Sooner Dead

by David L Thornburg

  Daniel looked at her over the ledger. “You really paid attention in Oklahoma History. I don’t remember that.”

  “Maybe you were thinking about football when they covered it.”

  “I resent that,” he said, looking back down at the paper. “I was probably thinking about cheerleaders.”

  “Just turn the page.”

  He did. “June 30. Wait. Shouldn’t there be one before that?”

  “June 25 was the next Saturday. The 30th was a Thursday.”

  “And get this. The editor is Clarence Herbert. What happened to what’s his name?”

  “Delacroix. Seems harsh to lose your job over one late issue.”

  Daniel said, “Wait a minute. Some pages have been cut out. Sliced, like with a razor.”

  Lianne stood and looked over his shoulder. “Do you think Devose did that? Does he have the pages?”

  Daniel looked closely. “No, I think it happened a long time ago. If Devose did it, there would be dust from the cut still in here. Look, just turning the pages causes the newsprint to flake.”

  Lianne must have looked disappointed, because Daniel said, “I’m sorry I wasted your time. I thought we were onto something.”

  “It wasn’t a waste. I wish we got more out of it, for your sake.”

  Daniel reacted, almost a cringe, but Lianne couldn’t tell why. Did he think she was being condescending? Should she try to explain herself?

  He stood. He held the ledger in his hand. “I guess we should try to get a little rest. Our shift starts in two hours. If Eileen finds us here together, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  He tossed the heavy book onto the desk. Dust from the pages puffed into a little cloud.

  “What’s that?” Lianne said.

  Daniel followed her gaze. The corner of an envelope protruded from the back cover. He opened it back up.

  The envelope had been sealed in the inside cover; the landing tore the corner free. Daniel got his knife from his belt and carefully outlined the bulge of the envelope’s shape. He pulled the envelope out of its hiding place, then slid his knife blade along the top of the packet itself.

  “It looks like a newspaper page,” he said.

  “The one we’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know. You do the honors.”

  She sat back down, and he pulled his chair closer to her. She carefully lifted the page out of the envelope and unfolded the page.

  “It’s from the Franklin Tribune. I didn’t know Franklin had a paper. I’ve never seen it at Zach’s.”

  “They don’t. At least, not anymore. What’s the date?”

  “June 25, 1927. The headline is ‘Survivor Tells of Horror at Stone City.’” She read on.

  Edna White, Indian resident of Stone City, told this reporter that the massacre was almost total, and that she was fortunate to have escaped with her life.

  The cause of the incident is unclear, but Ms. White tells of men with guns, dressed in the garb of the Ku Klux Klan, disposing of the bodies in a mass grave.

  This paper has been unable to verify Ms. White’s story, but can report that armed guards from out of state have prohibited anyone from approaching the town of Stone City.

  There is no word on the safety of the Stone family, whose residence is on the property.

  This paper will publish a special edition as more details become available.

  “I bet there was no special edition,” Daniel said.

  “Mass graves,” Lianne said.

  “I know. That’s terrible, if it’s true.”

  “Yeah, but it’s something concrete we can search for.”

  Daniel brightened. “You’re right!” He lifted his hand for a high five.

  Unfortunately, Lianne was unversed in the high five procedure and grabbed Daniel’s raised hand, their fingers intertwining. Blushing, and hating herself for it, she disconnected contact. “What do you want me to do?” she asked hurriedly.

  He paused, looking perplexed, then said, “We need Sherry Threefeathers’ help.”

  Chapter 29

  “Let me get this straight,” Sherry said. “You want me to keep the Indians docile on the reservation.”

  Daniel thought to himself that the drive had been too long to put up with this nonsense. “You’ve seen the article. We want you to mobilize the archeology resources of the university. We want your help to find out the truth. Isn’t that what we all want?”

