White Ghost Ridge

by Carol Coffey

“What?” Mendoza asked.

  “Ohanzee. That’s my name. I’ve always hated it which I’ll explain another time. The only other person at the station who knows it is Kowalski and I’ve known him for over thirty years. What I’m trying to say is ... that’s how much you mean to me.”

  “Well, that’s a start, sarge,” she said as gently she hung up.

  Locklear felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Wilson again.

  “Want to go see old man Olsen? Few things I have to ask him now that he’s doing better.”

  “No. I can’t. I’m sure you’ve heard ...”

  “It’s all around the station. His son told the guard stationed outside his room last night and, well, you know how these things go. But, there’s still the case …”

  Locklear flushed and set his eyes on his footwear. “OK, I’ll come but I’ll wait outside the room.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  While Wilson gathered up his paperwork, Locklear sent a quick email to Kowalski totting up the expenses he and Mendoza had incurred during the unauthorised investigation. He held his finger over the button for a minute and inhaled, knowing how Kowalski would react when he saw the total. Locklear reasoned he might only see a small amount of the money repaid to him or maybe none, depending on how mad Kowalski was with him. He pressed send and followed Wilson out to the car.

  In Rapid City hospital, Henry Wilson was not handcuffed to his bed as Looks-Twice had been. The old man’s leg was in a large cast with a wire cage over it. He wasn’t going to be running anywhere anytime soon. Locklear stood outside on the quiet corridor and peered in through the glass panel while Wilson sat down and began taking Olsen’s statement. Twice the old man’s eyes flickered towards the glass that separated them and Locklear instinctively looked away. He did not want to meet his father’s eyes and as he stood there he began to question why he had come with Wilson at all. His conversation with Looks-Twice resurfaced and thoughts about how he came to be rose up in him. He felt sick and the dizziness that had subsided following Looks-Twice’s beating returned. He looked down and tried to steady his breathing as he gripped onto the handrails that ran along the corridor wall. Vivid images of Olsen’s attack on his mother flashed before his eyes. He saw his birth, her screams with no-one but her mother to help her bring him into the world. He watched her walk through the valley in her blood-soaked clothes and present her son to the chief who would decide her fate and that of her half-breed son. He heard the drums, witnessed the Sun Dance and the silence settle in the valley Looks-Twice had described to him.

  Locklear moved away from the room and stood alone at the end of the long corridor, out of sight.

  Then he heard her voice, singing what he assumed was a Lakota lullaby.

  Cante waste hoksila ake istima

  Hanhepi ki waste …

  Over and over he listened to the two lines being sung by his mother. He had no memory of her having ever sung to him except in the dreams and visions he sometimes had of her but this must be a real memory of her singing to him when he was little, when they had begun their life of running and hiding, the reasons for which had only now become clear to him. Wachiwi had not subjected him to their nomadic life because she could not settle. She was running from Looks-Twice who wanted to separate her from her youngest child, who wanted her to return to her responsibilities so he could have a life of his own. Locklear closed his eyes and found himself rocking back and forth on his heels to the sound of her voice. He began to hum along to the haunting tune and felt himself to be a long way from the hospital corridor he was standing in, as though he had fallen asleep and was floating in a dream with his mother and another boy beside him.

  When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in Olsen’s room. Wilson had gone and the old man was staring at him from his bed. Locklear stared at the old man and knew that, if he wanted to, he could kill Henry Olsen right now. He could take the soft white pillow from under his head and smother the life out of him as Olsen had taken his mother’s life slowly. He swallowed as the overriding temptation to end the man’s life coursed through his veins. He closed his eyes and asked his mother what he should do but all he could hear was the sound of her peaceful voice humming the lullaby in his head. He had never remembered her sounding so serene when she was alive. He knew what Wachiwi was telling him. She was at peace. She did not need her son to avenge her. She did not need another one of her children suffering because of the course she’d had to take in life.

  “Do you know who I am?” Locklear asked the old man.

  “Yes,” Olsen said.

  Locklear noticed how strong the old man’s voice sounded, how calm and measured he was, as if he knew this day would somehow come, that someday he would face the child he had abandoned.

  “You are my son.”

  “Wrong,” Locklear replied. “I am Ohanzee Localeer, son of Wachiwi. A proud Lakota Sioux.”

  Locklear heard the words flowing from his mouth but it was as if those words were being spoken not by him but through him – but by whom he did not know.

  Olsen did not show any sign of fear.

  “I don’t blame you if you want to kill me. I would do the same myself.”

  Locklear stared down the cold hard stare of the old man and wrapped his long fingers around the end of the metal bed with a force and intensity he did not know he possessed.

  “Your death will come soon enough and when you die you will answer for what you did to Wachiwi and to her children,” his voice said.

  Locklear unfurled his fingers and stepped back to find Wilson standing in the doorway.

  “Where were you? I was looking all over for you.”

  “I was standing right out there,” Locklear gestured. “I didn’t see you come out.”

  Wilson shook his head. “No, you weren’t. This corridor was empty when I came out. All I could hear was humming. Creeped me out so I waited in the lobby for you but you didn’t show.”

