As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  “Thank you.” I thought about it. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Eddie Bailor the chief up here for the last eighteen years?”

  “He was, and then I was the interim chief for a few months until they could find a suitable replacement.” He reached down and ruffled Dog’s hair. “I guess the previous Elder Chief decided I was too old to have the job on a permanent basis again.”

  “That would be the Elder Chief who gave Lolo Long the job?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who was indicted along with Bailor?”

  He nodded with a sad smile. “Yes.”

  “How come you didn’t stick on as a patrolman?”

  “They had a full compliment of officers, and there were no openings.”

  Loraine brought us out a brace of iced teas; I thanked her and thumbed the straw into my mouth. “Well, that’s certainly not the case now.”

  He continued to smile, but this time it took on a mischievous, foxlike look. “I heard she fired the entire department.”

  “She did.”

  He shrugged and smiled, shaking his head. “Probably for the best; they were a bunch of lazy bastards.”

  “You should go back.”

  He sipped his own tea. “To what?”

  I pointed to my shirt, especially the name tag. “The job.”

  He studied me. “You join up?”

  “Nope, I’m just on loan on a temporary basis.” I watched him and could see the thought traveling around there bumping against the ceilings of his mind like a benevolent honeybee.

  “No, I’m too old to be wrestling drunks and getting hit in the back of the head with wine bottles on domestic disturbances. Anyway, I got shot a while back; they patched me up, but… I think I lost my enthusiasm.”

  “She needs help.”

  A stillness overtook him, the stillness that only Natives can do—like a breeze of cedar smoke, it blows through their bodies and becomes a nontangible thing, almost as if they become completely invisible.

  “She’s going to be a good cop, but after this week I’m going to be gone and she could use a little guidance.”

  He broke the spell by speaking. “I don’t know if I would make a very good patrolman—I was chief for so long.” He glanced up at Loraine and then to me. “And I know it’s wrong, but I’ve never worked for a woman.”

  Loraine stifled a laugh.

  I squelched a little chuckle of my own. “Are you married, Albert?”

  “Thirty-two years.”

  “Then don’t worry about it.”

  He smiled some more. “Nobody wants an old broken-down Indian cop.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people aren’t exactly knocking down the doors over at the Law Enforcement Center.” I sipped my tea. “I’ll give you a recommendation, if you need it.”

  He nodded some more. “She has a reputation.”

  “Yes, she does, and I’m sure we do, too.”

  He changed the direction, if not the subject. “How goes the investigation into the two deaths?”

  I was reticent, but if he was willing to bring up the subject in front of Loraine, it was fine by me. “You already know about Clarence?”

  “Moccasin telegraph.”

  “The Feds laid a trump card onto us with a recording of a conversation where Clarence Last Bull tries to hire Artie Small Song to kill his wife and child, but there’s been some doubt cast on its validity.”

  “By who?”

  “Nate Small Song and Herbert His Good Horse.”

  “They would know.”

  There was a cry from the kitchen, and Loraine left for a moment and then reentered, balancing three plates with rolls of silverware in her hands. “Who gets the half-cooked mound of ground beef?”

  I glanced down. “Oh, you lucky Dog.” I took the plate and watched as the brute froze. “You take off my hand, and I’m never bringing you gambling again.” Sensing my tone of voice, he promptly sat. I lowered the plate as if I were submerging my hand into crocodile-infested waters; he waited and then dove in.

  Albert and I began eating as Loraine disappeared into the kitchen only to come back with a pitcher of iced tea. I would’ve just as soon had the old police chief to myself to discuss the recent happenings, but I wasn’t going to send her away. I’d had my say in trying to enlist the man and changed the subject. “What did you do in the interim, Albert, between service?”

  He chewed his salad. “Worked construction, was a jack-leg electrician, plumber, you name it. I built most of the offices over at the tribal headquarters.”

  “It’s an impressive building.”

  “State of the art, or was about ten years ago.” He sipped his tea. “Back in the economic heyday, after 9/11, we got all this extra Patriot Act money and put in an entire audio/visual security system.”

  I thought about it. “Is it still in operation?”

  He shook his head at his plate. “No. Most of the equipment wasn’t kept up, and the added expense of having somebody in the security crow’s nest just wasn’t feasible. Now they just have a desk in the middle of the hallway.”

  “Barrett Long?”

  Albert nodded. “He’s a good kid, but boy he gives that sister of his hell.”

  I smiled. “He’s a pistol.”

  Loraine’s voice joined in with the hush of gossip. “He’s also a rounder.” She looked embarrassed. “He’s a very handsome young man.”

  “Gets around, huh?”

  She shrugged. “He was after my daughter for a while, but I put a stop to that.”

  I thought about Clarence but figured the best thing to do was let dead men lie.

  “He was even flirting with Audrey Plain Feather when she and Clarence were having their problems.”

  Albert glanced up at her but remained silent.

