Bismarck, North Dakota
“How was the flight?” Tom Odakota, Esquire, asked Alex Pavlik.
He’d met Pavlik outside the North Dakota State Penitentiary on Railroad Avenue and drove him to his office across the Missouri river in Mandan. Odakota’s private office was in the rear of a railroad storefront on East Main Street. A small room with little space between the attorney’s desk and the two folding chairs facing it. Pavlik shifted sideways on his chair to stretch his legs. Odakota, a much smaller man, smiled from across his desk.
“The flight was torture,” Pavlik said. “There was a detour to Sioux City, where I was squeezed inside a tiny prop thing. Not easy to adjust at my height. Pure torture.”
“You’re too tall for air travel,” Odakota said.
“I’m thinking of driving back.”
“Can’t say I’d blame you. How can I help you?”
“Call me Alex, please,” Pavlik said. “A number of ways, I think.” He opened a folder from his briefcase and pulled three pictures. He shuffled Joseph Kincaid’s picture to the top and handed them to Odakota.
“You know he was in Bismarck,” Pavlik said.
“Twice I know of,” Odakota said. “He was also incarcerated up in Canada once.”
“Violent crimes?”
“Almost always for guys like Kincaid,” Odakota said. “Usually from getting drunk but nothing as serious as what you mentioned, trying to kill someone. Prosecutors have a way of turning a bar fight into assassination attempts.”
“Not this time,” Pavlik said. “Look at the pictures.”
Odakota did so. “You mentioned there was a third party on the phone,” he said. “Maybe it was him who did the violence.”
“Maybe, but either way, I’m pretty sure they were sent to New York to kill my client’s husband,” Pavlik said. “They banged her around pretty good. Tried to rape her, too. The husband walked in on it and was shot. He’s the one they were after.”
“And Kincaid?” Odakota said. “He still in a coma?”
“The doctors aren’t sure he’ll make it.”
Odakota waited for more.
“Like I told you over the phone, the guy I’m looking for is a killer under federal witness protection,” Pavlik said. “His name was James Singleton. If it is him, I’m sure they’ve changed his name. It could be Frederick Douglass by now. He’s black, about forty-three years old, six two, two hundred pounds. That was his weight a couple years ago. But there is a distinguishing physical trait that I don’t think plastic surgery could’ve changed much.”
Odakota nodded.
“His right eye was shot out,” Pavlik said. He pointed to one of the pictures on the desk. “That guy did it, the one Singleton is after. He shot out an eye. I’m sure Singleton’s had it touched up. In fact, if he’s still working for the government, I know it’s been touched up, compliments of Uncle Sam, but I doubt they could do much about his eye and the damage the bullet did surrounding his eye.”
“He may not be in North Dakota,” Odakota said. “The guy you’re looking for. Natives here are no different than anybody else in state. Unless they have ties, they tend to roam. White kids graduate college and tend to take off. Same with us. Unless the kids have a job to go to, it’s reservation to reservation, state to state. Up in Canada, too sometimes. So, even if you’re right about this, it could’ve started from anywhere.”
“He can be in Rio, I know,” Pavlik said. “But the attempt made on the other guy, the one shot him and his wife, that was very specific. And Kincaid was involved. The other thing, he had scars all over him, Kincaid. They appeared to be self-inflicted scars.”
Odakota nodded. “It’s a rite-of-passage phenomenon. Sometimes it’s decorative and sometimes it’s just dumb shit like bragging-rights tattoos. They used to do it inside the prisons mostly. Then it spread out to the reservations. I guess when they get themselves good and drunk. There are all kinds of theories on what it’s about, but I tend to think it’s just another form of a pissing match. My scars are bigger than yours, like that.”
Pavlik nodded.
“Look, I doubt the FBI will provide me with the kind of information you’re searching for,” Odakota added. “Native Americans aren’t top priority to the government unless they’re looking to take something else from us.”
