KIA

by Thomas Holland

  Onapa, Oklahoma

  MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2008

  Shuck Deveroux turned his white pickup onto the Muskogee Turnpike and headed east toward Broken Arrow and the Arkansas state line. Kel’s airplane had been delayed out of Denver and had arrived at Tulsa International airport almost an hour behind schedule. With the afternoon already on the wane, Deveroux found himself pushing the speed limit, anxious to get to the small community of Onapa before dinner. When he’d called and reintroduced himself from the airport, he’d told Ed Tenkiller that he’d be there by no later than three o’clock. It was already past three and by dead reckoning they were still at least twenty-five minutes away. Tenkiller hadn’t been too receptive to meeting with Deveroux but had agreed in the end, and Deveroux didn’t want to do anything to spook the deal. He’d hoped to keep Tenkiller just off balance enough to be loose tongued without getting so dizzy that his mouth dried up. Now it looked like the game board was going to be turned, and Deveroux would be the one off balance and apologizing for being late.

  Deveroux looked at Kel and then refocused on the road. He reached over and turned the tape player down. Vaughn Monroe’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky” was just audible above the roar of the tires. He thought McKelvey looked worse for the wear of the long trip. “Glad you’re finally here, Doc.”

  “Thanks. Appreciate you pickin’ me up. And don’t take offense if I nod off at some point.”

  “No problem. My only concern is gettin’ to Tenkiller’s place before it gets any later.” He checked his watch. “I’m afraid he won’t feel the need to wait on us; he didn’t seem just overjoyed to hear we were comin’.”

  “Hmm, imagine that.”

  “Yeah. Kinda like pickin’ open a scab, don’t you think? And an old scab at that.”

  “Old and painful. More like pickin’ open scar tissue. Don’t forget, the army carried his brother as a deserter until the mid-eighties sometime. Eighty-four or ’85. Somethin’ like that. I’m sure this is not Mr. Tenkiller’s favorite topic of discussion. I’m bettin’ he doesn’t break out the family albums for us.”

  “I suppose not.” Deveroux was focused on the road ahead of him again. “General Fick was sayin’ that it was the brother that turned all the knobs to get Jimmy Lee Tenkiller declared dead. He said that the army had plenty of doubts but a lack of balls, and in the end they buckled to pressure from some congressmen.”

  “I hear ya. So Fick thinks Tenkiller really deserted?”

  “Who knows?” he shrugged. “I couldn’t get him to tell me what he really believes.”

  “He as tough as they say? Fick. I’ve always heard stories. Worked with a Special Forces colonel once who claimed he’d actually gotten himself Ficked. Described it as a low-yield nuclear blast from outta nowhere; said he melted into slag—and he actually outranked Fick at the time.”

  Deveroux smiled. “I’ve heard all those stories, too. I dunno. He was friendly enough to me, but he’s definitely a piece of gristle; you can chew on him for hours and still not know quite what you’re dealin’ with. Plus, he’s almost seventy years old now; I suspect the reactor’s cooled somewhat from his youth.” Deveroux eased the truck into the right lane and approached the exact-change lane of the tollbooth. “I think we get off here,” he said. He spoke to Kel over his right shoulder as he handed the toll attendant a dollar and a quarter. “Open up that map, will ya?”

  Kel had the map opened on his lap and was tracing one of the thin dark lines with his finger. “Got it.” He looked up to verify his bearings, and then put the map on the dashboard. “So, General Fick remembered Tenkiller by name?”

  “Sure did, though I suspect he’s the sort that can remember the name of every person he’s ever met, but in this case, yeah, he remembered Tenkiller quite well.”

  “How so?

  “Well, now, that’s what’s so interestin’. Seems that their paths crossed twice. First time was in 1970…”

  “The year Tenkiller went missin’.”

  “Right. In fact, he goes missin’ a couple of days after Fick first meets him. Like I was tellin’ you over the phone, General Fick—’course at that time he was a young captain—he was workin’ for CID on some sort of special assignment and had been sent to Vietnam to investigate your black market case. He’d questioned a couple dozen folks or so, and Tenkiller was last on his list. So, in September he finally questions Tenkiller; doesn’t get much out of him, but—so he says now—he came away from the meetin’ with a real strange feelin’ about Master Sergeant Tenkiller.” They were approaching Checotah, and Deveroux slowed the truck in anticipation of their next turn. “Here?”