  Locklear looked into the corridor and then back to the spot his feet stood in. He could not remember coming into Olsen’s room.

  “How did I get in here?” Locklear asked.

  Wilson looked from Locklear to the old man.

  “You don’t remember coming in here?” he asked.

  Locklear shook his head.

  “E wang oh ma nee yo,” he said as he walked away from Olsen.

  “What does that mean?” Wilson asked.

  “It means ‘Be careful how you travel’. An uncle of mine said it to me yesterday. I have a feeling he just died.”

  Chapter 32

  When Locklear awoke in Prairie Winds Motel the following morning, he felt refreshed and ready to close the remaining business of the case. He had known as he lay down in his bed the previous night that it would be his last night in South Dakota and that by nightfall he would be back in Richmond. He would miss the State, would miss the wide-open prairies and the dry, sun-scorched ground which all felt like home to him. He ate one of Mendoza’s unhealthy breakfasts of coffee and pastries in his room. He showered and shaved and dressed in the last clean shirt he had packed into his light travel bag and sat on his bed to make the first of three calls he needed to make before he left the area for good.

  After he had left the hospital in Rapid City the previous afternoon, he had checked in on Norma Macken to ensure her lazy son was sticking to his word and was respectful to his mother. When he arrived at the motel, Raymond was cleaning out the swimming pool which was now transformed from the filthy scum-covered mess it had been to a shining blue-tiled body of water.

  “I did what you said, now stop sending those guys around to check on me,” Raymond had begged.

  Locklear had smiled at the young man’s paranoia. He had sent no-one but he didn’t tell Raymond this, nor did he suggest he cut down on the weed which was obviously making every straight-looking customer seem like a plainclothes cop keeping an eye on him. When he had entered the reception area, he had checked in on Norma who was still reading trashy maga
zines. The hardworking woman looked more rested than she had before and was wearing new clothes. She had her hair died a light red and was wearing lipstick. She willingly handed over the three boxes of Whitefeather’s belongings and smiled sadly at Locklear.

  “I’ll be glad for his sister to have them. They make me sad every time I look at them,” she had said.

  Locklear had waved as he drove out of the parking lot towards Cindy Geddis’s place of work and had hoped the presence of other people in her workplace would make her less afraid of him than she had been the last time she set eyes on him from across the car park of the school she worked in. He had waited in reception until she crept up behind him. The Native American woman was even smaller than he remembered and there was a sad, worn expression on her pretty face.

  “Last time I was here, you mistook me for someone else. You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he had told her.

  Geddis had nodded nervously as Locklear handed over the three cardboard boxes containing her brother’s meagre belongings. He told the younger sister of Albert Whitefeather that he was going to see to it that she received the compensation that Albert had been due.

  “How?” Geddis had asked.

  “I just will. I promise,” he had said as he headed back to his motel to get what he hoped would be a good night’s sleep.

  Locklear sat on his bed and waited until it was the right time to make the first of his three calls. He checked the date on the local newspaper which had been left outside his motel room door. June 21st. His fifty-eight birthday.

  O’Brien answered after the first ring.

  “It’s Locklear,” Locklear snapped when he heard the officer’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “I expected you’d call.”

  “You played me for a fool, O’Brien, and when I get back I’m going to see to it that Kowalski fires you.”

  “You can’t prove my involvement with INTENT – the only person who could identify me as having ever been a member died yesterday,” he said quietly.

  “Well, if I can’t prove it, at the very least I’ll make sure Kowalski gets you packed off to the furthest shitty little station in Alaska.”

  “I understand,” O’Brien said quietly.

  “You deleted stuff from Holton’s computer, I know.”

  “I only deleted anything that would have led you to INTENT before I needed you to get there.”

  “You knew about INTENT the whole time – you goddamn-well moonlighted for them. You knew artefacts were being stolen and instead of informing the police, who I might add you work for, you used your skills to incite maladjusted young men and women across this country to put their lives in danger retrieving those artefacts.”

  O’Brien remained silent.

  “You knew about Ardavan and how she’d been planted in Holton’s apartment block. Did you know they were going to kill him?”

  “No. I didn’t. I was watching her but it was only when he died that I figured out the connection.”

  “And you didn’t inform the police? You’re a cop – did you forget that you promised to uphold the law?”

  “What would I have said? That I was hacking into computers watching people? I wouldn’t have been a cop for long if I did that.”

  “That’s your defence? You self-protecting little shit!”

  “Will you hear me out if I explain?”

  Locklear took a few seconds to decide if he’d allow the dishonest cop time to concoct an elaborate story. He decided he had time before he took on Susan Walsh on the anniversary of her sister’s death and decided that prolonging the call might be a good idea.

  “I’m listening.”

  “And this is off the record?”

  “No, it’s goddamn not,” Locklear retorted.

  “Right. I worked for INTENT for years while I was stationed in Pine Ridge. I could see what was going on around me. Big shots coming in, taking our resources – oil, gas, our sacred artefacts – while our people waited in line for commodities and handouts. I became one of your so-called maladjusted young people except there was something different about me. I was smart. Very smart as it turns out and I knew there was a way to win the war and keep our heads out of the firing line at the same time.”

