White Thunder

by Thurlo, Aimée

  Ella drove to the hospital, then walked downstairs to the basement where the morgue was located. Although the dead didn’t scare her——she worried far more about the living—she still got a bit uneasy whenever she came down here.

  Ella stepped into the ME’s office. Carolyn was behind the plexiglass, working on the body they’d found and initially assumed was Agent Thomas.

  Ella watched her friend for a moment. Carolyn had paid a high price for serving as the tribe’s ME. She had few friends, and even bore the nickname of Dr. Death, though she was called that mostly behind her back. Since her job required her to work with the dead, she was ostracized by too many—some who believed in the chindi and others who were simply repulsed by the nature of her work. Loneliness had been a constant in her life until she’d married Michael Lavery, a retired county ME. But even then happiness had eluded her. Carolyn’s marriage was in serious trouble. Michael and she had too many conflicting goals.

  As Carolyn moved around the body, she glanced up and saw Ella. Stepping back, she stripped off her latex gloves, washed up, and came into her office.

  “You wasted a trip, girl. I’m still waiting for a list of names from my sources. Things move slow, and most of the office people with access to the records work day shifts. I don’t have any more to tell you now than I did an hour ago.”

  “That’s okay. I wanted to talk to you about protocols. I know that, generally, a body is pronounced dead by an officer or a paramedic at the scene. If the cause of death is believed to be from a chronic illness, or an obvious accident, nothing further is done and the body is sent to a funeral home.”

  “That’s right,” Carolyn replied.

  “But who does the paperwork?”

  “It eventually ends up at the county coroner’s office. He has to issue an official death certificate. For the most part, all the mortuary is required to do is take care of the body and bill the tribe, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “And what about the people at the scene? Is that the extent of their involvement?”

  She nodded. “As long as the paperwork is completed properly, they’re out of the picture—that is, unless a relative files a complaint or wants to talk to them—but, on the reservation, that’s beyond rare,” Carolyn said. “Of course murder or suspicious deaths follow their own set of rules, but you already know the protocols for a sudden unexpected death following trauma, or sudden unexpected death without obvious trauma. That’s your area.”

  Ella gave Carolyn the highlights of what she’d learned so far. “The way I figure it, someone has to be tampering with the paperwork before it can get to the social security office. Either an officer or paramedic is deliberately putting down the wrong name on the records or it’s being changed by someone at county level so the social security checks can be rerouted without problems.”

  “It’s not likely to be the officers or EMTs, since they vary from scene to scene,” Carolyn said, reaching into the bottom drawer, and pulling out a sandwich.

  “Smells good. What is it?”

  “A pork chop wrapped in a naniscaada,” she said with a smile. “They’re good. I have two more. Want one?”

  Ella shook her head. She normally didn’t turn down food, but the body in the next room was enough to put a damper on her appetite. “How can you eat here?”

  “Oh, you mean ’cause of him?” she asked, tilting her head to the right. “Don’t worry. He won’t mooch.” Seeing Ella smile ruefully, she shrugged and continued. “Why should I walk all the way upstairs, where everyone is afraid of me anyway, just to eat?” Carolyn sighed, then gave Ella a sympathetic smile. “In med school, I used to react the same way you do. But you build up an immunity after a while.”

  After saying good-bye, Ella headed back to her unit. The second she stepped out of the hospital doors, she took a long, deep breath. There was one peculiarity about the morgue—a lingering, sometimes strong scent that she’d never encountered anywhere else. The odor was hard to describe, but the closest comparison was the smell of meat stored too long in the refrigerator. Then again, maybe that description was more appropriate than she’d realized.

  Unfortunately, like smoke, the odor seemed to cling to her clothing long after she’d left. But she was willing to concede that it may have been partly her imagination because no one else had ever commented on it—or run away from her screaming.

  By the time she reached her car, Ella had decided what her next step would be. She would concentrate on whoever had custody of the paperwork just before, and right after, it arrived at the county offices. And the best place for her to start would be with Melvin Rainwater. She had a plan.

