Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery

by Steve Hockensmith

  Schramm shrugged. “The usual stuff, I assume. We stole their land, yada yada.”

  His wife squinted at me from the other side of the picnic table. “Hey…do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so.” I turned back to Schramm. “Has anyone tried talking to the local tribes about it?”

  “Harry got in touch with some group in Sedona—Indians for Community Empowerment or something like that—but they weren’t any help,” Schramm said. “Looking out for their own, I guess. I just hope it doesn’t escalate.”

  “Escalate how?”

  “The redskins are going on the warpath,” Debbie Luchetti said. She’d stumbled off toward her softball bat and was bending down toward it very, very slowly. She patted her right hand over her mouth and did an old-fashioned imitation of an Indian war whoop: “Woo woo woo woo!”

  “Debbie,” Schramm said. He widened his eyes and jerked his head at Victor.

  “Oh, he’s not an Indian,” Debbie said. She picked up the softball bat, tried to twirl it like a baton, and immediately dropped it again. “He’s Mexican. He doesn’t care.”

  Victor’s face turned a shade darker.

  Across the table from me, Cathy Schramm tried to snap her fingers.

  “The Black Magic Savings and Loan!” she said.

  I looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s where you work—in Berdache,” she said. “I was in there a few weeks ago looking for gag gifts for a bachelorette party. Everything was too expensive, so I ended up ordering it all online. But yeah—I remember you. And wasn’t the store in the news, too? Someone was murdered in there, right?”

  Debbie gasped, but she looked more amused than horrified. “Murdered? Really?”

  “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” I said coldly. “And by the way, my full maiden name is Jennifer Spotted Bear and I am a proud member of the Cherokee Nation. I am deeply offended by what I’ve just seen and heard, and I plan on letting the National Congress of American Indians know about the racial hatred I encountered at the Oak Creek Golf Resort.”

  “Look, I apologize if—” Schramm began.

  Cathy cut him off.

  “You go, girl!” she said to me, pumping a fist in the air. “Get Geronimo after us!”

  Debbie did another war whoop.

  “Come on, Jonathan,” I said, scooping up my cards and jamming them into my purse. “We’re leaving—and we’re not coming back.”

  I stalked off, Victor at my side.

  “I assume you’re not really a proud member of the Cherokee Nation,” Victor said once we had the picnic table a safe distance behind us.

  “I might be, for all I know. I have no idea who my father is.”

  “Oh,” Victor said.

  He gave me a quizzical look, seemingly thinking (for probably the one-hundredth time) who is this woman?

  “But you’re right—I was just looking for an excuse to get out of there,” I said. “If we’re going to be poking our noses into a murder, I prefer to do it around people who don’t know my name and address.”

  “Did you find out anything useful before our cover got blown?”

  I smiled to myself. I had to practically blackmail Victor into helping me in the beginning, and now here he was talking about blown covers. Next thing you know, he’d be asking which possible perp I liked for the 187.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ll know more after we make our next stop.”

  “Our next stop? Where are we going now?”

  I pulled my phone from my purse and called up Google. I had an address to find.

  “We’re going into Sedona,” I said, “to pay a call on the fine folks at Indians for Community Empowerment.”

  Right-side up, this is a premature victory parade; reversed, it’s a premature pity party. You’ve gone from overconfidence to resignation, but neither will get you what you want. So turn that frown upside down—or at least sideways. That horse could still take you somewhere, and you’re going to need all your strength to stay in the saddle.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  There was no Indians for Community Empowerment in Sedona. But there was a Native Americans for Empowered Communities.

  Close enough. That’s where we went.

  During the day, Sedona’s all primary colors—red soil, green brush, white mountaintops, blue sky—and brown buildings. Lots and lots of brown buildings. It’s as if the local Home Depot only stocks paint in two colors.

  “Over here you’ve got your Autumn Bronze,” the guy in the orange vest would tell you. “And over here you’ve got your Dog Shit. Which’ll it be today?”

