“How is Verline?” Rollie’s live-in, Verline, had given birth to their second child prematurely, right after I’d returned from Virginia. I’d made a care package. Okay, Hope had done all the work, but I’d delivered it to their trailer.
A package neither Verline nor Rollie had acknowledged.
Rollie rubbed his fingers over his jaw. “Verline is…” He sighed. “Ain’t no way to describe how she’s been actin’ lately. I volunteered to go on a diaper run. Now that I’m out of the house I don’t wanna go back.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Trouble in paradise?”
“Paradise.” He snorted. “Like hell most days. I’m too old for this cryin’-baby stuff, Mercy. I’m definitely too damn old to deal with a temperamental woman. Half the time I wanna throttle her.”
I frowned.
“She’s drivin’ me crazy, hey. Drivin’ me to drink.”
“Like you’ve ever needed an excuse to drink. Besides, you’ve always said Verline makes you crazy. It’ll blow over.”
His braids swayed when he shook his head. “Not this time.” He sipped his coffee. “What’s goin’ on with you and Dawson?”
“You’d know the answer to that if you ever called me,
He shrugged. “Been too busy dealing with my own stuff to worry about someone else’s.” His gaze dropped to my left hand. “You ain’t wearing his ring.”
“I doubt you’ve dropped to one knee and proposed to Verline, and you’ve been with her longer than I’ve been with Dawson.”
“Ain’t the same thing. I know he’s asked you.”
No reason to lie. Dawson asked me to marry him every week. He just brought it up when the mood struck him. But I kept hedging. Not saying no, but more along the lines of,
“Mebbe the fact you ain’t said yes means he ain’t the man for you.”
“As if I’ll take relationship advice from the old-timer who’s been divorced multiple times and is shacked up with a girl who can’t legally buy a six-pack.”
“You got a mean streak, Mercy.”
“Like that’s news. Besides, you’ve had issues with every man who’s ever been in my life, starting with my father.”
That shut him down.
Mitzi swung by with Rollie’s pie.
“What’s goin’ on at the FBI?” he asked after a bite of lemon meringue.
“Mostly procedural courses behind a conference table.”
He lifted a dark brow so high it moved his PI hat up an inch. “That’s it? I heard Hoover’s henchmen are involved in the Shooting Star case.”
Nothing stayed secret for long on the Eagle River Reservation. “Yeah. Didn’t take long for her to go from missing to dead.” I paused to sip water. “What do you know about it?”
“Nothin’.”
Bullshit. Rumor was Rollie was more aware of rez happenings than the tribal cops. I’d have to ply him with flattery to unlock his lips. “Come on. You’ve got your ear to the ground. What’s your take on this?”
“I ain’t ever gonna snitch for the feds.”
“If you don’t want to give information to the feds, then why are you talking to me?”
Rollie’s gaze searched my face. “Mercy, we both know being a fed ain’t really you. How long you think you’ll last in the FBI?”
I bristled. Why would he imply I’d fail after having the badge for only a few weeks? “So I’d be better off pulling taps at Clementine’s?”
“Mebbe. At least when you were working for the
“How can it be worse than what I dealt with in the army?”
He curled his hands around his coffee cup. “The feds in Indian Country deal with the bad stuff. The really bad stuff. Not just murders, but rapes. Child abuse. Sex crimes. All the sick stuff most people, even the cops, on the rez turn a blind eye to.”
“Why is that kind of shit allowed to slide?”
“Because it’s easier to ignore it than admitting one of your relatives is capable of raping a two-year-old. Or that burning a six-year-old with a cigarette is an acceptable form of discipline. Or sexually assaulting an eight-year-old with beer bottles and kitchen utensils is a form of entertainment. And those I mentioned? They’re not the worst cases.”
Bile rose, and I swallowed it down with a gulp of water. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve watched how no jobs, no purpose, and too much alcohol affect the tribe.”
“What if I can make a difference?”
Rollie raised his eyes to mine. “Because you’ve got a dab of Indian blood?”
I blinked at him. That was more than a little snarky coming from the man who’d encouraged me to enroll in the tribe about eight months ago.
“Besides, you can’t make a difference. No one can. Watch yourself, Mercy, when you go digging into this bad stuff. There’s always someone wantin’ to keep their sick little secrets. There’s always someone wantin’ to prove they’re smarter than you.”
“Can you stop talking in riddles for one damn minute?”
He picked at the toasted meringue. As I formulated my next question, Rollie demanded, “Did Latimer bring in the feds right away when she went missin’?”
“Why?”
“’Cause he’ll milk this tragedy for all it’s worth, even though he really don’t give a damn about that girl.”