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The whole time she took Grandfather Thunder to Pendleton and back, Dela kept a lookout for a green Jeep with Levi’s license plate number. Luck wasn’t with her. She didn’t see it again.
After dropping off Grandfather Thunder, Dela swung through the parking lot at Yellowhawk but didn’t see a green Jeep. She decided to check out what was happening at the casino. The itch to get back to work was gnawing at her. Anything was better than sitting around waiting to hear from Shaffer, Quinn, and Heath about the progress of Paul Winter’s murder.
Entering the Spotted Pony from the main entrance, Dela wandered over to Alfred, the valet, sitting on a stool and keeping tabs on everyone.
“Dela, good to see you. Have you come back to work?” Alfred asked.
“I haven’t heard from Bernie if I can.” She pulled over a slot machine chair and sat. “But I couldn’t keep away. How are things going without me?”
“There was a problem with security for the conference. One of the speakers is a politician who thinks someone is after him.” The man chuckled.
“Was Kenny able to take care of the problem?” Dela was ready to head to the security office and radio up.
“Bernie came in and talked to the politician. They managed to calm him down, he put in his appearance and left.” Alfred pointed to a group around a carousel of slot machines. “That’s part of the conference crowd. They seem to think they have special privileges. The old people here for Bingo have been crowded out.” He sighed. “No one knows how to share anymore.”
“I agree.” She had an idea. “Do you happen to know who Levi Murdoch is?”
“Sure. He’s the new therapist at Yellowhawk. They say he could have taken a job in any city and made more money, but he came here to give back.” Alfred nodded, brushing his long gray braids up and down over the pockets of his western shirt.
“Does he ever come in here?” Dela asked.
“He’s been in a time or two. Why?”
“Just curious. Do you happen to know his grandmother, Sadie Swan? Or his Aunt Ruth?”
“Sadie and I went to school together. She was smart and married into the Swan family. Good family. They were good to her and the kids when her husband died. But once Jack was gone, she seemed to have trouble upon trouble. Her son died in a car crash, her daughter-in-law couldn’t handle his death and took her life. Then Sadie ended up with the grandchildren.”
“Why didn’t Ruth take her niece and nephew?” Dela asked the question that had been plaguing her from the start.
“Because she married a drunk and didn’t want to bring those two into the house. She had enough trouble keeping her daughter off the bottle.” Alfred swept his gaze to the outside and jumped up. “Car to park.”
Dela slid off the chair and put it back where she’d found it. She wandered around the casino floor talking to the security personnel. They all asked if she was back. She wished she could have told them yes. Finally feeling like she was missed and needing a caffeine jolt, Dela wandered into the deli.
Rosie stood behind the counter smiling. “Dela, good to see you. You have been missed.”
“Thanks, Rosie. I’ve been running in circles trying to figure out who killed Paul Winter.” She pointed to the paper cups. “I’ll have a large iced tea and can you join me?”
“Take a seat, I’ll bring it out.”
As Dela turned to walk to a table, Rosie called back to the kitchen she was on break. Dela sat and watched Rosie fill a large cup with iced tea and fill another one with soda. She carried both to the table, setting one cup in front of Dela.
“Thanks. You don’t happen to know of any relatives Mrs. Swan would have in Idaho, other than her sister, do you?” Dela raised the cup to take a drink.
“No. But her family was originally from Warm Springs.” Rosie sucked on her straw.
“Warm Springs? The reservation along the Deschutes River kind of north and central in the state?” Dela had never been to that reservation but had heard of it from people who had moved to Umatilla from there.
“That’s the one. I have a couple of distant relatives from there.” Rosie waved at someone.
“Do you have a way of asking if Sadie Swan is there visiting?” Dela wanted to know if the woman was safe or if they should be looking for a body.
“I can have my mom ask her cousin.” Rosie set down her cup and pulled a cell phone out of her dress pocket. She typed away and then put the phone back down. “I’ve heard you and Heath are living together.” The woman’s eyes glittered with excitement.
Dela shook her head. “We aren’t living together. He has been staying over at night since I received a phone threat.”
The merriment slipped from Rosie’s face. “Oh no! Who is threatening you?”
“We don’t know for sure. I think it is Dickhead Jones but Heath thinks it might be the real killer. He refuses to let me spend the night alone.” She shrugged. And then admitted to her friend. “It has been nice having him there. He makes breakfast every morning. And there is someone other than Mugshot to talk to in the evenings.”
Rosie studied her before saying. “You can’t tell me there isn’t anything else going on. I can tell by the light in your eyes.”
“We might have kissed and I liked it. But that’s all. I told him we can’t let it go any farther until I’m exonerated. I won’t be the one to ruin his career.” She would never forgive herself if he was demoted or fired from the tribal police because he was consorting with someone they’d arrested for murder.
The gleam returned to Rosie’s eyes. “Don’t worry, everyone is working hard to make sure you are cleared. The hunky Special Agent has been in here asking questions about Detective Jones and looking at surveillance tape. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he left here yesterday with a smile on his face.” She looked at her painted nails. “Of course, that could have been because I visited with him a bit.”
Dela laughed. “And what did you and Quinn talk about?”
