Red Knife (16 page)

“Not even the Red Boyz?”

“I believe Kingbird was ready to give him over. And if you don’t trust the guy who heads up the gang, who do you trust?”

Reinhardt looked over his shoulder at the log structure. “He might come back.”

“It’s possible. But there are a lot of other empty places out here where a man can hide. Who knows, maybe he’s left the rez for good. I don’t think there’s any point in us sticking around here.”

Cork started back the way they’d come. He stopped at the trapper’s shelter, where he noticed something on the walls. Dozens of small black scars were burned into the wood.

“What’s that?” Reinhardt said.

“Looks like somebody’s branded the wood.”

“Those are the letter
R
.”

“For Red Boyz. From what I understand, when you become one of them, you’re branded.”

Reinhardt scanned the area around them and nodded. “If I was going to put somebody through some secret kind of initiation, especially one that involved a branding iron, this is the kind of place I’d choose. Out here, nobody’d hear you scream.”

They didn’t talk until they reached their vehicles, but the whole way, Cork was thinking. Blessing had come directly from the funeral, maybe hoping to catch Thunder at the hidden trapper shelter. But Thunder wasn’t there. That might indicate that Blessing wasn’t in contact with Thunder anymore, which was interesting because they were cousins, and if Thunder didn’t even trust family, he was a man truly afraid. Cork understood that he was lucky last night to have escaped with only warning shots. Thunder had become the kind of enemy Will Kingbird probably feared most, one who was unpredictable.

“This is way out of your jurisdiction, Dave,” Cork said as he stowed his Remington in the Bronco.

“Hell, you’ve got no jurisdiction anywhere,” Reinhardt pointed out.

“Buck send you?”

“Right,” Reinhardt said, with a bitter laugh. “Buck’s opinion of me seems to be at an all-time low. Since Kristi died, he’s become pretty unbearable.”

Cork wanted to say Buck had always been pretty unbearable, but he held off. Instead he said, “You figure it’ll help things with your father if you deliver Thunder?”

“Head on a platter, isn’t that how it’s done?” Reinhardt opened the door of his pickup. “If I decide to come back here one of these nights, you want me to let you know?”

“Yeah. Probably good to have company, especially at night.”

Reinhardt got into his truck, backed onto the road, and shot west, toward Aurora. Cork delayed a few minutes, waiting so that he wouldn’t have to eat Reinhardt’s dust. He thought it must be hard having a father like Buck, a man unloving and unlovable in so many ways. Yet Cork had the feeling that love was the one thing Dave Reinhardt desperately wanted from his old man. Hell, didn’t every son?

T
hree thirty in the afternoon was too early for the drinking crowd at the Buzz Saw. The place was empty of customers when Cork walked in. Faith Hill was on the jukebox. Seneca Peterson was perched on a stool, reading a book that lay open on the bar. She glanced up and, with a disturbed look, watched him approach.

“Sorry, Seneca,” he said, taking the stool next to her. “This’ll only take a minute, then I’m out of your hair.”

He glanced down at the book:
We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party.

“Sad and unsettling,” she said.

Cork realized her dour look had nothing to do with him. “Pleasure reading?”

“For a class I’m taking at ACC,” she said, referring to Aurora Community College. “The politics of resistance. The Black Panther movement was well articulated, had admirable goals and able leaders. They just couldn’t fight a whole political, social, and judicial system that was dead set against them.” She marked her place with a paper coaster, slid from the stool, and slipped behind the bar. “What can I get you?”

“A Leinie’s.”

“Original?”

“Dark.”

“Glass?”

“Just the bottle’s fine.”

She popped the cap and brought him the beer, along with a coaster. “Start a tab?”

He put a twenty on the bar and said, “One’ll be enough.” While she went to the register, he took a sip. The beer was ice cold and felt good going down. “Remember the other night when I was in here?”

She set the change in front of him. “Sure. You asked about Buck Reinhardt.”

“I asked where he might have gone after you kicked him out.”

“And I told you if he was going home he’d probably hit Tanner’s on the Lake.”

“I checked. He wasn’t there. He also wasn’t at the Silver Horse, the casino bar, or the Four Seasons.”

“That was the night the Kingbirds were murdered. Now that was truly tragic. I knew Rayette. Liked her.” She leaned on the bar. “And because you couldn’t find him, you think Buck did it.”

