Death Where the Bad Rocks Live Page 22

  “And poaching?”

  Marshal smiled. “Just take the gun and ammo and do whatever ballistic test you need. I got nothing to hide. I didn’t kill Gunnar.”

  “Not him I’m thinking of.” Manny set the gun on the bunk and pocketed the bullets. “It’s Micah Crowder.”

  “Told you already, I never met the man.”

  “Then what’s this?” Manny retrieved the parchment map from his pocket and handed it to Marshal. “Found this on your table just now. It’s Micah’s handwriting.”

  Marshal grabbed the map and tossed it back onto the table. “I was wondering myself how it got here. I saw it earlier when I got here.”

  “How did it come to be on your table?”

  “Look, I leave the cabin unlocked, in case some fool hiking out here gets in trouble and needs a place to rest up.”

  Manny smiled. “You don’t strike me as the Good Samaritan type.”

  “Ain’t. It’s just the right thing to do. There isn’t anything worth stealing so I keep the cabin unlocked. Micah Crowder must have come in here. Left the map on the table.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. We’ll leave it for now.”

  Manny grabbed the map and opened the door, orienting the map to the landscape. Twin buttes guarded a deep arroyo that had been circled on the parchment. “What’s down that gully?” Manny pointed out the door.

  Marshal glanced at the paper for the first time and frowned as he turned the paper to the light. “That’s the place where the bad rocks live.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  Marshal chin-pointed to the west. “Just an old legend Dad told me about that my grandfather told him once.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  Marshal’s face softened. He pinched tobacco in his lower lip and offered Manny a pinch, but he waved it away. “Grandfather Moses had disappeared by the time I was born, but Dad told me stories. When he could remember them between drinking bouts. Grandfather claimed bad rocks lived there. Guess it was just like his visions—something his imagination came up with.”

  Manny’s stomach growled and he reached in his jacket pocket for a Tanka Bar. He offered to share with Marshal, but he shook his head as he pointed to his lip swollen with Copenhagen. “That’s too healthy. I’m too busy helping myself into an early grave.”

  “Been there. But you got to be proud of your grandfather. He was a wonderful role model for traditional Lakota ways.”

  Marshal spit tobacco on top of a lizard crawling inside the cabin to escape the heat then ground it with his boot. “Grandpa Moses fought to keep traditions alive when everyone around him was conforming to the ways of the wasicu.”

  “Assimilation. My uncle Marion told me horror stories of the boarding school he was forced to attend until he ran away once too many times. After that they told him good riddance.” Unc, you clung to the traditional ways until you died from the White man’s disease, until you succumbed to diabetes. Manny turned away from Marshal when tears began forming in his eyes.

  “Grandfather Moses was Mata Ihanblapi. Bear Dreamer. He cured many people in his day. But his greatest gift was his ability to heal people spiritually.” He faced Manny. “To answer your earlier question, I do think Grandfather Moses is that other man in the car. He was just at the wrong place during bombing practice. Why they were there is the mystery.”

  “So you don’t buy the possibility that Moses was there with the White guy, drinking where they shouldn’t have been?”

  Marshal shook his head. “Unlike my dad, Grandfather never drank. Ever. Ellis Lawler might have been shitfaced when those bombs dropped, but not Grandfather.”

  “How’d you find out the name of the other man in the car?”

  Marshal grinned wide. “I got my sources.”

  “Janet Grass?”

  Marshal shrugged and sipped his coffee.

  “Guess I’ll have to plug a leak when I find it. But tell me about these bad rocks.”

  Marshal topped off his cup and set the pot back on the stove as he pulled a chair away from the table and sat. “I will tell you, not because you’ll use the information wisely, but because I have no desire for anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Then there is truth to the legend?”

  “Every legend had some truth to it.” He pointed out the doorway framing the twin buttes drawn on the map. “Grandfather claimed the bad rocks kept people from leaving the Stronghold. He said only the Wanbli Oyate thrives there. Only the eagle soaring overhead does not feel the wrath of the bad rocks.”

  “So the Eagle Nation navigates around that region in safety?”

