White Ghost Ridge Read online

  “And not to homeless men? Families? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Maybe you should tell your mom to come back with Santy to Richmond now so you’ll know he’s safe.”

  “My grandma is still real sick. Mom is her only surviving daughter. She’s needed there. I can’t ask her to do that. It’s bad enough that I rely on her to look after Santy for me.”

  “Look, Mendoza, if you want to call it a day on this case, fly to Mexico and take Santy home. I can manage from here. Your son is more important than any case.”

  “Thanks, sarge, but I told Mom last night – no more visits from Manuel. He can’t force this unless he takes me back to court and you’re right about the history of abuse – last time it didn’t go well for him because of that. So, it’s OK – I’m not going anywhere until we see this case through.”

  Mendoza reached across the car and touched her boss’s hand tenderly.

  “I can’t understand why some woman didn’t snap you up, sarge. I mean, I’d say you’re hard to live with, a perfectionist for sure and not a talker, but you’re a good man and ... kind of cute.”

  “What makes you think no woman ever tried?”

  “Like Susan Walsh? I saw how you reacted when Lewis mentioned her name. Was she an old girlfriend?”

  Locklear snorted. “No. Nothing like that. We know ... well, we both knew someone a long time ago. And not that it’s any of your business but I was a lousy boyfriend. I was always working and, when I wasn’t working, I was drinking. I guess I wasn’t the settling-down kind. Women got tired waiting for something to happen that I knew was never going to.”

  “Any regrets?”

  Locklear shrugged. “Just that it would have been more honest of me to have told them upfront that I wasn’t the marrying kind. Other than that, what would be the point of regrets? I’m the same person now as I was then.”

  “But you’re not drinking. Maybe things would be different? And, don’t you get lonely?”

  Locklear made no answer as he swung onto the N29 heading westwards.

  “OK, well, I guess that conversation is over,” Mendoza said.

  They inched along the Missouri River and then headed in a northerly direction. Within minutes they crossed the Big Sioux River and left the state of Iowa behind, heading once more into South Dakota Territory.

  Locklear still remained silent and focused on the featureless highway that stretched out before them.

  “OK, well, after I woke up with the hangover from hell,” Mendoza said at last, “I logged on to Whitefeather’s laptop –”

  “First, tell me what Torres told you,” Locklear interrupted.

  Mendoza closed her eyes and massaged her throbbing temples. She did not want to be reminded so soon of the error of judgement she had made or how she had used a vulnerable woman to further the case.

  “Nothing more than what Lewis told us. She’s pretty sad.”

  “She must have said something.”

  Mendoza sighed. “She sits in that bar most days looking for people to buy her drinks. A sad end to someone who had a long military career planned. She still hopes her husband is alive although I guess she knows deep down that he was murdered as soon as he cleared the base. Seems they were happily married. Her parents have disowned her because of her drinking. They retired to a small ranch about thirty miles out of town. She has a sister who helps her but only just. Sister has two kids and lives in town. She’s close to the parents and doesn’t pretend that she sees Torres. Brother is an ex-army man and now a local cop. Passes her by in the street. Her dad was pretty high up in the military. Decorated. Feels she embarrassed him making accusations against the army. Only reason she stays in town is she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Army have her tied into a minimal pension. Doesn’t even pay enough for her to afford rent.”

  “Waste of a good army private,” Locklear said quietly.

  “At the moment she’s crashing in a caravan parked on an empty lot her sister is planning on building a new house on, but that’s going to change as soon as her sister’s army husband comes back from overseas duty in a couple of months. Torres said she doesn’t get along with her brother-in-law and that he won’t want her around his kids.”

  Locklear blew out. “Can’t she get a job? Start over?”

  “Seems she used to work in that bar. She said the owner O’Sullivan had to fire her for drinking on the job. Torres said O’Sullivan gave her more warnings than he ever gave anyone else. Small town. Word gets around. No-one will hire her. She did say though that O’Sullivan is good to her. He’s ex-army too. She said he’s sweet on her, but she’s not interested. She said as far as she’s concerned she has a husband. O’Sullivan gives her food for free.”

  “In return for?” Locklear asked sarcastically.

  “She didn’t go into the details but I guess she’s got to find a way of surviving.”

  “Seems you got a lot of really personal information out of her,” Locklear said quietly.

  Mendoza looked out the window.

  “I know. I was out of order, sir. It won’t happen again,” she whispered.

  “And what of less personal stuff? The case, remember?”

  “She liked Albert a lot. Feels bad about what happened to him.”

  “Was she in contact with him?”

  Mendoza shook her head. “She said she hasn’t seen or heard from Whitefeather since he was taken back to the US for treatment. She knows Lewis has seen him though. Lewis told her how bad things were for Albert, but I guess she had her own problems to deal with.”

  Locklear, clearly uncomfortable about Torres’ situation, tried to think of something to say.

  Mendoza eased his discomfort. “I asked her – if the army retracted her discharge, would she serve again?”

  “And?”

  “She said that she’d go back in a heartbeat. Can you believe that? After all they did to her.”

