Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (10 page)

Willie tossed a Styrofoam cup in the waste basket. “Serves you right. We all told you not to touch it. But no, the Great Manny Tanno always knows better than anyone else. I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Give me a break already, I only meant…”

“And we’d be out working this case, instead of sitting here.”

“We’ll be working the case soon enough. Sometimes a person just has to let the facts set in his mind for a time.”

“How long?”

Manny shrugged. “It’s like pornography—you’ll know it when you see it. When you get some more experience under your belt.”

“Well, I still hate hospitals. And doctors.”

Manny looked sideways at Willie. “The voice of experience there. How would you know about doctors—I’ll bet you haven’t been sick a day in your life.”

“I wish. I had to go back to the doc just last week.”

“Sick?”

Willie leaned closer and whispered, “Prostate problems.”

“You? You’re twenty-three. Too young to have prostate troubles.”

“I got a prostate as big as a bagel. Doc gave me some meds to shrink it. Now, I got to go back once a month for a blood draw and the finger wave to check if the med’s working.”

Manny groaned. His own physician had donned a finger glove and checked him once a year since he turned forty, and it was no fun. “I hope you at least found a woman doctor.”

“No such luck. I drew the old Greek doc here, the one with fingers like sausages, and a huge ring that I swear he leaves on during the wave. I hate doctors, and now I’m stuck here with you instead of out working the case.”

Manny had once shared Willie’s enthusiasm. He recalled his first homicide call as a rookie tribal cop, and the excitement he felt as he dug into the circumstances. A drunk had been rolled at the powwow grounds for the price of a six-pack of Falstaff and been left propped against the fence. Except someone had run a blade across his femoral artery and the old man had died where he slept. Two punks from Cheyenne River, visiting Pine Ridge for the festivities, had drunk themselves
out of money and killed the old guy. Manny had been as excited as Willie to solve a murder back then.

“At least you don’t have to look for the guy that broke out your truck window.”

Willie shook his head. “I’d feel better with someone besides Janet looking for the suspect.”

“You got to admit it was decent of her to volunteer to look into it, and to stick by your truck until Glass Doctor came.”

“The guy almost didn’t come. He thought it was a joke. He said the side glass was worth more than my truck when I explained what I drove.”

“All the same, it was nice of her to offer. You should trust her a little more.”

“As far as I can throw her.”

“Depending on what she was wearing at the time, that might be a pleasant proposition.”

Willie turned his face away. “Not if Doreen finds out.”

“Hey Officer Tanno.”

Henry Lone Wolf stumbled through the ER door, teetering on delicate legs that were purposely bowed. For those who had a hard time remembering faces, Henry’s would be the exception. His cheeks glowed with that same florid look and broken, blue capillaries of the perpetually drunk, and he reeked of stale brewskies.

Henry glared at Willie and turned his back on him. He smiled at Manny. “Mind if I sit with you?” He grabbed onto the sides of the chair and eased himself down. He gave a pain-filled grunt when he’d settled in.

“What happened to you?”

Henry closed his eyes, and he ground his teeth together with a gnashing sound that didn’t bode well for what teeth he had left. “I got scalded on my backside. Mostly my butt.” As if to punctuate his pain he winced as he stood.

“Must be some story behind this,” Manny said.

“There usually is with Lone Wolf McQuade.” Willie smirked.

Henry jerked his thumb at Willie. “It’s officers like him that did the damage.” Henry fidgeted, pulling his trousers away from his legs.

“What’s wrong?”

“Rapid City Police Department,” Henry said. “They washed my ass.”

“Come on Henry,” Willie said. “What the hell’s the problem with the PD up there this time?”

“I said they washed my ass. Waxed it, too.”

“I’ll bite,” Willie said. “What did they wash it with?”

“The car wash.” Henry pulled his trousers down over his butt, oblivious to the other patients watching his behind in the waiting room. One mother covered her infant daughter’s face with her shawl, and her two boys laughed. Blisters were intermingled with beet red skin on Henry’s legs, and he pulled his pants back up over his bony butt. “A couple officers took me to the car wash.”

Willie laughed. “Don’t tell me—you were so dirty they had to clean you up?”

“You’re one to talk.” Henry nodded to Willie’s shirtfront, which hosted samples of whatever Willie had for breakfast this morning.

