Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Manny, still unsteady on his feet, wanted to be out of the house and away from the scalps. “I may be back for more questions.”

  “Call next time before you come. Understood?”

  When they walked out of the house, Reuben stood from the steps. He looked at Manny and wrapped his arm around his shoulder, leading him down the steps toward the car. “Again?” he whispered.

  Manny nodded as Lumpy climbed behind the wheel. How Reuben always knew when Manny experienced a vision baffled him.

  “I don’t think you’re in any shape to drive.”

  Manny could find no argument with that.

  “We’ll have to talk about it later, you know?”

  Manny nodded again. For a brief moment before he climbed back into the car, he thought the scalps called out to him, but he wasn’t entirely sure what they said.

  CHAPTER 23

  Manny sat toweling himself off as he sat on a tree stump overlooking the creek in back of Reuben’s trailer house. They had emerged from the initipi, the sweat lodge that Reuben had permanently erected along the bank of the meandering creek. Reuben had tied willow boughs together and draped plastic sheeting and heavy canvas over that so no light could escape, so the cleansing heat would stay until he threw back the door. As always, this sweat had been brutal. Just how Reuben liked it.

  Manny turned his head and shoulders to the west, savoring the cooling breeze. Reuben had soaked him with a garden hose, and Manny wanted to sit all afternoon with his shirt off enjoying the air. But he had an investigation to conduct, an investigation that competed with his attention to Willie lying on his deathbed.

  Manny grabbed his Dockers and shirt draped over a bicycle with one wheel missing. The rusty bike provided the perfect clothes hanger, having been left there for so long the cottonwood tree had grown up around it. He tucked his shirt in and slipped his ID wallet into his trousers.

  Reuben sat in a lawn chair, his butt sticking through missing slats, sipping a Coke and fiddling with his sunglasses. As was Lakota custom, Manny had brought a gift when he visited Reuben, his Ray-Bans the only thing he had on him to give.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “You.” Reuben straightened one bow and slipped the glasses on. “You are still fighting against it.”

  “I told you, I didn’t have a vision at Eagle Bull’s.”

  “Then what do you think happened—Disney animated those scalp locks so they could talk to you? You got to come to grips with the fact that visions find you now and again, even when you don’t want them. And there is meaning to every one of them.”

  “That my big brother talking shit?”

  “This is your brother the sacred man talking. And I do not shit you.”

  Manny held up his hands. “Don’t start with your holy man analysis.”

  Reuben sat relaxed in his chair as if talking with a group of schoolkids. “Then what do you think happened?”

  Manny sat back on the stump and started pulling on his socks. Sometimes, Reuben was such a pain in the ass, prodding on subjects that Manny had no desire to talk about. “Just what I said, that my blood sugar spiked. I felt better once I had a sandwich.” Manny tried to convince himself as much as Reuben that he had not had a vision at Wilson’s.

  But Reuben was right—Manny denied his visions taking over his mind, taking over his body at the least opportune times, visions of things he couldn’t explain. Since returning to Pine Ridge last year, a lifetime of disallowing his native roots had caught up with him. What he couldn’t figure out was if it was a curse—as he thought it was—or a blessing from Wakan Tanka as Reuben believed. Either way, it scared the hell out of Manny.

  “Why don’t you admit what happens when you see these things?”

  “If what you call visions don’t help me solve cases, I got no time for them. I came here to sweat. Maybe come up with an answer for my hallucination today. Besides my diabetes acting up.”

  Reuben uncapped a root beer and handed it to Manny. “You got the right answer, kola. Those scalp locks told you a story. Now you’ll have to make room in your heart to hear what they had to say.”

  Manny drank half the root beer in one gulp, feeling his strength returning. The initipi always rejuvenated him, just as Reuben espoused, with the heat and the water and the dome representing Mother Earth and the breath of life healing his body. But today, his mind was in more need of that healing.

  “Something else bothers you, kola.”