  Ella called Justine and got her on the first ring. “Are you still at the station?”

  “Yes, I’m still running tests on these seeds.”

  “I need you to do something else for me.”

  “Name it.”

  “Remember that surveillance gear that Blalock gave us a few months ago? One was a mike that could be hidden almost anywhere. His example was a pen.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Place one of those mikes inside one of our generic department pens as soon as possible and meet me in the east parking lot of the Totah Café. I’ll need the device before I make my next stop.”

  “I remember all the pens at Melvin’s house. It looked like he’d stolen one from every place he’d ever been. What are you up to now?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Just get me that pen, ready to activate.”

  Ella contacted Teeny. “Where’s Rainwater now?”

  “With a woman, as always. This time he’s at the home of the mortuary’s secretary, over in Fruitland. She’s at work, but Melvin’s watching TV. I can see him sitting there from where I’m at.”

  “I need to speak to him again. I’ll be there in thirty,” she said. That would give her all the time she needed to meet with Justine and get what she needed.

  Ella spotted Teeny’s truck almost immediately. Parking half a block from his location, she walked up quickly and slipped into the passenger’s side.

  “What have we got?” she asked. Teeny had a powerful set of binoculars on the console between them, and a small parabolic antenna device she knew allowed him to pick up conversations a considerable distance away without bugging anything.

  “He’s alone and he’s had at least three beers, so I would imagine he’s in the process of getting wasted.”

  Ella filled him in on her plan, and he nodded. “Okay, Teeny, then let’s go. You cover the back. I’ve called Sheriff Taylor and I’m free to question the suspect.”

  “Wait. Take one of these. Hold down the button when you want to speak.” Teeny handed her one of two small walkie-talkies, inexpensive-looking devices but very practical at the moment. “I’ll beep you when I’m in position.”

  Ella went to the front door of the small wood-frame house, and heard a slight beep from her pocket. She knocked and, this time, didn’t identify herself.

  Melvin opened the door, saw her, turned, and shot out of the living room. He’d only reached the kitchen when he suddenly stopped and glanced back at her. “This is getting old. I give up. Godzilla’s back there waiting, isn’t he?”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t let him hear you calling him that.”

  Crestfallen, Melvin walked back to the living room and Ella gave Teeny the all-clear on the walkie-talkie. Just as Ella sat down across the couch from Melvin, Teeny came in the front door.

  “I’ve got some serious questions for you, Melvin, and I don’t want to play any more games.” Ella said. “Got it?”

  “Sure, but you can’t pin a murder on me. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You’re looking at conspiracy and murder, Melvin. And you’re withholding evidence, so that’s another federal charge. You’re going down so deep you’ll never see daylight again.”

  Melvin leaped to his feet and bolted across the room toward the kitchen. Reacting in a heartbeat, Ella dove, catching
Melvin in a shoestring tackle, and he went down hard, bumping his head on the kitchen floor. Melvin rolled over and tried to throw a punch, but Ella blocked the effort, grabbing his head and thumping it hard against the wooden floor.

  “Wake up, stupid. You’ve just assaulted a police officer. You can count on six months in Sheriff Taylor’s jail, for starters,” she said, then in a slow, purposeful voice added, “Or, if you play your cards right, you might be able to save your own skin and keep from sharing a cell on death row with your accomplices. Which will it be?”

  “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “Wrong answer,” Ella said, and brought him to his feet by the front of his shirt. As she reached for her cuffs, Teeny placed his arm across the entrance into the kitchen, standing beside Melvin like a stone sentinel straight from Easter Island.

  “I want to speak to an attorney,” Melvin said.

  “You’re not being charged,” Ella said. “At least not yet. Believe it or not, I’m trying to give you a break. Think about this. If I arrest and book you, the second you make bail your partner Krause will do everything in his power to make sure you turn up dead. But, if we keep this informal, say, just between the three of us, you’ve got a shot at staying alive. Remember that although there’s no death penalty on the Rez, this is a federal crime. But what the hell, you’ll probably never survive jail anyway.” She met his gaze and held it. “You’re at the end of the line here, so decide.”

