I never knew until the journal surfaced that Conte Eagle Bull murdered his own friend. I’m running an honest campaign . . .”

  “Based on the integrity of the Eagle Bull name?”

  He nodded. “If the contents of that journal were made public, it’d give that damned Arvid Johansson more than a few mud pies to sling.”

  “Did you get a chance to read it? You seem to know a great deal about it.”

  “Sam,” Wilson answered. “He told me what Levi Star Dancer had recorded.”

  “I thought you hadn’t talked with him.”

  Wilson turned away. When he looked back, tears had formed in his eyes, but Manny couldn’t tell if they were genuine sorrowful tears, or those conjured up by a politician. “Sam called me the day before he got burned up. He told me what the journal contained, how he thought it would ruin my chances for the Senate.”

  “And advised you to bid on it at Harlan’s auction?”

  “Not exactly.” Wilson stood and paced in front of the counter. “Sam offered to steal the journal for me. For a price.”

  “I’m thinking you declined?”

  Wilson faced Manny. “I told Sam I wouldn’t pay one cent for any stolen artifact. But I would bid on it, like anyone else.”

  “I didn’t see your name on the bid sheet.”

  Wilson nodded to Chenoa. “That’s ’cause we decided to pool our money. With the publicity the journal received worldwide—the
only surviving written account of the battle, and the times after, by one of Custer’s scouts—we knew it would bring six figures.”

  Manny turned to Chenoa. “That so.”

  Chenoa set her cup on a woven coaster and turned to the coffeepot. Stalling. “We planned to split the price if we won the bid and burn the damned thing.”

  “You stand to lose as much as Wilson?”

  She nodded. “If the contents get out that I got a baashchiili in my gene pool, Montana may still keep my contract, but the Apsa’alooke tribe will cut ties. I’ve still got my ranch, so it’s not like I’d be out bumming on the street.”

  Like Sam used to do, Manny thought. “That’s why you went into Harlan’s shop looking for it?”

  Chenoa nodded. “I heard Harlan had hidden it in his office. You caught me snooping around his shop like an amateur, but there was no sign of it, even though Itchy claimed to have it.”

  “And you thought you’d find it . . .”

  “Somewhere under all that trash,” she said. “But you interrupted me.”

  “Which brings us back to Itchy’s murder and who shot at us tonight.”

  “We were together all night,” Chenoa said. “Ask Jamie.”

  “Oh that’s a credible witness to corroborate your tale,” Stumper said.

  Chenoa glared at Stumper and the kitchen went silent until Wilson asked Manny, “When will this get out?”

  “This?”

  He wrapped his arm around Chenoa’s waist. “Our affair.”

  Manny swiveled in his stool and leaned closer to Wilson. “Not from me, and I doubt Stumper will want it getting out a Lakota was sparking the face of the Crow Nation. What you do is your business. But there’s another thing that’ll hurt you far worse than your affair.”

  Wilson dropped his head. “Degas?”

  “Degas. I want him, and you can give him to me.”

  “What makes you think I know where he is?”

  “Mr. Eagle Bull,” Stumper cut in. He grabbed his can of Copenhagen, but slipped it back into his pocket when he caught Chenoa glaring at him. “We know now you hired Degas right out of Folsom prison, and that he’d do most anything to protect you. Including making sure that journal never surfaces.”

  Wilson stood abruptly and his stool rolled back and banged against the refrigerator. A magnet dropped onto the floor, and a copper decorative clock dropped onto the counter, but neither man made a move to pick it up. Wilson stood chest-to-nose looking down on Stumper. “I don’t like your implication.”

  Manny stepped between them and eased Stumper back onto his stool before he turned to Wilson. “Then maybe you like this implication: Degas switched ammo and got Harlan White Bird killed. He probably killed Sam—probably for information about the journal—and he’d be good for Itchy’s death, just in case his threat of exposing you were true. And for icing on the cake, he shot Officer With Horn. Remember that loyalty you mentioned Degas had? And this piece of shit works for you.”

  “You can’t convict me of anything . . .”

  “Don’t need to,” Manny said. “All I need to do is leak this to the press and they’ll convict you in their papers. And I’m sure Sonja Myers will be more than happy to run an exposé in the next issue of the Rapid City Journal on senatorial candidate Wilson Eagle Bull.

  Wilson’s jaw muscles tightened and he stepped closer. “That how the FBI works—use threat and intimidation?”

  “Is that how politicians work—threats and intimidation?”

  “Leave him alone.” Chenoa stepped between Wilson and Manny. “He doesn’t know where Degas is . . .”

  Wilson pressed a finger to Chenoa’s lips. “I may be able to help you find him.”

  Chenoa took Wilson’s head in her hands and looked up. “Why would you help find one of your ranch hands? And someone who knows horseflesh like he does?”

  “Why?” Wilson forced a smiled that faded as quickly as it came on. “For the reasons Agent Tanno mentioned—Degas arranged for at least one man to be killed. And he shot Officer With Horn. I might be able to help.”

  Manny sat back on the stool. “Go on.”