  Marshal nodded. “To soar above the evil. Never touching the rocks. The place is cursed. Or so Grandfather claimed.”

  “Can’t be too cursed if the Air Corps used the area for bombing practice, dragging cars out there for practice targets.”

  “All I know is those scrub cows I’ve tried raising all die prematurely. Some cows abort spontaneously. Just like those critters Grandfather raised, and like those Dad had.”

  “Did you ever think they died because you were a poor rancher, like your father and his father?”

  “Got nothing to do with that.” Marshal reached inside his lip. He scrapped Copenhagen away and tossed it out the door. “I’ve fed them every supplement, supplied them every mineral cake I could to nurse them back to health. I’ve had three two-headed calves the last five years. Three from a herd of forty heifers. What’s the odds in that?”

  “But you’ve gone to where the rocks live and came back to tell me about it.”

  “I go there every spring and every fall to pray. Offer tobacco to the four winds. Make a sweat and purify myself. Still, the curse that’s lingered so long won’t go away.”

  “Could you show me the rocks?”

  Marshal stood and pointed to the buttes. “There somewhere. I’ve never found them, but I feel them. They’re there, watching me when I pass. Go. Hike to your heart’s content. But I won’t be responsible for you not making it out alive.”

  Manny thought of the prayers he would need to offer, of the purity he would need. He’d need the guidance of a sacred man to show him the proper rituals to survive the rocks. Not that he was superstitious, but because a smart Oglala needed to hedge his bet against all enemies. Even bad rocks.

  A horn honked outside. Pee Pee sat in his OST evidence van and stuck his head out the window, the wind whipping his long, gray braids across his face. “Train’s leaving. You want to be on it?”

  Manny turned to Marshal. “I’m here to clear the three cold cases, and this fresh homicide. If you’re innocent, I’ll clear you. If you’re connected, I’ll hunt you down like you hunt deer and antelope.”

  “Same as all cops—up against the wall and spread ’em?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Lumpy glared at Pee Pee’s boots propped on the conference room table. He turned then so the rhinestones glinted in contrast to the pink leather uppers. With a wide smile, Pee Pee flicked away imaginary dust that had settled on Elvis Presley’s signature on the outside of one boot. “Why didn’t you tell me you were bidding on these, Chief? I feel bad now that I know I was bidding against you.”

  “How the hell should I know who was running me up?” Lumpy paced in front of the table. “What would you take for them?”

  “Yes, what’s your price?” Janet looked up at Lumpy. “I’ll buy them for Uncle Leon.”

  Pee Pee held up both hands. “I just got them. I got to see if I want to keep them for my collection. They’re a mite small for you, anyway.”

  “Don’t matter. Name your price.”

  Pee Pee played with a gray braid and seemed to be mulling the idea over. “I’ll sleep on it. Or should I say, I’ll walk on it.” Pee Pee laughed, and Lumpy turned to Manny.

  “Where’s Willie?”

  “Here, Chief.” Willie burst through the door, one side of his shirttail hanging out of his trousers, and the cuff of one uniform shirt had caught on some
thing and ripped. He rubbed morning stubble, and his eyes were so red it looked as if he would bleed to death if he didn’t close them. “Just couldn’t get up today.”

  “You wanted to know about Micah Crowder,” Manny said, diverting Lumpy’s attention from Willie.

  Lumpy dropped into his Elvis chair. “I got to have something on Crowder. Sonja Myers is breathing down my neck wanting information. She’s hinting at a cover-up.”

  Manny winked at Lumpy. “Thought that’s what you always wanted—Sonja breathing down your neck.”

  Lumpy scowled and pointed a finger at Manny. “You sicced her on me in the first place.”

  “Not like you resisted much.” When Sonja Myers got assigned to cover the Red Cloud murder case for the Rapid City Journal two months ago, she’d played Lumpy like a fine Stradivarius, or more like a pawnshop fiddle missing strings, and Lumpy had become one more victim of Sonja’s beauty and charm, giving out information he didn’t intend. Lumpy knew how biting her reports could be, and Manny was certain he wanted no more of that. But Manny wouldn’t let Lumpy off the hook that easily. “Maybe you still got a chance with Sonja.”

