Shadow Prey (7 page)

"So we know for sure," Sloan said.

"Yeah. And he seems to be coming this way." Daniel leaned back in his chair, put his hands on his stomach and twiddled his thumbs.

Lucas pulled his lip, thinking about it. After a moment of silence, he looked up at the chief. "This guy have braids?"

"The killer? Didn't say anything about braids..." He hunted around his desktop for a moment, picked up a piece of computer printout, read it and said, "Nope. Hair down over the tops of his ears and just over his shirt collar. Long-ish, but not long enough for braids."

"Shit."

"Why?"

"Because the guy who did Cuervo had braids."

The others glanced at each other and Daniel said, "He could have cut it."

"I said the same thing about Bluebird, when we took him down," Lucas said.

"Oh, boy," Lester rasped, rubbing the back of his neck. He was the department's front man on cases that drew media attention. "That'd make three. If there are two, the media's gonna go nuts. If there's three... I've been burned before, I don't need this shit."

Sloan grinned at him. "It's gonna be bad, Frank," he said, teasing. "This guy sounds like big headlines. When the networks and the big papers get a whiff of conspiracy, they'll be on you like white on rice. Especially with the part about the stone knives. They'll love the stone knives."

"The local papers already figured it out. Five minutes after the news came across on the Indian angle, we were getting calls on Bluebird. StarTribune, Pioneer Press, all the stations. AP's got it on the wire," said Anderson.

"Like flies on a dead cat," Sloan said to Lester.

"So we're setting up a team, just like we did with the Maddog. I'll announce it at a press conference tomorrow morning," said Daniel. "Frank will run the out-front investigation and handle the press on a daily basis. Harmon will get the database going again. Just like with the Maddog. Every goddamn scrap of information, okay? Notebooks for everybody."

"I'll set it up tonight," Anderson said. "I'll get somebody to duplicate copies of the Bluebird mug shot."

"Good. Get me a bunch for the press conference." Daniel turned to Sloan. "I want you to backtrack everybody connected with Bluebird. He's our hold on this thing. If we get an ID on the New York killer, I want you to track down everybody who knew him. You'll be pretty much independent, but you report to Anderson every day, every move. Everything you get goes into the database."

"Sure," Sloan nodded.

"Lucas, you're on your own, just like with the Maddog," Daniel said. "Our contacts with the Indian community are fuckin' terrible. You're the only guy who has any."

"Not many," said Lucas.

"They're all we got," said Daniel.

"What about bringing in Larry Hart? We've used him before...."

"Good." Daniel snapped his fingers and pointed at Lester. "Call Welfare tomorrow and ask them if we can detach Hart as a resource guy. We'll pick up his salary."

"What is he?" asked Sloan. "Chippewa?"

"Sioux," said Lucas.

"He's strange, is what he is," said Anderson. "He's got some genealogical stuff stored away in the city computers. The systems guys would shit if they knew about it." : Lucas shrugged. "He's an okay guy." ; "So let's get him," said Daniel. He stood up and paced slowly away from his desk, his hands in his pants pockets. "What else?"

Bluebird's funeral would be monitored. Intelligence f would attempt to identify everyone who attended and run histories on them. Sloan would build a list of friends and relatives who might have known about Bluebird's activities. They would be interviewed by selected Narcotics and Intelligence detectives. Anderson would press the Jersey cops for any available details on the killer's appearance and his car and run them against known Indian felons from Minnesota, ! Wisconsin, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

"It'll be a fuckin' circus, starting bright and early tomorrow morning," said Daniel. "And I'll tell you what: When this New York guy gets here, I want us on top of this thing. I want us to look good, not like a bunch of rube assholes."

Anderson cleared his throat. "I don't think it's a guy, chief. I think it's a woman," he said.

Sloan and Lucas glanced at each other. "What are you talking about?" asked Sloan.

"We told you, didn't we? No? The goddamn Andretti family is putting the screws on the New York cops. They i want to send somebody out here to observe our investigation," said Daniel. He turned to Anderson. "You say it's a woman?"

