The Bakken Blade

by Jeff Siebold

  “Oh my, sounds like corruption in public office,” said Sally.

  “Nah, that doesn’t happen,” said Zeke.

  “When are you planning to be back in Washington?”

  “In a day or two, maybe,” said Zeke.

  “Oh, good, you can take me to Valor,” she said. “I’ll make reservations.”

  “Valor?” asked Zeke.

  “Valor Brew Pub. Just opened to great reviews!”

  “Downtown? Near the office?” he asked.

  “About a ten minute Uber ride. Great food, though, they say. Totally worth it.”

  “What kind of fare?” asked Zeke.

  “American. Like totally American. The owners and the staff are all ex-military.”

  “OK, count me in,” said Zeke.

  * * *

  “Old boy, how’re things up in the hinterlands?” asked Clive, calling Zeke back on a secure line.

  Zeke smiled. “Reporting in, sir.”

  “Your interview went well, I presume,” said Clive.

  “It did. The Tribal Chief seems to have a pretty big chip on his shoulder,” said Zeke. “He thinks he’s hiding it well, but it dates back to the late 1700s. It’s literally in his DNA. It blinds him.”

  “Do you think he has something to do with the Indian girl’s murder?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zeke. “But his anger seems to be directed toward the white men, not the Indians. There could be something larger in play, though. Lots of money up here.”

  “Indeed. What are you planning to do?” asked Clive.

  “I have a couple more things to look at up here, and then I think I’ll fly back to D.C. Need to spend some time on the money laundering thing.”

  “I have some thoughts about that,” said Clive. “We may want to come at it from a different angle. When you get back here we’ll talk.”

  * * *

  Zeke parked his rental car along the road in Van Hook and walked back to Cheryl Black’s house. It was mid-morning, but the air was crisp, hinting at autumn and the winter to come.

  He knocked on the front door and waited. In a minute, a pale, gray haired woman holding a lit cigarette opened the door. She was dressed in a pink housecoat and slipper-socks.

  “Yeah?” she asked. The volume on the television was turned up high.

  “Looking for Cheryl Black,” said Zeke, speaking over the TV. It sounded like a game show.

  “Yeah.” The woman turned away and shut the door. Zeke was glad for the relative quiet. A minute later, Cheryl Black opened the door and stepped out.

  “We won’t be able to hear each other in there,” she said as she came down the steps. “Family Feud is on.”

  They walked to a small, wrought iron table with two chairs near the middle of the front yard. Cheryl sat and Zeke followed her lead.

  “How can I help you? Have you found anything out about Casey’s killer?”

  “Was Casey some kind of an activist?” Zeke parried the question.

  “No, not really. We’re all unhappy about the oil and the problems it causes. Spills. Clean up. Contamination. All that sort of stuff. But Casey wasn’t a radical or anything.”

  “What about the Keystone oil pipeline?” asked Zeke. “That was underway when she was killed.”

  “Yeah, it was being built then. They built it in phases. She wasn’t happy about it, but I don’t think she got killed because of that. Most people around here were against it,” said Cheryl.

  “Do you know if Casey had any Indian blood in her?”

  “She did. Our family is one-half Lakota. Well, she and I are. Were…” Cheryl teared up for a moment. Then she reached in her pocket and took out her cigarette pack. She shook out another cigarette and lit it.

  “Would Casey have run with the same crowd as Jenny Lakota?” asked Zeke.

  “Sort of. She was older than Jenny, so it wasn’t at the same time. But like I said, Casey was a free spirit. She didn’t much care about the rules. But she was a good girl.”

  “What do you mean, the rules?”

  “Well, Mr. Traynor, from the time she was in middle school, she dated the older boys. Then when she graduated, older men. They were part of that group that went to Sturgis every year. She liked the leather and the bikes and the pot and the Williston White.”

  “She liked the meth?” asked Zeke.

  “Yeah. I told her she needed to stop, but… Well, Casey didn’t really listen to anybody.”