  Locklear thought for a moment. “I guess she understands that the whole army isn’t corrupt. She and her husband, well, they were just unlucky. OK, tell me about what you found on Whitefeather’s computer.”

  “It was mostly newspaper articles that he had saved on his laptop.”

  “About?”

  “Almost all were local newspaper reports on demonstrations he was present at, which were arranged by the Pine Ridge Native American group. Mostly at dig sites where the locals were objecting to the government issuing archaeological passes to universities. The reports said that Natives claimed that the items found were not being returned to their respective tribes and also that sacred burial grounds were being disturbed.”

  “Hence the arrival of Whitefeather at Holton’s apartment with a skull in his hand.”

  “I must have read twenty or so similar stories but there was one newspaper article that caught my eye because the photo from the article was like a get-together photo of who’s who in our investigation.”

  Locklear turned his head and stared at his trooper. “Well?” he barked.

  “Not so loud, sarge! God, seriously, this is the worst pain I’ve ever felt,” she said as she rubbed her throbbing temples.

  “You had a baby, Mendoza. How on earth could a headache be worse than childbirth?”

  “Santy was delivered by C-section. He had a big head. I had small hips. So –”

  “OK! Way too much information, Mendoza.”

  Mendoza laughed. “Well, this photo made the front page. It was about a dig site outside of Pine Ridge.”

  “That’s where Carter was.”

  “Yes, but this one was two years before Carter was there.”

  “Go on.”

  “The story was that USD and Richmond University were granted access to a dig site that both universities felt still held archaeological items which were of national interest. The local Sioux tribe said they had agreed to three previous digs at the site in the preceding fifteen years and that there was nothing more of interest t
here and they objected to the presence of teams on their land. There was a major demonstration at the site. Representatives from most of the sister groups flew or drove in to support the local Sioux. Eventually the government backed down and blocked access to the site for both universities.”

  “But Carter was there earlier this year.”

  “Seems he was operating without a permit,” Mendoza replied.

  “He wouldn’t have known that. Holton tricked him.”

  “Looks like Holton was operating a dig without consent and that Rosenberg from USD was involved. Do you want to see the photo?” Mendoza lifted Whitefeather’s laptop from the floor in front of her.

  Locklear pulled off the highway at the next exit and drove into a gas station. He put the car into park and took the open laptop from Mendoza.

  The photo was of a large gathering of Native American demonstrators. A female journalist stood to the left of the photo in front of three white men. Locklear instantly recognised Holton, who stood next to a man in his mid-sixties. Locklear remembered that Holton had been around six foot. The white-haired man stood several inches shorter than him so this was not the tall man Carter had seen at the dig site, the same man that Raymond had called the “weird ghost dude”.

  “A journalist was investigating the legitimacy of the digs and both universities sent their senior staff to put their case forward,” Mendoza went on. “The journalist arranged to take a photo of the academics at the site, but word got out and a huge number of Native American protestors showed up.” She placed her fingernail on a man standing to the right of the photo. “That’s Albert Whitefeather. I recognise him from the photo we found with his stuff at his motel.”

  Locklear scanned the faces of the rest of the people. One other face stood out for him, a side profile of a young man in the background dressed in Native American clothes, standing beside an older Native American couple.

  “You see anyone else you recognise?” he asked.

  Mendoza took another look at the photo. “No.”

  “I do.”

  “Who?”

  Locklear ignored her question. “Email it to O’Brien. Tell him it’s from me.”

  Mendoza shrugged.

  Locklear pulled the laptop closer and looked at Whitefeather. He wore the traditional long straight hair and a strange hat, similar to a bowler except squatter with a band of orange and brown beads around it.

  He then focused on Holton. He had not seen the man alive but he didn’t look much different to the body Locklear had stood over only days before. He was thin, with the exception of a moderately big belly which hung over his grey pants. He was the only one of the three who was smiling. His eyes were not looking directly at the photographer but at another person in the crowd. Locklear followed the direction of his gaze.

  “Looks like Holton’s smiling at Whitefeather,” he said.

  “Yes, I noticed that. Looks to me like the men were friends. I stared at the photo for a long time this morning and – that smile – it’s saying something. Like they shared a secret.”

  Locklear nodded and pondered, looking over the photo. He scanned down to the list of names underneath.

  “The man in the middle is Rosenberg,” he said. “At least we know what he looks like now.” He closed the laptop and tapped his fingers on its worn cover.

  “How are you going to play the talk with Rosenberg?” Mendoza asked. “Looks like he and Sartre knew each other well. Maybe Sartre has tipped him off, told him not to speak to you. Could even be dangerous, sarge. If these people are involved in what we suspect they are, they’ll do what they need to prevent it from becoming public.”

  Locklear thought for a moment. “He doesn’t know what I look like. Maybe I could pose as a Native looking to sell something valuable that I found on my land. Tell him I hear he’s in the market?”

