Murder on the Red River

by Marcie R. Rendon

  The lone man was gone from the laundromat. She corralled a wire cart on wheels and loaded the wet clothes into it. She sorted the clothes into jeans and cotton. The jeans would take two coins and the cottons just one.

  She sat down to read the Fargo Forum back to front, funnies first, while her clothes dried. Drying clothes wouldn’t give her enough time to read the whole paper so she figured to get the good news first. When the first dryer stopped, the one with the cottons, she stood up, filled the wire cart with the warm clothes. She held an armful to her chest before putting them into the cart. Ah, that this kind of warmth would always be present. But even as she held the clothes to her, they cooled off. She dumped them in the cart and wheeled them all over to the folding counter. By the time she had neat stacks of folded t-shirts, socks, undies and bed sheets, her jeans and towels were dry. The jeans were folded in half lengthwise because they would be draped over the back of the overstuffed chair. The towels were more neatly folded to fit into the bottom drawer of the dresser. Done, Cash stuffed everything back into the canvas bag, except the jeans, and took it all home to her apartment.

  She put everything away. Swept the floors of her small apartment, opened the window shades in the living room/bedroom and put the clock back up on the dresser, just so, so she could read it from bed without getting up.

  There were no mementos on the dresser top. No family photos. No jewelry box. There was a half-empty box of .22 shells. She kept it just like Wheaton kept his place in Ada. Sparse. No photos or mementos either. There had been a box of shotgun shells sitting on his kitchen counter though. At least she had a couple pool trophies won in some tournament or other.

  And some blue chalk. Cash had a habit of pocketing the chalk that bars set on the edge of the tables for the players. There were nine pieces of chalk on her dresser. She’d have to try and remember to take a few back to the Casbah.

  She opened the top drawer of the dresser and counted the quarters. Fifteen dollars worth, which she dropped into a lone sock that she then knotted at the opening. Farther back in the drawer was what was left of her bankroll from the season’s work. She had enough for rent, which was coming up, and a couple twenties. If she caught Jim early enough at the Casbah, maybe she could talk him into going over to the Flame this weekend where they were having a winner-take-all pool tournament. The Flame was a strip joint and it was fairly easy to rake in a bunch of money as the only girl playing on the tables. The men’s attention was definitely not focused on their game, but Cash liked to have Jim with, even though she would have to split the take, because sometimes the men got a little too grabby.

  There: laundry done, belly fed, money counted and a plan made to get some more money. Cash couldn’t avoid it any longer. She picked up her pillow and gathered the papers she had stuffed under there. She went out to her little kitchen, and discovered one more diversion. Making a pot of coffee. Once the coffee was done and poured into her thick white ceramic cup, Cash sat down at the table and read the papers, word for word, line for line.

  She saw now that her high school report cards were included. Whoever had typed the papers had put little red ink x’s on the signature lines where her name would go. Cash pictured the campus that she drove by when she went to Shari’s Kitchen. A wooded campus with a thick winding sidewalk visible from the road. College kids wearing jeans, longhaired, books tucked under arms. Right now, the college was empty, according to the papers in front of her. The actual fall term would start in a week and a half.

  Cash lit a cigarette. Smoked and drank her coffee. Filled her cup when that one was empty and lit another cigarette. She had always liked school. School had been a refuge from the foster homes. In grade school she had been a bit of a bully. She had learned early that when she started a new school, if she fought the toughest kid the first chance she got, after that everyone tended to leave her alone. And when she started working the fields, she ended up working with a lot of her male peers over the summer so going to school with them was easy. The teachers tended to like her because she liked learning. Liked reading. Even with her drinking weekends all through high school, she had been a straight-A student. But not once had anyone ever said to her, “Why don’t you go to college?” And here, sitting in front of her, was her opportunity. Cash signed her name next to the various red x’s just to see what it felt like.

  It had to be Wheaton who had dropped these off. He had signed as her guardian after she had gotten this apartment and still had a year and a half of high school to finish. That was the one condition Wheaton had placed on her. That she finish school. And she had. She lit another cigarette and filled her coffee cup. She sat back down and looked out the window to Main Avenue.

  She could see the front end of her blue Ranchero. She leaned forward enough to see the edge of the Casbah sign. She heard a train rumble by on the tracks a couple blocks from her apartment. She heard an appliance truck, engine running, sitting in the alleyway. This was her world, a living breathing country western song—a truck, a bar, a train and a back alley.

  College?

  What day was it? She had been in so many different places, over such short amounts of time, with a lot of beer thrown in there for good measure, she had to stop and try to recollect what day it actually was. Then she remembered she had read the Forum down in the Laundromat. She had a trick with her memory, where she would pull up a page she had read and could visualize it in her mind. She did this now with the Fargo Forum. She pulled up the funnies because she had spent the most time reading that page, and yep, there in the upper right-hand corner was today’s date: Monday, August 24, 1970.

  Damn, she was missing a day of work. But it was Monday. Cash figured a college would be open on a Monday.

