I heard him scratch his head. “Lousy,” he said. “I must have picked up something.” He scratched his head again hard enough to bug me. I was glad to surrender Yellow Knife to Lake County for holding. Railer was one of the officers who led Yellow Knife down the jailhouse steps. Railer seemed leery around Yellow Knife even after he had handcuffed him. Railer did not look back once to smile at my lack of authority. Murder was out of my jurisdiction but I could still do some checking.

On my way to Dixon, Railer radioed me with a smile in his voice. “Nothing to hold Yellow Knife,” he said. “He’s a mean Indian on the loose.” I clicked him off.

By the time I got home all the Indians had their ideas about who had killed Hemaucus. If there was any magic or power in Indian country it was the moccasin telegraph. As far as I knew only one car had passed Railer and me as we lifted Hemaucus’s body into the ambulance. My job had suddenly become more difficult. I imagined by tomorrow I would be receiving tips from Browning, theories on the murder of Hemaucus Three Dresses from a thousand Indian grandmas. My auntie stopped by to fill me in on the details as she knew them. She told me how Hemaucus had been cooking and had left the table set. I was tired but nodded politely. I’d be getting plenty more advice. The dough for the fry bread was on the counter, she said, a pot of eggs boiling on the stove. I looked past Auntie to the cookbooks Aida had left behind. The small daily particulars of Hemaucus’s life were story now.

Auntie reminded me that when Hemaucus was a young girl she had kept house for a man over at Dirty Corners. I remembered. It was a BIA job. Many of the Indian girls were sent away in summer to be housemaids for nickels. Hemaucus was lucky to stay around home but Sam Plowman had a “thing” for Hemaucus. He used to wait around the schoolyard to see what boys she talked to and where she went. Hemaucus was never pretty. She had a plain, almost handsome way about her that seemed to come from her quietness. Whatever she had, Sam Plowman desired it in the worst way, and I remember when we were kids we thought it was funny. It had something to do with shame, with wanting so bad it didn’t matter that he was forty-three years old with a facial tic, with bad breath and body odor. In fact that seemed to be a big part of it all, an undesirability that was beyond appearance. He’d been born with unmistakable grief. It was something you couldn’t love out of him, something no white or Indian medicine could cut from him. He was flawed. Loneliness quivered in him and we could see it.