“Then what?”

  Chitto wanted to share everything as he used to do with Mary. To bat ideas around to see which were worth keeping, which not worth holding on to. But though he liked Leslie and felt comfortable talking with her, it wasn’t the same.

  “Not enough yet to determine that,” he said. “Call it a gut feeling.”

  “Okay,” she considered. “If not physical, maybe there’s a psychological reason for the way they were left.”

  He frowned. “Psychological?”

  “Right. Beheading could mean a simple death wasn’t enough. The killers may have wanted to render the victim powerless. You know, separate mind from body so the victim couldn’t respond. Talk back, so to speak.”

  He grunted. “Duct tape would’ve worked just as effectively.”

  “But duct tape wouldn’t be as demeaning as stripping a person naked and doing things to his body over which he had no control.” She glanced at him again. “I understand the men were tied down. Staked out, so to speak.”

  Chitto sighed, thinking about the efficacy of the tribal telegraph that Leslie was tuned to.

  “Or, maybe, it was tit for tat,” she suggested. “You know, getting even.”

  He found that idea worth pursuing. “You mean, like a surrogate? A substitute?”

  Were the men left naked and made helpless because they did something similar to someone else? His thoughts went to the girl Nanny Love, impregnated before she got out of middle school. And the Harjo girls, rewarded for their silence with expensive toys and games.

  “I was thinking more like object lessons,” she said.

  “You mean, made an example for others.” He found that idea interesting, too.

  “Sort of. You know, similar to the Grimm fairytales.”

  “Fairytales?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t track for me.”

  “Most people think of fairytales as sweet little bedtime stories, but they were meant to teach a lesson.” She glanced at him. “Or scare people into behaving a certain way. Think about the old witch in the woods who baked children into cookies when they strayed too far from home. And the evil queen who fed Snow White a poisoned apple when she became a threat.”

  “Or the Little People in Choctaw legend,” he said, “who lured boys into a cave in the woods where three witches lived.”

  “Exactly—oh, that’s a perfect example. The witches offered the boys different gifts and if they chose the wrong ones, like the knife and bad herbs, they were destined to live an evil life. But if they chose the right one—the healing herbs—the boys became healers of their people.” She smiled at him. “Bet you heard that one from your mother, didn’t you?”

  “Grandmother. Over and over.”

  Chitto drove quietly, thinking of the lesson the two murders might be intended to teach.

  “I’m probably over-thinking things. Maybe it’s not that complicated.” She glanced his way. “At first blush, it sounds like intertribal problems. You know . . .”

  “Counting coup,” he said, finishing the thought. “One tribe seeking revenge against another. In this case, literally.”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite that bluntly. But then, that could be what the killers wanted people to think. You know, to throw the authorities off track? A man from one nation killed on sacred grounds of another—” She looked at him. “Aha. Now I understand why you’re doing this unofficial investigation. You think that’s the first thing the FBI would think, too.”

  Chitto tried unsuccessfully to restrain a grin. Leslie was batting ideas around on her own, without him divulging anything of importance, and coming up with a lot of right answers.

  . . .

  They drove in silence for several more miles, the highway ahead void of other travelers. Chitto eyed the shoulders of the road for reflections that indicated eyes of deer, coyote, bear. Checking his rearview mirror, he saw headlights, but none close. He ran Leslie’s concepts through his mental filter, discarding most of them. But not all.

  “What if . . .” She paused, glancing at him. “These killings smack of revenge. Revenge is motivated by a sense of powerlessness. Seeking a solution to a problem, a way to achieve a goal when there’s no other solution.”

  Just what I’ve been thinking . . .

  “But revenge for what?” She leaned back in the seat, sighing deeply. “This thing is enough to drive a person to drink. I’d say you’ve got a lot to puzzle through.”

  Though he said nothing, Chitto agreed with her. The map on his kitchen wall was proof of that.