  Mendoza’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You, sarge? First, you’d never pull it off and, second and more importantly, that’s entrapment. Even if he bought it, the information would be inadmissible in court. Also, if we went in fast like that, it’d kill any other leads we might have got. Who knows what we’ll uncover if we keep going? I have a feeling about this one, sarge. I think even Lewis didn’t fully understand how big this thing is. I think we need to step lightly.”

  Locklear nodded and turned the key in the ignition.

  “OK. You’re right. I trained you well,” he said with grin.

  “Was that a test?”

  “Sure, we’ll go with that,” he said and laughed.

  Chapter 13

  Locklear settled into his usual silent mood as the car travelled through the towns of Jefferson and Elk Point, heading north on the N29. He swung a sharp left at Junction City onto route 50 in the direction of Vermillion. When he reached the busy town, he took a right onto North University Street and made his way to the Old Main building where the university administrative services were housed.

  He pulled up and stood out onto the curb. He motioned to the coffee house on the corner as Mendoza joined him.

  “Think it’s best if we split up. Two of us making queries might lead to questions we don’t want to answer,” he said.

  “And what? My job is to get the coffee?”

  “Yes. And donuts please. I’m going to go into the admin office here to see if I can find out where we’d find Rosenberg. This place is huge. We’ll meet back here in five. Decide on our plan from there.”

  Mendoza sulked as she made her way across the road.

  Locklear climbed the five stones steps into the building, stopping only to read the plaque on the wall which dated the building to 1883. He stepped back down to take in the three-storey building whose light brick shone in the early summer sun. It was, he thought, a beautiful building with an impressive Palladian facade. On top, a decorative pillared dome sat on a narrow tower-like structure which on each side housed a round window which reflected the brilliant blue South Dakota sky. Locklear stood for a moment longer and wondered about the people who built the structure, wondering if they had known that their creation would look as good today as it did when it was built in what was a very different America.

  He made his way back up the steps and opened the narrow door into an open office area. Two women sat behind large oak desks and were busy typing into computers. One was also talking on the phone, uttering monosyllabic responses to her caller as her fingers deftly raced across the keyboard.

  The other, a Native American woman of around fifty, looked up and smiled warmly at him.

  Locklear approached her desk and looked at her name badge. Kayawi Duta.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for Professor Rosenberg’s office.”

  “You don’t look like an archaeologist,” she said with a grin.

  Locklear returned her smile. The woman was beautiful. He found himself glancing at her left hand and found himself slightly disappointed to see a narrow gold band on her fourth finger. The woman noticed and smiled shyly.

  “My meeting is about something else,” he said.

  “What time is your appointment?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly have an appointment,” Locklear said and grinned.

  Kayawi pursed her lips. “Then, you’ll want to knock on the professor’s door when his private secretary has gone for lunch. The Prof normally eats his at his desk. Barbara is like a Rottweiler. None shall pass without an appointment.”

  “And Barbara’s lunch is at?”

  Kayawi looked at the clock on the wall. It was twenty past twelve.

  “In about ten minutes. Lucky for you she’s a creature of habit! East Hall building,” she said, handing Locklear a map.

  Locklear scanned the map and memorised each turn he needed to take to get to the other side of the huge campus.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?” he asked quietly.

  Kayawi looked towards her colleague and got to her feet. She walked away and beckoned to him.

  H
e followed her.

  She turned, leaned in and whispered to him.

  “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

  Locklear glanced at the other woman and, deciding she was too busy typing and giving her caller short, sharp answers to listen in, nodded.

  “Is Professor Rosenberg in some kind of trouble?” she whispered.

  Locklear thought he could see a glint in the woman’s eyes, as though Kayawi Duta was hoping he’d say yes. He didn’t answer but hoped his smile would give the woman the satisfaction she needed. Rosenberg was obviously not popular in the university or, at the very least, was not popular with Kayawi.

  “What do you need to know?”

  “Rosenberg had two grad students on a recent dig with him outside Pine Ridge,” he said.

  Locklear watched Kayawi’s face darken and hastened to make his case.

  “I can see that this is a huge campus. There must be thousands of students here but I was hoping, given the area of speciality, that you might know who they are. They were both very young. One had red hair, pale, freckles. He wore glasses. The other was a young Native American. He was tall, had long hair and wears Grateful Dead T-shirts.”

  “You didn’t get this information from me,” Kayawi said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Neither of those kids are grad students. They’re not even archaeology students.”

  Locklear thought back to Carter’s comment that neither of the young men seemed to have had any experience of digs.

  “I’m pretty sure the redheaded kid was Tommy Rosenberg,” she said.

  “Is he related to Professor Rosenberg?”

  “Yes. He’s his grandson. He was studying drama here. He dropped out a few weeks back. Word is the apple didn’t fall at or even near the tree. Flunked out in all his exams and it’s not the most taxing course he chose. I’d say Professor Rosenberg decided to pull Tommy out of here before he embarrassed him.”

  Locklear absorbed this information.

  Kayawi’s colleague’s call ended. The woman stood and stared at Locklear and Kayawi.

  “I’m going to lunch,” she barked and went out a door behind the reception area.