Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “How so?”

  Ms. Horkley once again turned to the Oreo pack to give her strength to continue. “Jason Red Cloud was the best customer we had for authentic Lakota antiquities. I was delighted that he was able to purchase them, being Oglala himself.”

  “Did he buy things often?”

  “Heavens, yes.” She smiled. “Mr. Red Cloud bought something every month.”

  “Every month?”

  “Yes. Except last month there was an unfortunate problem.”

  Manny waited until she’d swallowed her cookie before continuing. “Mr. Red Cloud came in to buy a star quilt. At least he intended buying it. Very old. Rumored to have been made for High Back Bone.”

  “Who?”

  “Hump.”

  Manny flushed with embarrassment. He should know old Lakota leaders as well as this White woman did. “Jason paid with a corporate check, as he always did. Even for the best of customers like Mr. Red Cloud, we do a bank verification for any amount over a thousand dollars, you understand.”

  “Fully. But there was a problem?”

  “Yes.” Ms. Horkley sat on the edge of the desk. She brushed cookie crumbs off her dress into her hand. “When I checked with the bank, there were insufficient funds to cover the purchase. Mr. Red Cloud became very angry. He said he’d be back when he got it straightened out with his banker and stormed out. But he never came back to pick up the quilt.”

  “Did his checks ever bounce before?”

  “Never. The bank always honored them. This was the first time the bank declined it. I thought they’d made an error. But when I called the bank president personally, he said there was no mistake. He said there just wasn’t enough money in the Red Cloud Development account to cover the purchase.”

  “Tell me,” Manny said, recalling the photo of the quilt when it was returned, “did you usually fold in the edges of quilts like that?”

  “Heavens, no.” She took a small step back as if Manny had called her a profane name. “We always store our quilts like those.” She pointed over the balcony to four quilts in the art section of the store; each hung on individual wooden presentation rods. “That’s the proper way to store antique quilts.”

  He thanked Ms. Horkley and had started toward the door when she stopped him. “What do you think will happen to Mr. Bell?”

  “He’ll be prosecuted under state statute. With his prior arrest record, he’ll go back to the penitentiary.”

  “That’s such a shame,” she said, eating the last of the Oreos. “They don’t feed them very well in jail, do they?”

  “I thought I’d never find you.” Passing cars nearly drowned out Sonja Myer’s voice. She locked an arm in Manny’s.

  “Don’t tell me. That nice Lieutenant Looks Twice?”

  “He’s been so helpful. Now all I have to get is your help with my story and I’ll be all set.”

  Sonja moved closer and her fragrance once again overwhelmed him. Her face was inches from his. “I’m not jerking you around, I just don’t really have anything new,” Manny lied.

  “Then we’ll just go someplace where we can talk. Where I can enjoy intelligent conversation for a change.”

  Manny could not think of a single reason not to go somewhere with this beautiful woman. Except, like any other beautiful woman coming on to an over-the-hill man, she had other motives. He’d go with her, as much out of amusement as curiosity about what she knew.

  She led him past small shops, past other bronze statues he was only vaguely aware of, and sat at an outside table in front of a small bistro.

  “Would you like to hear the specials again?” The enthusiastic young waiter had postgrad written all over his handsome face.

  “Please. I didn’t catch all that.”

  The waiter started reciting the specials again, then he stopped midsentence and put his pencil back behind his ear. “I thought I recognized you. Can I get an autograph?”

  Manny was once again speechless. “Sure.” He reached for the waiter’s pen and pad, but the man jerked his hand back and turned to Sonja. “I’ve been a fan of yours ever since you came here from Denver.”

  Sonja signed the waiter’s pad, and Manny looked after the kid as he disappeared into the bistro.

  “A closed mouth gathers no feet.”

  “What?”

  Manny forced a smile. “I thought he was talking to me.”

  Sonja laughed and rested her hand on his arm. “I get that a lot around here.”

