Murder on the Red Cliff Rez

by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  One

  Tuesday, May 4, 1999, 7 A.M.

  Tuesday, May 4, 8 P.M.

  Tuesday, May 4, 10:30 P.M.

  Wednesday, May 5, 4:15 A.M.

  Two

  Wednesday, May 5, 7:45 A.M.

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Also by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  Copyright Page

  For Tom … my dearest friend

  Foreword

  Thousands of years after Adam and Eve were given the boot, the Ojibway, following the advice of their prophet, went looking for the land where food was said to grow on water. Their discovery of wild rice in northern Wisconsin meant that Eden was reclaimed. A few hundred years after this, the voyageurs—canoe—paddling Frenchmen—came on the scene, looking for valuable pelts and native alliances against the English. Behind them came the Black Robes—the priests. The Ojibway subsequently became known as the Chippewa and were dutifully baptized and given French names.

  A little more than six years later, Eden underwent a severe transformation as well as its own name change, to Wisconsin. Paul Bunyan and his ilk discovered the bounty of the North Woods, primarily the ancient white pines growing four hundred feet tall and with trunk bases as wide as Chevys. In an ax-swinging frenzy, Paul and the boys reduced most of Wisconsin to a stumpy prairie, with the exception of pockets of a few hundred acres.

  During the subsequent years while the United States learned to become a country, then a world power, the North Woods made a comeback. The new growth was not spectacular, but the newly emerging forests were enough to serve as a subtle reminder of what once had been. Under wiser management the few surviving pockets of old growth became protected as a national treasure, and with the abundance of wildlife, Wisconsin became known as the sportsman’s paradise. The best-kept secret of these modern times is that the capital of this nirvana is not Madison, Green Bay, or Milwaukee. It is, for those in the know, the picturepostcard-perfect New Englandesque town nestled serenely on the banks of Lake Superior.

  They call it Bayfield.

  Just up from the town of Bayfield, and situated on the tip of the peninsula, surrounded by the Apostles Islands, is the Chippewa Reservation of Red Cliff. Bayfield and Red Cliff are good neighbors, and since the days the Wisconsin legislature declared state supremacy, the Bayfield County sheriff’s office and the tiny Red Cliff police department have enjoyed a friendly competitiveness, and for the most part have been mutually cooperative. But this friendliness has never been tested because speeding, drunk and disorderly, and the occasional domestic and/or bar fight are about as wild as the off-season in the deep woods has ever been known to be. Red Cliff doesn’t have a jail, so a serious offender—a fist-swinging drunk—can look forward to a lockdown in the Bayfield County jail until his appearance before the judge in the tribal courthouse in Red Cliff. Sentencing runs the gamut: a severe lecture, a hefty fine, or in worst cases, both.

  A few years back Red Cliff had an abundance of indigenous felons known as one-month lifers. It used to go this way: When a man’s family was hungry, he’d take a deer; then the game wardens would take him to the Bayfield County lockup. The fella would serve his time, get out, take another deer, go on another month vacation. Life continued in this peculiar circular pattern until once again the Chippewa tribes decided, Well, hey! This is ridiculous. That bit of tribal wisdom, coupled with clear treaty language and a rather lengthy court struggle, resulted in Indian hunting lands and seasons being duly extended. Able to hunt in ceded territories, Chippewas were no longer being locked up and fed at Bayfield County’s expense. Life in and around Lake Superior’s most northern region subsequently became a little dull. Especially after the October Apple Fest, when the last of the camera-toting tourists faded and the populations of Bayfield and Red Cliff settled down to about two thousand. It became duller still when the lake effect storms howled and the temperatures struggled to soar above minus twenty. During the winter the number of rez cops falls from five to three: a dispatcher to answer the phone; two to drive around displaying a presence.

  There hasn’t been a deliberate murder in this woodland paradise in anyone under fifty’s living memory.

  One

  Tuesday, May 4, 1999, 7 A.M.