“What happened?” Manny pressed.

Henry turned his back on Willie. “Two White cops arrested me for public intox in that little park by the Civic Center. There I was examining the bottom of a muscatel bottle when they rousted me. I wasn’t doing nothing but they arrested me anyway. Pissed me off.”

“So they took you to the car wash?”

Henry smiled. “Right after I crapped myself. I figured if they was arresting me for a chickenshit public intox charge, I was going to make them pay. So I crapped my pants in the back of the cruiser. And that pissed
them
off.”

“As I recall,” Willie said, “that’s not the first time you pulled that stunt. You did that to me a time or two.”

“But you didn’t take me to the car wash. These guys were pissed. Said that was the last time I was going to crap in their cruiser—I guess I’ve done it before there as well, but I don’t remember. Anyway, they took me to the Soap and Suds there on LaCrosse. Bent me over the hood of the cruiser. Gave me a wash and wax.”

“Doesn’t explain how you got those burns,” Willie said.

“Sure it does.” Manny shook his head. “My guess is that car wash water is about a hundred and fifty degrees, hot enough to scald anyone, drunk or not. I’m sorry, Henry.”

“What you sorry for?”

“Them,” Manny answered. “Not all cops are like them. That was uncalled for.”

The receptionist called Henry’s name and he hobbled toward the examination room door. “I’ll make a few calls for you, Henry,” Manny called after him. “Make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Henry stopped and faced him, his mouth downturned with a sadness that overrode his physical pain. “Don’t matter, Agent Tanno. Nothing’s going to change. We Skins aren’t exactly treated like kings anywhere off the rez. Besides, it’ll get the officers in trouble, and next time they won’t call for a ride to get me back home like they done today.”

The receptionist held Henry’s arm, guiding him through the examination room doors.

“So much for White-Indian relations.” Willie pinched Copenhagen into his lower lip and rubbed the excess off on his pant leg. “That’s shit they did twenty years ago.”

“Let’s hope we’ve evolved a little more in dealing with the
wasicu
. Still, I’ll call the PD patrol lieutenant tomorrow. I’m certain it won’t happen again. But right now I got my own
troubles.” Manny fought the urge to scratch his leg. He sat back in the chair and gritted his teeth.

“I don’t feel sorry for you. I’ll bet that little girl over there’s got more sense than to grab onto a wild cat.” He chin-pointed to a four-year-old huddled beside her mother. The child tapped feet shrouded in beaded moccasins, and played with the collar of a white muslin top that had multicolored geodetic designs painted on the front and spilling onto the sleeves. The girl looked up from the floor and spied Willie and Manny across the room. She broke away from her mother and ran toward them, arms as wide as her grin.

“At least kids like me.” Manny held his arms out to catch her, but the girl ran around him and jumped into Willie’s lap. She eyed Manny suspiciously as she peeked around the safety of Willie’s arms.

He smiled at Manny. “Guess she knows quality. How are you doing, Morissa?”

The child buried her face in Willie’s chest as her mother walked across the room and sat beside them. “Morissa’s not doing so good,” she said. At the sound of her name, Morissa grinned and showed a dozen new teeth before she started coughing into Willie’s shoulder. Willie introduced Manny to Adelle Friend of All, and the woman eyed him as suspiciously as her daughter did.
Guess the FBI’s just not the most popular folks hereabouts
.

Adelle took Morissa from him and cradled her against her chest as she stroked her head. “She’s been awfully sick these past weeks.”

“Flu?” Manny winked at Morissa, who turned her head away and covered her face in Adelle’s shirt.

“The doctor can’t figure it out. Morissa’s been having diarrhea and vomiting. Now this.” She pulled Morissa’s top up to show a misshapen sore the size of a quarter that was spreading
across her back. “
Maku mi yazan
is what the last doctor told me. Upper respiratory infection. I don’t want Morissa to be like my two oldest, always sick and nothing the doctors can do about it. I’m just grateful I can get Morissa in today.” She waved her arm around the crowded waiting room. “Just don’t get sick the last half of the year—Indian Health runs out of money about then.”