  She noticed his look and was immediately apologetic. “I don’t mean anything. I mean, he’s there in the building and flirts with everything in a skirt.” She smiled in a nervous way. “He looks good in a black T-shirt.” She stood there for a moment more, then refilled our glasses. “I’d better go check on the kitchen.”

  Albert watched her go, silently shook his head, and brought his eyes over to mine. “And you want me to get involved with all that again?”

  I thought about how much of my six hours to break this case were gone and what I could do between now and dinner. “Maybe sooner than you suspect.” I sipped my tea and rested the glass back in the perfect circle of condensation on the counter and then picked up my burger. “You wouldn’t happen to have a set of old keys to Tribal Headquarters, would you, Albert?”

  It wasn’t easy to break into the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Headquarters since the damn thing was completely surrounded by roads, parking lots, and dusk-to-dawn lights. We’d parked Rezdawg at the rear of the building with an unhappy Dog sitting on the bench seat; it was going to be difficult enough to go about breaking and entering without being accompanied by a prairie grizzly.

  Albert Black Horse sorted through a ring of keys that looked like a holiday wreath. “It’s one of those square-head, do-not-duplicate ones; I always keep one of them.”

  I stood with my back to him in order to provide a blind and keep a lookout. “Wise decision.” After a few moments, I asked. “Any luck?”

  “I think Long might’ve changed the locks.” There was a jostling. “Nope, got it.”

  I listened as the heavy security door swung wide, just as an aged Plymouth rolled by with about a hundred people in it. They stared at me, and I waved, figuring a bold crook is a successful crook. After they’d chugged around the swerve in the road, I turned and followed Albert.

  “Something?”

  I shook my head and carefully closed the metal door. “A war party in a minivan, but I think we’re safe. What are they going to do, call the police?”

  He nodded. “They could call the FBI.”

  “They’re busy having dinner in Billings.”

  “The BIA?” />
  “There’s that. Do you have any friends over there?”

  He smiled with the one corner of his mouth. “A few, but not many—they’re all from other tribes.”

  It was true, the BIA was staffed mostly with members of other tribes. I followed him through a hallway I didn’t know existed, and we approached a stairwell. “The crow’s nest is in the basement?”

  “Yeah, more like a crow hole.” Albert called over his shoulder as we went down the steps to open a second door. We turned right into another hallway that ran lengthways underneath the building with storage spaces and adjacent utility rooms. Albert reached over and flipped on the lights, bare bulbs hanging from conduit holes along the metalwork in the ceiling. “I don’t think we have to worry about being seen down here.”

  He walked along the hallway with his shoulders stooped, stopping in front of a nondescript door with a small, wire-mesh window. It looked like there had been an identifying plaque on it, but all that was left was the adhesive where the sign had been.

  Albert fumbled with more keys as I leaned against the concrete wall. “Sounds like Loraine Two Two doesn’t care for Barrett Long.”

  “Loraine Two Two doesn’t care for anybody who shows an interest in Inez, and that would be about half the tribe.”

  “The male half?”

  “Pretty much, but that kid.” He shook his head as he turned a key in the lock. “She’s a tough one.” He pushed the door open with a scraping sound from the hinges, noisy from lack of use. “Here we go.”

  He brushed a hand along the wall, and I heard a switch being flipped but it was unaccompanied by illumination.

  “Damn it.” I heard him shuffle closer to me. “Hold the door open, and I’ll steal a bulb from the hallway.”

  I watched as he went out, licked his fingers, and reached up to untwist one of the bulbs, only to let it escape from his grip and pop on the concrete floor with a surprisingly loud sound. I glanced at the army of retreating lights. “Looks like there are plenty more to choose from.”

  He nodded, advanced on the next one, and was more careful this time. Cradling the bulb in his hand as he entered the room, he undid the old bulb, handed it to me, and screwed in the borrowed one. The room flashed into view and so did the dust and cobwebs of the abandoned security center. There was a single chair, a counter, and small monitors in a shelf system, along with a rack of recording decks that looked as if they might’ve never been used.

  “Looks like you were right; nobody’s been in this place in years.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what it is you are looking for?”

  I took a few steps toward the rolling chair, placed the burnt-out bulb on the counter, and studied the monitors that studied me back like gigantic, myopic eyes. “Nothing, really, I was just thinking.”

  There was a portion of one of the audio recording decks where some of the dust had been wiped away, as if by accident. I reached behind it and nudged it forward—something brushed against the back of my hand. I caught a couple of cables. “Should these be unplugged?”

  He shrugged. “They’re just the usual RCA cables, stereo—one red and one white, and this place hasn’t been used in years.” He paused for a moment and then fingered the end where another Y-shaped cable joined the other two and combined them into one small, thin junction plug. “Hmm.”

  “What is it?”

  He ignored me and leaned around the side in order to study the back and then turned with a puzzled look on his face. “It’s disconnected from the junction box, but that’s not the only funny part; that splicer on there is to connect the cables into a modern computer.”

  I fingered the cable end. “You didn’t have anything like this back when you wired the place?”

  “No, this is a USB connector.” He glanced up at me. “You don’t know a lot about computers, do you?”

