Read Murder on the Red Cliff Rez Online

Authors: Mardi Oakley Medawar

Murder on the Red Cliff Rez (6 page)

BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
3.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Hands that were no longer shaking.
“A bullet comes out with incredible speed. Faster than the speed of sound, really. The bang of a gun comes from the explosion in the barrel, not from the bullet. During the exit, the bullet takes all of the barrel explosion gases with it, and everything is spinning because of the ridges in the barrel. It's the spinning that makes the bullet fly straight. The ridges inside the barrel not only put a spin on the bullet, they groove a pattern into the slug, making firearm identification not only possible but thoroughly reliable.
“But back to target damage … When the bullet strikes at close contact, all three layers of skin are affected by the gases right behind it. The bullet strikes first and then the gases hit. For about a millisecond the gases cause the skin to swell up like a balloon. A millisecond later, all three layers of skin just go
pop
. It's the popping that creates this blackened shredded trace. Under normal conditions, the bullet goes in clean, kinda like a drill. The mess a bullet makes tends to be on exit. The tissues, muscle, bone, and organs a bullet has to pass through slow it down, and a slowing bullet is an awkward rascal, tearing open a filthy hole on exit. I saw an upper leg once that from the front looked like the patient had a bee sting. The back of the leg, though, now that was unbelievable. The back of his leg looked like the guy sat down on a land mine.”
Before the doctor could rattle on, Michael asked, “Okay, then why is the back of our guy's head so neat and clean?”
“Huh?” Pulled from his train of thought, Doc Ricky blinked several times, then simply stared vacuously from behind his thick lenses. It was like watching someone having a ministroke. Then he was back, just as crisp as a newly issued dollar bill. “Oh. That. Well, simply put, because the bullet's still in the noggin. It made a circular pattern in the skull until it ran out of steam and stopped. Which is good, because after I take it out, you'll have a spiffy match to the murder weapon.”
Michael thought for a long moment as both men stared down on Judah Boiseneau's mortal remains. Behind them the two crime techs were working quietly and efficiently, one dusting for fingerprints with gray aluminum powder on light surfaces, white Lonconide on dark. The other was handling the camera, photographing the office from every
possible angle. The camera flashed, then the automatic film advance purred. Besides bagging the victim's head, the doctor had also covered his hands, the plastic held in place by rubber bands around the wrists. Plastic bags also protected the victim's shod feet. The techs hadn't done the bagging. Doc Ricky had. Michael had to give the man credit for knowing just how to preserve evidence. But a nervous M.E. made Michael nervous. He could not afford a failure. Not if he wanted to get out of Bayfield County and back on the force in Madison.
“You have autopsy facilities here on Red Cliff?”
“We don't have the forensics specialists or the equipment you'll find in Green Bay,” Doc Ricky admitted honestly. “But we are adequate.”
Michael thought it over. The nearest hospital with proper morgue facilities was in Ashland. Transport would mean a rush by the rez ambulance up Highway 13, meeting the Ashland ambulance somewhere in the middle. The corpse would be moved into the second wagon, then taken to the larger hospital. A lot of time would be lost. Crucial evidence could very well be tainted.
Michael took a long look at the Indian doctor, noting the gaunt features, the nervous twitch of the mouth, the almost Asian cast to the dark eyes. He decided he simply couldn't afford to trust Doc Ricky.
“I believe I'd prefer Ashland.”
The doctor looked openly hostile, then calmly said, “You got it.” With that, he stood and peeled the disposable gloves from his hands while heading for the door. David blocked his exit, standing like a tree inside the door frame.
Ducking so that he was nearly eye level with Ricky and speaking in a voice too low to be normal yet too loud to
be described as a murmur, David asked, “
Wegonen anin?”
(What's the matter?)
Chippewas point with their lips; Cherokees, with a lift of the chin. Lifting his chin in the blond man's direction, Ricky answered in a quiet voice and in perfect Ojibway.
“Nin angoa.”
Ricky tried to push on through, but David's bulk was in the way. His face full of anger, Ricky stared David down. This silent exchange lasted only a few seconds, just long enough for David to understand that this time good old Doc Ricky wasn't kidding around. Either David would move or Rick would find the strength needed to remove him. David chose to step out of the way, watching as the doctor strode off. After Ricky rounded the corner, David fixed his attention on the blond deputy. Bjorke hadn't seemed to register that he'd mortally offended Doc Ricky. Either that or the man simply didn't care.
Suspecting the latter and finding himself offended as well, David seethed.
“Ho-wah.”
Motioning to Eric, the only officer left to guard the scene, to follow him, David stormed off. If the Bayfield County deputy wanted to play dirty, David could play dirty, too. And dirty in this instance meant leaving the Bayfield fool to worry about the crime scene all by his lonesome.
Meeting Bothwell in the center of the hallway, David passed him without a glance. The instant he and the officer turned the corner, Bothwell continued wandering down to the late attorney's office, poking his head through the open door. With a merry twinkle in his eyes and a grin the Cheshire Cat would envy, he called to Michael, “Well, looks like you've got our little collaboration off to a grand start. Good job, Mikey.”
C. Clarence Begay was so distressed he felt like he was dancing on a nail. Trapped in the public eye, he couldn't give in to the calming habit of chewing great holes into his knuckles. But he had to do something. Especially after being none too subtly dismissed by Frenchette. C. Clarence had every right and authority to sit in on the meeting between the Tribal Chairman and the Bayfield County sheriff. What C. Clarence hated most about Perry Frenchette was that the man wallowed in his own self-importance.
The truth as C. Clarence saw it was that Frenchette was little better than a jumped-up jack pine savage that no one outside of Wisconsin had even heard of. But in Indian Country—the
real
Indian Country—everyone knew C. Clarence Begay. Granted, his being a little
too
well known had bitten him in the ass—the primary reason he was doing mea culpa time in Wisconsin—but that was a side issue.
Reduced to prowling outside the courthouse like a bloated cat, C. Clarence was smoking like a steam engine
and trying not to dwell on the fact that the Bayfield County crime techs were taking apart Jud Boiseneau's office. If the techs came across that file and paused to read it, his best bet was to waste no time hotfooting it over into Canada. But if they should unearth the thing and simply toss it aside, he should also be near at hand to put the grab on it. The sheer uncertainty of it all, plus that little voice inside his head repeatedly advising him to run like the wind, had C. Clarence sweating buckets. He was relieved that his two assistants weren't around to witness his agitation. To spare himself that, he'd sent them off to fetch sandwiches and cold sodas. That little chore ought to keep them occupied for all of five minutes. After that, he didn't know what the hell to do about them. He shouldn't have brought them along. Then again, it would have looked suspect if he hadn't.
“I hate my life,” he mourned, taking another long hit of nicotine.
 