  Whoever called the shots at Native Americans for Empowered Communities had gone with Autumn Bronze. The building was last and largest in a row of low brown offices not far from the rinky-dink airport on the southwest side of town.

  Inside was a reception desk and a surprisingly large, bustling waiting room. NAEC ran a family health clinic and a daycare center and a job training program, and all three seemed to be practically spilling out the doors. It felt like a YMCA, only with no pool and with dreamcatchers instead of basketball trophies.

  We went up to the front desk, and I asked the smiling, bespectacled woman stationed there if we could talk to whoever was in charge.

  “That would be Mr. Smith,” she said. “I can call back and see if he’s available. May I say what this is regarding?”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ve come from Oak Creek Golf Resort and Estates. We have some questions about the development’s relationship with the local Native American community.”

  The woman’s smile didn’t waver.

  “Ooo—I’ll see if I can remember all that,” she said cheerfully. “Why don’t you have a seat…if you can find one!”

  We ended up sitting next to a woman who was busily texting while her two young sons wrestled on the floor, seemingly to the death to judge by their cries and curses. Whenever one or the other howled too loudly, she’d nudge him with her toe and say, “Indoor voice.”

  “I have to admit, Alanis,” Victor said. “This feels a little like a wild goose chase. I mean, what connection could a place like this have to Bill Riggs’s”—he dropped his voice and looked around furtively—“death?”

  “I have a hunch this place isn’t connected at all,” I said. “Which is why we’re here.”

  “Wait. We’re here because it might have nothing to do with the”—again he dropped his voice and glanced this way and that—“murder?”

  “You don’t have to bother whispering, Victor. I don’t think anyone but me can hear you anyway.”

  “Ahhhh! Not in the nuts, Kenny! Not in the nuts!” one of the boys screamed.

  “Indoor voice,” his mother said.

  A burly man with short-cropped black hair and dark skin appeared before us. He was wearing a tan work shirt, a green tie, and jeans.

  “Fight fair, Kenny,” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Smith,” the younger of the boys said sulkily.

  His older brother took the opportunity to bite him on the leg. The man ignored the resulting scream and turned to me and Victor.

  “Hello. I’m Rick Smith. I’m in charge around here—as much as anyone is. You wanted to speak with me?”

  “That’s right. Thank you for seeing us,” I said. “Do you mind if we go somewhere a little more private?”

  “Not at all.”

  I thought he’d lead us back to his office. Instead, he headed to the parking lot.

  “Quieter out here than anywhere in there,” he explained. “Now—what can I do for you?”

  I stepped closer to Victor and snaked an arm around his waist. He stiffened in surprise, but fortunately Smith didn’t seem to notice.

  “My fiancé and I are thinking of buying a home in the area,” I said. “Specifically, we were looking at the Oak Creek Golf Resort. Do you know it?”

  Smith didn’t frown, didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate.

  “Sure,�
� he said, nodding.

  “Do you know of any reason why someone shouldn’t buy a home there?”

  Smith furrowed his brow. It was an impressive brow, too. He had a large blocky head and thick black eyebrows.

  “No,” he said. “Well, maybe one.”

  “Yes?”

  “For the price they’re asking, you could buy two houses in Sedona or three in Berdache,” Smith said. “But then again, I’m not much of a golfer.”

  I pulled Victor to me more tightly.

  “Perhaps I should mention that my fiancé is one-sixty-fourth Choctaw on his mother’s side,” I said.

  Smith blinked at me a moment.

  “Okay,” he eventually said.

  “That makes us very sensitive to Native American issues,” I said.

  Smith nodded blankly.

  “That’s nice,” he said.

  “So if the tribes around here had any kind of issue with the Oak Creek development, we’d want to know.”

  Smith was still nodding.

  “Sure,” he said.

  He stopped nodding, and a grin slowly spread across his broad face.

  “Ohhh…the spray-painting thing, right?”

