Death on the Greasy Grass (13 page)

Stumper's eyes darted between the corpse and Manny. “It's no choice at all. I'll stay with Sam, though our conversation won't be any more productive than when the rummy was alive.”

“You'd rather stay here than come talk with Chenoa? You that scared of her?”

Stumper nodded. “I'm scared of what she can do. I want to keep my job, and pissing her off won't endear her to me. Or you when you give her the bad news. Let's say there's going to be some fireworks between one Crow lady and one Lakota FBI agent that might rival the old days.”

C
HAPTER
15

Manny turned onto the quarter-mile long driveway, passing under a black metal sign proclaiming S
TAR
D
ANCER
L
AND AND
C
ATTLE
swinging from logs thicker than telephone poles. A branding scene had been etched on the sign, fashioned by some craftsman wielding a plasma cutter. Steer wrestlers throwing a cow down touched a hot iron to flanks, the image of bawling steers and flying ropes portrayed perfectly. Manny could almost smell the branding iron burning the cow's hair, much like the smell in Sam's house. Experience told him it would take days to purge that odor, and he pinched his nostrils as if the odor of the burn victim would be blocked. It wasn't.

Manny topped the hill overlooking the ranch house, a two-story log affair that had
Bonanza
written all over it. Manny pulled up beside Chenoa's pink Hummer and an International Harvester Travelall with the Star Dancer logo pasted on the door. He half expected Pa and Little Joe to come ambling out of the house, greeting him with thumbs hooked in the pockets of starched jeans, smiling friendly as Hoss joined them.

Instead, a man that would have towered over Hoss turned sideways to get through the door and onto the porch. His boots echoed heavily on the wooden walkway running the length of the front of the house. He stopped, eyes fixed on Manny. Thick cheekbones shadowed a nose broken in the past and sitting at an odd angle, his brown eyes glaring, threatening. He was the biggest Crow Manny had ever seen, and he made a mental note not to mention the Crow and Lakota had been bitter enemies back in the day.

“Can't read.” The man stepped onto stairs Manny was certain would crumble under his weight. “Sign says no solicitors. We don't want what you're selling.”
Selling
hissed through a limited number of teeth that Manny thought sounded like a diamondback. He nudged his side. He'd forgotten his gun. Again.

“Who says I'm selling anything?” Manny closed his car door and stood with his hand on the handle.

The man stepped down three steps at once and ambled toward him, towering over Manny. “Maybe I should toss you and this heap off the ranch.” Knuckles popped on fists clenching and unclenching. The man had helped more than one victim off the Star Dancer Ranch.

“And who are you?”

“I work here. Jamie Hawk.”

Manny smiled. “I got a niece named Jamie.”

As dark complexioned as Jamie Hawk was, his face became a deep red. Manny thought bloodred as Jamie stepped toward him. Manny clenched his fist. Jamie might get a meal, but Manny intended getting a snack out of this dance.

“It's all right, Jamie.” Chenoa Iron Cloud emerged from the shadows of the doorway, black hair pulled into a tight ponytail revealing slight graying around the temples. “Let me introduce Senior Special Agent Manny Tanno.”

Hawk's voice hissed, barely audible through clenched teeth, “The Sioux agent?”

Manny forced a smile as he looked up at Jamie. “The same. Not here to rekindle old feuds, big guy. I'm here to see your boss.”

Hawk glanced over his shoulder, and Chenoa nodded. As noisily as he'd appeared, Jamie Hawk clomped up the steps and disappeared back inside the house. Chenoa watched him as he closed the heavy door. “He's just being protective.”

“You hire him as protection?”

She laughed. “No, I hired him for his congeniality.” She motioned to a swing on the porch and Manny joined her. “But he's especially hostile to federal law enforcement.”

“From his days of getting into trouble?”

“Does it show?”

Manny nodded. “I suspect his cell number had nothing to do with his phone.”

“How?”

“His stance. He blades himself like a cop. Or like someone used to fighting other convicts. Now, I don't think he was ever a cop, so that leaves him being in stir for some time.”