  “Not likely. She’s been spending time with Judge High Elk as of late.”

  “That’s a serious conflict of interest, both for him as an object of her investigation, and for the Journal for allowing her to.” On the Red Cloud murder, Sonja had played Manny against Lumpy, working each in order to gain inside information for her articles. Apparently, she was still working hard to gain attention of the big newspapers and fly out of Rapid for the Big Time. Had Ham put her up to snooping?

  “Relax, Chief,” Willie said. “She didn’t get any inside info the last time she called.”

  Lumpy glared at Willie. “Maybe not, but this time she bent Hazel Horse’s ear.”

  Hazel was the chairperson on the Committee to Appoint a Permanent Tribal Police Chief. “That explains why you’re so upset.” Manny said.

  “Hazel’s pushy,” Janet volunteered. She scooted closer to Lumpy and draped her arm around his shoulders. “She calls up here three, four times a day wanting an update, so Sonja Myers will stop bugging her.”

  “Well, watch what you say to Sonja.”

  “I’ve been doing this longer than you have, Mister Agent Man.” Red-faced, Lumpy turned to Pee Pee still twirling his long braid. “Take your damned feet off my table and tell me something about this Micah Crowder I don’t already know.”

  Pee Pee feigned hurt feelings as he dabbed at the corners of his eyes with an imaginary handkerchief. He opened his briefcase on the table and slid the autopsy report toward Lumpy. “Contact wound to the back of the head, .38 caliber.”

  “Sure about the caliber?” Manny reached for the report, but Lumpy jerked it back.

  “Not many people shoot .38s anymore,” Lumpy added.

  Pee Pee motioned to the report as he straightened his Elvis vest. The King seemed to be smiling at Lumpy as Pee Pee turned to show off both lapels. “The recovered slug was a hollow point, nonbonded, and it fragmented. There was enough to measure—.356—and weigh, ninety grains of soft lead, plus whatever jacket material was floating around in Crowder’s skull.”

  “With that diameter, it could be a .357.” Lumpy relinquished the report, and Manny studied the file. “Could even be a 9mm, which is more common.”

  “Could be.” Pee Pee brushed dirt from his boots. “But I’m making a best guess with what Doc Gruesome found.”

  “So we have an idea of the murder weapon.” Lumpy’s eyes kept darting back to Pee Pee’s Elvis boots. He turned to Willie. “What did Benny Black Fox have to say?”

  Willie began to speak but Janet interrupted him. “Benny remembers Crowder’s blue Pontiac like it was yesterday.”

  Lumpy laughed. “That rummy can’t remember what he did an hour ago let alone yesterday.”

  “How does he remember?” Manny leaned closer and cocked his ear toward her as he took off his reading glasses and set them beside the autopsy report.

  “Because of Crowder’s driving,” Willie cut in. Janet threw him a shut-the-hell-up look, but he forced a smile and continued. “Benny saw the car when he was changing a lightbulb at the KILI booster tower by Cuny Table.”

  “He still doing that?” Pee Pee popped another Elvis PEZ and let the dispenser linger in front of Lumpy for a few moments before pocketing it. “Didn’t we arrest him last year for shooting out those bulbs with his .22?”

  Willie nodded. “We did but the station manager dropped charges. Said they couldn’t get anyone else to change the bulbs.”

  “What’s with the bulbs?” Manny asked.

  Willie nodded to the ceiling. “KILI pays Benny ten bucks for every lightbulb he changes, because no one else is crazy enough to crawl all the way up their tower and do it.”

  Pee Pee laughed. “And last spring a KILI maintenance crew caught Benny shooting out the bulbs and running home to wait for the call to come back and change them. At the ten-dollar-a-bulb fee.”

  “The Pontiac already!” Lumpy leaned on the table with his pudgy arms. “How the hell does he remember Crowder’s car?”

  “He didn’t see the car at first,” Janet blurted out, wanting to be the bearer of news to Uncle Leon. “Benny said it looked like every other rez rod. He remembered the car because it kicked up so much dust, the Indian following him was having a hard time keeping up.”