David pushed through the glass door, eyes glancing off the jittery BIA agent, settling on Joey, who was waving an arm inward, shouting, “
Wewibisiwin
!”
As requested, David began to hurry. As he was passing the BIA agent, the Navajo paused as if he were about to speak. Obviously thinking the better of it, the portly man continued pacing and puffing on a cigarette. Joey, standing near three police cruisers, seemed barely able to contain himself. David was only halfway across the parking lot when Joey began shouting the latest developments. “Benny was spotted!”
David picked up speed, running the remaining distance.
Joey continued talking as David ran and was still talking when David arrived.
“Elliott's going nuts. Lots of calls coming in. Some of the calls were total crap, but everybody, and I mean everybody, knows we're huntin' Benny.” Joey paused to take in a needed lungful of air. He ran a hand through his closely cropped black hair. “Anyway, Elliott got a call from Ned Girard. I can't remember all the details because you know how Elliott is when he's relaying information. I think you'd better talk to him.”
David could have walked over to the station, but sliding inside one of the cruisers and using the radio was quicker. Sitting sideways on the driver's side, long legs hanging out of the opened door, David keyed the mike. “Elliott.”
“Right here, boss.”
“Talk to me about the call from Ned.”
Elliott breathed heavily over the airwaves, his exasperation apparent. “It wasn't a call from Ned. I told Joey that. It was a call from Leroy Crane's wife Betty. You know her good, David. Remember when Leroy bought her that fur coat after he won big at video poker? Well, Betty doesn't really wear the thing, but she worries about it plenty. Which is why she made Leroy put in one of those house alarms. Trouble is, half the time Betty forgets to turn the thing off. She's worse about it in the mornings. I blame the cat.”
David wiped away a trickle of sweat from his face, his expression pained. “Elliott, is this information vital to the call about Benny?”
Elliott's response was brisk. “I'm getting to that just as fast as I know how.” Elliott cleared his throat over the
airwaves. “Betty slept in this morning and her cat was scratching at the door mouse—you know, one of those things made out of hemp rope that looks like a big mouse? She hangs it off the doorknob and the cat scratches at it whenever it wants to go outside. Betty claims she was still half asleep when she opened the door because that set off the alarm. Then that set Ned Girard's dog to howling, and the cat, who was already scared by the alarm bell, got more scared about Ned Girard's big old dog Brutus. Especially after that dog jumped the fence and chased the cat straight up into a tree.”
David keyed the mike, trying to cut in, but Elliott was relentless. The dispatcher ignored the clicking and kept right on talking. “Well, Betty got real upset about her cat being in the tree. So upset that she was yelling at Ned and Ned's wife Irene. The three of them were having a big old over-the-fence fight and the alarm's still ringing. Which is why Betty's friend Clara Beauclaire, who lives just down the road, heard the alarm, and after five minutes of it still ringing, called in screaming that this time Betty was getting robbed for sure. So I sent Charlie to check it out.”
David finally got through. “Elliott?”
“Yeah, boss.”
“Is there an end to this story? In my lifetime?”
“I told ya I'm gettin there!” The force of Elliott's tinny voice caused the radio speaker to vibrate. Having regained David's rapt attention, Elliott proceeded in a calmer tone. “Okay, so Charlie does the drive over, yeah? And according to him everything's just a shade crazy ‘cause Betty's yelling at Ned, who's trying to control Brutus, and Irene Girard's yelling at Betty on account of Betty yelling at her husband, and the alarm's still going loud enough to be
heard all the way over to the U.P, and the cat's way the hell up in the tree lookin' like it's about ready to jump to its death. First thing Charlie does is, he gets the alarm turned off and then he's gotta sort out the ugliness between Betty an' the Girards. It's after he gets everybody settled down that Ned tells him.”
David allowed Elliott two seconds worth of selfsatisfaction. Then he keyed the mike, his voice utterly deadpan. “What did Ned tell Charlie, Elliott?”
“Huh? Oh.” Elliott cleared his throat again. “Ned said his wife Irene had been walking their dog real early this morning, like about five, an' seen Benny's truck's over at the Boiseneaus' house. She said seemed to her that Benny was trying to look in one of the windows. When he spotted Irene, he ran and jumped in his truck and peeled out.”
“He was at Jud's!” David cried.
“Yeah, live an' bigger'n Paul Bunyan.”
“Aww, shit,” David breathed.
Rez rumor, most especially Mug Row speculations, were not admissible in a court of law. But a big-mouthed witness like Irene Girard testifying that she saw Benny Peliquin prowling the murdered man's home playing peekaboo with the widow was.
Elliott sighed heavily. “You're right about the shit, boss. Benny's stepped into a big old pile of it this time.”
“Elliott! What have I told you about graphics over the com line?”
Elliott was wounded. “Well, you started it!”
The offended dispatcher was gone. And there was no point trying to call him back. Elliott Raven could be a very pouty person.
 