  “Yeah. Take a left.”

  “Roger that. By the way, that thick file of stuff that Fick gave me?” Deveroux continued after completing the turn. “Haven’t gone through it all, but some of it is pretty interestin’ readin’.”

  “I’d like to see it. See how it compares to the official file that we have.”

  “Sure. Anyway, Fick interviews Tenkiller and says he gets a strange feelin’ that somethin’s not quite right. He plans on lettin’ him simmer for a day or two and then rattlin’ his birdcage again. Problem is…”

  “When he goes back, Tenkiller’s gone. Right?”

  “Right. Story was that he was on leave, at least that’s what Tenkiller’s CO thinks. Thinks our boy is shacked up in a cheap hotel with a mama-san.” They began passing buildings.

  “Couple more miles. So, his CO thinks he’s out bar-finin’ some workin’ girls.”

  “Right. Everyone thinks that he’s simply taken a few hard-earned days off for some R and R…”

  “Except that he doesn’t come back,” Kel said.

  “Except that he doesn’t come back.”

  “And thirty days later, he’s dropped from the company roll as a deserter.”

  “You got it,” Deveroux replied. “’Course Fick’s always assumed he ran, but the Tenkiller family doesn’t see it that way. I say family, actually it’s just the one brother, I guess. Anyhow, the brother argued that he didn’t fit the profile of a deserter. Career military, approaching early retirement with fifteen-plus in. Ready to redeploy out of Vietnam. No need to run…”

  “Of course, the idea of spendin’ another fifteen in—this time breakin’ rocks at Leavenworth—can be a real motivator to stretch your legs.”

  “That’s Fick’s position.”

  “So what was the second time? You said he and Fick had crossed paths twice.”

  “Yeah, that’s the ironic part. By the time the Tenkiller family—the brother, that is—had finally convinced enough congressmen to stir the pot, guess who’s sittin’ on the review board to examine Sergeant Tenkiller’s status.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yup,” Deveroux answered.

  “And Fick voted to amend his status?”

  “Nope. He dissented, but the other two on the board voted for it, it only takes a majority. Two to one, and that’s how Jimmy Lee Tenkiller became one of your KIAs. Fick likes to say he killed Tenkiller, but really all he did was chair the committee that declared him dead.” Deveroux again began slowing the truck. “Unless I’m mistaken, this is the place.” He turned into a gravel lot and looked at his watch. “And we’re only an hour late.”

  Kel looked out the window at the metal frame building whose parking lot they had just pulled into. The hand-lettered sign on the roof said The Bait Can.

  Eddie John Tenkiller watched them drive up. Business had been slack most of the afternoon, and when they hadn’t arrived on time the idea of closing early and leaving began to tickle his imagination. He had no desire to talk to these two strangers any more than he’d wanted to talk to that other white-eye a few months ago, and the urge to shutter the windows and lock the door tugged hard. He watched them stand up and stretch and look up at the sign above his shop.

  After all these years, why now? What did they want with him?

  Eddie John Tenkiller looked remarkably like his older brother. He wa
s seven years his junior but shared Jimmy Lee’s modest proportions, his broad forehead, the sharp cheekbones, the full lips. And yet there was a difference that was not so quickly captured by photographs but would be obvious in the flesh. Eddie John’s eyes lacked the glare of a wronged youth; lacked the bottomless clarity of rushed maturity, but then he’d had an easier go of it than had Jimmy Lee. His mother, a small, quiet Cherokee with eyes that lit men’s hearts and a smile that could cloud men’s thoughts, had died giving birth to her second son, and his father, faced with the prospect of raising two young sons by himself, had sought the answer in the amber contents of a bottle. The foster family that had raised Eddie John, while strict and unbending in many ways, was at least loving and gentle, and stood in stark contrast to the Methodist spinsters and bitter old men at the Indian school who correlated the frequency of canings with the development of Jimmy Lee’s God-fearing character.

