by Jeff Siebold
Bobby shook his head and closed his eyes, as if to shut out everything around him.
“Bobby, you have horses on the farm, don’t you?” asked Zeke.
Bobby said, “What?”
He’s deflecting, thought Zeke. Buying time and avoiding the question.
“Simple question,” said Cord. “Do you have horses?”
Bobby looked at him and said, “Some.”
“And you work at the vet office on the reservation? The Tribal Officers mentioned that.”
Bobby nodded. “I work there sometimes.”
“So you have access to muscle relaxers,” said Cord. “Xylazine.”
“I don’t know. No, not really. That’s a controlled substance, so how would I get that?” His tone was suddenly lower.
That’s convoluted phrasing, thought Zeke. He’s trying to make this more confusing than it is.
“Did your grandmother know about the killings?” Zeke said, asking an unexpected question.
“What?” asked Bobby. His blink rate increased as he looked at Zeke. Then he looked down and away.
“Bobby, did your dad know about the girls?”
Bobby looked at Zeke. “You don’t kill other people’s horses,” he said.
Zeke nodded. “Did your grandmother know about the murders?”
“Leave my Gramm out of this!” he shouted suddenly.
He’s still lying, thought Zeke. About most everything.
“Why did you kill the girls, Bobby?” asked Cord. “Who told you to do it?”
It had become clear that the boy’s intelligence level was below average. He’d grown defensive, evasive, even paranoid, as the questioning continued.
“A murderer? That wasn’t me,” said the boy. “I’m a warrior.”
Lieutenant Mankato opened the door to the interrogation room and said, “Can I see you for a minute?”
Zeke and Cord stepped out of the room.
“His attorney’s here,” said Mankato. “He said no more interview.”
“That’s OK, we’re not getting anywhere in there anyhow,” said Cord.
“Let’s talk about it over a cup of coffee, Tillman,” said Zeke.
* * *
The Better B Café’s coffee was on par with the Salty Dog’s, which meant it was hot and plentiful, but not very tasty. Zeke and Cord, joined by Kimmy, slid into an empty booth away from the other diners.
“You think his grandmother was involved somehow?” asked Cord. “What was the motivation?”
“Is Bobby smart enough to plan all this and then carry it out?” said Zeke, partially to himself.
“Probably not,” said Cord. “But remember, he was coming down from a high on meth when we questioned him. Makes it tough to gauge what he’s really like.”
Zeke nodded.
“The first killing of Casey Black, the girl up north by the Evans Site, took place in 2016, almost three years ago,” said Zeke.
Cord nodded.
“Bobby would have been, what, sixteen years old then?”
Cord said, “So, you’re saying it’s less likely he committed that killing.”
Zeke nodded. “And I don’t see a teenager like Bobby being motivated to kill because of ‘acts of disrespect to the tribe.’ Seems like that would be too political, too abstract to move a teen like him to action.”
Cord said, “Maybe it was a hot button for him. Like one of those school shooters that are cropping up all over the country…”
“Maybe,” said Zeke. “But it could have been a hot button for someone else. Someone older and more traditional.”
“His sibling? One of his parents?” asked Cord.
“Or his Gramm,” said Zeke.
* * *
She sat crosslegged on the floor of the small room with the threadbare carpet, alone once again.
The Federal officers had taken the boy, Otaktay, as she had watched from a window. The woman put him in the back of the car and drove away. When they were gone, she sent Mika to stay with a neighbor.
It was once again a time for action. She had taken the knife from its hidey-hole, and she was holding it in both hands, a symbol of the violence and death to come.
She chanted to it, as she had done long before.
Suddenly, her phone rang.
“Hello?” she answered.
She heard the man’s voice on the line, speaking Sioux first, then English. “Hau. Hello. You called me?”
“Yes,” she said. “They’ve come and taken him.”
“Otaktay?” asked the man.
“Yes.”
He paused, thinking.
