"Arthur Shoudy? What kind of Indian name is that?"
Daniel Morgan tightened his grip on the brown bag and its hidden bottle. He didn't even bother to look up at the cop standing over him in an alley off of Union Street. He kept his body-language bored, left hand out to take the driver's license and Tribal ID back when the cop was through with them, an ID check like a thousand others before. He answered the blue cloth in front of his nose.
"What kind of African name is Colin Powell? If my parents decided to name me Arthur, that makes it an Indian name. You got a problem with it, paleface, you take it up with the Ojibwa Nation. They accepted it and wrote it in the tribal rolls." Just the right level of bite to the words — enough to show Daniel was slightly drunk, had nothing to hide, nothing to fear, but not enough to get the cop pissed off and ready to break this boring foot patrol with a short lesson in proper minority deference.
Ojibwa, because if he'd claimed Naskeag or another local Nation, he'd face the chance of meeting a "relative." And some of them might actually recognize him. Even though they thought he was dead. Good sides, bad sides to choosing a Native ID and face for this. Even Stonefort Naskeags would be less likely to see a dead Morgan under brown skin.
Even if they did, whether they'd talk or not was a separate question. Morgans and Naskeags went way back, a mutual respect that predated cops by a few centuries.
Naskeag Falls had a couple or three Naskeags on the force, one of them a sergeant. Might be tokenism, quota hiring, but it did make the cops here a little less likely to roust an obvious Native just for the hell of it, or run him in for being "suspicious." And the facial structure Daniel got from his mixed ancestry backed up the skin and hair colors he got from a bottle to make a convincing disguise.
That, and the brown bag. Put an Indian in an alley with a bottle, a lot of cops pulled out their credit cards and bought the whole stereotype package. One of the great truths of Western philosophy — people see what they expect to see.
Daniel itched, spots that moved from crotch to back to armpits to scalp and back again. Probably just the lack of a bath in two weeks, clothes that hadn't seen a washer in longer than that. Probably not fleas or lice, even after sleeping in the alleys and under bushes down by the Naskeag River. But people didn't expect an alley drunk to smell of fresh deodorant and shampoo. The smell and itch were part of method acting, really getting into this role. And protecting Gary was worth considerably more than a fleabite or two.
Protecting Gary. Think of it as a background check, like the CIA would run on a new hire. Ben found out just enough about "Jane White" to raise some serious questions about that girl. She's dangerous. That's not a problem per se. The question is, what kind of dangerous.
The cop studied the driver's license in his hand, examining the edges and holding it up to the sun for watermarks. Good job, that license, official Michigan seals and special lamination plastic and all. Enough wear and tear on it to foster the sense of "real."
And "Arthur Shoudy" was real, or had been before he drowned in Florida. Real address, real Social Security number, real birth certificate. Real mother who still received real money orders in the mail every now and then from Poughkeepsie or Pocatello or Portland, sent by her wandering "son." Good documents cost good money, both purchase and upkeep, but Morgans had always known that was money well spent.
The cop handed both documents back to Daniel. "Where the hell is Pequaming, anyway?"
Not a casual question, even though he'd made it sound like one. Checking the background. The force could use some training on ethnic sensitivity issues, though.
"U.P., Upper Peninsula, south shore of Lake Superior. On the edge of the L'Anse Rez. Three-outhouse village on Keweenaw Bay. More backwoods places you've never heard of." Daniel tucked the two cards into a pocket in his hunting jacket, a jacket about two decades past its prime and blaze orange only in memory, the color faded to used-diaper yellow and so blotched by chainsaw oil and pitch it looked like woodland camouflage.
The cop nodded. "You got that right. What brings you all the way Down East?"
Yeah. "What you come heah foah, boy?" Some things never change. "Little vacation. A couple months cutting pulp, then raking blueberries, picking apples. Missed my ride south at the end of the season. Looking for another."
Migrant worker. The cop checked off another box on his mental list. With the side note that the dumb Indian had probably missed his ride because of an extended drunk.
Preliminaries complete, the officer pulled a sheet of paper out of a sheaf in his left hand and hung it in front of Daniel's nose. Photocopy, police sketches showing a young woman's face with several different hair styles and colors. "You ever see this girl?"
Daniel shook his head. Which was a non-verbal little white lie, because it was the dead kid Kate and Alice had found. Daniel had seen Alice's photos, not the same as seeing the girl.
He looked up, finally meeting the cop's eyes. After all, the question had moved them beyond the standard steps of the cop/vagrant dance. "Don't think so. Only been in town a week or so. Runaway?"
"Not anymore. She's dead. We're trying to trace her back and get an ID." The cop wrinkled his nose, shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. He'd gotten the answers he expected.
Daniel watched the officer out of sight, around
