Red Knife (4 page)

Y
ou could have had a deputy do this,” Cork said as they drove south along Iron Lake in the sheriff’s cruiser.

“I wanted to talk to you myself,” Dross said. “Ever since Kristi Reinhardt died, I’ve been worried something like this would happen.”

“Still no luck locating Lonnie Thunder?”

“The people who could help live on the rez—and you know how much they like white folks in uniforms.”

“A lot of them wouldn’t mind one bit if you arrested Thunder.”

“No one’s come forward to tell me where he is.”

During the third year of his first term as sheriff, Cork had hired Marsha Dross as the first female law enforcement officer in Tamarack County. She was approximately his height and not too dissimilar in build. One evening nearly two years earlier, in the soft light of dusk, a sniper had mistaken her for Cork and put a bullet into her. She’d survived, but the damage had killed any hope she might have had of ever conceiving a child. She wasn’t married—the shooting had ended her engagement to a man who desperately wanted children—there were no prospects on the horizon, and Cork didn’t know if the question of marriage and children was one she even pondered much these days.

“Taking a lot of crap lately from a righteous and outraged citizenry?” he asked.

She gave a snort that passed for a laugh. “You see Hell Hanover’s editorial in this week’s
Sentinel
?”

She was referring to Helmuth Hanover, publisher of the area’s weekly newspaper. Anyone who’d ever been the target of one of his venomous printed diatribes pretty much figured that he was in league with the devil. Hence, the name by which he was generally known: Hell.

“Yeah. And come to think of it, you do resemble Barney Fife with a bra.”

Dross rounded the southern end of the lake and began to head north, up the eastern shoreline toward the rez.

“Makes you feel any better,” Cork said, “Hanover took a lot of shots at me when I wore the badge.”

“Hanover’s an ass, but he’s reflecting a pretty significant sentiment. This Red Boyz horseshit’s got everybody pissed. It’s bringing out the bigot in people.”

“You think it’s horseshit?” Cork asked.

“Don’t you?”

“There’s stuff I disagree with, but I can understand the reasoning.”

“You’re not going to give me a sociology lecture about poverty, are you? Because with the casino, every Ojibwe in the county is getting a nice chunk of change now.”

“That’s not exactly true and you know it. But it’s not about money. The Red Boyz are all young, a lot of them raised by parents who weren’t much more than kids themselves and didn’t give them any sense of who they are or what they could be. All they know is that they’re Indian and looked down on, generally speaking. A brotherhood is one way for them to find some self-esteem, to belong to something that makes them feel important, especially a brotherhood with its roots in Ojibwe ethics.”

“Ethics? The Red Boyz? The ethics of thugs maybe.”

“The Red Boyz stand pretty firm against drugs and alcohol. They don’t use and they do everything they can to discourage it on the rez. Bet if you tracked the numbers, you’d find that since Kingbird organized the Red Boyz, arrests for drug use and related crimes in this county have gone way down.”

“I do track them and you’re right. But”—she held up a cautionary finger—“that doesn’t mean there’s no crime going on. The Red Boyz all drive nice, new, big vehicles, and I can almost guarantee they didn’t pay for them with what they get from the distribution of the casino revenues. DEA’s convinced the Red Boyz operate a narcotics depot on the rez. They warehouse the merchandise and distribute it all over the Midwest.”

“Where other people’s children buy it.”

“Exactly.”

“I told you there’s stuff I didn’t agree with. That’s some of the stuff.”

“What else don’t you agree with?”

“It’s a charismatic organization. Its strength depends too much on Kingbird’s influence. He was the one who gave it direction, who set the guidelines.”

“Guidelines? You think Lonnie Thunder was operating under guidelines, Cork? You ought to see the videos he made.”

“I don’t know what to make of Thunder.”

“Kingbird’s gone now, so what’ll the Red Boyz do?”

“I wish I could say there was somebody capable of stepping in to fill his shoes. Tom Blessing was basically his right hand, but Tom’s no Alexander Kingbird. Things could easily fall apart, get real messy.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, this whole situation getting out of hand. I’d feel a lot better if I had Lonnie Thunder in custody. That might go a long way toward pacifying everybody.” She gave him a sidelong glance.

“This is what you wanted to talk to me about?”

