Willie grabbed a handful of cookies, but Manny waved them away, patting his stomach. “I can’t do animal cookies. I’m a vegetarian.”
Brandi stared through him, rather than at him, without smiling. She handed them coffee.
“Thanks.” Walker said. The cup disappeared in Walker’s hand as it did Willie’s. “These are the investigators I called you about.”
Manny introduced himself. “Ms. Apple, let me extend my deepest—”
“Lander Police stopped by my house and gave me the news about Dad yesterday, Agent Tanno, so spare me the sympathies. Just tell me why his death wasn’t natural.”
“We don’t know that it wasn’t, just yet.”
“Bullshit,” Brandi blurted out. “The FBI doesn’t investigate natural deaths.”
Manny set his cup on the table and took his notebook out of his bag. “Then Sergeant Walker has told you the circumstances surrounding his death?”
Dust poofed around her as she dropped into an overstuffed chair. “When he said you wanted to talk, he said Dad’s body had been found in a lake on Pine Ridge. Why would he have been way over there?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
“How the hell should I know? He and I rarely talked. Now the reason you’re over here, Agent Tanno?”
“Your father appears to have drowned. Did your father fish?”
Brandi grabbed a coffee cup, stopping long enough to polish the cup with her tee shirt before filling it with coffee. As she drew her shirt up, her taut, firm belly was exposed, and Manny once again looked away. “Dad didn’t know one end of a fishing pole from another. He had no reason to be around a lake. It’s December, for God’s sake, so I know he wouldn’t be swimming. What do you expect to learn from me?”
Willie grabbed another handful of animal crackers. “You don’t sound too upset.”
Brandi glared at him. “And your role here?”
Willie forced a grin. “Sidekick.”
“Agent Tanno’s driver,” Walker added.
Brandi faced Manny. “I’m not particularly upset, because I’ve been expecting this any time. Dad was starting to lose his memory. And he knew it. He’d stop at the house or the office, and we’d fight like hell. He was so angry, he didn’t want to admit it.” She set the cup on the saucer with a bang. “I wanted him to go into the nursing home. Someplace where he could be watched. But he refused to move into town.” Brandi laughed, a sneer crossing her face. “He even refused to leave his truck parked here at his house. Even though I hid his keys, he always found a spare set somewhere and drove into town.”
Manny’s pen remained poised above a fresh sheet as he flipped notebook pages. “You say he was aware of being . . . developing . . . ?”
“Dementia. Early onset.” Brandy sipped her coffee. She wrinkled her face up and she set her cup on the tray. “These past few months we fought about it.” She brushed dust off her jeans. “Until he finally admitted he knew he wasn’t acting right. He knew there was no cure, and he refused to even try any medications that might help slow its progress. He knew he’d only get worse. He even said he’d better make out a new will while he still had his faculties.”
“Did he need a new will?”
Brandi crunched an animal cookie. “When Kenton died, his boys, Neville and Tony, were willed the land, but Kenton left Dad the mineral rights. Only there’s no minerals under this scrub land.” She waved her hand around the room. “This wasn’t even Dad’s house. It was Kenton’s. And now Neville and Tony can set a match to it and be done with it.”
“Where can we find them?”
“Neville has a law practice in Rapid City. He did Dad’s legal work for nothing. I don’t know about Tony. Try checking the regional jails. Or ask Della. She was their nursemaid after Kenton’s wife Winona died.
“Have you talked with Della since you got the news about your father?” Manny asked.
“That witch? Her shack might be right next door, but I haven’t talked with her in years.”
“So you won’t miss this place?” Manny said.
“Miss it? I haven’t lived here since I was old enough to hitchhike away from the rez. But Della might miss it. Neville and Tony can kick her off, and good riddance. Now if you haven’t anything else, I have to box up Dad’s things for the Salvation Army. Neville and Tony get the house now.”
Brandi stood and gathered up the coffee cups.
