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Mugshot woofed at the French door leading out of the dining room to the backyard. Dela’s hands were covered in chocolate. Since her baking skills were minimal, she’d decided to dip strawberries in chocolate for her dessert at her mom’s party on Saturday. Knowing she’d be at the casino tomorrow night, she wanted to have this done and have one less thing to worry about.
“I’ll be there in a minute.” There were only three more strawberries to dip in the hardening chocolate. “I have to get these done quickly,” she muttered as her phone buzzed and Mugshot woofed again.
Glancing at the phone sitting on the dining room table three feet away, she saw it was Heath.
“Shit.” She dropped all three berries in the cooling chocolate, sucked on the chocolate fingers of her right hand, while she swiped the phone, tucked it between her chin and shoulder, and opened the door for Mugshot.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Heath asked.
“No. Just chocolate all over my hands, Mugshot wanted in, and...” She glanced at the berries sitting haphazardly in what now appeared to be hardened chocolate. “I can’t cook anything!”
“What were you cooking? Dinner?”
She laughed. “No. I was dunking strawberries in chocolate.”
“Technically that’s not cooking,” Heath said, a chuckle in his voice.
“It is to me, and I can’t even do that right. Half of the berries look like they were rolled in dirty water and the other half have clumps of chocolate clinging to them, and the last three, are stuck in the bowl of chocolate.” She sighed. “Take my mind off my failure, what did you call about?”
“Jacob and I have been playing tag all afternoon with Sanders. It seems he doesn’t want to talk to the police. How about I take you to dinner, we swing by a grocery store and buy more strawberries and chocolate, then have a nightcap at Harry’s? See if Sanders happens to appear there tonight.”
Dela’s stomach growled. “I like the way you think. What time do you plan to be here?”
“About two hours. I need to type up what information we do have and see if the medical examiner has had time to do a preliminary check of the body.”
“I’ll be ready when you get here to change.” Dela put the strawberries she’d made in the bowl with the last three and put them in the refrigerator. She didn’t want to look at them. Grabbing an apple, she walked down the hall to her bedroom.
Mugshot walk-hopped behind her. As she took off her prosthesis to prepare for a shower, the half German Shepard, half Malamute lay down on his bed with a thump. He only had one leg in the back, making lowering his heavy body a chore.
Dela patted his head. “You and Jethro can have a treat while Heath and I go out for dinner.” She would never forget how the donkey and the dog had saved her life just a few months earlier when a money-hungry, vindictive tribal detective had entered this room as she was taking a bath and tried to kill her. If not for the noise her two animals had made, she would have been defenseless sitting in the bathtub. But their rousing brays and barks had given her enough notice to get into the bedroom and grab her weapon.
The memory of that night wasn’t something she liked to dwell on, since the man had bled out on her bed. Old bed, she had to remind herself. Heath had bought her a new bed, and her mom had purchased all new linens and comforter. Nothing looked the same as before to keep her from having the scene play over in her mind when she walked into the room. That only happened late at night when she held the photo Detective Jones had tossed on her bed, trying to take her attention off him.
A photo that the detective said was of her father. A man her mother had told her was dead before she was born. Yet, from what she and Heath had been able to determine so far from the mugshot of a man who had her eyes and chin, the photo was taken at a county police station that burned down shortly after she was born. Which meant so did the jail files. They had someone looking into the court documents from when the jail burned down and later. So far that person hadn’t come up with anyone that fit the description of the man in the photo.
She wanted to know if the man in the photo was her father and if he was still alive. But the real question was...Why didn’t her mom or Grandfather Thunder want her to know him?
These questions, and many others, spun around in her head a good part of every day. She growled her frustration and picked up her crutches to swing into the bathroom and take a shower. Maybe when she came out all these thoughts would be gone.
“Yeah, right,” she said, closing the bathroom door.
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
Heath arrived at seven. He quickly showered and changed and they both slid into her car, with Heath driving.
“Did you learn anything new about the body?” Dela asked, now that they had time to talk.
“Not a whole lot more than we already knew. All the medical examiner had time to do was look at the wound closer and see if there were any defensive wounds on the victim.”
“And were there any?”
“He said not that he could see.” Heath glanced over at her. “It had to be someone she trusted since they were both sitting in her car.”
Dela thought about that. “Not necessarily. Someone could have been hiding in her car either when she came out from work at Harry’s, or somehow slipped in her backseat when she stopped somewhere on the way home.”
“But why didn’t they kill her in Harry’s parking lot or where ever they entered the vehicle?” Heath asked.
She tapped her finger against her lips, thinking. “Well, if it was at Harry’s and the person who requested her silence is someone who frequents Harry’s, he’d want it to happen elsewhere.”
