by Joseph Flynn
Arcelia, who’d insisted on tagging along, thought Murtagh might like her wearing her Giants jersey in that locale. It might stir up the locals. Considering that possibility and a few others, Arcelia had brought her baseball bat with her. Rebecca and Emily had to get by with their pepper spray and tactical flashlights.
Emily parked her car and the three women walked up to Murtagh’s house. Rebecca rang the doorbell. They’d all felt the moment to strike was that evening. Rub Murtagh’s nose in what Angelo Renzi had done to his paintings, and see if they could get him to rat on the bastard right away.
It took a minute but Murtagh came to the door. He recognized Rebecca and Emily and said, “I don’t give refunds. Your check has been cashed.”
Rebecca said, “That’s fine. I don’t want the money back.”
Murtagh relaxed and then noticed Arcelia’s jersey. He smiled and said, “You’ve got some nerve wearing that in this neighborhood. You ever think of posing nude?”
She said, “I have posed nude. Tastefully, of course.”
The artist laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Rebecca held up a hand, cutting off that line of conversation.
“If it’s all right with you, Jack, we stopped by to talk about your art. You mind if we come in for a few minutes? We discovered something you really should know about.”
Suspicion clouded Murtagh’s face. He looked at Emily.
“Don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but you’re a cop.” He turned to Rebecca. “You, too.” Finishing with Arcelia, he said, “Not you, but you just might be the badass of the three.”
Rebecca told him, “Ms. Proctor used to be LAPD; I was a Mountie in Calgary. Ms. Martin is one tough cookie. Now, we do private investigations for Jim McGill’s local office.”
Murtagh knew the truth when he heard it. He said, “I’ll buy all that. So why shouldn’t I slam my door in all of your faces?”
Arcelia said, “We’ve got some photos to show you. Not naked ladies, but you’ll still find them interesting.”
Emily added, “We also think you’re the kind of guy who likes to get even when people screw with you.”
Rebecca concluded, “Especially when someone screws with your art.”
Murtagh frowned and then stepped aside to let them enter and said in a low growl, “Show me.”
It took him less than a minute of inspecting the photos of his paintings to see and agree that they’d been altered in ways that Murtagh considered vandalism. He told them, “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”
Emily said calmly, “That way gets you locked up for life.”
“And you won’t get any canvases, oil paints and brushes in the joint,” Rebecca added.
“Be smart,” Arcelia told him.
Then Rebecca gave him their pitch. Confess that he’d forged Keith Perry’s signature for Angelo Renzi, testify against him in court, get a slap on the wrist for what he’d done and enjoy seeing Renzi rot in prison for years. While he continued to paint as he saw fit. Maybe, who knew, he could even sell his story to a movie studio.
With the idea of moving pictures and the fame that came with them in mind, Murtagh confessed while Rebecca shot the video with her phone.
She’d just put a wrap on the production when her phone rang.
A woman who introduced herself as Captain Anne Marie Meyerson of the Omaha Police Department told Rebecca that her husband John Tall Wolf had been shot in the line of duty and had just been taken into surgery.
She was advised to fly east as soon as she could.
Omaha Indian Reservation
After Marlene saw Tall Wolf into the hospital emergency room, she had the limo driver take her and Brice Benard to the Omaha Reservation. Along the way, she called Thomas Emmett, the tribal chief, and Dr. Yvette Lisle and Alan White River.
They were all waiting in Emmett’s office when Marlene dragged Benard in by the scruff of his neck and flung him to the floor in front of the chief’s desk. Then she handed the formerly missing iBook computer to Dr. Lisle.
“Please check your machine to make sure all your data is present and uncorrupted,” Marlene told Dr. Lisle. “This worthless creature swears he didn’t download any files to any other device or server.”
“I didn’t, I swear,” Benard echoed in a whimper.
White River was the first to sense something was amiss. “Where is my grandson?”
She told all of them what had happened to Tall Wolf. Then she pointed to Benard and said, “This rodent is part Lakota Sioux. He disgraces all those who are his ancestors. He thought swindling the Omaha would be a great coup and enrich him obscenely. I’ve persuaded him to make appropriate compensation to your tribe: $500 million. I’d suggest you contact the Lakota to have them participate in deciding his ultimate fate. He needs to make compensation to them far beyond money.”
Emmett asked, “What about the civil or criminal courts?”
Marlene smiled in her predatory way. “His accomplices will not be available to testify. The Lakota will have to reach justice on their own. Your people will have to make peace with theirs.”
“And if we are unable to come to an agreement?” Emmett asked.
“Then I will return and help everyone to see the right path.”
The threat implicit in Marlene’s words was clearly understood.
Dr. Lisle looked up from her laptop and said, “All my data look to be present.”
Marlene nodded, glad that something had gone right.
“I want to see my grandson,” White River said.
So did Marlene, assuming he was still alive.