  Sherry looked down at the yellowed newsprint in her hand. “This is the next best thing to a smoking gun. The diary was the best shot we had at a primary eyewitness source, but I think I can get Caruthers to get some people out there. Remember, though, archeologists aren’t used to moving very fast. Most of their subjects aren’t going anywhere, and slow and steady wins the race.”

  “We just have a couple of days,” Lianne said. “The ceremony is the day after tomorrow, and everyone has a vested interest in building the road quickly after that.”

  “I’ll call him right now.”

  “And,” Daniel added, “can you call off the demonstration? Convince the elders here we’re doing everything possible to get to the bottom of this?”

  “You don’t want much, do you? I’ve spent days getting them worked into a frenzy.”

  Daniel was shocked.

  “Just kidding, Danny boy,” Sherry said. Looking at Lianne, “Doesn’t he have any sense of humor at all?”

  “You have to catch him at just the right time.”

  “I guess this wasn’t it.”

  Standing on the porch of Stone Mansion, Daniel admitted to himself Sherry was as good as her word.

  Three University of Oklahoma vans pulled up in the early afternoon, mere hours after Threefeathers called them, and a contingent of graduate assistants set up and calibrated the equipment under the direction of Jeff Caruthers, who Sherry introduced as her boss. They must have worked through the night to respond so quickly.

  The day turned out to be sunny, but the cold wind was bitter and raw. A cloud of dust from the road announced the arrival of a fleet of pickup trucks and other vehicles. They parked a respectable distance away from the work; Daniel recognized many of them from the gathering in town a couple of days ago.

  Sherry was blowing into her hands for warmth when Daniel approached her. “What are they doing here?”

  “They have every right to be here. This is their story. They gave me their word there wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  They looked like they were staying on the perimeter. “I suppose you’re right,” Daniel said.

  “I can’t make the same promise for the group I was planning to see the night I was attacked. They tend to be more militant, and my assault didn’t help their mood. We called them last night, but they didn’t make any promises. We all hope they stay away.”

  Daniel looked to the east end of the Stone homestead. Behind a recently erected chain-link fence were bulldozers, concrete trucks, and all the other road building equipment waiting for action. Caleb Morris got out of an Oklahoma Department of Transportation pickup truck. He checked the lock on the fence then made his way to Minco.

  “Anything yet?”

  Danny said, “No. You still in charge of this, after everything that happened?”

  “There’s a job to do. It’d take more than a little explosion in a motel to keep me from it.”

  Daniel nodded and watched the archeological teams as they worked. Some individuals had ground-penetrating radar that looked like souped-up metal detectors. Two teams used what Sherry called electromagnetic induction, machines that looked like the rollers that people used on their lawns to level them.

  The property that used to be Stone City was divided into grids, and every square received a scan from one method or the other, sometimes both. The drought lowered the level of the lake, never more than a large pond, to the point that those carrying the radars were able to wade the length and breadth of it.

  After several hours of the meticulous work, Daniel approa
ched the van where Carothers and Sherry had established a command post. Both wore headphones and peered intently at laptops. Caleb Morris was sitting in the passenger seat trying to catch a breeze.

  “Anything?”

  Sherry shook her head. “We’re looking for anomalies in the structure of the ground that would indicate artificial manipulation of the earth. A big hole dug by people.”

  Caruthers said, “Even if the source is accurate, it’s entirely possible that any large-scale grave was dug on another site. In the case of the Greenwood Race Riots in Tulsa, eyewitnesses told of bodies being carried to the Arkansas River and dumped. That event predated this by only 6 years.”

  “If that happened, we might never find the evidence,” Daniel said.

  “A corroborating source would be helpful,” Caruthers said. “Usually we have many intersecting instances of documentation before we conduct a survey like this, but Dr. Threefeathers can be very persuasive.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  The sound of a car engine caused them to turn. A large sedan stopped by the van, and John Gray got out.

  “Mayor,” Daniel said in greeting.