"Yeah. That's what I understood. Unless they got male cops named Lillian. She's a lieutenant."

"Huh," said Daniel. He stroked his chin, as though grooming a goatee. "Whoever it is, I can guarantee she's heavy-duty."

"Where'll we put her?" asked Lester.

"Let her work with Sloan," Daniel said. "That'll give her some time on the street. Give her the feeling she's doing something."

He looked around the room. "Anything else? No? Let's do it."

Chapter
5

The barbershop had one chair, a turn-of-the-century model with a cracked black leather seat. A mirror was mounted on the wall behind the chair. Below the mirror, on a shelf, stood a line of bottles with luminescent yellow lotions and ruby-red toilet waters. Sunlight played through them like a visual pipe organ.

When Lucas walked in, William Dooley was pushing a flat broom around the floor, herding snips of black hair into a pile on the flaking brown linoleum.

"Officer Davenport," Dooley said gravely. Dooley was old and very thin. His temples looked papery, like eggshells.

"Mr. Dooley." Lucas nodded, matching the old man's gravity. He climbed into the chair. Dooley moved behind him, tucked a slippery nylon bib into his collar and stood back.

"Just a little around the ears?" he asked. Lucas didn't need a haircut.

"Around the ears and the back of the neck, Mr. Dooley," Lucas said. The slanting October sunlight dappled the linoleum below his feet. A sugar wasp bounced against the dusty window.

"Bad business about that Bluebird," Lucas said after a bit.

Dooley's snipping scissors had been going chip-chip-chip. They paused just above Lucas' ear, then resumed. "Bad business," he agreed.

He snipped for another few seconds before Lucas asked, "Did you know him?"

"Nope," Dooley said promptly. After another few snips, he added, "Knew his daddy, though. Back in the war. We was in the Pacific together. Not the same unit, but I seen him from time to time."

"Did Bluebird have any people besides his wife and kids?"

"Huh." Dooley stopped to think. He was halfbreed Sioux, with an Indian father and a Swedish mother. "He might have an aunt or an uncle or two out at Rosebud. That's where they'd be, if there are any left. His ma died in the early fifties and his old man went four or five years back, must have been."

Dooley stared sightlessly through the sunny window. "No, by God," he said in a creaking voice after a minute. "His old man died in the summer of 'seventy-eight, right between those two bad winters. Twelve years ago. Time passes, don't it?"

"It does," Lucas said.

"You want to know something about being an Indian, Officer Davenport?" Dooley asked. He'd stopped cutting Lucas' hair.

"Everything helps."

"Well, when Bluebird died-the old man-I went off to his funeral, out to the res. He was a Catholic, you know? They buried him in a Catholic cemetery. So I went up to the cemetery with the crowd from the funeral and they put him in the ground, and everybody was standing around. Now most of the graves were all together, but I noticed that there was another bunch off in a corner by themselves. I asked a fellow there, I said, 'What's them graves over there?' You know what they were?"

"No," said Lucas.

"They were the Catholic suicides. The Catholics don't allow no suicides to be buried in the regular part of the cemetery, but there got to be so many suicides that they just kind of cut off a special corner for them.... You ever hear of anything like that?"

"No, I never did. And I'm a Catholic," Lucas said.

"You think about that. Enough Catholic suicides on one dinky little res to have their own corner of the cemetery."

Dooley stood looking through the window for another few seconds, then caught himself and went back to work. "Not many Bluebirds left," he said. "Mostly married off, went away east or west. New York and Los Angeles. Lost their names. Good people, though."

"Crazy thing he did."

"Why?" The question was so unexpected that Lucas half turned his head and caught the sharp point of the scissors in the scalp.

"Whoa, did that hurt?" Dooley asked, concern in his voice.

"Nah. What'd you... ?"

"Almost stuck a hole in you," Dooley interrupted. He rubbed at Lucas' scalp with a thumb. "Don't see no blood."

