The Dead Chill

by Linda Berry

  broke into Nikah’s house, and Lancer’s house.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, with a nervous quiver to his tone.

  “We have proof,” she bluffed. The only proof they had was a wadded-up tissue used by Harper and discarded in the bathroom. Sander was guilty by association. “You had a pretty big gripe against Lancer. Gave him a pretty good beating. Even started scalping him. Maybe you were angry enough to intentionally kill him.”

  “As far as the beating, he asked for it,” Sander said passionately. “But I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  Sidney felt a tremor of elation. He had just confessed to the home invasions and beating Lancer.

  Realizing his mistake, Sander clenched his jaw so tightly Sidney thought it might crack. This was the moment where he implicitly understood that he was going down. He lifted his cuffed hands and wiped the sweat off his face with a sleeve.

  “Face facts, Sander,” Sidney said gently. “No lawyer is going to exonerate you of all of these charges. You’re gonna do time. How much depends on your willingness to talk to us.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill anyone! I didn’t rape anyone!”

  “Just an innocent bystander?” Darnell interjected coldly. “Watching your pals do the dirty work?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?” Darnell asked.

  Sidney shot Darnell a warning glance, and said gently. “Let’s begin with last night, Sander. Walk us through it.”

  Sander nodded, licked his dry lips. “When I got to Grisly’s place, Lancer was already on the scene, armed with a rifle. He was drunk. Raving mad. We tried to calm him down, but he kept screaming that Grisly killed Nikah, and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it.”

  Darnell was scribbling away.

  Sander continued, his voice animated, “Lancer was so pissed that Grisly wasn’t there, he grabbed a gas can and started throwing gas on the barn. He lit it before we could stop him. Then he headed toward the cabin to burn that down, too. We warned him to stop but he wouldn’t listen. Harper fired at his feet. Lancer thought we were trying to kill him. He fired back. Shot Harper. Shot at me, too, and missed. I had to defend myself.” Sander rubbed his hands over his eyes, and suddenly looked haggard and about five years older. “I never shot anyone before. He forced my hand. I had to shoot him, or he would have killed Harper and me.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I called 911 to get help for Harper. Lancer’s body was out in the middle of the clearing, so I dragged him into the barn.”

  “By his feet? You pulled off a boot?”

  “Yeah.” Sander huffed out a tortured breath and slowly met Sidney’s eyes. “You know the rest. We didn’t mean to kill him. I swear. You can ask Harper.”

  “We will. Why did you tell me it was Grisly?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. It all happened so fast. I was trying to distance myself. Pretend I

  didn’t know Lancer or Grisly. I didn’t want to be associated with the poaching business. But you found the pictures.” His shoulders slouched. “You can see I’m not innocent.”

  Darnell met her eyes with a small glimmer of triumph. Another confession. Poaching. He continued scribbling.

  “Why did Lancer think Grisly killed Nikah?” Sidney asked.

  Sander shook his head. “That’s a long story.”

  “We got time. We aren’t going anywhere.”

  Sander retreated into silence. He fidgeted, slumped in his chair, crossed and uncrossed his legs. Anxiety peeled off of him in waves.

  “Talk to me, Sander. Help yourself.”

  His jaw sawed back and forth. A drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face. Finally, he said, “I can give you the identity of the Stalker, but first I want a guarantee of a deal.”

  “You have my word. I’ll talk to the judge personally. Let him know you cooperated fully.” She paused for effect.

  A look of suspicion crept over his face.

  “You can trust Chief Becker,” Darnell said earnestly. “She keeps her word.”

  Sander slouched lower in his chair and picked at a cuticle on his thumb, face sweating.

  They waited. A minute ticked by. Sidney wanted to shake him. Darnell’s shoulders lifted and tightened. Sidney finally broke the silence. “You’re gonna have to trust me, Sander. This is your last chance. Tell us why Lancer thought Grisly killed Nikah.”