  Irene Girard liked to walk her dog. It was a stupid dog, as big and as ugly as an inescapable nightmare, but it loved her to pieces and she loved it right back, so she walked it on a chain leash mornings and late afternoons without fail, come peaceful sunrise or raging blizzard. Irene and her dog were walking down the center of the dirt track that passed the fancy new house belonging to the tribal attorney when she heard and saw something terribly disturbing. She went right home and told her husband Ned, who lost no time clambering inside his rattling truck and speeding off to Buffalo Bay Store. He’d told his wife they needed milk. The Girards didn’t take milk, not even in their spoon-dissolving coffee. Ned had been in the store almost an hour talking to a group of men when Benny Peliquin, who did buy milk, came in. With Benny’s appearance, Ned began retelling Irene’s story all over again, the early morning crowd of regulars still quietly attentive. Well, why not? Ned’s story was far more interesting than the current news that Ricky Dehue was moving his trailer house.

  “Irene’s dog, you know, Brutus, eh?” Ned pulled a face. “I hate that dog. It shits everywhere. Puts out turds as big as an elephant’s.” Ned’s face cleared. “Anyhow, Irene was a‘walking Brutus and they was going on down the road so’s Brutus could leave elephant turds on other folks’ yards when she hears a big ruckus comin’ outta your cousin’s new house.”

  From all outward appearances, Benny Peliquin, a tall reedy man with a weathered face who spoke in Lake Superior commercial fisherman’s mumble, was only mildly interested. Benny’s expression was impassive as he counted the change lying in the callused palm of his hand. He felt Myra Chigog intently watching him as she leaned across the countertop, resting the upper part of her body on folded arms. The milk Benny was in the process of buying stood near her arms, condensation trickling down the plastic container, creating puddles on the counter’s Formica. He also felt the steady gaze of the half-dozen men forming a semicircle around him as they sipped their coffee from white Styrofoam cups.

  “That was a dollar twenty-five, you said, eh?”

  “Twenty-six,” Myra corrected.

  Benny placed the exact change on the counter, picked up the drippy container by its side handle. Turning, he bumped chests with Ned Girard. The older man was determined to say what he obviously felt Benny needed to hear.

  But as Ned was champing at the bit to tell tales about Benny’s family members, Benny issued a warning. “Ned, I’m figuring you’re just about to step where you don’t belong. That’s dangerous ground, chum.”

  Ned Girard audibly gulped. Benny was getting him all wrong. Sure, everybody knew … but that wasn’t what he was getting at. No, sir, that wasn’t what he was meaning at all. To smooth over a rough moment, Ned spilled the beans.

  “Like I was tryin’ to tell you. My Irene came home sayin’ she’d heard screaming over at your cousin’s. She said she was just standing in the road wonderin’ what in the world, when she seen them two little kids come runnin’ outta the side of that house. They went straight for the trees. She couldn’t see no path or nothing, but she said them kids looked to her like they knew just where they were a-goin’ because once
they hit the woods, they just disappeared. Then the yellin’ started up again. This time it was so bad that it scared Brutus an’ that damn dog took off, pullin’ Irene right off her legs. Once that dog gets to runnin’ the fool don’t know when to quit. Hell, Irene was flappin’ like a flag behind him when Brutus came gallopin’ into our yard.”

  Ned crossed his arms over his chest, his expression grave. “Now, Benny, I know I don’t have to tell you that this ain’t the first time yellin’ has been heard comin’ outta that house.”

  Complete silence descended, Buffalo Bay Store’s early morning audience holding its collective breath. Ned and Benny continued to stare at each other. They held the stare for so long that the morning regulars were on the verge of keeling over from lack of oxygen. Still not saying a word, Benny finally turned on his heel, taking himself and the container of milk out of the store. Through the glass doors the crowd gawked as Benny ambled toward his truck and climbed in. Seconds later the truck roared out of the parking lot.

  Ned Girard offered another opinion. “Fellas, purty quick a few things around here are gonna get real bad.”

  Behind him the Chippewa version of a Greek chorus promptly sounded: “Enh-enh!”

  Tuesday, May 4, 8 P.M.

