Those Who Came Before Page 6

  The hairs on the back of her arms prickled as they stood at attention. “Do you know something I don’t, Chief?”

  “I’m sure you’re aware the campground was closed for the season. Those kids had no business being there.”

  “Are you saying someone would have felt strongly about their trespassing?”

  “I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself, Officer—”

  “Detective.”

  “Fine, Detective. I suspect you are smarter than your questions would suggest. But I’ve now told you more than once that none of my people so much as stroll past that campground. Not to mention they are not murderers.”

  “Sometimes people act out of character. Especially if they’re angry.”

  “Not in this case.”

  She’d never met anyone quite so blasé when confronted with the news of a triple homicide. A triple unsolved homicide. “I’m still going to need to interview everyone.”

  “If you want to waste your time, that’s your prerogative.” He rose from his chair. “I think we’re finished here.”

  In desperation, she played her ace. “Crazyhorse said you would tell me what happened out there. He said you’d tell me about the history.”

  With a sigh, Kinew sat back down. “Would you like to go for coffee, Detective? This is going to take a while.”

  Chapter Ten

  She was unnerved when Kinew drove past the reserve limits and kept on going. She wasn’t proud to admit it, but a little flicker of doubt insisted on sparking dark thoughts in her brain. You don’t know this man. Where is he taking you? You should have brought your own vehicle.

  Pushing her fears aside, Maria concentrated on that horrific vision of the victims. If this man could help her find the killer, it was worth a bit of risk.

  If she’d dared to hope the mention of Crazyhorse would open the chief up, those hopes were dashed, but it did spur him to usher her out of his office in a hurry.

  “I’ll talk to you,” he’d said, reluctance lending a certain heaviness to his words, as though it would be a great sacrifice. “But not here.”

  She’d gladly agreed to leave his shrine to the written word, especially since it appeared to prove such a huge distraction for him. She’d even agreed it would be easiest if he drove, since he knew the way. The cop part of her worried that she was now at the mercy of a man she didn’t know, who was mysterious at best and evasive at worst. Not only that, she stupidly hadn’t told anyone in the department where she was going, so tracing her whereabouts would be left to a rambling alcoholic whose theories would no doubt be mocked by her colleagues.

  The female part of her insisted that no one with that many smile lines could possibly be evil.

  And yet, she sighed with relief when Kinew pulled alongside a cluster of clapboard houses and businesses that could only generously be called a town. At least it wasn’t some remote corner of the forest.

  “You hungry?” He popped the door on his side like the answer was a forgone conclusion.

  It was then she realized she hadn’t eaten a thing since yesterday morning. A strange, hollow emptiness had contrived to fill her stomach, tricking her body into thinking it was full. “I could eat,” she said, trusting it was true as she followed Kinew into a diner with the optimistic name of Happy’s.

  Those expecting to find a cheery place behind the flickering neon sign would be disappointed. Rather than the promised exuberance, Happy’s appeared to be a place of despair with its stained, plastic tables, white walls streaked brown from time and water leaks, and world-weary waitresses.

  Most of the other patrons didn’t bother to acknowledge their presence, in spite of the bell over the door announcing their arrival. They continued to study their food, heads lowered, picking and prodding rather than eating.

  It wasn’t a ringing endorsement for the cuisine.

  The few that did glance over narrowed their eyes as soon as they caught sight of her. While she was used to this – her era was one where even children greeted cops with suspicion instead of a friendly wave – here it made her feel ashamed.

  Kinew nodded to someone she guessed was the proprietor, a stocky, grim-faced man who studied her from behind the counter, spatula held out like a weapon. Happy, she presumed?

  In that No Man’s Land of cracked chairs that listed to one side as if hungover, Kinew managed to find a booth. The vinyl on the seats bled stuffing, but the booth was remarkably comfortable all the same.

  Happy’s was the kind of establishment where laminated menus, their edges curled, were wedged in between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers, and where the salt was speckled with rice grains that looked like maggots. A waitress trudged over long enough to set two thick, plastic glasses of lukewarm water on the table.

  “The usual?” she asked Kinew, ignoring Maria completely.

  “Give us a minute,” he said. It was not a request.

  He handed Maria a menu. “They grind their own chuck here, and the turkey is roasted in-house, so the sandwiches and burgers are good. So is the trout. But stay away from anything fancy. If you order the crab stroganoff, you’re flirting with death.”

  A dimple made a fleeting appearance in his cheek, vanishing from sight so quickly she wondered if she’d seen it at all. Did Kinew actually make a joke?

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” she said, amused to see Entrees was one of the menu categories, along with Sandwiches, Nibbles, and Sweeties. They did indeed have crab stroganoff.

  The waitress rematerialized the second their attention drifted from the menus. She was attentive, if nothing else. “What can I getcha?” She looked to Kinew initially, of course, but he inclined his head in Maria’s direction, forcing the waitress to be polite against her will. She looked as pleased about this as expected.

  “The hot turkey sandwich, please.” She hadn’t thought to ask Kinew how the gravy was, but if they roasted their own turkeys, it should be safe.