  She stuffed the signed papers back into the envelope, stuck her cigarettes into the front pocket of her clean jean jacket, went downstairs and fired up the truck. She traced her way back towards Shari’s Kitchen until she reached the Moorhead State campus. She parked on the street across from the main archway that led to the campus proper. She pulled a cigarette out, rolled down the truck window and lit up.

  She sat there smoking, looking at the world around her. There was so much more green here than around her apartment.

  On the other side of the street was a flat modern building that called itself the MSC Lutheran Students’ Association. There weren’t any students around but Cash saw a couple teacher-types walking across the grass between the red brick buildings.

  There was a wooden sign that said Administration Building, with a gold-toned arrow pointing at the closest redbrick building. If she was going to do this, she better do it. She flicked the cigarette out onto the pavement and grabbed the envelope from the seat beside her. She had to wait for a break in traffic and then ran across the street, not bothering to walk to the corner and cross.

  Cash felt a queasiness in her stomach, the same feeling she would sometimes get bent over the pool table, lining up a shot at the 8-ball, with either a tournament trophy or something like fifty bucks riding on her making the shot. Cash slowed her walk as she got closer to the door of the Administration Building.

  She pulled open the door and was surprised at how dark the inside of the building seemed. Quiet and dark. The only sound was her footsteps walking across the smooth brick floor. She stopped for a moment and looked around, taking in the inside of the building. There was a window that looked like a bank window, with the screen rolled down: Not open for business. There were other windows where Cash could see women sitting behind desks, typing. There was a sign on a door that said Administrative Offices. Cash knocked.

  “Come in.”

  She opened the door and poked her head in. “I’m wondering where I turn papers in to register for school,” she mumbled.

  “’Cuse me?” asked the woman.

  Cash cleared her throat, raising her voice a little. “I’m wondering where I turn papers in to register for school.”

  “Oh!” said the woman, “that would be right acros
s the way there.” She pointed in the direction behind Cash. “Right over there where it says Registrar’s Office. Take your papers right over there. Cindy will help you. She’s the one working today. You’re a little late with those, so you better make sure you get them in.”

  “Thanks,” said Cash, pulling the door shut behind her. She felt the woman watch her as she walked across the hall and knocked on the door that read Registrar’s Office.

  Cindy was a lot older than her name implied. Cash expected women whose names ended with y to be cheerleader-types, perky and young. This Cindy was wearing orthopedic shoes with eyeglasses hanging on a beaded string around her neck, with a different pair of glasses set towards the front of her nose. Her hair was overpermed and she wore a dress like Cash had only seen farm wives wear to church on Sunday.

  “How can I help you?” she asked Cash.

  “I want to register for school.”

  “You need to fill out the paperwork,” said Cindy. “Let me get those for you.”

  “I already have them.”

  “Oh. Well, let me see.”

  Cindy took off the glasses perched on her nose and put on the ones hanging around her neck. “Hmmmm. Well, these are all in order. You never took any SATs?”

  Cash didn’t know what Cindy was talking about. “No.”

  “Well, we have a minority waiver on the tests. You can start your freshman year, but you have to take them before the end of the school year. Think you can do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe will give you a full scholarship, I see. So really all you need to do is fill out these papers to get yourself a dorm room.” Cindy reached back to a metal file cabinet and pulled out some sheets of paper that were stapled together. She handed them to Cash.

  “What did you say?” asked Cash.

  “These are the papers you need to fill out to stay in the dorm.”

  Cash held the papers out to Cindy. “I’ll be staying in my own apartment.”

  Cindy switched glasses and peered at Cash. “Honey, freshman girls are NOT allowed to live off campus. All our girls stay on campus.”

  “I’ll stay in my own apartment,” said Cash.

  “No, honey, it’s not allowed.”

  Cash reached over to pick up the registration papers and turned to walk out. “Of course, some girls who live with their families, they don’t have to live on campus,” Cindy said.

  “So if I live with my family, I don’t have to live in a dorm?” Cash asked without turning around.

  “That’s right, honey. Of course, we need these signed and a letter from your parents saying that you are living with them.”

  Cash turned and set the registration papers back on Cindy’s desk and stood there without saying anything.

  “Well,” said Cindy. “You bring me that letter and come back on Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday?”

  “Wednesday is when everyone registers for their classes if they didn’t pre-register. Which you didn’t. So you need to come in on Wednesday and get your classes. There will be a line of students outside that window”—she pointed to what Cash had thought of as a bank window. “That’s where you line up to get your classes. Bright and early, eight am.”

  “Alright.” Cash turned and left. Damn! she thought as she walked across the green lawn. Damn.

  She made a U-turn when there was a break in cars and headed straight to Ada. She stormed into the jail and slapped the parental consent forms to live off campus in front of Wheaton. He picked up the papers and burst out laughing when he read them.

  “You think this is funny!?” Cash yelled at him. “I made a fool of myself going to that college and turning those papers in. You know I can’t live on campus! In a dorm with a bunch of white girls!! Wheaton, I’ll end up killing someone. I can’t do this. I can’t live with a bunch of white girls.”

  “Slow down, Cash. Slow down.”

