Phantom Purloiners, page 3
“After themselves.”
“Yes. They chose their name, the Nimerigar, from the mythical little people who inhabit the area.”
“Every culture has something like that.”
“Not like the Nimerigar. They’re cannibals. They eat people. Shoot them with poisoned arrows and then eat the dead bodies. That’s why the pass from the Interstate is known as Cannibal Pass. The Nimerigar, the Native people, have petitioned the State of Wyoming to officially rename the pass Nimerigar Pass. Until then, we all know it as Cannibal Pass.”
“Interesting. Historically, that is. So, there is a road, a way for your victim and the survivor, so to speak, to get to town. And if the victim is not really dead, a way for him to get out of town.”
“Unlikely.” Standing Bear shook his head. “There was too much blood for him, the victim, that is, to have survived.”
“So he’s really a victim.”
“Appears so. At least that’s what the coroner said.”
“But you can’t charge the suspect because you’ve got nothing. No body. No motive.”
“Correct. Nothing that will stand up in court. We’ve got no body and no MOM. Suspect has an alibi—of sorts—and no weapon.”
“Any indication as to how the body was moved? I mean, a trail of blood out to car, for instance, or a bloody tub where the body was cut up.”
“Nope to both of those.”
“How about other travelers in town? Other people in the Frank M. Canton Hotel? And the other hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts?”
“All checked out. Nothing.”
“So far you’ve done everything I would have done. Let’s be creative thinkers.”
“How do we do that?”
“We change our perspective. What we have been doing is concentrating on crime that may or may not have been committed. So let’s see if there are connections to other incidents. Has anything unusual happened in, say, the week before your victim came to town?”
Standing Bear thought for a moment. “Not really. Nothing unusual.”
“Well, what was usual?”
Standing Bear chuckled. “We’re a small town, Captain.”
“Heinz.”
“What?”
“Heinz. I’m not a captain here.”
“OK, Heinz. I’ll be Leonard. You wanted to know about anything unusual before the Harrisons showed up? Hey, we’re a small town. Everyone knows everything about everyone. You know, small-town gossip. So, what do you want? I mean, I can tell you all about the widow Smith or the widower Jones. Then there’s the autistic child of the Hargreaves and how the State of Wyoming keeps denying them education supplements or the visually impaired in the school district who are being funded in a roundabout manner everyone knows about but no one is reporting. What exactly are you looking for?”
“If I knew that, I’d be the genius everyone says I am.”
“Quite a burden, eh?” Standing Bear laughed. “OK, let’s try this a different way. I’ll give you the rundown of the fed and state action. Then I’ll go organization by organization.”
Noonan laughed. “Let’s try this another way. What have been the big and little newsmakers in the past, oh, six weeks?”
“OK, but there’s not much to report. When it comes to the feds, there are a number of projects that are in the process of becoming a reality. These projects include some repaving of the highway and pothole filling before winter and repair of the two Indian elementary schools; some drug-addiction-intervention programs have just been refunded, and there are rumors of an early-education task force to take care of special-education children before they arrive in kindergarten.
With regard to the State of Wyoming, we, the county seat, are in the process of computerizing our land records so they can be online; we are beginning an antipoaching campaign, which has been stalled because of the unclear land-status claims by the Nimerigar; there is a joint state-federal antimarijuana effort underway that is not popular here and is only getting begrudging support because there are advertising dollars involved. The quality of education continues to be a hot topic. Affirmative Action is creating a lot of interracial discussion, and the sport-fishing laws are being revised because of invasive species.
Locally, the ongoing drama—and I use that term purposefully—revolves around the Nimerigar. There is always something popping out of the woodwork. A day does not go by before another new issue pops up. Not in any particular order of occurrence or importance. The Nimerigar are attempting to get their land—which has not been finally conveyed to them—declared as a sovereign territory. They are looking for kind of an Indian-nation designation. Not a reservation, but autonomous entity. It goes without saying that they can establish a gambling casino on the land which has been conveyed to them, but Native courts are something else. Even more important, though it has never been stated publicly, there is concern among law-enforcement people that the Nimerigar want the sovereign-territory status so they can grow, sell, and transport marijuana. Recreational marijuana is currently illegal in Wyoming, but if the Nimerigar get sovereign status, they can grow it on their land, sell it on their land, and presumably load up an airplane and transport it from their land to a state where recreational marijuana is legal—or to a reservation for sale in another state off that reservation.”
“Can you grow marijuana around here?” Noonan asked. “I’m betting there is a real reason they call this area the Badlands.”
Standing Bear smiled. “You can grow marijuana anywhere; it’s just a matter of how much effort you want to put into it. The Badlands could probably support marijuana if you improve the soil. But the big problem isn’t soil; it’s water. There’s no water on the Nimerigar land. I’d say the problem isn’t soil or sun; it’s water.”
“Could you grow enough marijuana on Nimerigar land to be profitable?”
“I have no idea. All I can tell you is the Nimerigar is an activist group whose members believe the land they are going to get will make them wealthy.”
