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Dela stood on her porch watching Heath drive off. He’d thought it best if he didn’t show up to talk to the chief with her in tow. After all, as far as the police were concerned, she was still a suspect.
Heath was certain the chief would believe him about Detective Dick. Especially after Derick Brown gave his statement. To make sure the detective didn’t know about his talk with the chief, Heath was meeting Chief Steele at his home, today, Sunday, rather than at the police station.
Feeling as if she still didn’t know enough about Lora Murdoch and her cousin who also died due to drugs, Dela checked in with her animals and then slid into her car. She’d go see if Grandfather Thunder had any more insights into the family or someone she could talk to.
Out of curiosity, she drove by the Winter residence, studying the house and grounds. She knew Forensics had found the victim’s blood in the house, but what else did they find? She pulled over in Mrs. Swan’s driveway and scrolled through her contacts looking for Quinn’s number.
“I’m still alive from your cooking if that’s what you’re calling about,” Quinn answered.
She heard country music playing in the background. “Sorry to disappoint you. I know my cooking won’t kill you. Did you have a forensic team go through the whole house after the murder?”
The music quieted and a heavy sigh came from the other end of the call. “What do you think? It was a crime scene.”
“But the crime happened outside.” She pointed out.
“However, the contents of the inside were destroyed, making it appear to also be part of the crime scene. Yes, evidence was gathered from the whole house. Why?” He sounded less confrontational and more curious.
That he had asked her about her thoughts was a step in the right direction. “My gut tells me that whoever killed Paul was in the house while he and I were having our confrontation. They had to have seen me put the knife in the shed, to have used it as the murder weapon. Otherwise, it was out of sight of anyone just coming along.” She paused and then plunged on, “Did you find any fingerprints inside the house that shouldn’t have been there? Or any other evidence he wasn’t alone?”
“You’re a suspect, I can’t tell you.”
“Dammit, Quinn! I didn’t kill him.” Then she went on to tell him what she and Heath had learned from Ruth and Derick Brown. “Heath is talking to the Tribal Chief of Police right now, and he asked Brown to come in tomorrow and give a statement about what had happened when he confronted Detective Dick about his son’s death.”
“It sounds like Heath is taking the correct steps. Dela, I’m sorry I have to treat you like a suspect, but with Mrs. Swan’s statement, I have no other choice.”
Was he weakening? Did he now believe she didn’t do it? “Does this mean you think I’m innocent?”
A deep sigh echoed on the other end of the call. “I now believe you didn’t kill the victim, but you can’t keep butting into the investigation. We, Heath and I, can’t cover up for you. It’s our jobs on the line.”
“But it’s my life on the line if I get railroaded for a murder I didn’t commit. I fought back from an IED attack, I’m sure as hell not going to sit around and not fight when someone is trying to frame me for something I didn’t do.” Indignation burned in her chest and heated her cheeks. He of all people should know she would fight twice as hard to save her own life as she had to save that young woman who’d been raped by his informant.
“As long as you are always with someone when you are asking questions you will have someone to vouch for your behavior. But I didn’t say that. Because you shouldn’t be digging into your own alleged crime.”
She understood he wasn’t telling her to back off, but giving her warning that things could go bad if she talked with people on her own. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She ended the call, glanced at Mrs. Swan’s house, and started to pull away. Her foot moved to the brake as the thought, no one is home. I could find a way in and look around, came to her.
A car slowly drove past, and she pulled out onto the road, heading toward Grandfather Thunder’s. She didn’t need word getting back to the tribals that she was seen hanging around the crime scene.
At Grandfather Thunder’s small house, that needed another coat of paint and soon a new roof, she parked and walked up to the front door. She knocked and waited. Not a sound came from inside. Sunday? Where would he be? Not at her mother’s, she went to lunch with a group of retired teachers who met after church.
Dela decided to see if Sherry Dale, who lived in the mobile home behind his house, knew anything. Sherry’s car wasn’t parked beside the trailer. That meant she wasn’t home either. She could have taken Grandfather Thunder to the casino. Though Dela had heard the woman didn’t go to the Spotted Pony anymore after having been singled out there to be kidnapped by a human trafficking group. They’d been lucky Mrs. Shumack had brought in her son who worked with the State Police or Sherry might not have been found before she was shipped to another country as a sex slave.
Not finding the old man was an unfortunate turn of events. She’d planned to ask Grandfather Thunder questions. She walked into his house through the back door. She’d leave him a note to call her. The old man didn’t have a cell phone and refused to have an answering machine. He felt if someone called him when he was home, the phone was to be answered by him. If he didn’t answer they would know he wasn’t home and to call later.
As a child, she’d spent as much time in this house as she had her own. Grandfather Thunder had been her babysitter. When she was young, this was where she came after school to do her homework and watch cartoons with the old man until her mother came home. Her mom had never dated so she only came here on the occasional overnighter when Mom attended a teaching conference or classes.
Thinking back, her mom had never had a male or female friend that she’d leave her daughter with. Only Grandfather Thunder.
She dug around in the junk drawer and found a pen and small notepad. Dela wrote out
“Call me, Dela” and put it on the refrigerator under a magnetic photo frame of her in fourth grade.
As she returned the pen and notepad to the drawer, she spotted a wallet in the back of the drawer. If Grandfather Thunder’s wallet was in the drawer, where was he?
She pulled the wallet out and opened it. The photo on the driver’s license drew her attention. It was a man in his early twenties, with long dark hair, and a chin that resembled hers as well as eyes the same shape as hers. Only his eyes were brown while hers were blue, the color of her mother’s. Slowly, she pulled her gaze from the photo to read the name. It had been scratched out along with the address. Her hands shook and she dropped the wallet onto the floor.
