Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112) (11 page)

T
ODD rapped on the passenger window. “She’s ready.” Rob extricated himself and his laptop from the shotgun seat and stepped out of the patrol car into gusting rain. He’d been sitting in the car for a good half hour, waiting for Madeline Thomas to put all her defenses in place. It was cold, and the windows had steamed up.

While he waited, he’d been doing electronic busywork and trying to decide how to approach Maddie. The last time he had seen her had been at his grandmother’s memorial service two years earlier.

The chief had spoken her piece in full ceremonial costume before the assembled mourners, thrusting herself center-stage, making political hay. He had heard her platitudes through a fog of rage. Not the most useful frame of mind for diplomacy. He suppressed the image. Like Sheriff McCormick, Maddie could no more help being a politician than a skunk could help being a polecat.

Todd pulled the visor of his hat down over his eyes. “Uh, Uncle Leon’s pretty upset.”

“Upset how?” A gust of rain hit Rob’s face. “Better lock the car.”

“Aw.”

“Lock it.” Stealing a patrol car would appeal to the adolescent sense of humor. There were lots of kids in Two Falls.

Todd shrugged and obeyed.

Rob tucked the laptop under his jacket. There was plenty of room. He wasn’t armed. “Upset as in grieving or as in wanting to kill me?”

“I dunno. He’s had a couple of beers.”

“Great.”

“He’s not a drunk,” Todd protested. “He’s upset.”

Rob nodded. So was Todd upset. So, for that matter, was Robert Guthrie Neill. He didn’t want to think how upset Madeline Thomas would be.

He headed for the house. They had parked on the street. Wet gravel crunched underfoot.

Madeline and Jack lived in a double-wide mobile home with a view of the larger of the cascades for which Two Falls was named. The Choteau River tumbled past the village to its confluence with the Columbia.

When Bonneville Dam went in, in 1938, the Choteau band of the Klalos had been relocated to a secondary fishing camp. Unimaginative government housing lay below Maddie’s house, along with newer mobile homes, most of them double-wide.

Todd had caught up and was leading him not to the conventional front door but around the side on a path composed of cedar cross-sections set in gravel. The well-groomed walkway led to an annex. The addition was taller than the house, with clerestories and a central skylight rather than ordinary windows. It was roofed with the same practical gray metal as the mobile home, but cedar shakes covered the walls. A cedar lintel surmounted the door, and a carved pediment depicting the chinook salmon, totem of the Thomas clan, gleamed in the rain. The figure had been painted recently.

Todd knocked at the door and opened it without waiting for a response. He ushered Rob into a reception room that was doing its best to look like the interior of a miniature longhouse without the inconveniences.

Museum-quality masks, beaver pelts, button blankets, nets, drums, and ceremonial rattles hung on walls faced with raw cedar. Good use had been made throughout of cedar, fir, and alder. A table by the door exhibited pine-needle baskets. The industrial carpet, a matte brown tweed, looked rather like rammed earth. A convincing gas-powered fire burnt in the center of the floor. Benches, each with a long flat cushion covered in trading blanket fabric, lined the walls. The scent of cedar permeated the whole empty space.

Empty? What was Maddie playing at? Rob strode to the nearest bench, divested himself of his laptop and wet jacket, and turned back to the fire at the center of the room. It radiated satisfying warmth.

Wait, he told himself. And listen.

Todd shifted from foot to foot. “She meets with the tribal council in here.”

Rob nodded, head bent, hands out to the fire. Rain drummed on the skylight.

“I’ll go find her, okay?”

“Sure.”

After an interminable wait, a door opened at the far end of the room and Maddie entered with her husband. Both of them wore plaid wool shirts and jeans, Maddie a beaded headband. They were stocky people, not very tall, but Maddie had solid presence. Todd straggled in after them and shut the door. Leon Redfern did not appear.

“Lieutenant Neill.” Maddie inclined her head regally.

“Chief Thomas.”

“You remember my husband, Jack?”

Rob extended his hand and Jack shook it. “How are you, Jack? I’m sorry for your trouble.”

“Ah, thanks. My brother…he’s not so good. Trying to reach Lila up in Umatilla.” Jack’s seamed face creased with misery.

“Lila?”