  Manny turned to him. “You the Amazing Kreskin or something? How’d you know I . . . got problems?”

  Reuben shrugged. “I just know things. I know something has upset you besides Willie’s condition.”

  Manny turned to him, taking a deep breath before he confessed. “I felt pride when I was in Harlan’s shop among the artifacts. I felt pride when I looked upon Wilson’s display of relics.”

  “Pride in what?”

  Manny pushed an ant out of his boots before slipping them on. “That the Lakota—our ancestors—defeated Custer so soundly. When I went to the Little Big Horn Memorial the other day, I only felt pride in those warriors.”

  “Pride is not necessarily a bad thing.” Reuben toweled the sweat off his chest and shoulders, the water pooling in deep scars across his chest and neck. “As long as you do not use pride for your own gain.” He stood and stretched as he looked at the steep bank they’d have to climb to get back to Reuben’s house. “I have always felt pride in what our warrior-ancestors did. They did nothing else that other people would not do. They protected their families, and were willing to die for it. Tell me that is not something to be proud of.”

  Manny nodded. As always, Reuben was right. Now all Manny had to do was get past the feeling of pride that Manny had for Reuben for his involvement in the American Indian Movement. But that would have to be a discussion for another day, for another sweat. For the moment, he had an investigation to conduct.

  * * *

  Manny left his rental parked at Big Bat’s after he’d finished his breakfast burrito and walked across the street to the justice building. It had seemed so strange having breakfast at the convenience store alone. Whenever he worked a Pine Ridge case, he and Willie would usually have breakfast there together, two men on Indian time and in no hurry. This morning Manny realized just how much he missed his talks with him. He shuddered when he thought of Willie being fed his breakfast through a tube stuck down his throat.

  He walked up the flight of stairs and into the building. Someone on the other side of the smoked glass buzzed him through the security door, and he walked the long corridor to Lumpy’s office.

  “I wouldn’t get too close.” A secretary stuck her head out of a cubicle. “The bear got here just twenty minutes ago, and he’s crankier than usual. If you can believe that.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Manny called over his shoulder. He continued until he reached the door with ACTING CHIEF LOOKS TWICE in letters painted across the door. He rapped, but got no answer, and rapped again. Silence. He turned the knob and cracked the door. Lumpy sat in his velvet Elvis chair, hands cradling his head as his elbows rested on his desk, looking like Manny felt. Dark circles under Lumpy’s eyes melted into puffy cheeks sporting yesterday’s stubble. A large yellow stain followed his gig line on the front of his shirt, which could have been breakfast or last night’s supper. “Bad night?”

  Lumpy used the edge of the desk and stood. He shuffled to the coffeemaker and began scooping grounds into the pot. “The worst. While you were at Reuben’s doing God-knows-what, I sat with Willie all night.”

  Manny dropped into a chair opposite Lumpy. “You gonna give me the update?”

  The coffeemaker started dripping dark liquid into the carafe, but Lumpy kept his back to Manny. He sighed deeply. “Willie’s lungs filled with liquid last night. We damned near lost him.” Lumpy turned around, tears starting at the
corners of his eyes, and he turned back to the pot.

  Now maybe you’ll treat Willie better if he pulls out of this, Manny thought, but he said nothing as he walked to the coffee cart and grabbed two cups. “Maybe I’d better get up there . . .”

  “I wouldn’t.” Lumpy filed both cups and turned back to his chair. “Doreen spelled me this morning, and she’s even more pissed at you than she is at me. She thinks I should have let Willie go from the department, and blames you for encouraging him to stay.”

  Lumpy dropped into Elvis and Manny swore the King shed tears in solidarity. “I’d still be up in Rapid if I didn’t have to put out fires here.”

  Manny wrapped his hand around his coffee cup, feeling the warmth, waiting for Lumpy to tell his problems at his own speed. “I got a call from the tribal councilmen from Porcupine and LaCreek Districts. And the Fifth Member. All about Wilson Eagle Bull.”

