I turned and reached the halfway point, where one of the mattresses was bunched against another. Thinking that it was pretty much the only place where someone could hide in the confined space, and with a few more flashbacks to the other culvert down on Lone Bear Road, I put a foot on the mattress and pushed. Burns once again flung himself from cover and ricocheted down the culvert like a pinball. I thundered after him but tripped on the corner of a soggy sleeping bag and fell forward. I scrambled to get to my feet, but it was slippery and I knew in my heart of hearts that I was going to lose him.
God hates a quitter, so I staggered forward and watched as he got to the opening at the other end and the bright sunlight lit him up like a candle.
That was when the candle snuffer came down with a vengeance.
Lolo Long must’ve been waiting above the tunnel on the other side, and I watched with a great deal of satisfaction as she landed on Kelly Joe with all six feet of everything she had. She planted him face first in the mud with a knee at his back as she grabbed two fistfuls of his wifebeater T-shirt.
He struggled to get at her, but it was like a replay of the events at Clarence’s house when she’d pig-wrestled him.
I staggered out into the light as she slapped her cuffs on Burns and dragged him to his feet, his entire body smeared with blackish mud.
“I want a lawyer.”
She smacked the side of his head. “You’re gonna see a lot of lawyers, trust me.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and could smell the strong scent of stale beer coming off of her. “Did you find the bag?”
She smiled as she took the drug dealer’s arm. “I did, and inside was about five hundred grams of methamphetamine in tiny, individual-serving baggies.” I took his other arm, and we walked him up out of the ditch toward the Jimtown Bar parking lot. “That’s almost a pound of Schedule II substance, and you know what that means, don’t you Kelly Joe?”
She was happier than I’d ever seen her as she informed him of his Miranda rights. When she finished, Kelly Joe continued to say nothing so she turned to me. “I’m sorry it took so long and that I smell like an old brewery, but the cans covered up the bag when it hit on the other side of Mount Rainier and it took a while for me to find it.”
“No big deal.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been looking to get this rat?” She laughed, and I was glad I hadn’t spoiled her moment in the sun. “Two months, and this is by far the biggest bust of my career.”
I was happy for her; there’s a camaraderie and euphoria that goes along with these situations, when you get the bad guy with so much evidence that there’s no way an informed jury or sober judge will ever let them walk. It’s a feeling that is amplified only by the fact that no one was hurt and that everybody, with the exception of the perp, got away clean-well, mostly clean.
My mind kept drifting back to the case at hand, though. I thought about the dead father, the injured child, and the woman we’d watched fall. I kept my mouth shut as she stuffed the drug dealer in the back of the Yukon and turned to look at me with her hands on her hips.
The smile, a million watts, only slightly dimmed. “Audrey.”
I focused on the tribal police chief’s face. “What?”
“On the recording; the woman’s voice.”
I waited.
“It’s Audrey.”
14
We had deposited Nattie Tyminski in the BIA jail, where there was a female docent. She would probably walk as we hadn’t actually seen her in possession, but a little time behind bars wouldn’t do her any harm.
We sat on the folding chairs in the Tribal Police Headquarters and stared at Kelly Joe-he sat on the bunk in the corner of the holding cell with his knees drawn up in protection. So far, Artie Small Song hadn’t made any aggressive moves toward him, but the drug dealer was playing it safe; I didn’t blame him-it was like being trapped in a Havahart with a pissed-off badger.
Artie’s fingers were wrapped around the bars like the kind of vines that choked trees to death. “I don’t have any idea.”
“You must have had some kind of interaction with her.”
“No, I didn’t.” He flung himself from the bars and started pacing back and forth, Kelly Joe’s eyes tracking him like radar. “The only time I ever laid eyes on the woman was there at Human Services when I was trying to get my mother’s support check.”
“No other time?”
He turned the corner at the far end of the cell and started back past me. “Never.”
“Not even on the phone?”
He stopped on the next pass. “Ever.” He grabbed the bars again, and Kelly Joe jumped. “And I wasn’t at that bar that night! You ask and see if anybody remembers me being there.”
“Your truck was there.”
“My nephew was driving it.”
“With your elk on the hood?” I got up and leaned an elbow between the bars and paid a glance to Burns. I would’ve been lying if I’d said I wasn’t enjoying the drug dealer’s discomfort. “Then where were you?”
“Hunting!” The spit flew from his lips, and his face moved near mine. “You had part of that elk; you saw it, did it seem fresh to you?”
I nodded. “It did.”
“I went after another one; now let me out.”
“It’s not that easy, Artie. The Feds are convinced that you did it because of the recording, and we haven’t come up with anything that counters that very impressive piece of evidence.”
“That conversation never happened.” He pushed off the bars. “I never spoke to her husband, what’s his name?”
“His name was Clarence.” Burns’s voice rose from the back, and one look at him told you that he wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but he was Kelly Joe after all, and silence was not one of his strong suits.
“Clarence?”
I nodded.
“I had an argument with a guy named Clarence in the parking lot of the White Buffalo one time.”
“About?”
“He left his stupid Jeep in front of the gas pump while he was serenading some teenager. I told him to move it or I was going to get all Crazy Horse on his ass.”
I looked past Artie and raised my voice so that Kelly Joe would know I was speaking to him. “You ever have any dealings with Clarence Last Bull?”
He pulled at the collar of his T-shirt, feeling the heat from me and his tattoo, and then tried to cover it by resting his chin on his knees. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Okay.” I pushed off the bars, leaving a few fingers on the steel like I was loath to leave. “I can see how it is that you wouldn’t want to bother to help Artie with his problems. Chief Long and I are going to walk out of here in about two minutes anyway, so you two are going to have plenty of time to talk about things and work it all out.”
Artie Small Song turned to look at Kelly Joe Burns.
The drug dealer slowly raised himself up and stood on the bunk with his back against the concrete blocks. “Hey, hey, wait a minute. I want my own cell.”
I kept my eyes on Burns but tossed my voice over to the chief. “Anything available?”
She shrugged. “Not just now-housekeeping might have something later.”
I turned back to him. “Looks like you’ve got a roommate for a while.”