“If you think of anything else, I’ll leave my card on the table,” Manny called after her. He and Willie stood and started for the door when Brandi poked her head out of the kitchen. “The only thing odd that happened,” her eyes shot upward, remembering the day, “was last Tuesday. Dad stopped at my office. Rance, my boss, had taken me to lunch.” She looked away. “We were . . . gone longer than usual. By the time I got back, Dad had left. I took off the rest of the day to look for him, too.”
“And did you find him?”
Brandi shook her head. “He left a note saying he needed to tell me something he was going to tell his ‘attorney.’ If it had been important enough to sneak his truck into Lander, it should have been important enough for him to stick around and talk with me.”
“Guess victims of dementia rarely behave rationally.” They all stood to leave when Manny paused, not wanting to go just yet, somehow drawn to Brandi. Like he’d been drawn to Clara when he first met her. A bad feeling he found hard to resist. “Where can I find Johnny’s attorney?”
She laughed and waved her hand around the room once again. “Like Dad needed one? If he did, he would have got a hold of Neville. He’s never charged dad for any legal work.”
“Just one more thing,” Manny said. “You said your Dad had a pickup.”
“He did.”
“I didn’t see any truck on the place.”
“Like I said, he drove it into town last Tuesday. Why do you ask?”
“Beside the lake where your father was found there was a car,” Manny explained. “A stolen car.”
Brandi’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. “Agent Tanno, my father might have been a piss-poor rancher, and lazy as all get out, but he would never have stolen anything. Especially someone else’s car.”
Manny followed Walker and Willie out the door. They bunched their jackets against the wind, looking around the ranch house.
“What is it?” Willie asked.
Manny shrugged. “Can’t say. A feeling, I guess.”
“Are you getting one of your . . . ”
Manny’s glare cut Willie off. He didn’t need to explain to Walker the unwanted visions that came upon him at the least opportune times. “Are there any lakes around these parts?”
Walker chuckled. “Did the FBI teach you not to open your eyes? Do you see any lakes around here? Closest thing Johnny had to a lake is one of those stock tanks over there.” Walker chin-pointed to a corrugated circular tank fed by a creaky windmill churning a squeaky pump. Water trickled into the tank that had overflowed. Cows stood around the tank like men standing around a water cooler, jawing.
Manny walked to the stock tank. One heifer snorted and trotted off, while the rest just looked at him like he was going to start drinking next to them. As a boy on Pine Ridge, he’d swam in stock tanks much like this one. Uncle Marion had always warned him to be careful, had always cautioned him that at three feet deep, there was more than enough water for a boy to drown in. Or a man.
“Is Brandi always that . . . cold?” Manny asked.
Walker bunched his collar around his thick neck. “She’s all about Brandi. She’s been married four times. Twice as many married men have taken her on Las Vegas trips. Caribbean cruises. And that’s only the ones that I’m aware of.” Walker spit tobacco juice, and Manny crow-hopped away as the wind carried it past his head. “She was gone for ‘lunch’ longer than she intended that day Johnny stopped,
I’m sure, because old Rance is a happily married lawyer. Except when he takes long lunches with his very, very personal secretary.”
“Sounds like she didn’t get along with Kenton’s sister,” Willie said.
“She never did.”
“Then let’s go talk with Della,” Manny said.
Chapter 10
Walker drove around the barn where four head of cows scratched themselves on posts in the barnyard, past a paint pony blocked from the wind by a stack of hay bales, to a small bungalow with a lean-to over the front door. Manny and Willie climbed out of the Expedition. Walker remained seat belted behind the wheel, head tilted back, eyes covered by his cowboy hat. Manny tapped on the driver’s window. Walker rolled the window down and pushed his hat up with his thumb. “I’m not going near that woman, if that’s what you’re about to ask.”
“You a mind reader?” Manny asked.
“I used to be sweet on her, back when we both rodeoed as kids,” Walker explained.
“And you had a falling out?” Manny asked.
Walker grinned and covered his eyes again. “You a mind reader?”