Heath nodded. “That makes sense.”
“And if it was someone who wanted her silenced, they could have followed her from Harry’s and where ever she might have stopped on the way home and slipped into the back seat. By waiting until she got home, it makes the husband look guilty.” She shrugged. “Hopefully after the autopsy we’ll have more to go on.”
Heath pulled into a parking spot a block from Hamley’s Steakhouse. Now that the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla owned the building and business, it had become more popular with the tribal members.
“You didn’t need to spend this much money on dinner,” Dela protested.
“We don’t go out to a nice meal often enough. We both work and save our money. We can splurge once in a while.” He winked.
They entered the building. Dark oak pillars and paneling rose up twenty feet to hold up the copper tiles on the ceiling. A bronze statue of a cowboy dangling a saddle from one hand greeted them alongside the hostess.
She was surprised when the woman smiled at Heath. “Your reservation is ready.”
“Reservation? When did you make a reservation?” she asked.
“When I left you at the casino this afternoon.” He grasped her hand, leading her behind the hostess. The woman led them to the stairs and took them to the balcony above and seated them at a tall table for two with a view of the interior of the building. Vintage photos hung on the wood walls.
“I’ll take your drink orders and your server, Audrey, will be over shortly.”
They both ordered iced tea and the hostess walked away.
“I think it’s been years since I’ve been in here.” Dela stared down into the middle of the restaurant and farther over at the bank teller wall between the restaurant and the bar. A large stained-glass lamp hung above the area where the hostess stood. Three large cast iron fans over the bar area were spun by a belt that serpentined between them.
“Good evening, I’m Audrey, your waitress, what can I get you for dinner?”
Dela sat up straight and ordered an appetizer for her meal. She figured it would come sooner, since her stomach had been growling all the way into town.
“You can order more than an appetizer,” Heath said.
“I know. If I want more, I’ll steal it from your plate.” She grinned.
“In that case, bring her a side salad with her appetizer, I don’t plan on sharing.”
The waitress giggled. “Yes, sir. Will that be all?”
“Yes,” Heath said, picking up his drink.
“I’ll get your order in.” Audrey walked away.
Dela glanced down at the bar area. “It looks like the biker crowd has sloshed over into here. I would have thought they’d prefer Harry’s and the other run-down bars.”
“Not all people who travel across the country on bikes and go to biker events are bikers in the sense you’re using it.” Heath leaned back in his chair. “When I was in South Dakota, I bought a motorcycle and traveled around on the weekends. Sometimes I’d get into conversations with other bikers in cafes and bars. Most of the people here and probably at Harry’s are just people who like to feel the wind in their hair and on their face and eat bugs on a regular basis.”
Dela laughed and questioned, “Eat bugs?”
“Yeah, a bit of a hazard when riding a motorcycle if you don’t have a face guard. You learn to keep your mouth closed.”
Dela studied Heath. “Do you still have your motorcycle?”
“Yeah, it’s in the shed at Mom’s. I was going to ask if I could bring it over and put it in the feed shed Travis built.”
“Only if you take me for a ride. I want to eat some bugs.”
He laughed. “You can drop me off there after the picnic at your mom’s on Saturday and I’ll ride it home.”
Warmth swirled in Dela’s chest. More and more hearing Heath call her house home was sounding right. She wasn’t ready to make a commitment to anyone until she learned who really was her father. Cisco Alvaro, who died before she was born, or the man whom she’d discovered who looked like her. If Grandfather Thunder hadn’t warned her that asking her mom would hurt the woman who gave birth to her, she would march up to her mom’s house and show her the photo of the man in the driver’s license she’d found at Grandfather Thunder’s and the mugshot Detective Jones had tossed on her bed. But Dela couldn’t hurt her mom. She and Grandfather Thunder had been Dela’s boulders of security as she grew up on the reservation surrounded by the Umatilla kids. Most of them were kind. They liked her mom, a school teacher, and they respected Grandfather Thunder and his family, so she was thought of as one of them, most of the time. There were a few times when she’d come home in tears because someone accused her of being one of the people who had caged the Indians.
She and Heath talked about rides they could take on the motorcycle and their food soon arrived. After the meal, Heath offered to make cupcakes in the morning before he went to work. They stopped at the store and he purchased a cake mix, eggs, and canned frosting.
At Harry’s, they went around the two blocks closest to the bar twice before they found a place to park.
“The place is packed tonight. I’m not sure how easy it will be to find Sanders if his booth is already occupied,” Heath said, holding the door for Dela to enter.
The noise accosted her ears. Between the loud voices and the even louder music, she didn’t know how anyone could have a conversation. She twisted her upper body and shouted. “This may not be a good idea.”