It was an almost two-hour drive west to the Three Rivers Reservation. On the way, Agent Danette Shirley shared her story with Daniel and Monte Bonhomme.
“I grew up on Pine Ridge. Lowest life expectancy in the country. Little town called Rockyford. There weren’t many ways to leave the rez life, at least on Pine Ridge. One of them was in a pine coffin. That’s how my father went when I was seven. He was killed in Rapid City, shot by a white man drunk out of his mind. My mother raised me. I was lucky because she was a teacher, believed if her daughter was going to rise above all the challenges of being Native and living on a reservation, education was the way. So I graduated from Oglala Lakota College in social work.” She shook her head and gave a sardonic little laugh. “As if that might make some kind of difference in the long run. But I gave it a shot.”
“How’d you get into law enforcement?” Monte asked.
“I had a friend I’d met in college. She came from Rosebud. She became a cop because she firmly believed we needed an Indian presence inside law enforcement. Did her training at the Indian Police Academy in New Mexico and went to work for the BIA. It was hard, sure, but she felt she was making a difference, giving a voice to our people in that way. I got so frustrated with the system I’d become a part of—hands always tied, resources always abysmally short—that I thought maybe my friend was right. So I became a cop, too. BIA like her. I’ve worked lots of cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous people over the years. When they created the Missing and Murdered Unit, I applied right away. There are so many issues that need addressing in Indian Country. I can’t help with all of them. So this is where I’ve settled. This is what I do.”
“I believe we make a difference,” Monte said.
“If I didn’t,” Daniel said, “I’d have become a professional accordion player.”
“Oh? You play the accordion, too?” Agent Shirley said, looking pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah. And you?”
“My grandchildren beg me to play.”
“That’ll change when they become teenagers,” Monte said. “Mark my words.”
With a sweep of his hand, Chief of Police Chris Hayner indicated the three straight-back chairs where Daniel, Monte, and Agent Shirley should sit.
“So, Fawn Blacksmith,” he said, resuming his place behind his desk. “You believe the body you found there in Tamarack County is her?”
Hayner was not quite six feet tall, but he seemed larger in stature. Daniel thought this might have been the result of his general robustness. Although his shock of hair and bushy mustache were both going gray, he still had the look of an avid outdoorsman. Monte had done a good deal of hunting and fishing with the man. He’d also told Daniel that Hayner once built a boat and sailed it across the Atlantic. Like so many law enforcement officers in Indian Country, Hayner had no Native heritage in his blood. But Monte had assured Daniel that Hayner had a good heart and ran a good department.
“Like I explained over the phone,” Monte said, “we have a boy who has a spiritual connection. He says it’s what the girl’s spirit told him.”
“Spiritual connection.” Hayner used his index finger to scratch his mustache. “That’s your evidence?”
“When it appears you’ve hit a dead end, Chris, you’ve got to look for other ways to proceed. And what harm can it do?”
“It can break Daisy Blacksmith’s heart again.”
“The girl’s grandmother?” Agent Shirley asked.
“Yep. That old girl hasn’t got a lot of life left in her. If it is Fawn you found, I expect it’ll just about kill her. Right now, she’s got some hope, holding on to the idea that her granddaughter just ran off again and will turn up someday somewhere.”
“She was the one who reported the girl missing?” Daniel asked.
“Like I told Monte on the phone yesterday, she called me six months ago saying Fawn had disappeared. The girl had turned eighteen and been released from the North Regional Juvenile Detention Center and was supposed to come back up here and live with Daisy, but she bolted again. Daisy finally called me. I advised her to talk to Buck Sondergaard—he’s our county sheriff—report Fawn as missing. It was the only thing I could do. Daisy lives off the rez, and neither her or Fawn are enrolled tribal members here. So, out of my jurisdiction. Near as I can tell, Sondergaard didn’t do much, if anything. The guy’s about as Indian friendly as General Custer. When nothing happened, I went ahead and entered Fawn into NCIC as missing and advised Daisy to talk to Alicia Fineday, an advocate here on the rez. As I understand it, Alicia called MMIR. You know, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office down in the Cities.”
“I know it,” Monte said.
