by Joseph Flynn
Vice President Morrissey gestured to him.
“Find the Indians,” he said.
The meeting broke up, but before she left, Vice President Morrissey had a private word with John. She told him, “Clay Steadman recommended you. Said you did some good work in Goldstrike before he resigned as mayor there. That’s why I asked for you.”
John said, “I always try my hardest, ma’am.”
She nodded. “Acting Director Freeland will give you a personal briefing.”
John and Nelda left the building, walking side by side in silence.
The special agent thought the line between government and show business was all but disappearing. Mega-movie star Clay Steadman had become the mayor of the Sierra Nevada resort town of Goldstrike, California. John had helped with the investigation of a threat of eco-terrorism there. Then Steadman had resigned his office and gone back to making movies — taking John’s boss, Marlene Flower Moon, with him as an executive producer.
Not that Marlene had left her government job, taking only a leave of absence to go to Hollywood. Then Steadman recommended John to the vice president to be involved in this case of bank-robbery-slash-cyberwarfare. Or was Marlene trying to manipulate him again, John wondered, using Steadman as her front man?
John and Nelda reached the private driveway adjacent to the EEOB and a gleaming black SUV pulled up in front of them: Nelda’s ride. John looked at her and asked, “Any chance you ever wanted to be a movie star?”
“No,” she said curtly.
“Me either. You might mention that to Marlene.”
“She already knows everything about you.”
Coyote, John thought.
Nelda handed him a thumb drive. “All the information we have for you about the bank robbery is on this drive.”
“Who do I see first?” John asked.
She gave him the name of the New Orleans police captain, Edmee LaBelle, who’d be his liaison with that department.
“How about the FBI? Who’s my contact with them?”
“I don’t have a name yet. Deputy Director DeWitt should be in contact about that. If not, his phone number is on the drive. Give him a call.”
“Right.” Only if I need a feeb, John thought. “Any civilian witnesses I should start with?”
“Marcellus Darcy, but he’s only sort of a civilian.”
“Meaning?” John asked.
“He’s a U.S. postal inspector but, really, what is it those people do?”
John said, “I’m sure he’ll tell me. Anyone else?”
“A young guy who skipped out of the bank right after the robbers fled.”
“An inside man?” John asked.
“That’s for you to find out, but a bank employee identified him as a customer.”
Well, John thought, at least he had something to start with, but he had one point to make clear to the new acting director.
He told Nelda, “Vice president or not, you need to understand, I still don’t do reservations. If that’s where these robbers are hiding out.”
“Some Native American you are.”
“I’m sure you know all about me, too,” John said.
He still had the occasional nightmare about his biological mother trying to regain custody of him, take him away from the only home he’d known and bring him to the rez. Now, he directed a long look at Nelda.
“What?” she asked.
“Quite the resemblance between you and Marlene,” he said.
Nelda smiled, her long, pointed incisors gleaming in the sun.
“What’s the matter, Tall Wolf? You think I’m Coyote, too?”
She got in her car and left. Was she Coyote?
You never knew.
— Chapter 5 —
New Orleans, LA
John Tall Wolf made much better time getting to New Orleans than he had traveling to Washington. The weather was clear and he used his status as a federal officer to get priority seating on the first direct flight. As often happened when there was an empty seat in the business or first class section, he got bumped up from coach. It made airline employees feel patriotic.
He never argued the point with them. People his size needed their leg room.
It was after he arrived in the Big Easy that things started to get harder. Calling from the airport, he learned that Captain Edmee LaBelle, having worked a twenty-four-hour shift, had gone home to sleep. She’d check in for messages when she awoke. The cop asked where John was staying.
“What’s a nice hotel?” he replied. “Maybe something a little different.”
“Renaissance Arts Hotel, 700 Tchoupitoulas Street.”
“Easy for you to say,” John said.
“If you’re taking a cab, just give the driver the name. He’ll know.”
“Someone in your family work there?” John asked.
“Head of housekeeping is my sister.”
“They give federal employees a discount?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, but if you tell the front desk Buddy Brunelle sent you, you’ll get the best deal in the French Quarter.”
John said merci and found a taxi to take him into town.
He thought, for the moment, things were looking up.
But when he called the local office of the FBI they didn’t know which of its agents would act as his liaison.
“We handle bank robberies, you know?” the agent who took his call said.
“You can have them. I’m the guy who handles Indians.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say Native Americans?”
“You are. I’ve got tribal license to say what I want.”
The feeb knew he was being jerked around. He asked, “You want to stop by, we’ll try to find someone to talk with you.”
John said, “Never mind. I’ll just call Deputy Director DeWitt. I’ve got his phone number right here.”
The agent’s demeanor changed in a hurry. “No, no need to do that. I’ll speak to the —”
“Don’t bother,” John said. “This was just a courtesy call.”
He hung up, having told the truth. He’d checked in with the FBI. Now, none of his colleagues in federal law enforcement would be able to accuse him of crashing their party.
