Tall Man in Ray-Bans (A John Tall Wolf Novel) Page 6

  Bly dropped her claim on John. She told her mother and brother if they pursued the case independently, she would testify for the Wolfs. Say they were the best ones to raise the child. Maria and Cesar had no desire to claim John; they now saw him as threat to their plans to retain a place of prominence in the tribe.

  Bly’s change of heart worked in their favor, better than she might have guessed.

  Now, they could say Bly had caused the tribe great embarrassment and expense.

  She should leave the reservation, she was told.

  She did, suffering exactly the fate her father would have visited on her.

  Chapter 12

  Santa Fe, New Mexico — June 5, 1997

  John graduated from Saint John’s College with a classical education and no real idea of what he wanted to do with his life. He’d worked part-time jobs for his parents and friends of the family since he was twelve, but none of the jobs had suggested any career path. The purpose of his labors had been to teach John the values of work and thrift. In that, they had been successful. He was not afraid to put in a full day and over the years he had saved ten thousand dollars.

  Thrift was all the easier when Mom and Dad provided free room, board and education.

  As a graduation gift, Haden and Serafina had matched John’s savings dollar for dollar. The Wolfs’ idea, as a family, was that John would use his money to travel the world for a year. Discover who he was. Find out what his vocational interests might be.

  John’s plan was to start the journey in Mexico, the ancestral land of his mother’s family. From there he would go to England, Germany and Denmark, the countries from which his father’s family came. After that, he would go where the wind and whim carried him.

  Having the beginning of his itinerary plotted, he headed that bright June morning to a travel agency to see what the experts might suggest as places around the world a young man ought not to miss. He never got that far. His car was pulled over by an unmarked sedan with flashing lights and a siren.

  In other places, John might have been alarmed by such a turn of events. His copper complexion and the sunglasses he wore might have cast him as a figure of suspicion to some white cops in the southern United States. In Santa Fe, though, he was just another local. So what was the reason for —

  John was taken by surprise when a woman with fashion model looks and clothes got out of the sedan. He’d never seen any cop who looked like her. In fact, her copper complexion looked a lot like his. Native American. Not quite Apache, Navajo or Hopi; she must have been from a more distant tribe. She was a bit older than him, too. Maybe thirty to his twenty-two.

  John lowered his window as she came to stand beside his car.

  “I do something wrong, Officer?” he asked.

  She flashed a brilliant white smile at him, and showed her ID.

  Marlene Flower Moon. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The woman was a fed.

  “So this isn’t a traffic stop?” John asked.

  Ms. Flower Moon told him, “My hope is it’s the start of a job interview.”

  “Where’d you get the cop car?” John asked.

  “I borrowed it from the tribal police.”

  Remembering the words of warning his parents had imparted to him since he was a boy, John asked, “You’re not Coyote, are you?”

  Marlene said, “Let’s talk and you can decide for yourself.”

  Chapter 13

  Austin, Texas — July 11, the present

  Marlene Flower Moon assured Detective Darton Blake that any information she or John turned up that was relevant to the murder of Randy Bear Heart would be relayed to the Austin Police Department.

  Darton, having gotten to his feet, looked her in the eye, smiled and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Not that he believed her for a minute. He’d worked with the feds before. John T. might be cut from a different cloth, but this lady was pure Washington. He was glad he didn’t have to answer to her.

  “And you’ll keep us informed of anything you learn?” Marlene said.

  “Absolutely, ma’am. I’ll be in touch with Special Agent Tall Wolf.”

  Marlene gave the local cop a smile as phony as the one he’d given her.

  Then she took John to lunch.

  Marlene knew a place that had been opened by a former bootlegger named Threadgill. John took a look around. Glanced at the menu. Ordered the special of the day, chicken enchiladas with two veggies. He asked for an ice tea to go with his meal.

  Marlene echoed his order.

  After the waitress left, he asked Marlene, “This place start out as a gas station?”

  “It did,” she said. “Janis Joplin used to sing here.”

  John nodded. His parents had one of Joplin’s albums, but she’d died before John had been born. Marlene couldn’t have been much more than an elementary school student back then.

  “You like retro rock?” John asked.

  “I like to see how people deal with their demons,” she said.

  John thought that was creepy, didn’t ask to hear more.

  “You have something job related to tell me?” he asked.

  “I’ve been talking to people in South Dakota,” Marlene said. “I spoke with some of Randy Bear Heart’s old girlfriends, them and the secretary of the Mercy Ridge board of directors.”

  “You do all this by phone?” he asked.

  “In person,” she said.

  John was surprised. It took a lot to get Marlene out of D.C.

  She had to keep an eye on the store. Tend to her political interests.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I traveled to New Mexico to recruit you.”

  When they’d both been younger and Marlene had only started to climb her career ladder.

  “Yes, you did,” he said.

  “You still think I’m a Chickahominy at heart.”

  The tribe was indigenous to Northern Virginia, a tomahawk throw from Washington.