“They’re good people, but they’ve got no teeth when it comes to compelling law enforcement to do anything. So they probably did their best to light a fire under Sondergaard, cited Brandon’s Law, et cetera. But as near as I can tell, nothing much has been done. You got a case file on her?” Hayner asked Agent Shirley.
“I checked. We were never informed.”
“See, that’s a big part of the problem. Communication between all the agencies involved.”
“Can you give us the address of the girl’s grandmother?” Monte asked.
Hayner spent a minute on his computer, then wrote something on a Post-it and handed it over. “I’ve included her phone number, but I’ll call her now, make sure she’s expecting you.”
“She’ll be home?” Daniel asked.
“Doesn’t go out much these days. When you talk to her, you’ll understand.”
The address was in a gathering of run-down trailer homes a few miles from where summer houses the size of the Taj Mahal fronted a series of beautiful lakes, along with resorts where well-off folks spent a carefree week or two away from the sweltering heat of the Twin Cities. Daniel suspected that the people who serviced the resorts and the restaurants and the gas stations and the grocery stores and the fun little amusement parks lived in that collection of flimsy trailers lining the grid of dirt lanes.
Monte parked his Tahoe in front of the address Hayner had given him, and he, Daniel, and Agent Shirley got out. A dog tied to the mailbox of the trailer next door went crazy barking, but someone inside hollered “Shut up, Lester!” and the dog fell silent. As they approached Daisy Blacksmith’s trailer, the door was opened by a young woman, who gave them a hard look.
“You the police?” she said.
She was thin, wore a black T-shirt with an image of Prince on it and Purple Rain printed in purple letters above. Her hair was done in a single long braid that hung over her shoulder. The braid was a shade of purple that didn’t quite match the T-shirt’s letters. Daniel put her in her midteens.
“ ‘Raspberry Beret’ is my favorite,” he said.
“What?” She looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Prince. It’s my favorite song of his.”
She looked down at the image. “Got this at Goodwill.”
“We’re looking for Daisy Blacksmith,” Monte said.
“Took you long enough,” the girl said.
“We came straight here from Three Rivers,” Monte said.
“I mean to get around to looking for Fawn.”
“Who are you exactly?” Daniel said.
“Nyla. I help out Granny.”
“Daisy is your grandmother?”
The girl shook her head. “Just call her that cuz she’s been like a granny to me and my mom. We live over there.” She pointed to a trailer on the other side of the dirt lane.
“Is she here?” Agent Shirley asked.
The girl nodded. “She gets tired, so go easy, okay?” She turned and directed her words inside the trailer. “They’re here, Granny. Letting them in.”
She stepped aside and gave her head a small jerk, indicating they should go inside, which they did—Monte first, then Agent Shirley, and Daniel last.
“You should give him a try,” Daniel told the girl as he passed. “He was pretty awesome.”
“Who?”
“Prince.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The trailer was cluttered but not trashed, more the look of careless upkeep rather than constant neglect. Magazines—People, Reader’s Digest, Women’s Health—were scattered on the sofa and the coffee table, where an empty cereal bowl also sat, still cradling a spoon. A flowered robe had been carelessly draped over a threadbare armchair. A single slipper lay beneath the chair, on its side like a dead fish. The place smelled of cigarette smoke. And also of gingerbread.
Daisy Blacksmith stood at the counter of her small kitchen. She was short and heavy, much of her black hair gone deep gray. Her right leg ended just below the knee, and a crutch was nested under each of her armpits. She turned from the cutting board on the counter, a bread knife in her hand, and smiled.
“The gingerbread is still warm. Would you like some?”
“Miigwech,” Monte said.
“Shinnob, eh?” Daisy said. “Me, Lakota.”
“I’d like some,” Agent Shirley said. “Smells delicious.”
Daniel said he’d also have some.
“Sit.” Daisy lifted her chin, using it to point toward the sofa and chair in the little living room area. “Just move the crap. Nyla, would you take this?” She handed the girl a plate on which sat several slices of gingerbread, and Nyla set the plate on the coffee table. “Something to drink?” Daisy offered.
When they’d all said no thank you, Daisy Blacksmith crutched her way from the kitchen and settled herself in the threadbare armchair. Nyla took the crutches and leaned them against the wall, then leaned there herself.
