Jeremiah’s Revenge

by Sandra Brannan

  “So what do you recommend?”

  “Be there for tomorrow’s exchange. Wired and recording.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Streeter added, “Laurie, help Liv. I want you to dig up all you can on this guy and make a list of possible operators he might be extorting.”

  “Where do I start?” she asked.

  I responded, “Colorado Department of Health. Pull air permits. That’s where this guy seems to have found these two victims. At least it’s a start. An EPA inspector can argue air, land, or water issues with operators. Sky’s not the limit.”

  Streeter suppressed a grin at my pun. The others chuckled. Someone said, “She’s back.”

  Indeed.

  With the meeting over, I couldn’t wait to research all the sites around Buena Vista so I could head in that direction right away. I wanted to meet with Ridgewood and figure out our approach to witness the extortion firsthand. I’d grab Beulah and have her spend the night in the hotel with me getting reacquainted. And call my brother on the drive into the mountains.

  As I was gathering up a duffle bag of listening and recording devices, I received a call from an old friend at the Criminal Investigative Division at Quantico. Christian Doonsberg had been one of my closest coworkers when I started with the bureau. Although I was ten years his junior, I had always felt a special connection with him—like a daughter to a father or a sister to a brother.

  Familial, somehow.

  We’d been able to communicate easily and freely with one another. He had taught my behavioral science course during Academy training and was primarily responsible for all the job offers I’d received as a new Academy graduate and was most certainly responsible for the two promotions offered to me since.

  He hadn’t stopped there.

  He’d been trying for several months to recruit me to come to work for him in the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division as an intel agent.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, knowing he’d been through a serious bout with cancer. “Are the tests still showing clean?”

  “I’m telling you,” Christian said in his ever-optimistic tone, “I wasn’t about to let a little cancer get me down. Everything’s still good. It’s not coming back. I won’t let it.”

  “I miss being around that kind of optimism.”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Christian added. “I know you said that you wanted to stay in field investigations the last time we talked, but I could really use your talents right now. Especially since this Solomon debacle. And considering your condition …”

  The pause that followed was extremely uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry,” Christian eventually said. “I didn’t mean to say ‘your condition.’ That sounded so insensitive. How are you?”

  “Grieving. Stunned. Hurt. Sad. Mad. Everything I’m supposed to be feeling at a time like this, I suppose.”

  “I wondered if you would reconsider my offer of coming to Washington, DC, and of being part of the Criminal Investigative Division. It may be safer.”

  “Safer,” I repeated solemnly.

  “You’re not still avoiding safe, are you?” Christian asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Even after nearly getting yourself killed?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Once again, I may have just ruined my chance to have the most brilliant mind on my team.” Christian sighed with exasperation. “So let me try again. Think about this from a different perspective. If there was ever a time for a transition from field investigation to intel analyst for CID, this would be an excellent moment for you.”

  “I know.” It was my turn to sigh. “You’re right.”

  All I could think of was Streeter. If he were moving to DC, I’d jump at the chance to work for Christian. Because I’d be near him. But I had fumbled my opportunity to ask Streeter about his plans.

  “Think about it, won’t you?”

  I would. But I needed time with Streeter. To know for sure.

  “How much time do I have before you need to move on to someone else?”

  SNAKE HAD TO FIND out who was selling out Coyote Cries.

  His life depended on it. He had no idea how much time he had left. But the way the big Lakotan was glaring at him across the yard, he knew it wasn’t long. The yard was packed. It was a popular place for free time today for some reason.

  Maybe they were out here to see a fight. Rumors circulated about trouble. Maybe Snake was at its epicenter.

  He wiped the beads of sweat from his brow.

  He reminded himself to quit being so damned paranoid. He could take any one of them. Except Coyote Cries. But then suspicion got the best of him. All eyes seemed to cut his way. Or had they? Paranoia would cause him to make mistakes if he weren’t careful.

  He was indeed stronger and scrappier than any one of them. But he couldn’t take them on all at once. His fingers twitched.

  Let them stare.

  The Reverend might have a congregation of followers both inside and outside the prison. But he had guns. He lifted his right arm, made a muscle, and kissed the bulge.

  He was focused.

  Every one of Coyote Cries’s flock seemed to be gathered today to hear his sermon.

  Damn it. Why would anyone listen to that bastard? Such a liar. A fraud.

  He promoted himself as being a political prisoner because of his devotion and dedication to his Native American customs, culture, and religious practices, including his open support of opium use in the peace pipe ritual. It was an excuse he used in an attempt to peddle inside to the prison population.

  But it didn’t work. They denied him use of opium, which was good.

  The Native American’s plight with discrimination, oppression, and destitution was real. Unfortunately, for the Lakotan people, Coyote Cries capitalized on their suffering claiming to be a political prisoner, when in reality he was nothing but a vicious murderer. Inside and outside of these walls. The lowlife used his heritage to gain sympathy for a concocted campaign as the poster boy for the oppressed.

  He was evil. Snake knew it. The population inside knew it. The guards should have known it. The fools.