Willie nodded. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Manny popped a piece of Juicy Fruit gum in his mouth. Morissa eyed him and he offered her a piece, but she turned away. “You’d think something would tip the doc off as to what it is. Maybe something they’ve been eating. Maybe bad spores. The Old Ones tell us
wakan sica
sends us bad things now and again.” Manny recalled Unc telling him the same thing.

Adelle forced a smile and brushed a lock of hair out of Morissa’s eyes. “This goes beyond anything the evil spirits could send. Besides,
wakan sica
afflicts us with Indian sicknesses. This is a White man’s disease.”

A nurse appeared at the door and called out to a hunched old man slumped against a teenage girl. “You’re next.”

She helped him stand and they shuffled through the examination room door. Adelle looked after him and hugged Morissa tighter. “I’m afraid for my children.”

“I would be, too.” Manny stroked Morissa’s head a moment before she burst into a coughing spasm. Her eyes kept fixated on Manny’s pocket, and he grabbed his pack of gum. This time she smiled and snatched a piece. “Has something been different, like Willie said—change in eating habits, lifestyle changes, anything out of the ordinary?”

Adelle shook her head. “We’ve been on the same routine for the past couple of years. I take my kids to my sister’s outside Red Shirt Table every morning, before heading for the Visitor Center. You know, that’s been a good job since the tribe and Park Service started running it together.”

“What do the doctors say about Morissa?”

Adelle frowned and her eyes darted to the examination room door. “That new one that came in from Chicago says my kids are malnourished. He says I don’t care for my babies. Maybe we don’t eat prime rib every night over a glass of fine Chianti, but we make do. And it sure isn’t whooping cough like he said the last time.”

“Do your sister’s kids have problems, too?” Manny asked.

Adelle looked away. When she turned back, tears had formed at the corners of her eyes and she held Morissa closer, rocking her gently on her lap, stroking her hair. “May’s only child, Julie, died two years ago. Docs couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, either. May said she wished she’d had Julie autopsied—maybe that’d help figure out what’s wrong with my babies. But it’s just not our way to autopsy an eight-year-old.”

“May must enjoy watching your kiddies,” Manny was quick to say. “Bet she dotes on them.”

“Big time.” Adelle smiled and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her top. “May takes them swimming every day, since she lives right at the Cheyenne River. Takes them for hikes. Does things with them, like they were her own. If hers were still alive.”

“Morissa Friend of All.” A nurse in multiflowered scrubs stood in the doorway holding a clipboard and smiled when she spotted Adelle.

“Wish me luck.” Adelle carried Morissa, coughing into her mother’s shoulder, into the examination room.

Willie picked loose strands of Morissa’s hair from his lap. He looked around for a wastebasket, then stuck the wad of hair in his shirt pocket. “Adelle’s right, she’s a good mom. Never knew her to neglect her kids.”

“Sounds like she might have fallen on hard times.” Manny rubbed his leg and flexed it to work out the numbness caused by the spreading infection.

“Most folks on Pine Ridge have fallen on hard times—started about one hundred and fifty years ago when the
wasicu
took our land and made us beg for the food they gave us. But that don’t mean Adelle’s kids are neglected. Anyone that’d drive as far as her to get her kids medical attention can’t be a bad parent.”

“How far?”

“Fifty miles. Just west of Cuny Table. East end of Blindman Table. Lives on a section of trust land her father managed to hang onto until he died young. That’s what made the job at the White River Visitor’s Center so attractive to her—it’s only four miles from her house.”

The nurse reappeared at the examination room door and called out another name. A couple in their seventies, perhaps their eighties—it was difficult to tell with elder Lakotas— helped each other as they followed the nurse. “Damned assembly line.”

“Treat ’em and street ’em is how the nurses put it,” Manny said. “Run patients through as fast as possible so they can see everyone before the end of the day.”

“Still sticks in my craw they can’t—or won’t—do anything for the Morissas on the reservation.” Willie stood and spit his chew into a trash can by the door. A woman holding a swollen arm glared at him. Her eyes followed his black uniform and settled on his embroidered badge until he sat back beside Manny. “Maybe if the docs stuck around and got to know the people, they’d take more of an interest.”

Manny rubbed his leg, which seemed to throb in time with the pulsating hand he held away from the chair arm. “Average rotation time here is a year for doctors.”