Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (15 page)

It surprised Manny that so few people occupied the lobby today during the height of the tourist season, and he figured most folks were here to listen to Judge Alexander Hamilton
High Elk. But that was all right: that gave Manny the freedom to wander the hotel lobby without others gawking at him.

He looked about in awe at the grandeur of the historic hotel and wondered at the vision to build such a place in the middle of the west. Starting the day before Mt. Rushmore construction began in 1927, Alex Carlton Johnson had spared no expense in incorporating Indian and German themes into the architecture of the building. Journalists of the day proclaimed the Alex Johnson the Showplace of the West, while people in modern times echoed that sentiment.

Manny stepped onto bricks laid by craftsmen seventy-five years ago, the bricks hand fired, many with Indian symbols painted on them. The bricks with the swastika particularly fascinated Manny, and he could only guess about the artist who had painted them. The symbol had special meaning to the Navajo, though he had forgotten what, like he had forgotten many things Indian since leaving the reservation. Far too many things lost over the years of living in the east.

Judge High Elk’s secretary had instructed Manny to wait in the lobby where the judge would meet him after his talk to the local bar association. Manny dropped into an overstuffed paisley chair that wrapped its enormous arms around him as it had others before him for three-quarters of a century. He closed his eyes, imagining the people that had enjoyed the chair’s comforting embrace, imagining what stories they had whispered to the old chair as they sought solace in it.

Clapping from the large conference hall snapped Manny awake. The applause subsided, but grew again until it bounced off the walls, and came full around to where he sat: the judge getting a standing ovation, he was certain, as he did wherever he spoke. Or so the press reported always happened whenever Judge High Elk honored people with an appearance.

Manny turned his attention to one wall spanning the length of the lobby. Lakota artifacts, quivers and arrows and
lances, weapons of war, adorned that wall, along with artifacts of peace: a ceremonial pipe of red catlinite, and framed copies of broken treaties between the Lakota and the government. The artifacts shared the wall with railroad memorabilia. Alex Johnson had been vice president of the Chicago and North Western Railroad, and had been as proud of his connections with the railroad as he was fascinated with Indian life.

The applause stopped and a small, pale man in a black suit too large for him threw open the conference room door. He pushed his long sleeves over his wrists and stood there as if he were a movie usher directing young neckers to leave. Manny caught the man in the Hawaiian garb in the middle of the crowd, jostled around while being pushed from behind as the crowd filed out of the room.

Manny averted his eyes, his gaze drawn to a wall, not to the two enormous buffalo heads standing guard on either size of the oversize mantel, but to the painting hanging between them. He had heard that the Alex Johnson had acquired an original Moses Ten Bears piece—only five of which were known to have survived the Oglala sacred man—but this was the first Manny saw of the painting since its unveiling last month. Manny took in the subdued colors, almost an abstract, and the nebulous meaning of the painting. The
Rapid City Journal
article claimed the hotel had bought the painting in honor of the nomination of Alexander Hamilton High Elk to the Supreme Court.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” A voice spoke so softly behind him Manny barely caught it, yet the tone and timbre sent goose bumps scurrying across his forearms. A tall Lakota with sky blue eyes, kind eyes, met his gaze. The eyes were set on either side of a nose so straight one could set a ruler along it, and an angular, muscular neck sported a bone choker. “Did you know Moses Ten Bears and my grandfather were best friends?”

“Grandfather?”

“Clayton Charles. The senator from South Dakota.”

“Of course. Died in office at the tail end of World War II. A pleasure to meet you, Judge High Elk.” Manny cursed himself. He wasn’t used to being caught so flat-footed.
I’ll be up on High Elk family history the next time I talk with the judge.
“I didn’t connect your grandfather with Moses Ten Bears.”

Judge High Elk smiled easily. “Most folks don’t remember that part of local history. And I’m not so certain I do either. Grandfather died long before I was born.”

“Folks will remember seeing a Ten Bears original, I’ll wager.”

The judge chin-pointed to the painting. “People would ask Moses for a vision and he would go into the hills—he favored the Stronghold—and pray. Sweat. Have his vision and paint it when he returned to his cabin. But most people weren’t strong enough to accept their fate. People didn’t want to be reminded it might come true. After all, an Oglala holy man painted it.” He turned away from the painting. “You must be Senior Special Agent Tanno.”