  “What are you doing?” Gray hissed. From the other side of the car, Rudy Hale, Sonia Stone Hale’s husband, exited.

  “I’ll tell you what they’re doing. Violating a Cease and Desist order,” Hale said.

  Caruthers looked at Sherry. “You didn’t say anything about…” She cut him off with an upheld hand.

  “This is private property, and I insist you stop this illegal insult to a family that has only wanted to help this town.”

  “He’s right, Danny,” Gray said. “You’re jeopardizing everything this town has worked for.”

  “John, we’re so close to finding out the truth of what happened here. If we stop now, we might never know,” Daniel pleaded.

  “Officer,” Hale interrupted, “I got on a Lear jet in Dallas early this morning to come fix a problem that was already fixed with a court order. I assure you, we will prosecute you and anyone involved in this.”

  Caruthers took his headphones off. “I’m stopping this right now.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Sherry said.

  “You’re risking your job,” Caruthers threatened.

  “I’ll get a medal if we find something.”

  Mayor Gray said, “Her job isn’t the only one on the line, Danny. I beg you, please stop this.”

  Daniel looked at Gray. “No. We owe it to those people.” He indicated the Native Americans surrounding the site.

  A police siren split the air. The Oak Valley police cruiser stopped in a cloud of dust. Lianne was out before it stopped rocking. She briskly walked to Daniel. “Trouble back at the station,” she said.

  “Now what?”

  “We had a threat phoned in about violence at the ceremony tomorrow. The caller said they were from Red Power and Frank Blake would be killed if the ceremony took place.”

  “Well, that’s just perfect,” John Gray said.

  “That doesn’t sound like Red Power,” Sherry said. “They aren’t overtly violent.”

  “We’ve got to take it seriously, though,” said Lianne.

  Caruthers tapped Sherry on the shoulder. She turned to look at his laptop, then back at him. Caruthers shrugged and got on the radio. “Good work, people. Time to pack it up.”

  Daniel said, “What’s going on?”

  “The results are negative.”

  Sherry said, “There are no mass graves here at Stone City, Danny. I’m sorry.”

  Gray said, “Officer Minco, you are fired.”

  Hale approached Morris. “Be ready to get to work the minute the ceremony ends. I want the house wired for demolition. I don’t want to wait for bulldozers and wrecking balls.”

  Chapter 30

  Patsy looked up from her magazine when she heard the motel office door open. She recognized the well-dressed man instantly.

  “Agent Devose,” she greeted, trying not to let the fear cause her to stammer.

  “I let myself into the room, and it appears someone has been in there.”

  “Really?”

  “Do you know anything about that?” He leaned across the desk, his breath hot on her face.

  “No. Maybe the cleaning lady. You were gone for quite a while, and there was a problem with your card…”

  He grabbed each of her upper arms and lifted her to her feet. “There will be a bigger problem if you don’t tell me who was in my room!”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Patsy pleaded.

  Devose shook her. Her glasses fell to the desk that separated them.

  “Who?”

  “Daniel Minco.”

  He released her, and she sank into the chair, sniffling.

  “Did he take anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She braced herself for him to strike her, or even shoot her. Instead, she heard the door slam closed. She opened her eyes and he was gone.

  Devose sat in his car, fuming. That hick cop had the newspaper ledger. True, Devose still possessed the diary, and that was powerful enough, but he didn’t want any loose ends.

  He imagined the day he would wave the diary in the face of Murray Stone, his sister Sonia, and her milquetoast husband. They’d have no choice but to give him his due. Their father, old man Jerome, made promises to him that weren’t kept. After the will was read, and the only thing he got was continued employment, he’d gone to the kids. They’d laughed at him.

  If they didn’t see things his way, he’d release the diary to the media, maybe through Dr. Sherry Threefeathers. Their empire would crumble when the world knew their dark secret. No self-respecting stockholder would retain shares of Stone Energy.

  $20 million ought to do it.