  Sander looked up from his hands, having paled so that his freckles appeared brighter than before. He met her gaze, and blurted, “Because he attacked other Indian women.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “One night when he was drunk, he bragged about it. Said he raped a woman he met in the saloon a few years back. He also admitted to raping a singer from the village. Grisly talked about those women like they were trash, like they were second class citizens.”

  Sidney sat speechless. The information he revealed was privileged. Only the rapist and a few people on the Tribal Council knew the identity of the rape victims. “How do we know you aren’t the rapist?”

  “Because Grisly showed us pictures. They’re on his phone.”

  “Pictures of what?”

  “The women he raped. One had her hands tied behind her back.”

  Sidney met Darnell’s eyes, exchanging their revulsion for Sander and Grisly in a glance. Wrestling to control her temper, she asked, “So you knew Grisly raped women, but you did nothing about it?”

  Sander’s eyebrows arched, and he nervously wet his lips. “What was I supposed to do? We’re partners. He’s a good friend. More like a brother. Would you turn in your own brother?” He redirected his focus to his hands, tightly clasped, and said feebly, “He said he wouldn’t do it again.”

  Sidney studied Sander with narrowed eyes. Even though she had devoted a career to getting depraved offenders off the street, she could still be sickened by their coldblooded lack of conscience, their lack of empathy for their victims. Sander was as guilty as Grisly. His compliance allowed Grisly to remain free to attack again. He failed to sexually assault Tammy Mueller a second time, but the emotional wounds he inflicted would traumatize her for the rest of her life. Despite Sidney’s best effort to keep her feelings under control, her voice toughened. “So, what you’re telling us, Sander, is that Grisly is the Stalker?”

  “Yes…and no.”

  “What do you mean? Which is it?”

  He glanced up at the camera and then leveled a direct stare at Sidney, challenging her to back off. She held his gaze. Sweat gleamed on his face. “I mean the Stalker isn’t just one person. All three of us were in on it together. We all broke into those homes. Me, Grisly, and Lancer.”

  Adrenalin charged Sidney’s system. She could feel her pulse beating in her temples. “Keep talking. Explain.”

  He cleared his throat. “We’d been doing pretty well with our trapping business until about six months ago. Then it suddenly went bust. Our fur trader told us he couldn’t take that many pelts anymore. His distributor was getting suspicious. He told us to sit on our inventory for a few months. So that money source just dried up. Grisly and I could wait it out. We were just stockpiling our money anyway. Saving it to start a legitimate business together. We were both tired of the animal trade. The loss of income hit Lancer the hardest. His roofing job didn’t bring in much and he was going through his stash fast, gambling, doing drugs, drinking.”

  “Did Nikah know?”

  “Only about the drinking. Nothing else.”

  “Go on.”

  Sander shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “One night we were out drinking in town and Lancer told us he’d been doing some neighborhood thefts to bring in some extra money. Easy stuff. Stealing tools and shit from barns and sheds. He said he wanted to start robbing houses. He knew which villagers were well off, flashing expensive jewelry and electronics. He knew who had dogs, who didn’t. The villagers were so naïve, they didn’t even lock their doors.”

 
; Sander closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, and when they reopened, he appeared to be resigned, at last, to complete cooperation. “It sounded like easy pickings. So I thought, what the hell, I’d give it a try. The three of us started taking turns, maybe a couple times a month. One of us went into a house, one kept watch. Lancer was right. It was easy.” Sander scratched his chin. “For a while, anyway. Then folks got riled up. Men started patrolling the neighborhood. I had a close call one night and had to hightail it down to the creek. I ran a half-mile through the water before they stopped following me with dogs. Scared the hell out of me. After that, I backed out of the whole deal. I had a job. I didn’t need the money that bad. But honestly, for Grisly, it was a thrill. A game. Outwitting the villagers and invading their personal space got him off. He did all the break-ins while Lancer worked out the logistics. As part of the search party, Lancer knew exactly where the patrol was. He texted Grisly and kept him informed.”

  “Nice racket,” Sidney said with sarcasm.