  John said, “What you’ve told me is you’re a lineal descendant of Powhattan. But then the Algonquin are from that part of the country, too. Or so I’m informed.”

  Before joining the BIA, John knew little of the history of native peoples in North America. They hadn’t figured in his scholastic education and given his history he had eschewed any personal interest. He’d learned more since signing on with Marlene. Did the assigned reading.

  “Don’t you think it would be interesting to have a Native American president?” she asked.

  John smiled. “You are Coyote.”

  “Maybe,” she replied.

  John’s relationship with Marlene over the years had traveled a narrow path from being professional to being insubordinate. From the start, Marlene had shown an interest in him that went beyond being a mentor to a protégé. He probably would have made some bad choices with her if Mom and Dad hadn’t warned him about the Trickster.

  John said, “A Native American president would be poetic, historic and ironic.”

  “And I’m icky enough to be all that?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Or would I have to beat my drum and do the Ghost Dance?”

  There was a belief among many Native Americans that the Ghost Dance would bring a great flood that would wash away all the white people and the Indians who hadn’t traveled the Red Road, the path of native righteousness. In short, guys like John. But for the faithful the world after the flood would be just like the good old days. No white men and lots of buffalo.

  “I’m not sure you’ve followed the Red Road any better than I have,” John said.

  “Maybe an exception or two can be made.”

  John laughed. “You certainly have the right attitude for politics.”

  Marlene smiled, a facial expression that John always thought of as a restrained snarl, something that might change in a flash to a snap of teeth and jaws. Coyote. But a wolf did not fear lesser canines. It devoured them.

  In a fair fight, anyway.

  Where trickery w
as involved, a guy had to be careful.

  Marlene told him, “I wanted to talk with Annie Forger while I was in South Dakota.”

  “Wanted?” John asked.

  “She was nowhere to be found. Her house in Rapid City is empty. The utilities have been turned off.”

  John frowned. “You asked around, the white cops as well as the red?”

  Marlene nodded. “Nobody knows anything.”

  “Or nobody’s talking.”

  “See what you can find out,” Marlene told John.

  There were times when Marlene truly wanted him to do his job, John knew, and there were other times when she wanted him to look like he was conducting an investigation. That had disconcerted him early in his career. If she didn’t want him to do things the right way, why had she …

  He came to realize she’d hired him to produce the results that were politically advantageous to her. If not, there was no reason to hire a guy who had no more cultural awareness of Native Americans than your average white man. In other words, precious little. But he did have one important advantage.

  He looked the part. Marlene’s interface with the white world had a red face. His biological heritage let him pass as a native, and he’d used that to his advantage. His physical appearance was the best disguise an undercover cop could ask for. Marlene’s mistake, though, was assuming John thought like a typical white man.

  Yes, his father, Haden Wolf, had white skin, had gone to medical school and not only wore a white collar but also a white coat. Dad’s appearance, however, was even more deceiving than John’s. Haden Wolf had a family background of folk magicians, herbalists and diviners. His thought processes were as fluid as a river during a spring flood.

  Mom was Dad’s soulmate. Her family, the Padillas, was a mix of indios and conquistadores, curanderos and brujas. The Padillas and their forebears had been casting spells for both good and ill since pre-Colombian times. Like her husband, Serafina had added contemporary scientific study to her wealth of knowledge.

  Neither parent saw any reason why their son shouldn’t be raised in both communities: folk wisdom and lab testing.

  Outwitting Marlene Flower Moon and doing his job the way he saw fit was John’s greatest professional joy. He might or might not return to South Dakota to see what had become of Annie Forger. But right now Ms. Forger’s whereabouts were a side issue, a distraction.

  John intended to stay in Austin and find out how Randy Bear Heart had met his end.

  John dropped Marlene off at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for her flight back to Washington. He told her he’d be reporting in as soon as he found out anything important. If she wanted to interpret that to mean he would be complying with her wish to have him go back to South Dakota, so be it.

  She could commiserate with SAC Gilbert Melvin on what a prick John was.

  Chapter 14

  Austin, Texas — July 12, the present

  Detective Darton Blake picked John up at The Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin. He’d checked out of his room at the La Quinta near the airport. He assumed that Marlene had suborned someone at his former lodgings to let her know if he continued to stay there. The Driskill was a four-star hotel; its rates were well above John’s per diem for putting a roof over his head. As long as he made up the difference out of his pocket, though, there would be no problem. He caught a break when the Driskill’s manager, a patriotic Texas lady, saw his credentials and offered to comp his room.

  John couldn’t let her do that, but he was agreeable to having her let the federal government pay its usual toll.

  “Nice digs,” Darton said as John got into his car.

  “Very nice.”

  “This the kind of place the BIA puts up all its people?”

  John didn’t want his new partner to get irate over the misuse of his tax dollars so he gave Darton the backstory. The detective smiled.

  “That’s cool, but you’re not going to catch grief from Ms. Flower Moon?”

  “Marlene and I play push and pull all the time,” he said.

