I turned off the recorder. When, I wondered, would people stop assuming that because you’re Indian, other Indians will feel a natural connection with you? There are hundreds of tribes in this country; historically some have been mortal enemies, and today they’re squabbling over gaming rights. It’s like saying any American ethnic group-be it blacks, Chinese, Italians, Irish, Japanese, or Germans-is drawn together because of its background. Ridiculous. The Scotch-Irish family who adopted me at birth frequently fought like they were out to kill each other. Still do, sometimes.
But what the hell, in the morning I’d take a crack at Rich Three Wings. Tom Mathers, too.
It was the least I could do for the sake of the Perez family, I told myself.
Well, yes, for their sake, but also for my own. Cases change both the investigated and the investigator. Maybe one last effort would show me the way to the new life I was reaching for. It wouldn’t be any worse than dreaming of trying to climb out of a deep, dark pit.
Elk Lake was a small, placid body of water surrounded by forest, some twenty miles southwest of Vernon. Dirt roads led into clearings where rustic cabins stood. Many of them had cutesy names: Gone Fishin’, Bide a Wee Longer, My Lady and the Lake. Rich Three Wings’ had no such sign and was one of the shabbier: warped shingles, sagging roofbeam, rusted stovepipe. A large prefab garage sat next to it, and an old International Harvester truck was pulled close to its side. From the rear I could hear the sound of someone chopping wood.
I rounded the cabin, and a spectacular view of the lake opened up: close to shore waterfowl swam and dove for food, far out two fishermen floated in their rowboat, the opposite shore was rimmed by tall pines. The scene was so peaceful that it stood out in sharp contrast to the man wielding the axe.
Wide-shouldered and narrow-waisted, he was without a shirt on this chilly day, and the muscles in his back were strong and sculpted. He attacked the log as if it were an enemy, with hard, rhythmic strokes and frequent animal-like grunts. He didn’t hear me approach until I was halfway to him, and then he whirled, axe upheld. I stopped, braced to run.
“Rich Three Wings?” I asked.
“Yeah. Who’re you?” His face was beaded with sweat, his long black hair trapped in a damp red bandana.
I introduced myself, taking out one of my business cards. He lowered the axe and leaned it against a larger log. At that I covered the rest of the distance between us and handed the card to him.
“I’m working in cooperation with the sheriff’s department on the Hayley Perez case,” I added.
He looked at the card, then crushed it in his large fist. His face twitched, as if he felt a sudden pain.
He asked, “They send you on account of you’re Indian too?”
“That was the general idea.”
“And you don’t like it.”
“I hate it. And so do you.”
He studied me for a moment, then nodded, having made a judgment. “Come inside, we’ll drink some coffee.” When I hesitated, he added, “I’m harmless. I didn’t kill Hayley and I’m sure as hell not gonna do anything to you.”
No, he wasn’t. That much I sensed. As to whether he’d killed his ex-wife I couldn’t hazard a guess yet.
I followed him to the cabin and into a spotlessly neat room with beautifully hewn wooden furnishings and woven rugs like the ones we had at the ranch. Rich Three Wings noticed my surprise and said, “Appearances can be deceiving, huh?”
“I’ll say. This is beautiful.”
“Thanks. Have a seat.” He motioned at a small table that gleamed with polish and shrugged into a sweatshirt that was draped on a chair. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Black.”
“Me too.” He went through a doorway, returned with two pottery mugs. “This place, I inherited it from my grandfather, who was a real traditional guy. Material possessions didn’t mean a thing to him.”
“Sounds like my… father.” I still couldn’t call Elwood Farmer my father without hesitation. “He’s an artist and lives very simply on the Flathead rez in Montana.”
“You born there?”
“No. It’s complicated. This furniture…” I motioned around us.
“I made it. I’ve got a shop in the garage. And the rugs-my girlfriend weaves them. Between the two of us we do pretty well, sell on the Internet and a few shops down in Sacramento and the city.”
“It’s lovely.”
“But that’s not what you came here to talk about. Your card says investigative services, and the county sent you.”
“I’m a friend of the Perez family, but the deputy in charge of the case said it was okay to talk with you.”
“How’re you their friend? I haven’t seen you around.”
I explained my relationship with Ramon and Sara.
“Ripinsky’s wife. I’ll be damned. He was my hero, back when I was in high school. Real rabble-rouser, but the good kind. If it hadn’t been for him, Tufa Lake’d be nothing but mud and crumbling towers by now.” He paused. “So what d’you want to know about Hayley?”
“Why don’t you give me a chronology of your relationship with her.”
“Okay. She was in high school. Dating this asshole, Tom Mathers. I’d come back from a stint in the army; I’m six years older than her. I’d seen her around while I was growing up, but didn’t pay her much notice. Then we met at a party. Mathers passed out in the bathroom, so I took her home. She told me how much she hated it here, one thing led to another, and a few weeks later we were on the road to Reno to get married.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. Crappy little wedding chapel, plastic flowers, JP and his wife were both weird. That kind of start, it’s natural the wedding vows didn’t take. Plus we didn’t have much money and fought about it all the time. Three years later she split and I decided to come home. I couldn’t take the crap I had to deal with at the casino and this place was waiting for me.”
“Kristen Lark told me Hayley was hooking.”
“Yeah, she was. I should’ve realized it, but I didn’t-not till it was too late.”
“I understand she took off with a high roller, but you don’t know his name.”
“I just told Lark that to keep the guy from getting in trouble. I mean, he couldn’t’ve cared enough about Hayley to follow her here and kill her. His name was Jack Buckle. From someplace in the Pacific Northwest. I should’ve guessed what was going on with them, but I never thought… well, Hayley was not in this guy’s class at all.”
“How so?”
“He was rich, smart, and seemed educated. Hayley was just a small-town slut. I know that now, but at the time I was blind in love with her. But a lot of these rich guys, they either don’t care or don’t look farther than the end of their dicks.”
“Did you hear from her again?”
“Only through the divorce papers six months later. By then I’d come back here, started woodworking. After that I never gave a thought to Hayley.” He paused. “Well, that’s not true. I thought about her some, sure. I hated her for what she did to me, but when I met Cammie-my weaver girlfriend-and things started working out with us, I cooled down.”
“You didn’t look so cooled down when I got here earlier.”
He clasped his hands around the coffee mug, looked into its depths. “Yeah, well, when somebody you once loved is murdered-no matter how much bad they did to you-you get angry. I take my anger out on logs, not people.”
“And you didn’t know Hayley was back in Vernon?”
“No way. I’m pretty isolated out here. I make a point of going to town only when I need to. Maybe Cammie knew; she lives in Vernon, spends the weekends here, working on her loom in the shop. But if she did, she didn’t tell me.”
“I’d like to talk to Cammie.”
“I’m sure she won’t mind. She works part time at the flower shop in town. In fact, she should be there this morning.”
There was only one flower shop in Vernon-Petals, on the main street two doors down from Hobo’s. When I walked in I breathed deeply of the fresh and fragrant scents; although a bell rang as I passed through the door, no one appeared, so I studied the simple arrangements in the cold case. Roses, carnations, the usual types. Not much variety, but they probably had little call for anything out of the ordinary.