Banish didn’t answer right away and Blood took a step farther back from the bed. “Which side of the road was he found on?”
Blood answered, “Dead center of a two-lane tar road. Spread out in the middle of it.”
“Blood-alcohol?”
“Point-one-two-five.”
Another pause. “What did the body look like?”
“Brian Kearney was first on the scene that morning. He said that it was his feeling immediately, first thing he thought of, that the death had occurred someplace else. That it looked like a body that had been moved. Now, you know Brian. He’s a rookie and his mouth gets out in front of his mind on occasion. So I checked these things for myself.” Blood ticked off each point with the fingers of his right hand. “No automobile parts on the road. No skid marks, no glass shards. All the driveways and byroads are dirt around there, and plenty of tracks on either lane, but no dirt crossing the center strip within thirty yards. And then this. When he was found, the boy had two T-shirts on under his jacket, both rolled up from his waist to his armpits, and his back all scraped up. Like he had been dragged there. Some say a car could do it, but his back would have been torn to shreds on that tar. And then the next day, Brian comes over to me on the sly. He tells me that Moody talked him out of it. The T-shirt angle got left off the official report entirely.”
Blood heard a faucet running, then turned off. “The first one, Kowes,” Banish said. “Missing for eight days. What about his car?”
“Found the next day by the railroad tracks and impounded as an abandoned vehicle.”
“Parents weren’t notified?”
“It was registered in the boy’s name. I took his father down there myself a week after the body washed up and we found it tucked back behind some others in the tow yard. Wallet empty on the floor in front, contents scattered on the front seat, the dash, and both floorboards. Also clothes. Also shopping receipts, also check stubs.”
“And the parents insist he was a very neat kid.”
Blood nodded, now pacing a bit. “And that right there is evidence lost, because it comes out later there’s a young lady who claimed she was with Kowes in the car the night he died. Her story was that the boy thought he was being followed, which was why he got a little lost and anxious driving around and wound up blowing a tire. She said he pulled over and told her to get out of the car and hide — she’s not Indian. From where she was, deep back in the potato field, she said she heard some other car door slam, and voices.”
Banish nodded. “All right, then.”
“Problem is, she’s changed her story, significantly enough, more than once. And now she’s moved away altogether and I don’t have the faintest idea where she is.”
“So Moody’s office had the car and the missing persons report and never connected them?”
“Exactly. He said they didn’t because the body was found in the river, which is county land, my jurisdiction, and the car was found out by the tracks, which is his. But that’s damn thin to me,” said Blood, feeling the harshness in his own voice. “Damn thin.”
Banish came out then, around the corner from the bathroom, his shirt unbuttoned and pants half-open at the waist. Blood saw a raw, silver-dollar-sized scar just below his stomach, a red-pink indentation upon the white of his skin, and smaller flecks of pink around it — then looked up immediately at Banish’s face so as not to stare.
Banish tossed his dirty clothes on the bed. “It’s not Moody,” he said. “I’m sure you already looked for some connection between the victims, other than gender and race, and if there is none, then forget it. It’s only a cover-up if somebody profits. This doesn’t read like a police conspiracy. More likely, Moody just turns a blind eye, or worse, he doesn’t care. A couple of drunken Indians to him. Two drownings and some traffic accidents. That’s what others will say too. If it’s FBI involvement you want, you’ll need more than this. No paint on the hit-and-run?”
“From the car finish?”
Banish tucked in his shirt and fixed his pants. “Impact burns paint onto the skin and clothing.”
Blood nodded. “There was none of that. You see?”
“What was Darkin wearing besides two T-shirts?”
“Jeans and a leather jacket.”
“That’s good. Leather picks up paint better than anything. No paint on that jacket, then you proceed right away with an open homicide investigation. Tie in one more similarly dead Indian and you’ve got grounds for a civil rights case that bumps it up to federal. And I would also consider contracting an outside coroner, one who isn’t so quick with his knife.”
He ended nodding, seemingly reviewing his own answer. He picked his wallet up off the bed and slipped it into his back pocket. Then he was still, standing there. Then he shook his head. “How could you let something like that go so far?” he said.
Blood looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“What is the overall Indian population up here?”
Blood thought about it, realized what was being implied. “Maybe two percent,” he said. “You saying I’m not doing my job?”
“You had questions,” Banish said. “You talked to people, you developed theories. Then you did nothing. Why wait for federal help on this? How can you allow these separatists and neo-Nazis around here at all?”
Blood was hot. “They call it freedom of speech,” he said. “Lots of good people up here too.”
“Sure,” Banish said, “but there’s a fine line between good people and look-the-other-way-and-keep-quiet people. Freedom of speech works both ways.”
Blood nodded slowly. “So I should just take care of them then. The way you took care of Mellis.”
It surprised and ashamed Blood how much venom he had in him, but Banish took it, standing quietly a moment. “I’m saying that working in secret is not doing anyone a damn bit of good. Get out and meet these people head-on. They are flaunting their lawlessness and disrespect in front of you. You’ve got to confront them, you especially. Otherwise, you’re the sheriff of this county and no better than any of the rest. You have to show these people to be ridiculous. Humiliate them. Nothing else works as well.”
Blood’s face burned. The room seemed to drift a little and he looked around, his mind filling with all the things he could come back with: that he didn’t have the public’s support, that he was just a one-man office. But hearing it loud in his head like that warmed another blush of shame on his face and he realized his excuses were all just as petty as they sounded. Which was why Banish had called him a politician. Ever since the glory of his election-year upset, for some reason Blood had been tipping his hat at these frays rather than running headfirst into them. Storing his pride rather than displaying it. Blood was embarrassed, but more angry now than blushing. Angry at Moody and anyone else who was taunting him. There were shit bags laughing at him behind his back. He realized that he hadn’t come to Banish for aid at all — he had come to be talked out of something, to be told he was wrong when he knew he was right. In certain circles Sheriff Leonard M. Blood was a laughingstock. He had been elected to keep the peace. There were good people out there, not just the trash he mainly dealt with, but good, fair-minded people who had invested their trust in him when they cast a vote for change and peace and order and law.