He asked the cabbie, “You know where the Thibodeaux State Bank is?”
“Sure do. That where you want to go?”
“Yes, please.”
The driver looked at John in his rear-view mirror.
“You an Indian?”
“I am.” John saw the man’s shoulders tense. He must’ve heard who had robbed the bank. “I have a license to take scalps, too.”
He’d asked Marlene for one when he started work, but she’d yet to come through.
The driver relaxed when he saw John smile.
“You’re funnin’ me.”
“I am. So what do you think of the Renaissance Arts Hotel?”
“I’ll let you know, soon as I get tired of the Ritz-Carlton.”
John’s appearance — big, Native American, wearing sunglasses and carrying an overnight bag that could be used to make off with a large chunk of cash — caused some apprehension among the personnel at the Thibodeaux State Bank. Damn robbers were giving people with copper complexions a bad name. Having been raised in the Southwest in general and Santa Fe in particular, he hadn’t often been the victim of unfavorable stereotyping.
His parents had taught him good manners. Made sure he was always clean, neat and well dressed. Years of good schooling had added polish. The few times he’d frightened people by simply being present, it had been because he was so big and wore sunglasses to protect his light-sensitive eyes.
Stepping into the bank, though, was a whole new feeling. He’d scared people specifically because he resembled, at least at a glance, the jerks who’d pointed guns at them only a day earlier. He felt a new degree of empathy with other minorities who were feared simply because of the way they looked.
That insight deepened when he saw a securit
y guard start to reach for his sidearm.
Before things could get out of hand, John took his badge out of a pocket and said to the guard, “Federal officer. I’d like to see the bank manager, please.”
The guard, whose face was badly bruised, looked closely at John’s credentials.
Reading aloud, he said, “Special Agent John Tall Wolf, Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
He looked at John, who nodded.
“You were hurt in the robbery?” John asked.
The guard bobbed his head, wincing as he did.
“Didn’t you get any time off?”
“Didn’t want it.”
John nodded. Now, he could see what the man wanted, a chance to get even. But he’d chosen not to misdirect his anger at an innocent third party. Especially one who was a fed. He led John to the office of Arnaud Thibodeaux, the bank’s president.
John introduced himself and asked if the guard might stay.
“Beau is needed outside,” Thibodeaux said. “You never know. Someone might try to rob us again.”
Thibodeaux was right, John thought. Banks, gas stations and convenience stores that had been robbed once with success became the favored targets of thugs with guns. Just as homes that had been burgled were often hit more than once. If you were victimized, you had to upgrade your defenses to make the bad guys look elsewhere.
John said, “I understand.” He told the guard, “I’d like to speak with you after your shift, if you’re feeling up to it.”
The guard looked at Thibodeaux, who nodded.
He told John, “I get a break in fifteen minutes, if that’ll do. Once I go home, I want to sleep.”
“See you in fifteen,” John said. As the guard left, he took the chair Thibodeaux offered him. “People are still pretty shook up?”
“We’ll be having mental health counselors talk to all our people. I’m still trying to figure out what to do for the bank customers who were here at the time,” Thibodeaux said.
John asked, “What about you?”
The bank president took a bottle of bourbon and a glass out of his desk. Remembering his manners, he reached for a second glass and held it up to John.
“Thanks for the offer, but no.”
Thibodeaux filled his glass and took a sip.
“I was here in my office when the power went out. I waited a moment to see if the lights might come back on. Sometimes things work that way. When the bank stayed dark, I opened my door to ask my secretary to call the power company. Only I saw her lying on the floor with everyone else.”
“So you came back in here,” John said.
“To get the gun I keep in my desk.” Thibodeaux tossed back his drink and poured another. “I had it in hand when I saw this picture.”
He picked up a framed photo from his desk and turned it John’s way.
A good-looking wife and two kids just about school age. After showing it to John, he took his own look. Carefully poured the bourbon from his glass back into the bottle and put it away.
“I stayed in my office with the door locked. I knelt behind my desk with my gun pointed at the door. What I’d decided, I wasn’t going to bring a handgun to an automatic weapons fight, but if they tried to get me, I was going to shoot first.”
“You did the right thing,” John said.
Thibodeaux said, “Yeah, I got to go home to my family.”
John could see that the man still had regrets.
As if he hadn’t done the manly thing.
“Your family started this bank?” John asked.
“My grandfather. He brought it through the Great Depression.”
The bank president was going to need some therapy, too, John saw.
He moved on to practical matters.
“When the power went out, did that take your security cameras down?”
“It did. The phones were out, too. I couldn’t even use my cell phone.”
John could sympathize with the man’s frustration.
He said, “I was told a young man was the first customer to leave the bank after the robbers fled. Has anyone been able to identify him?”
Thibodeaux nodded. “Marguerite Timkins, our consumer loan officer. The guy had an appointment to see her.”
“May I speak with her?”