  “Why did you do this?” Cash’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Ah, girl, I didn’t know about any rule that you had to live on campus. You’re too smart to drive grain truck the rest of your life. Or beet truck. You could be a lawyer. You could be a teacher.”

  Cash rolled her eyes.

  “Well, maybe not. You could teach girls Phys Ed. Heck, I don’t know, Cash, I just know you can do more than what you’re doing. And the Tribe will pay for you to go to college. I thought what the hell, it’s worth a try. You’ll go, won’t you?”

  “I can’t live in a dorm, Wheaton.”

  “Well, I signed for that apartment you’re in. We’ll just fudge a bit and say that you live there with your guardian.”

  “You’d do that?”

  Wheaton didn’t answer. He just signed the papers Cindy had given her. Then he rolled his chair around to face the typewriter. Click. Click. Click. Cash smoked a cigarette while Wheaton typed. He stopped typing and rolled the paper out of the typewriter and signed it with an ink pen. “There you go, girl. Take these back and turn them in to whoever you need to turn them in to. I think you need to get a phone too.”

  “A phone?”

  “Yeah, a phone. Going to college, you’ll need a phone. You’ll need to go to classes. You won’t be able to run back and forth like you been doing. If you have a phone, we could talk by phone. How was the trip up to Red Lake? See, if you had a phone, I could call you and you tell me, not have to drive all the way up here.”

  “A phone?”

  “Take it you haven’t watched the news either. Some folks have a TV these days. Or a radio that works, in their house, not just in their truck.”

  Cash blew smoke in his direction. “I do have a radio.”

  He waved the smoke away with his big hand. “We have another dead body.”

  Cash sat up. “Where? Who?”

  “This one’s a white guy.”

  Cash sat back and took another drag of her cigarette and waited for Wheaton to continue.

  “He was found in that big ditch north of town. About half a mile from where Tony O’s body was dumped.”

  “Shot?”

  “Nope, this one was choked to death looks like. Looks like they—whoever they are—were parked up along that road drinking. Lots of beer bottles and cigarette butts thrown out around there. The body is already down in the basement of the county hospital. Thought we could drive over there. Figured you’d be out this way today, so I was just kind of hanging around waiting for you to show up.”

  Cash was tempted to swear at him again. Instead she stood up. “Let’s go then.”

  They climbed into Wheaton’s cruiser and headed to the county hospital.

  In the car Cash asked, “How come you don’t have any pictures of your family in your house?”

  Wheaton ignored her.

  “At least I got pool trophies,” Cash said.

  No answer.

  At the hospital they entered the back door and headed downstairs. There was no one there today. When Wheaton went to ring the buzzer for the doc, Cash stopped his hand and opened the door and walked in. Wheaton followed her. Cash went to the walk-in freezer and opened the door.

  There was only one body in there. She walked up to the end of the metal table where the white sheet covered a rounded lump. She pulled the sheet down. A dusky pallor covered the young man’s face. His neck had black and blue marks where hands or a rope had circled it. She covered the man’s face up and walked out of the freezer. She could hear Wheaton following her.

  Out of the room, she stood looking up out the basement window. A strip of grass waved in the breeze and she could see bits of blue sky. Healing rays of god’s love, wash gently over me. The guy was just a kid. Not much older than she was. She turned to Wheaton and said, “I remember his name. When he came into Arnie’s, one of the guys called him John. They seemed to know who he was with.”

  “I asked around,” Wheaton said. “There was a whole group of men that came over from the Dakotas, most of them young.”

  “Ye
ah, they were in the bar that night.”

  “Apparently they hightailed it out of town. Three of them left without picking up their checks. One of the men who didn’t pick up his check was named John Swenson. Figure that’s him laying in there. The other two, I had my clerk call them when she came in for a few hours. They just went home for the weekend and are driving back into the Valley today. They don’t sound like our guys. And besides, John here was killed last night. Figure that means our two outlaws are still around.”

  “Who all have you talked to?” Cash asked.

  “All the men I can find. Been up and down the Valley. Out to all the big farms that hire on. No one’s heard anything or seen anything suspicious.”

  “Which farm were the Dakota boys working?”

  “Wang’s.”

  “Well, when John came into Arnie’s, he walked over and talked to the Dakota boys. They have to know something.”

  “Maybe so,” said Wheaton, “but they’re not talking to me. Heard one of them was running the table at Mickey’s last night.”

  “Thanks a lot, Wheaton. Now I’m catfish bait?”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “Yeah, I know. I have to be back in Fargo by eight am Wednesday morning to register for classes. Seems I’ll be registering late,” Cash said pointedly.

  “Come on back to the jail and you can read over my interview notes from the guys I talked to. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t.”

  “S’pose I could. Was thinking of driving out to Wang’s myself and signing on for sugar beet harvest.”

  “You’re going to school.”

  “I could work graveyard shift,” answered Cash. “There’s a tournament at the Flame this coming weekend. Figured I would go to that, make enough money to last a couple of weeks.”

  “Those papers said you get a full scholarship to go to school. Including living expenses.”