by Jeff Siebold
Zeke and Cord sat at a small table with a view of the front door, the bar area, and the poolroom where the axe contest was unfolding. Zeke looked around and noticed a few familiar faces, including Chip Wellers, the guy who had been talking with Will Carter on the night Jenny was killed. Will Carter wasn’t around.
He didn’t see Cindi, either, the first girl from the green trailer, but Angel was there, sitting at a table talking with three roughnecks, making jokes and touching their hands and arms when she laughed.
“She’s working the crowd,” Zeke said to Cord.
Cord nodded. “Wants to get paid tonight,” he said, absently.
Occasionally, they heard a loud ‘thump’ as the hand axe found its way into the wooden target. Cord said, “How far you reckon those boys are throwing that axe?”
“Regulation is 12 to 15 feet,” said Zeke. “There’s a box marked out on the floor with tape. They need to stay in the box when they throw.”
“You’ve done that? Thrown axes?” asked Cord.
Zeke smiled cryptically.
A man walked through the front door and stopped for a moment, looking around the room for someone. He had unkempt stringy brown hair and a fuzzy beard, and he was wearing work clothes, canvas pants and a long-sleeved brown shirt with the name ‘Kent’ above his left pocket. His boots were scuffed black steel-toed DeWalts.
The axe throwers were concentrating on tallying their scores. One of them looked up at Kent, who waved and walked over to the contestants.
Zeke said, “Might be a buy.”
“Or he’s next in line to toss the hatchet,” said Cord.
“I’m pretty sure he’s a tweeker,” said Zeke.
“A methhead? How do you know?” asked Cord.
“Well, first because he bypassed the bar. Most people come in and get their drink first thing. And do you see the cystic acne on his jawline? Also, his teeth are starting to rot. Signs of a serious tweeker. Watch.”
Kent was talking with one of the contestants, a taller man with a small potbelly and thin arms. The man nodded. He was maybe forty, Zeke judged.
Kent looked around the room, and then, apparently unalarmed, took some bills out of his pocket, palmed them and gave them to the man. The man set a small glassine envelope on the table, picked up his beer and walked five steps away. He started talking with someone else.
Zeke saw Kent slide the envelope over and slip it into his pants pocket. He looked around the room again and headed for the front door.
* * *
“You’re the ones who arrested Sam Bearcat,” said a gravelly voice from just over Cord’s shoulder. “Put him in prison.”
Cord turned and looked at the man with a dead-eye cop stare. Zeke smiled and nodded.
“We didn’t actually,” said Zeke. “It was the Tribal Officers. They arrested him before the FBI could get a warrant issued. It was pre-emptive.”
“Pre-bullshit. I heard it was you that caused it,” the man persisted. He was a large man with long arms and a thick neck. He’d been one of those watching the axe throwing. His head was hairless except for his black eyebrows, and he had tattoos peeking out from under his shirt. His right shirt-sleeve was rolled up to his elbow, revealing a forearm of colorful tattoos. His arm muscles looked formidable.
This guy could have carried Jenny’s body, no sweat, thought Zeke. He said, “We’re about the only ones looking for the killer. Everyone else assumes it was Sam.”
“So you say,” said the large man. He stepped in closer behind Cord, crowding the table.
Zeke stood up and took a step away from his chair.
Cord said, “Be sure that you want to do that. I’m the FBI.”
The large man said, “Why would I care about that?”
Cord tried to stand also, but he couldn’t leverage his chair back past the man.
“We’re actually here looking for a connection to the meth,” said Zeke. “And we came across Kent, earlier.”
The large man thought for a minute.
“Kent ain’t hurting anybody,” he said. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Kent’s hurting himself,” said Zeke. “He’s actually killing himself.”
“Maybe you two should beat it,” said the man. “Before things get worse.” He looked over at his friends, four men standing at the axe throwing station, their attention on Zeke and Cord. One man, the smallest of the four, held the axe loosely in his hand, swinging it in a small arc.