  “I know the story, O’Brien, and it stinks. I know it and you know it. It didn’t give you the right to take the law into your own hands.”

  “Looks-Twice didn’t think so.”

  “Did you know who I was the whole time? Did you know Looks-Twice was my uncle? Is that why you don’t like me? I know he shot you.”

  “No, I didn’t know. I didn’t like you because I didn’t like the way you spoke to me.”

  “I don’t believe you. I wouldn’t take you for the sensitive type, O’Brien.”

  O’Brien said nothing.

  “Well, go on, tell me the rest of your tale,” Locklear snapped.

  “That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

  “O’Brien!”

  “OK! I left INTENT shortly before Looks-Twice shot me. I had already decided to leave the organisation. Too many things were happening, things were getting rough. I was just the IT guy. I didn’t pay anyone any visits, nothing like that. The people who were beginning to join the organisation were tough and were capable of anything.”

  “Like Whitefeather?”

  “Whitefeather was like a kitten compared to some of these guys. I was worried about my job. I decided to leave and join the Native Movement again. It was more my speed.”

  “And Looks-Twice took offence?”

  “Looks-Twice was itching for a reason to get me. He put up with me for as long as I was useful to the organisation but, once I said I was leaving, he was out to get me. He hadn’t liked me anyway because I’m a –”

  “Half-breed,” Locklear said.

  “Not a word I’d choose, sir, but yes, in a nutshell, that’s why he shot me. He phoned in a phony car accident when he knew I was on duty and waited for me down an isolated turn-off. He beat me first. Nearly broke my jaw.”

  “Well, that’s something we have in common, O’Brien,” Locklear quipped as he rubbed his jaw which remained sore.

  “I think we also have being half-breeds in common, sir.”

  “I thought you didn’t know anything about me, O’Brien.”

  “I have eyes.”

  “Why did you play me? The information you had could have cut this investigation short and, who knows, it might have even stopped Holton from being killed.”

  “I already told you that I knew nothing about that but, if I led you to INTENT straight away, you wouldn’t have known about Hirsch, Sartre or the Rosenbergs. All that would have happened is innocent people would get locked up for reclaiming what was rightfully theirs and the case would be closed.”

  Locklear thought about this for a moment. “OK, that’s true. Go on.”

  “I’d been watching Sartre for almost a year. The Rosenbergs I knew much longer but they weren’t anywhere near as smart as Sartre. When Holton ended up dead I joined the dots between him and Hirsch.”

  “And Diaz and Hill?”

  “For a while it was just a hunch. I suspected that they were dirty so I watched them. Took a look into their bank accounts. Saw amounts that didn’t add up to what they would be getting paid so –”

  “You know that’s illegal, right?”

  O’Brien didn’t answer.

  “Did you look into my bank account? Did you check me out? Did you check Mendoza out?”

  “I didn’t need to. I know good people when I see them. Kinda got a sixth sense for that sort of thing.”

  “What about Benson?”

  “He’s an ass but he’s an honest ass. Sooner Kowalski’s back the better.”

  “Kowalski will be back today and with the trouble you’re in I wouldn’t wish for his return so soon if I were you. I’ve yet to tell him what you were up to.”

  O’Brien fell silent. Locklear could almost hear the guy adding up his next m
ove like he was playing chess.

  “I’m much more use to you here than in Alaska.”

  Locklear exhaled loudly into the receiver. “Take my advice, O’Brien, and this is coming from someone with experience – tell Kowalski everything. Better that no-one has anything to hold over you in years to come. I don’t reckon you’ll keep your job but come clean and hope to God he’s in a good mood.”

  “But you’re friends with him, right? You could put in a word in my defence?”

  “I’ll think about it but, if I defend you, you’ll do everything by the book from now on?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Good, I’ve already got Mendoza breaking rules. I don’t think I could handle two loose cannons at once.”

  Locklear hung up and poured himself another coffee. He needed the caffeine before he spoke to Susan Walsh. He had dreamt of Kate the previous night. He had almost forgotten what she looked like and the way she laughed. He swallowed and tried not to think about the night she had been killed and how her death and the death of his unborn child had driven him further into his spiralling alcoholism which in turn had changed the course of his life. Susan Walsh’s line rang three times before her assistant answered. Locklear had to shout at the man to put him through or to at least tell Walsh that he needed to speak with her urgently.

  When Walsh finally took the call, he found her tone muted.

  “What do you want, Locklear? A happy-birthday wish?”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I dreamt of Kate last night.”

  Walsh sighed. “I did too.”

  “She was happy,” Locklear said.

  “Uh-huh,” Walsh replied weakly.

  Locklear knew the stern army leader was upset but that she would do everything in her power not to reveal this to him.

  “I meant what I said in DC. I’m sorry for what happened.”

  Twenty seconds passed and Walsh did not speak.

  “I spoke to my dad,” she said. “He said he’d like you to come see him next time you’re in town.”

  “I’d like that,” Locklear replied.