  In Ashland, a forty-minute drive from the rez, and inside the BIA’s Great Lakes Agency located on the second floor of the Ashland Post Office, C. Clarence Begay paced, gnawing the knuckle of his right hand, his mind working as furiously as his teeth. C. Clarence had been with the bureau for twenty years. He was Irish-Navajo, very proud of the Irish bit, even though other than a pug nose poised incongruously on a wide, heavy face, the man displayed no trace of his Celtic ancestry. A short-limbed, thickset man (the thickness due to an almost religious commitment to green chili and hot buttered corn tortillas), C. Clarence was consistently thought to be a decade above his actual forty-three years.

  C. Clarence hated Wisconsin. In his opinion, the northernmost state was equivalent to hell on earth. For one thing, the Chippewas had an overabundance of French blood oozing through their veins. For another, they talked too fast and sounded Canadian: for example, everything they said habitually ended with eh. They also called everybody chum. C. Clarence did not like being called chum. It made him feel like something about to be fed to sharks. During his first foray into the Lanes, the Red Cliff watering hole, the chums and ehs were flying so thick and fast that he hadn’t been able to enjoy a simple beer.

  Wisconsin had too many trees, tall suckers growing just too damn close together for someone who had been raised in an endless desert, a land so unobstructed that tomorrow was a visible haze on the horizon. In Wisconsin, C. Clarence couldn’t see squat because there was always a jackass tree in the way. And he was secretly terrified of becoming hopelessly lost inside all that greenery. After a year, most of it spent suffering through the most appalling winter of his life, C. Clarence realized that he was a raging claustrophobic.

  But he wasn’t thinking about any of that as he paced and mindlessly chewed his knuckle. He was thinking of the way he’d been used, duped, pulled into something that filled him with absolute panic. He wasn’t a criminal. He was simply a sucker. But no judge on earth would ever believe him. And the Chippewas …

  His hands covering his face, C. Clarence groaned. He indulged his fear for a moment before steadying his resolve. Then, with effort, he forced his hands away, lifting his chin in a determined fashion. He had to do something to save himself. He knew he would never make it through a stint in Leavenworth.

  Tuesday, May 4, 10:30 P.M.

  “Daddy!” Imogen whisper-screamed into the telephone. It’s one thing to be hysterical with fear, quite another to wake the kids with it.

  “Jeanie?” the sleepy male voice croaked in response. She heard a tiny squeaking sound and realized her father was forcing his eyes open. A little more awake now, her father yawned and asked, “What’s the matter, baby?”

  Imogen said hurriedly, “I have to come home, Daddy.” A trembling hand swiped tears from the exquisite face that once belonged to Miss Cherokee Nation Princess, 1989. For the last decade an edgy woman with a nervous smile and hollow laugh had been posing as the former beauty queen. The doppelgänger even had the nerve to wear Imogen’s clothing as it frivolously signed her name to credit card receipts. Both entities called themselves Imogen Boiseneau.

  A great long distance away, in the town of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Imogen’s father had come wide awake. Her saying that she needed to come home had even propelled him out of bed. His wife, Brenda, Imogen’s mother, switched on the bedside light, watching bleary-eyed as her husband paced, stretching the telephone cord as far as it would go while he ran a hand through his steel-gray buzz cut. Brenda sat up, stuffing pillows between her back and the bed’s headboard. By the time she finished this simple task, her husband had turned and was pacing back toward her end of the bed.

  Retired Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation Warren Otis was a devoted parent. Imogen was his only child. His ability to protect his daughter ended the day he’d handed her over in marriage to Judah Boiseneau. Since that day, Justice Otis blamed himself for his daughter’s descent into marital hell. For over ten years he’d choked on the guilt.

  “I want you to listen to—”

  He was cut off by his daughter’s earsplitting shriek. A second later his daughter spoke hurriedly into the phone, and what she was saying hit him with such a brutal force, his face drained. Brenda Otis noticed that her husband now stood rooted to the floor, his ruddy coloring becoming chalky. The man known for being unflappable under any circumstances (and in Cherokee politics this was the stuff of legend) now looked white as a corpse. Terror seizing her, Brenda clutched the front of her nightdress. She screamed, “For God’s sake, what’s wrong?”

  Warren Otis raised his eyes, and for a second or two looked at his wife of over thirty years as if he didn’t know her. Then his color came back in a rush. Impatiently he waved Brenda into silence as he listened to their daughter. Then Warren Otis commenced to yell.