Zeke said, “You may want to rethink that.”
“Hey, Ronnie, what’re you guys talking about over there?” asked one of Ronnie’s friends. “You need some help?”
“Naw,” said Ronnie. “These two were just leaving.”
“You’re obviously used to people doing what you tell them to,” Zeke said to Ronnie. “How long since you had to enforce it? High school?”
“It wasn’t college,” said Cord. “This mutt didn’t get anywhere near a college.”
Ronnie apparently didn’t like that remark, and he put his paw on Cord’s right shoulder. Zeke noticed he was squeezing, hard.
Zeke reached quickly and grabbed the large man’s ring finger with his left hand and his thumb with his right hand. Using his body weight as leverage, he swung his body under his arms, twisting and locking the large man’s elbow suddenly. Zeke pressured the arm into a horizontal position and maneuvered Ronnie’s wrist in a two-handed standing wristlock, taking the man to one knee.
“Ow, shit,” said Ronnie. Zeke tweaked the wrist, forcing the big man’s face farther toward the ground. Then he looked over at the small man.
The small man looked indecisive for a moment, but then he rallied and set himself to throw the axe. He took a step back as his arm rose above his shoulder, an overhand movement forward, like throwing a baseball, and a release as his arm hit the horizontal plane. Then he followed through with his right hand.
Good form, thought Zeke, as the axe flew toward him. He had already dropped Ronnie’s hand and was lifting his leather jacket from the back of his chair, holding it between himself and the axe. The axe hit the leather with a dull, flat sound and fell to the floor.
In four steps, Zeke reached the small man, who a moment later was face up on the floor trying to catch his breath. A sharp jab to his solar plexus had incapacitated him, and a leg sweep knocked his feet from under him. His three friends drifted away.
Simultaneously, Cord drew his service revolver and pointed it at Ronnie. Then he levered the man’s wrists up behind him. The cuffs were barely large enough to click closed around his wrists.
* * *
Zeke saw Angel watching as Ronnie and the small man were removed from the Salty Dog by five Tribal Officers. Bruce Doekiller stayed behind to take statements from the patrons.
Most all of the activity in the bar had stopped. The televisions were muted and the jukebox was unplugged. The men who had been watching the axe throwing contest wandered away from the area and tried to blend into the crowd by the bar.
The oilfield workers that Angel had been talking to decided to leave after Doekiller examined their I.D.’s and took their statements. Zeke overheard one of the men say something about moving on to the Four Bears Casino.
“You sure know how to screw up a nice night,” said a girl’s voice. Zeke turned to see Angel Wilson standing behind him, one fist on her hip and a sarcastic look on her face. “Buy me a beer.”
Zeke smiled to himself and nodded. “Sure.”
Cord said to Angel, “Sit down here. I want to talk with you for a minute.”
The girl looked around, as if for help, her eyes scanning the room. She said to Cord, “What, me?”
“Yes, you. Right there,” he said.
Angel looked like she wasn’t going to sit, defiant, but then she shrugged to herself and sat in an empty chair next to Zeke.
Cord said, “You’re doing meth too.”
Angel shrugged again. “Just a snort once in a while, if somebody has it available.” She r
ubbed her nose a little bit.
Zeke knew that she was lying, both from the body language and from the physiology of the drug. “You’re into it more than that, Angel,” said Zeke.
“Why do you say that?”
“Meth destroys the limbic system in the brain, the part that affects emotion and behavior. Meth addicts tend to become single-minded and paranoid, and they’re usually short on empathy and reasoning power. That’s what I’m seeing right now in you, Angel.”
Angel looked away, thinking.
“I’m not an addict,” she said.
“We can take you in and find out,” said Cord.
“I don’t care what you think,” she said. She looked sullen. Then she looked at Zeke and said, “Hey, how about that beer you promised me?”
* * *
“No doubt Kent is way into the meth,” said Zeke. “Injections, based on the advanced symptoms I saw.”
