Two Medicine (33 page)

I stared at the photo a
moment. “What am I looking at?” I asked Greg.

He pointed a finger into
the center of the photo, over some dark patches. “These,” he said,
“are footprints.
Her
footprints, to be exact.” He indicated the patches again.
“They match the tread of the shoes she was wearing.”

“
Where is this area?” I
asked him, scanning the photo again and trying to make out her
small footprints, which was difficult with the shadows that the
weeds and sticks case on the muddy ground.

“
It’s in the report – the
actual location. I know the coordinates.” he said. “I’ll tell you
where it is.” He pulled out another photo and pointed at it. “But
this is another shot around the scene.” The image was of more
ground, shot from higher up, as if someone had stood up and back
away and shot the ground again. The difference was, however, that
the ground ended beside a dark, asphalt surface in this
picture.

“
It’s by a
road?”

“
Yes,” Greg said. “Her
prints are by the road, just a few fees off in the mud.”

“
You didn’t say before
that she was found by a road.”

“
Because
she wasn’t, Will.” he said. “She was found more than a hundred feet
from the road in the woods. But the important thing to see is that
there are no other footprints near where she
was
found.” He flipped
through both pictures again. “There’s
her
prints by the road, then nothing
for a hundred feet all the way to her body – as if she just floated
out to that spot – nobody else was around. Around the body, at the
road, between her body and the road, nothing.”

“
So what does that all
mean?” I asked.

He set the folder in his
lap and carefully placed the photos in the stack – careful, I
noticed, to not let the other photos show. “You need to find out,”
he said.

“‘
You,’” I said. “Not
‘we.’”

Greg set the folder in
between us and reached out and laid a hand on the steering wheel,
looking through the windshield to the forest beyond. “I’m done,
Will. I got involved in this case and now that I've done this stuff
it's really hard for me to go back to do in the Ranger work, I’ll
be honest. But I’ve got my family to think about – I have a living
to make. I have to give an evening program presentation to a bunch
of kids tomorrow night; and then I’m leading a hike for them in the
morning.”

I pictured him leading a
troop of little kids – like some kind of scout leader. It seemed a
tragic waste.

“
But man, I want to know,”
he said, looking over at me with intensity, shaking his head.
“Nobody has touched this file, my friend told me, not in a week.
Everyone’s acting like the case is closed at the BIA. She doesn’t
know if anyone is working on it anymore.”

“
We got to go to that
spot, Greg. I want to see it.”

Greg just nodded, still
staring out the windshield. “I can’t lose my job.”

“
We should at least go to
that diner in Browning Alia used to work at – see if anyone there
has heard anything or knows anything. You can go to a restaurant in
Browning, I assume. Then, if you want, we could drop by this foster
family she had – they’re bound to be home on a Sunday….” I tried to
sound reasonable, and I watched him looking ahead of us into the
forest through the windshield.

“Will,” Greg said with a
sigh, “I already called up there to those foster parents – her last
ones – and they didn’t have a clue about her life after she left
their place.”

“You did?” I asked in
surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He paused while I just
stared at him. He looked down at the folder and smiled, “If my
chief knew I had borrowed that from the BIA – I’d be fired. I think
I just went crazy for a moment and decided I needed to see it, and
I knew Olsterman wouldn’t ever let me get a look at the report. But
I’m starting to think… I can’t jeopardize my job, my family, on
this, Will. I may have already done too much.” He didn’t sound like
himself anymore as he said this – he sounded beaten down,
conflicted.

“They can’t stop you from
doing what you want to do on your
time
off
though,” I said.

“
Dee
can,” he said, smiling sadly.
“You don’t know married life, Will; Dee is like a part of me, and
for her not to be along with me on this hurts. I don’t think I can
keep it up. I haven’t told her very much because I don’t want her
to get into trouble with me. But I wanted to show you this,
because
you
gotta
keep going. Somebody put her in that spot, Will, and somehow
covered their tracks I think. We gotta know who. Who would know how
to do that?”

I took a deep breath and
let it out slowly. Thinking I was going to go it solo now, and how
I had lost the one feature of this investigation that had any
legitimacy – that a member of law enforcement riding along with me
– made me feel a bit beaten down, too.

“I gotta go Will,” Greg
said, starting up the truck. “We’re taking Ophie to the
lake.”

I got out of the car and
looked back at him through the side window. “So that’s it?” I
asked. “You’re just done?”

He nodded. “For now,” he
said as he put the car in gear. “Never tell anyone I stole the
report.”

He started to pull away.
“Greg, real quick,” I said hurriedly grasping the door frame before
he got too far. He put on the brakes. “I’m going to go see Clayton
Red Claw.”

Greg rolled his eyes,
looking exasperated. I held up my hand to stop him. “I know about
his reputation and everything, but it’s where I need to go; he’s a
part of this. But look, if shit goes down I may need to call you –
just let you know what’s up, that ok with you?”

“
Of course, Will” he said.
“But I’m just a ranger, remember, and that’s in Browning – so you’d
need to call the BIA cops too, if you’re in trouble. Just don’t get
yourself in a place you can’t get out, is the best plan for
you.”

I thanked him. “Something
I meant to say to you before but didn’t get the chance, Greg. I was
lucky you came along like you did; and I’m thankful for your help.
You helped me get going on this; and now I believe I can find out
who did it, because of your help. If I eventually find out
something important, I’ll let you know – if you want.”

“
You better,” he said, a
sly smile stealing across his face at me. Then he drove off and
left me standing in the parking lot, feeling like the last man on
earth.

