By Hook or By Crook

by Gorman, Ed

  So what did Elise Fourwinds’s murder have to do with Indian gaming?

  I’d have to locate Eric Yatz to find the answer to that question.

  Internet research on Yatz told me little: no criminal record, no record of employment, no previous addresses. I asked my nephew and computer whiz, Mick Savage, to run a highly sophisticated search, and he came up with a birth place and date: Newark, New Jersey, on March 8, 1983. After that, Yatz became an invisible man: no Social Security number, no record of education or military service.

  How did he stay so far below the radar?

  Another thing I’d have to ask Yatz.

  Yatz was not listed in the Amador County phone book. I drove toward town, turned at the rodeo grounds and then along the main street: small homes, an old hotel with an upstairs galleria, a handsome Queen Anne Victorian; various false fronted buildings, a deli with tables on the sidewalk, a derelict, boarded up brick warehouse; some shops, a trendy looking restaurant called Taste, a barbecue place, Incahoots that smelled wonderful and had a line out the door. Where to start?

  Deli. I was hungry, and there were tables free.

  • • •

  Some two hours later, and I’d canvassed the business establishments in town. No one knew — or admitted to knowing — Eric Yatz. Finally, footsore and thirsty, I retreated to the tavern at the old hotel — dimly lighted with old mirrors whose silvering was patchy and cracked, a wood-inlaid bar, well worn floor, and a string of crushed beer cans behind the bar, attached to a sign that read Trailer Trash Art. The place was crowded, both with locals and tourists; I could tell them apart by the way they dressed. The tourist men looked as if they were ready to tee off on the golf course; the women wore outfits in bright shades of polyester. The locals were in jeans. I spotted a woman in a T-shirt decorated with three wineglasses and a caption that said “Therapy Session.” My therapy arrived in the form of a schooner of IPA.

  For a while I studied the antics of the crowd in the back bar mirror. A tourist at the table behind me put a straw up either nostril and made growling sounds, and the people with him laughed hysterically. What was he supposed to be? An elephant? Elephants don’t growl. A local couple got into a spat, and she slapped him and stalked out. He sat there, stunned, then shrugged and took a swallow of his drink. Another couple, obviously more in synch, kissed on a settee built into the front wall.

  After a while a man with a guitar came in from the ell at the back that contained pool tables. He proceeded to perch on a stool and play. The guitar was badly tuned, his voice even more so. A cowboy next to him covered his ears, took a slug of his drink, and shouted, “Shut up, Willard!” Willard shut up and slunk away.

  Then suddenly a tension invaded the room, as two slight, dark-haired and -skinned men entered and took seats at the table near the door. They were Indian, but then so was I; nobody had reacted negatively to my presence. But with the appearance of the pair, voices dropped to a low level, spines went stiff, and eyes focused on them.

  “Here comes trouble,” the bartender said.

  A tall, lanky man at the far end of the bar got off his stool. He pressed his cowboy hat firmly down and strode toward them — looselimbed, dangerous. When he stopped beside their table, he loomed over them.

  “You boys aren’t welcome here,” he said.

  The taller of the two looked up. “Last I heard, this was a free country.”

  “Last I heard, your tribe was trying to take a free ride on it.”

  “Our land. We can do what we want with it.”

  “It’s not your land. Belongs to the Gilardis. Has since — ”

  “They stole it from us.”

  The tall man drew back, balling up his right fist. “Gilardis didn’t steal — ”

  “We got the documentation. The papers that show the land belongs to our tribe. That gives us the right to do what we want with it, and what we’re gonna do is build a casino.”

  The bar had grown still during the conversation, but now there was an angry stirring among the patrons. The tall man drew back his fist; one of the other locals restrained him before he could throw a punch. The bartender rushed up to the table and spoke softly with the two Indians; they nodded, got up, and left. As a collective sigh of relief came from the customers, I left money on the bar and followed them.

  • • •

  The two men were nearing the derelict warehouse when I caught up with them.