  “But she did have a boyfriend?” asked Zeke.

  “When she was in high school, she dated a guy. He was really into the Indian thing, long black hair, leather vest, Indian jewelry, tattoos and symbols on his clothes. He even rode an Indian-brand motorcycle. But then he got killed.”

  “How long was this before Casey died?” asked Zeke.

  Cheryl said, “It really hurts to talk about her like this.”

  “I know, Cheryl.”

  “So it was maybe four or five years before she died. It was a big deal. The guy’s name was Franklin, Franklin Three-Bears, but everybody called him Tonto. He was about four years older than her. Somebody killed him. They think it was a rival gang.”

  “Whatever happened?” asked Zeke.

  “They arrested someone for it. Two guys, actually. They kept Casey in jail under protection, since she was a witness to the killing. They kept moving her around from town to town, jail to jail, until the trial, which took most of a year.”

  “Who were the guys?” asked Zeke.

  “Two low-life bikers and druggies, called themselves Junior and Flattop.”

  “Still in jail, I guess?”

  “Yeah, they’re in the State Pen in Bismarck. There was something about drugs and money, and then these two squirrels shot Tonto in a drive-by. Casey was with him when it happened,” she said, distant now.

  “You said Tonto was all about being an Indian. Was he an activist?” asked Zeke.

  Cheryl Black fidgeted for a moment. Then she drew on the last of the cigarette and tossed it into a flowerbed.

  “Not in a normal sense,” said Cheryl. “But yeah, he was about Indian rights and stuff.”

  “Where did Casey get her drugs?” asked Zeke. “Her pot and her meth?”

  “From her friends, I guess. She always seemed to have some extra. She sold a little bit, too.”

  “To whom?” asked Zeke.

  “Mostly to people she knew, people she grew up with,” said Cheryl.

  “Mostly to Native Americans?” asked Zeke.

  “Well, those were the people she knew from school and from around here.”

  “What about her boyfriends?” asked Zeke.

  “Well, she had a type, I guess you could say. Most of her friends were local guys from the Res, Indians, like Tonto.”

  Chapter 18

  It made him sick. Just sick.

  All that oil money, all those jobs and nothing for the Lakotas. Nothing but the same scraps they’d been fed for generations.

  He read about it in the papers almost every day. The media put a spin on everything, of course, making it seem reasonable and fair, while it was anything but that. His office phone buzzed, an internal call.

  “You have a call on line one,” said his secretary. “Can you take it?”

  He thought for a moment, almost declined, then said, “Yeah, OK.”

  “Hello?” he held the handset to his ear.

  “I read about you in the papers,” the voice said. “Saw your picture, cutting a ribbon or something, right?”

  “Yeah, that was me. So?” he said.

  “So how’s this thing with the money going down?”

  “Not on this phone.” He looked around his office as if there were a gaggle of reporters surrounding him. No one was there.

  “OK, call me back later then.”

  He hung up and dialed a different number from memory.

  “I’m coming by after work tonight,” he said. “Will you be there?”

  “Where else would I be?” a
sked the woman.

  “And Otaktay?”

  “Yes, he’ll be here, too.” She nodded into the phone.

  “I need to use the burner phone,” he said, looking around his office again.

  “OK. Will you stay for dinner?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. No, I’d better not. Another time.”

  * * *

  At five twenty-two, exactly, Henry Wolsnoki turned the old knob and pushed the front door open. The little house was dark, with flashing light coming from the television in the living room. He walked to the open doorway and looked in. Otaktay was sitting on the floor watching a reality show about hoarders on the large flatscreen television.

  He called to the boy, who looked up and nodded, and then looked back to the screen.

  “Where’s Gramm?” he asked.

  The boy pointed toward the kitchen.

  Henry continued through the small house and stepped into the kitchen. She was there, shelling what looked like northern corn. It was one of his favorites.