“Got me an artificial leg a couple of years ago, but it broke a few months back,” Daisy explained. “Can’t afford to get it taken care of. But I get around okay. So.” She fixed each of them with her dark eyes for a moment, then said, “I understand you’re tribal folks and you might have news about my granddaughter.”
They introduced themselves and Monte said, “We might have news about Fawn, but first I need to know a little more about you and her, if you don’t mind talking about it.”
“I learned a long way back that the truth of things don’t get hid for long. What do you want to know?”
“You were at one time Fawn’s legal guardian, is that right?” Monte said.
“Yep. Long story.”
“We’re in no hurry,” Agent Shirley said.
“All right, then. When I was a kid, I was in one of them boarding schools, over in North Dakota,” Daisy began. “I still get nightmares. Used to drink trying to make ’em go away, and the drinking got me in a lot of trouble. I had me a daughter, Celia Marie, with a Lakota man over in North Dakota, but he ain’t really a part of this story. He skipped out before my Celia Marie was born. Like I said, the drinking got me into all kinds of trouble. When Celia was ten, I got into some real trouble and they sent me to jail. Well, they called it a correctional rehab center, but it was a jail. Lost my daughter. While I was there, I met some folks from White Bison. They got a wellbriety program. Uses the Medicine Wheel and Twelve Steps. They helped me get sober, and eventually I got my Celia Marie back. But by then it was too late. She was a teenager, into all kinds of craziness, drugs and the like. She already had a child, my granddaughter. Named her Fawn. Tacicala in the Lakota language cuz the father was Lakota. Only like Celia Marie’s father, he ain’t a part of this story at all. She and Fawn, they ended up here in Minnesota, and I came after ’em, trying to stay connected, trying to do what I could to help. When Fawn was twelve, the child protection people finally stepped in and took her away from Celia Marie in the same way they took Celia Marie from me. It took me a while, but I was able to get custody of Fawn. She was a sweet child, really. Helpful, you know. She was born with FAS.”
“Fetal alcohol syndrome,” Agent Shirley said.
“Yeah, but you couldn’t tell. She looked normal. Real pretty. She had some trouble tying her shoes and things, but nothing that was a big deal. Like I said, a sweet child. I hoped my daughter might get clean, like I did, and get Fawn back. But it’s hard. In our blood maybe. I heard it called blood memory, anyway. All the trauma our people have gone through somehow still in our bodies. Celia Marie, she finally ended up going missing. Just disappeared. At first, I thought she was off again, you know, doing God only knows what kind of damage to herself. She always come back, real sorry and mostly wanting to see Fawn. Only this time she didn’t come back. I think something bad musta happened to her. I don’t expect I’ll ever see her again.”
Daisy stopped for a few moments, and Nyla asked, “You okay, Granny?”
“Yeah.” Daisy took a deep breath and went on. “So, I have this diabetes. Had it a long time. Eventually, they took my leg. I had me a job. Waitress at the Blue Moose there in town. But I couldn’t work no more, so they took Fawn. Claimed I couldn’t look after her good enough. Put her in foster care. Foster hell, you ask me. She run away. Come back here, cried to me, told me they treated her real bad in that place. Sounded like the things they done to us in that boarding school. But they come and took her away again. She run and they took her and she run. You get the picture. She got picked up while she was shacking up in some rat hole of a house with a bunch of druggies in Duluth. They put her in a school for problem kids. She run away from there. This time she got picked up for prostitution, ended up in that juvenile jail.”
“North Regional Juvenile Detention.”
“Call it what you like, it’s still a jail. I think about that sweet thing having to sell her body, just kills me inside.” Daisy had been dry-eyed through her recounting of her history, but now a little glistening trail of tears ran down each of her ample cheeks. “When she got out, she was eighteen, not a juvenile no more. They had this plan for her. She was supposed to come back here, live with me, get herself a job, put together a better life for herself, you know? I got no car, so Nyla and her mom drove over to get her. I gave them a bracelet I’d beaded myself, a gift to give to Fawn.”
“She liked it, Granny. She put it on right away.”
Daisy smiled at that, then looked sad again. “They didn’t even get her back here before she ran again.”
Daniel looked at Nyla. “What happened?”
“She said she needed to use the bathroom. We stopped at a gas station. She went in, didn’t come out. I went in to look for her.” Nyla shook her head. “Gone.”