  Coyote Cries was no reverend. He was the devil. And his sentence of life by Denver’s federal courts was more than justified as far as the prison population was concerned. He’d spent decades crafting a plan designed to fool everyone and manipulated a sympathetic journalist who embraced his story, helped spread his concocted message to the outer reaches, and created a fan base of those who came to believe he’d been wronged.

  Idiots.

  But Snake had to admire Coyote Cries for his intelligence, for his power cloaked in subtlety, and his ability to effect change. He was frightening as hell. The Reverend had become a legend, an international cultural icon for the downtrodden. Over the decades, his accusations of conspiracy by the judicial system and his claims that he was a political prisoner of the oppressive white government had become more convincing.

  Memories had long since faded about what really happened two decades earlier. But Snake knew better. Coyote Cries was no anti-removal revolutionary. Removal of the original people was horrible, as was apartheid for his people. But Coyote Cries wasn’t to Lakotans what Nelson Mandela had been to Snake’s people.

  Mandela never peddled drugs, polluted young minds, profited from the downtrodden, or murdered people who stood in his way. Mandela fought for the oppressed against the white minority through peaceful protests as a tribal leader. Well, mostly peaceful. Anyway, Mandela was a hero. Someone Snake admired. Although he’d admittedly be ashamed if the legend were still alive and could see what Snake had done with his life.

  The Reverend unapologetically bragged about the prosperity of his organization and about who sourced and delivered drugs—primarily to the tribal youth—in South Dakota. On the Pine Ridge reservation, specifically. That was, until his arrest. Since then, he’d grown even richer, manipulating those on the outside even more successfully than he
had when he was free.

  His organization not only survived his conviction. It thrived. His sermons were all about how to create new and expand existing markets, including those for marijuana, heroin, Quaaludes, cocaine, and methamphetamine, particularly on the isolated reservations—and especially with the youth.

  Millions of dollars exchanged hands each year with his source in Denver to supply dealers in Whiteclay, which was a small town in Nebraska two miles south of Pine Ridge Village and off the reservation. They’d all heard the story of his multimillion-dollar success. Everyone had heard, except the authorities, apparently.

  Which was why Snake was amazed and confused that he’d even be considered for parole. Most of those working for him on the outside, his gang, had been recruited in prison. He’d even tempted Snake. At first, Snake figured he could learn a thing or two from the street-smart drug dealer. About never using the product sold. About recruiting others as mules. About never conducting business anywhere on the reservations—but just outside their boundaries.

  He was clever. And tempting. But not enough for Snake to overcome his enormous fear of the man.

  He’d end up dead. Like so many others who didn’t carry out orders to The Reverend’s exacting standards. Other drug dealers sought The Reverend for advice on how to evade the law, how to recruit, how to grow business, and how to better evade detection after being released. Even inside, The Reverend was notorious. A professor in crime. Revered by many, feared by all. His students were eager to reward him with favors once they were released. They were not reformed or rehabilitated by crime. They were renewed and reestablished as smarter criminals.

  He’d boast to the “better people”—a term used for the more intelligent inmates—that his system had not only grown stronger while he was incarcerated but also much more sophisticated. And it had. He had found ways to circumvent tribal laws that were so restrictive on the reservation that even the sale or possession of alcohol was prohibited.

  Released prisoners repaid The Reverend by providing information and supplies or assuring his business remained vigorous in exchange for his lessons. And for a cut, of course.

  Wanting in on the profit, Snake wished Coyote Cries hadn’t scared the living shit out of him so much. But he had. Snake rubbed his throat and walked gingerly toward the window to study his reflection in the sunlight. The bruising around his smashed throat from the weights was darkening from pink to purple. He was alive. At least for now. He had to find out who was trying to bury The Reverend. If he didn’t, he’d be dead.

  Coyote Cries had the power. Live or die.

  Asshole.

  He shot a glance across the courtyard, afraid he’d conjured up the devil; worried someone might have overheard his thoughts; worried that even Squeeze might turn on him. The Reverend could be persuasive. But Coyote Cries wasn’t even looking his way. He was talking to some of his followers, who were laughing.

  Blockheads.

  He wanted to shove that book of Jeremiah right back in his face. Chapter 22, verse 19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass. Yeah, he knew how to read a Bible. And he wanted to tell Coyote Cries his mama named him after the crybaby prophet. Always bellyaching. He turned back to his reflection in the window and inspected the darkening band on his own throat—unmistakably there to remind him of The Reverend’s power.

  From the feds’ perspective, his sentence was a defeat for The Reverend.

  He wondered what they’d think if they learned how prosperous and powerful Coyote Cries had become while he’d been inside. Maybe that was his ticket out of here: to turn on The Reverend. He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to him if he failed.

  He’d heard Coyote Cries claim his sentencing was a defeat. He had expected to be acquitted. But only twenty-one years old at the time, he admitted he’d been naïve. He should have expected the white government would want him incarcerated. He’d boasted that he was too smart, too talented to be allowed freedom. The white government feared him too much. He’d bragged that he’d made more money in the eight years dealing drugs before being arrested than anyone else had made on the reservation in a lifetime. He thought he was a threat to the feds. He claimed to be somewhat of a local hero, an inspiration on the reservation.