Chenoa looked sideways at him, but said nothing, waiting.

“When he thought I was some Watkins salesman come peddling tit salve or something, he was forceful. When you told him I was the law, he got downright nasty.” Manny avoided Chenoa's eyes. He could get lost in them if he wasn't careful. “You rehab Jamie?”

She nodded at last and looked out over the rolling, grass-covered prairie moving in time with the rising and falling of the wind. “My cousin's boy. He got into a little bit of trouble in a bar some years ago. Spent some time in Deer Lodge.”

Manny thought of the reason a man would spend time in a bar that resulted in hard time at the Montana State Penitentiary. “Did he know the man he killed?”

“You knew about that?”

Now it was Manny's turn to remain silent.

After long moments, Chenoa nodded. “He didn't mean to kill the other guy. But when he busted Jamie in the head with a pool cue, Jamie reacted.”

“And overreacted?”

Chenoa nodded. “But he's doing good now.”

Chenoa rapped on the door, and a middle-aged lady appeared. She wiped her hands on her apron depicting pumpkins flanked by a headless horseman. Chenoa asked for iced tea and the lady disappeared. Chenoa looked after her. “Forget Jamie. Mary Slagy's the one you got to be careful of in this household. Iron-fist brutal.”

Mary returned and placed a tray with a pitcher of iced tea flanked by sugar and Sweet'N Low packets and set them on the log table in front of the swing. Manny grabbed for the sugar, then replaced it with the Sweet'N Low when he realized he'd not run since his vacation started. His gut wasn't getting any slimmer, and he'd have to face Clara the Health Nazi when he went home.

Chenoa rubbed her ice-sweating glass against her temple and closed her eyes. A single drop of water escaped the glass and slid down her chest, drawing Manny's attention. She opened her eyes and caught him staring. She smiled, probably used to men looking at her.

“I took Jamie in. I felt benevolent I guess. They charged Jamie with manslaughter after he killed those two cowboys from Laurel.” She sipped her tea delicately and turned in the swing to face Manny. “I made some calls. Talked to some people at state. Jamie was paroled early, providing I keep him on the straight and narrow.”

“Have you?”

She paused, longer than she should have, Manny thought. “So far. And the last thing he needs is to go back for beating a federal officer.”

“I'll second that.”

“But you didn't come here to talk about Jamie.”

Manny cleared his throat. “It's about Sam.”

She laughed and grabbed her ponytail hanging over her back. She started unraveling her hair. “What's he done this time, steal jerky from the store again? Got thirty days the last time. And the time before that two weeks for defecating on the bench at the park in Hardin.” She turned away.

“I need to tell you . . .”

She laughed and stood, her hair fully unbraided and hanging down her chest. “Sam and I weren't close when we were growing, but I love him . . .”

“Chenoa, it's about Sam . . .”

“I hope you found him. I got those bred heifers I need his signature on before they leave the state. Got the brand inspector waiting for my call . . .”

“Chenoa.” Manny stood and put his hand on her shoulder. “Please sit down. I need to tell you something.” The breeze carried her cologne past his nose, teasing him, and he turned to the swing. He stood and paced in front of her, gathering the courage. “I've never found an easy way to say this.”

“Sam's dead?”

“Someone call you?”

Tears started running down her cheeks, tiny streaks of mascara running down with them. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Manny struggled with the urge to go to her and hold her. “I figured it must be something serious about Sam if the other officers wouldn't have the courage to come out here and tell me.”

“Sam's house burned down today.”

“Good.” She laughed. “I'm sure the neighborhood will be saturated with the cockroaches needing a new place to stay.”

“A body was found inside. Burned beyond recognition. Firemen think it's Sam.”

Chenoa drew in a deep breath, while Manny stood quietly in front of her, the only sounds the creaking of the rusty swing chains. When she stood and faced Manny, the tears were gone, replaced by the Chenoa he'd first met at Harlan's auction barn, tough and defiant. “The firemen think it was Sam, but you really don't know?”

Manny nodded. “We'll know for certain at autopsy.” Manny described the ring that melted to the burn victim's finger.