The bank president said, “She takes her break shortly, too.”
John met with the bruised security guard, Beau Duplessis, and the loan officer, Marguerite Timkins, in a room filled with round tables and plastic chairs. But every table was graced by a real flower in a glass vase. Two curtained windows admitted natural light. Wicker baskets were filled with free apples and granola bars. A five-gallon bottle provided spring water.
Three vending machines offered coffee, tea, soda, candy and salty snacks.
Bank employees were allowed to pursue their own nutritional destinies.
A bulletin board was festooned with pictures of newborns, newlyweds and couples celebrating the anniversaries of durable marriages. Cars, furnishings and one Shetland pony were offered for sale. The standings of a banking community softball league showed Thibodeaux in second place, only a game out of first.
Appearances were sometimes deceiving, but John believed he was in one of those fortunate workplaces where people took care of one another, prospered together and formed an extended family. Beau Duplessis had certainly put himself at risk for his employer. The bruises he had on his face bespoke a genuine effort to cast himself as Horatius at the bridge.
John said, “I’m sorry to take up your free time like this. I imagine you’ve already given your statements to the New Orleans police.”
Duplessis said, “They just asked for an outline, said we should save the details for the feds. I kinda thought we’d be seein’ the FBI, though.”
John told him, “They’re working other aspects of the case. I’ll copy them on my report. That might save you some time in the future.”
“That’d be good,” Duplessis said. “So what do you want to know?”
“Tell me how things went,” John said.
“It was fast, at least for me. I tried to keep the bastards from entering the bank, but the automatic lock on the main entrance didn’t respond and … two of them pushed me out of the way. Then I woke up in the hospital. The docs made me stay overnight for observation. This morning, they let me go. So, I went home, cleaned up and here I am.”
“That’s what you told the police?” John asked.
“Just what I told them.”
“Is there anything you can add to your statement now?”
Duplessis took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It would have been reasonable for someone who had suffered a head trauma to say he couldn’t remember, but he didn’t take the easy way out.
“Their weapons,” he said, “I got a good, close look at ‘em while I was tryin’ to keep those pricks from pushing the door open.” He looked at his colleague. “Pardon my language, Marguerite.”
“You say what you like, Beau. It won’t be anything I haven’t already thought.”
The two of them shared a smile, reinforcing John’s idea of a family atmosphere.
“Anyway,” Beau said, “they had automatic weapons. Small ones. Almost no barrel. Pistol grip. Clips looked like they held about thirty rounds. When I went home, I looked online to see if I could find out what kind of weapons they were. And I think they were MP-5Ks. I think the K stands for small or something in German.”
“Short,” John said.
“There you go. Anyway, that’s what I think they had.”
“Anything else?”
Duplessis shook his head.
John said, “A moment ago, you were about to say something and you caught yourself. You want to tell me what you were thinking?”
The guard glanced at his co-worker, turned back to John and said, “No.”
John turned to the loan officer. “Ms. Timkins, would you please go to your desk and write down the name, address and telephone number of that young man
who left the bank right after the robbers did? If you have that information.”
“I do,” she said. She looked at Beau Duplessis. The guard gave her a nod.
“Very well.” She left the break room.
“My guess is you were a cop,” John told Duplessis. “It goes against your grain to speak ill of someone with whom you work. You don’t want to be a rat. But now you have to weigh that against how you feel for all other people who work here.”
“I love these people, that’s how I feel.”
“So make the choice that will be easier to live with.”
Duplessis took a moment before nodding.
“There was another guard on duty yesterday, Harold Murtree. If he’d come to help me, we might’ve gotten the door locked manually. Kept those damn bastards out. Only he didn’t help me. What I heard, and don’t ask me who told, was Harold took off his uniform shirt and his gun and hid ‘em so the robbers would think he was just another customer.”
“You know where Harold lives?”
Duplessis’ disgust with his colleague, probably another ex-cop, was plain now.
“Marguerite can get you that information, if the bastard hasn’t run away. He didn’t show up for work this morning.”
“Thank you for your help,” John said.
“Yeah, sure. I gotta get back to work.”
— Chapter 6 —
Renaissance Arts Hotel
John caught another cab to the hotel. The first driver had been right; the name alone was enough to get him where he wanted to go. He felt good about what he’d learned at the Thibodeaux State Bank. He was reasonably sure that Beau Duplessis had it right about the type of weapons the bank robbers had brandished.
Tracking down a single MP-5K would be difficult, but if a shipment large enough to supply eight bank robbers had been hijacked or otherwise diverted from legal channels maybe that would be something that could provide a lead. He’d forward the information to the BATF. Let them make of it what they could.
The other path to follow was the one that led to Harold Murtree, the security guard who took the coward’s way out. If John was right in thinking Murtree was once a cop, having the NOPD look for him would be the way to go; they would be able to find him faster than he could. Murtree might have been the inside man on the bank job or his hiring might have been an error in judgment made by the bank’s human resources department.