Hallowed Ground (Julie Collins Series #2)
Page 36
And like my mother’s death, I hadn’t gotten over it, I hadn’t moved on. In fact, I’d moved back to South Dakota from Minneapolis for one specific purpose: to find out who had killed my brother and why.
Probably masochistic to abandon a promising career in the restaurant industry to apply for a secretarial job in the miniscule county where Ben had been murdered.
In my pie-eyed state following his funeral, it’d made sense. With unfettered access to legal documents, I suspected I’d uncover a secret file on Ben—like on those TV detective programs—detailing why, how, and whodunit, and I could get on with my life.
There wasn’t any such file. So, here I am, years later, stuck in a rut that’s developed into a black hole: a dead-end job, sexual flings that masquerade as relationships, and the tendency to avoid my father and his new family like Mad Cow disease.
No one understands my anger, frustration, and the sadness wrapped around me like a hair shirt. Some days, I didn’t understand it. Time hadn’t healed the wound of grief; rather it remained an ugly sore, open for everyone to gawk at and for me to pick at.
In the immediate silence, Missy’s globes of cleavage turned into blushing grapefruits. She avoided my eyes, but her clipped tone was the voice of authority. “They prefer to be called ‘Native Americans’.”
I snagged the mangled paperclip and pointed it at her, hating the saccharine tone she bleated in the presence of testosterone. “No, they don’t. Most of them prefer their tribal affiliation. Native American is a politically correct term.”
“Whatever,” Missy said with a drollness she’d yet to master.
“So, fill us in,” I said. “What color was the body they found?”
Al shifted toward the fax machine, away from me. Missy furnished me with a view of the bra straps crisscrossing the folds of her back. “White. Young, female, about sixteen, fully clothed. The body wasn’t decomposed, according to Gene.”
“Suicide?” Tom asked.
“Didn’t say. They’re keeping the details quiet.”
A disgruntled sound cleared my throat before I stopped it.
Missy whirled back to me, coquettish manner forgotten. “Don’t start. This doesn’t have a thing to do with your brother’s case.” She whined directly to Al. “See?”
Hands shoved in my blazer pockets, my fingers curled longingly around the pack of cigarettes stashed there. Damn those crusading nonsmokers.
The sheriff shot me a withering look, but asked Missy: “She been identified yet?”
“They notified next of kin.”
“What else did Gene tell you?” His gaze swept the bulletin board overwhelmed with official notices and the never-ending explosion of papers on the desk. “I don’t remember seeing any reports of a missing local girl.”
In a community our size, a missing dog is big news. A missing child is tantamount to calling out the National Guard.
“That’s why they’re keeping it low key. The girl was a minor living in Rapid City, but for some reason her parents didn’t report her missing.”
Again, my mouth engaged before brain. “Well, lucky thing we’ve got local law enforcement, the Feds, DCI and everybody and their fucking dog concerned about this one dead white girl.”
The sheriff gaped, hooking his thumbs in his gun belt loop. His sigh was a sound of utter exasperation. Touchy, feely crap was not his forte’ but I didn’t give a damn. Let him flounder. God knows I’d done more than my fair share.
“Aren’t you off shift now? Go home. Forget you heard any of this.”
“I think that’s why Gene waited to call,” Missy offered slyly. “He knew she’d react this way.”
Again, my reputation for resentment had eclipsed the real issue.
“This case doesn’t affect us,” Sheriff Richards said. “Ben’s death is irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant to whom? Not to me.” My thumb ran along the grooves of my lighter. In my mind I heard the click, watched the orange flame fire the tip of my cigarette. Mentally I inhaled.
“Surface similarities, but we don’t know the details. Besides, your brother’s case is cold, so I’m missing the connection.”
“Come on,” I intoned, rookie teaching a veteran a lesson. “A death in any local creek is a connection. Maybe now that one with the right skin color has surfaced, Ben’s case will get the full investigation it deserved.”
The ogre in him bellowed, “Julie, will you stop? Jesus! We did a full investigation. Everybody and their fucking dog—as you so eloquently put it—busted ass on his case.”
Paws slapped his desk, sending a family picture snapped at an old time photo studio in Keystone crashing to the carpet.
“You know the BIA and AIM still sniff around, so don’t give me that ‘we don’t care because they were Indian’ line of bullshit.”
So much for the short-lived touchy, feely crap. I struggled not to flinch under the discord distorting the airless room.
He sighed again. “Take the weekend to clear your head; get drunk, get laid, whatever it takes to get you out of here until Monday.”
His finger shook in the same manner as my father’s. I braced myself for the slap that wouldn’t land, waited for the invariable but.
“But I hear one word you were up there playing PI at the crime scene, or asking questions of any agency involved and I’ll suspend you without hesitation and without pay, got it?”
In my mind’s eye, I zoomed inside the safety of my TV screen, a cool cat like Starsky, blasé about getting my ass chewed. There, in the perfect fictional world, the stages of grief were wrapped up within the allotted hour. I wished it were simple. I wished I didn’t live every damn day with sorrow circling my throat, choking the life out until my insides felt raw, and hollow, and left me bitter.
So, for a change, I didn’t argue with him, press my viewpoint or try to change his; it was useless. Recently, even I’d grown weary of my combative stance and reputation. Unfortunately, my uncharacteristic silence didn’t help the sheriff’s disposition. He’d brought meth-crazed bikers to tears with his practiced glower, which quite frankly, right now aimed at me, tied my guts into knots that would make a sailor proud.
“Get some help,” he said. “Grief counseling, anger management, whatever. Deal with your loss and stop making it some goddamn,” he gestured vaguely, plucking the appropriate word from mid-air, “soapbox for racial injustice.”
Neither Al nor Missy spared me a glance. Wasn’t the first time he’d broached the subject, nor would it be the last. At this point it wasn’t worth my crappy job. Playing PI indeed. I was a PI—albeit part-time. Although Sheriff Richards disapproved, legally, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
I smiled pure plastic. “Fine. I’ll drop it. As far as grief therapy? I’ll be doing mine at home, in my own way, but gee, once again, thanks for your overwhelming concern.” Self-indulgence aside, the door made a satisfying crack as I slammed it on my way out.
BLOOD TIES
LORI G. ARMSTRONG
Blood Ties. What do they mean?
How far would someone go to sever … or protect them?
Julie Collins is stuck in a dead-end secretarial job with the Bear Butte County Sheriff’s office, and still grieving over the unsolved murder of her Lakota half-brother. Lack of public interest in finding his murderer, or the killer of several other transient Native American men, has left Julie with a bone-deep cynicism she counters with tequila, cigarettes, and dangerous men. The one bright spot in her mundane life is the time she spends working part-time as a PI with her childhood friend, Kevin Wells.
When the body of a sixteen-year old white girl is discovered in nearby Rapid Creek, Julie believes this victim will receive the attention others were denied. Then she learns Kevin has been hired, mysteriously, to find out where the murdered girl spent her last few days. Julie finds herself drawn into the case against her better judgment, and discovers not only the ugly reality of the young girl’s tragic life and brutal death, but ties to her and
Kevin’s past that she is increasingly reluctant to revisit.
On the surface the situation is eerily familiar. But the parallels end when Julie realizes some family secrets are best kept buried deep. Especially those serious enough to kill for.
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