“Is there any other way to make money off that land? I mean, other than a casino?”
“I’m not sure they’re going to make a lot of money off the casino. To get to the casino from the interstate, you have ten miles of very bad road. To get to the casino from Washakie you’ve got fifteen miles of very bad road. In between the two you’ve got lots of nothing. Then there’s the building of the casino itself. That’s going to take money. A lot of money. Where’s the money going to come from? If it comes from another casino, say, in Las Vegas, then the Nimerigar are going to have split profits. That is not going to make anyone in this area happy.”
“What’s the read on the Nimerigar getting sovereign rights?”
“No one, no fed and no state official, has said they have a chance. First, they do have any historical record as a tribe. Second, there is no problem that will be solved with sovereignty. Juries in this county are ethnically mixed. You can’t get an all-white or all-Native jury here. Schools are the same way: ethnically mixed. So what problem would sovereignty solve? If there is no difficulty to be resolved, there is no reason for sovereignty. That’s the read I get, but no one, fed or state, is saying it openly.”
“Is there any other dispute with the Nimerigar?”
“Just one? No. Many, yeah. They want to restrict hunting on Native land they do not yet own. There is a move to amend state law to allow for mining and fracking on soon-to-be Indian land. There have been discussions with energy companies to establish a solar-power farm on the land. The Nimerigar are trying to get the land, vacant land, designated as farmland so they will be eligible for rural-development moneys from the feds. They have applied for economic-development grants from the state and are applying for federal and state grants for exotic projects. Like I said earlier, it’s an ongoing drama.”
“How are the residents of Washakie taking it?”
“No one’s laughing, but quite a few of us are shaking our heads. White and Native. On one hand, we view the Nimerigar as a group of people trying everything they can think of to make a living. We like that. It’s as American as apple pie. On the other hand, they’re shotgunning. Better they take one or two projects and see them through.”
“Not a lot of help in solving our murder here.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“OK, how about after the murder? Anything unusual happen?”
“Funny you should mention that. Yeah, but I did not see any link to the murder—or whatever it was that happened in the Frank M. Canton Hotel. It happened two days later.”
“OK. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“First, let me give you a little background. And like I said, I don’t see it has anything to do with the murder.”
“OK.”
“Don’t think of Wyoming as a state. Think of it as a small town on a very long street. We’ve got a very small population scattered over a very large area. We don’t look at the next town down the road as a different city the way someone from Sandersonville would look at Durham or Chapel Hill. We look ourselves as all in the same pot of stew. A lot of us are related to people in other communities; we do business along the interstate, and our kids go to high schools with other kids from four or five small towns. We know what goes on in those towns because, well, we’re on one long street.”
“And you are telling me this because . . .” Noonan let the question hang.
“You don’t live here, so you do not understand the connections. We may not know everyone in the surrounding towns, but we do know enough of them personally that news gets passed around. That being said, there have been three robberies in the area which are, how shall I say it, odd.”
“Are they connected to the two, maybe, Harrisons?”
“Doubtful. MOM is the same for all robberies. One was in early May. The second was over the Fourth of July weekend, and the latest one was two days after the Harrison matter. But I don’t see any connection.”
“What makes them odd?”
“What was taken, how much the loot was worth, and the fact that the perps simply vanished.”
“Vanished! That seems to happen here quite a bit, don’t you think?”
“You’re referring to the first Mr. Harrison. But the crooks were a different kind of vanishing. We know what they look like; we just can’t find them.”
“Someone robbed a business here in Washakie, and you could not find them in a town this small?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Maybe they drove out of town or took the road over Cannibal Pass.”
“Nope. We had roadblocks up within ten or fifteen minutes. Had one where the road over Cannibal Pass meets the interstate, and the state troopers backtracked all the way to Washakie. The roadblock on the rural highway, both directions, stopped a fair amount of traffic, but no one fit the description of the perps. One was about six two, and the other five foot and no inches.”
“A real Mutt and Jeff team. You sure your witness described them correctly?”
“Got ’em on film. Yeah, the descriptions were correct.”
“The same pair on the other robberies?”
“We assume so. We got them on film here. The first two robberies, in Colter and Bridger, all have the same descriptions from the victims.”
“Tell me about the robberies.”
“I don’t know why. They’re not connected to the Harrisons.”
“Humor me.”
“Sure. Your Mutt and Jeff team is composed of a man about six two and a smaller person, possibly a woman, who tops out at five feet. In all three cities, they went after the same victims: a coin store and a jewelry store.”
“Both of them at the same time?” Noonan asked and underlined the words coin and jewelry in his notebook. “I mean, they robbed the coin store and then the jewelry store on the same day or the coin store on one day and the jewelry store the next day?”
“Oh no, the same day. One right after the other. Some binge. Hit the coin store, and while the cops were investigating the coin store robbery, they hit the jewelry store across town.”
“Across town? This is Wyoming. Rural Wyoming. How big are Colter and Bridger?”