University Medical Center — Omaha, Nebraska
John was out of surgery and in an intensive care recovery room. Medical orders stated that he was not to receive any visitors until his medical team decided he was … well, going to live, for one thing. The bullet that had hit him entered his body on a downward, transverse trajectory, starting just below the right clavicle and exiting through the interspace between the fourth and fifth ribs, nicking each of those bones in its flight.
A far more serious concern was that the projectile also lacerated the brachial artery. By rights, even though the patient had been rushed into the hospital within minutes of being shot, he should have bled to death. Only by some unguessable means that major blood vessel had been neatly, if imperfectly, cauterized. There’d been a significant but not immediately fatal blood loss.
The woman who’d carried the victim into the emergency room in her arms had immediately left the hospital, so there was no chance to ask her for details. The man’s wallet had contained his identification and his wife had been located and contacted. Not that she’d be able to explain what had happened.
Still, she was on her way, and she’d said the victim’s parents and even her own parents soon would be en route, and they were to be given the same considerations regarding visiting the patient that she would have. The medical team felt somewhat better that their patient was well loved. If he didn’t make it, they hoped he’d hang on long enough to be with his family when he passed.
What they didn’t know, no one knew, was that John Tall Wolf was already in the presence of one of the most important figures in his life. In the form of a surgical nurse, Marlene stood at his bedside, holding his hand. Not a word passed between them, but they communicated nonetheless.
“Are you leaving us, Tall Wolf?”
John knew that voice immediately. It wasn’t St. Peter talking to him.
“I don’t know. Seems possible.”
“I won’t ask you to stay, if that’s asking too much.”
John might have laughed, except he thought that would kill him.
“You know, I had something to tell you. I’d better do it now while I still can.”
“What is it?”
“I was going to put a provision into my will saying that when I die I want my body to be placed on a sepulture in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. In the very same place where Coyote fir
st met me, if there’s isn’t a planned community there by now.”
Marlene didn’t know what it was to weep, had never understood it.
Now, she did.
“Anyway, there should be someplace nearby where my remains could be left, and if Coyote was still interested and could choke me down, bon appétit.”
“Don’t leave just yet, Tall Wolf. I’m sure your wife and your parents are on their way. Your great-grandfather is already in the building. He wants to see you.”
“Please bring him to me … but don’t take too long.”
Changing her appearance to that of a large male doctor in surgical scrubs, Marlene brought Alan White River to John’s bedside. The old man didn’t say a word. He only took John’s hand in his, and at that moment John saw Awinita, Alan White River’s wife, and his own great-grandmother.
She was not alone. Bly Black Knife, John’s biological mother, was with her. So was his biological father, the man whose name he’d never known, but did know now, Hok’ee Bates. More than that, John knew that hok’ee, in its native language, meant high-backed wolf. Tall wolf. The universe could be a very small place.
Many others, spanning countless generations, stood with Awinita and his blood parents.
John felt sure this could mean only one thing —
Until Awinita told him, Your time is not yet. Take good care of my husband, your great-grandfather. His counsel to you will always be wise. I have told him it had better be.
This time John couldn’t help but laugh.
That sound wasn’t often, if ever, heard from patients in that wing of the hospital.
It brought three nurses and a doctor on the run. By the time they arrived, though, John was alone — and all of his vital signs were steadily improving. When Rebecca, his parents and hers arrived, the medical team was cautiously optimistic.
Chapter 5
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Montecito, California
There were too many Carcharodon carcharias, great white sharks, in the water off Butterfly Beach in Montecito for Byron DeWitt to give John Tall Wolf his first surfing lesson. Some of the brutes trolled for the unwary just a few yards off the sand. That didn’t discourage every surfer, of course.
The hard-core wave riders had paid good money for their boards and wetsuits. Their taxes helped cover the costs of maintaining the beaches. What the hell had the sharks contributed? Okay, one good book and its movie spinoff. Other than that, they were just a real nuisance.
Sure, the bastards might eat your ass, and the rest of you, too.
Then again, people died every day on the freeways.
You decided where you’d take your chances was all.
John and DeWitt had resolved that their big gamble that day would be sunstroke. They jogged at a lumbering pace along the wet, hard-packed sand at the edge of the ocean. A week in the California sun had darkened both of their hides, and brought out gold fringes in DeWitt’s hair.
Both of them wore sunglasses and baseball caps: Dodgers for DeWitt; Giants for John, courtesy of Arcelia Martin. Given the demographics of the neighborhood, both movie and rock stars were beach habitués. The celebrities tended to recognize others of their kind and offer polite nods and waves. The general public had to make do with minimal pro forma smiles or averted glances from the famed.
Asking for an autograph on the beach was a request to be fed to the sharks.
Even so, just about everyone, including those who saw their own names in lights, peeked curiously at John and DeWitt. Here were two tall, athletic males, in the primes of their lives or just a bit beyond, gutting their way along the beach. Surely, they’d recently been able to move with far greater speed and grace.
So what kinds of misfortunes had laid them low?
A better question would be: What kind of treatments were bringing them back?