“This, that, what he was doing this weekend.” Rosie winked. “I invited him to my sister’s birthday party.”
“Did he accept your invitation?” Dela wondered how Quinn would act surrounded by Rosie’s family.
“He said if nothing came up, he’d be there.” Rosie’s cheeks deepened in color. “Do you think he likes me?”
“I think no one has the ability to tell you no.” Dela smiled. “I hope he shows up.”
“Me, too.” Rosie’s phone dinged. She glanced at it. “It’s Mom.” She scrolled and read through the message. “She says that there is someone staying with Myrtle Woods by the name of Sadie.”
Dela stood and hugged her friend. “Thank you. This could be the information we’ve needed.” She picked up her drink and headed out to her car.
Once in her vehicle, Dela called Shaffer and told him what she’d learned.
“I’ll head down there right away and see if it is Sadie Swan and talk to her.” Shaffer ended the call before Dela could say any more.
Still wanting to talk to Levi, she headed to Yellowhawk again. Maybe this time she’d get lucky and find him at work.
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
Dela ended up back home after one more canvas of the Yellowhawk parking lots. She’d thought about marching into the receptionist and demanding to know why Levi wasn’t at work when she’d said he had a tight schedule. But not wanting to make others curious, she’d driven home.
Mugshot and Jethro were happy to see her. They wandered around her as she sat in a lawn chair, staring at the Blue Mountains. She had the notepad with her notes on her lap. Something wasn’t right about all of this.
Who had been watching her fight with Paul? Was it someone in the house? Mrs. Swan had said she saw the fight and checked on Paul when Dela had left. Had someone else been in the house with her? Had that person, Levi, used her fight to do something he’d been wanting to do for a while?
No one had been looking at Levi as a suspect. He had a very good motive. His sister’s death. And he could have persuaded his grandmother to lie so he wouldn’t go to jail. Then when she couldn’t keep lying, she disappeared.
“Dela?” Heath called from inside the house.
“Out here!”
Heath appeared carrying a duffel bag.
“Moving in?” she asked.
He grinned. “Not completely. But since I’ve been staying here, it saves time if I don’t have to run home to change after work and before work.”
She stood, dropping her notebook on the ground.
Heath was down the steps and by her side before she had time to bend to retrieve the book.
This wasn’t going to work. “You have to let me do things on my own. I won’t use all my muscles and learn to be self-sufficient if you keep doing things for me.” She glared at him. “And that’s why I wanted out of Mom’s house. She kept running to do things for me.”
“Sorry. It’s in me to help.” He handed her the notebook. “How was your shopping trip with Grandfather Thunder?”
She waved him inside. “Go change out of your uniform, and I’ll find something for dinner. We’ll talk while we eat.”
While Heath changed, Dela started frying hamburgers. She was putting together a salad when Heath returned to the kitchen. He poured them each iced tea and sat at the table, watching.
“I’d offer to help but you said you wanted to do things on your own.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see if he was being sarcastic. He appeared to be. “You can help me cook, after all, you will be eating most of it.”
He grinned and picked up the server, turning the burgers in the pan.
Once they were seated at the table with their plates filled, Dela told Heath about her day.
When she’d finished, he said, “I can’t believe you took an elderly man as your backup.”
Dela studied him. “I’m pretty sure Ruth hasn’t killed anyone. She’s had too much loss of her own to want to put that on anyone else. Now, Levi...I can see him rationalizing killing Paul to stop more overdoses. He could have talked his grandmother into lying for him. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his voice that threatened me on the phone.” A thought struck her. “Quinn never did say if he discovered where the restricted call came from.” She started to stand to get her phone.
Heath put a hand on her arm. “Sit. It can wait until we finish eating.”
She relaxed back onto the chair but studied him. The serious line of his lips and concern in his eyes had her asking, “What aren’t you telling me?”
Heath grasped her hand in his. “Jones has a good lawyer. He’s out on bail. His charges aren’t serious enough to keep him in jail. I want you to go nowhere without someone with you. If he is the person threatening you, he has even more reason now that he’s lost his job.”
Her body sagged in the chair before her spine straightened and she peered into his eyes. “I’m not afraid of him. In fact, I hope he comes after me. It will only prove his vendetta against me.”
“Dela, you need to be afraid of him. He has been working with a drug dealer and letting the people of Nixyáawii die. Or threatening them so they keep quiet and he can continue as a tribal officer and keep the drug problem here quiet. He is not a man you want to go against alone.”
She studied him. “That’s why you brought clothes. You aren’t going to leave me alone.”
“I asked for a leave of absence as soon as I learned of Jones’s bail. I told Chief Steele you needed protection and I was going to provide it.” Heath touched her cheek. “He agreed with me. Think about that. Chief Steele believes your life is in danger by one of his former officers.”
Dela wouldn’t admit to anyone, even Heath, that she was scared. She’d been the recipient of dickhead’s hate-filled stares ever since her first meeting with the detective. Back then she’d wondered why he hated her without knowing her. As the years went by, she just decided he hated anyone on the rez.
“I promise to be careful and have someone with me at all times.” She squeezed his hand and peered into his eyes as she crossed her ankles under the table. There was no way she would put Heath or anyone else she cared about in danger.
