Dead Floating Lovers (12 page)

“Start on somebody else.”

She shrugged. “Who? Most of us in town known each other and our families from as far back as people go. I mean, we all grew up here.”

“Except me. You’d do me a big favor if you got it spread around that I’m doing just fine. I don’t need them looking for jobs and I don’t need plots for books. I don’t mean to be ungracious …”

“Yes, you do. And let me say right here, not everything’s about you, Emily.” Eugenia got up slowly, bending in close to make sure I heard her. There were things I knew Eugenia might help me with and I didn’t want her pissed off at me, like the rest of the town would soon be. I put my hand on one of hers.

“Please, I’m sorry if I seem … well … huffy.”

“Hmph.” Eugenia shook off my hand and looked around at the others watching us.

“There’s been a lot happening,” I went on. “I had a visitor, out at my house. He kind of upset me.”

Her face settled into kinder wrinkles. “When this happen?” she demanded, still not smiling.

“Little while ago.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. Definitely a Native American.”

“Scare you?”

I nodded.

“Hmph,” she said again. “They’re good people. If they get upset with any of us from time to time, well, you can’t blame ’em, can you? I mean, every time I go to one of the casinos and lose, I don’t even get mad. Just a way of paying reparations for this land we’re all sitting on that was theirs before we got here. What’d this guy say he wanted?”

“It’s about the other set of bones. They’re Indian. Female. They want them back for burial.”

Eugenia shrugged and stood. “Only ones I ever knew from around here was an old guy and his kids, lived out of town somewhere. Long time ago, that was. Didn’t like him much. Didn’t see the kids hardly ever.”

“Lived where?”

Eugenia shrugged. “Somewhere out in the woods. He wasn’t the kind you got friendly with. Still, they never bothered anybody here in town. Got along, as far as I heard. So, what’s this man think you can do? Tell him to go see that Brent guy in Gaylord. More luck with him. He want you to write something in the paper? That what it was about?”

I shook my head, sorry I’d mentioned him.

She got up and walked away only to turn abruptly and lean back toward me. “What do you think about me doing Dolly’s family?”

“Doing what to them?”

“You know, doing some genealogical research on ’em.”

“She doesn’t have anybody, remember.”

“Heard she’s got a sister-in-law now.”

“Chet’s family,” I said.

“Feel bad for her. There’s got to be somebody. She didn’t pop out of a pumpkin.”

“Better ask Dolly,” I said, then held my breath along with everybody else in EATS as Dolly walked in, head down, and made directly for me.

The hush in the place felt thick as a quilt. A few people mumbled condolences toward Dolly as she knocked her way through the tables. Nobody dared to stop her. She slid in across from me, took off her hat and settled it on the seat beside her. She plumped up her striped hair and fixed me with a sour look.

“They know about Chet, don’t they?”

“How long did you think it would stay a secret?”

She made a derisive noise. “What’re they saying? They think I deserve it, you know, because of all the tickets I give out.”

I shook my head and sipped at my tea which had finally cooled below a hundred and fifty degrees. “Everybody’s sorry. Every one of them. You’ll have to talk to people sooner or later. If nothing else, you should let them get it off their chest or they’ll burst wide open.”

“Yes,” she said, and grunted “coffee” from the side of her mouth when Gloria sidled up to our table. “Talked to his sister. She’s coming up when Lansing’s through with ’im. Gonna stay with me. We’ll plan a funeral.”

“Dolly, I’ve got to warn you …” I took a deep breath and halfway covered my mouth. “A man from the Odawa came to my house.”

She grimaced. “Same one from out to the lake?”

I shook my head. “Different. Older. But he’s determined.” I swallowed hard. “And Dolly, he said they know you took something from the crime scene. He’s going to Chief Barnard about it, and maybe even the state police.”

“Damn,” Dolly swore.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Looks bad for me. Actually, the chief could relieve me of duty. Put me on administrative leave until it’s all cleared up.”

“That’s not going to help anybody.”

“I know, I know …” Dolly rubbed at her chin with the back of her right hand, then bit at her lip a few times. “Only thing is for me to tell the chief myself.”

“That’s what I was thinking. If you need me, I’ll go with you. You know, back up what you did and why you did it …”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You did when we went out to Sandy Lake.”

All I got was a nasty look. I felt in the pocket of my denim jacket and handed her the folded paper the man had left with me.