  Wilson paced in front of the counter, rubbing his forehead. “Carson has called me four times since Harlan’s death.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me where he was calling from.” Wilson slumped on the stool, while Chenoa stood behind him, looking over his shoulder and glaring at Manny. “He called wondering if he still had a job.”

  “After we arrest him?”

  “He said there was no proof that he switched ammunition that killed Harlan. Said he was in jail in Hardin at the time.”

  Manny thought back to Degas’s loyalty to his boss. Did the loyalty go both ways? Was Wilson protecting him? From what he had uncovered about Degas, Manny could easily put together a scenario where the man killed to protect his boss, killing anyone who might expose him with the journal.

  And did Wilson or Chenoa know who killed Sam and Itchy? Manny rubbed a rising headache away. Something just out of the reaches of his reasoning eluded him.

  “And he said he wasn’t even on Crow Agency when Sam and Itchy were killed,” Wilson added. “Said he was on Pine Ridge. Said he couldn’t get here in time to kill them.” Unless they had a ride, Manny thought. Like in the passenger seat of a Cessna.

  “And you believe him?”

  “Carson’s never lied to me before,” Wilson said, but his voice lacked conviction. “He assured me he didn’t have anything to do with Sam’s or Itchy’s death.”

  “And Officer With Horn?” Manny felt his anger rising, and he breathed to control it. “Is Willie’s dying declaration a lie?”

  Wilson shook his head. He stood, looking down at the floor, and started pacing again. “There must have been some mistake. Maybe Carson thought Willie was sneaking around the ranch waiting to steal something. We’ve had some cattle thefts this last year.”

  Manny remained quiet.

  Wilson’s shoulders drooped and he faced Manny. “His alibis don’t hold water.”

  Manny nodded.

  “Okay, Agent Tanno, what can I do to help?”

  Manny stood and walked a cramp out of his calf. “Here’s the deal: The next time Degas calls, you tell him you need to meet him at your ranch, or here if he’s still on Crow Agency. I’m not buying it that he’s been in Pine Ridge all this time.”

  “What will you do when you find him? I don’t want Carson hurt . . .”

  “We’ll do our best to take him alive,” Manny answered. “Dead men don’t interview well.”

  Wilson’s lips moved as he paced, talking to himself, until he stopped and faced Stumper and Manny. “I’ll do it.”

  “Wilson . . .”

  “I have to.” He laid a hand on Chenoa’s shoulder. “The sooner Agent Tanno and Stumper corral Carson, the sooner he can clear his name. I just know there’s some mistake. I’ll tell Carson I need to meet him.”

  “And one other thing”—Manny swallowed hard, sweat forming on his forehead just thinking about it—“if Degas goes to your Pine Ridge ranch, you fly me there.”

  Wilson looked to Chenoa for approval, her face unreadable. Wilson agreed. “He’ll probably call soon, as I haven’t heard from him for a couple days. He’ll have heard about you and Stumper being shot at, and he’ll wonder if he’s a suspect in that, too. What do I tell him?”

  “The truth—that you don’t know anything about it.”

  Wilson straightened. “I’ll call you when he does.”

  “And Wilson, I’ll know if you’re setting me up.”

  Wilson shook his head. “I won’t. I don’t think Degas is your killer, and I want him to have a chance to prove it. But if your trap fails to catch him and he escap
es, you’ve got to promise to protect me.”

  Manny eyed Wilson’s trembling lips, and he sat on the stool to ease his shaking knees. “Vietnam Marine vets usually don’t frighten easily.”

  “You don’t know Carson.”

  Manny turned to Chenoa. “I’m going to have to seize your boots. Jamie’s and yours, too, Wilson.”

  “What the hell for?” Chenoa asked.

  Manny shrugged. “Compare them to those prints we found in that barn tonight.”

  * * *

  Manny put the boots in the back of Stumper’s Tahoe and climbed in. Manny turned and looked out the back window as they drove out the long driveway. Wilson looked after them, backlit by the lights in the open door as he watched them disappear over the hill. “Wilson might set you up,” Stumper said, filling his lip with Copenhagen. “He might want to win the senatorial race so badly, he’ll have Degas waiting to kill the chief investigator in the case.”

  “I’ve thought of that.”

  “And you’re not scared?”

  “I didn’t say that. But as long as I’m scared, I won’t make stupid mistakes.”

  Stumper pulled onto the gravel BIA road Cubby had tried running Manny off earlier. “What are you going to do until Degas contacts Wilson?” Stumper asked.

  Manny smiled. “I’m going to hang out with my friend and colleague Stumper LaPierre tomorrow. See what the evidence tech found in that Caddy, after which we’ll take a trip to Billings to talk with the ME.”

  “And wait around to fly to Pine Ridge?”

  Manny’s smile faded. “Now you do got me scared.”

  CHAPTER 36

  They were close enough to Custer’s Revenge that Manny could almost feel the lumpy mattress under his head; smell the stale cigarette odor permeating the walls; hear the drip-drip-drip of the running stool with a crack in the seat that pinched his butt at least once a day.

  Until Stumper got a call on his cell. “Where’d you get the info on the shipment?” he said into the phone. He kicked on the overheads and siren and cut through the interstate median on his way back toward Crow Agency.