"What do you mean, 'Why?' " Lucas persisted. "He cut a guy's throat. Maybe two guys."

There was a long moment of silence, then, "They needed them cut," Dooley said. "There weren't no worse men for the Indian community. I read the Bible, just like anybody. What Bluebird did was wrong. But he's paid, hasn't he? An eye for an eye. They're dead and he's dead. And I'll tell you this, the Indian people got two big weights off their backs."

"Okay," said Lucas. "I can buy it. Ray Cuervo was an asshole. Excuse the language."

"I heard the word before," Dooley said. "I wouldn't say you was wrong. And not about this Benton fella, either. He was bad as Cuervo."

"So I'm told," Lucas said.

Dooley finished the trim above Lucas' ear, pushed his head forward until his chin rested on his chest, and did the back of his neck.

"There's been another killing, in New York," Lucas said. "Same way as Cuervo and Benton. Throat cut with a stone knife."

"Saw it on TV," Dooley acknowledged. He pointed at the black-and-white television mounted in the corner of the shop. "Today show. Thought it sounded pretty much the same."

"Too much," Lucas said. "I've been wondering..."

"If I might of heard anything? Just talk. You know Bluebird was a sun-dancer?"

"No, I didn't know," Lucas said.

"Check his body, if you still got it. You'll find scars all over his chest where he pulled the pegs through." Lucas winced. As part of the Sioux ceremony, dancers pushed pegs through the skin of their chests. Cords were attached to the pegs, and the dancers dangled from poles until the pegs ripped out. "There's another thing. Bluebird was a sun-dancer for sure, but there's folks around saying that a couple years ago, he got involved in this ghost-dance business."

"Ghost dance? I didn't think that was being done," Lucas said.

"Some guys came down from Canada, tried to start it up. They had a drum, went around to all the reservations, collecting money, dancing. Scared the heck out of a lot of people, but I haven't heard anything about them lately. Most Indian people think it was a con game."

"But Bluebird was dancing?"

"That's what I heard...." Dooley's voice trailed off and Lucas turned and found the old man staring out the window again. There was a park across the street, with grass worn brown by kids' feet and the fall frosts. An Indian kid was working on an upturned bike in the middle of the park and an old lady tottered down the sidewalk toward a concrete drinking fountain. "I don't think it means much," Dooley said. He turned back to Lucas. "Except that Bluebird was a man looking for religion."

"Religion?"

"He was looking to be saved. Maybe he found it," Dooley said. He sighed and moved close behind Lucas and finished the trim with a few final snips. He put the scissors down, brushed cut hair off Lucas' neck, unpinned the bib and shook it out. "Sit tight for a minute," he said.

Lucas sat and Dooley found his electric trimmers and shaved the back of Lucas' neck, then slapped on a stinging palmful of aromatic yellow oil.

"All done," he said.

Lucas slid out of the chair, asked, "How much?" Dooley said, "The regular." Lucas handed him three dollars.

"I haven't heard anything," Dooley said soberly. He looked Lucas in the eyes. "If I had, I'd tell you-but I don't know if I'd tell you what it was. Bluebird was the Indian people, getting back some of their own."

Lucas shook his head, sensing the defiance in the old man. "It's hard to believe you said that, Mr. Dooley. It makes me sad," he said.

Indian Country was full of Dooleys.

Lucas quartered through it, touching the few Indians he knew: a seamstress at an awnings shop, a seafood broker, a heating contractor, clerks at two gas stations and a convenience store, an out-of-business antique dealer, a key-maker, a cleaning lady, a car salesman. An hour before Bluebird's funeral was scheduled to begin, he left his car in an alley and walked across the street to Dakota Hardware.

A bell over the door jingled, and Lucas stopped for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Earl May came out of the back room wearing a leather apron and flashed a smile. Lucas walked back and watched the smile fade.

"I was about to say, 'Good to see you,' but I guess you're here to ask questions about Bluebird and that killing in New York," May said. He turned his head and yelled into the back, "Hey, Betty, it's Lucas Davenport."