“Same size as Washakie, give or take.”
“So, we are talking, three to four thousand people tops?”
“Give or take.”
“So these coin and jewelry stores are small. For locals only. How much was the take?”
“That’s what make them so strange. The thieves had guns and did what is basically a smash and grab. Then they walk away with a few thousand dollars. At the most.”
“Anything Washakie, Colter, and Bridger have in common—other than the robberies?”
“Sure. They’re all small towns in Wyoming.”
“C-l-e-v-e-r. Anything else? How far apart are they?”
“As the crow flies, about sixty miles. Each of them. Imagine an equilateral triangle with the three cities as the points.”
“Any other similarities.”
“Not that I can think of. What I can think of is how different they all are.”
“In what way?”
“What does this have to do with the Harrisons?”
“Who knows? I find the Harrison case compelling. But there’s a reason it’s happening. I’m trying to see if there is any connection to anything else.”
“I don’t see how it connects, how any of it connects. The robberies are strung out over a four-month period, and the most recent one, the one here, was two days after the surviving Harrison was taken to Casper. So why are we having this conversation?”
Noonan leaned forward and whispered, “Because I love a mystery.”
Standing Bear just shook his head and smiled. “You’re the boss. Believe it or not, all three towns are historically different. So different when the State of Wyoming was established in 1890 they were put in three separate counties. Bridger was a mining community. It made its money—and its tax base—from hard-rock miners. Over the years, the mines have come and gone.”
“What kind of mining?”
“Embarrassingly little, I’m afraid to say. We’ve never had gold like California and Colorado, but we have enough to keep the small operations going. Then there is some copper and, I think, silver. Got some coal and oil but not much else. We are not talking huge finds here—the reason communities like Bridger stay small. There are enough minerals coming out of the ground to keep the town above snakes, the schools funded, and the police and fire departments small but functional. Bridger is also cattle country. In the old days, cattle could roam free, and every spring there was a roundup. I’m sure you’ve seen roundups on any one of a hundred cowboy movies.”
“They still do roundups?”
“Naw. Everyone’s got fences now. Open range is still there, but it’s government land, state and federal. Sure, you can graze cattle there, but you have to pay for it. Or not. Remember Cliven Bundy in Nevada? His sin wasn’t that his cattle were on federal property. He just didn’t pay for the grazing. That’s a no-no. Everyone in Wyoming who grazes cattle on state or federal land must pay for it. Ranchers in Wyoming do; Bundy didn’t. He was a skinflint. Not a very popular fellow around here.”
“I thought you said there wasn’t a lot of water up here. Except for Buckle Bunny Lake. Where do the ranchers of Bridger get their water?”
“Buckle Bunny Lake is a good source but not the only one. Bridger has ground water too. It has a water table. Not a lot of water but shallow enough for grass and shrubs the cattle eat. Town itself is on well water.”
“OK, how about Colter? Does it get any water from Buckle Bunny Lake?”
“No. Too far. Sixty miles or so. It uses well water too. They do have some rivers in the area. Mostly spring runoff from the snowpack in the mountains. It has a small reservoir that fills to capacity in the spring and then is slowly drained off during the hot months.”
“So neither Colter or Bridger have water problems?
“Nope. They have tourist problems. They try to attract travelers from the interstate. Neither Colter nor Bridger is on the interstate. Washakie is not either, but then you know that.”
“So the coin and jewelry stores in Colter and Bridger sell to more than locals?”
“Sure. And tourists. But it’s not a land-office business.”
“But they are making money?”
Standing Bear chuckled. “You city folks. Captain, . . .”
“Heinz.”
“Right, Heinz. You are thinking like city folk. Keep in mind there is not a lot of money in these small towns. The coin stores and jewelry stores in Washakie, Colter, and Bridger are not selling their own inventory. They are more consignment shops than sales outlets. When the coins and jewels were stolen, any insurance moneys went to the owners of the coins and jewels. Not the owners of the shop. So even if there were a million dollars in inventory stolen, the coin-store owner and the jeweler would be getting peanuts. If you are thinking there is some kind of an angle where the shop owners are in cahoots with the perps, there is no monetary reason for that to happen.”
“Well, you never know what is important.”
“You’re the expert here. I can put you in touch with the police chiefs in Colter and Bridger if you care to talk to them.”
“Yes, I would. I’d also like to talk to locals if you don’t mind.”
“Just let me know who, and I’ll set it up.”
“Let’s start with the Frank M. Canton Hotel people. Then I’d like to talk to the local banker—you do have a bank here, yes?”
“We’re not that much of a frontier, Heinz!” Standing Bear thought that question was worth a laugh.
“You said that the robbery here was taped. Was that right?”
“Sort of. It’s on a baby cam.”
“A baby cam?” Noonan was surprised, and it showed in his voice.
Standing Bear sort of shrugged his shoulders. “After the two robberies in Colter and Bridger, the coin store and jewelry store here in Washakie took precautions. The coin store installed a baby cam . . .”