  A bright light in his rearview mirror pulled his attention away from the conversation. He stiffened, watching a sedan with a brown front fender pull around him. The sedan no sooner pulled in front of him than another set of lights appeared in his mirror. A larger vehicle, with a headlight that bobbed like a ping-pong ball.

  “Well, hell,” he said, half aloud.

  “What?” Leslie turned to look at the truck as it pulled alongside them.

  “They’re boxing us in,” Chitto said. “Hang on.”

  He stepped on the brake, letting both vehicles speed ahead of him. The vehicles immediately slowed, keeping him trapped.

  “What are they doing? Who are they?”

  “Duck hunters,” Chitto mouthed. “Get their plate numbers.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t see any plates.”

  Chitto figured both drivers had stripped the vehicles of such specific identification and then laid in wait for him. His thoughts went to Wilcox and Carter.

  “Look for a side road where I can pull off. I need about twenty square feet to set this baby down and as much lead time as you can give me. After I come to a stop, I want you out of this truck, as far from it as you can get.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.”

  She leaned forward, peering into the castoff light from the front vehicle. A minute later, she yelled, “Brake—now.”

  As Chitto jammed his foot on the brake, the cars ahead corresponded, keeping him boxed in. He cranked the wheel sharply and slid onto a side road. Pulling his gun, he fired through his open door. He stopped firing when the gun was empty, watching taillights disappear.

  Quickly, he opened the glove compartment where he stashed spare ammo. Eying the pack of cigarettes inside, identical to the one in his Tahoe, he ignored it and removed the clip and slammed the compartment shut. Leslie appeared as he reloaded, carrying a branch the size and shape of a baseball bat. He took in the dirt on the knees of her slacks, grass stains on her shirt, eyes round as pie plates.

  “Sorry about that. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled, rubbing a hand across her chest. “I’m, uh, I’m okay.”

  “Good, that’s good.” Adrenaline pumping through Chitto’s temples pounded in his ears. He could feel the sweat between his shoulder blades, smell his armpits.

  “You get those sonsabitches?” she said, staring down the highway.

  Chitto grinned. “Doubt it. Saw sparks come off metal, but can’t say I did any serious damage. Neither dropped their speed any.”

  She laughed nervously. “Well, I don’t know what you did to them, but you about gave me a coronary.”

  He smiled again. No two ways about it, Dr. Leslie Anderson was no longer a suspect.

  “Man, I could use a drink,” she said, still rubbing her chest. “A double shot of scotch. How ’bout you? Oh—Indians don’t drink.”

  “Not all of us,” he said. “Nicotine’s my poison of choice.” Right then, he could’ve finished off the pack in his glove box.

  She faced him, frowning. “Aren’t you going to call someone? The FBI should be alerted. I mean, you’re an officer of the law—it’s their job to protect you.”

  Chitto thought about the number programmed into his cell. Blackfox had cautioned him the day might come when he would need to call Rodriquez.

  But this wasn’t that day.

  “They’re the last people I’d call, especially since—” He felt his way carefully. “Especially since I don’t want them to know I’m working their case. No one’s to know what happened here tonight. Understand?” Leaning across the seat, he opened the door for her.

  “Well, then,” she said, holding onto her war club as she climbed into the truck. “If I were you, I’d get a bigger gun.”

  . . .

  It was nearly midnight when Chitto pulled down the narrow little street where his house was located. The rest of the trip had been uneventful. The pickup with the loose headlight and the Toyota sedan did not make another appearance. He doubted he’d hit either one. He had fired too quickly to be accurate, and they had sped up when the first shots were fired.

  He owed Leslie more of an explanation, but he couldn’t give her one. “Sorry you had to get involved,” was all he could come up with.

  “Yeah, no problem. Only thing is, those people could be the killers. You think about that?”

  “Scare tactics,” he said, shrugging. “They wanted me dead, they’ve had other opportunities.”

  “Oh?” she said. Then, “Oh.”

  Spotting Leslie’s gray Suburban in front of his house, Chitto faced another problem.