  “Salad or fries?” The waitress scribbled on a red-lined notepad reminiscent of the one Maria had carried around during her own stint in the hospitality industry. Guess some things didn’t change.

  She’d started to say salad when Kinew pressed his foot into her calf. Startled, she met his eyes across the table and instantly understood. “Fries, please.”

  “White, brown, rye, or sourdough?”

  “Sourdough.”

  “And you?”

  “The usual. With a Coke. No ice.”

  Maria usually stuck with water, but lukewarm it held little appeal. “I’ll take a Coke too, please.”

  “You want ice?”

  Glancing at Kinew, she detected no further issues, so she nodded. The waitress shuffled off, scribbling.

  “The salad isn’t great, I take it?”

  “This isn’t a place where vegetables arrive at the peak of freshness. No one orders the salad here.”

  “I see. Thanks for the warning.”

  Kinew tipped his head, which was clearly as emotive as the man was going to get.

  “What’s the usual?” She was curious, but her curiosity mostly stemmed from the fact that he would come to this place often enough to have a usual.

  “Plain burger.”

  Sitting across a table from the chief was proving to be twice as awkward as sitting across a desk from him. Once they’d ordered, the conversation died a predictable death, if one could call Kinew’s insights about the menu a conversation.

  Since the chief appeared to be more comfortable with silence than she was, rather than ‘beating around the bush’, as her mother might say, Maria charged right through it.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “You wanted to talk.”

  “Seems your office was the most likely place for that talk. I suspect you didn’t come here for the food.”


  A glint of amusement touched his eyes before they grew serious again. “I don’t believe evil just happens. I believe we invite it in.”

  “And talking about this crime will invite it in?” She would have laughed at such superstition if she hadn’t seen the manner in which Kira and Jessica had died.

  “Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t, but why take chances? If we’re going to bring something into the open, I’d rather it be here.”

  “I’m sure Happy will appreciate that.”

  Kinew laughed, which shifted the planes of his face, turning a merely handsome man into a beautiful one. “There is no Happy. There is only Harry, and the grouchy old shit would be thrilled if the place burned to the ground. Then he could collect the insurance money and retire instead of spending his days cooking for people he doesn’t like.”

  Maria checked over her shoulder, but the disgruntled man with the spatula was nowhere to be seen. “I’m surprised he doesn’t set fire to it himself.” Surely there was enough grease soaked into the walls that it wouldn’t take much encouragement to make the place light up like a Roman candle.

  “He’s no criminal, only a man who knows he’s made himself a bed and now has to lie in it, just like the rest of us.”

  “That’s a depressing view of life.”

  “Not if you have a nice bed.” He smiled, and her face grew warm. Is he flirting with me?

  Thinking of Ben, she returned to the subject at hand. “So who do you think caused what happened at the campground this weekend?”

  Kinew shrugged. He did it so often she was beginning to think the gesture was a tic. “No one knows.”

  Wow, thanks. That’s enlightening. She was about to give him shit for wasting her time when the food arrived, and she discovered that in this particular instance, her surly new friend had been right. The sandwich was layered so thick with juicy slices of turkey she couldn’t see the bread, and the gravy was pale enough to be the real thing. As the rising steam reached Maria’s nose, her stomach growled in anticipation.

  Kinew laughed. “Did you hear that?” he asked the waitress. “You can tell Harry that Minnesota’s finest appreciates his cooking.”

  If their server was amused, she managed to hide it. “Need anything else?”

  Maria said no, while Kinew ordered milk to go with his meal. When he’d ordered a ‘plain burger’, he’d meant plain – as in no pickles, no cheese, no tomatoes, no mustard, no soggy leaf of lettuce. Not even a desultory squirt of ketchup. There were no sesame seeds on the bun.

  To her delight, her gravy was savory, soothing, and tasted of Thanksgiving. The ultimate comfort food. Once Kinew had his milk, she was about to continue grilling him when he shook his head.

  “Not now. Not while we’re eating. There will be plenty of time when we’re finished.”

  Resigning herself to a silent meal, she was startled when he asked, “How long have you been a cop?”

  “Twenty years.”

  His eyes widened in the manner she’d become accustomed to whenever anyone discovered her age. She took it in her stride, knowing that someday she’d probably miss the reaction. “You must have started when you were a baby.”

  She smiled. “Almost.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why?”

  “Why, what? Why I became a cop?”

  He nodded, and she struggled not to take offense. Often that question was paired with something like, “You’re too pretty to be a cop,” or “Isn’t that a little violent for you, sweetheart?” But he’d said neither, and she would give him the benefit of the doubt as long as she could.

  “My dad was a cop. Initially, I didn’t have any interest in the ‘family business’, as he called it. I wanted to be a teacher. But when I was halfway through college, someone took him from us.” Even though her dad had died years ago, it wasn’t easy to talk about. “I figured becoming a police officer was the best way to honor him. As long as a Greyeyes wears the badge, his memory is alive and well.”