  Darton gave him a look.

  “In terms of our professional relationship,” John elaborated.

  “Good to know,” the detective said. He pulled into an opening in traffic. “I might have a lead on Randy Bear Heart.”

  “Tell me,” John said.

  “Well, it’s been my experience that most fugitives outsmart themselves.”

  John nodded. He had the same understanding of cons on the run.

  “Sometimes they miss a little detail; sometimes they screw up so bad you wonder if they manage to put their boots on the right feet.”

  “I can go along with a small slip-up,” John said, “but Randy Bear Heart was supposed to be one smart Native American.”

  “Yeah, and how many smart guys have you seen do dumb things?”

  “Ego can get in the way,” John allowed.

  “Okay, then. Looking for something really dumb, I wanted to see if a pretty boy like Randy came to town and wanted to make a living smiling for the camera. Like being a model or something.”

  Annie Forger had said Randy was crazy, John thought.

  Still, he said, “Don’t tell me he was that stuck on himself.”

  “No, he was too smart for that, but he had the bad luck of fathering a son who was his spitting image. A girl at one of the talent agencies in town that I sent Randy’s picture to recognized him. Only she thought the picture was his kid, Jackson.”

  John asked, “Jackson did something in the public eye?”

  Darton stopped for a red light and nodded.

  “Acting?” John asked, thinking of Randy’s fascination with Warren Beatty.

  “We get some movies shot around here, but where we’re really big is music.”

  “Jackson was in a band?”

  Darton smiled and stepped on the gas as the light turned green.

  “He was the front man. Singer, songwriter and co-lead guitarist.”

  “Damn,” John said. “How could he be more obvious?”

  “I’ll tell you how. He named his band after a certain lawman who died in South Dakota.”

  “Red Hawk?”

  “You got it. That’s actually a pretty cool name for a country-rock band.”

  John shook his head. He wondered if the ghost of the murdered cop had inspired the choice of the band’s name … and then had a good laugh about what happened next. There were times when John’s rational view of life disappeared like a puff of smoke in a high wind. Spirits and magic ruled the world.

  He was glad Marlene Flower Moon had never been around when he felt that shift in perception. He feared he might look up and see she really was Coyote. As it was, he could almost hear her howling now.

  “Has she gone?” a man’s voice asked.

  John remembered going into police headquarters and sitting down next to Darton’s desk in the homicide unit. He didn’t, however, recall when SAC Melvin had entered the picture. He pulled his head out of the clouds.

  “Who?” John asked.

  “Pocahontas, the killer Indian queen,” the FBI man said.

  “Yeah, she’s gone,” Darton said.

  Maybe, John thought.

  He asked Melvin, “She ruffles the Bureau’s feathers?”

  “Feathers? Yeah, that’s a good one. Fact is, Marlene scares most of official Washington.”

  “You think she’ll go on the warpath?” John asked.

  “What I think is, a lot of people will be working for her someday — those of us who can’t collect our pensions first.”

  Maybe Marlene will become president, John thought.

  “She scares you that much?” Darton asked.

  “How’d you like to work for her?” Melvin replied.

  Darton saw his point.

  “Either of you gentlemen come up with anything I should know?” Melvin asked. “You know, something I might have the resources to deal with that you don’t.”

  Darton looked at John, silently aski
ng if he should share his news about Jackson.

  John told Melvin, “Annie Forger, the woman I interviewed in Rapid City, South Dakota, the former girlfriend of Randy Bear Heart: She suddenly left home. Her house is vacant and the utilities have been turned off. No one knows where she is.”

  “This was right after you talked to her?” Melvin asked.

  “Don’t know if it was right after. I learned of it last night. Pocahontas told me.”

  Melvin grunted.

  John told him, “I believe your organization has offices in all fifty states. Finding Ms. Forger might be just the thing for you.”

  Melvin thought about that and said, “Unless Annie Forger is holed up at Mercy Ridge or some other Indian trust land. Then it’s your job, Mr. BIA man.”

  John stood up and told Melvin, “I don’t do reservations.”

  He left the two white guys looking at each other while he went to the can.

  When John got back from the men’s room, Melvin had left.

  “You tell him anything about Jackson and Red Hawk?” John asked.

  Darton shook his head. “The way I see it, this is your case. I’ll just follow your play.”

  “Thanks.” John took a seat. “There’s more to the story of Ms. Forger. Her husband died and she received a three-million-dollar life insurance benefit. So, if she wants, I bet she can make a good, long run.”

  “What’d her husband do?” Darton asked.

  “Played pro hockey in Vancouver, BC. His name was Vern Forger. He died in a car crash in L.A with two teammates, one of whom was supposed to be the designated driver, but toked up anyway.”

  John let Darton chew on that for a minute.

  Then John said, “I can see how having Marlene looking for you might incline a person to run. Might even lead other people to grab Annie before Marlene could get to her. Marlene said I should look into Annie’s vanishing act, but I’m going to work Austin with you for a while, if you have no objection.”