Manny nodded and accepted Judge High Elk’s hand, rough, chapped, not soft as Manny expected an attorney and judge’s to be. To his chagrin, Manny realized that his own hand was soft enough to be in a Palmolive commercial.

“My secretary didn’t say what the nature of your interview was, only that it was important. I speculated there’s something the FBI needs to clarify prior to the Senate confirmation hearings.”

“It’s important for the family of a man murdered forty years ago.”

Judge High Elk’s eyes darted to the crowd closing in around him, wanting to be close to the next Supreme Court justice. “Perhaps we can adjourn to the balcony. I’m assuming this is something I won’t want others hearing.”

The judge took the steps to the second floor two at a time
and waited for Manny to catch up. Though fifteen years his senior, the judge wasn’t the least out of breath as he motioned to a pair of occasional chairs overlooking the balcony. Manny dropped into one that was twin brother to the strong, protective chair that had comforted him earlier in the lobby.

The chairs were close enough to the balcony railing that sitters were rewarded with a panoramic view of everything happening below. A leather-garbed biker, squat and bald with a connected look to him that matched his menacing air, stopped two couples starting up the wide staircase. He whispered something and both couples retreated back down the staircase as they shot looks over their shoulders at the man.

“So tell me about this victim.”

Manny turned in his seat and took out his notebook, not for reference, but because people expected it, as if he had to finger it to listen to them. “Judge High Elk, we…”

“Ham. Call me Judge High Elk if you ever argue a case in front of me or testify in my court. Out here, it’s just Ham. Now about a murdered man…”

Manny nodded. “Gunnar Janssen.”

Ham drew in a quick breath. “Gunnar’s finally surfaced?”

“He was found murdered in the Stronghold.”

“Murdered?”

“In that area of the Badlands the Army Air Corps used as a bombing range during World War II.”

“Gunnar,” Ham breathed again, sitting back in his seat and covering his eyes with his hand. The bald man started up the steps, and Ham caught his movement. “It’s all right,” he called to the man. “We’re just discussing some sad news.”

Baldy sat back on the steps and surveyed the crowd below him. He was the oddest Secret Service agent Manny had ever seen. If he were Secret Service.

“This is bizarre—Gunnar found after all this time. How did he escape capture after all these years?”

“Capture?”

“Draft dodger. I wonder how he hid out this long.”

“Nature’s hideaway—he’s been dead all this time.”

“All this time?” Ham slumped in his chair. “Please tell me how he died.”

Manny flipped a page and pretended to read from it. “Small caliber gunshot to the head. I thought you might shed some light on his disappearance, since you reported him missing in 1969.”

“So long ago. Let me think a moment.” Ham closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. When he opened them after several minutes, he spoke in that same soft, composed voice. “Gunnar and Joe Dozi and I were roommates at Black Hills State back in the day. To say we were all inseparable would be to slight our relationship. We did everything together. Scouted around the Black Hills together. Hiked the Badlands together. Partied together.” He smiled. “So when Gunnar disappeared, I filed a missing person report with the Spearfish Police Department.”

Manny studied Ham, but detected no deception, no faltering in his voice. But then, Ham had suffered more pressure as a sitting federal judge than Manny could ever put on him. “I’ve read the missing person report. What did you think happened to Gunnar?”

“Gunnar lost his school deferment when his grades went south. Joe and I always figured he fled to Canada rather than be drafted.”

“Was he afraid of service?”

“He was anti–Vietnam War; organized protests here, and across the state. We knew that he’d never allow himself to be drafted and risk fighting in ’Nam. Besides, he had an aversion to killing. Loathed the thought of killing anything.”

Manny jotted notes in his book. “We know now that didn’t happen. Tell me, what reason would he have to go into the
Stronghold? He could have picked other places in the Badlands easier to travel around in.”

Ham took a long-stemmed red clay pipe from his pocket and filled it with tobacco from a pouch. Stalling? “There’s no smoking here, but I suspect no one will say anything if I do.”