  Oblivious to her derision, Sander agreed. “Yeah, it was. He and Grisly raked in some nice loot. Jewelry, laptops, money, drugs, guns. You name it. Some stuff people wouldn’t even report. Then everything changed.”

  “What changed?”

  Sander stared at his hands, brow deeply furrowed. “That’s when the singer got raped, and she claimed a white guy did it. Right away, people started accusing Lancer. Lancer was royally pissed. He confronted Grisly. Grisly just laughed, and said, “So what? The bitch was asking for it.’” Sander shook his head. “Grisly has no respect for women. Especially Native American women. He thought because he was white, he could do whatever he wanted, without consequences. But not this time.”

  “What happened?”

  “Lancer slugged him. Hard. Blackened his eye. Told Grisly he was done. He was finished with their partnership, completely. By that time though, it was too late. The villagers ran Lancer out of there a couple weeks later.”

  Darnell’s dark eyes sparked with rage. “So Lancer also knew who the rapist was, but instead of reporting it, he took the rap. Leaving Grisly to assault again?”

  Sander’s face flushed crimson.

  “So Lancer quit working the village at that point?” Sidney said.

  He nodded. “Any thefts after that, Lancer wasn’t involved. But he went bat shit crazy. He lost his home, his neighbors hated him, his girlfriend kicked him out. He blamed Grisly. Grisly sold the guns and electronics on the black market. Easy to move. Lancer accused him of cheating, not giving him his fair cut. Grisly just told him he was full of shit. Grisly and I stored the loot in that hidden cellar with the furs. We were just sitting on it. But Lancer wanted to cash out some of the jewelry. We said no. We needed to wait for the heat to cool down and then we’d move it in another city.” Sander spoke in a low, controlled voice, but there was no disguising the anger simmering below the surface. “Last week, Lancer cut the padlock off the cellar. Stole our two cases.”

  “The money and jewelry.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sidney nodded sagely, as if sympathizing with his plight. “Must’ve made you mad,”

  “Damn straight.” The pulse pounded in his neck.

  “That’s why you broke into Nikah’s place, and Lancer’s,” Sidney said in an understanding tone, encouraging him. “Looking for those cases.”

  Sander nodded, his face as menacing as a thunderhead just before a storm breaks. “I can understand his beef with Grisly, but he stole from me, too. We’d been friends since grade school. But he changed. Since moving out of Two Creeks, he acted like those villagers were his people, not us.” Sander’s voice vibrated and a strain of violence boiled over, tightening the muscles on his face. His fists clenched and pulled at the cuffs on his wrists. “He wouldn’t tell me where the cases were. I despised him for that. He needed to be taught a hard lesson about loyalty.”

  “So you beat him.”

  “I had to. I admit I may have hit him harder than I should have. But he wouldn’t talk. Stubborn as hell. Harper tore his place apart but couldn’t find the cases.”

  “So you started slicing his scalp open?”

  “He fucking made me do it!” Sander’s voice rose with every word. “He finally talked. We got the two cases back. They were under the floorboards in the laundry room.”

  Sidney gave him a minute to get control of himself. She checked her texts and saw that Amanda had River Menowa waiting in the lobby. She turned back to Sander. “Just a few more questions, Sander. How did Harper play into all this?”

  “He’s not involved in anything. I told him Lancer stole some stuff from me. Harper never asked what it was, just said he’d help me get it back. All he did was help me search the two houses. I swear. Please don’t press charges against him. I got him into enough trouble. Because of me he’s lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life.”

  Though she sympathized with Harper, as an accomplice to burglary and assault, he was far from innocent. Not to mention he slammed into her at Nikah’s house. The head injury she sustained could have been far worse. A judge and jury would determine his guilt, not her. “So you got your two cases back,” Sidney said. “But a couple of things were missing.”

  Sander gave her an appraising look. “The medallion and key. Those two pieces are worth more than everything else put together. I made the mistake of telling Lancer about them.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “The home of a villager. A woman who lives alone. It was easy to clean her out. We got a laptop, an unregistered gun, some diamond jewelry, and the medallion and key.”