  Maria had high hopes for Heidi. She’d been working on her daughter since the girl was two, dressing her as a cop for Halloween and buying her the Fisher-Price police station, the one where the little cars lit up and had actual sirens. Ben had tried to counteract her influence with a toy guitar and a miniature violin, but Maria suspected he’d accepted he was fighting a losing battle. Police work was in her blood.

  “I’m sorry,” Kinew said. His voice softened considerably. “Is it okay to ask what happened?”

  Tia Montrose. Maria would never forget how the woman had chewed on her quivering lip throughout her trial, how her voice had been stifled for so long that she could barely speak in her own defense. Or how she’d clung to Maria’s mother, sobbing, and how her mother had cried with her, forgiving her instantly. It was a little more difficult for Maria.

  “It was a domestic. Neighbors reported hearing gunfire, and by the time Dad and his partner arrived, the husband was lying dead in his front yard. The partner wanted to wait for back up, but my dad went inside, and as soon as he walked into the house, a woman shot him.”

  Though the words were bitter and tasted of bile, Maria made herself say them. “She didn’t mean to. She’d had the shit beaten out of her for years, and finally snapped. When she heard my dad come into the house, she’d thought it was her husband, returning to settle the score. She fired before she could see his face. It was a lucky shot, but not for my dad. One bullet to the heart was all it took.”

  “I’m sorry, Maria.”

  It had taken her a long while to figure out how to respond to expressions of sympathy. She couldn’t say, “It’s okay,” because it would never be okay.

  “Thank you.”

  They didn’t say much for the rest of the meal, the specter of her father looming large between them. When the waitress asked about dessert, Kinew recommended the pie, but Maria shook her head. As a cop, she’d had enough diner pie to last her a lifetime. Not to mention she’d lost her appetite. She settled for coffee.

  “Have you heard of the Donner Party?” He had that far-off look again, but this time there wasn’t a readily available window to gaze out of.

  “Of course.” She suspected most Americans were aware of the ill-fated pioneers.

  “What about the lost tribe?”

  She thought for a moment, even though she could have answered immediately. “Sorry, no. I haven’t.”

  He smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Shows you how important we are to the education system, doesn’t it? Thirty-nine white people die, and generations later, we’re still mourning the tragedy. Hundreds of our people disappear, and no one hears of it.”

  Aside from Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the most she’d learned of her people’s history in school was that they were savages who’d terrorized the settlers with their wild ways. “Dwelling on that stuff will get you nowhere.”

  “Maybe not, but someone has to remember.” Kinew pushed aside his lemon meringue pie after taking two bites. The meringue was weeping, glistening tears dotting its surface. “The so-called lost tribe was a thriving society. It was also a matriarchy. The nation boasted highly successful hunters, farmers, and fishermen. Their land had some valuable mineral deposits, and the people had learned how to mine them. By all accounts, they had a strong government as well.”

  “And they lived near here?” How could I have never heard of them? Maybe she hadn’t been taught about them in school, but she did a fair amount of reading and research on her own.

  “Right at Strong Lake, where the campground is now.” His eyes locked with hers. “A group of settlers heard of their success. They wanted to meet with the people, to learn from them. Only, when they arrived, no one was there. The tribe had vanished.”

  Maria felt a draft, and wished she’d brought her jacket. “There must have been some sign of what happened to them?”

  “None. Everyth
ing was gone: their dwellings, their caches of food, the minerals. Gone. The only clue they had ever been there was a few shards of pottery.”

  “Maybe they had to relocate?” It happened, due to drought, flood, and wildlife leaving the region. It was certainly possible, and in that era, it would have been difficult to leave a message.

  “You would hope so. You might even believe it, if it weren’t for what happened to those settlers.”

  Another chill. Even their waitress was keeping her distance, as though she suspected they were discussing something she didn’t want to overhear. Maria waited, sipping what was left of her cold coffee, knowing Kinew would continue when he was ready.

  “There are several diary entries suggesting the majority of the settlers didn’t want to stay in the area, not even for the night. Something spooked them, but I haven’t seen any documentation that explains what. It would have been insanity for them to leave. There was no settlement close by, and it wasn’t safe to travel at night. So they cut some wood, made a fire, and set up camp as best they could.

  “Weeks passed, and the rest of their colony grew resigned to the fact that their brethren had perished somewhere along the journey. Just when they’d convinced themselves they would never see their kin again, a man returned. It was their minister, a fellow by the name of Thomas J. Babbit.”

  Kinew lowered his voice. “Good ol’ Thomas J. was a little the worse for wear. Truth be told, he was barely alive. One of his arms hung by a thread and his face had been mutilated. He was missing his nose and an ear, as I understand it, and his clothes were soaked with blood.”

  “What on earth happened to him?”

  “He babbled about monsters that had torn his fellow settlers apart while they slept, but no one believed him. His people thought he was delirious, and soon after that, he died. Haven’t you wondered why Strong Lake isn’t a state park?”

  The thought had occurred to her. Usually reserve lands were the worst of the worst. The beautiful parks and campgrounds belonged to the government.