  I nodded along. “The spray-painting thing.”

  Smith swiped a big hand at me. “Ignore it.”

  “What do you mean?” Victor asked.

  Smith gave him a sly sideways glance, then looked at me. “I was starting to wonder about him. Never saw a Choctaw go so long without talking.”

  “Oh, he’s usually quite the chatterbox,” I said. “I think he’s just a little upset about what we saw at Oak Creek today. Isn’t that right, hon?”

  I gave him an affectionate squeeze.

  “That’s right,” he said. He wrapped an arm around me and squeezed me back—hard. “Sweetie.”

  “What did you see out at Oak Creek?” Smith asked.

  “Another message from the Indian Liberation Front,” I told him. “‘Keep the Red Rocks red—whites go home.’”

  Smith shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Oh, that’s not nice—not nice at all. But I’ll let you in on a little secret about the Indian Liberation Front.”

  He milked the moment with a dramatic pause.

  Victor gave in and said “Yes?” first.

  “It doesn’t exist,” Smith said. “Or if it does, the entire membership is three teenagers and a case of Coors.”

  “You’re saying you’ve heard of the Indian Liberation Front?” I said.

  “Not until I got a call from someone at Oak Creek the other day. I told him the same thing I’m telling you. If there was an Indian Liberation Front in Yavapai or Coconino County—heck, in Arizona—I would have heard of it. And I haven’t. So I’d say this ‘Front’ is nothing but a bunch of bored kids…and they’re probably not even Indian.”

  I froze. Suddenly, I was in a Brady Bunch echo chamber.

  Mom always says don’t play ball in the house…

  …ball in the house…

  …ball in the house…

  Except the echo was this:

  They’re probably not even Indian…

  …not even Indian…

  …not even Indian…

  “Is she all right?” I heard Smith say.

  Victor bent down to look into my eyes. He probably saw pinwheels spinning there.

  “Um…sweetie?” he said.

  “Sorry. I’ve got a little touch of narcolepsy,” I said. “I probably should’ve told you before we got engaged. Still love me?”

  “With all my heart,” Victor said through clenched teeth.

  Smith cleared his throat. “Well…if I’ve answered all your questions, maybe I’ll just scoot off back to work.”

  He started to walk away.

  “What makes you say they’re not Native American?” I said to him.

  He stopped. And perhaps sighed.

  “When our boys get into mischief, it’s usually a lot closer to home. Most of them don’t have their own cars, and the ones that do aren’t going to bother driving out to some gated community in the middle of nowhere when they can take a baseball bat to a bunch of mailboxes right on their own road.”

  “So there’s nothing special about Oak Creek Golf Resort and Estates so far as the Native American community is concerned?”

  “Nope.”

  Smith looked behind us where the sun was setting, turning the sky behind the mountains a brilliant orange-pink. I didn’t get the feeling Smith was pausing to appreciate the splendor, though. He was just thinking about how much work he still had to do that day.

  “What if artifacts were found at Oak Creek?” I said before he could start walking away again. “Or even bones?”

  “Oh, that would change everything. Then the developers would have to deal with ARPA—that’s the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. Federal law—big-time stuff. And if there are human skeletal remains, that could mean the land is sacred—a burial ground. Then you’d get the state and the tribes jumping in to try to figure out what the story is and what to do.”

  “And what would happen to the Oak Creek resort?”

  “Well, that would depend,” Smith said. “But I don’t think the Yavapai-Apache Nation would like the idea of white folks playing golf on top of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers. I know I sure don’t.”

  “Rick!” a woman called out.

  We turned to see the friendly woman from the front desk leaning out the front door of the NAEC building.

  “Rick, Darlene and Mrs. Rubio are going at it again. It’s starting to get ugly.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Smith said. “I guess I’ll have to come in and see what I can do.”

  Despite the “too bad,” Smith looked profoundly relieved to have an excuse to escape us.