Manny smiled. “I suspect you’re right.”

Ham blew smoke rings upward. When they neared the ceiling fan, they were sucked upward to the coppered ceiling. “Gunnar had just come back from Pine Ridge the week before. He said he missed a trophy buck, and we figured he went back the next weekend to fill his tag. That was the only other thing I thought might have happened to him—a hunting accident.”

“I thought he had an aversion to killing anything?”

“That was the odd part of his story to me.” Ham held the smoke before releasing it. “Seems like Gunnar acquired a taste for hunting somewhere along his road.”

“He knew Pine Ridge well enough to hunt there?”

“Few people know the Badlands well enough to get in and out in one piece. He hired a guide.”

“His name?”

Ham leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “I never knew his name, but Joe might. I’m sorry, Agent Tanno, but it was thirty years ago.”

“Understood. Perhaps the name will come to you. Did you try to find out what happened to Gunnar after he disappeared?”

“Heavens, yes. The other place we thought he might be hiding out besides Canada was the Badlands. He was into geology and he’d been there numerous times. I knew the Stronghold area well enough we traipsed around the reservation for a week after he left trying to locate him. When we failed to find him, we assumed he fled north across the border. Or someone got to him.”

“For what reason?”

“As antiwar as Gunnar was, there were pro-Vietnam students on campus as well. They were as vocal for the war as Gunnar was against. We thought maybe someone decided to shut him up.”

“No proof to that, either?”

Ham shook his head. “Not a shred. We just racked our brains figuring out where Gunnar may have gone and concluded dodging the draft was the most plausible.”

“Can anyone verify you were on the reservation?”

Ham looked sideways at Manny. “Am I a suspect?”

“A person of interest.”

“I hate that term. A
person of interest
is Cindy Crawford in a G-string.”

Manny smiled. “Either I verify your week on the reservation in 1969, or the pit bulls your Washington opposition send to root out dirt about you find it.”

Ham nodded. “I stayed with my mother for that week.”

“I have to ask this, is she…”

“Alive?” Ham laughed. “Still alive and mean and independent as always.” Ham wrote her address on the back of a business card and handed it to Manny. “Knock hard, she’s half deaf. And you’re right—I’d rather have you question me than whomever my enemies sic on me.”

Manny pocketed the card. “Let’s get back to Gunnar’s deferment. You certain he lost it?”

Ham nodded. “He was failing every class except geology— his only passion. When I found out he was failing his other classes, I offered to tutor him, but he was too busy with a new girlfriend and being the Geology Club president to take time out for his studies. When I suggested he could avoid losing his deferment if he picked up his grades, he just laughed. Said he knew enough people who would hide him out until he could cross into Canada. But we still looked in the Badlands for him.”

“We?”

“Joe Dozi and I.” Ham watched the smoke rings dissipating near the ceiling as if gathering his thoughts from the hazy cloud. “Joe got his notice the same week as Gunnar to report to the Induction Center in Omaha. But Gunnar was so frail, he didn’t want anything to do with the military, not like Joe, who took to it naturally. Joe and I were both hurt when Gunnar left without even saying good-bye. Hadn’t even contacted us after the war ended. Now I know why.”

“Did he get his draft notice before or after you two were arrested in Spearfish?”

Ham dropped his eyes. “You know about that?”

“Public record.”

Ham sighed. “It is, and I might as well practice my response. It’ll come up in the hearings anyway.”

“It will.”

“You’re right, so here goes. Gunnar’s girlfriend—Agenta Summer—was a beautiful girl, and she had needs, shall we say.”

“She was horny?”

Ham laughed. “Very much so. When Gunnar started failing classes, he hung around campus less and less, and Agenta became more and more frustrated. She told Gunnar she wanted him to stick around more, tend the fire, so to speak. But he didn’t.”

“That’s when you started tending that fire?”

Ham nodded. “That’s when I started stoking it. Agenta and I started spending time together. We were an odd couple, the Indian and the Swede, odd enough that other students commented how opposites attract, that we’d get hitched before the end of the semester. One night when Agenta and I shared a pizza and pitcher of beer at the Bon Ton, Gunnar came in and jumped me.”