Two Medicine (32 page)

“
He just walks down the
stairs and says to me, ‘Are you ready? It’s time to go.’ I could
tell he was drunk because his face was red and blotchy, and he was
swaying as he stood there. ‘Go where?’ I asked him. ‘To heaven….’
Is all he said, and then just stared at us kids.

Katie shook her head at
the memory. “My heart started beating hard like a hammer in my
chest – I can still remember the feeling. I didn’t know what to do;
I just sat there frozen. So scared. I hate him for making me feel
like that. Then he turns and just walks up the stairs. He left for
like two days after that, and soon after we moved.”

She kicked some gravel as
she walked. “Number seventeen.”

I thought about what that
must have been like to see your father, who led your family, who
everyone looked up to, betray your mother and yourself and your
siblings, and then to spiral into drunken craziness on top of
everything else – making them pick up and move all the time as a
result.

“
Now number eighteen,” I
said, sympathetically.

She looked over at me.
“What’s that you got on your wrist?” She reached over and held my
arm, raising my wrist a bit to inspect the leather and
beads.

“
Oh, somebody gave me
that, some guy who’s into Indian stuff,” I said as vaguely as
possible.

“
First that thing around
your neck, and now this thing on your wrist?” Katie asked. “You’re
hanging out with the Blackfoot, hooking up with a local girl off
the reservation, and doing who knows what else.” She looked at me
through scorched eyes with some amusement. “You’re not the same guy
who showed up here straight off the jammer bus with a big suitcase
in his hand.”

“
No I’m not,” I
agreed.

“
Will,” she said. “I’ve
seen some Blackfoot wearing that same string-thing with the beads.
That’s not just some souvenir – not wearing it that way. Even I
know that. They mean something.”

“
I know
it’s not just a souvenir,” I said. “And it does mean something –
to
me
.”
Although what it meant, exactly, I couldn’t have told her. I just
knew that it had a tenuous, but specific, connection to Alia,
albeit through Thunderbird, so it was diminished slightly. Hell, it
just felt good to where it, was all I was sure of.

Katie didn’t ask what it
meant to me, thankfully, so I didn’t say any more about it. When we
finally got back to the store, I saw a Bureau of Indian Affairs cop
car in the driveway. I felt a jolt of fear pass through me as I
started at it.

“
What’s a cop doing here?”
Katie asked me.

I stared at the cop car
for a moment. “Let’s find out.”

Twenty-Six

We came in the back door
to the kitchen and I saw Officer Olsterman sitting at the big
table. Across the table from him were Larry and Phyllis. Larry
looked angry and flustered, and Phyllis looked scared.

“What’s going on?” I
asked. Olsterman turned his heavy bulk slowly around on the kitchen
bench and regarded Katie and I.

“Oh, Mr. Benton,” he said
in his thick drawl. “Glad ya turned up. Was just chatting you’re
your boss, here.” He nodded his big, balding head towards Larry and
Phyllis. He turned to Larry and said, “You folks can go; and thanks
for your time. Anything turns up, call me.”

“Thank you, officer,”
Larry said, and as he got up from the table he looked at me with a
furious expression that could have burned holes into
wood.

I waited for Larry and
Phyllis to go and then I sat down where they had been. Katie asked
Olsterman if he needed her and he said, “No,” so she left too.
Alone now, Olsterman turned back to me and his face grew stern, and
he looked tired, too.

“I came out here all this
way, son, for
two
reasons,” he said, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing his
nose in it, and then replacing it back into his shirt pocket. His
radio on his belt squawked with static, and he reached down and
turned the volume down.

“Even though I am sick.
One, is that I hear that you are running around Browning stirring
up trouble about Ms. Reynolds’ murder. Doing some kind of
half-assed investigatin’.” He looked at me and I just stared back.
After a moment, he continued. “And two, I need to finish my own
investigation, and that means I need to talk about you and Ms.
Reynolds the night of her murder.

“You see, what I still
don’t believe is you not remembering when she left,” he said,
cocking his head to the side as he regarded me. “Was she out for
hours after leaving you? Did she get killed only a few minutes
after? How much time between you and her murder? It doesn’t add up,
does it?” he asked, making an attempt to sound reasonable, as if I
should agree with him.

“
I see what you mean,” I
said, also trying to sound reasonable, if not agreeable, “but I
can’t tell you any more than that, sir, because there’s nothing
more to tell.”

He ran a hand over his
bald head. “Do you understand that you are the only person we now
have that was with her before she died – there’s no one else who
has come to light. You know what that means doncha?” he
asked.

I nodded. “I do.”

He cocked his head again,
“You don’t seem too worried about it.”

Was I worried?
After the initial jolt of fear at seeing the cop
sitting in the kitchen, natural for anyone like me who had never
really run afoul of the law, I was growing more and more
disinterested in this officer and his supposed investigation by the
minute. His whole demeanor now reeked of laziness and just “going
through the motions.” Olsterman didn’t want to be at Two Med, it
was obvious, and he didn’t want to be talking to me, and he didn’t
want to be talking to anyone else, probably, about Alia. I could
see it in his face and it disheartened me.

“
The person who killed her
is probably not too worried either, at this point,” I
said.

Olsterman just stared at
me for a few seconds, then he shook his head slowly. “You don’t
know the first thing about what’s going on, son.”

“I’m sure I don’t,” I
said, getting up. “And I’m sure you’re not going to tell me. So I’m
going. I got stuff to do.”

Olsterman’s mouth fell
open slightly in a slacked gape. “Where you going?”