Manny walked to the screen door and rapped on the side of the house. Somewhere inside a box dropped. Someone cursed, and Manny rapped again.
“Door’s open.”
Willie shrugged. “I guess the door’s open.”
They entered. The loveseat in one corner looked oversized in the tiny living room. Photos were neatly hung and spaced in a symmetrical pattern on a polished knotty pine wall. An antique quilt and woven Pendleton blanket hung on either side of the pictures, the blue and yellow stars of the quilt complementing the black and tan weave of the blanket. Where Johnny’s house looked as if a stiff wind had blown through, Della’s was uncluttered and orderly.
Della Charging Bear came from a room carrying an armful of clothes. “Sit down. Be there in a minute.” She put the clothes in a Hubbard Feeds box and disappeared into the kitchen.
Willie headed for the loveseat.
“And wipe your feet,” she called from the other room.
“Woman’s got eyes in the back of her head,” Willie whispered.
“And I hear pretty well, too.” Della came around the kitchen, wiping her hands on a flour sack towel. She flung it over her shoulder and leaned against the kitchen door. Her jeans had a single roll as if to catch the ash from the cigarette in her hand, and her flannel shirt was pulled up past the elbows exposing a gray thermal undershirt. Manny felt like asking for a cigarette but bit his lip as he showed her his identification.
“No sense for the FBI to get involved,” she said, smiling at Manny’s scarf. “I’m packing my things. I’m assuming Neville and Tony are evicting me.”
“That’s not why we’re here.”
“Then why are you? And,” she squinted at Willie, “I don’t recall seeing you around Fort Washakie.”
He smiled easily. “I’ve never even been there. I’m a tribal investigator from Pine Ridge.”
“Lakota,” she smiled. “Then who’s driving that Wind River Police outfit?”
“Sergeant Tom Walker.”
Della’s face flushed. She ran to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “You better make sure that SOB doesn’t cross my threshold.” She punctuated her threat by nodding to a lever action rifle leaning against the wall behind the front door.
“He’s our driver,” Willie said, and Manny was sure he wished Walker was here to appreciate the comment. “I take it you two don’t get along.”
“An old feud.” She walked away from the window. “Soda? Coffee?”
“Diet soda will be fine.”
“Diet?” Della patted her stomach. “Does it look like I need diet? I don’t have any.”
“Then water will do,” Manny said.
Willie shook his head at the offer. He waited until she’d disappeared back into the kitchen before leaning closer. “Does she seem a little gruff to you?”
“She’s ranch stock,” Manny said, as if that was all the explanation he needed. Manny had first encountered ranch stock when Unc got him his first summer job at thirteen. He’d hired out to the Bar 4 at the edge of the Badlands, told that the only thing he needed was a pair of gloves and a forgiving attitude. That summer he learned that as cantankerous though most ranch folks were, they meant well and only wanted to help. Manny learned much that summer, from how much a steer’s horns bled and what its searing hair smelled like at branding to how to roll with the punch of an older boy just before you went on the attack. Which happened most mornings, until the other boys learned Manny fought back. But what he had most learned that summer he added to his storehouse of knowledge of human nature. Even back then he liked to sit back and observe people. Ranch stock.
Della returned carrying a glass of water and a slice of cake bigger than Manny knew he should eat. He couldn’t offend their host, he told himself, as Della handed them their plates and forks. Manny noted her split nails, the dirt embedded in rough hands, the scar on one thumb where she’d missed a dally as she roped a calf or a steer, her thumb trapped as she looped the rope around the saddle horn. Manny had seen those sheared thumbs a dozen times. Or ranchers missing thumbs altogether.
She sipped an Orange Crush as she sat back in an occasional chair covered in faded denim. “So, what’s the FBI and this Lakota kid doing in my home?” She shook her head. “Or I should say, Tony and Neville’s home now.”
Manny explained they had some questions to clear up regarding Johnny Apple.