“What’s this?”

“That’s the Indian’s number,” I said. “He didn’t give me a name.”

Dolly thought a minute. “I’d better get over to the Council. See if I can talk to them. Explain what I took and why. Can’t hurt.”

I shook my head. “The chief first. You owe him. If he hears from somebody else, it will only be worse for you.”

At first she protested, then settled down and sat thinking, her watery eyes on me. “OK. So, what’d you find on missing girls or women?”

“Four that year.”

She nodded. “Anybody a possible?”

“Only one sounds Indian.”

Gloria came to take our order. She mumbled a few words of condolence toward Dolly. Dolly took it pretty well. She even reached out to touch one of Gloria’s hands and thank her. The special was liver and onions. I ordered a cheeseburger. Dolly had the salad bar and a bowl of leek soup.

“One from Traverse City.” I read from my notes after our food came. “Lisa Valient, age sixteen, five foot two, blond—short hair, blue eyes. Last seen on Front Street in Traverse City talking to an unidentified male. The report came from her mother, Fern Valient, of Washington Street.”

Dolly made her own notes in a tiny notebook.

“There was a Tricia Robbins of Kalkaska,” I went on. “Eighteen. Five-seven. Brown hair and eyes. She went missing in April 1994. Her father said she’d run off before but never for this long.”

“Un-huh.”

“Bambi Lincoln of Mancelona. Seventeen. Five-six. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Last seen on her way to school. Reported missing after a week by her sister, Tanya Lincoln, of Elk Rapids.

“Then there’s this next one: June 1994: Mary Naquma. Nineteen. Five foot two. Long, dark hair. Dark eyes. Reported missing by a friend: Lena Smith, of Peshawbestown. Last seen at the Tracy Beauty School in Traverse City, where both girls studied. Mary never came back to school. Never called anybody. Her friend said it was not like her. All Lena Smith knew about Mary was that she’d once said she lived out on a lake beyond Leetsville.”

Dolly’s eyes popped open. “She’s the only one sounds Native American. Naquma—got to be an Indian name.”

“So? Who do we contact? This Lena Smith?”

“Think so. We gotta get out there. I’m talking to the chief tonight. Could be a private citizen tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe I could go in the morning …”

“Can’t. I’m talking to the kindergarten about stranger safety. Have to go in the afternoon.”

We settled into our food just as Eugenia came bearing down on us.

“Dolly.” Eugenia pushed Dolly over with her ample behind and sat next to her. “Everybody in this whole darn place wants to tell you how sorry they are for your loss, and you’re blowing everybody off.”

“Nobody said nothing and all I did was come in and sit down,” Dolly said through a mouthful of cheese ball and crackers.

“You know how you are. What they all want to say …,” Eugenia swept one arm wide, taking in all those staring at us, “… is that if you need anything at all, why, we’re all here for you.”

Dolly lowered her head and kept chewing hard at those crackers. I smiled and made a face at Eugenia, who got it right away. She changed the subject.

“And you know what else, Dolly?”

Curious this time, Dolly looked up and kind of sideways at Eugenia.

“I know how important family is to you and now you’ve gone and lost Chet.”

Dolly nodded and added pickled beets to the cheese in her mouth.

“I think I’ve reached the end of my own family, with that poor soul hanging out in my foyer, so I thought I’d start looking up some of your people.”

Dolly’s face remained still. She chewed, then stared off beyond me. It seemed there was a tug of war going on in her head. Maybe it was just the word “family” that got to her.

“I got family still,” she said, talking down to her plate. “My sister-in-law’s coming up soon. We got to plan Chet’s funeral.”

“I’m talking about your own people, Dolly. You must’ve had a mother and a father. Who knows who else is out there? People find relatives all the time on the Internet. What you got to do is know how to look. Well, I know how to look.”

Dolly frowned over at me. I couldn’t tell if she needed my help getting rid of Eugenia or if she was thinking over the idea.

“Not much to go on.”

“As I was saying to Emily, you didn’t pop out of a pumpkin.”

Dolly considered the possibility.

“Want to give me your birth name?”

“All I know is Delores Flynn. Not even sure that’s real or something one of those foster mothers stuck on me.”

“I can start with that. You know your mother’s name?”

Dolly made a noise. “I don’t know a thing about that woman. Nobody ever could tell me who she was, why she left me, nothing.”