“What should we do?” she asked.
“I’ll arrange for a lawyer for him. You must finish the work.”
* * *
They were staying at the Four Bears Casino hotel, on the west side of the Little Missouri River, about four miles from New Town. The hotel was a wide three-story structure sitting next to the casino and event center. It was the only hotel near New Town.
Darkness was falling as Zeke, Kimmy and Cord left the restaurant and walked through the brisk North Dakota breeze. Kimmy pulled her jacket closed with both hands as they cut across the parking lot toward the hotel lobby.
“I’ll catch up with you,” said Kimmy. “I need to get something from the car.”
“Do you want us to wait?” asked Zeke.
“No, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Cord said, “Yes, ma’am. We’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast.”
Kimmy found the rental car parked in the back of the hotel in a spot in the second row. She opened the trunk, pulled the gun safe toward her and opened it. Her Jericho 941 was there, along with Zeke’s Walther and extra ammo for each. They’d left them there when they’d stopped by the Tribal Police Station. She slid her gun into her waistband, closed the safe and the trunk, and turned toward the hotel.
Kimmy saw a flash of light in a car window, a reflection of the parking lot lights on something shiny. She turned quickly and saw the falling blade of the skinner’s knife slashing toward her, an inch from her face as she shrank back and twisted, keeping her right shoulder and arm out of range. The knife nicked her thigh as it came down, and then it whistled past her, ending its arc near the asphalt pavement.
“You must die! You abandoned your child! You are no daughter of mine!” the woman screamed.
As the knife hesitated, its momentum spent, Kimmy stepped forward onto the blade, flattening it onto the pavement and crushing her attacker’s hand beneath the handle. Her attacker, she saw, was an Indian woman, old and wrinkled and crazed.
Her foot on the knife, Kimmy reached and grabbed the woman’s braids and yanked her head forward. Her knuckles still beneath the knife handle, the old woman fell forward as Kimmy, with minimal motion, kneed her in the face. Then again, and again.
Blood flowed from the old woman’s damaged nose and mouth. Kimmy scooped up the knife and handcuffed the woman.
“You whore!” screamed the old woman through bloody teeth. “You whore! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you!”
* * *
The four Tribal Police vehicles and the ambulance all flashed their red and blue lights in a distracting random sequence.
“I heard the excitement,” said Zeke. “Sorry I missed it.” He and Cord had returned to the parking lot when Kimmy called Zeke’s cell phone and told them what had happened.
The EMT finished bandaging Kimmy’s leg and said, “You were lucky.” She picked up her medic case and said, “Come by the ER for a tetanus shot,” and walked over to where two husky EMT’s were patching up the woman.
Four Tribal Officers with their hands on their holstered guns watched as the handcuffed woman’s swollen face was cleaned and bandaged. Three other officers maintained a perimeter, keeping curious hotel guests and staff at bay.
“It was nothing,” said Kimmy.
“Are you losing a step?” asked Zeke, looking at her bandage.
Kimmy looked up at him,
dead serious. “Uh, no,” she said. “That would be a ‘No’.”
“Bobby’s Gramm?” asked Zeke. It was hard to recognize the woman with her face bandaged.
Cord nodded. “She sounds crazy. We should talk with her now.”
Zeke said, “OK,” and they all walked over toward the woman. She was mumbling something unrecognizable, over and over. It sounded like a mantra.
“She’s OK?” Zeke asked one of the EMT’s.
“She’ll live,” he said as he worked.
“What’s she saying?”
“It’s the Lakota language,” said the second EMT.
He has some Native American blood, thought Zeke.
“She’s talking about killing whores,” said the man.
Zeke looked at Kimmy. “Maybe I should handle this interview,” he said. “She seems to be angry with women.”
“Suits me,” said Kimmy.
“It’ll have to be tomorrow,” said the first EMT. “We just sedated her.”
* * *
“I’m wondering, now, about a number of things,” said Zeke. “Rethinking it some.”
