William Krueger: Red knife

“Still no luck locating Lonnie Thunder?”

“The people who could help live on the rez-and you know how much they like white folks in uniforms.”

“A lot of them wouldn’t mind one bit if you arrested Thunder.”

“No one’s come forward to tell me where he is.”

During the third year of his first term as sheriff, Cork had hired Marsha Dross as the first female law enforcement officer in Tamarack County. She was approximately his height and not too dissimilar in build. One evening nearly two years earlier, in the soft light of dusk, a sniper had mistaken her for Cork and put a bullet into her. She’d survived, but the damage had killed any hope she might have had of ever conceiving a child. She wasn’t married-the shooting had ended her engagement to a man who desperately wanted children-there were no prospects on the horizon, and Cork didn’t know if the question of marriage and children was one she even pondered much these days.

“Taking a lot of crap lately from a righteous and outraged citizenry?” he asked.

She gave a snort that passed for a laugh. “You see Hell Hanover’s editorial in this week’s Sentinel?”

She was referring to Helmuth Hanover, publisher of the area’s weekly newspaper. Anyone who’d ever been the target of one of his venomous printed diatribes pretty much figured that he was in league with the devil. Hence, the name by which he was generally known: Hell.

“Yeah. And come to think of it, you do resemble Barney Fife with a bra.”

Dross rounded the southern end of the lake and began to head north, up the eastern shoreline toward the rez.

“Makes you feel any better,” Cork said, “Hanover took a lot of shots at me when I wore the badge.”

“Hanover’s an ass, but he’s reflecting a pretty significant sentiment. This Red Boyz horseshit’s got everybody pissed. It’s bringing out the bigot in people.”

“You think it’s horseshit?” Cork asked.

“Don’t you?”

“There’s stuff I disagree with, but I can understand the reasoning.”

“You’re not going to give me a sociology lecture about poverty, are you? Because with the casino, every Ojibwe in the county is getting a nice chunk of change now.”

“That’s not exactly true and you know it. But it’s not about money. The Red Boyz are all young, a lot of them raised by parents who weren’t much more than kids themselves and didn’t give them any sense of who they are or what they could be. All they know is that they’re Indian and looked down on, generally speaking. A brotherhood is one way for them to find some self-esteem, to belong to something that makes them feel important, especially a brotherhood with its roots in Ojibwe ethics.”

“Ethics? The Red Boyz? The ethics of thugs maybe.”

“The Red Boyz stand pretty firm against drugs and alcohol. They don’t use and they do everything they can to discourage it on the rez. Bet if you tracked the numbers, you’d find that since Kingbird organized the Red Boyz, arrests for drug use and related crimes in this county have gone way down.”

“I do track them and you’re right. But”-she held up a cautionary finger-“that doesn’t mean there’s no crime going on. The Red Boyz all drive nice, new, big vehicles, and I can almost guarantee they didn’t pay for them with what they get from the distribution of the casino revenues. DEA’s convinced the Red Boyz operate a narcotics depot on the rez. They warehouse the merchandise and distribute it all over the Midwest.”

“Where other people’s children buy it.”

“Exactly.”

“I told you there’s stuff I didn’t agree with. That’s some of the stuff.”

“What else don’t you agree with?”

“It’s a charismatic organization. Its strength depends too much on Kingbird’s influence. He was the one who gave it direction, who set the guidelines.”

“Guidelines? You think Lonnie Thunder was operating under guidelines, Cork? You ought to see the videos he made.”

“I don’t know what to make of Thunder.”

“Kingbird’s gone now, so what’ll the Red Boyz do?”

“I wish I could say there was somebody capable of stepping in to fill his shoes. Tom Blessing was basically his right hand, but Tom’s no Alexander Kingbird. Things could easily fall apart, get real messy.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, this whole situation getting out of hand. I’d feel a lot better if I had Lonnie Thunder in custody. That might go a long way toward pacifying everybody.” She gave him a sidelong glance.

“This is what you wanted to talk to me about?”

She kept her eyes on the road ahead. “You’re part Ojibwe. People on the rez trust you.”

“Trust me more than they trust you anyway. It’s a situational kind of thing. For a lot of Shinnobs, I’m still way too white.”

“Cork, I don’t have a single deputy with a drop of Ojibwe blood in him.”

“No one to creep around the rez and snoop unnoticed? No one to go looking for Lonnie Thunder? That’s what you want me to do?”

“That’s where I was headed, more or less.”

“I would do this why? For the sake of friendship or some other sentimental crap?”

“There’s something you need to see at Kingbird’s place.”

Captain Ed Larson headed up major-crimes investigation in Tamarack County. He was midfifties, a tall, studious-looking man who wore wire-rims and preferred button-down oxford shirts and suede bucks. When Dross and Cork arrived at the Kingbird home, Larson was out front deep in conversation with Agent Simon Rutledge from the Bemidji office of the BCA, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Cork knew Rutledge well. He liked the man and respected his abilities.

Rutledge seemed surprised to see him. “Cork?”

“Hey, Simon.” He shook the agent’s hand, then Larson’s. “Morning, Ed.”

Larson appraised Cork’s attire: sport coat, white shirt, tie. “Church?”

“I snatched him after the service,” Dross said. She exchanged a handshake with the BCA agent. “Thanks for coming, Simon.”

Rutledge wasn’t an imposing figure. A couple of inches under six feet, he had reddish thinning hair and a hopelessly boyish smile. He was, however, one of the most effective interrogators Cork had ever worked with. It was his style, full of sympathy and very winning. Cork had seen him coax confessions out of suspects whose lips were sealed with distrust, anger, contempt. People in the cop business who knew Rutledge called his style of interrogation “Simonizing.”

“You don’t mind me asking, what’s O’Connor doing here?” Rutledge said to Dross. “No offense, Cork.”

“None taken.”

“I asked him here in a consulting capacity. Have you had a chance to look things over?”

“Ed walked me through the scene. Your team’s doing a good job.”

“What do you guys think?” Dross asked.

Larson nodded toward the garage. “We found blood on the grass over there. Isolated and, as far as we can tell, not related to the shootings themselves. Kingbird had a head wound. Somebody clubbed him pretty good. A lot of bleeding but not much swelling, so looks as if it happened just prior to the killing.”

Dross glanced at Cork. “How was he last night?”

“Nobody had clubbed him when I left.”

Rutledge looked confused. “You were here last night, Cork?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute, Simon,” Dross said. “Go on, Ed.”

“What it looks like is that Kingbird came outside and was assaulted near the garage. My guess would be that he was drawn out. But he was careful. He left the doors locked behind him. Whoever it was who assaulted him had to break into the house through the door to the utility room. I imagine they were after Rayette. She was probably a witness. Or maybe the assailant had planned all along to make her a victim.”