  He watched the two men angle across the empty parking lot. They had parked near the street rather than near the door, as if to give them a moment or two to better evaluate the situation before entering, and they turned this way and that and gazed attentively at the building as if preparing to make an offer on the real estate. Their appearance was military; at least the tall one’s, despite the civilian dress. He was cleanly groomed, with broad shoulders that reflected an exercise regimen that was obviously foreign to the smaller of the two, but he walked with a small stutter suggesting stiff knees. The other was slightly older and bearded and conveyed an air of fatigue. They both had on dark glasses that they removed as they opened the door. Just as the other one had.

  A two-toned electronic beep signaled the door opening.

  Eddie John Tenkiller busied himself with a cardboard display of Rebel fishing lures and purposefully avoided conspicuous eye contact.

  The tall one with the bad knees was the first to speak. “Afternoon.”

  Tenkiller looked up. “Help you?”

  “Yes, sir. Hope so. My name is Deveroux, and I’m lookin’ for a Mr. Tenkiller.”

  “Me. I’m Tenkiller.”

  “Well, sir, I’m Special Agent Deveroux with army CID. We spoke on the phone this mornin’. This here’s Dr. Robert McKelvey of the Central ID Lab.” He waited for Tenkiller to acknowledge the introductions.

  Eddie John nodded once.

  “Mr. Tenkiller, first of all, let me apologize for bein’ late. We got hung up at the airport in Tulsa, you know how that goes sometimes.”

  In fact, Eddie John Tenkiller didn’t know, he’d never been on an airplane in his life, but he gave another quick nod of acknowledgment in the hope of speeding along the meeting.

  “Also, let me thank you for agreein’ to meet with us on such short notice.” Deveroux was sincere, if a little calculating.

  “What can I do for you?” Eddie John directed his question to Deveroux, but his attention was on Kel, who was fingering the display board of fishing lures, seemingly unconnected to what his partner was doing. Eddie John was wondering if this was some of the Good Cop, Bad Cop tactics that he’d read about and heard about.

  “Not sure, really, Mr. Tenkiller. Lookin’ to ask a few questions is all.”

  “About what?”

  “Your brother.”

  Eddie John stared in response. It was a hard look.

  “Your brother’s Jimmy Lee Tenkiller?” Deveroux asked.

  “Was. My brother’s dead.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean…”

  “Can I help you?” Eddie John interrupted. The question was directed at Kel, who was examining a clear plastic blister package with a colorful lure inside.

  Kel looked up in surprise. “What? Ahhh, no, I…just lookin’. I worked in a factory that made these one summer when I was growin’ up. I used to paint all them dots on the tail there. Kinda caught me by surprise that they’re still makin’ the same model. Doesn’t seem to have changed at all. Dots aren’t painted quite as skillfully, maybe. Hard to get good help nowadays.”

  “It catches plenty of fish,” Eddie John responded. “It’s a good lure.” He was anxious to deflect the conversation onto more stable terrain. The other man, the one who’d come asking about Jimmy Lee last fall, he’d started the same way. He’d just wanted to ask a few questions.

  “Ahh, Mr. Tenkiller.” When Deveroux had regained Tenkiller’s focus, he continued. “Just a few questions. Here’s the background. I’m investigatin’ a couple of homicides—murders—that happened in Kentucky and Tennessee. Took place on military installations, that’s why the army has the lead on the case.”

  “I’ve never been to Kentucky or Tennessee.”

  “No, sir. I never meant to suggest…ahh, you aren’t a suspect in this case. Don’t get that idea.”

  Eddie John looked at Deveroux but said nothing.

  “No, sir. Perhaps there’s a, a, umm, is there a place where can sit down and talk?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Right.” Deveroux looked over at Kel, who smiled but now kept his attention focused on a rack of multicolored rubber worms. “Well then…”

  “I run this place alone. No help. I have to stay here,” Eddie John said; he too was watching Kel. “I keep on the lookout for shoplifters.”