Bending, to pick it up, her gaze sought out the photo. There was a very strong resemblance between her and this young man. Why did Grandfather Thunder have this wallet and license in his kitchen drawer? Could she bring it up and ask? Was it his youngest son who’d died in a car crash? What had been his name? Grandfather Thunder rarely mentioned him. He had only told her about the car crash when someone who had been visiting mentioned a name Dela had never heard before.
She sat in the kitchen chair, closed her eyes, and willed herself to go back to that day. Who had been here? A woman. What was her name? What name had she said?
The front door opened. “Dela? Are you here?” Grandfather Thunder’s gravelly voice called.
“Kitchen,” she called back and listened to the old man’s shuffling gait coming toward the room. She remained in the chair staring at the open wallet.
“Why did you come to see me,” he asked, stepping into the room. His rheumy gaze slid from her face to her hands.
“Who is this?” she asked, holding up the wallet with the license facing him.
“Someone I knew a long, long time ago.” Grandpa Thunder sat in the chair across from her. “How did you come by that?”
“I came to ask you questions. When you weren’t here, I went to the drawer and found a pen and paper.” She pointed to the note on the refrigerator. “While I was putting the pen and paper back, I spotted the wallet and thought you might be in trouble if you went off without it.” She shrugged. “It’s not your wallet. But the man in the photo looks like me.” She studied the old man she had known her whole life. Had Heath been correct in saying this man had known about both their fathers and never said a word?
“What questions did you come to ask me.” He deftly ignored the wallet, watching her.
“Heath and I found out about three people who died due to taking meth that Paul Winter made. What can you tell me about Tyler Brown, Lora Murdoch, and her cousin who killed his wife while high?”
Grandfather Thunder closed his eyes. They remained closed for so long that she wondered if he’d dozed off. Just as she started to say something, he opened his eyes. Sadness welled in the depths of the brown orbs.
“First we were given alcohol to help us kill ourselves and now it is drugs made by our own.” He stared at her. “Why do you think nothing is done about this?”
“I know that Detective D-Jones has turned a blind eye to the cooking of meth and the selling. He didn’t turn in the full report Derick Brown gave about his son’s death. He left out the part about the meth being cooked on the rez and the dealer having free reign to sell here.” She couldn’t hold contempt from her voice. There was nothing lower than a person in law enforcement who looked the other way to pad his retirement.
The elder narrowed his eyes. “I have thought that might be so for a while now, but no one was brave enough to say.”
Dela took her phone out of her pocket and snapped a photo of the driver’s license.
“What are you doing that for?” Grandfather Thunder asked, making a grab for the wallet. He snagged it with one of his long bony fingers and pulled it over, flopping it closed.
“I want to show it to a friend.” She knew Heath would help her figure out if this man was related to the man sitting across from her and if he might be related to her.
“Don’t go flashing that picture around.” Grandfather Thunder stared at her cell phone.
“Why not? What don’t you want me to find out? Who he is? That he might be my father?”
His shoulders sagged a bit at her last comment. Shaking his head, he said, “There are some things that are better left a mystery.”
“Are you talking about my father?” She studied the old man’s face. Since he’d stepped through the kitchen door, it seemed as if he had visibly aged ten years. His faded eyes were sunken, the creases on his face dug deep into his flesh, and the usual turned-up corners of his lips were pointed downward. He was the epitome of sorrow.
“There are some people who pass through your life that take a piece of you with them. Each time they are brought up, a bit more crumbles until if you think about them too much you are gone.” Grandfather Thunder stood and tossed the wallet in the drawer, closing it. “Take my word, you do not want to find out who this man is. If you love your mother, do not show her the photo or ask her any questions.”
With him saying not to show this to her mother, Dela’s gut said, this could be her father. But why would it harm her mother to see the photo? “I can’t promise I won’t, but I will keep this to myself until I am exonerated of killing Paul Winter.”
“Just think about how one man, Paul, has hurt so many lives by cooking meth.” He pointed to her camera. “This man, too, ruined many lives. Don’t let him ruin more.”
Dela shoved her cell phone into her coat pocket and stood. “I need to go.” She walked over and gave the man a hug, to show she did care about what he told her, but she had a need to find out who the man was and if he was her father.
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
Dela was sitting at her kitchen table staring at the photo when Heath walked in the front door an hour later. She closed the gallery and glanced up. “How did your meeting with the chief go?”
“He has had his suspicions about Jones for some time. Chief Steele plans to have Quinn and crew do the investigation. In the meantime, he’s pulling Jones from your case. He feels there is a conflict of interest.” Heath grabbed a glass and filled it with milk. He pulled a box of cookies from the cupboard and sat across from her.
“If Jones is off my case, who is the lead investigator?” Dela was happy to know the man who had been a pain in her ass since she’d started working at the casino, wouldn’t be able to fake evidence against her.
“It would have been me, if we weren’t friends. Then it would have been Jacob, but ditto.” He grinned.
“It can’t be Quinn if the chief wants him to dig up dirt on Dick.” She racked her brain to remember who else on the tribal police force would have enough experience.
“Chief Steele is leading the case as of thirty minutes ago.” Heath bit into a cookie, chewed, and chased it down with a gulp of milk. He wiped his lips with the sleeve of his shirt. “He wants you to come to the station tomorrow afternoon and talk to him.”
She studied Heath. “What am I to talk to him about?”
“He wants to hear your story, from you. It turns out when Jones had you in the interview room, he didn’t tape the discussion.” Hawke raised an eyebrow. “It was as if he knew your statement would clear you.”
A grin slowly tipped the corners of her mouth and made her cheeks hurt. That jackass had known she wasn’t guilty but had pursued the case as if she were. Now, things would change. Maybe Bernie would tell her she could go back to work, with the chief thinking she wasn’t guilty.