  “Next to nothing.” I looked at the monitors. “Albert, are the audio and visual surveillance systems connected or separate?”

  “Separate; we had a lot of money back then but not that much.”

  “Is every office in the building wired for sound?”

  He shook his head. “No, just the communal areas.”

  “Like reception?”

  “Yes.”

  I held up the cables. “Are these the ones connected to Human Services?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there any way to find out?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, there should be a location code on the junction box, and then we just need the code off of the mic at the reception desk.” He leaned behind the rack and ran a hand up the wall to a large, open junction box in the ceiling. His eyes raced down the small black and white labels. “R-7.”

  I was about to speak when it sounded like one of the heavy metal doors to the stairs opened and, after a few seconds, closed. Albert and I froze, looking at each other and then toward the audio room door which we’d lodged open.

  Albert looked more worried than me. “Should we close that door and turn off the light?”

  “We’re the good guys.” I listened, but there weren’t any more sounds. “But maybe we can catch a bad guy.”

  He nodded, went to the doorway, and peered around the corner, then turned back to me. “Should I go down the hall the other way and up those stairs, double back and come down behind them?”

  I pulled the .45 from the small of my back. “Do you have a weapon?”

  He reached under his black satin jacket and held out one of those antiquated, garage-door-opener style Tasers. “I have this.”

  I looked at the thing doubtfully. “Well, let’s hope it’s not a gunfight.”

  He nodded solemnly, went down the hall the other way, quickly made a right, and disappeared. I could hear him climb the stairs. As he moved away, I flipped off the switch in the security room.

  Albert was gone for about a minute when the rest of the lights also went out.

  I edged to the doorway and kneeled, placing my shoulder against the jamb. It sounded as if someone was moving to the left, the grit of the hard floor twisting underneath leather soles.

  My eyes closed, because there wasn’t anything to see there in the subterranean part of the rambling complex, and I wanted to give my ears all of my attention. Whoever was out there was out there in the dark along with me, and it was also possible that he didn’t care for the thought of bullets ricocheting in the confined, concrete area any better than I did.

  I heard the sound of footfalls again, but this time it was farther away, and I got the feeling that whoever it was, he had gotten to a certain point and was now retreating.

  I edged farther into the hallway and listened. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know somebody was down here, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t know that I knew he was there. The big question was whether he was armed.

  I clicked off the safety on the big Colt, the noise echoing through the darkness. There was no metallic mating call, so either they were unarmed or already in a position to fire.

  I leaned out a little farther and could hear someone carefully retreat. I was momentarily distracted by an unpleasant smell but then slowly raised myself from the crouching position, stood, and listened to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was. Satisfied, I took a step and softly moved forward in the darkness on the balls of my cowboy boots. I got halfway down the hall and crunched the broken glass of the forgotten lightbulb.

  Every muscle in my body seized as I waited for the incoming bullet.

  After about forty seconds, I heard a slight sound and raised the Colt in my hand, aiming it toward the faint glow coming through the tiny window in the door leading to the stairwell where we’d descended.

  In one flash of movement, the door was yanked open and somebody threw himself through the opening and let the door slam behind him.

  I launched myself and ran down the hall as fast as my limited visibility would allow. I glanced off the wall, caught my balance, and turned right to claw at the handle with my free hand
, finally getting some fingers wrapped around it and throwing it open.

  Someone’s boots pounded up the concrete steps, and I followed at full speed, making the landing in two strides. I raised the Colt and took aim at the individual who had his back to the door, his empty hands outstretched toward me. “Don’t shoot!”

  I looked at Barrett Long. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He looked as if his heart might explode from his chest as one hand was placed over it, the other coming up to clutch his forehead. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I lowered the .45 and held out an open hand in supplication. “Investigating.”

  His voice was hoarse and whistled in his throat in exasperation as he tried to catch his breath. “In the dark?”

  “Sorry.”

  He looked around, possibly for his breath. “Jesus.”

  I holstered the Colt, more than a little relieved that most likely the possible shooting part of the evening was over. “I’m here with Albert Black Horse. I had an idea and wanted him to show me the old security room.”

  He breathed for a moment. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  “I didn’t figure you were around.”

  “I wasn’t actually, but I got a call from Karl Red Fox and some friends of mine who said they thought they might’ve seen somebody breaking into the building.”

  “That’d be us.”

  “Jesus.” He took a few more deep breaths. “Is my sister with you?”

  “No, she had to make a run to Hardin.”

  “So, who’s with you again?”

  “Albert Black Horse.”

  “The casino guy?”

  “And retired police chief.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Let’s go find him before he Tasers somebody.”

  The young man turned and pushed the bar on the heavy door, but it didn’t budge. He paused for a second and then pushed on it again, this time with a great deal of force, but the thing didn’t move. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  He slammed an open palm against it, the echo filling the stairwell. “The damn thing must’ve locked when I came through.”

  I stepped next to him and tried pushing on the lever, but it still didn’t move. “That’s strange; this is a fire door, and they’re supposed to always stay open out.”