  “Did you work in the media in Denver?”

  “Part-time television. Or I should say my other job was part time: Denver Broncos cheerleader.”

  Manny nodded as if he knew what she was talking about. He couldn’t recall the last time he saw a football game, but if the cheerleaders looked like Sonja, he thought he’d become a fan.

  The waiter brought their order and lingered, looking at Sonja a little longer than Manny felt was appropriate. After the waiter left, she scooted her chair close to his. Her leg touched his lightly, and Manny tried reading anything else into it besides the story she was after.

  “I’m really struggling to have new information by deadline.” She dabbed mustard from the corners of her mouth with a checkered napkin. “Anything, however slight, that might fool my editor into thinking I’ve been doing my job.”

  Manny put his sandwich down and sipped his latte. He decided he hated lattes. Give me the last dregs of the coffeepot anytime. “I can tell you public information, that Jason was strapped financially and his project funding had been matched by the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Thirty million dollars that the tribe stood to lose if the resort failed.”

  “And was it failing?”

  “No comment.”

  “Did he reinvest the money the tribe fronted him?”

  “No comment.”

  “You’re not giving me much to go on.” She leaned closer to him and her breasts brushed against his forearm. “Is that man you just interviewed at the police department a suspect?” She flipped through a reporter’s notebook. “Is Ricky Bell?”

  “Who told you that?”

  She batted her eyes. “There are always desk sergeants willing to listen to the requests of their citizens.”

  “Sergeants or lieutenants?”

  She ignored him and smiled. “I assume the ‘no comment’ is your way of telling me I’m right, that Red Cloud’s resort was failing, and that this Ricky Bell was connected somehow. Like maybe your suspect in Red Cloud’s murder.”

  Manny composed himself. He sat up and slid his chair away from her so he could look at her across the table. “Ms. Myers . . .”

  “Sonja.”

  “Ms. Myers. I really wish I had more information for you. The fact is, the investigation is moving along as expected but there’s nothing more I can say. When I do have more, I’ll call you.”

  She batted her eyes at him. “No need. I’ll be calling on you again soon.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Manny stood when Erica glided into the restaurant. Heads turned and people stared as she picked her way gracefully through the tables. Her black hair hung midback, straight and shiny, in a ponytail held by a beaded dream catcher. Manny looked up to her as she strode toward him like a model on a runway. Erica’s height had helped the Pine Ridge Lady Thorpes to the state championship her senior year, and like her mother, her height enhanced her exotic look. And as with Elizabeth, more makeup would have distracted from her natural beauty, from the light skin and lower cheekbones she inherited from Reuben.

  “Uncle Manny.” She bent and hugged him tight. She pulled back and stared, and frowned as she looked first at the bandage on his head, then at his gauze-wrapped hand. “Mom said you’d been attacked, but she didn’t say it was this bad. You look worse in person than you did on the news last night.”

  “Has everyone seen that botched news conference?” He forced a smile over the pounding in his stitches. “Anyway, it’s not as bad as it looks. But let me look at you.” He held her at arm’s
length and admired her. A year had passed since he’d met Erica and Jon in D.C. for the Indian Rights conference, and five years before that since he had given her away in a small wedding near the Capitol. She’d changed so little in that time.

  “You look even fitter since the last time, Uncle Manny. Still running?”

  He nodded and blushed, his cheeks warm. He knew when he was being politely lied to. Even though he had embarked on his diet and exercise regime, he had gained ten pounds since last year, and what little hair he had left had grown grayer around his temples. Still, in her presence he felt young again. “And you,” he said. “You never change.”

  She smoothed her maroon linen sheath dress before sitting.

  “No Jon tonight?”

  “He got tied up in deposition, but he sends his best.”

  “Ah, the bane of an attorney.” Manny feigned regret.

  Erica began to speak, then dropped her eyes.

  “Trouble?”

  Erica nodded. “It’s the resort project. It could ruin Jon.”