“That’s his wife.” He cleared his throat. “Eddy’s mother. She’s Nez Perce, visiting her sister up on the rez. They was hunting today.”

“I see,” Rob murmured. He was trying not to imagine the horror awaiting the poor woman.

Madeline took a step toward him.”How sure are you?”

“Todd made the identification from an artist’s drawing, so it’s not absolute.”

“It’s Eddy.” Todd hung his head and scuffled his feet. “I’m sorry, Aunt Maddie.”

She closed her eyes and took a long breath.

Here it comes, Rob thought. Before she could speak, he said, “I checked missing persons for six counties, including Multnomah and Clark.” Portland was in Multnomah County, Vancouver in Clark. “Nobody listed Edward or Eddy Redfern, not in the last ten weeks.”

“Leon didn’t want to report the boy missing,” Jack said heavily. “We been looking for him.”

Rob walked over to the bench and retrieved his tape recorder from his damp jacket. “I ought to record this.”

Maddie’s face set but she didn’t say anything.

“Do I have your permission, Chief Thomas?”

“Yes.” She squeezed the syllable out. “I suppose you’ll use it against us.”

He kept exasperation from his voice with an effort. “I want it for my protection, ma’am. And for yours. There should be no misunderstanding about what we say.”

She grimaced. “Oh, go ahead.”

That took awhile. He gave his name, the date, place, and time, and the names of those present. Eventually he’d have to interrogate Maddie, Jack, and the parents individually, but for now he was just trying to understand how young Eddy Redfern could disappear without anyone saying a word about it to the authorities. He showed both of them the artist’s reconstruction and Jack groaned.

Maddie said, “It’s not a good likeness.”

Rob didn’t explain why it wasn’t. Chief Thomas blinked back tears.

Rob turned back to Jack, who had sunk onto one of the benches. “You were saying, Mr. Redfern, that Eddy’s family were aware that he was missing.”

“Well, he didn’t get in touch. He said he was off checking something out and not to expect him to show up at the powwow. That was in August. You know kids, they have their own lives these days.”

And their own deaths. Rob said nothing.

Jack gulped. “When Eddy didn’t come home for the Labor Day picnic we always have, his folks started to worry. Lila talked with his roommates in Portland. He lived in a house with four other students in the Hawthorne district, rode his bike to the college to save gas.”

“To Portland State University.”

“Yeah. Summer school let out second week in August. They, his roommates, said he left the last week of classes, before exams started, told them he’d finished early. His grades was okay, so that must be the truth. He said he was going to a big swap meet, and then up to The Dalles.”

“The Dalles?”

“He has friends on the Fish Commission,” Madeline said. “He worked for them two summers as an intern.”

“Did he show up there?”

She shook her head.

Jack said, “The girl he hung out with there told Lila that Eddy called her from Portland, said he’d be up later. But he never came.”

The timing sounded right. Rob got Jack to give him the girlfriend’s name.

Jack didn’t know the phone number. “She works for the fisheries people.”

“Okay, we can trace her.” Rob sat beside Jack with the tape recorder between them.

Maddie stalked over. “Trace her? She hasn’t done anything wrong!”

Rob mustered patience. “Find her. Talk to her. Eddy may have said something to her about the swap meet or whatever else he was doing, something that will help us identify his killer. Why a swap meet?”

Silence. Jack and Madeline stared at each other. Todd sneezed. “Sorry.”

Madeline said, “He hung out at the big swap meets because he was looking for things that were stolen from us.”

“From Lauder Point?”

“A lot of the young ones did it.”

“Not me,” Todd interjected.

“I wouldn’t let Todd,” she said with the hint of a sneer. “Didn’t want to get him fired.”

But Todd knew about it. Rob said, “Let me understand you. You were conducting an investigation, looking for the looted objects, and using your young people as agents?”

“We have a right to do that.”

He stared at her.

Madeline’s eyes dropped. “They just went to the swap meets and antiques shows.” She sat down on the next bench over and gazed into the fire.

“How young?” The hair on the back of Rob’s neck prickled.

“No kids under eighteen. Just the ones out of high school, and only if they wanted to and had time. I told them to be careful and not to…to confront any of the dealers. Just to report anything to me that might be part of the missing cache. And to give me the dealers’ names.”

“And?”