  Deveroux followed Tenkiller’s look over to Kel. “Don’t blame you at all.” He smiled. “Be okay to shoot shoplifters if I had my way.” He waited until he’d recaptured Tenkiller’s attention. “So…yes, okay. A few questions, then. We can do them right here. I guess first, a little more background. These two murder victims that I mentioned were immigrants—former Vietnamese military officers—and we have reason to believe that your brother may have known these two men during the war. In fact, we think that these two, and your brother, were part of a…a group of sorts. We also think that there may be three more. By any chance does the expression Five Brothers mean anything to you? Ring any bells?”

  Eddie John Tenkiller looked down. The eyes had been noncommittal earlier, but when he raised his head they had changed. Now they smoked with undisguised anger. “I had one brother; not five; just one. He died many years ago. Why can’t you men let him rest? Why you and that other man not let him be? He asked about Five Brothers too. I have one brother, and he died.”

  Deveroux looked at Kel, who had abandoned his interest in rubber worms and was staring at Tenkiller.

  “Mr. Tenkiller, excuse me for interruptin’ Agent Deveroux, but did you say there was another man askin’ about your brother? When was this?”

  Eddie John returned Kel’s stare. “Last October. Another round-eye.”

  Deveroux again looked over at Kel. “Mr. Ngon, or Mr. Linh—whatever his name is—the first one, at Knox, that was in October.” He looked back at Tenkiller. “Round-eye? You mean Caucasian? Did he tell you who he was, or why he was askin’? Say why?”

  “Don’t remember his name. He said he was a friend of my brother in Vietnam.”

  “D’you believe him?” Kel asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Deveroux picked up the questioning.

  “Jimmy Lee had no friends in Vietnam”

  “Any idea who he was?” Kel asked. “From around here?”

  “Louisiana.”

  “Louisiana? Why do you say that? He got an accent, or…?” Deveroux continued.

  “No.”

  “No. Then what makes you say Louisiana?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Deveroux and Kel looked at each other again and then back at Tenkiller. Both men were running the probabilities through their heads. All along, both had been reluctant to believe that the connection between Deveroux’s dead Vietnamese and Master Sergeant Tenkiller was anything more than a historical coincidence, but now they were forced to factor in the odds of a stranger asking Eddie John Tenkiller about the Five Brothers, and doing so at the same time as the first murder.

  “Mr. Tenkiller, can you give us a better idea of what this man looked like?”

  “Like you.”


  “Me? Us?”

  “White.”

  Deveroux nodded and continued, “Can you narrow that down any? I’m afraid that there’s a lot of us white guys around.”

  Eddie John Tenkiller looked at both men. There are a lot of white guys around, he thought. Men like them had beaten his brother. Men like this had robbed him of his future. “I need to close now,” he said. “You men should leave.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Onapa, Oklahoma

  MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2008

  “I’m in serious need of a Slim Jim,” Shuck Deveroux said as he pulled his pickup truck off the main road into the parking lot of a small Tote-n-Go convenience store. It rolled to a noisy stop, the muffler rattling against the undercarriage. He turned off the ignition and the motor continued to cough and choke as they walked to the door.

  Inside, Deveroux grabbed a couple of Slim Jims from the counter and opened one of the sliding glass doors of a soft drink cooler. He touched several bottles, feeling for the coldest, before pulling two Coca Colas out and handing one to Kel. They were all barely cooler than room temperature. “So, what do you think about all that back there?”

  “Thanks,” Kel replied, taking the bottle. “Wasn’t really Mr. Friendly, was he?”

  “No, but then I saw the way you were looking at those lures. Maybe he thought you were goin’ to steal one of them.”

  “I was tempted. He had some nice ones, but I don’t think that was his problem.”

  “Seriously, d’you expect him to be? Friendly, that is. Two strangers come into his bait shop and start askin’ personal questions—can’t say I’d be too talkative either under those circumstances.”

  “Probably right. What’d you make of someone else askin’ about that Brotherhood business? More than a bit of coincidence, don’t you think?”

  Deveroux had finally sorted a wad of money into a semblance of order and handed a five-dollar bill to the young woman behind the counter. She had a bright-green smock and an enormous ball of hair the color of a ripe lemon. He smiled at her as he waited on his change. “Thank you, ma’am.” He nodded and then turned his attention back to Kel. “Sure. More than a bit, I’d say.”