“I-I heard her talking. When she said she liked killing him and how scared he was at the end… I-I lost it.”
“It’s okay, Jake.”
“No, it’s not!” He stared at Iris’s body, seeming to really see it, to really see what he’d done to her, for the first time. His face lost all color. “Oh God. I did that?”
The shovel slid from his blood-covered hands and clanked against the rim of the stock tank. He dropped to all fours and began to dry-heave.
We didn’t have time for him to have a crisis, even when it was justified. I hobbled over to him. “It’s over. You avenged Levi. You saved my life. No shame in that.”
“But look at what I did to her. Jesus. No. Don’t look. I can’t look…” More retching sounds, more keening sobs.
Iris’s body was seriously fucked up. Deep gashes cut through her clothing. She looked like… someone had beat her to death with a shovel. “Jake. Listen-”
“You don’t understand. I’m Indian. She’s white. When Dawson sees her like this, he ain’t buying it was self-defense.”
“He won’t find out.”
Jake lifted his face. “What did you say?”
“Pull yourself together because we have to get rid of this body right now. We’re planting Iris someplace else.”
He sputtered, “B-but that’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong is she murdered your son. She was a malicious, bitter woman, and if you hadn’t killed her, I would have. And trust me, the way I planned to do it? No one would’ve mistaken it as self-defense.”
There was that look of fear I’d gloried in when I’d made my late-night visit. He’d fall in line. He had no choice.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Getting rid of her body?”
“No. Protecting me.”
“Besides that you’re indispensable to the ranch?” I locked my eyes to his. “Because whether I like it or not, you’re family, Jake. We take care of our own.”
A beat passed. Jake nodded once. “What now?”
“Get an old blanket and a tarp and bring the truck over here. Hurry.”
As Jake drove the rig around, I made sure Iris’s keys were in the ignition of her Honda. Jake and I rolled her up in the motheaten burlap tarp. Neither of us was particularly gentle with her remains; she didn’t deserve dignity.
With my bum arm I wasn’t any help loading her into the truck bed. I already knew a dead body is tough to maneuver. Jake was learning firsthand.
“Now what?” he panted.
“Take her to that ravine about two miles north, where the Newsome Ranch borders ours. It’s a ways out, which makes it perfect. Get on the rutted road that snakes down and dump her in the gully, but make sure she isn’t on our land, and make damn sure you leave nothing that can be traced back here. You’ll have to be really careful because I’ve heard those crazy religious freaks keep a close eye on things.”
“I know. What’ll you be doing?”
I grabbed the blanket and pointed to Iris’s car. “Halfway between here and their place I noticed the fence was down, so I’ll drive in as far as I can go. Then I’ll double-back across the field on foot.”
“You really think once someone finds the abandoned car they’ll believe she walked that far? By herself?”
“I don’t care because it won’t be our problem.”
Jake gave me a once-over. “You wearing that to the sheriff’s office?”
Mud covered my shirt. Every piece of my wet clothing clung to me. My boots squished. The last thing I wanted was Dawson grilling me on why I’d stopped home and cleaned up. Showing up gross and dirty at the sheriff’s department was a great alibi. “Yeah.” My gaze moved over him head to toe. “You have an extra set of clothes?”
“In the tack room.”
“Stop and change afterward. Wrap up those clothes in the tarp and stuff them in the grease barrel in the machine shed. We’ll burn them later. I’ll need gloves. Or rather, a glove.”
Jake rummaged around inside the cab. He waved a yellow cotton glove liner and held it out for me. “This ain’t the first time you’ve done something like this.”
A statement. Not a question that required an answer.
TWENTY-ONE
Jake dropped me off at the sheriff’s office and I went in alone. I didn’t need to worry that in a rush of guilt he might blurt out what’d he’d done to Iris Newsome. I already had enough problems.
Dawson was making me wait. I didn’t blame him.
In the small reception area, I sat on a chair and studied the framed map of South Dakota. During my childhood I’d been fascinated by the thick red marker lines outlining our small county. In the hundreds of times I’d been in this office, sitting in this same hard plastic orange chair, I’d never been in this position: waiting to explain to law enforcement why I’d killed a man.
After Jake and I parted ways, everything went according to plan. He dumped the body; I dumped the car. I closed my eyes as a bout of nausea washed over me. The endless walk through the foggy pastures had been a nightmare. My body nearly shut down from the pain. My mind had suffered enough trauma. My main focus had been trudging to the road before I passed out from shock.
The office door opened. I heard Dawson’s boots thumping on the tile floor. When the noise stopped, I opened my eyes and looked up. His face read pure business. A frisson of fear danced up my spine. I’d be damned if I’d show it. “Sheriff.”
“Miz Gunderson. Come back to my office.” Expecting I’d follow, he ducked into the room that’d belonged to my father.
The overwhelming urge to run beat at me with a child’s guilt. Like somehow Dad would know I’d done a bad thing. Like the walls would pulse his disappointment until it reverberated through me and made me confess. I swayed as I rose to my feet, swallowing the cry of pain racking my body.
“You okay?” Kiki said behind me.
“Just tired.” I gritted my teeth and shuffled to the office, sliding into the ladder-back wooden chair directly across from Dawson’s neat-as-a-pin desk. Kiki sat between us at the corner of the desk and pulled out a notebook.
“I’ve asked Deputy Moore to record your statement,” Dawson said. “Start whenever you’re ready.”
For a moment I was at a loss on where to begin. I exhaled with deliberate slowness and talked about what I’d overheard at the Warrior Society meeting regarding Albert Yellow Boy’s accidental death. How I realized the adult leader of this group was Theo Murphy, the man my sister was sort of seeing, and Levi’s teacher. I relayed my conversation with Hiram Blacktower and his claim that Theo worked for Kit McIntyre. I shared my frustration about not being able to track down Hope after the meeting. Then Theo’s early-morning phone call demanding I bring him money so he could leave town. Being forced to listen as he assaulted Hope.
My retelling of the events sounded clinical. Precise. Probably made me sound cold, but I was used to detailing everything to my CO with as little emotion as possible.
Both Dawson and Kiki were quiet after I finished.
Finally Dawson asked, “Let me get this straight: Theo Murphy confessed to killing Sue Anne White Plume?”
“Yessir. That is correct.”
“After you shot him in the knee?”
“Yessir.”
Dawson angled across the desk. “Theo Murphy also confessed to killing your nephew, Levi Arpel?”
I looked him right in the eye and lied. “Yessir.”
Another round of silence.
“Tell me again about how you came to shoot Theo Murphy twice in the chest, once in the head.”
“He was on the ground after I’d immobilized him by shooting him in the kneecap. After he’d told me what I wanted to know, I instructed him to get up and take me to my sister. He took a long time getting up, which I attributed to the injury. When he turned, he threw a rock at me and I fired at him.”
“Instinctively?”
“Yessir. My training as a soldier is to shoot to kill, not to wound.” Maybe I should’ve phrased that differently.