  Henry gave her a quick hug. “How are you, Gramm?” he asked. Everyone called her Gramm.

  She looked at him. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m tired of the killing.”

  He nodded. Then he said, “Do you have the phone?”

  She reached into her apron and handed him the burner phone.

  * * *

  “I’m calling you back,” said Henry Wolsnoki. He waited.

  “Is this a safe line?”

  “Yes. But still, be careful what you say,” said Henry. He had stepped out the backdoor, away from the kitchen.

  “So how’s this thing with the money going down?” asked the man.

  Henry thought for a moment, then chose his words carefully.

  “It’s on track. We’ll be allocating funds at the next meeting. The governor’s anxious to get this behind him before the next election. He wants to take credit for it.”

  “Of course he does,” said the man. “Will we get our share?”

  “Sure. Once the money’s allocated, it’s a matter of invoicing the state for your work, and you should have a check within two weeks.”

  “We’re tired of waiting,” said the man. “This took way longer than you told us it would. They’re not happy.”

  Henry wiped his brow. “I know. We had to reset everything and start over. The tribal chiefs were making a lot of noise. We had to give them some money to shut them up.”

  “Yeah. That’s your problem, though.”

  “I know. But don’t worry. Tell them the money will be there shortly,” said Henry. “A couple of weeks.”

  “We’ll be looking for interest on that, for the delay,” said the man.

  Henry was quiet.

  “You don’t want us to get too vocal about this.” It was a statement, not a question.

  * * *

  “You work for the men who oppress us,” said his mother, when he returned to the kitchen. “You work for the oil companies.” She was still shelling the corn, but her expression was one of anger.

  “I can do more from the inside,” said Henry Wolsnoki. “I can help our people better if I have some say, some control.”

  “The oil killed my daughter, your wife,” said the woman.

  It was a discussion they’d had many times. His mother was a purest, a Lakota from the old school who had heard the lies of the white man and had no trust in their promises. Her son had been educated at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He’d gone there on a minority scholarship, and then had been hired into government work with the Tribal Leaders in New Town, rising quickly to a position that he still maintained.

  “Well, tell me then. What are you doing from the inside?” she asked him.

  * * *

  “I’m flying back tomorrow,” said Zeke. “I met with the Tribal Leader and talked with Cheryl Black again. There isn’t much more I can do here until we come up with something tangible.”

  “Is the picture getting clearer?” asked Clive from the other end of the secure line. He sounded distracted.

  “Bits and pieces,” said Zeke. “And we’ll want to talk about the Pawnshop deaths.”

  “Kimmy’s been organizing,” said Clive. “Researching, analyzing and organizing. She and Sally will suss it out, I’d say.”

  “None better… They’ll figure it out alright. That reminds me. I owe Sally dinner when I get back.”

  “She has somewhere in mind?” asked Clive.

  “She mentioned the Valor Brew Pub. Been there?”

  “I’ve heard of it. It’s probably too, uh, Colonial for me,” said Clive, a bit tongue in cheek.

  “What have we been doing on the Pawnshop deaths, then?”

  “Yes, well, we’re researching each of the seven victims…I’d prefer to call them victims,” said Clive. “The data’s not all in, yet, but we know something’s amiss…”

  “Sure,” said Zeke.

  “And we’ve looked at most of their bank accounts, business receipts, credit card slips, all of that.”

  Zeke was quiet.

  “And each one had pretty much tripled his gross income since franchising with Pawn 4 All.”

  “Which implies a hefty net profit,” said Zeke.

  “It does, particularly since their operating expenses hadn’t changed. Except for the franchise fee, of course.”

  “So the suicides don’t make any sense.”

  “They never really do, do they?” said Clive. “But yes, I highly doubt they were suicides. Murder is the word that comes to mind.”

  * * *

  Zeke entered Clive Greene’s office and slid into a leather club chair.

  “How was your flight?” asked Clive.

