Lori Armstrong: Merciless

“You’d know the answer to that if you ever called me, kola .”

He shrugged. “Been too busy dealing with my own stuff to worry about someone else’s.” His gaze dropped to my left hand. “You ain’t wearing his ring.”

“I doubt you’ve dropped to one knee and proposed to Verline, and you’ve been with her longer than I’ve been with Dawson.”

“Ain’t the same thing. I know he’s asked you.”

No reason to lie. Dawson asked me to marry him every week. He just brought it up when the mood struck him. But I kept hedging. Not saying no, but more along the lines of, Can we talk about this later?

“Mebbe the fact you ain’t said yes means he ain’t the man for you.”

“As if I’ll take relationship advice from the old-timer who’s been divorced multiple times and is shacked up with a girl who can’t legally buy a six-pack.”

“You got a mean streak, Mercy.”

“Like that’s news. Besides, you’ve had issues with every man who’s ever been in my life, starting with my father.”

That shut him down.

Mitzi swung by with Rollie’s pie.

“What’s goin’ on at the FBI?” he asked after a bite of lemon meringue.

“Mostly procedural courses behind a conference table.”

He lifted a dark brow so high it moved his PI hat up an inch. “That’s it? I heard Hoover’s henchmen are involved in the Shooting Star case.”

Nothing stayed secret for long on the Eagle River Reservation. “Yeah. Didn’t take long for her to go from missing to dead.” I paused to sip water. “What do you know about it?”

“Nothin’.”

Bullshit. Rumor was Rollie was more aware of rez happenings than the tribal cops. I’d have to ply him with flattery to unlock his lips. “Come on. You’ve got your ear to the ground. What’s your take on this?”

“I ain’t ever gonna snitch for the feds.”

“If you don’t want to give information to the feds, then why are you talking to me?”

Rollie’s gaze searched my face. “Mercy, we both know being a fed ain’t really you. How long you think you’ll last in the FBI?”

I bristled. Why would he imply I’d fail after having the badge for only a few weeks? “So I’d be better off pulling taps at Clementine’s?”

“Mebbe. At least when you were working for the winkte, you weren’t drinkin’ as much. And I guarantee what you see in this job will send you straight back to the bottle.”

“How can it be worse than what I dealt with in the army?”

He curled his hands around his coffee cup. “The feds in Indian Country deal with the bad stuff. The really bad stuff. Not just murders, but rapes. Child abuse. Sex crimes. All the sick stuff most people, even the cops, on the rez turn a blind eye to.”

“Why is that kind of shit allowed to slide?”

“Because it’s easier to ignore it than admitting one of your relatives is capable of raping a two-year-old. Or that burning a six-year-old with a cigarette is an acceptable form of discipline. Or sexually assaulting an eight-year-old with beer bottles and kitchen utensils is a form of entertainment. And those I mentioned? They’re not the worst cases.”

Bile rose, and I swallowed it down with a gulp of water. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve watched how no jobs, no purpose, and too much alcohol affect the tribe.”

“What if I can make a difference?”

Rollie raised his eyes to mine. “Because you’ve got a dab of Indian blood?”

I blinked at him. That was more than a little snarky coming from the man who’d encouraged me to enroll in the tribe about eight months ago.

“Besides, you can’t make a difference. No one can. Watch yourself, Mercy, when you go digging into this bad stuff. There’s always someone wantin’ to keep their sick little secrets. There’s always someone wantin’ to prove they’re smarter than you.”

“Can you stop talking in riddles for one damn minute?”

He picked at the toasted meringue. As I formulated my next question, Rollie demanded, “Did Latimer bring in the feds right away when she went missin’?”

“Why?”

“’Cause he’ll milk this tragedy for all it’s worth, even though he really don’t give a damn about that girl.”

“No love lost between you and the tribal president?”

“He’s a self-serving prick who reeks of false piety.”

Harsh. “That doesn’t seem to be the general attitude on the rez. People have great hopes he’ll implement changes.”

“Two words that mean nothin’ in politics: hope and change. Especially not when it comes to his ideas.”

That didn’t sound like differing philosophies; it sounded personal. “How long have you known Latimer Elk Thunder?”

“Since before he became a white man in Indian skin.”

For Rollie that was an unforgivable offense-in men, anyway. “Are you guys business rivals or something?”

“Since he owns the only gas station on the rez, he ain’t got no rivals.”

“So were you rivals over a woman? You said some nasty stuff about my dad because you believe he stole my mother from you.”

He harrumphed and ate another bite of his pie.

“So you weren’t in love with his wife and she threw you over for Latimer?” I joked.

“Not hardly. I ain’t ever been impressed with her, either. Though she’s awful damn impressed with herself.” His black eyes met mine. “How was the niece killed?”

That was an abrupt subject change. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

“Was she brutalized before her body was discarded like an unwanted animal? Or after, at the dump site? I’m betting after.”

“Who told you this?”

He clammed up when Mitzi refilled his coffee.

“How did you know?” Dammit. I shouldn’t have let that slip. “Are you having some kind of visions like John-John?” I demanded.

Rollie snorted. “If I did, I sure wouldn’t tell nobody.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

He shoveled in a bite of white fluff. Then pointed his fork at me. “I didn’t tell you nothin’. I hazarded a guess .”

Outwardly, I managed a bored look. Inwardly, I imagined snatching away his pie.

“Ain’t ya gonna pull that high-handed fed crap and threaten to haul me in if I don’t cooperate?”

I offered a half shrug. “You haven’t actually given me any useful information, Rollie. You’re just guessing, right?”

“Guess you don’t know that Arlette Shooting Star ain’t the first dead girl to show up around here, and I doubt she’ll be the last.”

My jaw nearly hit the table.

Before I could formulate a response, he was gone.

On the drive home I couldn’t help but wonder what Rollie’s angle was. How could the FBI not be aware of other female deaths on the reservation that might relate to the Shooting Star case?

The crotchety old man had a bug up his butt about all law enforcement agencies-especially federal-since the American Indian Movement, known as AIM, uprisings in the 1970s. He refused to admit whether he’d been involved in the AIM violence. But given his issues with the government after his military discharge during the Vietnam War, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d masterminded some of the shit that’d gone down.

My dad hadn’t been sheriff during those rocky years, so I hadn’t known details about the outbreaks of fatal violence until I’d studied the case histories and investigations during my training at Quantico.

Since I’d already been assigned to an FBI office with multiple Indian reservations in the jurisdiction, I’d had to take extra classes on racial sensitivity and honoring traditional Indian customs within the confines of federal laws. Not even being a registered member of the Eagle River tribe had let me klepp out of the courses.