I turned around and said,
“Officer, you’re not gonna find anything here that will help you, I
promise you that. And I didn’t hear her leave; believe me or not as
you like. If you want to arrest me, go ahead. But if you want to
help, then look somewhere else.”

I turned and started walking up the stairs,
one creaky board at a time.

Olsterman seemed stunned
for a second, then he shook his head and stood up
slowly.

“
You tell Greg that he’s
pushing it – I talked to his chief,” he called to me as I walked up
to the hall floor. “You tell him next time he shows up in Browning
in uniform acting like a cop like that will be his last day on the
job.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said
over my shoulder as I went into my room and shut the
door.

I couldn’t really
define
why I had just had
enough at that moment; but I had reached my breaking point. As I
lay in the bed and pictured Olsterman’s slack jaw gaping at me as I
left, I just felt depressed more than vindicated. It was an insult,
I realized, his slow, obligatory investigating the death of a girl
I would never see on this earth again – the person I most wanted to
see on this earth again. This cop made me feel fear, at times, or
despair and sadness, and nothing else – so he was a bad business
all around. It offended me and worried me and I couldn’t stand it
anymore.

I would not see him again,
I resolved. I was no lawyer, but I knew I didn’t have to talk to
any cop unless I wanted to. If he wanted to arrest me he would of
by now,
at least I hope
so
, I thought to myself.

I rolled onto my back and
looked over at the two little brown cotton balls that were
sleeping, my pals on the ceiling, Siegfried and Roy. What did they
think I was, this big animal rolling around below them? Were they
frightened? Fascinated? More likely, amused.

Once again, the concept of
a criminal court case for murder in this rugged, majestic,
untouched wilderness that was “the best kept secret” of the West
just seemed absolutely preposterous.

I was so sick of it all
that I hadn’t even asked him who told him I was even in Browning –
someone at the VFW probably – someone causing more trouble than
good with their phone call to the BIA, sending Olsterman off to Two
Med for what was another complete waste of time. Doesn’t anyone
want someone brought to justice for a murder?

I had heard the back screen
door shut and the officer’s car starting up and leaving, so I went
downstairs and grabbed the phone, dialing Greg’s home number,
figuring as it was Sunday that he’d be home.
Another frantic call to Greg regarding Alia’s
investigation
… I thought, as the phone
rang.
Does Greg really care about any of
this?

“Hello?” It was
Dee.

“Oh hey Dee, it’s Will at
Two Med.”

A second’s pause, then “Hi
Will. What’s up?” Her voice seemed slightly reserved –
not a good sign
.

“Is Greg there?”

Another pause. “Hold
on.”

After a few moments, he picked up. “Hey
buddy, what’s up?”

“Greg, that BIA cop
Olsterman just came by here, asking me again about Alia and I’s
last night together. He talked to Larry and Phyllis but I don’t
know what about. Larry didn’t look too happy.”

I paused but there was a silence on the
other end.

“
Then he warns me about us
“stirring things up,” if you can believe it.” I said, and waited
for a response.

“
Oh, I can believe it,”
Greg said. “I got a call from my chief this morning Will, telling
me the BIA has filed a complaint against me for exceeding my
jurisdiction.”

I was speechless for a
moment. “A
complaint
? Are you serious?”

“
Deadly. There’s to be a
hearing next week with my chief on it.” His voice sounded strained.
I could image the conversation Dee must have had with him when she
found out.

“
But listen,” he said, a
little lower and quieter into the phone. “I’ve got something to
show you.” I heard the phone muffled a bit like he was changing
ears. “I’ve got the official police report – the scene and her
body, the whole thing. I want you to see something.”

I wasn’t sure
I wanted to see photos of the scene, or her body,
and I told Greg so.

“
I risked a lot getting
it, buddy, so it’s important. You don’t have to go over every bit
of it, but I want you to see something.”

“
How
did
you get it?” I asked, thinking of Olsterman’s
warning.

“
Never mind that; I’ll
drop by and show you.” He got off the phone quickly. We planned on
meeting in an hour, before he and Dee were packing up to go on a
picnic later that day. As I hung up the phone I realized there was
an urgency to his voice that was ominous.

When got to the store
later and I went out sat in his truck. He had a manila-colored
folder on his lap, it was pretty thin.

“
So that’s it?” I
asked.

Greg nodded. He looked out
his side window as if casually taking in the view. “Olsterman told
my chief that I was going around Browning, taking “statements” of
potential witnesses.” He snorted, “As if there are any.”

“
Is your job in jeopardy?”
I asked.

He shook his head and
shrugged. “I don’t know; I have no strikes on my record so this is
the first mark against me.”

He reached down and opened
the small folder, putting aside a small stack of papers and pulling
out several four-by-five-inch color pictures. “But this, if they
knew I had it, would put my job ‘in jeopardy’ as you say. I’d be
gone for sure.”

He regarded the folder in
his hand a moment. “The chief said I could be charged with
obstructing an investigation, and that I’d better lay low. But I
had to see this report, Will, once I found out from a friend of
mine with the BIA. It was the one thing that could at least give
us
something
to go
by – there’s no other information to work with.”

I watched Greg’s face – he
looked calm enough, but was he losing it? Helping me track down
people who knew Alia was one thing, but taking files? “I read over
this thing 50 times,” he said, holding up the pages of the report.
“Nothing helpful. But this is what I wanted you to see.” He held
out a photo to me.

I hesitated to look at the
picture, but then I let my eyes fall on it. I expected to see some
gory image of blood and skin, something terrible that would forever
be burned in my brain, but what I saw was only a dark photo of the
ground, a muddy, weedy patch of ground that was shot at night, lit
up with a camera flash in stark and garish detail.