by Darrel Bird
so I get a murder that I can’t properly investigate. Neat huh?”
“Well I can investigate on the res sheriff, I’ll just take a run out there tomorrow, and see what I can dig up. I doubt if they thought for a minute that the FBI would take an interest out here. What do you think of the slit throats?”
“I think it was a warning for the reservation police to stay clear, which is just what they are doing…Gordon, the corruption in the BIA has been going on since they took over from the Army in the early days, you can’t win that one. If you go digging, all you will manage to do is lose your job. If these murders were ordered by someone in the BIA, you may lose your life. My advice is go on back to Chicago or wherever it is you came from.”
“You’re the second one that’s advised me to go home in as many days, but sheriff, what if I am home? Thank you for talking to me sheriff.”
The sheriff reached across the desk to shake hands, “Anything you need son, just let me know, will you do that?”
“I’ll do that sheriff.”
“I’ll send in the all the files including the pics of the back shots, my friends call me Bob, my full name is William Slater.”
“Bob, call me Gordon.” He shook the sheriff’s hand.
Well, I’ve made at least two friends, and possibly Sarah, if I can keep his deputy off me.
He dialed the home office in Chicago and Rupert; his immediate superior answered the phone, “What have you got for me Masterson?”
“I thought my name was Longpine?”
“Don’t get cute Gordon, what you got?”
“I think I’m going to need some time Rupert, this whole thing stinks out here to high heaven.”
“How much time Longpine?”
“As long as it takes to climb a chain of rats about a mile high.”
“Ok Longpine, but if I find out you are vacationing out there I’ll have you searching crab boats in Poke hole Alabama, you hear me?”
“I need some free time to just get my mind around this and sniff it out Rupert.”
“Ok Gordon, just don’t get yourself killed out there, I can’t afford to lose help these days, they ain’t sending me any younguns from the academy these days.”
“Whine, whine, whine, you sound like my mother.”
“Get off my phone Gordon!” (click)
The sheriff came in and plunked a set of western walking boots and a brown western hat on his desk, “Wear these, you’ll fit in a lot better, and the hat and boots have real uses out here.”
“Thank you again sheriff.” The hat and boots fit, but it felt strange for him.
About an hour later Gordon got a call from Dan Akule, “Masterson, you want in on some action?”
“Whats going on Dan?”
“We have another dead body out here.”
“Shot?”
“Yeah, about a mile past the store. You keep going past the store until you come to a barn, and house sitting on a little ridge.”
“Ok, I’ll be there in an hour. Save the scene for me will you?”
“Yeah.”
In forty five minutes he passed the store on the res and was immediately on rough dirt roads that wound through the timber. He drove a few minutes before he saw Akules four by four parked by a house on a steep ridge. He put the car in four wheel drive and began the short climb up the steep ridge. He saw the body laying in the yard as soon as he topped out on the ridge. Akule waved him over.
He slammed the door on the truck, and walked over to the two men where they were standing by the body, “Did you find the shell casing?”
“Thirty thirty.”
“Do you think its linked to the other killings?”
“I don’t know, you wanted cooperation. I’m cooperating.”
“Well do you know who he is?”
“Yeah, I know who he is.”
Akule had no more that got the last word out when someone burst through the front door of the house and began running down the hill.
“Stop!” Akule called out, but the man didn’t stop and he already had a good start down the hill. Morgan launched himself down the steep grade after the man; brush tore at his cloths as he ran full out down the hill. He did a flying tackle catching the mans legs, and scrubbing his own face in the course grass. He climbed on top of him, and snatched both arms behind his back, “You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to have a three hundred fifty pound dude hump you in the shower! Do you understand you don’t have much going for you?” He snapped the cuffs, and flipped the man over. He was just a boy no more than sixteen. He heard Akule and his deputy laughing at the top of the hill. Morgan had to half drag the boy back to the top of the hill, and he was sorely out of breath by the time he got him up the hill. Akule had almost lost his breath from laughing.
“What’s so damn funny Akule?” He asked, still puffing.
“It was just funny the way you tore down that hill. Sorry. That’s George Mika.” He comes here to dope it up, we most likely woke him.”
“Man, who is that over there?” Mika asked indicating the body.
“We’ll ask the questions, why were you in there?” Gordon asked.
“Man, I got high yesterday, and you guys woke me up talking.”
“Why did you run Mika?”
“Dude, I thought you popo came for me!”
“Go home George.” Akule said.
“Wait. Didn’t you hear anything? A shot?” Gordon asked.
“Man I was stoked, you know? That Mexican red is some good shit!”
“Let me see your arms.”
Mika hesitantly pulled up his sleeve, “Turkey tracks, you were high on meth too weren’t you?” Gordon asked.
“Maybe just a little man, who are you anyway?”
“I’m with the FBI, and if I find you doing this again, I’m going to stick you in a dark hole where the sun don’t shine, you hear me Mika?”
“Yeah man, I hear you.”
“Well go on then.” The boy began to walk down the hill.
“You might have done him some good.” The deputy said.
“I doubt it, he’s too far gone.” Akule said.
“Who’s the stiff Akule?”
“His name is Randy Shappa, he just got out of prison. He was sent up ten years ago for man slaughter. He murdered a kid, but they couldn’t pin a murder charge on him so they reduced the charge to man slaughter. I don’t know what he was doing back on the res.”
“Do you think he might have been one of the surveyor killers?”
“He might have, he’s got it in him to do something like that.”
“Someone might have killed him so he couldn’t talk.”
“I’ll say this for you apple, you get right to the core of a thing.”
“Why did you call me out here Akule?”
“I wanted to see you in action; words don’t mean much out here on the res.”
Akule’s deputy stood over by the truck smoking a cigarette, and staring down the hill while the two men talked, “What about your man over there, is he dependable?”
“He’ll do what I tell him. He’s been with me five years.”
“Well, help me get the body into my truck, and I’ll take him to the morgue in White Peak.”
The three men loaded the body into the back of the truck, and Gordon slammed the door, “Akule, you need to take the gate down on the main road, it’s illegal as hell.”
“Illegal? Its our res.”
“It’s everybody’s road, if its still there when I come back out, I’ll have to call that in.”
“More money down the tubes Masterson.”
“Well, you should have checked first.”
“Ok apple.”
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t refer to me as apple, you can call me Gordon, or Masterson, or even Longpine, but if you call me apple again, there’s going to be a fight, and I can whip the crap out of you any day of the week.”
On the way out of the reservation Gordon was again appalled
at the poverty stricken place. Some people think that Indians get a check for just beings Indians, but that is not so. The only money that came to the res was through projects approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and if those projects didn’t match up with projects approved by other federal politicians, they were rejected, and sometimes project money never flowed at all. By the time the BIA got through siphoning off the designated money, very little, if any, was transferred to the Indian bank accounts.
Indians could get some welfare checks just like anybody else, but had to jump through more hoops to get them. It was no wonder to Gordon that they were losing kids to drugs, and Mika was a prime example.
Before he got to the morgue which was located in the clinic he called the sheriff to meet him there. The sheriff pulled up just as he did, and he opened the back of the truck.
“What you got there Gordon?”
“An ex con who was shot out on the res.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“Dan Akule called me to come out to the crime scene.”
“You don’t say? That’s a first, looks like your office in Washington was right, you do fit in. The bodies are beginning to pile up Gordon.”
“Seems that way.”
“You do know that Akule is run by the BIA don’t you Gordon?”
“We’ll soon see where he