Murder on the Red Cliff Rez (7 page)

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Authors: Mardi Oakley Medawar

BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
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In the rough-and-tumble salvaging world, Freddy, in charge of security, was a highly valued employee. His present boss had repeatedly stressed that there were to be no witnesses to the current salvage operation, and Freddy had understood. However, the new job's location was so remote that the retrieval had gone along without a hitch. Freddy had been bored.
Until that old man had showed up.
Now, and on the same cliff top where the old man had appeared, was a little girl. Through the field glasses, Freddy honed in on her face. She was moving around a lot and twice he had to adjust the glasses in order to see her features clearly.
“You won't get away from Freddy,” he muttered. Then with a shout, “I need the raft!”
 
Trying to pull Mushy back from the edge was like trying to drag a moose. Barking threats at the men below, Mushy stood on his hind legs, back paws dug into the cliff's red soil with super dog purchase. Tracker pulled on his collar with all the strength she possessed. Finally she yelled,
“End!” Mushy settled reluctantly, turning his face from her back toward the bay as she tugged him into the safety of cover and out of binocular range. Sweating profusely she knelt beside her dog, petting him, trying to force her mind back into the zone, a place where pure instinct was not only all-knowing, it was protective.
Tracker wanted to understand a lot of things at the moment, and that protective aspect would have been nice, too, but trying to launch herself into the zone never worked when her conscious mind was working overtime considering questions rising like bubbles. More pressing than any of the questions was her gut wisdom telling her to get the hell out of there.
Tracker went with her gut.
 
David had just finished listening to Elliott's lengthy news item and was replacing the mike when through the cruiser's windshield, he spotted Tracker's truck. She had to be doing at least eighty.
“Holy shit!” he shouted.
And then his breath caught in his throat as her white truck skidded into the turn and only by sheer boneheaded luck did not flip sideways into the ditch. When the truck made it safely into the P.D. parking lot, he remembered to breathe. A second later he was cursing as he bolted out of the cruiser and ran for the footbridge to the police department's lot, lagging several paces behind Joey Du Bey.
Tracker bailed out of the truck, slamming the door and locking Mushy inside. Braid whipping behind her, legs pumping, boots thumping tarmac, she fixed her gaze on David, who was sprinting over the creek's footbridge. She didn't even notice Joey Du Bey until he was directly in front her, grabbing her arms. She tried to squirm away, tried breaking his hold. She couldn't see over Joey's shoulder, but she knew David was coming. She wanted to get to David. She needed to get to David. But Joey drew her in, held her hard against his side. The cause of the animosity between the two men was Joey Du Bey's determination to make Tracker his wife.
David was running up behind them. Joey could hear his approach and Tracker wriggled harder, trying to free herself. Joey tightened his hold and breathed into her ear, “I love you, Track.”
Arriving on the scene and blowing like a horse, David yelled at Tracker: “Just what the hell were you doing?”
Tracker pushed against Joey, but Joey wasn't ready to let go. David's fury and the volume of his voice increased tenfold. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going? You were on two wheels making that turn. You almost got yourself killed! I ought to write you up.”
David's blast revived Tracker's temper and with one last shove she was able to disentangle herself. Finally facing David and feeling like a fool, she yelled right back. “You want to give me a ticket? Fine. Just don't forget to mention …” The toe of her boot made swift contact with David's shin.
“Je-sah!”
“ … assaulting an officer.” She rounded on Joey. “I have to report a missing person.”
David was walking off the pain in his leg. Joey folded his arms across his chest, fighting the urge to grab her again. “Who's missing?” Joey asked.
Tracker answered in a burst of words. “My uncle Bert. I just came from his place. There isn't a sign of him or his wolf pack. I did find two lines of trout I figure to be about a week old. The fish were laid out on his table, like he was about to take care of them and then … didn't.”
David came to stand directly behind her. “You do a search?”
Anger forgotten, Tracker spun on her heels to face him. “Yes. But not a big one. I sent Mushy to seek because that was quicker. Mushy went straight for the bay, David. Right for the cliffs. I didn't find Uncle Bert, but you'll never guess what I did find.” She went on to tell him.
“Ho-le—”
David couldn't finish. “Track? Are you sure?”
Hands on hips, she bent forward, yelling, “Do you think
I don't know a log recovery barge when I see one?”
David exploded in kind. “Just calm down, will ya? Your screaming is giving me a damn headache. If you're right—”
“And I am!”
David's mouth curled in a snarl. Their eyes met and held. David blinked first. He growled, “I've gotta tell Frenchette.”
“I'll tell him myself.”
“Not you, me. He's not in any mood to have you going at him like a fishwife.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but at that moment, from the corner of her eye, she saw the tribal ambulance pulling out of the separate parking lot. She watched the white van making the turn onto Highway 13. The ambulance was not going in the direction of the reservation hospital, nor was it using its siren. Tracker's eyes cut back to David. “What's going on over there?”
Their continuing war drifted into yet another truce. For over two years now they were either screaming at each other or uncomfortably polite. Psychologists call this behavior sexual repression. David and Tracker had come to know it simply as normal.
David took a deep breath, expelled it. “If you haven't heard the latest news, that makes you the one and only soul on Red Cliff.” David shoved his hands deep into his jean pockets. “It's also the reason I was about to call you. I'm going to need your help.”
“Oh, not again!”
 