She kept her eyes on the road ahead. “You’re part Ojibwe. People on the rez trust you.”

“Trust me more than they trust you anyway. It’s a situational kind of thing. For a lot of Shinnobs, I’m still way too white.”

“Cork, I don’t have a single deputy with a drop of Ojibwe blood in him.”

“No one to creep around the rez and snoop unnoticed? No one to go looking for Lonnie Thunder? That’s what you want me to do?”

“That’s where I was headed, more or less.”

“I would do this why? For the sake of friendship or some other sentimental crap?”

“There’s something you need to see at Kingbird’s place.”

Captain Ed Larson headed up major-crimes investigation in Tamarack County. He was midfifties, a tall, studious-looking man who wore wire-rims and preferred button-down oxford shirts and suede bucks. When Dross and Cork arrived at the Kingbird home, Larson was out front deep in conversation with Agent Simon Rutledge from the Bemidji office of the BCA, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Cork knew Rutledge well. He liked the man and respected his abilities.

Rutledge seemed surprised to see him. “Cork?”

“Hey, Simon.” He shook the agent’s hand, then Larson’s. “Morning, Ed.”

Larson appraised Cork’s attire: sport coat, white shirt, tie. “Church?”

“I snatched him after the service,” Dross said. She exchanged a handshake with the BCA agent. “Thanks for coming, Simon.”

Rutledge wasn’t an imposing figure. A couple of inches under six feet, he had reddish thinning hair and a hopelessly boyish smile. He was, however, one of the most effective interrogators Cork had ever worked with. It was his style, full of sympathy and very winning. Cork had seen him coax confessions out of suspects whose lips were sealed with distrust, anger, contempt. People in the cop business who knew Rutledge called his style of interrogation “Simonizing.”

“You don’t mind me asking, what’s O’Connor doing here?” Rutledge said to Dross. “No offense, Cork.”

“None taken.”

“I asked him here in a consulting capacity. Have you had a chance to look things over?”

“Ed walked me through the scene. Your team’s doing a good job.”

“What do you guys think?” Dross asked.

Larson nodded toward the garage. “We found blood on the grass over there. Isolated and, as far as we can tell, not related to the shootings themselves. Kingbird had a head wound. Somebody clubbed him pretty good. A lot of bleeding but not much swelling, so looks as if it happened just prior to the killing.”

Dross glanced at Cork. “How was he last night?”

“Nobody had clubbed him when I left.”

Rutledge looked confused. “You were here last night, Cork?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute, Simon,” Dross said. “Go on, Ed.”

“What it looks like is that Kingbird came outside and was assaulted near the garage. My guess would be that he was drawn out. But he was careful. He left the doors locked behind him. Whoever it was who assaulted him had to break into the house through the door to the utility room. I imagine they were after Rayette. She was probably a witness. Or maybe the assailant had planned all along to make her a victim.”

“Any 911 calls?” Cork asked.

Larson shook his head. “The phone line was cut. And we’re too far out for a cell to be able to pick up a signal.”

“Lucinda Kingbird found the bodies, is that right?”

Larson nodded.

“Where is she?”

“Deputy Minot took her home.”

“How was she doing?”

He shrugged. “Soldier’s wife. While I interviewed her, she didn’t shed a tear, just worried about the baby.”

Rutledge squinted at Cork. “The suspense is killing me.”

“Suspense?” Cork said.

“I’m dying to know what you were doing out here last night.”

Cork explained the circumstances.

“Buck Reinhardt,” Ed Larson said, as if it made perfect sense.

“I know about the Reinhardt girl’s death,” Rutledge said. “Tell me about her father. Is he the kind of man who could do something like this?”

Dross considered his question. “You have a daughter, Simon. If you believed someone was responsible for her death, think you might be capable of something like this?”

Rutledge glanced at Cork. “You said you didn’t find him last night.”

“That’s right.”

Larson took off his wire-rims and carefully cleaned the lenses with a white handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket. “When I’m finished here, I’ll head over to the Reinhardt place, interview Buck.”

“Might be a good idea if I went along,” Rutledge suggested. “You talk to Reinhardt, I’ll talk to his wife, see if we get the same story.”

“Who else should we be talking to?” Dross asked.

Larson said, “DEA’s convinced the Red Boyz are deep into the drug trade. Cold-blooded executions and drugs pretty much go hand in hand.”

