Bad Medicine

Chapter One

Jesse Dancer froze with the phone to his ear.

"We've got one of yours." The disembodied voice of Detective Mark Hanson crackled through the receiver. "She's been strangled."

"What makes you think she's mine?"

"She's about fifteen, looks streetwise—she's Native. How soon can you get down here?"

"Give me twenty minutes." Jesse set the receiver in its cradle and stared, unseeing, at the funding proposal on his desk. Had somebody killed one of his kids? His cop friends were always preaching detachment.
How in hell was he supposed to do that? Jesse understood these kids. His mom was Ojibway and he considered himself Native, even though his dad was one of those Irish, Indian, French mixtures that Canadians referred to as Métis. The Native kids trusted Jesse, which was a lot more than they did most white men.

I need a coffee. Jesse left his desk and headed for the lunchroom. Annie, the Friendship Centre's receptionist was inside taking her morning break. She greeted him with a wave.

"How's it going?" Jesse noted the bulge in Annie's cheek and the half-eaten donut in her hand.

She flashed her eyes at him and he laughed. Even though Jesse kept his long black hair tied with a thong and made it a point to dress conservatively, he'd gotten used to the sultry looks and suggestive remarks his well-muscled body drew from female co-workers.

Taking the coffee back to his desk he picked up his pencil and ordered himself to focus. Twenty minutes later, he stopped at Annie's desk with his proposal. "Dim Sum's on me if you'll get this typed and on the Director's desk by three o'clock."

Annie giggled. "I'll hold you to that," she told his
retreating back.

* * *

Vancouver
police headquarters covers two blocks and finding a parking space takes fortitude. Jesse circled, made a sharp turn onto Cordova and hit the brakes. An old wino stepped in front of the Jeep and flipped the bird.

Jesse shook his head and laughed out loud. Yesterday was Welfare Wednesday. The old boozer would be back in the soup line tomorrow, but today he had a bottle of cheap wine clutched in his hand and change jingling in his pocket. Today he was King for a day.

A Honda pulled away from the curb and Jesse slid into position. It took some doing to snug a Jeep into a spot left by a Honda, but he'd had plenty of practice. Moments later, Jesse locked the doors and crossed the street.

Making his way up the steps and through the double doors he stopped at the front desk. "I'm going up to see Hanson."

The desk clerk looked up from a magazine, nodded his head and went back to reading.

As usual, Jesse bypassed the elevator and took the steps to the third floor. At the end of the hall he stopped in front of a corner office, knocked once, and stepped inside.

"Good, you're here." Detective Hanson motioned to the wooden chair fronting his desk. "You remember Carver?" The detective indicated the tall, dark-skinned native who stood with his shoulder propped against the window frame.

"Sure. How's it going, Frank?"

Carver nodded in return.

"Well, now that you're here." Hanson hoisted his 240-pound frame out of the chair, pulled open a file drawer and removed a glossy black and white. "See if you recognize this girl." He handed over the photo and Jesse found himself looking at a bruised and bloated face dominated by sightless dead eyes.

His stomach clenched. "She doesn't look familiar but it's hard to tell from this. Where'd they find her?"

"One of the guards checking out the west-end of the Park where the bums bed down, stumbled across her body. Doc says she was killed somewhere else and dumped."

"Raped?"

Hanson nodded. "We figure an Indian killed her."

"How's that?"

"They found her stripped and staked out like she was an offering in some kind of a ritual. Her arms and legs had been tied with buckskin and she had this card stuck to her breast."

Hanson held up a pale blue card. "Carver says it's a Medicine Card." He turned the card to reveal a picture of a rattlesnake curled around a nest of eggs.

"That's a Medicine Card, all right." Jesse took the card out of Hanson's hand. "That still doesn't explain why you think the killer is Native. You can buy these cards at every New Age shop in the city. Besides Indians are superstitious and messing with the Medicine Cards is taboo."

"Well, killing people's taboo, too, and this bastard didn't mind that."

Hanson reached out his hand for the card and Jesse held it back. "You said the card was stuck on her. How?"

"With this." Hanson reached into the envelope and pulled out a kitchen knife. "Carver says these Medicine Cards mean something. You know anything about them?"

