Murder in the Melting Pot

by Jane Isenberg

  “I bet they’ve already put out a BOLO on this car.”

  “You lose. Those braves will never allow as how their vehicle got outraced by a lead-footed white woman and then disabled by a squaw sharpshooter who has championed their rights for years and who is on her way to her grandfather’s death bed. Besides, I know a few things about the driver of that car that would cost him his badge if they got out. Chill.”

  Unconvinced, Miranda didn’t reply but fumed and practiced breathing normally. When she could no longer hear her heart pounding, she gave voice to just one of Colestah’s actions that infuriated her. “And you didn’t tell me what you were going to do because you knew I’d never go along with it, right?”

  “Wrong. If I told you, then you couldn’t plead ignorance. In the unlikely event that they ever bring charges against me, it’s in your best interest not to have known.”

  Miranda considered this lawyerly explanation, considered the possibility that having exorcised her demons by stopping those who would interfere with her plans, Colestah was giving way to C.S. Maybe the attorney was right. Ignorance was, if not exactly bliss, at least a possible defense. “Do you do this sort of thing often?”

  “No, in Seattle I’m quite circumspect. But somehow when I come home what I face enrages me. Must be something in the water. Seriously, they say the manure from the dairies in the Lower Valley is polluting our groundwater. Then I look at MaryFrances and I remember my mom and how those years in boarding school messed her up. MaryFrances too. As girls they were uprooted from their families who were too poor to feed them and sent to a government boarding school at Fort Simcoe. They couldn’t speak our language or practice our religion, and they were given meaningless new white names to boot. That’s partly why my mother named me Colestah. There was never a white saint with my name.” The bitterness in Colestah’s voice further worried Miranda. “When they got out of those schools, they didn’t know how to be family members or practice a religion. They had no tribal language to pass on to us. Hell, my mom drank herself to death and MaryFrances…. Never mind. The damn boarding schools are old news. Hey, want me to drive?”

  “No. I’m good. How’d you learn to shoot like that?”

  “An old boyfriend, the passenger in that car in fact, gave me this baby.”

  Miranda flinched as she glimpsed Colestah reach to pat her ankle.

  “He gave it to me when I moved to Seattle and made me promise to take lessons. Turns out I’ve got a good eye, a steady hand, and quick reflexes, and that’s what it takes.”

  “A little judgment wouldn’t hurt either. Does your fiancé know you’re armed and dangerous?”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  Miranda heard annoyance in Colestah’s tone.

  “Yes, Roger knows I carry, but I probably won’t mention this little episode to him. He’s in politics and he wouldn’t want it known that his fiancée shoots up the tires of cops when they get in her way. Lighten up, Miranda. Everyone has secrets. Even you.”

  Miranda didn’t reply but drove on still trying to take in their recent crimes and the fact that her new friend was really two friends, and one of them was loony. But then, so was her Holocaust-survivor Grandma Fanny. Colestah’s impoverished and virtually parentless childhood on the rez probably explained her impulsive, illegal, and destructive behavior.

  Miranda took one hand off the wheel and ran it beneath her chin, tracing the line left by the razor. She pictured the keloids lining the inside of both her upper arms and inner thighs, recalled how the pain of each of those small slashes had brought her a few seconds of relief from her ongoing misery. But she also recalled the terror and pain her suicide attempt had caused her mom and how Mona had kept her alive and helped her get well. How would she have gotten through her own scarred adolescence alive without her fixer mom? Colestah had had no such mom.

  Even so, Colestah wasn’t Miranda’s to fix, wasn’t her child or even part of her family. She was a new friend. Real-world friends couldn’t and shouldn’t be “unfriended” like on Facebook or, for that matter, like her teenaged friends “unfriended” her years ago. And she couldn’t “unfriend” Colestah and keep C.S. But she also knew she couldn’t fix Colestah either.

  By the time they got to Rattlesnake Mountain, a bald windswept hump overlooking a lake, the sky had darkened a little and the air had chilled. Miranda was glad she’d worn a jacket and that she and Colestah had scarfed down energy bars from the Audi’s glove compartment. She parked at the trailhead next to Michael’s truck and they began to climb.