  “Don’t tell me: Eagle Bull complained we harassed him?”

  “You got it. He complained about the acting police chief coming to his house with a known felon, and about you implying he knew where Degas was but wasn’t saying.”

  “I didn’t imply anything. I know Wilson knows where Degas is and I said so.” Manny smiled. “I’d say that’s a direct accusation.”

  “Either way, this is strictly a federal case from here on. Wilson’s got a good chance of being the next state senator from Pine Ridge and they don’t want bad PR mucking it up for the tribe.”

  “So your department won’t help me?”

  Lumpy stood quickly, Elvis rolling and hitting the wall with a dull thud. “Dammit it, I got no choice. The tribal council made it plain: with Eagle Bull and Chenoa both active in the National Congress of American Indians, their working together will bring animosities between our tribes down. Either I toe the mark, or they’ll replace me with someone who can.”

  “So you won’t help?”

  Lumpy remained silent over the coffeepot.

  “We weren’t raised that way,” Manny said. “You and me, we were raised to help people. And especially now, we need to help each other to find Degas. Or whoever shot Willie.”

  Lumpy turned around, empty coffee cup dangling beside his leg.

  Lumpy turned back to the coffeemaker and grabbed the carafe, putting it down before he could refill his cup. “If something comes up that I can help on the sly, I will,” he said over his shoulder. “But it’s strictly unofficial.”

  Manny nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Unlike the official bitch they pitched to your senior agent in charge.”

  “So I can expect the SAC to chew my ass as soon as I hit the office?” But Manny already knew the answer: “Hard Ass Harris” would salivate with the opportunity to chew Manny’s butt again. “Last time I couldn’t sit for a week.”

  Lumpy nodded. “I wouldn’t answer any cell phone calls either.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Manny timed his drive to Rapid City to coincide with lunch break, and arrived at the FBI office while everyone, including Senior Agent in Charge Hard Ass Harris, was out of the office. Manny peeked inside before making his way to his office. He grabbed a stack of messages from his mailbox in passing and closed the door. The jeweler had called with price quotes on his and Clara’s wedding rings. Clara had convinced them they should get married while they both had the courage to go through with it, while Manny was still in the “let’s get an engagement ring first” mode.

  He thumbed to the next message, where Queen City Motors in Spearfish had finished the front fender and quarter panel from where the tree had come out of nowhere in the city park to hit Clara’s Cadillac. Manny hadn’t thought at the time that he deserved Clara’s wrath for wrecking her “baby,” even though he was driving.

  The last message was from Stumper LaPierre this morning, and Manny cursed the secretary for not calling him. He snatched his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Stumper. “What we got?”

  “First, how’s Willie?”

  “Not good. Sounds as if his fifty-fifty chance went south.”

  Manny imagined Stumper picking his teeth with his pocketknife. “The medical examiner completed the autopsy.”

  “Was he able to ID Sam?

  Paper shuffling. “No. He hasn’t received Sam’s military record to compare X-rays and dental records yet, but he’s got an expedited request in. Also, he sent DNA samples and toxicology to the FBI lab in Quantico with a ‘hurry-the-hell-up note’ as per Senior Special Agent Tanno.”

  “Oh that’ll get quick action. Now give me the quick and dirty of what the ME did find.”

  Stumper shuffling papers. “No soot in the airway. Means Sam was dead at the time of the fire.”

  Someone else tried the outside office door and Manny paused until they gave up opening it and left.

  “Sam had to be alive or else if he died of smoke inhalation, he would have sucked in soot,” Stumper added.

  “Not necessarily.” Manny lowered his voice. “Soot isn’t always present with burn victims. Anything else?”

  “The ME left a note for you that Sam’s hyoid bone was broken.”