“Which is why I asked you to meet me instead of going the formal request route,” Pavlik said. “The feds won’t help my client or her husband. The feds are the reason this happened in the first place. You can blame their bullshit witness protection program.”
“I blame the federal government for a lot more than that,” Odakota asked. “What can I do for you?”
“Good old grunt work, which I’d be more than willing to help with, provided the access.” He presented Odakota with another folder. “Look this over before you make a decision. I was one of the homicide detectives assigned to the original case when the guy there, the one they’re trying to kill, was a suspect. Singleton murdered three people in Manhattan before Eddie Senta stopped him from murdering his wife and kid. There are copies of the police scene report, the case report, and whatever else you might need. Like you said, contacting the FBI would just alert them. I’m not so sure they don’t already know about this. The local police on Long Island were also familiar with the case I was assigned two years ago. They were there when Singleton was shot.”
Odakota took a deep breath. “I can make calls,” he said. “See what I can dig up for you, but I’m not sure it’ll help. Guys like Joe Kincaid either alienate or scare the people they come into contact with. You might do better with local police, but then you’d be jumping town to town and there are a lot of them.”
“Any Indian—sorry, Native Americans on the police forces up here?”
Odakota smiled. “A few,” he said. “Very few, but there are some sympathetic to our cause.”
“This the cause I’d be making a donation to?”
“It’s called the Republic of Lakotah,” Odakota said. “Look it up on the Internet.”
“And how much am I donating?”
“Whatever you feel. We’re a peaceful organization, Alex, but we’re also serious. We know the fight for independence won’t come easy or be cheap. We also know until more people are informed about our situation, there won’t be much sympathy for our cause.”
“Independence?”
“You’d best look it up before you decide on a donation.”
“Can I at least leave you something for now?”
“I’d rather you looked up our organization and made your decision then.”
* * * * * * *
He had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Between bites of liver he checked the local papers for crimes that might suggest James Singleton was in the area. He saw where a Native American bar featured karaoke between nine and closing and wondered if he might stop by and ask some questions there.
So far he’d had one hit in one try, a very good start. Odakota had known of Joseph Kincaid and had an even bigger beef with the federal government than Pavlik. Hopefully, tomorrow morning the attorney might know something more and maybe steer Pavlik in the direction of a one-eyed black man with at least two identities.
A heavyset older man with an eye patch entered the restaurant with a much younger woman. Pavlik wondered whether James Singleton was using a glass eye in place of the one Eddie Senta had shot out, or if he was also wearing an eye patch of some kind.
He watched the couple across the lounge. They looked like a grandfather and granddaughter or maybe a father and his daughter, or a prostitute and her john. Being suspicious was an old police habit he hadn’t broken yet.
The waitress, a middle-aged woman with a big chest and thick legs, brought him a fresh cup of coffee and asked if he’d like to order something else. Pavlik asked for a slice of hot apple pie.
She gave him a wink. “New York?” she asked.
Pavlik was caught off guard. “Ah, yeah, yes, I am. That obvious, huh?”
“I was there once. Long time ago. It was so busy, all the people and traffic. Exciting, though. Very exciting.”
Pavlik nodded politely.
“Shame what happened to them towers,” she added.
Pavlik nodded again. He knew a dozen of the cops who had died when the buildings collapsed.
“Closest we had to something that bad here was a few years back,” she said. “Some train run off the tracks outside Minot spilled some kind of chemicals. Ammonia or something. Killed one poor guy.”
“Scary stuff, chemical spills,” Pavlik said for politeness sake. He wished she would get his pie and leave him alone.
“You staying here? Upstairs?”
He nodded.
“Staying the night or longer?”
“Just tonight.”
“Where to?”
“Minot, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, where the train wreck was. It’s clean now. Nothing to worry about.”
Pavlik half smiled.
“I’ll go get your pie,” she finally said, adding a wink for emphasis. “Ice cream with that?”
“Ah, no, thanks,” he said.
She winked at him again. It made him uncomfortable. He wished he were back home.