“Dad's ring.” She looked away. “How did the fire start?”

“Fire investigator thinks a cigarette in bed. I think so, too.”

“Drunk as usual, no doubt.” Anger filled her as her jaw muscles worked back and forth. “The damned fool fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and Mister Mattress killed him. Damned fool should never have gone back to smoking. I told him a dozen times over these last years, smoking will kill him.”

“Sam quit smoking?”

She jammed her fists into tight jean pockets. “He'd backslide now and again. He said it was hard not to smoke when he drank.”

Manny knew just how easy it would be to go back to smoking. He was just a matchstick away from starting back up, too. “Sure he quit?”

“I told him if he didn't quit I'd cut his monthly check.”

“Can you do that?”

She laughed. “No, but he didn't know it. But I didn't want him hooked up to oxygen in some assisted living facility or talking through a hole in his throat, costing me thousands a month.”

“So why didn't you get on him for his drinking?”

Her eyes narrowed and she took a step closer. “Sam always said that drink was the curse of the working class, and he lived it. I don't think he worked a day in his miserable life since he got back from Vietnam. Even I couldn't threaten him into stopping. My point is, if the fire was caused by a cigarette, someone may have started that fire. It might not have been Sam falling asleep with a smoke.”

“We'll look into it.”

“You'll do more than that, Agent Tanno.” Chenoa's voice rose high enough that Jamie Hawk poked his head out the door, his eyes locked on Manny. Chenoa held up her hand and Jamie relaxed, waiting. “Someone may have murdered Sam. You open a homicide investigation, or you'll be working fugitive cases in Harlem. I guarantee it.”

Manny caught his car out of the corner of his eye, calculating if he could reach it before Jamie Hawk put the grab on him. “We'll be looking at all angles.”

“Then look into this angle.” She stepped closer and jabbed her finger into Manny's chest. “Someone called me this morning and wanted to sell me that journal.”

“The one missing from the Beauchamp Collection? How'd you know it was missing? Cubby?”

Chenoa shrugged. “People tell me things. All sorts of things on the moccasin telegraph.”

Manny started pacing in front of the swing, as much as to think as to get out of finger range. “Who called you?”

“How the hell should I know?” Jamie stepped out the door and stood leaning against the side of the house. “I didn't recognize the voice. It was like he talked through a bandanna or something. Hard to understand. He said there was damaging information in that journal that could ruin the Star Dancers. And the Eagle Bulls.”

“And you turned him down?”

“In a heartbeat.” Chenoa's eyes had dried so that it didn't look as if she'd mourned Sam's death for even that briefest moment. “I didn't even consider it.”

“Because you don't think the journal contains any damning information?”

Chenoa picked up her glass and tossed the rest of the tea and ice onto the dirt in front of the porch. “I didn't say that. Rumor has it the journal contains some nasty historical gossip that could be, well, embarrassing at most.”

Manny kept Jamie Hawk in his peripheral vision as he faced Chenoa. “Why didn't you agree to buy it? Contact the BIA police and set up a buy-bust for the journal?”

“I would have if I thought the caller actually had it.”

“What makes you think the caller didn't have it?”

Chenoa tilted her head back and laughed, her chest heaving nicely. “Because of his price. A thousand dollars. If the rumors were true about what was written in the journal, he would have asked ten times that amount. Hell, just the value alone of a journal by one of Custer's scouts would be worth many times that.”

Manny nodded. Her logic made sense. In another life, perhaps, she might have been an investigator.

“So you knew the journal could hurt your family?”

“So I've heard.”

Manny thought back to what Itchy told them, that Sam had read the journal. He would know what damning information it contained, and he probably knew Harlan's safe combination. And Moccasin Top saw Sam coming out of the auction barn with an armful of old books. “Maybe someone thought Sam had it. Maybe someone torched Sam's house to destroy Sam and the journal.” Manny glanced over at Jamie, who took a step toward him. Manny's hand went to the small of his back and Jamie stopped, as if Manny had, in fact, remembered his gun.