  The treeless, barren, uphill trail served as a memory lane for Colestah. “This is where Michael came to do his vision quest. That boy was gone nearly four days. I was worried sick, but our grandfather wasn’t. He said Michael would be fine and would be a warrior when he came down and, damn it, he was right.” Colestah paused and looked around. “My baby brother walked up this same grim path at thirteen. Back then he was a typical rez kid, an orphan from a screwed up family. He had bad grades, a drinking problem, and was being courted by a gang. But he really wasn’t typical. He was luckier.” Colestah’s voice caught. “Joseph Wright, that, stinky, old pothead boozer dying up ahead, the Vietnam vet everybody thinks is crazy, had already saved my brother. He’d taught him to fish, to be at home in the wild, to know the ways of the salmon and the rivers.

  “And he’d told him our stories.” Colestah paused before continuing. “In fact, right before Michael went on his vision quest, grandfather told him the story about the warrior and the rattlesnake. He once told it to me too. So I figure Michael must’ve used the four days he spent alone up here to dry out and find his true path, because he didn’t get bitten and he came down a warrior.”

  “That sounds like a bar mitzvah run by Outward Bound.”

  Colestah laughed. “Yes. It does.”

  “Tell me the story about the rattlesnake. I saw one last week.”

  “Kinda late in the season, but if there’s sun…” Colestah sighed. “It’s a story elders of several tribes tell kids to warn them off alcohol and drugs. As I said, back in the day grandfather told it to me too.” She took a breath. “Okay. Here’s the short version. A young warrior goes alone up a hill just like this one to make his vision quest. At the top it’s cold like it is here.”

  Miranda shivered and zipped her jacket.

  “At the end of his quest on his way down, the warrior finds a rattler immobilized and dying from the cold. The snake begs the warrior to carry him down the mountain to where it’s warmer and so save his life. The warrior exacts a promise from the rattler that if he grants this request, once the snake regains mobility he won’t bite his deliverer. So the warrior puts the snake on his shoulders and carries him down. When the snake warms up, he bites the warrior. As he dies, the warrior says, ‘But you promised,’ and the snake says, ‘But that is my way and you knew what I was when you picked me up.’”

  This story was different from the Jewish ones Miranda knew. God wasn’t mentioned at all. Nor was sin. And there was no miracle. The warrior’s mistake seemed to be ignoring what he himself knew out of either kindness or naiveté or both. “So the point is kids know what drugs and alcohol did to their friends and relatives and they shouldn’t think it’ll be different for them?”

  “You got it. Thanks to my grandfather, Michael came down from this mountain with a plan. And it wasn’t a pie-in-the-sky plan either. He said he’d try going to high school but if it was too far from that cabin he and grandfather were living in for him to go every day, he’d drop out and study for his GED. With that done, he’d apply to Heritage U and learn how to clean up the rivers and bring back the salmon.”

  “Sure sounds like a good plan to me. Dropping out of school could be a little risky, but….” Miranda reminded herself that she, too, had left high school and lived to tell about it.

  “I think he knew that if he wasn’t around town he’d be less pressured by the gangs too. At any rate, he left scho
ol in tenth grade. I bought him a laptop, and a rancher he still does odd jobs for let him charge it at his place and later on use the Wi-Fi there. I bought him books, too.” Miranda realized that Michael’s grandfather, his sister, and a kindly rancher had, in effect, home-schooled him. “But whenever Michael could get work as a handyman or a guide he’d take it, and summers when the fish were running… so getting that GED took him awhile, but he got it.” She smiled, making no effort to hide her pride as she picked up her pace. “Miranda, let’s walk faster. They can’t have gone too much farther on foot. I don’t want to be too late.”

  Miranda lengthened her stride. “This place is more moonscape than mountain.”

  “Yeah. It’s early name was Laĺíik which means “land above the water.” But let’s walk, not talk, okay?”

  It wasn’t long before the wind in their faces smelled faintly of weed, and the two breathless women reached the ledge of rock where in the shadow of the mountaintop still ahead Michael sat next to Joseph Wright. Nodding at her brother, Colestah approached the wizened old man, sat down beside him, and took his hand in one of hers. With the other she accepted the lit joint Michael handed her and held it close to her grandfather’s lips. Joseph stirred just enough to take a drag.