Twenty-Seven

I needed a car
to get to Browning, so I walked up to Ronnie’s
door and knocked loudly as he had his stereo up loud blasting some
Rolling Stones. It was
Sympathy for the
Devil
.

Ronnie came to the door
shirtless with cigarette dangling from his mouth. He looked like
shit. His short hair was sticking up all messy, and his room was
trashed. He didn’t look especially pleased to see me. “Hey Chiefy,”
he muttered. “What can I do you for?”

I could barely hear him
over the Rolling Stones’ blaring “
Won’t
you guess my name
!” A big box fan he
recently had stuck in the window sill to keep smoke pouring out the
window rumbled behind him.

“
How about a late
breakfast?” I asked. “I’m buying!”

He regarded me for a
moment with dismay, then turned and walked back to his dresser. I
followed into his room, careful to walk around the clothes strewn
about.

“
Love what you’ve done
with the place,” I said.

He bent over the dresser and made a loud
snorting noise. I saw a thin, white line of powder disappear up his
big, hooked nose. He then snorted a second line of cocaine and then
reared up and brushed his moustache with his hand, snorting some
more.

“
Jesus…” I muttered. “You
gotta get rid of this stuff, Ronnie.”

He pulled a t-shirt out of one of the
dresser drawers and pulled it on.

“
Thanks for the advice,
doctor,” he said. “But you should worry about your own
hide.”

“
What is that supposed to
mean” I asked.

“
Forget it,” he said,
waving a hand dismissively and grabbing his keys off the dresser.
“I’ll drive.”

We drove out of the
parking minutes later. Ronnie gripped the steering wheel with one
hand, his other was propping his head up as he leaned against his
door. He had on dark shades; it was still viciously sunny
outside.

He was initially playing
some tunes on the car stereo but then he reached down and switched
it off. This was the first time I had never seen him drive without
his music.

“
I’m hungover as fuck,” he
said, in the way of an explanation, I assumed.

“
You must be,” I said.
“What’d you do?”

“
Uhhhhh,” he rubbed his
hand over his hair back and forth roughly a few times and spit out
the window. “Me and Jamie downed an entire bottle of Mad Dog 20/20
each – and some other stuff. It was kind of a competition; I think
she won...?” He reached over and pulled out another cigarette,
lighting it and tossing the lighter back into the dash
console.

He glanced at me. “So you
wanna tell my why you’re hanging around with rangers and police
officers, these days? Despite my sage advice?”

“
I certainly haven’t been
‘hanging around’ with them.”

“
You
brought one here today – the bastard wanted to speak
to
me,
but
I told him to fuck off. What the hell did he want
here
?”

“
Looking into Alia’s
murder,” I said. “But he’s just going through the motions – he
doesn’t give a shit.”

“
Why
do
you
give
a shit?” Ronnie said, shaking his head. “You just fucked her
once.”

I set my jaw firmly in
place, feeling anger rising in me. “Ronnie, we’re friends and all
but I’m not going to let you disrespect her like that – that can’t
happen again. You didn’t know anything about her.”

We rode in awkward silence
for a moment. Then Ronnie shrugged, “I didn’t mean to come off like
an asshole about it, Chiefy.” He stared back out the windshield. “I
just don’t get why you care so much. Cops coming around now… it’s
where I live too, you know.”

“
Just don’t say shit about
her like that, man,” I said.

We rode on. Ronnie turned
the music back on, but kept it low. “Will,” he said after some
time, now with a calmer voice, “don’t take this the wrong way, but
I just want to say, regardless of why you care so much, that you
need to be careful about dealing with the BIA cops, and even in
dealing with the rangers.”

He flicked his cigarette
out the window. “I’m only saying that because I’ve seen it before –
back in Detroit. You get involved with the cops, even trying to
help them, whatever it may be, and then they fuck you – they turn
it back on you some way. Seen it a million times…”

He raised one hand in the
air with that “I’m just saying” gesture. “I
know
you cared about Alia, Will, and
I know you want to know what happened. But stirring things up with
the cops is just going to make it worse. Do you see
that?”

I thought about Olsterman’s
unsettling suggestions about me being the only suspect. “That’s the
second time someone’s told me I’ve been “stirring things up”
today,” I said. “But as far as making things worse – what exactly
do you think could happen?”
Besides
Olsterman getting sick of my bullshit and deciding to arrest me for
murder.

He shrugged. “Like I told
you before: don’t trust a cop. Partly why I came out here was to
get away from all the crime and shit in Detroit – I had some
troubles of my own, unfortunately. Like you said a while back, this
place was a ‘reset’ button for me, too, and lately I feel like
Detroit is bleeding into Two Med.”

“
It’s not Detroit – it’s
Browning,” I said. “What kind of trouble did you have back in
Michigan?”

He shrugged vaguely.
“Stupid shit. But nevertheless, I never trust a cop and neither
should you –
any
kind of cop – even Greg. They stay away from us, and we stay
away from them? Just like the grizzlies and us.”

Ronnie glanced over at me.
“Whatever you and Alia had before, whatever you’re trying to do
now, just watch out and make sure you don’t make things worse. And
keep the cops out of it.”

Watch out for what? I
wondered.

“
Why do you care so much?”
I asked him. “Nobody’s gonna find your precious stash.”

He didn’t respond. “It’s
not even about me and her,” I said, my eyes now on the road. “Your
right that we weren’t together very long – not long at all. But
it’s about the fact that she had a shitty life, man, she never had
a break her whole life, and she had plans to get out of this town –
out of Browning. She was strong, Ronnie, she really was; and she
was smart, and she was kind, beautiful… a person I wish I could
have been with.