“Yes, sir?” said Cord.
They were back in the Better B Café, drinking average coffee, talking through their findings and preparing for the interview.
“What Bobby’s Gramm did, and the anger and emotion she was feeling, what’s behind that?”
Cord nodded. “It did seem extreme…”
“And what about Bobby’s mother? I wonder if there may have been an earlier killing.”
“Bobby’s mother killed?” asked Cord. “You think that’s what the old woman was ranting about?”
“It could make sense,” said Zeke.
“So you think the old woman killed Henry’s wife and took Bobby in? Raised him?”
“It’s possible,” said Zeke. “Let’s ask her about it.”
* * *
The first thing Zeke noticed was the fire in her eyes. They burned with a fierce hatred, like an ageless flame in her soul. The second thing he noticed was that she never blinked.
She said, “Uŋkčémna.” She spat the word out of her mouth with venom.
Officer Doekiller, who was sitting in as a translator, said, “She says you smell like…well, feces.”
Zeke thought, Great way to start an interrogation. He said, “What would make you so angry?”
The woman’s eyes burned with hatred and her entire being, all her energy, was behind the force she leveled at Zeke. It was palpable. Zeke shook it off.
“They say your name is Paytah,” said Zeke. “Officer Doekiller says that means ‘Fire.’ Is that right?”
The woman said nothing, staring past Zeke.
“Here’s your chance,” said Zeke. “Tell us why you’re so angry. Who did this to you?”
Suddenly, the woman looked upward, as if searching for help from above. Zeke looked up, too. The ceiling of the interrogation room was wire mesh, painted black, and about a foot lower than the electrical conduits, lights and air conditioning ducts. Nothing there. Zeke shrugged.
“Your grandson, Bobby. He’s killed some people,” Zeke continued, looking for a maternal reaction. The woman leveled her gaze at him again. “He’ll have to pay for that.”
“I have no grandson named Bobby,” she said, the anger suddenly gone from her face. “I have only Otaktay.”
Zeke looked at Doekiller, who said, “It means Great Warrior.”
The old woman didn’t seem to have heard him.
“Where’s Otaktay’s mother?” asked Zeke. “Why is he with you?”
Now the woman looked away for the first time. Then she looked down at the table.
“Why is he with you?” Zeke asked softly.
“His father cannot take care of him,” she said, simply. “He doesn’t have the knowledge to bring the boy up. They were doing it wrong.”
“Did you stop that?” asked Zeke.
“I had to. My daughter was a disgrace, a drug addict and a whore!”
“How long has he been with you?” asked Zeke.
“Forever,” she said.
Zeke changed tactics. “What happened last night? In the hotel parking lot? Why did you try to kill the woman, Kimmy?”
“She took Otaktay away. I had to get him back.”
“And you used the knife?” asked Zeke.
“Yes.”
“The police say it’s probably the same knife that was used to kill Jenny Lakota,” Zeke continued.
No response. Then, suddenly, “That Indian girl! She was a whore! She laid on her back for anyone! She was a cancer, she sold those drugs to other Indians…”
Zeke said, “Was that your daughter? Did you kill your daughter? Again and again…”
“She was with that man. She was in the stable with that man. I heard her, I heard him give her money. And the meth. She promised she would stop the meth. But she never did. She shamed me! She shamed us all!”
She was screaming, now.
Zeke said, “Your daughter. You killed your daughter.”
“Yes, I killed her!”
“And you kept killing her,” said Zeke. “You sent Bobby to do it, didn’t you?”
She focused suddenly and said, “It had to be done. There was no other way to purge the evil.”
Chapter 29
“Bobby Wolsnoki’s mother was named Carol Wolsnoki, nee Carol Talking Owl. It looks like she married Henry Wolsnoki in 1995 and they had two children, a boy and a girl, born in New Town. The boy’s birth certificate has him as ‘Robert.’” Sally read some additional information to Zeke from the public records she’d found.