  Miranda knew something about death watches, having sat quietly beside first her grandmother and then, years later, her mother as each, heavily sedated, took her last breath. She touched Colestah’s shoulder and then, feeling very much the intruder, took a seat at the far end of the ledge, checking first to be sure no late-hibernating rattlesnake had a prior claim to the spot.

  In a minute or two, Michael joined her, his face grave. “I said goodbye. It’s Colestah’s turn. Now that she’s here, grandfather’s spirit can leave him and rise to the sky, to the spirit world, as he wishes.”

  “It was good of you to bring him up here. Colestah says this place is of great significance to him.”

  “Yes. Here his spirit does not have far to go.” Michael looked up. “He’s ready to leave us. He’ll go soon, before they can accuse him or me of murder, before he learns what I let happen to his fish club.” He bent over, positioned his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and faced the earth. His voice was a whisper, so that to catch his words before the wind took them Miranda had to lean forward until her head was next to his. “He taught me to fish like his father taught him. That fish club once belonged to his father, my great grandfather. It has carvings on it. When I was a kid, I thought maybe they were a greeting from our ancestors to the fish or even to me. That club was dark with the blood of fish caught and killed by my ancestors. Once I started using it, man, my salmon died fast, without pain.”

  Michael flipped his hood over his head as the wind picked up. But he kept talking, so Miranda kept listening. “That club felt so true in my hands.” He held out his right hand and closed it into a fist as if gripping the missing tool. Watching, Miranda felt in her own hands the carved handles of her great grandmother’s wooden rolling pin, the handles that propelled the pin smoothly over even the shortest dough.

  “Many people thought that club was really cool. Steve Galen said I could get a few hundred dollars for it. But I would never sell grandfather’s gift. He presented it to me in front of the tribe at my First Catch celebration in the longhouse.” Michael hesitated, perhaps summoning recollections of that occasion. “I was very young when I caught my first salmon, and Grandfather was very proud of me. I remember when he put that club in my hand, he asked me to promise to teach my own kids to fish and to pass it on to them.” Michael’s voice wavered for a moment before he continued. “The lady from our cultural heritage museum was there, and she asked me to let her display it in the museum every year when the fishing season ended. I shoulda let her. It woulda been safer there.”

  His next words jogged something in Miranda’s head. “Now my grandfather’s gift to my children is covered in human blood.” Michael’s voice broke and he stopped talking. Miranda resolved to think more about the fish club as murder weapon later.

  When she heard Colestah’s voice softly chanting what sounded like a prayer, she understood that Joseph Wright, aka Injun Joe, aka Kamiakin, had taken his last breath. His deathwatch had become a shiva, a time of mourning. She wanted to say something to console Michael for his loss and to appease his guilty conscience, but she could find no words. She knew how bad she felt at the prospect of being unable to keep the promise she’d made to her mom to start a new life and learn to feel at home in the world. So again she and Michael sat quietly for a few minutes until he stood, squared his shoulders, and joined his sister. The wind carried the murmur of their chanting to Miranda. When the murmur stopped, she went to where the dead veteran warrior still sat, his sightless eyes open to the sunless sky.

  Colestah swiped at her tears with the back of her hand and took charge. “Michael, you’ll have to stay here with Grandfather to keep the critters off him until the funeral home sends someone to retrieve him. That may take a while because he’s over fifty and didn’t die in a hospital, so I have to notify the cops first or maybe out here, the sheriff. But they all know how old and sick he is, so they probably won’t bother to investigate his death. They’ll tell me to call the funeral home to send someone to retrieve his body and we’ll dress him and have a ceremony at the longhouse. Washington law forbids corpses in the longhouse, but the State won’t mess with us. They never do. I’ll make those calls as soon as I can get a signal on my cell.”

  All that said, she reached up and took hold of her brother’s chin as if he were again a child and she held onto it while she continued. “I’m also going to call the tribal police to report that one of their fugitives is dead but that the other, Michael Wright, will be in with his attorney to talk with them tomorrow. They’ll get in touch with Sheriff Carson who is also pretty interested in talking to you.” She let go of his chin and he nodded.