Clive from D.C., through the speaker of Zeke’s smart phone, said, “How does that help us?”
“It’s a part of the fabric of this area, the culture,” said Zeke.
“Well, I was looking for leverage,” said Cord, who was sitting across from Zeke in his hotel room. “Trying to get one of the girls, Cindi or Angel, to act as bait for the killer. I thought we might flush him out.”
“How did that go?” asked Clive.
“Well, we’ll see. We went to the Salty Dog and found Angel Wilson there. She looked like she was hitting on a couple of oilmen,” said Zeke. “Trying to drum up some business.”
“Huh,” said Clive. “The wheels of commerce.”
“But when Zeke took down one of the locals, the entire place got chilly,” said Cord. “The local tribal cops came, and the customers started drifting for the doors. The buzz was pretty much killed, at that point.”
“What about the girl?” asked Clive. “Do you think you can leverage her?”
“Sure I can,” said Cord. “We lock her in a cell for a day, she’ll do just about anything for a fix.”
“How are you planning to use her?” asked Clive. “As bait, I mean.”
“There are a couple of options. Let’s talk with her,” Zeke said.
* * *
“You want me to what?” asked Angel Wilson, once again sitting in the living room of her mother’s house, smoking a cigarette. Cord and Zeke were standing in front of a couch, which was covered with laundry waiting to be folded.
“We want you to flush out the killer,” said Cord.
“Hell, no,” said Angel defiantly. “No way I’m getting anywhere near that psycho…” She sucked on the cigarette until the ash burned bright.
Zeke smiled.
Cord said, “Then I guess we’ll have to take you in, Angel.”
“For what?”
“You pick. Prostitution. Using meth. Selling drugs. How about drunk and disorderly?” asked Cord. He took a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket.
“You can’t make that stick,” said Angel.
“I don’t need to,” said Cord. “We’re going to separate you from your drug of choice for a couple days, see what that does for your attitude.”
Angel looked startled.
“And while we’re at it, we’re going to arrest your friend, Pete,” said Cord. “You said he was your friend, but we checked with the tribal officers. He’s your dealer and your pimp.”
Angel looked at them for a minute. Then she said, “What do I have to do?”
* * *
To Zeke, Angel Wilson looked anxious. She hadn’t had a pop for several hours, the whole time she was in the police station talking with Zeke and Kimmy and Tillman Cord. Now she was tapping her fingers on the tabletop and frequently squirming in her chair. Her attention was divided, as if she were having second thoughts.
“You can do this, Angel,” said Kimmy. She’d arrived in New Town that afternoon, to assist with their plan at Zeke’s request.
The girl said nothing. Then, “Listen, I need to use the bathroom.”
Cord looked at Zeke, and Zeke nodded slightly. She’ll do better without the anxiety, he thought. Angel got up and put her purse strap over her shoulder. Cord signaled and a female Tribal Officer opened the door and Angel left the room with her.
“You know she’s going to snort some meth, right?” asked Cord.
“Sure. I’d expect no less,” said Zeke.
Cord nodded. “Can she pull it off?”
“We’ll stay close, right with her,” said Kimmy.
“Just between us, I’m pretty confident that the killer has been reacting more than anything else,” said Zeke. “I doubt that there’s a plan or agenda. But when the right stimulus is applied, the killer kills.”
“And what’s the stimulus?” asked Kimmy. She was moving around the room now, watching the Tribal Officers working through the glass door. They were using a vacant office in the Three Affiliated Tribes Police Department.
“I’ve looked at the Casey Black killing, and at the Jenny Lakota killing,” said Zeke. “There are commonalities, but there are also a number of differences. But there seems to be a pattern. In both cases the killing took place shortly after the dead girl did something that disrespected her heritage.”
“Heritage?” asked Kimmy. “Her Native American heritage? Like what?”