  “Look, I appreciate you setting up this meeting with Schmidt.” He listened to the pickup’s engine stutter to a stop. “If you need a place to stay tonight, we’ve got a spare bedroom.”

  She laughed quietly. “Thanks, but there’s a KOA just down the highway. I’ve put up there before. Showers. Hot water. Even a continental breakfast in the mornings.” She made a snorting sound. “Woo hoo—instant coffee and donuts.”

  “I’m not worried about the map in the kitchen anymore, if that’s what you’re thinking. Hell, you know as much about those killings as I do.”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but . . .”

  Chitto lifted his hands, let them drop. “Look, that’s about as close to an apology as you’re gonna get.”

  She rubbed an earlobe. “Sam, it’s not because of the map in the kitchen—or the incident on the road. It’s because the lady of the house’s Shilombish hasn’t left yet. Her husband won’t let it go.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear what you just said? ‘We’ve got a spare bedroom.’” She looked toward the house. “You’re keeping your wife locked up in that ivory tower, just like in a fairytale. I feel sorry for her.” She lifted her palms to sign her frustration. “I mean, look at the artwork she chose to fill her life with. So beautiful and so . . . so uninhibited.” She shook her head as she climbed out of the truck.

  Chitto followed her, feeling stunned. “What are you saying?”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I do that, look at things with an anthropological magnifying glass.” She attempted a smile. “Surely you can understand. You do the same as a lawman.”

  “Anthropological magnifying glass, my ass. You’re saying you believe in ghosts!”

  “Oh, that.” She glanced away, then back at him. “My work’s taught me about things you don’t find in books. You’re a scientist, you tell me. Can energy or matter be destroyed? Changed, maybe. If transformed, then why not trapped?”

  . . .

  Chitto stood like a stone watching the Suburban’s taillights fade, then felt a darkness descend over him. He looked toward the moon to see if clouds were covering it again, but the night sky was cloudless.

  He wondered if Leslie was right, if he was keeping Mary trapped against her will. He thought back to the first time he saw Mary. A small, dark, alluring bird. A wild bird.

  The mid-September moon was about to set, making for a dark night that permitted a star-studded view. Stars winked like beacons. Some bright, some faint. Chitto knew the scientific reason for the difference in size and brilliance, but he imagined them now as souls. Some whole, some incomplete. A small star in the circlet near Jupiter, part of the constellation Pisces, caught his attention.

  Wild creatures aren’t meant to be caged, said the voice within.

  Letting out his breath, Chitto whispered, “You’re free.” He watched the circlet of light closely, attempting to measure any change in its intensity. The sound of a screen door opening pulled him back to Earth.

  “Boycott—git back here. That you, Sam?”

  Backlit with the house lights, Chitto could see Hattie craning her neck into the dim light, cotton housecoat clutched at her throat, and a dark shadow moving toward him. Running low to the ground.

  “Yeah, Hattie. Sorry to wake you.”

  “Didn’t wake me. Woke Boycott. It’s okay, we both needed to relieve ourselves.”

  Chitto rubbed the back of his neck. “You seen any strange vehicles in the neighborhood lately? Maybe a beat-up pickup with a bad headlight. Old Toyota with a fender painted a different color?”

  Hattie laughed. “Hell, Sam. That describes half the vehicles on the block.” She paused to look down the street. “Dog woke me up earlier though, seemed upset ’bout something. Growling like a bear.” She looked at him. “You think somebody was prowlin’ round?”

  “Probably nothing,” Chitto said, knowing where his tagalongs had been that evening.

  About then, the wet-nosed hound named Boycott rammed him in the crotch, causing him to stagger. “I been eviscerated enough for one night,” he said, pushing the dog away. “Finish your business and get on home.”

  “You really need to take that dog off my hands, Sam.”

  “No, you keep him,” he said. “Least for now.”