Eugenia nodded. “There’s a lot in that boat with you. What about your father?”

“You kidding?” Dolly looked at Eugenia as if she suspected madness. “Well, maybe he was called Harold. Seems somebody at one of the homes told me that much. She had papers on me, or something from social services.”

“Brothers? Sisters? Aunts? Uncles?”

Dolly’s face got red. She had had about enough of Eugenia’s prying. “Nobody, I told you. And, you know what, Eugenia? I like it that way. I wish you wouldn’t go rooting around looking for people who never gave a damn about me and who I don’t care about either. Got enough family with Chet, now his sister, maybe someday I’ll meet his mother.”

“Don’t go getting overexcited. I said I’d try. If I find anything, I’ll hang it right up out there with my folks. If I don’t find anything you won’t see nothing of yours there.”

Dolly gave Eugenia a slight push, to prod her up and out. “Go ahead. If I see anything hanging I don’t like I’ll take it right back down. If that’s all right with you, well, OK.”

Eugenia shrugged. “Ya never know, Dolly. Look at the long line of fine people I come from.”

Dolly gave Eugenia a harder shove, forcing her to the end of the seat and then up to stand beside our booth.

“Yours were all hung, Eugenia. Is that what you’re going to come up with for me?”

Eugenia smiled and waved a hand at Dolly. “Not all of ’em. A couple were just tarred and feathered. I think that’s kind of interesting, don’t you?”

Dolly felt in her pants pocket, drew out a ten dollar bill, and headed for the cash register.

I hurried after her. I thought she needed somebody with her for a while. And I sure wasn’t going to leave her swinging in the wind at this point.

We had an argument in the parking lot. My car or hers. I insisted I was going with her to tell Chief Barnard. She growled that she didn’t need me. I growled back that she certainly did and that I’d been out there with her and could attest to what she took and why. After a few minutes of that, I got in the patrol car and rode over to the station with her. Anyway, facing down the pleasant Chief Barnard was better than going back to my place.

Chief Barnard was just slipping on a light jacket, getting ready to go home for the night, when we got there. Emergency calls that might come in after he left were sent directly to his house. Most of the time calling the police in Leetsville got you the chief himself, even if he was in his pajamas.

“See you found her,” Lucky greeted me.

I nodded.

Dolly said nothing. She’d removed her hat as a mark of respect and held it over her heart. If I’d ever seen a little kid in trouble, this was that little kid.

The chief looked from me to Dolly and back. He frowned, took off his jacket, and went back into his office. We followed and sat on the two armchairs across the desk from him. Dolly gave a huge sigh as she settled back, crossing her legs then uncrossing them.

“I take it something’s going on here,” the chief finally said after a few minutes of silence.

Dolly nodded.

I nodded.

“You want to tell me, Deputy Wakowski?”

She cleared her throat, squirmed on the hard chair, and settled her shoulders into a true slump. “I’ve done something I gotta tell you about, Chief.”

He nodded. Waited.

“Well, it’s about the bones, out to Sandy Lake.”

He nodded again, his long face very serious.

“I did something I shouldn’t have done out there.”

The kind man’s face drew into a scowl. He was smart enough to know that whatever was coming at him was a thing he didn’t want to hear. “What’d you do, Dolly?”

She looked around at me, then back at the chief. “I took something from the crime scene.”

“What’d you take?”

“I took something that could have been considered evidence.”

“What?” He said again, impatient now.

“I stole ID tags from the lake.”

“Whose tags?”

“Chet’s.”

“So, why’d it take a couple of days to ID him? What was the point in hiding the tags?”

“I wasn’t hiding … exactly. It was that they were my wedding present from him and …”

“And what?”

“Well, the last time I saw them they were around the neck of a woman Chet was with over at The Skunk.”

“This is serious, Dolly. You better come straight with me.”

“I know. I know.” She shook her head as if trying to get thoughts to line up right.

“There was this … .” She put her hand into a back pocket of her pants and drew out the corroded chain with tags and that red beer stein. “You see, I was afraid maybe Chet killed her and dumped her body out there.” She sat forward. “Not that he was violent. Never violent with me, I can promise you that.”

“Well,” Lucky shook his head and scowled harder. “That’s not what I was worried about. Somehow you thought he could be violent enough to kill a woman. That says something.”