“Match made in hell,” Dross said. “Call DEA, Ed. Run this by them.”

“What about the Red Boyz themselves?” Rutledge said. “Is it possible there’s a power struggle going on or some kind of ideological rift, anything that might have led to this?”

They all looked to Cork.

He held up his hands defensively. “It’s not like there’s a pipeline that runs between me and the Red Boyz. Don’t forget, I hauled some of them in as juveniles.”

“You know their families,” Dross said.

“I’ll do what I can, okay?”

Larson slipped his wire-rims back on. “Marsha, did you tell Cork about the business at the back of the house?”

“What business?” Cork said.

“It’s what I wanted to show you.” Dross turned and led the way.

They walked carefully through the yard, along a path Larson’s people had marked for entry and egress from the scene. In the high grass beyond the mowed edge of the backyard, deputies were still working. The bodies of Alexander and Rayette Kingbird were gone, but the long green blades of wild grass were still splashed with spatters of dark red.

“Tom Conklin’s already at Nelson’s,” Dross said, speaking of the man contracted as medical examiner for the county. He did his autopsies in one of the prep rooms in the basement of Nelson’s Funeral Home. “He seemed pretty eager to get started. Turn around, Cork.”

Cork turned and looked back at the house. “Jesus. Is that what I think it is?”

“We’ve taken samples,” Larson said. “We’ll have them analyzed to be certain. But, yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s blood.”

Across the wall of the house, painted in large, ragged letters each a foot high and dried now to the color of old rust were the words
DED BOYZ.

A
nnie O’Connor had learned how to cook from the best. For the first fifteen years of her life, most meals at the O’Connor house were prepared by her mother’s sister, Aunt Rose. Rose was a cook with an outstanding reputation, and Annie was an apt pupil. Though she preferred sports to most domestic pursuits, cooking appealed to Annie’s sense of order and, in a way, her enjoyment of competition. Since Aunt Rose had left—married and gone to Chicago—Annie regularly took a turn preparing the evening meal. Her father’s schedule was erratic, especially since he’d started his sideline business as a private investigator. He wasn’t an inspired cook, preferring to stick with the staples: mac and cheese, hot dogs, chili, sometimes a passable meat loaf. And once Sam’s Place opened for the season, he wouldn’t be home most evenings until very late. Her mother often worked long hours at her law office and had always been a cook with a reputation for disasters in the kitchen. Although she had improved some since Aunt Rose left, the truth was that almost everyone in the family preferred Annie’s cooking, and Annie liked being the best at things.

Sunday dinner was always at one. That afternoon the main dish was pot roast, simple but succulent, and the smell of it filled the house. Annie and her mother worked together in the kitchen, both agreeing that Annie was in charge. Stevie’s job was to set the table. It was all a familiar pattern, yet that day felt anything but usual to Annie. Before he’d gone out to the reservation with the sheriff that morning after church, her father shared with them what had happened to the Kingbirds, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the tragedy.

She knew Rayette Kingbird mostly from visiting with her at St. Agnes. She’d liked Rayette, liked that at first glance she appeared to be a hard woman but in fact was quite kind and very sensible when you got to know her. Alex Kingbird she knew only a little. She’d seen him around town with Rayette. They’d stopped together at Sam’s Place a few times for burgers and shakes. He was quiet, but he seemed to laugh often when he was talking with Rayette. Annie knew the stories about him: kicked out of the marines, an L.A. gang member, prison time, and the Red Boyz. What she saw was a man who seemed to be a good husband and a good father, someone in love with his wife and his child.

She knew Ulysses Kingbird best. Again, this was through the St. Agnes connection, where music brought them together. At school, he didn’t fit in anywhere. He wasn’t a brain. He wasn’t a jock. He wasn’t a preppie or a stoner. Despite his musical talent, he didn’t hang with the band geeks or the artsy kids. Mostly he was quiet and tried to disappear. Moving down the hallway at school, he reminded her of a piece of driftwood floating, purposeless, down a river.