  “Jeanie, get the hell out of that house. Don’t bother to pack. Put the kids in the car and drive to Duluth. By the time you get to the airport, tickets will be waiting. Do you understand?”

  Imogen, the real Imogen, as the alter ego she’d relied on for years had suddenly done a bunk, sat folded in a wing chair, forehead resting on her knees. “Daddy—”

  Warren Otis bellowed, “I asked, Do you understand?” Without waiting for Imogen’s response, he slammed the phone down and grabbed the telephone book off the nightstand’s lower shelf, almost ripping each page apart in his hurried search for Northwest’s 1-800 number.

  “Yes,” Imogen whispered to no one. She tried to cradle the receiver. Trouble was, she couldn’t make her hand let go. Looking down at the back of her hand, she saw that her knuckles were shining through the skin like a row of tiny white skulls. As quickly as the thought formed, a spasm wracked her entire body.

  Wednesday, May 5, 4:15 A.M.

  Little Sand Bay on the Red Cliff Reservation jutts out into Lake Superior. Deep in the woods, about a half mile back from Lake Superior, heavy rains beat against a solitary log cabin, wind rattling the surrounding tree limbs. Amid this noise, Tracker, like a drowning victim, came violently awake: upper body arched, mouth opened, face aimed toward the rafters as she sucked in a load of air. The storm had nothing to do with her blast into wakefulness. Or with the fact that she was shaking as hard as the leaves on the wind-lashed trees. This was purely the effect of the dream that still held her in its relentless grip as she sat in the bed, legs bent, heart hammering inside her chest.

  It took time and concentration to obliterate the face she had seen in her dream. Finally it faded, then was gone. Able to breathe a bit more easily, she slowly curled backward until she was again resting against the pillows. Lying very still, eyes straining against the darkness, she listened to the winds howl and the rain tick against the bedroom windows.

  And then Cher commenced to
sing inside her skull. “Do you believe in love after love?” Cher’s song got caught in a merciless loop (echo effect included). In order to break free of it, Tracker yelled, “Hell no!” at the ceiling.

  Startled awake by his mistress, Animush (Dog) stirred on the pallet at the foot of the bed, then yawned a loud doggy yawn. Animush—Mushy, for short—rose; toenails clicking against the floor, the huge brown cur moved toward the side of the bed. Mushy was used to his mistress’s nocturnal misery. This had been happening night after night for about six months now, and Mushy had learned just what to do to rouse his mistress. Nudging a wide cold nose against her even colder hand, the big dog flipped that hand until it partially settled on the broad space just above two concerned dark eyes. After a minute or so, that seemingly lifeless hand began to stroke Mushy’s rough fur. This was a good sign. A minute more of petting, and the woman he knew and slavishly loved spoke in a near-normal tone.

  “Hey? Who’s up for coffee?”

  Mushy barked as Tracker threw back the heavy quilts. On a nice day the cabin’s lone human occupant enjoyed a view of Sand Island. This morning the view was obliterated by cloud cover. The light inside the cabin’s workroom came by way of overhead fluorescent tubes running the length of the ceiling in a utilitarian-stark room of unfinished sheet rock covering insulation that covered log walls. The bluish lights reflected off rough plank floorboards liberally splattered with layers of rock-hard clay blobs. In the far left corner a Franklin wood-burning stove set up off the floor on a pallet of bricks did its best to quash the morning chill. Even though it was technically spring, May in Wisconsin was more often than not monkey-butt-ugly cold.

  The first thing Karen Charboneau—known to family and friends as Tracker—did after climbing out of bed was feed splits to the living room stove and then the workroom stove. Within minutes both stoves were glowing cherry red but the cabin remained cold, which was why Tracker hadn’t bothered to change out of the long johns and thick socks she’d slept in. Standing at the work counter, coffee mug in hand, she thoughtfully studied the green-ware firing schedule while the toe of her right foot scratched at the ankle of her left leg. The workroom radio, tuned to FM 88.9, emitted Muddy Waters’s throaty warbling. A rez station, WOJB did its best to hit every level of musical taste. Absolute bite-ya-in-the-ass blues was aired only during the wee hours.