  But Snake had heard differently from an inmate who was also Lakotan.

  The guy said Coyote Cries was a disappointment to his people. He’d represented a setback for those who struggled to fight true oppression and keep their culture alive through hard work and persistence. Without drugs. Resisting the temptations of an easier life through crime.

  That Lakotan had bled out in his cell. No doubt at Coyote Cries’s hand. But no one could prove it. The guards found The Reverend praying over the dead prisoner, spouting that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. It was a veiled warning to others in the population not to contradict his stories, but the guards interpreted the action as Coyote Cries simply praying for his brother.

  That day, The Reverend had scrawled Jeremiah 22:17 on his wall.

  It was not a confession. It was a caution.

  Jeremiah 22:17 became the credo by which The Reverend lived. Snake remembered borrowing someone’s Bible to look up the passage, barely remembering from his childhood how to look up chapter and verse.

  Your eyes and your heart are intent only on your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, and on practicing oppression and extortion.

  The guy was a frickin’ loon.

  If he’d kill a fellow tribesman, what would he plan on doing to Snake?

  Ever since, The Reverend had used that passage to justify his actions as righteous.

  Some prisoners complained, but most remained quiet. His incantations appeared to be praises to God. He was simply expressing his religious freedoms. But most knew better. The smarter population had learned early that if The Reverend’s cautions weren’t heeded, injury or death coincidentally followed.

  To increase his chances for early parole, Coyote Cries learned quickly to put his time in seclusion toward crafting his façade, acting as if he were in prayerful reflection. Occasionally the guards would see his solace interrupted by another prisoner, which they falsely interpreted as The Reverend counseling his fellow inmates. In actuality, he was peddling—paraphernalia, information, whatever—inside the block.

  Fools.

  They had no clue. And remained sympathetic to The Reverend. He had been so convincing that two of the guards had even agreed to give personal testimony on Coyote Cries’s behalf at his parole hearing on Thursday. Snake had almost puked when he’d heard that.

  Another prisoner suddenly stepped in behind Snake, startling him, and began studying his reflection in the mirror.

  Snake growled, “And? What’d you find out?”

  The man said only one word. A name. Dillinger.

  Not good. Should he tell him? Or not.

  Either way, Snake knew he was a dead man.

  AS FAMILIAR WITH QUARRIES as most people are with coffee shops, I knew where to set up for the best advantage to listen in on Bert Ridgewood’s conversation with the EPA inspector.

  At least until the plant ran into trouble or experienced an upset.

  I took off for the feed hopper with aggregate that charged the asphalt plant. I crept down the gravel ramp and hunkered down behind the leg of the cold feeder feeding the hot drum. The steel I-beam was large enough to hide all of me.

  I was close enough to catch the wireless feed from Bert’s mic in my earbud, yet far enough from the rest of the screening and hot plant that I could hear over the noise of the operation. The EPA inspector had just driven up to the office.

  I’d been hiding since long before sunrise and before any of the employees arrived. They hadn’t noticed me even though they’d started up the equipment an hour earlier, and it had been running ever since.

  The yardman climbed into the loader to charge or fill the cold bins with rock every half hour or so and the first time he did, I
feared being spotted. But I wasn’t.

  So far so good.

  I was glad I’d grabbed my hearing protection muffs. With them covering my earbuds, I’d be able to better hear the mic. Everything was in place.

  I’d run home yesterday for an hour to pack an overnight bag and to grab what I’d need for Beulah. I could have left her at home, but I missed her too much. She was nestled in her kennel in the back of my Jeep. Probably dreaming about the pizza we had shared the night before in the comfort of our hotel room.

  To while away the dark hours while waiting, I had been recalling the great conversation I had last night with my oldest brother, Ole. He was sorry he didn’t get to see me to say goodbye. He heard the next day that I’d left—from Dad—and offered his condolences again about losing Jack. Then, as always with my brother, we got right to business.

  He’d told me he’d had several strange calls from an EPA inspector named Dick Roth out of Region VIII’s office in Denver. Ole’s interpretation? Mostly, the inspector seemed anxious and wanted to meet on site. First at our Rifle Quarry; then at our Buena Vista Quarry. Finally he had suggested they meet at our Livermore Quarry. Ole said he had ultimately agreed to meet with the guy at Livermore, the only continuously active quarry of the three.

  When I asked him if Roth had made any hint of “protection” money to keep the air permits, Ole said he hadn’t. Roth had performed a quick inspection, asked about the other two sites, and left.

  Uneventful.

  I pressed my brother for more details, and he explained that he had brought a young manager along with him for training purposes after asking Roth if the Livermore site manager could join them for the inspection. He confirmed to me that he was never alone with Roth but that Roth had insisted they talk again. Alone. Sometime in the near future. Ole thought that was strange.

  He said he’d thought the conversation was so odd that he’d told Dad about it, and the two of them had planned to meet with this guy if he ever insisted again on seeing Ole.