"No, but I know someone who does. Let me take him the card and see what he says?"

"Are you nuts? This is evidence. If the Sergeant found out I let you take a card out of evidence he'd have me back on the street handing out parking tickets."

"Easy money." Jesse chuckled at the vision of Hanson's belly stuffed inside a uniform. Then he cut the grin. "Seriously Mark," he said, "I'd like Spirit Water to take a look. He reads the Medicine Cards."

Hanson scowled. "Bring him in then."

Jesse shook his head. "Spirit Water's one of the old timers. His memory goes back to the days when white cops beat the shit out of Indians for entertainment. I can't say he's never been inside a police station, but if so, it wasn't his idea."

"Damn fools." Hanson shook his head.

Jesse, not knowing whether Hanson meant Spirit Water or the white cops, kept silent.

Finally, Hanson grunted out of his chair and walked over to the photocopy machine. "I'll make a copy for you. Take it along to the old man and see what he says. I'll expect a report."

"Thanks. I'm going to take a run out there this weekend. I'll let you know if he has any ideas."

Once outside of headquarters Jesse retrieved the Jeep, stopped by the
Friendship
Center
to make sure Annie had turned in his proposal, reiterated his promise to take her for Dim Sum, and headed home.

The details of the girl's murder had Jesse worried. It took a lot of juggling to maintain harmony in a large multi-cultural city like
Vancouver
. The way the press would play this up if they got any hint of a ritual murder could spark the kind of racial tension that would make his job even tougher than it already was. The Native's community remembered all too vividly the routs of the 1950's when the Canadian government —hell-bent on reforming savages—gave their Indian agents instructions to round-up Native kids, take them away from their families, and force them into residential schools. The divide between Indian and White ran deep. Most Natives would read about the murder in the media and immediately jump to the conclusion that yet another Native brother was being set up to pay for a white man's crimes.

Jesse drove along
Commercial Drive
to Adanac and turned into the alley behind an attractive two story colonial. The square frame and brick structure housed a Chinese grocery on the ground floor and a pair of condos on top. Jesse had purchased the property before the latest housing boom had sent
Vancouver
's housing skyrocketing. The double garage attached to the property had sold him on the place. It was a decision he'd never regretted.

Until recently Jesse had lived in one of the condos and kept the other vacant.
That had changed three months ago when the
Friendship
Center
hired a young Métis woman from
Quebec
. Director Sandstone, mindful of
Vancouver
's housing crisis, pleaded with Jesse to rent his second condo to their new associate. Jesse resisted at first, unwilling to relinquish his privacy, but then he'd met Martine.

Silky black hair hung long and straight to her bum and Jesse's eyes followed miles of leg from the hem of her mini-skirt to the strappy leather sandals on her feet.

"Jesse. This is our new associate Martine LaChance. I've told her you might be able to help with finding accommodations." Director Sandstone had brought Martine into Jesse's office and stood there with a smug smile on her lips when Jesse's face took on the startled gaze of a deer caught in headlights.

"Hi." Martine fixed her melting chocolate eyes on Jesse's coal black orbs. Stunned by the fire in his belly and the tangle of his tongue, Jesse stuttered through introductions and arranged a showing of his condo.

Remembering the rest of that day still had Jesse squirming. He'd taken Martine through the condo and they'd gone to his place to work out the details. Jesse gave her the lease and while she read it over he admired her obvious assets. When Martine finished reading, she signed her name, and handed the lease back to Jesse. Then she let out a long-suffering sigh. "Just so there's no misunderstanding," she'd said. "I'm flattered by your obvious interest, but I never get personally involved with my co-workers." The look on her face and the flash in her eyes left no doubt that she'd observed his scrutiny.

Mortified. Jesse added his signature to the lease and promised to provide her with a copy back at the office. That had been a month ago. They'd developed a good working relationship, friendly, uncomplicated, and definitely platonic, at least on Martine's part.

Jesse unlocked the downstairs door and let himself into the foyer. Removing a couple of circulars from the mailbox, he dropped them in the trash and double-stepped up the stairs. At the top, the door on the left led to Martine's unit, the door on the right to his.