  But now the cop had a piece of the puzzle. A piece of the power. Who had he told? Who else knew?

  And, not for the first time, he wondered who killed the newspaper editor. He’d come upon the body shortly after the murder. The office had been tossed, but he went straight to the ledgers. Not a deduction that required a lot of brain power. When he discovered the envelope with the clipping inside the back cover, he began to see why Sonia wanted to suppress what happened. And did Dibble’s killer off the sheriff and bomb the motel?

  He felt his opportunity slipping away. He made the call.

  Chapter 31

  Daniel drove his pickup through the empty streets of Oak Valley. Only 6 P. M., it was already dark since Daylight Savings Time ended, and the afternoon chill lapsed into bitter cold.

  No one was in the streets. The few businesses shedding any light on Main Street were isolated and showed few signs of life. Everyone seemed to be safe in their homes, cocooned for the night. Maybe this town didn’t need him after all.

  He cruised past the high school with its adjacent football field, the scene of so many of his triumphs. After being cheered by hundreds, the satisfaction of doing his job well would never have been enough. What could be?

  He couldn’t put it off any longer. He parked on the driveway that ran along the side of his parent’s house and went inside.

  His mother was cleaning the dinner dishes and his father was in his chair, of course. Daniel felt just as immobile.

  “How was your day, dear?” his mother chirped.

  “Fine.” There would be enough time later to tell her he had failed again.

  “Supper’s in the oven. Big day tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” But he knew he’d had his last big day. He walked to his room, the house constricting around him.

  “I did try to call,” Bronson Blake told Lianne. “He said he’d talk about it when he got here.”

  Lianne took another bite of her bagel as the sun rose through the big window of Zach’s Café. “The idea was for him not to come at all.”

  “You don’t know my dad.”

  A late model Town Car drove into view. “There he is now,” Bronson said.

  The car parked in front of the Po
lice Station and Frank Blake got out of the back seat, his suit pants still creased after the 90-minute drive from Oklahoma City. He reached back for his jacket and slipped it on.

  Eileen met him at the door. She didn’t have the chance to welcome many celebrities into her kingdom.

  “Let’s do this,” Lianne said, standing.

  Bronson said, “Should we wait for Officer Minco?”

  “He won’t be joining us.”

  Eileen indicated a chair for Frank to sit in.

  Bronson from his seat when they entered. “Son!” Frank said. “So good to see you.” They embraced. He then offered his hand to Lianne. “Frank Blake.”

  “Officer Lianne Ortega,” she said, thinking it was unnecessary for Blake to introduce himself to anyone.

  “So what is this I hear about imminent danger?”

  Lianne told him about the situation at Stone City and the threat against him. “You were mentioned specifically. With our resources, we can’t guarantee your safety in an uncontrolled environment like the Dedication Ceremony.”

  “Well, the Stone family is counting on me, and I won’t let them down.” He looked at Bronson. “I had dinner with them last night in the city. They’re staying at the Skirvin, of course. Their father used to stay with us at our house.”

  “I remember.”

  “They said to tell you they look forward to seeing you.”

  Lianne didn’t think Bronson looked as eager to see them.

  Frank went on. “I was surprised when you called me from here last night. I thought you were in Houston.”

  Bronson shifted uneasily in his seat. “Dad, I had to find the connection.”

  “What connection?”

  “The connection between our family and the Stones. I know what we owe them. They pay for everything. But what do they owe us?”

  Lianne stood. “Eileen and I can give you some privacy, if you wish.” She glanced at Eileen, who didn’t look like she was going anywhere.

  “That’s not necessary, Officer. Please sit.”

  She did.

  “Son, it’s not that simple. There were some things that happened a long time ago, in my grandfather’s time, that knit our families together. I’m familiar with some of it, but not all the details. I may be the last person alive that knows anything. Jerome Stone and I thought it best that those stories die out with our generation.”