TWENTY
I tossed and turned for two hours after the freakish dream about my nephew. Finally, I got out of bed, rolled out my yoga mat, and worked through four repetitions each of asanas A, B, C, and D. When I stretched out for savasana, my muscles were pliant, my thoughts calmer. I closed my eyes.
Synchronicity between my mind and body vanished when my cell phone shattered the solitude. Geneva had insisted on giving out my number to everyone to prove my accessibility as a candidate, so I felt compelled to answer. “Hello?”
“Is this Mercy Gunderson?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Cherelle Dupris. I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I remember you. We met in the back room at Clementine’s. You’re the one-”
“With the scar. Yeah, I know, I should change my name to Scarface.”
Not that I blamed her, but being snippy with me wasn’t a good way to start the conversation. “So you calling to volunteer for my campaign?”
“No. I’m, ah…” A beat passed. “You’ll think this is really weird.”
“Probably, but it fits with my life. What’s on your mind?”
She blurted, “Victor is missing.”
I bit back my immediate response of So what? “Victor Bad Wound? As in your…?” Tormentor came to mind, but again, I kept the smart-ass answer to myself.
“Yes.”
“If Victor is missing on the reservation, the tribal police have jurisdiction. Did you call them?”
“What for? They ain’t exactly gonna break out a search party for him.”
No kidding. I could give a rip about a missing criminal who’d carved Cherelle up, beat her up, and dealt in thugs and drugs on a daily basis. But if I was elected sheriff, I’d have to put aside my prejudice about lowlifes like Victor and remain neutral. No time like the present to put it into practice. “Where’d you get the idea to call me?”
Pause.
Every second I waited for her to answer, the relaxing benefits of my yoga practice diminished.
“Estelle Yellow Boy. After I met you at Clementine’s, I remembered last year she said you’d helped her with Albert. I thought you might help me find him.”
Estelle and I hadn’t parted on the best terms. I doubted she was handing out recommendations. “Why didn’t you go to Saro? Victor is his brother, right?”
“That’s how I know Victor is gone. Saro called me, pissed because Victor missed a meeting. Saro ain’t seen Victor for a day, and Victor ain’t answering his cell.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“Nope. He don’t answer to me. He’ll be the first to tell you that.”
“So maybe Victor took off on his own. Just to get away?”
“Huh-uh. Any time he goes off the rez, he’s got one of Saro’s guys with him.”
Was Victor so vital to the organization that he required a bodyguard? Or didn’t Saro trust his brother as much as he claimed? “When was the last time you saw Victor?”
“Night before last. He came to bed around one and was gone in the morning when I got up. He didn’t call, which ain’t unusual. He didn’t show up last night.”
“Didn’t that worry you?”
“I didn’t think nothin’ of it because Victor spends a couple nights a week at Saro’s place.”
“Where is Saro’s place?”
“Here on the rez in the middle of the housing development across from the park.”
“When did Saro contact you?”
“First thing this morning. He sent some of his guys out to see if they could find Victor or his truck, but they got a big fat nothin’. Which means Victor ain’t around here.”
“Had you gone out looking for Victor on your own at any point?”
“Nope. No need to. Now I can’t go track him down even if I wanted to. Saro has a guy sitting outside my house. He told me to stay put. When Saro says stay put, I do it.”
Weirder and weirder. “You sure Victor and Saro didn’t have a falling-out?”
“Are you kidding? Saro and Victor never disagree on nothin’.”
Even my mild-mannered sister and I traded verbal blows on occasion, so it stretched the limits of credibility that two volatile personalities such as Saro and Victor would be unicorns and butterflies all the time. “Never?”
“Never. Saro tells Victor what to do, and Victor does it.”
“Without question?”
“Uh-huh. Saro is the brains; Victor is the muscle. But Saro would be lost if not for Victor.”
Was that a hint of… pride in her voice about Victor’s station in the organization? I shuddered and thought of Stockholm syndrome. “No one would try to come between them on purpose? Play one against the other?”
“It’d never happen. Not with the guys in the group who owe their allegiance, and no one outside the group wants to cross either of them.”
That much jibed with what I’d heard. “Did Saro ask where you thought Victor had gone?”
“I told him I thought Victor was with him, which ain’t a lie. Sometimes, Victor bangs that whore Jessalynne, a runner who lives out east of town, but Saro checked and Jessalynne ain’t seen Victor for a few weeks.”
“So everything was hunky-dory between you and Victor the last time you saw him?”
She snorted. “Same shit sandwich. Different day.”
A disturbing thought occurred. Was she calling me as a cover? Acting the part of the concerned girlfriend when she already knew what’d happened to Victor? That was a stretch, but no more of a stretch than a stranger asking for my help finding her criminal and abusive boyfriend.
“I know you don’t understand why I care. I mean, you’re probably thinkin’ good riddance, eh?”
“Maybe.”
“See, that’s why I called you. No bullshit. That night in Clementine’s when you were talking about being a different type of sheriff? The thing is… I believed you.”
Cherelle was all pro at using a flattering hard sell-and sadly, I wasn’t immune to it. “I’m headed into town in a little bit. What does Victor drive?”
“A white pickup. Might be a Ford.”
Off the top of my head I knew thirty people who drove white pickups. “Does it have reservation plates?”
“Nope.”
“Any distinctive markings?”
Pause. “It’s got a Bambi basher on the front and no tailgate. He’s only had it a couple of weeks. He’s in love with the stupid thing, so he ain’t gonna be far away from it.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
I finished my bank business and avoided Geneva. Seemed pointless to try to charm my constituents in my bad mood. I’d look for Victor’s truck-probably another futile endeavor.
I cruised down Main Street. Plenty of white trucks, but none fit the description of Victor’s. I made a slow pass through the residential areas, thinking he might have a new chick on the side. Nothing. Same for the parking lots of the school, the bank, the churches, and the funeral home.
As I drove the road leading toward the reservation, past broken-down trailers, I considered the possibilities. Had Victor really gone missing? Given the way Saro’s men were supposedly watching Cherelle, they suspected her. Hell, I suspected her.
Had Saro’s goons canvassed the whole reservation? Or just the town of Eagle River? I assumed the latter.
The sunlight vanished as dirty white storm clouds tumbled in, covering the azure sky. I preferred snow to the bursts of spring rain. Rain always seemed an omen of impending doom because it was a rarity in western South Dakota.
As the dilapidated plywood sign for the Diamond T trailer court came into view, I ignored the impulse to stop at Rollie’s place to pick his brain about why Cherelle had called me. I suspected Verline had given Cherelle my number, not Estelle. Arguing with a pregnant teen wasn’t my idea of fun.
A mile down the road from the Diamond T was Mulligan’s. The unofficial Eagle River County junkyard was a fallow field featuring abandoned vehicles, broken farm equipment, and old appliances. It’d been in existence as long as I could remember, and I’d never understood why the property owners didn’t mind strangers dumping on their land. Some things were left there because they could be parted out. Others were useless hunks of metal decaying in the elements, reduced to rust and peeling paint. Oddly enough, no one tossed bags of plain old trash on the premises, nor did teens from the surrounding communities use it as a party spot-too close to a frequently patrolled road.