  Sally was sitting beside him, with Kimmy one chair down.

  “Uneventful. Boarded. Took off. Landed. And here I am,” said Zeke. “Just like the other two and a half million people who flew domestically today.”

  “Yes, they seem to have it down to a science, don’t they?”

  “Did we find anything more on the deaths?” asked Zeke. “The pawnshop owners?”

  “Yes, well, that’s what we mean to ascertain,” said Clive. “I’ve got the files set out in the conference room.” Then, to Sally, “We could all use some Earl Gray, I’d think. Do you mind?”

  “Oh, I’m going to dinner with Zeke this week. Of course I don’t mind,” she responded in her wispy voice.

  Zeke smiled as Sally left the room.

  Kimmy said, “Don’t tell me, the Valor Brew Pub?”

  Zeke nodded. “All American place.” Then to Clive, “What have you seen so far?”

  “Well, I’ve looked the files over quickly. But Sally and Kimmy have spent some more time with them. Between us all, we should be able to extract something. A pattern, a schedule, a modus operandi…something.”

  “Let’s get to it, then,” said Zeke.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Zeke, Kimmy, Sally and Clive were staring at grids on the whiteboard and rubbing their eyes.

  “That was proper Devonshire tea,” said Clive. “Time for a break then?” The Earl Gray teapot was empty, and the plate of scones had vanished.

  “Before we do, let’s just take a minute and summarize,” said Zeke, focused on the files.

  “OK,” said Clive.

  Kimmy nodded.

  “We’ve got seven deaths. Several different methods. Men and women. Most in different cities. The only obvious connection is that all seven had a Pawn 4 All franchise,” Zeke said. “Some married, some divorced or otherwise single. Most straight, one gay. Almost everyone on the list was between 40 and 70 years old, except the two that had inherited their pawnshops when their parent or parents died. They were in their mid-thirties. But you’d expect that for business owners.”

  “Right,” said Clive, nodding and following the list as Zeke outlined it on the board.

  “Locationally, they were all in the northeast, Baltimore on up to New York. To be expected since that’s whe
re the Pawn 4 All business is primarily situated,” Zeke continued. “In Morristown, New Jersey.”

  Nods from Clive and Sally.

  “We don’t have complete forensic accounting from the FBI, but it appears that these little pawnshops went from ‘getting by’ to ‘gold mine’ pretty quickly once they bought a franchise,” said Zeke.

  “Indeed,” said Clive. “That was the money laundering, no doubt.”

  Zeke nodded. “So let’s assume that seven deaths of owners in a year or less are too many to be a coincidence. We think it was murder, and we haven’t seen anything to change that hypothesis. Let’s assume that all seven of the pawnshops were laundering money. We’ll confirm that with the FBI since they have the financial statements, but it’s probably right.”

  Kimmy nodded.

  “What comes to mind first?” asked Zeke.

  “It’s clear to me that someone was skimming,” said Clive. “No doubt.”

  * * *

  “Let’s start by looking at the murders,” said Clive. “We’ve got background on each of the victims.” He was flipping through the seven FBI files.

  “Let’s arrange them chronologically and see how they track with Pawn 4 All’s growth pattern.”

  “OK.” Clive made a note.

  “But to get to the bottom of this, we’ll need some face time at the Pawn 4 All headquarters. Someone has to be pulling the strings, ordering the deaths and such,” said Zeke. “One or more someones. If it’s not the Pawn 4 All management, we need to eliminate them as suspects.”

  “How do you want to do it?” asked Clive.

  “Let’s approach them as pawnshop owners, looking for a possible franchise agreement. Something big enough to get us in front of the officers. We should be able to see what’s happening better from there.”

  “Right,” said Clive. “I’ll ask Sally to fill out a franchise application and get it to them.”

  “Good,” said Zeke. “But let’s make this even more attractive to them. Let’s go in as the owners of a small chain of pawnshops. The way they’ve been expanding, it should make them drool.”