  “Get some sleep when you get home. You look terrible. I’ll be out at the cabin first thing tomorrow morning to prep you for your meetings with those cops.” Still giving orders, she shed her jacket and handed it to him. “Cover Grandfather with this.”

  “Here. Take mine for yourself, please. I don’t need it.” Miranda took off her own jacket and handed it to Michael.

  Colestah looked around the desolate high-desert mountainside and asked, “Michael, do you have your rifle?” She scanned the ledge where the dead man’s body had slumped.

  “It’s down in my truck.” Colestah glared at him. “Yeah, I locked the truck. I didn’t think I’d need the rifle. Besides, I had to carry him most of the way.”

  “Here. Take this.” Miranda was hugely relieved to see Colestah bend to slip her handgun from her ankle holster and put it into Michael’s hand. “In case there’s a persistent critter. Take care of yourself. It’s just us two now.” She hugged her brother quickly, turned to Miranda, and jerked her head in the direction of the trail.

  The two coatless women jogged down to the car without speaking. On the now familiar path, Miranda pondered the story of the warrior and the rattler as if it were a Torah portion. Now that she knew her complicated new friend better, understood that Colestah was capable of criminality as well as kindness, she would keep her guard up as she had with Vanessa Vargas and as she thought she had done with Detective Ladin. So the take-away for her from that grim cautionary tale designed to help teens stay away from drugs and alcohol was that if she learned to recognize danger, she could avoid it as Harry Ornstein had demonstrated so ably the day before. But Miranda knew that rattlers weren’t always sunning themselves in the open. Rather, sometimes they waited coiled, camouflaged, and ready to strike an unwitting passerby.

  CHAPTER 14

  Guest book: “Out here for some face-time with client and pleased with this new B&B. Good wi-fi and coffee. Nice room and client didn’t balk at the tab.” C.S. Nikaimak, Attorney at Law

  Joseph Wright was honored and buried so soon after he died that his funeral lun
cheon was over before Miranda saw the obit and realized that neither Colestah nor Michael had invited her. Colestah had been so busy in the days after Joseph’s death that Miranda saw little of her. The day she finally checked out, she was early for breakfast, and Miranda greeted her with a question. “Colestah, I take it you persuaded the tribal and county cops that your brother and your grandfather had nothing to do with Isaac Markowitz’s murder?

  Colestah nodded.

  “How did you manage that?”

  Sipping coffee and helping herself to a slab of warm zucchini bread, Colestah gave a simple answer. “I told them they didn’t do it.”

  “Come on, Colestah. Michael already told them that and they still kept after him.”

  “You’re right. I phrased my message a little differently.” She smirked. ”I told them to stop their racial profiling and to stop harassing my brother if they wanted to avoid a lawsuit. And I reminded them that Michael has a solid alibi for Isaac’s time of death, had no reason to kill him, was not in possession of the alleged murder weapon when it was allegedly used, and has no criminal record. I also reminded them that they had no evidence against him. Then I explained that our grandfather also had an alibi for that morning. He was out at MaryFrances’s place preparing for his journey. Easy peasy.” She rubbed her palms together as if washing her hands of this matter once and for all. “Now can I eat?” She grinned, so pleased with herself that she hardly needed Miranda’s approval. But Miranda, somewhat recovered from what she’d come to think of as their ride on the wild side, gave her a thumbs up anyway.

  “And, so you know, Miranda, the luncheon went very well. State Law doesn’t allow corpses in longhouses, but they never come down on us about that, so there he lay, wrapped in his father’s Pendleton blanket. The whole longhouse smelled of grilled salmon.” She shook her head. “Some of those folks hadn’t sat down to a salmon meal ever. After that there was drumming, a lot of drumming… and we carried him out and laid him in Michael’s truck. Then the vets came wearing their feathered headdresses and folded the flag and played taps and gave him a 21-gun salute. Finally Michael and I took him away and buried him.” Clearly the details of Joseph Wright’s private burial would remain private. Colestah drank her last few swallows of coffee and put her mug down. “Gotta pack. I’m due in court tomorrow in Seattle.”