Sinking Suspicions Read online

  Praise for Sinking Suspicions

  “A riveting beginning, a fascinating background, and an engrossing story make Sinking Suspicions another excellent book in Sara Sue Hoklotubbe's superior series.”

  —CAROLYN HART, author of Ghost Wanted

  “Sara Sue Hoklotubbe's Sinking Suspicions will weave its way into the tapestry of your literary life with characters that will charm you, frighten you, and, best of all, surprise you—one heck of a good read.”

  —CRAIG JOHNSON, New York Times Best-Selling author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries and the basis of A&E's hit drama Longmire

  “Action, romance, and even bit of World War II history combine to make Sinking Suspicions a memorable story that leaves readers satisfied—and with a grin on our faces. Sara Sue Hoklotubbe returns to the world of spunky Sadie Walela, a can-do Cherokee crime solver with a heart as big as the plains of her native Oklahoma.”

  —ANNE HILLERMAN, author of New York Times Best-Selling Spider Woman's Daughter

  “In Sinking Suspicions, Sara Sue Hoklotubbe's third Sadie Walela mystery, her likable and resourceful heroine takes a solitary trip to Hawaii. On her way to the islands, Sadie learns that a Cherokee neighbor has gone missing and that her partner Lance is doing his best to find him. Sadie's island journey, full of light and enchantment, is described beautifully by Hoklotubbe. Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma, Lance's crime solving is full of darkness. Hoklotubbe deftly explores the darkness and the light in this fascinating mystery.”

  —JUDITH VAN GIESON, author of the Neil Hamel and Claire Reynier mystery series

  “Another intriguing mystery from a gifted storyteller. With a sure hand, Sara Sue Hoklotubbe ratchets up the suspense while exploring the myths, passions, and fears of modern-day Cherokees. If you haven't yet caught up with this author, Sinking Suspicions is a fine place to make her acquaintance.”

  —MARGARET COEL, author of the Wind River mystery series

  “There are only a handful of Native American writers in genre literature, and even fewer who feature Native main characters. This is a solid mystery with excellent Native themes and characters.”

  —LEE FRANCIS IV, National Director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers

  SINKING SUSPICIONS

  SARA SUE HOKLOTUBBE

  THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS

  TUCSON

  The University of Arizona Press

  www.uapress.arizona.edu

  © 2014 The Arizona Board of Regents

  All rights reserved. Published 2014

  Printed in the United States of America

  19 18 17 16 15 14 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design by Leigh McDonald

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hoklotubbe, Sara Sue, 1952–

  Sinking suspicions / Sara Sue Hoklotubbe.

  pages cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8165-3107-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Women detectives—Fiction. 2. Theft—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.O4828S27 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2013047274

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-9871-7 (electronic)

  For The Indian,

  my husband, best friend, and warrior,

  with love

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to Judy Soriano, retired English teacher extraordinaire, for her ruthless red pen; Pam Daoust, whose writing counsel and friendship are unparalleled; Major Nick Elias of the Oklahoma City Police Department, who kindly answered my law enforcement questions and freely shared his insight; Shirley Van Lear, who shared her nursing experiences and allowed them to seep into my manuscript; and Weynema Smith, Cherokee elder and friend, who graciously helped me with the Cherokee language. Any error in the language is solely mine. I am indebted to the people of Maui, too numerous to name, who shared their stories with me about life in the islands during the war. Mahalo. I am thankful for the advice of a veterans' trauma counselor and social worker, who shall remain nameless at his request, for helping me understand how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects our combat warriors and how to make it real in my story. I extend my appreciation to Kristen Buckles, acquiring editor, and the entire staff at the University of Arizona Press for their support. A big “mahalo” goes to Susan Campbell, my copyeditor, who has an amazing gift for understanding me and my work. And finally, words cannot express how thankful I am to my husband Eddie for his endless love and support. Wado.

  Prologue

  Buck Skinner pulled an envelope out of his mailbox, wondered how many days it had been there, then spit on the ground as he slammed the box shut. He hated the U.S. government.

  Looking past the house toward a tree-lined meadow streaked with early morning sunshine, he stuffed the envelope into the front pocket of his bib overalls and began mumbling to himself in Cherokee as he marched up the rock walkway and into the old, one-story farmhouse. His first impulse was to simply rip the letter in half and drop it in the trash; let it mingle with the rest of the smelly rubbish. Instead, he took it out of his pocket and dropped it on top of three more envelopes lying on the kitchen table with the same return address—the Internal Revenue Service, Washington, DC.

  He had told the woman on the phone three times that he did not lie on his tax return. He had never worked at a meatpacking plant in Texas, nor had he ever worked in a chicken plant in Sycamore Springs, Oklahoma. He did not have thousands of dollars stashed under his mattress or buried in the backyard in an attempt to commit tax fraud.