  “That’s it? That’s Benny’s pearl of wisdom?” Lumpy threw up his hands. “I could have told you an Indian was following Crowder and I wasn’t even there. Could have been any one of us twenty thousand Indians hereabouts.”

  “Janet means an Indian motorcycle was chasing Crowder,” Willie said. “A crimson Indian Chief. Benny was certain of that.”

  “Just like the one Judge High Elk drives,” Janet added.

  “Doesn’t mean the judge was driving.” Lumpy rubbed his forehead. “When did Benny see this motorcycle chasing Crowder?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And he didn’t tell anyone?”

  Willie shrugged. “Benny had a fresh ten-spot waiting for him and a big thirst. He had other priorities. Went down to White Clay to spend it and forgot to tell anyone when he got back.”

  Lumpy stood and his chair rolled back and hit the wall. He turned as if to apologize to the King. “If you’re saying Judge High Elk’s our shooter, you’d better have your ducks in a row before you even interview him.”

  “Can’t do that just yet.”

  “And why the hell not?” Lumpy turned to Willie. “I don’t relish this agency getting tied up talking with a sitting federal judge, but it looks like it has to be done.”

  “He’s missing.”

  “Missing? What kind of police work is that when you can’t even keep tabs on someone as high profile as the judge?”

  Willie filled Lumpy in on the search warrant they had served with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, leaving out Janet puking twice from fear. “After we found him missing from his cabin, we put out a BOLO on him. We figure he and Joe Dozi went somewhere to establish an alibi for the judge.”

  “Oh, he’s got an alibi, all right, doesn’t he?” Lumpy nodded to Janet.

  “I found out the judge has been at his mother’s house since yesterday.” She winked at Willie. “Just good police work.”

  Pee Pee laughed. “Just rookie luck, from what I hear.” He turned to Willie. “Don’t feel too bad, kid. Dirty Harriet over there happened onto the judge’s outfit sitting at Sophie’s house when she passed it on another investigation.”

  “That so?” Manny leaned across the table and met Lumpy’s stare. “The judge’s been there for a day and you didn’t tell us?”

  Lumpy scooted his chair back as if to escape. “Janet passed Sophie’s place in Oglala on her way to interviewing a suspect on the damages to Willie’s Durango.”

  “And the judge was just sitting there with his mother, in front of her house.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
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  “I did.” Janet smiled at Manny, then turned to Willie and winked. “I told Uncle Leon.”

  “Now what the hell you want? To rub it in that one of your officers found the judge when the FBI couldn’t?”

  Lumpy eased himself into his chair. “Sit for a moment. Please.”

  Manny couldn’t recall the last time Lumpy had said please to him, and he sat out of curiosity.

  Lumpy made a tiny tent with his stubby fingers, started to speak, then stopped.

  I guess he stopped to think and forgot to start again. “Spit it out and get it over with.”

  “I’m concerned about Willie,” he said at last. “There’s something going on that I can’t fix.”

  “How the hell do you think he feels? How would you feel if the rookie you’re training is slated to replace you at the first excuse?”

  “He needs to push his envelope, which he didn’t do on that last homicide case.”

  “Why, just because we didn’t solve it? It’s not like Willie didn’t put his heart into the case. And it’s not like I didn’t try to bring him along.”

  “For once get off your high horse and come down here were we mortals live. It’s not because he—and you, Hotshot—couldn’t find Jason Red Cloud’s murderer. Some crimes are unsolvable, even for the legendary Manny Tanno.”

  “Then why are you on his ass? Why did you oppose his promotion to criminal investigator?”

  “He’s too green.”

  “We were all too green once. We all had to learn on the job. But Janet is even greener than he is, and you want to replace him with her.”

  “Because she has the requisite degree.”

  “That’s bull, Lumpy, and you know it.”

  Lumpy’s face reddened and he leaned across the table. “I wanted to put pressure on Willie to perform. Wanted him to use his intellect. And all I get from him is coming in late, if he comes in at all. And when he does, he looks like he’s been on a weeklong bender down in White Clay.”

  “Willie doesn’t drink.”

  “He does now. He needs to get his head out of his ass.”

  “I bet you told him that.”