  “Please, may I talk with you?” I said.

  They stopped, regarded me with wary eyes. The more slender of the two, whose long hair was pulled back by a blue bandana, said, “Talk about what?”

  “The casino you’re going to establish here. Your tribal lands. Are you Miwok?”

  “Amador Band of the Iones. You?”

  “Shoshone.”

  They exchanged glances. The man who hadn’t spoken — thin faced, with a baseball cap pulled low on his brow — seemed to defer to the other, who said, “No Shoshone around here. Where you from?”

  “San Francisco.” I extended one of my cards. “I’m working a case for my father, who lives on the Flathead rez in Montana. He’s an artist — Elwood Farmer. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

  Shrugs.

  “I’m looking for a man named Eric Yatz, who’s rumored to live in Plymouth.”

  Both men stiffened. “Don’t know anybody of that name,” the spokesman said.

  “Okay, tell me about this casino. The tribal lands you’re reclaiming — ”

  “Why don’t you go back to the bar — yeah, we saw you there — and ask the white people about that? We got nothing to say.”

  They turned in unison and walked away.

  So I’d go back to the bar and ask the white people.

  • • •

  Willard, the dreadful guitar player, looked to be the most sober person in the room. He sat nursing a soda on the settee where the amorous couple had been. I got my own soda from the bartender and asked Willard if I could join him. He shrugged and motioned for me to sit down.

  “How’s the music business?” I asked.

  “Shitty.”

  “Tough way to make a living.”

  “I don’t. Work construction when I can get hired on.”

  “Much of that going on here?”

  “Nope. I’m hanging in on unemployment, waiting to see if the casino deal’s gonna go through.”

  “Most people don’t seem to want that.”

  “Well, I do. My girlfriend’s gonna have a baby this fall; she and the kid’re gonna need a lot of things.”

  “So what’s the deal with the casino?”

  I listened as Willard told me.

  The Amador Ione tribe had for centuries lived on the land around Plymouth, peaceably hunting and gathering. But the Gold Rush in the late 1840s flooded the area with treasure seekers, and white men forced the Indians off their lands, resulting in violent disputes and deadly confrontations.

  “Indians always came out sucking hind titty,” Willard said, “so finally the government stepped in and made treaties with them, gave ‘em land. Congress never got around to approving those treaties, though. Iones moved away, joined up with other tribes. Finally the BIA stepped up to the plate and gave ten tribe members the right to a hundred acres in the Shenandoah Valley. Didn’t do no good; none of those ten people was able to get title to that land, and a family named Gilardi took it over and started a winery.”

  Now I knew where I’d heard the name. “Gilardi Oaks?”

  “Right. But trouble came along two years ago when the county decided the hundred acres belonged to those ten Iones or their descendants after all, if they could produce the original document from the seventies giving them rights to the land. They couldn’t find the document. Some say Ed Jakes, first head of the tribal council they set up in the nineties, was careless, but there was a rumor it got stolen.”

  “By?”

  Shrug. “Some say Gilardis, others say one of their own tribe members.”

&n
bsp; “Why would a tribe member take it?”

  Willard’s eyes shifted away from mine. “I said too much already. Hear those Iones’ve got big Las Vegas connections backing the casino. You know what that means. And I don’t want folks in here to think I’m an Indian lover. No offense meant, ma’am.”

  “None taken. Where can I find this Ed Jakes?”

  “He’s in the old Ione burial ground up the hill toward Fiddle-town. But his son

  Junior Jakes is head of the tribal council now. Lives out the Old Shenandoah Road. You might talk to him.”

  It was nearly eleven, so I decided to do that in the morning.

  • • •

  Back at my motel I couldn’t sleep, so I set up my laptop, thinking to check my e-mail. The place only had dial-up — fortunately I have an AOL account for just those occasions — and it took a long time to connect. I had to smile at my impatience. Not too many years ago I wouldn’t have known the difference between dial-up and “Dialing for Dollars.”