  “Broken?” Manny sat down, thinking of the strangulation cases he had investigated where the U-shaped bone at the larynx had been snapped off, the only times he had seen such injuries. “A man passed out in bed—whether he died naturally or by smoke inhalation—doesn’t get his hyoid bone broken unless . . .”

  “Unless someone strangled Sam before the fire was set.”

  “Have to have been,” Manny agreed. “Whether it was Sam or not remains in the hands of the ME once he gets that information from the Marine Corps, and we get the tox report from Quantico. I think it’s even more important that we talk with Itchy again.”

  “I just haven’t had time to look for him,” Stumper blurted out. “Between Della Night Tail bitching about Little Dave’s still out catting around, to the two meth search warrants we served last night, I’ve been just a little tied up. But I put the word out on the moccasin telegraph to turn over every rock looking for him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And one other thing, the son of that Beauchamp—Emile—called. Yesterday, which is like, last week in France with the time difference.”

  “Not quite.” Manny jotted down Beauchamp’s phone number and checked his watch: early evening in France. He had just enough time to call and make his escape before the office people returned.

  He punched in the international code and Emile Beauchamp’s number. After a long interval, a man spoke French with a voice so deep Manny barely caught it. Manny identified himself.

  “Ah, Agent Tanno.” Gone was but the slightest accent, his English near perfect. “My father said you needed to speak with me about items he donated to the Crow Tribe for auction.”

  “Your father said you knew the items well.”

  An easy laugh crossed thousands of miles in a heartbeat. “I loved playing with the artifacts when I was a young boy. I would grab the knife—the one with the black stone imbedded in an antler horn—and stick it in my belt. You do not know how many forts I raided with that knife. Did you ever play Cowboys and Indians, Agent Tanno?”

  “I guess I was always stuck playing the Indian.”

  “So it was with me.” Beauchamp sounded as if he wanted to play the Indian once again. “I guess it was the spirit of Blaise Beauchamp calling to me, because I felt alive when I played Indian. Sometimes, I just felt ghosts calling me.”

  You ought to come to Pine Ridge and play Indian. Give you a perspective other than a romanticized one of what it’s like to be one. Wouldn’t take you long and you’d be scrambling for a cowboy hat. “I sometimes feel the spirits calling me as well,” he found himself telling this stranger, and he wished he had more time to talk with Beauchamp about his trapper relative who once lived among the Crow. “I understand your grandfather came by the artif
acts unusually.”

  “Quite.” Beauchamp paused, and Manny recognized a match being drawn across a striker, and could imagine Emile drawing on a cigarette, could almost see the gold cigarette holder. Manny instinctively patted his own pocket where he once stashed his smokes. “Blaise lived with a Crow woman in the Valley of the Giveaway, but left the area shortly before the Custer Massacre. Did you know a developer put forth plans to build a Little Big Horn theme park some years ago on the outskirts of Paris like the western theme park in Sweden? But it never got off the ground. What a shame.”

  “A shame indeed. People would have loved to see men dying and scalps being lifted all over the battlefield.”

  “Exactly!”

  Manny breathed to gather his composure. “Blaise brought the artifacts with him when he left Crow country?”

  “Some of the items,” Emile explained. “When he left to return east, Blaise carried many of the Indian items. He formed a freighting company and went west many times, though never back to Crow country. Whenever he came back east, he had other relics with him. Sioux. Arapaho. Shoshone.”

  “And he never connected with his Crow woman again—Pretty Paw?”

  “Most lived on reservations by the time he started his freight company.”

  Interned is how Wilson aptly termed it.

  “He made a fortune in freight and moved back here to France. Does this answer your questions?”

  “It helps,” Manny said. “But I’m most interested in a journal your father included in the things Harlan White Bird was to auction off.”

  “The journal. Of course.” Beauchamp pulled the receiver away and hacked a lingering smoker’s cough, just like Manny was developing before he quit last year. When Emile stopped, there was another long pause. Another drag. “Blaise’s Crow woman—Pretty Paw—would eventually marry a Crow man.”