He might have been successful at being overlooked if it hadn’t been for the fact that his brother was Alexander Kingbird, head of the Red Boyz. As a result, kids at school hit on Uly for drugs. Teachers made assumptions about him. His asshole classmates—and there were a lot of assholes—tormented him with insults. Since Kristi Reinhardt had died, things had become worse. Uly might never have come right out and said anything, but the music connected him and Annie in a powerful way. When they got together to practice the songs Uly had arranged for Sunday’s service, Annie sometimes got him to talk. Not a lot, but through the crack in the door that opened, Annie saw much.

Uly’s biggest problem, it seemed to her, was that his father was Will Kingbird. Him, she didn’t like at all. Mostly she saw him at Mass, where he sat so stiffly he looked as if he’d been carved out of the pew itself. He made her think of the old Louisville Slugger her parents had given her when she started playing softball: hard and perfectly capable of delivering a good, solid smack. Mrs. Kingbird often seemed to have a wary look on her face, and though Uly never talked about abuse, it made Annie wonder.

Her father came home a few minutes before the potatoes were done. He went upstairs to wash his hands. When he came back down, everything was on the table and ready.

At first the conversation was about Jenny, Annie’s older sister who was nearing the end of her first year of college at the University of Iowa, and who’d called to check in, as she always did, after the family came home from church. But Annie was dying to know what exactly had happened at the Kingbird place. Her father didn’t want to talk about it, except to say that it was true, Rayette and Alexander Kingbird were dead. They’d been shot.

Stevie, who seemed not to know better, kept pressing. “Where?”

“They were found in the meadow behind the house.”

“I mean where were they shot?”

Her father looked up from dishing roasted potatoes onto his plate. “In the back,” he replied after a long pause.

“Was there lots of blood and stuff?”

“Stephen,” his mother said, “that’s enough.”

“I was just wondering.” He lingered over his green beans. “Why did they want you there?”

“Alex and Rayette were Ojibwe. The sheriff thought that because I’m part Ojibwe, I might be able to answer some questions they had.”

Annie used this as her opening to ask about something that had been on her mind for quite a while. “You and Mr. Kingbird were friends once, right, Dad?”

“We’re not unfriendly now.”

“I mean like tight.”

“We played football together. Because we shared Ojibwe blood, he probably talked to me a little more than other people. Folks saw that as tight, I suppose, but I never really knew him. I don’t think anybody did. He never let anybody that close.”

Annie said, “I like Uly’s mom better.”

Her father smiled. “You want to know the truth, so do I.”

“But she seems, I don’t know, subdued. Like she’s afraid of him.”

“That might be a cultural issue,” her mother said. “She’s Latina. I believe it’s not unusual to be submissive to your husband, at least in public.”

“I think Uly’s afraid of him,” Annie said.

Her father said, “Has he told you that?”

“Not in so many words. I just get that feeling.”

Stevie piped in, “Uly sure plays the guitar good.”

“He’s always seemed a little troubled to me,” her mother said. “Do you ever see him at school, Annie?”

“He’s only a sophomore, so we don’t have any classes together. But I see him sometimes, yeah. He gets picked on, mostly by guys who’re huge losers and looking for somebody they think might be a bigger loser than them. Allan Richards, for example.”

“Richards?” Her father looked up from his plate. “That wouldn’t be Cal Richards’s boy, would it?”

“That’s him.”

“Cal Richards.” He shook his head. “Now there’s one sick soul. Sounds like the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”

“Will you help the sheriff?” Stevie asked.

“A little bit maybe. I’m going back to the reservation this afternoon to talk to a couple of people.”

“Oh?” Annie’s mother said. She didn’t sound thrilled.

“I need to talk to George LeDuc, Jo. And as long as I’m out that way, I might as well drop by the Blessing place and have a word with Tom.”

“Mom, can Trixie come in?” Stevie asked.

“Yes, but don’t feed her at the table. I’ve put some scraps aside for her for later.”

Stevie got up to let the dog in. Annie waited until she thought he couldn’t hear, then asked the question that had most been on her mind.

“Do the shootings have anything to do with Kristi Reinhardt?”

“I don’t know, Annie.” Her father stabbed another piece of pot roast, but paused before he put it on his plate. “Buck Reinhardt is a strange man. But, you know, if this is all about his daughter, I can almost understand.”

He seemed ready to say more, but Stevie came back in with Trixie at his heels, and her father went back to eating.

What she would remember whenever she thought back on that conversation was the powerful confusion of compassion and anger she saw on her father’s face. That and how much the look scared her.