“Like sex or drugs. Selling sex or drugs,” said Zeke. “Jenny Lakota was heavy into dealing meth. She was addicted, and she was selling it for her boyfriend, Sam Bearcat. She also visited number seven at the Lakeside Trailer Park enough to be a regular. Somebody decided to stop her.”
“And with Casey?” asked Cord.
“She was killed shortly after the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest, trying to stop part of the pipeline from being built.”
“Pipeline?” asked Kimmy. She was listening, but bent over, watching out the glass in the door.
“In 2016, it was a grass roots protest that began at the Standing Rock Reservation,” said Zeke.
“Where’s that?” asked Kimmy.
“It’s on the South Dakota border,” Zeke said. “It actually straddles the two states.”
“So what happened there?” she asked.
“The Feds didn’t do such a good job with that one. About 500 people were arrested for protesting, and about 300 were injured. The Feds treated it like the protestors were terrorists.”
“And Casey was one of those?” asked Kimmy, looking at Zeke and obviously warming to the topic.
Zeke nodded. “She and her motorcycle buddies were in the middle of it. She was on the news several times, interviewed by the national news stations, before she was arrested.”
“What did she do that disrespected her heritage?” asked Kimmy.
“The FBI says she was dealing, transporting and selling drugs. She used the protest as a reason to go back and forth, peddling the meth at Standing Rock Reservation,” said Zeke.
The door opened and Angel Wilson stepped back into the room. She looked much more relaxed to Zeke.
“It’s time for you to help us catch Jenny’s killer,” he said.
“How?” the girl asked.
“We’re going to go looking for him. I think he’ll be looking for you already, Angel,” said Zeke.
Angel looked around the room, warily. “I don’t think…”
“But you want to stay out of jail, right, Angel?” asked Cord.
“Well, yeah,” she said.
“Like we said, unless you want to go to prison for a while, you’ll need to help us.”
“You’re a bastard,” she said to Cord.
“OK, let’s go,” Zeke said.
* * *
Zeke and Kimmy sat in the car outside the Salty Dog and waited. Angel was inside, trolling, she called it, trying to find a guy to buy her a drink, or better, give her a pop. She had a small, one-way device with a microphone and GPS sewn into her jacket, courtesy of the FBI. It looked like a button.
Zeke looked at his watch. It was eleven fifteen.
“Do you th
ink the killer will show up?” asked Kimmy.
Zeke nodded. “Tonight’s a good night for it. It’s Saturday, and both of the dead girls were killed on a Saturday night. Well, Sunday morning, actually.”
Kimmy nodded.
“And there’s been a lot of local noise about Angel. The word’s out that she was involved with the drug sales. And that she was arrested. Her coming here would set off alarms. And she’s been a regular at Lakeside…”
“If they’re watching,” said Cord.
“They are. But if not this weekend, it’ll be next. It’s a matter of the killer’s reaction time.”
“You told her to do what she normally does?” asked Kimmy. “To pick up a guy in the bar and take him home?”
“She’s living in her mother’s house now, and the trailer’s closed up tight. I suspect she’ll try to get the guy to go back to his place,” said Zeke.
“It’s another variable,” said Kimmy.
Zeke nodded.
They waited some more.
At twenty minutes before eleven the front door of the Salty Dog opened and Angel Wilson stepped out. Right behind her Zeke saw a big man with longish hair and wearing a cowboy hat.
Through the microphone Zeke heard the man say, “What say we go to my place?”
Angel said, “OK. Do you have anything there?”
“I have just what you need,” said the man. “Just stocked up.”
The couple stood in front of the building as if uncertain what to do next. Then they turned and started walking north.
Zeke started the car and followed them from a distance.
* * *
It turned out that the man’s house was a block and a half north of the Salty Dog. It was a dirty white, one-story bungalow with a detached garage at the back of the house. The trim was painted brown, and the place looked like a dump. One wall of the garage was sagging, slowly collapsing in on itself.
Angel and the man walked through the yard to the front door.
“This is it. Come on in,” Zeke and Kimmy heard the man say over the small speaker. The sound was tinny.