  Ella saw the fear in his eyes, this time not just part of an act, and knew Melvin finally understood. His life, like that of Agent Thomas’s, was hanging by a very slim thread.

  FIFTEEN

  Melvin sagged down onto the sofa and Ella sat across from him on a chair. Teeny stood just to his right, his massive shadow, cast by a lamp in the corner, falling over the smaller man’s face. Whenever Teeny moved slightly, as he seemed to be doing constantly, the light would flicker in Melvin’s eyes, making him squint. Ella knew Teeny was probably doing that as a reminder to Melvin that he was there and in control.

  The next step would be tricky. One way or another, she had to get Rainwater to steal her pen. She’d filled Teeny in on her plan, so now it would all be a matter of luck and timing. Planting a bug officially would have required legal paperwork and, Andy Thomas, if he’d managed to stay alive, didn’t have the luxury of time.

  “Start talking and play it straight, Melvin. I’m all out of patience.”

  “What I’ve told you is the truth,” he said. “I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t mention a few extra details.”

  Ella toyed with her pen, occasionally taking notes on her small notebook. Then, in a gesture of annoyance, she tossed both down onto the coffee table between them, leaned back in her chair, and stared at him. “Now’s the time to protect whatever future you have left. Stop trying my patience and start talking.”

  Ella watched him stare at his hands, and knew exactly what he was thinking. On one hand, he’d be branded a rat and prison wasn’t kind to those who bore that label. On the other hand, if he played his cards right, he might get by with a minor sentence.

  Finally, Melvin looked up at her. “You’ve got me between a rock and a hard place.”

  “Krause will kill you. I’m giving you a chance to live. My deal’s better,” Ella replied.

  He nodded slowly, took a deep breath, and began. “You’re right about Jack Krause being dirty. He came up with a great scam that’s been making us a good, steady income. He pays a data-processing clerk at the county office to change the names on the death certificates when they arrive at her desk. Then Jack sends a change of address request to the social security office for the dead guy, using a forged signature. In a matter of weeks, the benefit checks start rolling in. We’ve only picked on people from the Rez because the chances of getting caught are pretty close to nothing. Nobody likes to talk about the dead, you know that. And, as an added precaution, we only targeted people with no next of kin,” he said. “That way no one would be asking about survivor benefits. But I screwed up with Yellowhorse,” he said, and scowled. “I spoke to several people and all of them told me that he was living there alone, so I figured he was a perfect candidate. What I didn’t know was that he was separated from his wife, and she was eligible to get his checks.”

  “How long have you guys been doing this?” Ella asked.

  “I’ve only been with them for a year, but Krause has been working it for years. It’s a foolproof scam because Krause has been paying off an FBI agent to misdirect anyone who has a question about the dead people or the checks being sent.”

  Ella, trying not to show her surprise, picked up her notebook and pen, wrote down what he’d just said, then pocketed the notebook and stood, walking away from the table. The pen was still sitting there. “And that’s all you know? I was hoping you’d want to avoid the death penalty by giving me Agent Thomas’s location. You know that the body we found wasn’t his. Wrong blood type, even without the face and fingerprints.”

  “Yeah, that was a spur-of-the-moment idea anyway,” he muttered. “Murder’s out of our league, even if we’d been able to find a guy who looked just like him, so Krause and I used what was available at the mortuary.”

  “So where’s Agent Thomas?” Ella pressed.

  “I don’t know. He was grabbed beside his car after getting run off from the Sing, then later got away for a while. I wasn’t there, it was Krause and his FBI partner. Finally Thomas was put out of action—I was told that, anyway. How and where, I didn’t want to know.”

  “You’ve got to do better than that,” Ella said firmly. “Give me something. Do they have him or not?”