  During the last phone call, the same insolent woman had threatened him. Either cooperate or get an attorney, she had said. He would not win in a standoff with the IRS.

  He was tired of arguing.

  Buck picked up the letter again, pulled a pocketknife out of his pocket, and slid the blade under the flap of the envelope. The letter was brief and to the point. The IRS had the necessary court order to attach a lien to his property. If he didn't come up with $30,000 in thirty days, they would seize his ranch for unpaid back taxes and penalties. He could protest the seizure by filing a form…

  Buck refolded the letter, stuffed it back into the envelope, and let it fall onto the kitchen table. He walked out to his back porch and sat down to think. How had he come to this unhappy station in life? Why would someone want to destroy his peace of mind? And what was he going to do about it?

  After Wo
rld War II ended, Buck never wanted to intentionally harm anyone again. Killing had scarred his soul. The U.S. Marines had taught him the skills to hurt other humans, or to kill, to be more precise, and those abilities still lay embedded inside him. He fought the desire to reawaken them, but lately, this situation with the IRS had caused troubling thoughts to resurface. The man at the Cherokee Nation Veterans Office in Tahlequah had told him it was a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder, called it PTSD. But Buck thought it was too late to seek counseling for something that had happened some sixty years ago on the other side of the world. Buck wanted to be left alone, that's all, and he and his horses would be just fine.

  A few minutes later, his anger flared. If they weren't going to leave him alone, he'd have to take care of it himself. He wasn't going to let the government or anyone else take his ranch away from him due to some ridiculous misunderstanding or bureaucratic paperwork mix-up. At the age of seventy-eight, he had absolutely no intention of sitting idly by while some thieving lowlife tried to steal his social security number, ruin his name, and take his ranch. He would kill or die first, and at this moment he didn't particularly care in which order.

  Buck returned to the kitchen table and cursed. He reached for the wall phone and then changed his mind when he saw the red message light still blinking, just as it had for the past two days. The call would be from his niece in California, who thought it was her responsibility to hound him on a daily basis about where he'd been and what he'd last eaten. He couldn't decide if she meant well, was just plain nosy, or had less than honorable intentions, but the conversations were always the same, and he wasn't in the mood for another one today.

  What day was it, anyway? He ran his gnarled finger across the feed-store calendar tacked on the wall next to the phone. Saturday, August 6, 2004, it read. How had he managed to live so long?

  Hearing the crunch of tires on gravel, he watched from the kitchen window as a red car with Texas plates slowed, then rolled to a stop in front of his house. “Lost unegvs,” he muttered to himself, referring to the white folks in the vehicle. “And they've been lost ever since they landed on this continent.”

  Buck didn't hate all white people, but he had spent most of his life fantasizing about what it would be like had the Spanish never tromped up through Mexico, or the English never sailed in from the east, to invade Indian country. The white settlers had arrived with an attitude of superiority, believing they had the authority to kill or remove the “heathens” they encountered and steal the land for themselves. They had made life miserable for all Indian people, and the elitist attitudes had persisted throughout history—white people always looking down their noses at their Indian neighbors. Now the descendants of those same pushy settlers had begun to search every historical document and cemetery they could find for some unknown relative who might have had a drop of Indian blood to which they could lay claim. Buck snorted. If they knew what it was truly like to endure daily discrimination, he thought, even in a so-called Indian community, they wouldn't be so eager to be Indian.

  He opened the front door and leaned against the doorjamb. He was right. They were looking for the Eucha Indian cemetery, in search of some long-lost relative's grave. He gave them directions in Cherokee and returned to his house, letting the screen door slam shut behind him.

  From the cabinet next to the refrigerator, Buck retrieved a plastic bread sack full of venison jerky. He pulled out four strips, wrapped them in a paper towel, and stuffed them in the front pocket of his bib overalls. He would never be hungry, he thought, as long as he had a good supply of jerky on hand.

  Returning to the phone, he punched in a number he'd written on a notepad a few days earlier. After a minute, he grunted and hung up. He placed a well-worn straw hat on his head, marched out the back door, and climbed into his truck. Someone was going to be very sorry they had messed with an old Cherokee warrior named Buck Skinner.

  Chapter 1

  The plane lurched in the air and the knot in Sadie's stomach tightened.

  “The pilot has turned on the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign while we experience some air turbulence,” the flight attendant announced. “Please take your seats. We will be making our descent shortly.”

  Sadie felt the plane vibrate and realized she hated flying. She could never quite convince herself that it was normal for something as heavy as an airplane to safely soar thousands of feet above the earth. Or, in this case, above water—lots of water.