“I think in his own mind he had good reason to do it. Do you think he did it?”

She smiled with a secret understanding. “I knew the minute you walked in that you weren’t here for the beer.”

“Really?”

“I’ve never seen you here in the middle of the day. You drink in the evening or at night. What I call dismally responsible.”

“Predictable?”

“That, too.”

“You didn’t answer me. Do you think Buck did it?”

She reached under the bar and brought up an opened pack of American Spirits and a Bic lighter. She tapped out a cigarette and reached for an ashtray. “The day after the murders, a couple of cops came in to talk to me. Captain Larson and a state cop.”

“From the BCA, actually. Simon Rutledge.”

“Yeah. Cute in a family-guy sort of way.” She lit the cigarette and blew smoke out of the side of her mouth, careful to keep it away from Cork. “They asked me about Buck, how drunk was he, was he belligerent, what time did he leave, did he say where he was going. They didn’t ask me the question you just did, do I think Buck killed the Kingbirds.”

“What would you have said?”

“I’d have told them no.”

“Why?”

“Because Buck’s predictable, too. Saturday nights he comes in, drinks three or four rounds of CC and ditch water.”

“What the hell is that?”

She gave a rich laugh. “That’s how he orders Canadian Club and soda. At ten thirty sharp he finds something to complain about, makes a big pronouncement that he’s going elsewhere to finish getting shit-faced, and he leaves. Always ten thirty sharp. Last Saturday he was worse than usual, carrying on with his racial slurs about the Ojibwe, so I shoved him out the door a little early.”

“Any reason ten thirty is the witching hour?”

“That’s when Brit gets off work.”

“Brit? Would that be Brittany Young?”

“Yeah.”

Cork knew her, one of the women who served food and drink at the Buzz Saw. Tall, long blond hair, good figure. A way about her that suggested that if you tossed her a flirt, she’d catch it with a soft glove.

“Something going on between her and Buck?” he asked.

“I’m just telling you what I’ve observed.” She took a long draw on her cigarette and studied him. “I used to watch you in church, you know? When I was a kid.”

“No kidding? Why?”

“Jenny and I took First Communion together. I would try to imagine what it was like being the daughter of the sheriff. I thought it would be pretty exciting. But you’re not sheriff anymore, so I’m wondering what your interest in all this is.”

“I promised some people that I would look into it.”

She stared at him, and he remembered that when she was younger and still attended Mass, she seemed like one of those kids who had the mysteries of the faith all figured out and found them amusing.

“I heard someone shot at you the other night,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She shook her head. “Being your daughter would be too hard. Too much worry. Look, I’ll throw in one more observation. I don’t know if it’ll help you, but here it is. Brit’s put on weight lately, and it isn’t from overeating.”

“Is she on the schedule today?”

“Starts at five thirty.”

Cork checked his watch. Quarter to four.

Seneca straightened up and arched her back. “I’ve got a chapter to read before class tonight, and you’ve got a beer you’ve barely touched.”

“One more question. You happen to know where she lives?”

He caught Brittany Young polishing her nails. Her toenails. She came to the door walking on her bare heels, wads of Kleenex jammed between her toes. She wore a loose-fitting black T-shirt and gray sweats. She had a pink towel wrapped like a turban around her hair. She smelled clean, of some floral soap. She looked pissed when she opened the door, then she looked puzzled.

“Yeah?”

“Brittany, I’m Cork O’Connor.”

“I know who you are. What do you want?”

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

“I’m in the middle of something.”

“This won’t take long, and it might help a friend of yours.”

“Who?”

“Buck Reinhardt.”

She thought it over, then stepped back and let him into her apartment.

It was bare bones inside, thrift-store décor: a beat-up sofa, a beat-up love seat, a scratched coffee table, a standing lamp, all of it arranged on an oval braided rug the color of beef gravy, none of it matching. In the small dining area, which was separated from the tiny kitchen by a counter, was a cheap dinette set that had recently been painted white. The one item in the place that looked new and expensive was a television with a thirty-five-inch screen, situated on a stand so that anyone lounging on the old sofa would have a good view. The television was on—an Adam Sandler movie—but muted. A bottle of dark red nail polish stood on the coffee table.