Standing between David and Joey, Tracker felt like one of three naughty kids called into the principal's office. Seated in comfortable chairs facing the Tribal Chairman's solid
oak desk were the BIA agent known as the Navajo, Sheriff Bothwell, and a blond deputy with eyes the color of blue ice. As David reported the barge sighting to Perry Frenchette, the Navajo, chewing on a thumbnail, watched the chairman's face mottle. Sheriff Bothwell, who didn't appear interested in what David was saying, propped his chin on his hands and offered her a smile and a quick wink. The blond deputy ignored her as he listened intently, hunching forward on the chair, arms braced on his knees. She knew the deputy was bursting with energy even though at the moment he was sitting perfectly still. His eyes watched all the players intently.
Perry Frenchette flew into a rage, hollering even before David was finished speaking. “Well, this is something I needed to hear today, of all days!” David pressed his lips into a tight line as Frenchette rolled on. “I'll personally look into the business in Raspberry Bay, but as for you, Lameraux, you're to concentrate on the killing. Or more to the point, finding Benny Peliquin—”
“Benny didn't do it,” Tracker quickly interjected.
Perry Frenchette didn't cope well with being interrupted. Everyone working for him understood that whenever he launched himself into a tirade they were to wait humbly until he ran himself out. Before he'd fully recovered from her impertinence, Tracker spoke again.
“I've known Benny all my life. He's not a killer. You're after the wrong man.”
“My sister-in-law Thelma said—”
“I really don't care what Thelma said,” Tracker replied, her inflection flat.
His face flushed with anger, the Tribal Chairman thundered,
“Young lady, this does not concern you.”
Tracker was not intimidated. “Obviously Police Chief Lameraux thinks otherwise because he's asked me to join the search for Benny. But I'm afraid I can't help David just now. My uncle Bert is missing and finding him is my first priority.”
Frenchette's jaws bunched, relaxed, and bunched again as he literally chewed on his outrage. When he was finally able to trust himself to speak with any degree of composure, he said, “I understand family loyalty, but if my police chief feels he needs your aid, then as a full member of this community you are required to give it.”
Tracker and the chairman made eye contact as the chairman's implication registered with every Indian in the room. Beside her, David and Joey shifted uncomfortably and sent her sideways glances. Feeling a strange undercurrent to the conversation and thoroughly interested because of it, Bothwell slouched, entwining the fingers of his hands and resting them atop the bulge of his belly. The Navajo seemed to be holding his breath as his eyes shifted between Tracker and Frenchette. Deputy Bjorke leaned even more forward and watched even more diligently as the silence extended, becoming a nonverbal confrontation between the chairman and the young woman.
Tracker's eyes didn't waver when she finally spoke directly to Frenchette: “As of this moment, you are responsible for my uncle.” She turned away and had no more than closed the door behind her when Frenchette went off on David.
“You had no business hiring that woman without asking my permission first.”
“Enlisting Tracker isn't anything I haven't done before,” David said firmly. “If you expect us to find Benny, you
know
we need Tracker.”
Frenchette glared, breathed hard through his nostrils, as he said, “Get out of here, Lameraux. I don't want to see your face again until Peliquin's in custody.”
As David and Joey turned to go, Michael Bjorke leaped out of his chair, shadowing them. Not one of the three bothered closing the door.
Bothwell, a grin splitting his face, offered with a chuckle, “That boy of mine's a real go-getter. But he's a city boy. I think he's gonna have all he can do keepin' up with that little trackin' gal of yours. She's a hot little pepper, eh? If I was twenty years younger and fifty pounds lighter, I wouldn't mind trailin' through the woods after her myself. Think she'll really find Peliquin?”
Frenchette wasn't listening to the sheriff. His gaze lingered on the hallway just beyond the open door. Then he came back to himself with a snap. Lifting the receiver he said tersely, “If you'll excuse me, I have several calls to make.”
“Uh-huh,” Bothwell drawled. He shot a glance at the BIA agent. The Navajo was sitting back in his chair. Apparently the agent felt unaffected by Frenchette's acerbic dismissal. Bothwell's eyes shifted back to the chairman, who had finished dialing and was now standing with his back turned to the desk. Taking the hint, he slapped the chair's armrests and hoisted himself to his feet. “Well, guess I'll go get myself some breakfast.”
BIA Agent Begay rose and followed a few paces behind Bothwell, but the Navajo went no further than the edge of the doorframe, closing the door practically against Bothwell's
well rounded hind end. The door was just clicking shut when Bothwell heard the Navajo ask, “Okay if I smoke?”
The diffident request was followed rapidly by a negative reply. The door now closed between him and the two men, Bothwell could hear their low-voiced exchange. Trouble was, he couldn't make out any of their words. He was tempted to press his ear against the solid wood and blatantly eavesdrop, but as his empty belly was screaming for attention, he didn't.
 