  She glimpsed her reflection in the TV screen on the back of the seat in front of her and wondered who the person with the long black hair and blue eyes was staring back at her. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and shifted in her seat. At the age of thirty-seven, she couldn't help but think her life lacked direction. This trip would change all that.

  Excitement began to stir through her body as she marveled to herself how easily everything had fallen into place. She had bumped into Jan Goss in the grocery store parking lot three weeks ago. Jan had been booking organized travel tours for the area for close to twenty years. Sadie had never traveled much, but she had heard a couple of people at the bank where she used to work rave about the Hawaiian vacations Jan had set up for them.

  Jan told Sadie she needed to find someone who could run the well-established travel business for her. She had two new grandbabies, and she intended to take over their upbringing rather than allow her alcoholic son to ruin their lives the way her ex-husband had ruined her own children's.

  Jan's job offer sounded very attractive to Sadie now that she'd sold the American Café in Liberty, Oklahoma. Sadie had loved fulfilling her dream of owning a restaurant; it had been a wonderful experience. However, she believed that, in the end, everything had worked out right. She felt good about the day a few months earlier when she'd handed the keys of the café to the rightful heir.

  Sadie had considered returning to the banking business, but she couldn't quite erase from her mind the violent and deadly robbery she'd lived through a few years ago. The image of her coworker slumped on the floor in a pool of blood simply wouldn't go away.

  The bank's personnel director had given her an open-ended invitation to return to work—after all, she'd spent twelve years working there—but Sadie thought that career had provided enough trauma to last a lifetime. A recent phone call from one of her former bank coworkers detailed a bomb threat that had come in a letter to the old branch where Sadie used to work in Sycamore Springs. The conversation had sent a cold chill down her spine.

  It was a sign, Sadie thought. Putting together vacation packages for happy travelers sounded a lot more appealing than dealing with bank robbers and bomb threats.

  A week later, Sadie sat down with Jan in her office to discuss the agreement. She would earn a commission on every trip she booked, and that included the travel club at the bank that had already scheduled seven tours in advance. If Sadie still liked the job after six months, it was hers to keep. Jan would send Sadie, free of charge, to Maui to meet with Mr. Yamaguchi, the owner of Playin' in Paradise Travel, the parent company of Jan's travel agency, to finalize the contract. Before Sadie knew it, she was on her way to becoming a travel agent extraordinaire.

  She wished Lance had come with her on this trip, but he wouldn't have any part of it. He reminded her that he couldn't leave the town of Liberty in the hands of two green officers while their police chief went gallivanting halfway around the world with his girlfriend. In addition, he argued that, in his opinion, the trip wasn't exactly necessary for her to learn how to book vacations on the computer for other people.

  They had argued. You're suffocating me, she had told him. His response consisted of hands on hips, a long sigh, and an even longer stare into space before simply walking away.

  Undeterred, she continued with her plans to go alone. She would only be gone five days—one day to get there, one day to meet with Mr. Yamaguchi, two days for sightseeing, and one day to fly home.

  She thought about her wolf-dog Sonny and her stallion Jo
e. They would be fine on their own until she returned home. They both had access to fresh springwater in the creek, Joe had plenty of grass to munch in the pasture, and she had left a hunk of venison for Sonny. She wasn't sure how much wolf blood flowed through Sonny's veins, but she thought she was better off not knowing what he ate when he disappeared on his own from time to time.

  She dismissed her animals from her mind and thought about Lance again. Twelve hours earlier, he'd kissed her good-bye at the entrance to the Tulsa airport. She hated waving at him as he drove off—without so much as a backward glance—but she dismissed her disappointment with a shrug and rolled her bag into the terminal to make her way through the crowd of people. From Tulsa to Dallas, and then on to Los Angeles—she embarked on her first flight over the Pacific packed like a sardine into the coach section of a plane on its way to the state of Hawai‘i.

  She tried to read during the flight, but instead fell into a restless sleep, dreaming about her grandfather, Andy Walela. He had served in the U.S. Army during World War II and had been stationed in the Pacific for four years. He disliked talking about the war, but he loved to tell stories about the people of Hawai‘i and how friendly they had been to the soldiers. He called it the “spirit of aloha,” and although she knew a lot would have changed in the past sixty years, she looked forward to relaxing in what she imagined was a casual atmosphere.

  If she had time, she wanted to search for information about World War II history on Maui. Even though she thought Andy had been stationed on O‘ahu, she might be able to find out if his unit had ever done any training on Maui. Visiting a place where her grandfather may have been stationed during the war fueled an exciting thought: She might gain some insight into his past. He had been a single man during the war, and since he had always spoken with so much affection about the islands, the romantic part of Sadie wondered if he might have left a lost love behind.

  The plane broke through the clouds and Sadie could finally see land. The woman sitting next to her pointed out the left window.