  “You know her name?”

  “Jenna Menowa.”

  “Jenna?” Sidney repeated, suddenly comprehending the outrage the woman directed at Lancer at the tribal meeting. Jenna believed Lancer was the Stalker. The Stalker broke into her house and stole possessions valued at over a hundred grand. Anyone would see red. Originally, the medallion and key were stolen from a collector in Sweetwater two years ago, the same time Jenna moved from Sweetwater to Two Creeks. Was she the first thief? Sidney made a mental note to bring it up when she questioned River.

  Sidney marveled at the interconnectedness of these crimes. Sander had implicated himself and his two friends in a serious string of offenses—burglary, poaching, rape. She needed to squeeze a little more information out of him while the pan was still hot and greased. “Tell me Sander, who murdered Nikah?”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t know anything about that.”

  “You were in her house two nights after her murder.”

  “We didn’t know she was dead. We scouted the house and saw she wasn’t home. I just wanted to get my stuff back. We would never have hurt her.”

  “Did you see any signs of a disturbance?”

  “No.”

  “What about your friend Grisly? Did he attack her?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “Where is he?”

  Sander shrugged. One knee started bobbing. “Haven’t got a clue.”

  “You can stop covering for Grisly. We’re going to get those photos he has on his phone. We have enough on him to put him away for decades. Don’t muddy your good standing with me by withholding evidence. Where is he?”

  “Out hunting.”

  “You’re trying my patience.”

  “This won’t come back to me, will it? He’d kill me.”

  “No,” Darnell said. “He’ll be in a cage. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  “Hunting what?” Sidney said, although she already knew the answer.

  “That fucking white wolf.”

  “Only the wolf?”

  “What else would he be hunting?” Sander’s pale blue eyes lost focus. He glanced away, looking spent from spilling his guts.

  Sidney regarded him in silence for a few moments searching for a trace of deceit. Convinced he had confessed all he knew, she glanced at her watch, then lifted her gaze to the camera. “The interv
iew with Sander Vance was completed at 2:45 p.m.”

  “Okay, Sander, that’s it. Thank you.”

  Darnell was already rising to his feet. “I’ll get him into a cell.”

  “Then retrieve those photos from Grisly’s phone.” They had to be on Grisly’s computer as well, floating in the digital cloud.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  GRANGER HAD BEEN out in the wild with Tommy and Magic since the crack of dawn. Fatigue tightened his shoulders and his mind was struggling to stay alert. He had spent a miserable night in a cramped tent with two grown men, all three stuffed into their sleeping bags like burritos. If he moved the wrong way, his knees poked Tommy, or Magic’s bony knees poked him. Between Magic’s snores that rumbled through the tent like a plane engine, and Tommy’s incessant, tormented tossing, Granger got little sleep.

  Magic, fifty-five, thin and wiry, with a weather-worn face and long braids, rose energetic and ready to go. Granger and Tommy rose blurry-eyed, and obediently swallowed the bitter coffee Magic brewed on a small, propane stove. They gnawed jerky for breakfast while riding along the creek trail in the stunning cold.

  The morning started out sunny with excellent visibility. The breath of man and horse mingled, steaming in the early morning air. They continued to follow the tracks of the unknown rider who persisted in trailing the elusive old woman. The pattern of tracks disappeared and reappeared, usually a few hundred feet downstream on the opposite bank. Granger couldn’t help but admire Elahan’s wiliness.

  After a couple of hours in the saddle, clouds and fog began to roll in and light flakes drifted in their direction. The chopper had swooped overhead several times but finally called it quits and headed back to town.

  Rounding a bend, they came upon the abandoned campsite of the lone rider, and dismounted.

  “He spent the night here in a tent.” Magic said, studying the snow flattened in the shape of a square. His eyes brightened after he poked a stick into a few manure piles left behind by the rider’s horse. His mouth turned up in a smile. “It appears he slept in and got a late start. These horse pies aren’t completely frozen. He didn’t leave more than thirty minutes ago.”