 
Tracker found no dead man in Uncle Bert's bed, just rumpled sheets and blankets and more layers of dog hair. She didn't know yet if she was relieved. It had taken so much out of her to open the door and shine the spot beam inside that now she was shaking from head to toe. Leaning against the doorjamb, she took a moment to collect herself. Then she snatched up a soiled shirt from the bedroom floor and carried it outside.
Opening the passenger door, she shoved the shirt against Mushy's snout, giving the command “Hunt!” She'd just had time to toss the spotlight inside when Mushy took off like a bullet, going not for the woods behind the abandoned trailer, but down the weedy path that cut through the copse fronting Raspberry Road.
When she was six, her father had begun teaching her how to track. By the time she hit seven her father realized his daughter had an innate ability. He then turned her over to a young man then thought of as the best tracker on Red Cliff.
Benny Peliquin.
By the time she was ten years old, Benny declared his small pupil could track a partridge in flight. Which is how she'd earned her nickname, Tracker. She had never worked with a dog until she had rescued Mushy and taught him to follow a scent. But unlike a bloodhound, Mushy didn't bay. Mushy ran like a silent streak. It was Tracker's job to keep up because Mushy wouldn't stop until he'd found whatever it was he'd been instructed to sniff out.
Tracker's legs were pumping and her boots were leaving tracks in the muddy red clay as she crossed the width of Raspberry Road, then jumped the ditch and hit the woods on the other side. She couldn't see Mushy, but she could
see the path he'd cut in the run through rain-sodden ferns and sapling brush. Tracker stayed on Mushy's trail even though when she reached the woods, there was only faint light filtering through the dense canopy and a mist floating above the spongy forest floor. As she moved through it, the mist parted, wafted away like a shy spirit. She'd barely run a quarter of a mile when she emptied her mind, allowing her inherent tracking ability to kick in. Benny called this zoning.
“Forget radios, TVs, any of that kinda crap, kiddo. None of that stuff's in the zone.”
As a six-year-old, she'd been afraid.
“What's in that zone, Ben?”
“Cool stuff, kid. Really cool stuff.”
Benny had been right. In the zone she could hear her breathing, the thudding of her heart, and the blood coursing through her body. She was not hampered by physical things: the straining of her muscles, the branches that snagged at her clothing. Her hair, tied in a single braid, sailed behind her. In the zone, physical discomforts didn't exist. Then she heard Mushy barking. The realization that her dog had found something was enough to pull her out of the zone, and with such force that she stumbled and fell to her knees. Resting for a minute on all fours, she listened. Strange loud sounds echoed through the forest. But it was Mushy's frantic barking that pulled Tracker to her feet.
 