  Chitto watched Boycott’s shadow shorten until he merged with it at the front porch, then disappear altogether as the light went out. When all was quiet, he found the circlet of stars again and tried once more to calibrate its gradations. To measure some kind of change, however slight. A sign that his letting-go had taken, releasing Mary from her bondage.

  It was a loss. Light was fleeting under any circumstance, ephemeral when traversing the galaxy. His sense of true gone, Chitto turned from the night sky and walked into the house. Standing in its darkness, he realized it was empty. He was now its sole occupant.

  Or was he?

  Chitto had left the AC running when they left, but now, he caught the feel of warm air drifting in from the kitchen. Removing his gun from its holster, he walked to the back of the house and flipped on the light. The back door was open.

  Boycott’s barking probably spooked the guy, he thought. Didn’t have time to close the door tight.

  Checking the kitchen, he found everything as he left it. Almost everything. Another sticky note had been added to the map, stuck near the town of Durant. The initials S and C had been printed on it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whose initials they were . . . and the meaning.

  Holstering his gun, he examined the lock on the back door for signs of entry. The door hadn’t been jimmied.

  “Well, hell,” he sighed.

  His night visitor had a key.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Chitto wedged chairs under the front and back doorknobs on Sunday night and slept with his Glock on the nightstand. Still, he slept fitfully. In dreams, he saw himself on a crowded ceremonial ground following an elusive figure that faded like smoke, only to reappear down another path.

  He woke early and waited for the east to burn away the shadows. His first awake feeling was one of frustration. An inability to sort through a jumble of information. But something more concrete pushed those thoughts aside.

  Keys . . .

  He placed a call to his mother, but she did not know who Mary might have given keys to.

  “You lose yours?” she asked. “Can have one made off mine, you want.”

  He declined because he planned to have the locks changed out right away. Leaving early, he dropped by Hattie’s house to drop off his key so she could let the locksmith inside.

  “Don’t need yours,” she said. “Mary gave me one long time ago.”

  “See if you still have it, Hattie.”

  She returned a few minutes later, carrying a key tied to a shoelace.

  . . .

  Chitto grabbed a breakfast sandwich at a drive-through and arrived early at the office, planning to put on a pot of coffee first thing. Deprived of companions, the building was quiet, dark in places where light switches hadn’t been thrown. Shorter days were eating away daylight hours. The Indian year was almost over. He was running out of time to solve the fourth-day murders.

  Hurrying toward his desk, he stopped a few feet away, watching Wanda examine the replacement map he’d put on his wall. Her physical appearance surprised him as much as her presence in his work area. She looked as dried up as a gourd.

  “Need something, Wanda?”

  She spun around, facing him. “This is a different map than the one you had me enlarge. Why’d you do that?”

  Chitto was not in the mood for one of her grillings. “This one works better.” He set the sack containing his breakfast on his desk. “Coffee on?”

  “Do that first thing, you know that.” She paused. “Want me to get you a cup?”

  “Appreciate it.” She didn’t move. “Something else?” he asked.

  “Well, I was just looking at these stickers on the map. Deal with cases you’re working on, don’t they? I figure this one marked TW is for Teresa Walker, that girl that got raped.” She pointed to the one marked SBM. “Who’s this one for?”

  Chitto felt his neck turning warm. Old friend of the family or not, Wanda was overstepping her bounds.

  “Nothing to concern yourself with. You gonna get that coffee?”

  Wanda’s mouth pinched into a tight circle. “Well, it’s ’bout time you decided to stick to business. If you’d done it earlier, you’d know that girl doesn’t live there anymore.”

  “What—?”

  “That’s what Rona called ’bout last Friday, the phone call you palmed off on me—not to mention all those others. She did a follow-up visit and learned the girl moved out.” She reached for the flag stuck on the map on the wall. “So, you can take this one down—”

  “No, leave it. I’m not ready to take it down.”

  Wanda shot him a look. “This have anything to do with Rodriquez coming by Friday afternoon to see Dan?”

 

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