  I had little mail. My husband, Hy Ripinsky, and my office manager, Ted Smalley, usually call when I’m traveling, and what was in the box wasn’t important. I checked my voice mail, having turned off the ring tone while canvassing Plymouth: routine report from Ted on the agency’s day; message from Hy saying he was in New York on a sudden business trip and could call again in the morning. That was it.

  I turned back to the laptop and began a more thorough search on the Amador Ione.

  The land that they couldn’t prove rights to — although, according to the tribe members I’d spoken with earlier, they now had documents to prove ownership — sat at the gateway to the Amador wine country. I’d been there before: it was rural, with widely spaced vineyards on rolling hillsides and bucolic views; I could understand why the locals didn’t want a casino there, but I also could understand why the tribe, landless and impoverished, hoped to tap into the new California gold rush.

  I continued visiting sites that mentioned the Amador Ione, and one April article in the San Francisco Chronicle caught my attention: “Tribes Toss Out Members in High-Stakes Conflict.”

  The story stated that many California tribes, in anticipation of profits from casinos, had been purging their rolls of those individuals whose lineage and membership was held in doubt. The tribal spokespersons claimed that as sovereign nations they had a right to “readjust” their records as they saw fit. Of fifty-seven tribes sharing in annual $7.7 billion gaming revenues, many had expelled people as prominent as former officials of their councils.

  All in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, the banished Indians said.

  An accompanying piece outlined how the wealth generated on Indian lands reached few of the state’s Indian residents because of tribal enrollment status.

  I leaned back in my chair, thinking of what Elwood had said of Elise Fourwinds: She had some trouble with her tribe.

  Trouble — as in being removed from the rolls?

  Was Elise Fourwinds a former member of the Amador Ione?

  I’d have to ask Junior Jakes about that — and about the Las Vegas connection.

  • • •

  Junior Jakes lived in a doublewide on a small lot surrounded by vineyards. An oak tree shaded the trailer, and chickens pecked at the packed dirt yard. Jakes was a lean, muscular man of about sixty; his long white hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  He greeted me cordially and led me to a pair of lawn chairs under the oak. The day was already hot, but a light breeze rustled the tree’s leaves and brought some relief. I showed my credentials and told him I was working on behalf of Elise Fourwinds’s son, Marcus.

  “Marcus? But he’s only a little boy.”

  “Little boys sometimes require the services of an investigator — especially when their mothers have been murdered.”

  What I’d said sank in slowly. Junior Jakes’s lips moved, mouthing the word “murder.” Then he sat very still, his gaze turned inward.

  I said, “I understand Elise Fourwinds was a member of your tribe.”

  “She was.”

  “But she was taken off from the rolls and moved to Montana.” It was an educated guess that proved valid.

  “Is that where she went? I had no idea.”

  I studied his lined face, trying to determine if he was telling the truth, but it wasn’t an easy one to read.

  I asked, “Why was she removed from the rolls?”

  “Just setting our records straight.”

  “How many other people were removed?”

  “I don’t recall. A number.”

  “So Marcus isn’t a tribal member, either. He won’t benefit from the casino?”

  “No.”

  “I hear the casino project’s going to happen. That your tribe now has the documentation to prove the hundred acres were ceded to the ten individuals or their heirs.”

  He nodded.

  “How’d you acquire the documentation?”

  “It was handled by the Las Vegas company that is consulting with us on building and running the casino — Slater and Associates. I don’t know the details.”

  “That would be Eric Yatz you’re working with?”

  Slowly he turned his head. “You know Mr. Yatz?”

  “Not personally, but I’d like to meet him.”

  • • •

  I waited by the side of the road in the shelter of an oak a hundred yards from Junior Jakes’s driveway. The August heat was intense, with no breeze now; cicadas buzzed in the dry grass. Jakes had agreed to set up a meeting between Yatz and me, and then to call me on my cellular, but I hadn’t liked what I’d seen in his eyes before I’d walked back to my car: a gathering anger and steely resolve. Elise Fourwinds had meant something to him. Jakes hadn’t known she was dead or how Yatz had gone about getting his hands on the stolen document, but he’d probably known she’d taken it, and he’d unwittingly steered Yatz to her.