“So he wandered off and fell in a lake in South Dakota. Henry said as much yesterday.”
“Henry?”
“Stalks the Enemy,” She nodded out the window. “Has the place that butts ours—Kenton’s—just north of here. If you squint, you can just see his place.”
“How did he find out—”
“He’d talked with Brandi in town. Seems like the Lander police notified her of her father’s death. Henry stopped on his way home yesterday and he told me.”
“Has Brandi talked with you about Johnny’s death?” Willie asked.
Della leaned closer, her hands resting on her knees with thermal underwear poking through threadbare pants. “Maybe your fine Sergeant Walker didn’t explain it good enough, so I’ll spell it out for you: I live in this house,” she waved her hand around, “by the grace of Johnny Apple. And only because he needed someone to run the few head of cows so he could gallivant around. I haven’t talked with Johnny’s daughter since she ran away in high school.”
Della walked to the window and pulled the curtains back. “Johnny had been Kenton’s ranch hand for the last forty years.” She nodded out the curtains to Brandi’s BMW still parked in front of the big house. “Don’t know why my brother kept him around. Johnny wasn’t much help. I guess Kenton thought he was. He appreciated Johnny’s loyalty. That’s why he put it in his will to allow Johnny to live here.”
“Folks we talked with think Johnny wasn’t much of a rancher,” Manny said.
Della laughed and shook out a smoke. “That’s an understatement. Even when Kenton was alive, I did most of the work around here. Johnny would mend some fence now and again. Help with the calving until his scrawny ass got cold. The damned fool couldn’t even keep trespassers off the place.”
Manny took a bite of cake, and he quickly chased it a swallow of water. The dry frosting, the cake itself even drier, crumbled on his plate. If Della was a rancher, she certainly was no baker. He looked sideways at Willie, whose face was wrinkled up. He nodded to Manny’s water, and he handed Willie the bottle. He took a long pull and stared at the cake, figuring out a way to not finish the rest.
Manny leaned over and used his fork to scoop the rest of his cake onto Willie’s plate.
“You don’t like my cake?”
“It’s not that,” Manny sipped water. “Just with my diabetes,
I have to limit my sugar intake.” He grinned at Willie. “Young Officer With Horn here has no such problems.”
“Well, let me know when you want more,” she offered.
Willie took another bite, keeping the glass of water nearby. “I will,” he finally managed to spit out.
“You were saying Johnny had problems with trespassers?” Manny grabbed his water just before Willie did and washed down the remnants of Della’s homemade hospitality.
Della nodded to her rifle again. “If I’d have caught them, there wouldn’t have been any problem. Seismograph crew came wandering onto the place last year. All Johnny did was go and talk to them. Talk to them! If it had been me—”
Manny tapped Willie’s shoulder. “Officer With Horn, do you have any questions?”
Willie chewed, unable to talk, until Manny handed him his water. “Why would the Charging Bears evict you? I understand, you raised them.”
Della shrugged. “Folks drift apart. We was close once. Not now. There’s no reason for them not to give me the boots.”
“But they haven’t actually told you to leave? After all, it’s only been a few days since Johnny died.”
Della pointed to the stack of boxes in one corner. “Just a matter of time before they come calling with the eviction notice.” She turned to the photos and tapped one showing two long-haired boys posing for the camera. One stood a half a head taller, but they looked nearly identical in their scowl at the camera. “I raised Neville and Tony after their mother died. You’d think that would have meant something to Kenton. But it didn’t. He left me nothing.”
She walked to the window and pulled the curtain back. Manny thought he detected a slight smile when she looked at Walker sleeping in his Expedition. “This place isn’t worth much. But they’ll be able to get something for it.”
“Kenton didn’t leave you anything?”
She laughed and turned back to her chair. “He left me the fifteen hundred in his bank account, which promptly went for hay and mineral cake for the cattle.”
“When was the last time you talked with Neville or Tony?” Manny asked.
Death Etched in Stone Page 7