Brittany stayed on her heels all the way to the sofa where she plopped down and stared up dismally at Cork. She didn’t ask him to sit.

“So how is it you think I can help Buck Reinhardt?” she asked.

“Are you aware he’s the primary suspect in the Kingbird murders?”

“How could he be? He was home when that happened.”

“And you know this how?”

“I heard it around.”

“Then maybe you heard around that it’s only a matter of time before that alibi collapses. Nobody’s buying it. The sheriff’s people never believed it for a second and they’re doing everything they can to break it. Pretty soon the whole truth’ll come out.”

“Why should I care?”

“Mind if I sit?”

She pursed her lips and nodded toward the love seat. As Cork settled in, she bent and began removing the wads of tissue from between her toes.

“Got a name for the baby yet?” Cork asked.

She came up fast and stared at him with surprise.

“Let me ask you another question,” Cork went on. “Does the Buzz Saw provide health coverage for its employees?”

She eyed him warily. “No.”

“Have you got health coverage?”

“Yes. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Buck pay for it?”

“Look, you need to leave,” she said, doing her best to sound incensed.

Cork leaned toward her in a confidential way. “Brittany, I know that Buck was with you the night the Kingbirds were killed. If you come forward, it’s the best thing you could do to help him.”

“Right.”

“The sheriff’s people aren’t the only ones convinced that his alibi is a lie. He’s at the top of the Red Boyz’s hit list. If you don’t help clear his name, it could very well cost him his life.”

She frowned and didn’t look convinced.

“I’m not after Buck,” Cork said. “I’m after the man I believe is responsible for the Kingbird killings, and I think that’s Lonnie Thunder.”

She started to speak but held back. Then a mean little gleam came into her eyes. “That’s not who Buck thinks did it.”

“No? Who does he think?”

“Elise.”

“What makes him believe that?” Cork asked, trying to maintain a neutral response.

“He has this shotgun, some kind of special thing. When he got home Saturday night—”

“After he’d been here?”

“Yeah.”

“What time did he leave?”

“Midnight, maybe twelve thirty.”

“Okay, go on.”

“So he gets home and Elise has this shotgun in the living room. Buck can tell it’s been fired. She claims she used it to scare off a cougar that had been sniffing around the place.”

“Buck didn’t buy that?”

“He says that ever since Kristi died, Elise has been crazy. Doesn’t sleep, drinks too much. He says sometimes she scares him.”

“Scares Buck?”

“That’s what he says.” She looked away, stared at the television where there was only movement, no sound. Her mouth went thin as a pin. “He was going to leave her, then Kristi died.”

“Leave her? And marry you?”

“A ring and a father for our baby, that’s what he promised.”

Cork thought that as fathers went, Brittany could have done a lot better for her child than Buck Reinhardt. And as a husband, Buck was hardly a prize. But none of that was Cork’s business. He had what he came for and he stood up.

“I’m going to be talking to the sheriff in a bit, Brittany. I’m going to tell her everything you’ve told me. It’ll clear Buck, but a lot of shit’s going to hit the fan.”

She gave a brief bitter laugh. “Like that’s never happened with me before.”

“The sheriff’s people will want to talk to you. If they were to ask, is there any way you can prove Buck was with you that night?”

“Have ’em talk to Mrs. Schickle in apartment 113. She’s better than a damn watchdog. Never sleeps, sees everything.”

“Thanks, Brittany. You’ve been a real help.”

She went back to pulling tissue from between her toes. “I just hope to God Buck sees it that way.”

On his way out, he stopped at apartment 113. Mrs. Schickle was indeed an all-seeing eye, and when Cork gave her his business card and explained that he was helping the sheriff’s department, she was only too happy to talk. He had the feeling that even if all he’d shown her in the way of authority was a bubble gum card she would just as eagerly have told him everything.

Outside in the parking lot, Cork looked back at the building. It was an ugly box of tan brick three stories high, one of the new constructions on the west side of town that had been thrown up as Aurora continued to grow. It wasn’t the kind of place anybody lived permanently. Brittany Young probably saw it as a stop on her way to the sprawling house Buck Reinhardt had built on Skinner Lake. There was always the possibility that it might work out better for her than it had for either the current or the previous Mrs. Reinhardt, but Cork didn’t hold out much hope. Because Buck was the constant in the equation, the outcome, he suspected, was dismally predictable.