“All it says, Chief, is that I was stupid. I wanted to find him before the state police got on his trail.”

“Planning on warning him, were you?” His thick eyebrows were up, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it. “You going to aid and abet a felon? Doesn’t sound like the Dolly I know. Never once in the fifteen years you been on the force with me, Dolly, did I ever know you to …”

Dolly shook her head, interrupting him because once started it was difficult to stop Lucky. “I just wanted to talk to him. Get him back up here with me.”

“Still, you tampered with evidence that could have been very important to the case. I don’t know how we’re going to resolve this.”

“I know. I don’t blame you—whatever you have to do to me. The dog tags aren’t even real. Don’t have his name on them. I found out from his sister that Chet wasn’t ever in the army.”

Lucky shook his head at her.

I leaned forward, having seen Dolly crawl as low as she could crawl. “I was out there with her,” I said.

“You too, Emily? I’m surprised you had anything to do with this. One of you should have known better. Seems to me that you two weren’t using your heads and …”

“She’s telling the truth. She only took them so she could talk to him first. After all, Chet was her husband.”

“More than that, if he murdered the woman.”

“But he didn’t. He’s dead, too.”

“Yeah, well, we know that now.”

“And something else …” I looked at Dolly, who avoided my eyes. “A man from the Odawa was out there. He saw Dolly take the chain and put it in her pocket. A friend of his came to my house and threatened to tell you about it. Maybe even go to the state police.”

The chief nodded. “When’s he gonna do all this?” He swung his chair right then left. He thought awhile, sat forward, and put his hand on the phone in front of him. “Got a name?”

I shook my head. “He left a number.”

“Let’s call the guy. See what he wants from us.”

Dolly pulled the slip of paper from her pocket and passed it over. The chief dialed, leaned back, and looked hard at both of us. “After this, we’re gonna have a talk about duty.”

Dolly, miserable now, shrank back in her chair to await her fate.

The phone must have been answered right away. Maybe the guy had been waiting to hear from us. The chief identified himself and went on to tell the man that his deputy had been in and told him quite a story. We could hear noise on the other end, but the chief interrupted to say he knew all about what she’d done.

“I’d like to come out and talk to you, if that’s all right,” the chief said finally. “I think we can clear up this part of the problem in a hurry, if you’re willing to listen.”

He waited, his face drawn and nervous. “OK, my deputy’s coming with me.”

The chief gave Dolly a tough look. She stopped the feeble protest she’d been about to make and folded her hands in her lap.

In a moment the conversation ended. The chief hung up, stood, straightened his shoulders and his gun on his hip. “We’re going out there now, Dolly. He’s meeting us at the tribal offices. His name’s Lewis George. He’s a tribal chief.”

She stood awkwardly, half falling over one arm of her chair. “If you think that’s necessary …”

“Hell yes, I do,” he said, coming around the corner of his desk. “We’re going to get this straightened out, and then we’ll talk about what has to happen to you.”

“Could I copy that phone number?” I asked. “I want to know who I’m dealing with.”

He held out the slip of paper for me to copy. The paper went back into his pocket.

I got up and followed them out of the office. The chief locked the door to the station and headed toward Dolly’s patrol car.

“You’re not going, Emily,” he turned back to me, putting a hand up like a crossing guard. “Deputy Wakowski needs to start concentrating on her job. I’m not a hard-nose. There are what you might call extenuating circumstances at work here, but we’ve got to get this evidence business cleared away first.”

Before Dolly got in on the passenger side, letting the chief drive, she lifted her saddened eyes to me. “If everything’s OK, we’ll go back to Peshawbestown tomorrow evening to see that woman about the Naquma girl.”

“Can’t tomorrow night, Dolly. I’m having dinner at Jackson’s.” I backed away from the car. Nobody’d mentioned giving me a lift to the restaurant. I was just as happy to walk the six blocks. I needed the exercise to clear my head.

“What the heck do you mean you’re having dinner at Jackson’s?” Dolly hissed at me. “We’ve got work to do here, Emily. He’s only taking advantage of you, and God knows where it will lead, you over there. We both know what kind of man …”

“Well …” I turned and walked off as fast as I could down toward US131. “That’s what I’m doing,” I called over my shoulder. “If you can’t go in the morning it will have to wait until Friday.”

“Yeah,” was all she said, and slammed the car door.