“I didn’t think anything would come of it. They like doing it,” she burst out. “It makes them feel part of the Klalo people. They’ve been looking ten years now, different kids every year, never found anything. A few dealers were selling looted stuff, but it wasn’t ours. I gave their names to the fisheries people Eddy worked for.”

But not to me, Rob reflected. He didn’t say anything. Chief Thomas sounded defensive.

“The laws have changed a lot in the last ten years,” he ventured, keeping his voice neutral.

“Oh, you noticed?”

He said through his teeth, “I attended three workshops on the changes—two at my own expense. I have a filing cabinet full of cases, legal opinions, and articles from archaeological journals. I noticed.”

She made a dismissive noise and turned her face away.

“Paused at four fifty-two.” He hit the Pause button. He needed to think, not emote. He walked to the other end of the room and looked at the display of pine-needle baskets. Beautiful work. Some of the baskets must have been very old, but one tiny perfect thing looked as if it had been made last week. He wished his daughter, Willow, could see it.

Artifacts such as the baskets, not to mention the ceremonial objects hanging from the walls, now fetched thousands of dollars at auction. Museums and private collectors had created a market that transformed pothunters into thieves, even grave robbers.

An Oregon man was on trial for looting a burial site in Nevada that dated back several thousand years
B.C.
In Washington, archaeologists and tribal leaders were at loggerheads over proposed scientific examination of one ancient skeleton. Sacred sites throughout the region had been vandalized. There had been no human remains anywhere in Lauder Point County Park, fortunately. The new laws, actually old laws with new teeth, were an attempt to deal with the situation.

When he thought he had his temper under control, Rob went back to where Todd was hovering over his aunt and uncle. They had been speaking in low voices and broke off at his approach.

Maddie started to say something, but Rob held up his hand. “Let me say my piece. If I haven’t offered apologies for failing to find the sacred objects stolen from Lauder Point, I offer them now. There’s no reason for you to believe I take the theft seriously after all this time. You’re bound to judge by results.”

Jack said, “Well, now…”

Maddie shifted on the bench. Todd was staring at him.

Rob kept his voice even. “I’m sorry to offend you with questions, but we do have a homicide. A valuable member of your community has been killed. Finding out who committed this outrage will be easier if you cooperate—”

The door to the main house flew open and a thinner, shorter version of Jack Redfern burst in. “I talked to her. She knows.” He broke off, sobbing, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “She wants to kill you, Maddie. Hell, she wants to kill
me.”

Todd and Jack spoke simultaneously. Todd took Leon Redfern’s arm and helped him to a seat near his brother. Jack patted his shoulder.

Rob stood still and watched them. When he glanced at Madeline Thomas, she ducked her head, breaking eye contact, as if she were ashamed. So she should be. She hadn’t thought anything would come of it. In spite of himself, Rob felt a twinge of sympathy for the stubborn woman.

When Leon seemed calmer, Rob introduced himself and shook hands. He showed Redfern the artist’s version of his son’s face and waited for the bereaved man to compose himself.

To his surprise, Todd intervened. He gave Leon a brief hug, went to the basket table, and took a big cylindrical tin and a shallow glass vessel from a drawer Rob hadn’t noticed. The tin held French cigarettes.

Rob had quit smoking when his daughter was born, and he didn’t miss the habit, but he took a cigarette when Todd passed them out. The vessel was an ashtray of the sort found in wealthy households in the 1950s. Jack lit his brother’s cigarette with an old Zippo lighter that was probably also a collector’s item. Then he passed the lighter around.

Rob managed not to cough when he lit up.

They smoked, Rob and Todd standing, the others sitting. Everyone was silent. The ashtray on Jack Redfern’s knee took on a ceremonial presence. Tobacco was a sacred plant to most Native American cultures. This ritual struck Rob as parody—as the room itself was a parody of a longhouse—but the effect was genuine.

Outside, the wind soughed. Rain spattered the plastic skylight. Smoke wreathed and hung in a blue cloud. Leon Redfern calmed and collected himself almost visibly. Maddie’s shoulders slumped. Jack smoked and patted his brother’s arm, rocking a little on the bench.

As for Rob, the short, filterless cigarette made him queasy and lightheaded, but the nicotine kicked in. He could feel his vision sharpening. His pulse accelerated.