When the elder Wolfs and Bramleys, along with Rebecca, had arrived at University Hospital in Omaha, they were pleased to hear the medical appraisal that John had gotten past the crisis stage of his gunshot wound. There would, of course, be a prolonged period of recovery and rehabilitation.
The three Bramleys could only offer their encouragement and availability to be on hand and do anything they could in the way of physical assistance. Hayden Wolf, on the other hand, presented his medical credentials, and Serafina Wolf y Padilla related her published scholarship in the area of herbal medicines. They said they would evaluate the local physicians’ planned course of treatment for John and offer their advice.
In reality, they quickly assumed responsibility for their son’s recovery.
They had his power-of-attorney to do so.
Their efforts were aided when Marlene Flower Moon offered the use of her beach house in Montecito as a place to convalesce. Serafina made a point of checking it out first but then agreed to bring John there. Rebecca seconded the idea. Montecito was less than a two-hour drive from Westwood.
With James J. McGill’s blessing and best wishes, Rebecca was given clearance to manage her husband’s return to health and the L.A. office as she saw fit. That was because McGill was a mensch and Rebecca’s new client, Keith Perry, would represent a substantial cash-flow for years to come.
Once word reached the White House about John Tall Wolf being shot and recuperating in Montecito, Byron DeWitt had told his wife, President Jean Morrissey, “I’ve got to go out there and help John.”
She’d replied, “I’ll buy that you want to help a friend, but you want to get back in the water, too.”
“The reward for doing a good deed,” DeWitt told her.
There was an additional benefit for the former FBI deputy director. Hayden and Serafina became aware of his medical situation, too. They examined him, read his medical history online and began to prescribe herbal medicines to supplement the prescription drugs he was already taking.
As a devoted student of Chinese culture, DeWitt had a great respect for the power of nature’s pharmacopeia. He checked in with the President, as a good husband would, and got her blessing to give it a try.
Within a week, both John and DeWitt had made significant progress in their recoveries. In less than two weeks, they were plodding along the beach, a day after the senior Wolfs and Bramleys had returned to Santa Fe and Calgary respectively.
Great-grandfather, Alan White River, had returned to John’s apartment in Washington, DC. Dr. Lisle’s grandmother on the Omaha Reservation was described as a lovely woman, but she already had a boyfriend. White River had called John’s upstairs neighbor, Barbara Lipman, and they’d agreed to keep an eye on each other.
Rebecca had felt it would be all right to drive down to L.A. and put in an appearance in the office for a day, but she planned to be back that night for a Valentine’s Day date.
“Lucky dog,” DeWitt had told John. “We’d better go for a run and whip you into shape for a hot night.”
John replied, “A hot night will be if I don’t fall asleep before things get good.”
It turned out John wasn’t the only one who got lucky.
The President of the United States and a contingent of Secret Service agents, straining to be discreet if not invisible, were waiting for John and DeWitt when they returned to the beach house. Jean Morrissey sat in a wicker chair on the front porch. She looked at her husband and John, sweat-drenched from their run, and said, “How am I supposed to keep this country up and running when all its best men are out lolly-gagging?”
“Madam President,” DeWitt said, coming to a posture of attention, “I stand ready to serve in any way you wish, and by the way, why are you here?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, and you are my valentine,” she reminded him.
DeWitt grinned and said, “Oh, boy. I believe I’ll go take a shower.”
He left John alone with the President.
She told him, “Some people will do just about anything to avoid becoming Secretary of the Interior, but you didn’t have to go and get yourself shot.”
> Following DeWitt’s example, John straightened his posture. “Madam President, I, too, will serve in any office in which you’d care to place me. Regarding the Interior job …” John tried to find the words to express his feelings in a way that would be meaningful to Jean Morrissey. “Having me do that job would be like putting a basketball player on a hockey team.”
Jean Morrissey thought about that for all of two seconds before she started to laugh. She told John, “All you had to do was tell me that right off.”
Chagrined, John said, “Sometimes the right words don’t come easily. So, I can keep my present job?”
“As long as you like … as long as I’m in office.”
“You’ll be able to find someone else for Interior?”
“I already have. Ms. Flower Moon has agreed to return to the post. So the two of you will be working together again.” The President looked around. “That shouldn’t be a problem, seeing how she’s letting you use her house. Nice place, by the way.”
“It is.”
“You and Byron both seem to be doing remarkably well here.”
“Mom and Dad know their stuff, Madam President.”
“Glad to hear it. I think I’ll go see if Byron needs any help washing his back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” John pointed the way, while looking at his feet.
Nobody ever wanted to think of either their parents or the President of the United States having sex. Especially in a shower. John hoped DeWitt’s recovery wouldn’t be set back.
He’d have to consider his own jeopardy when Rebecca returned.
That idea was interrupted by a house phone ringing. Might be Marlene. He’d have to thank her for taking the Interior job, and letting him use her house. He jogged into the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Director Tall Wolf, it’s me, Cale Tucker.”
“Hello, Cale. How are things at the NSA?”