  Half an hour later, Jakes drove out in a red pickup I’d seen parked to the side of the doublewide. There was a rifle in the gunrack.

  I followed him to Highway 49, past Plymouth and south toward Jackson. A mile or so outside of town he turned off on Jackson Gate Road. I knew the area some, since my Uncle Jim and Aunt Susan lived on a small ranch near there; a former pro bowler, Jim for years had owned the local bowling center and had only recently turned it over to his son Bill.

  Jackson Gate Road wound past small homes and occasional businesses, a cemetery and vegetation-choked lots. It was a convenient, if slow, way around the stoplights and clogged intersections leading into town. I assumed that was why Jakes was taking it, and was surprised to see him turn off after about a mile.

  The driveway he entered was newly paved and bordered by an attractive stone wall. At its bottom was a sign: Old Mine Inn. I allowed him some distance, before following.

  An amazing edifice loomed up before me: the shaft of an old gold mine dug back into the hill’s slope, with a group of buildings spread around it. The buildings were intended, I supposed, to replicate the iron-and-timber style of the mine, but they were too shiny and new to blend in properly. In a parking lot surrounded by lush plantings sat two limousines and a scattering of luxury cars.

  Junior Jakes’s pickup was pulled in at an odd angle in one of the parking spaces. Its door was open, and he and the rifle I’d glimpsed earlier were gone. I looked around, spotted his lean figure disappearing behind the far right wing of the building.

  Careful, McCone. Go slowly. What you do here could save a good man and bring a bad one down.

  • • •

  I unlocked the glovebox of my car and took my .357 Magnum from inside. Checked its load. I’ve always been opposed to handguns in the possession of the average citizen but — perhaps hypocritically — I consider myself above average, at least in that respect. I’m licensed by the state to carry a hand gun, am a good shot, and practice at the range once or twice a month. Anyway, I was damned glad to have the weapon along now.

  I moved quickly through the
plantings and slipped to the far side of the wing where Jakes had gone. The building’s wall was hot on my hand — corrugated iron to match the mine shaft. I moved along it, listening. When I came to the corner I stuck my head around: four patios with French doors faced a fenced garden; voices came from the open door of the second. I moved closer.

  “... You killed her, you bastard!”

  Unintelligible response — a man’s voice.

  “I gave you the information in good faith! I didn’t know there would be killing involved.”

  “You didn’t ask, either.” Deep, raspy tones. “Besides, she came at me like a crazy woman, screaming and fighting for that paper. What did you expect me to do?”

  “You didn’t have to kill her, Yatz.”

  The curtains on the first unit were closed; I moved quickly past them.

  “Maybe not. But why’re you getting so worked up? You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? We’re going to be able to build your casino.”

  I risked a quick glance into the room. Junior Jakes stood with his back to the door pointing his rifle at a burly brown-haired man wearing shorts and a sport shirt. Yatz stood oddly at ease, arms loose at his sides, as if being held at gunpoint was nothing unusual. His eyes were a cold, unblinking blue.

  Jakes’s hands shook — with fury, I thought. He said, “I’m worked up because she was my daughter, that’s why.”

  Yatz’s expression didn’t change. “You removed your own daughter from the tribal rolls?”

  “My illegitimate daughter. Her mother was a white woman.”

  “You poor son of a bitch. Forced to kick out your own daughter and grandson.” Yatz laughed.

  Jakes raised his rifle. I leaped through the door and rammed into his back just as he pulled the trigger; the bullet clanged off the metal wall behind Yatz. Jakes struggled to maintain his footing, but I managed to trip him; he went down on his side, dropping the rifle.

  I kicked it out of both men’s reach, covering Yatz with the Magnum.