  “How?”

  She glanced around their table and lowered her voice. “His law firm here in Rapid City—and in particular Jon—handled the project. He vouched for Jason, even when he couldn’t back up Jason’s big ideas with the feasibility study the tribe required. Jon figured everything Jason touched turned to gold, and trusted him implicitly.”

  “But the Red Cloud Corporation backed the project. Out West here, that’s better than posting a bond.” He hadn’t believed it when Elizabeth told him Jason was going under, and he found it difficult to believe it coming from Erica.

  “That’s another thing that Jon covered for him,” she whispered. “The Oglala Sioux Tribe waived a thirty-million-dollar bond on Jason’s reputation, and on Jon’s and my assurance that the project would progress on schedule. But with Jason dead, it’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no one to run it.”

  “Couldn’t someone else in the corporation run the project? Surely the board will see that it would still make a bundle for the corporation and the tribe. From what I’ve heard of Jason’s ambitions, the project would have been a slam dunk.”

  The waitress brought their tea and Manny asked for a little more time to order. He dropped the sugar packs and used the Sweet’N Low as he waited for Erica’s explanation. “There is no board. The corporation was a corporation in name only. He took over after his parents died, and he made all the decisions.”

  “I understand there’s Jason’s executive assistant, Clara Downing. Have you thought about working with her? Proceeding with the project?”

  Erica flushed. Her lips quivered as she leaned closer to him. “Clara Downing is inept. She’d be even more of a disaster than Jason.”

  “Have you worked with her before?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t, but Mom has. She can’t stand Clara.”

  “Why?”

  Erica stopped and studied her sweating water glass, running her finger over the sides. “Well, I guess Mom just doesn’t trust her. There’s nothing she can put her finger on. It’s just women’s intuition, Mom says.”

  “But you personally have never seen Clara Downing’s work?”

  Erica lowered her eyes. “No. But I trust Mom’s judgment.”

  “OK. But apart from Clara Downing, Jason had all those projects. That Skylight Hotel in Breckenridge. The Deer Lodge Ski Resort outside Billings. Surely he must have—”

  “He threw them up by the seat of his pants. Believe me, I learned there was nothing sound in anything Jason did in business. And I know business.” Erica had landed a full ride to Harvard right out of high school, one of the few Oglala Sioux to attend an Ivy League school, and she’d made the most out of it. She had excelled in her business administration major, and Jason hired her to help the Red Cloud Resort project get off the ground. Erica put her heart and soul into the project to make it a success, but now it wasn’t going to happen.

  The waitress hovered over their table. Erica ordered a Cajun chicken salad, shaming Manny into dropping his yearning for a fatty prime rib and ordering a salad, too. When the waitress left, Manny leaned closer. “The bottom line then: How solvent was Jason?”

  Erica shook her head. Her hair shimmered in the light of the votive candle on the table. “Clara Downing might tell you more. Jason wasn’t solvent at all. He squandered what money he had left these past few years, and made some bad investments. Then there was the failed high-rise in Aurora that nearly wiped him out, until he could come up with something else to build. But the worst thing is he put the tribe’s money in trust, just like I suggested to the tribal council, except Jason controlled the trust. It will look like I was in on it with him.”

  “What trust money?” Manny whispered.

  “Nearly all the money the tribe had in its coffers. We—that is, I—convinced the council that the Red Cloud Corporation would match the tribe’s money dollar for dollar. The more they invested, the larger and more successful the project would be.”

  “The crucial question is when did you realize that Jason planned to take the tribe’s money and run?” The timing involved could be the difference between a poor choice of business partners and a prison sentence for fraud. “When did you find out he intended ripping off the tribe?”

  Erica wiped tea from her lip and paused before answering. Manny thought the pause a little more than necessary, as if she needed time to concoct a story, but maybe he allowed his agent’s suspicion to get in the way of an uncle’s good judgment. His niece was an honest person, but with Jason dead, she would shoulder the brunt of any fraud allegations.