She didn't have a treat to give him as a reward. A pat and a “Good boy” would have to do. Mushy, standing on the very edge of the cliff overlooking Raspberry Bay, wasn't interested in any type of payment. The dog continued to howl at the huge flat-bottomed barge far below in the bay.
The salvage barge measured roughly eighty feet in length and twenty feet in width. The barge's crane was working, men running along the deck as the crane heaved a log out of the murky water. There was no mistaking the log for anything other than an old-growth white pine, for not since 1908 had there been any other log like it. These logs were the primary reason salvaging companies had marked the lake's bays off into a grid, had paid the state a king's ransom for the retrieval rights. The state of Wisconsin, not the Chippewa Nation, held the offshore rights along the reservation's coastline. This had the current Tribal Council firing reams of protests to the state's supreme court and barnstorming Washington, D.C., waving old treaties and Indian land-use agreements.
Yet here the salvagers were.
According to present state law, the salvagers weren't operating illegally. Immorally, until the appeals were decided, most assuredly, but not illegally. And they were about a month too early. A risk foolhardy in the extreme, as there is nothing more dangerous than Lake Superior during early spring. Tracker also took note of the empty Zodiac moored just off the barge's stern. There was something puzzling about the inflatable, but she didn't have time to ponder what it might be as a man so tall that even at this distance he looked like a giant came out of the wheelhouse. It was apparent that he'd heard Mushy's barking even over the crane's noise. Holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the rim of the cliffs. Within seconds, she no longer heard the grinding noise of the crane, the muted voices of the men directing the newly upraised log. She no longer heard because she was feeling the big man's eyes boring into hers. Instinctively, her hand closed on Mushy's collar.
 
 
Freddy Harold had always been big, so big that his mother had almost died during his birth. In fact, the delivery was so complicated that Freddy just barely escaped being born a total idiot. But he was slow, pathetically slow, unable to keep up with his classmates even though his teachers moved him right along with them through each grade. By the time he was eight, he had realized that he was different and that the other kids knew it and didn't like him for it. At eight, Freddy stopped being the play yard's gentle giant. The fear displayed by the other children pleased Freddy.
BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
3.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Soldier's Mission by Lenora Worth
Demons (Darkness #4) by K.F. Breene
Murder on Stage by Cora Harrison
Southern Charm by Tinsley Mortimer
Lessons of the Past by Chloe Maxx
What Now? by Every, Donna
Whale Song by Cheryl Kaye Tardif