The blond deputy was really beginning to chap Tracker's lips. The four of them—David, Joey, Tracker, and Deputy Bjorke—were standing in the P.D. lot. David was trying to calm her down. Although she'd seemed in control during the meeting with Perry Frenchette, she'd been a breath away from exploding. Now that she was outside, a place relatively safe to explode while retaining some shred of dignity, Deputy Bjorke was talking about hunting Benny, just how they should go about catching a man that was closer to her than one of her own brothers. Bjorke went on babbling without any sign of let-up until Tracker had had more than enough.
Standing on tiptoe, Tracker got right in the deputy's face. “You're just all red-hot to have a manhunt, aren't you?” she cried. “You must think that's really cool. Well, buster, let me tell you something. Manhunts are low-down, the nastiest business on earth. Outside of the police, you won't find any man on this entire rez ready to volunteer because hunting another human being just for the thrill is obscene. And one more thing, just while we're on the subject … I don't go in the woods with rookies.”
Michael's ice blue eyes locked on hers. Craning his head forward, his nose inches from hers, he said sharply, “This is my investigation. And you
will
go where I tell you to go, do what I tell you to do.”
Joey Du Bey intervened, wedging himself between Tracker and the deputy, forcing the latter to take a step back. “Don't talk to her like that. I mean it, man.”
Michael could tell that he did. The police chief, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, looked as if he would happily join the fray. Two against one weren't Michael's favorite odds, yet he couldn't afford to back down. Speaking crisply, he said, “Let's all remember that we have a job to do and that like it or not, I am in charge. The three of you will cooperate or I will call in the feds.”
He was bluffing. David could smell the bluff all over him. Wisconsin, like four other states, was under the jurisdiction of Public Law 280, which in the fifties gave criminal and civil jurisdiction to state governments. Bayfield County police, even more than the Tribal Council, would fling themselves into hell's fires before relinquishing one shred of this power. But still, the deputy did have the authority to call in outside help if the locals refused to cooperate. And if the deputy did that, Frenchette would pop a major vessel.
David turned from Bjorke to Tracker. “We don't have time for a pissing contest, Track. The quicker we find Benny, the quicker we can start looking for your uncle Bert.”
Tracker's eyes sparkled with contempt. David roughly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off to the side for a private confab. “Listen to me, damn it,” he whispershouted.
Tracker cut him off. “Even thinking I could come to you for help was a mistake.”
David flinched. Then his pride rushed in and his spine straightened, his features hardening. “But old habits die kinda hard, don't they?”
They locked eyes, neither blinking. Before he said or did anything that would only make matters worse, David lifted his cap from his head, arm raked sweat off his brow. “We had one interesting call,” he said. “I sent Mel to check it out. Mel radioed back that the tip was right. He found Benny's truck right where the tipster said it would be.”
“Where?”
David told her. Tracker went a little pale. David shoved his face closer toward hers. “You know where he is, don'tcha?” This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
“Maybe,” she breathed. His face was too close. She stepped back. Able to speak more clearly, she said, “But I do know something for sure.” She glanced in the direction of Michael and Joey. Michael Bjorke dipped his head in an acknowledging bow. She didn't like the deputy, not at all. She turned back to David and said, “Baby-cakes over there is going to need a change of clothes. The bottoms of his shoes are too slick, and with all that stuff hanging off his belt, he jingles when he walks.” That being the final thing she had to say, she began walking off in the direction of her truck.

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