“Carol was killed, then?” he asked over the phone line.
“Yes, in April of 2008. They found her in a small barn on a local ranch. The stable owner was an Indian. He was killed, too, same time and place. The newspaper article says she used to ride horses there,” Sally added.
“How did she die?” asked Zeke.
“Cut with a sharp knife,” said Sally. “Her throat was slit. Same as the man.”
“And the killer?” asked Zeke.
“They looked at Henry first, but he had a good alibi. He was in Washington when it happened, according to the police file notes.”
“How’d you get access to those?” asked Zeke.
“Electronic magic,” said Sally. “I’m sworn to secrecy, so don’t ask.”
“Did they arrest anyone for the murders?” asked Zeke.
“It looks like they didn’t. In fact, it looks like the Tribal Police had trouble getting the FBI to pay any attention to it at all. An Indian woman is killed on the reservation. And it’s still an open case, technically.”
“Carol Talking Owl,” said Zeke. “So the woman who attacked Kimmy was Henry’s mother-in-law.”
“Sounds right. What was her name?” asked Sally.
“Police say they booked her as Ramona Talking Owl. But she refuses to answer to anything except her Indian name.”
“Which is?” asked Sally.
“Which is Paytah,” said Zeke. “In Lakota, it means ‘Fire’.”
* * *
“She killed her own daughter? She must be nuts,” said Tillman Cord.
They were sipping coffee and waiting in the Tribal Police station for Lieutenant Mankato to come out of a personnel meeting.
“Sally says Henry’s wife became addicted to painkillers when the second baby, the baby girl was born,” said Zeke. “Apparently there were complications with the birth. They gave her opiates of some sort for the pain. And according to the Tribal Officers, it just got worse over time. She couldn’t get Oxy, so she started using meth and became addicted…”
“So it’s very possible she was trading sex for drugs or money. Possibly with the stable owner. And it’s possible she was dealing to make money for her own meth. That would make sense, in light of the double homicide,” said Cord.
Zeke nodded. “That would infuriate her mother. Perhaps it was the one thing that put Gramm over the edge…
And then she killed her own daughter.”
Cord said, “And then she started using Bobby? To kill?”
“Very possible. She’s seriously deranged,” said Cord.
“But maybe someone guided them,” said Zeke. “Someone could have pointed them at their victims.”
“That’s possible,” said Cord.
“Tillman, let’s check on Henry Wolsnoki. It’s possible that he’s involved in this somehow,” said Zeke.
* * *
“Henry Wolsnoki, I’m the FBI. You’re under arrest,” said Cord.
He and Zeke, along with two Tribal Officers, were standing in the lobby of the Tribal Leaders’ offices when Wolsnoki stepped out of his office.
Bruce Doekiller stepped behind the man and secured his wrists in handcuffs.
“What? What are you doing?” the man sputtered. “Do you know who I am?”
Cord said, “Let’s take this downtown, Henry. Unless you want everyone here to know your business.”
“What’s the charge?” the man persisted.
“OK, we’ll do it your way. Embezzlement,” said Cord.
Henry’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Stealing from the State of North Dakota. You should be ashamed.” Then, to Doekiller, “Read him his rights.”
* * *
“Who told you this?” said Henry Wolsnoki. “My family? They’re not credible witnesses.”
His attorney, Douglas Brown, sitting next to him, nodded. Zeke and Cord sat across the table from them.
Cord said, “Who is Edward Reasons?”
Wolsnoki looked up at him quickly.
That shocked him, thought Zeke.
“I don’t recall,” said Wolsnoki.
“We agreed to this, uh, meeting to clear things up,” said Brown, sensing his client was losing ground. “We didn’t agree to a fishing expedition.”
Brown looked to be about forty, an average sized man with a pin stripe suit and a crisp white shirt. His red tie was clipped in place and his haircut was almost military. He was making notes on a legal pad.