  “Thank you for your time,” I said as he walked away. “You’ve been a huge help.”

  “My pleasure—and congratulations.”

  “Congratulations?” Victor said.

  “On your wedding,” said Smith. “When is it?”

  “Oh! Right! April 1!”

  “Well, good luck!”

  Smith gave us a last wave as he hustled inside.

  “April 1, huh?” I said to Victor. I still had one arm wrapped around his back. “A romantic spring wedding?”

  Victor shook his head.

  “April Fool’s Day,” he said. “If I’ve got to start telling lies, it seemed like the place to start.”

  “I’m confused,” Victor said as I pulled the car onto the highway and gunned the motor. “You look—I don’t know—excited, I guess. Like that conversation we just had was actually helpful. But I don’t see how it ties in with your friend at all.”

  “That’s because I know something you don’t know.” And I told him about the money, the pottery, and the skull I’d seen in the crawl space under the Riggs’s house.

  “Ahhh,” Victor said, nodding.

  Then he stopped nodding and shook his head.

  “I’m still confused,” he said.

  “Look,” I said, “it would be a disaster for Harry Kyle and the parent company if the Oak Creek development turned out to be on land that was sacred to the local Indians. So much so that if the construction crew accidentally dug up artifacts from an Indian village or whatever, Kyle might want to hush it up.”

  “Ahhh,” Victor said, nodding again. “And you think that’s what happened.”

  “No.”

  Again, Victor’s nod stopped.

  “No?”

  “No. Riggs’s neighbor says he saw him painting the skull. I’m guessing he was trying to distress it somehow—make it look older than it really is. I don’t think that skull came from Oak Creek. For all I know, Riggs bought it on eBay. The same with the pottery.”

  Victor mulled that over.

  “Because,” he said slowly, “he just wanted Kyle to think Indian stuff had been found at Oak Creek.”

  It was my turn to nod.

  “It
was a scam,” I said. “I’d been wondering how Riggs could afford the most notorious criminal defense lawyer in the state; now I know. He was putting the squeeze on Kyle—probably through that Jack Schramm guy. He’d need an accomplice on the construction crew. There are just two things I still don’t know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. First, there’s that bogus Indian Liberation Front graffiti. It must be part of the plan. But why? What’s the point?”

  “And the second thing?”

  I took my eyes off the dusk-darkened road ahead just long enough to throw Victor a hell-lllllooooo? look.

  “Oh. Right,” he said. “Who killed Bill Riggs?”

  “Yeah, that. I have a hunch, but there’s only one way to follow it up. You still game?”

  “I’ve come this far.”

  “Well, this is going farther, Victor,” I said. “You’re getting a little more comfortable with lying. How do you think you’re going to do with trespassing?”

  Welcome back to Fight Club. We’ve made a little adjustment to the rules now that everything’s flipped over. As of now, the first rule of Fight Club is there are no rules. The gloves are off, the brass knuckles are on, and things are about to get nasty. The second rule of Fight Club is see rule #1, the third rule of Fight Club is see rule #2, etc. And good luck.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  I called Clarice as Victor and I continued our drive up the highway. Instead of picking up with a “Hello” or a “Hi, how are you?” the first thing she said was, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “Sorry I didn’t check in, Mom. I’ve been busy. Am I grounded?”

  “Just tell me if you met with you-know-who today.”

  Clarice was savvy enough to know not to start talking about a hit man on a cell phone call.

  “I did,” I said. “It didn’t go well, which is why I’ve got more errands to run tonight. Just grab some more money from the till and pick up whatever you want for dinner.”

  “Your errands—are you going to need any help?”

  “Yes, and I’ve got some.”

  “More couldn’t hurt.”

  “Yes, it could.”

  “Come on, Alanis! It’s driving me crazy sitting here doing homework when I could be out there helping Marsha with you.”

  “And it makes me feel much, much better knowing you’re sitting there doing homework,” I said. “I’m the grownup. I win.”