  “It was about two weeks ago. I thought Jason had hired me because I had such a good consulting track record. I was actually patting myself on the back until I figured out that he didn’t hire me because of my Harvard degree. He hired me because I was from Pine Ridge, like that would make a difference to the tribe.”

  Erica’s voice quivered and tears formed at the corners of her eyes. He wanted to hug her as he did when she was a child, wanted to tell her everything would work out. But she was right about the reasons Jason hired her: Her Harvard degree would impress tribal council members, and they would trust one of their own even more. The Oglala had a history of being stomped on and taken advantage of by outsiders, and they would have been wary of anyone other than another Oglala endorsing the project. People knew Erica had overcome tremendous setbacks to get ahead, and knew she’d grown up under the burden of her father doing time in the state pen for the Two Moons murder. She would later become a star basketballer and excel academically, only to be rejected from every top college despite her athletic and scholastic accomplishments. When she unexpectedly landed a scholarship to Harvard, people on the reservation cheered her on. People would remember all these things about his niece and trust her judgment. But right now, that judgment had tarnished her reputation, and it might ruin her career.

  The waitress brought their salads, and Manny cut a slice off the hot mini-loaf of garlic bread resting on a wooden board. He passed it to Erica, then cut another slice as he steeled himself for his next round of questions.

  “I need to know something. There was rumor around that you and Jason were having an affair.”

  “An affair with Jason! He’s as old as—”

  “Your own father. That’s not uncommon today.”

  “No. I wasn’t having an affair with him. The man made my skin crawl. How could anyone even think that we were involved?”

  “You and Jason spent a lot of time together on the project after he came to stay on Pine Ridge.”

  “Once he moved into the tribe’s house, I spent nearly every day with him. Except for a couple days he was gone, and that business trip to Minneapolis for a weekend, we spent every day together. A project of this size takes a lot of work, and we couldn’t afford to be slackers, even for a day. But an affair? No way.”

  Manny selected the raspberry vinaigrette from
the three small cruets the waitress had brought. He read the label and put a little on his finger before replacing the cap. He grabbed the ranch dressing: too many calories and too much fat. He returned that bottle and went back to the raspberry, trickling some over his salad. Perhaps Erica was being truthful and knew nothing about Jason’s scheme to bilk the tribe of their money. Still, there was the argument Henry Lone Wolf overheard.

  “Someone overheard you and Jason arguing a week before he was murdered.”

  Erica took the dressing from Manny, and matched his look while she dribbled dressing on her own greens. “I found out Jason intended stealing the tribe’s money. He said he was going to invest it in a winter resort project in Jackson Hole, said that would keep his head above water long enough for him to make good on the Pine Ridge resort.”

  “Witnesses say you threatened to tell Jon it was over. That sounds like you were going to come clean on an affair.”

  Now Erica laughed, either out of nervousness or relief, Manny couldn’t tell. “I threatened to tell Jon that Jason intended to embezzle the tribe’s money. I told Jason I would work up the case myself and take it to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. When he heard that, he exploded—that damned temper of his. He grabbed me. Violently. I never saw him that mad before. He was always so . . .”

  “Charming? That’s how most people who didn’t know him well described their meeting with Jason. Except he was about as charming as a carbuncle.”

  “Exactly!” she said. She put her fork down midbite and leaned closer. “He was charming. So much that it surprised me when he grabbed me. It frightened the wits out of me. He looked capable of killing anyone who got in his way, and I was in his way. So when he finally let me go, I told him I would give him the chance to do the right thing. I told him to go through with the project, that he didn’t have to steal the tribe’s money. He promised me he would, and we planned on the ground breaking the day he was killed.”

  Manny was sorry he had to ask her those painful but necessary questions. “Jason’s ‘charm’ sold the tribe on the project. The last one you should blame is yourself. You were so committed, you knew the project just had to succeed.”