“Is that when you reported her missing?”
“Not right away,” Daisy Blacksmith said. “I mean, she run away so many times, I didn’t know what to think. So, maybe a month went by. Finally I decided I had to do something. Like I said, I’m not Shinnob, but I am Indian, so Nyla’s mom drove me up to the rez, and I talked to Chris Hayner there. You know, heads up the tribal police. He told me he couldn’t really do nothing but said I should file a missing person report with the county sheriff. Hell, that was like spitting in the ocean and thinking it’ll make a difference.”
“The sheriff’s people weren’t helpful,” Monte said.
“Took my information, said they’d get back to me. Never did. I called ’em a bunch of times, always got the same runaround. That Chris Hayner, he told me to talk to an advocate on the rez. She was helpful, called some folks in the Twin Cities—”
“Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives,” Agent Shirley said.
“Yeah, them. But…” Daisy gave a shrug. “Still nothing. Till you folks show up.” She took another deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “So, tell me about Fawn.”
Monte carefully approached telling her about the body that had been found in the blueberry patch and Waaboo’s vision of a girl named Tacicala. “We don’t have confirmation yet of her true identity,” he cautioned. “So it might not be your granddaughter.”
Daisy’s face was something carved of wood. She didn’t blink, didn’t move a muscle.
Nyla finally said, “Granny?”
“I knew.” Daisy’s words were hardly audible. “I knew. I just didn’t want to open my heart to it.”
Nyla put her arms around the woman. “I’m here for you, Granny. Me and Mom, we’re here for you.”
“Like I said, we don’t have confirmation of identity yet,” Monte offered.
“Don’t matter. I know it’s her.” Daisy patted Nyla’s hand and said, “Will you get the picture from my bedroom? You know the one.”
“Sure, Granny.” The girl disappeared into the back room and returned a moment later with a framed drawing. She handed it to Daisy, who looked at it a long time as tears began to gather in her eyes. She held it up for them to see. It was a pastel rendering of Daisy Blacksmith that made her look quite lovely.
“Fawn did this. She said she wanted to capture the true me. She said I was beautiful.”
Now the tears began to flow down her cheeks. There were several long moments of silence while Daisy wept.
“I wonder if you have a photograph of Fawn that we could take,” Monte said gently.
Daisy nodded. “On my dresser, Nyla.”
The girl came back with a framed photo of a smiling young woman proudly holding up a wooden plaque.
“She got that for a picture she drew at the school she was at for a while, the one for problem kids. Contest they had. She got first place,” Daisy said. “Can I have it back?”
“Of course, we’ll return it,” Monte assured her. He stood and took the photograph. “We’ll stay in touch,” he promised.
Daisy gave a nod.
“Thanks, Nyla,” Agent Shirley said. “Take care of her.”
“Like she’s took care of me,” Nyla promised.
Outside, the dog next door started barking again, and again the disembodied voice hollered, “Shut up, Lester.”
They stood at Monte Bonhomme’s Tahoe. From the trailer they’d just left came a long wail of sorrow.
Agent Shirley said, “I wish I could have given her more hope. It might not be Fawn. We really don’t know for sure yet.”
“The beaded bracelet,” Daniel said, as if that settled the matter.
“Doesn’t matter if she wasn’t Daisy’s granddaughter,” Monte said. “She’s still the granddaughter and daughter of someone else who’ll be awash in grief in the end.”
Daniel said, “To be Indian is to walk with loss. It goes before us and it follows us. It is our shadow self.” When he saw Monte and Agent Shirley staring at him, he said, “From a poem I wrote a while back.”
“You’re a poet?” Agent Shirley said.
“Used to be,” Daniel said.
“Won himself a slew of awards,” Monte said.
“But you’re not a poet anymore?” Agent Shirley asked.
“I got tired of writing only sad poems.” Daniel said. Then to the tribal police chief he said, “So what now, Monte?”
“Whoever buried Fawn knew about Paavola’s blueberry patch. And whoever killed Olivia Hamilton knew about Paavola’s cabin. That old Finn’s property is the connection. What do you know about Erno Paavola, Daniel?”
“Not much. I didn’t know the man. But Cork did.”
“All right, then. Let’s go talk to your father-in-law.”