  Melvin stood, glanced at his shoes, then scratched his head and looked around the room, stalling. He had the look of a trapped animal searching desperately for a way out. “I don’t know anything more, but there may be a way for you to find out. A few months ago, I overheard Krause on his cell phone talking to the FBI dude. They arranged a meet, so I decided to tail him. He had a lot on me, laws I’d broken, but I had nothing on him, and that wasn’t very balanced, you know?”

  Ella stared at Rainwater, who was wandering around the room aimlessly, shuffling his feet. Now she’d heard it all. The lowlife was worried about balance so he could walk in beauty as he committed crimes? As she looked at Melvin’s expression, she realized that he had no idea how preposterous that concept was.

  “I wish I hadn’t gotten involved in this crap. But it was so tempting. I mean legally it might be considered a crime, but it really wasn’t,” Melvin argued.

  “How do you figure that?” Ella asked.

  “They were dead. We weren’t taking anything from them.”

  “You were stealing from the government.”

  “Yeah, the same people who get campaign funds from contractors, then buy their four-hundred-dollar hammers with our money? Or the ones who borrow money we’ll have to pay back to give the rich a bigger tax cut? That’s the government I’m thinking about. We were tired of waiting for the trickle-down. We figured we’d take back our fair share now.”

  She looked over at Teeny, who gave her a why-not shrug, suggesting that his thoughts ran along the same line as Melvin’s. The one big difference was that Teeny played it straight.

  Unfortunately, Melvin was convinced he was in the right and that he was the injured party. She could see it in his eyes. Most criminals she’d encountered had an amazing ability to rationalize their actions.

  “Okay, enough excuses. Get back to your story,” she said. “So you followed Krause when he went to meet his FBI contact?”

  Melvin continued to pace around the room nervously as he spoke. “Yeah. He went to an apartment in Farmington, one of those buildings off Twentieth Street. I never saw the FBI guy, but I got a look at the woman who lives there. If they’ve got Thomas, I’ll bet that’s where they took him.”

  Ella considered what he’d said, but it didn’t match up with what Thomas had said when he’d called for help—that he was in a dar
k place and couldn’t get out—unless Thomas was in a basement and didn’t know it, of course.

  As she stood up, she saw that the pen had disappeared from the coffee table. He’d taken the bait, probably when he’d first left the sofa. “This better be on the level, Melvin, or I’m coming back.” She turned to look at Teeny. “Or maybe Bruce will do that for me. How about it?”

  “Okay by me,” Teeny replied. “But if I show up on my own, Melvin and I are going somewhere private first—way out in the desert where nobody will be able to see or hear us … talk. But having to take a long drive will probably just piss me off even more. I don’t like people who waste my time,” Teeny growled.

  “I’m on the level, honest!” Melvin was licking his lips nervously, looking in Teeny’s direction but not making eye contact.

  Ella knew Rainwater was still angling, holding back, and playing games. It wasn’t in his nature to be totally forthcoming. But she had all she was going to get for now.

  Once they reached Teeny’s truck, Ella remained standing beside the door while Teeny climbed into the driver’s seat. “I need you to monitor him using that pen’s frequency,” EUa said, giving him the small receiver that would pick up the transmissions.

  “I’ll record everything, but the game’s changing if we have dirty FBI in the mix, Ella. Any thoughts on who it could be?”

  “Payestewa transferred out months ago, so the obvious candidate would be Blalock, the senior resident agent. But I’ve known him too long to believe he’s dirty.” Even as she said it, Ella realized how little she really knew about Dwayne Blalock’s personal life. Did he ever date? Did he have kids from a previous marriage? The truth was she’d never met with him socially except over coffee, after they’d wrapped up a case. She’d never even been to his home, apartment, or wherever he lived. Yet, despite all that, she was absolutely certain he wasn’t guilty. They’d risked their lives together more than once, and Blalock had a scar on his leg where he’d once taken a bullet meant for her.