Lori Armstrong - Merciless

The man knew me so well.

It was a long week at work, because we hadn’t turned up any new information on either case and Shay and I were both on edge. Turnbull hadn’t said boo about my visit to my jailbird friend last Friday.

I returned to the reservation Thursday night to attend Verline’s wake.

The church was packed, and I scooted into the back pew.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what unfolded.

Drums pounding. Sage burning. Verline’s family breaking into spontaneous tremolo-similar to a male’s war cry but more sorrowful. It didn’t feel like a church service. Kids running in and out and shouting in the aisle. The constant hum of adult conversation. People laughing. People wailing. People passing objects around. All four corners of the room had some activity. If alcohol was legal on the rez, I imagined there’d be a bar.

Four poster boards with pictures of Verline, the edges decorated with vibrant artificial flowers and pieces of hair, were on easels in an arc around the sparkling white casket. A closed casket. People would wander up to look at the pictures, move to the next set. Maybe a friend or a kid would join someone in the progression. They’d hug. Laugh. Cry. Then move on.

If I gleaned anything from this event, it was the move-on attitude. So Verline was dead. Death happens. I couldn’t decide if that was a healthy attitude or a callous one.

It bothered me that Rollie couldn’t be here. He’d stare down the haters. He’d ignore Verline’s family and his own children, and focus on what mattered: honoring Verline in his own way.

I was still in the minority believing in Rollie’s innocence. Where Shay saw similarities, I saw coincidences that seemed off-almost staged. Maybe if I broke protocol and talked to Dawson, he could give me the insight I was lacking.

All of a sudden everyone got up and started clapping. Pie tins were passed around as noisemakers.

What the hell? Had I been transported to a Baptist revival?

With the loud voices, the cloying smell of Indian tacos, and the scent of greasy fry bread floating up from the basement, the screaming kids, the noisemakers, and the heat from too many bodies in too small a space, I felt a panic attack coming on.

Not now. Not when I wasn’t near anything that could serve as a talisman to ground me-like a bottle of Wild Turkey, a yoga mat, a long stretch of road, or Dawson. I was pushed and jostled as I forged a path to the red EXIT sign above the door. I thought I caught a glimpse of Junior, but he vanished in a sea of mourning revelers.

Shoving open the door, I sucked in lungs full of crisp air, using the quiet and the cold as my calming influence.

Every time I attended an event on the reservation, whether it was a powwow or a funeral, I had a serious sense of discomfort about my Indian heritage. I’d never considered myself Indian. Not out of shame, but out of ignorance. During my childhood, my mother’s Minneconjou Sioux ancestry wasn’t mentioned in our household. From what I’d remembered of her physical appearance, she’d never looked Indian, not the way Sophie, Jake, and Rollie looked Indian. Now, enrolling in the tribe seemed like a farce. I had no freakin’ clue what it meant to be part Indian.

Had my mother’s dismissal of her heritage meant I’d missed out on knowing an essential part of who I was?

You can’t miss what you never had. And definitely not what you don’t understand.

Halfway across the gravel parking lot, weaving between cars, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around.

No one. Just my paranoia.

I quickened my pace, relieved to reach my pickup. Relieved-until I found my face smashed up against the window and some douche bag twisting my arm up my back.

“I hear you’ve been talkin’ shit about me.”

Saro.

Despite the immediate panic flooding my body, I managed a terse, “Let me go.”

He laughed that high-pitched girlish laugh that chilled my blood. “Say please.”

I threw my head back at the same time I rolled my shoulders into his hold, and kicked the side of his knee. I didn’t knock him down or bust his nose, but I got him to release me. I spun around and faced him, crouching into a defensive stance.

Another laugh. “I don’t fight women. I fuck them. And a feisty bitch like you ain’t my type.” His gaze zeroed in on my mouth. “Although… seeing a chick bleed does add appeal.”

Lucky me. I wiped the blood from my lip. “What do you want?”

“Same thing you do.”

Your head on a spike and your teeth on my key chain? Nah. “Which is what?”

“The murder cases solved.”

“I’d be happy to take you to the tribal PD if you want to talk to someone about your concerns for your personal safety.”

“Think you’re funny, doncha? I don’t think it’s funny that the feds are here on the rez all the time. The BIA sends a new rep, then the DEA wants to know why the feds and the BIA are sniffing around. Makes it hard for a man to do business.”

“Yeah. Scaling back on selling drugs to kids is a real bitch, ain’t it?”

His eyes were flat black pools. “I’ve got a blade, and you know I ain’t afraid to use it.”

Yikes. I tamped down the sarcasm. “So here’s my question, Barry. Did you use that sharp tanto blade to hack off Verline’s tongue and hand after you killed her?”

“Why would I waste effort killing her?”

When I pressed my back into the door of my pickup, Saro edged closer. His looming presence and deadly stare were intimidating, but not as frightening as when he’d held a knife to my throat. The scars he’d left were faint, but I knew they were there. And he knew they were there. “Because Verline and Cherelle were cousins. Maybe Verline lied to you about something regarding Cherelle. Or maybe Verline stole something from you. Chopping off body parts seems your style.” Crap. No sarcasm, remember, Mercy?

He gave me a lunatic grin. My insides quivered with fear. “Efficiency is more important than style. People find what I want them to find. Only a fuckin’ amateur would be so blatant, so don’t insult me by assuming I had anything to do with them two little bitches getting sliced and diced. And ain’t Rollie Rondeaux in jail for the murders?”

“He was arrested on unrelated charges.”

“Why am I on your personal suspect list?”

I wondered who’d told him: Junior? John-John? “Because you have motives for wanting both Arlette Shooting Star and Verline Dupris dead. The tribal president is pushing the tribal cops to crack down on drug deals on the rez. Killing Elk Thunder’s niece sends a message the new crackdown doesn’t make you happy.”

“Don’t matter what the tribal prez wants, or what he thinks he can tell them cops. They ain’t dumb. They know who to make happy.”

Meaning no one messed in Saro’s business. Was that why the tribal cops refused to consider Saro a suspect? “Why did you hire Junior Rondeaux?”

“Don’t push me. I don’t answer your questions, you answer mine.” Then Saro slammed the back of my head into the window. My vision wavered. His hand clutched the side of my face, and he dug his thumb into the cut on my lip.

Stupid church rules that wouldn’t let me attend services armed. I could’ve shot this ass wipe twice by now. But instead, I had to play helpless because I had no way to defend myself.

“Do the feds know where Cherelle is?”

“I don’t know.”

He pushed harder into my bloody lip. “Don’t. Lie.”

It’d be difficult to speak since he wouldn’t move his hand, but I wouldn’t ask him to move it. “I’m not lying. DEA is handling that case. Not us.” The intimate press of his body against mine kicked in my gag reflex.