Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [92]
“Yes.”
“If Victor is missing on the reservation, the tribal police have jurisdiction. Did you call them?”
“What for? They ain’t exactly gonna break out a search party for him.”
No kidding. I could give a rip about a missing criminal who’d carved Cherelle up, beat her up, and dealt in thugs and drugs on a daily basis. But if I was elected sheriff, I’d have to put aside my prejudice about lowlifes like Victor and remain neutral. No time like the present to put it into practice. “Where’d you get the idea to call me?”
Pause.
Every second I waited for her to answer, the relaxing benefits of my yoga practice diminished.
“Estelle Yellow Boy. After I met you at Clementine’s, I remembered last year she said you’d helped her with Albert. I thought you might help me find him.”
Estelle and I hadn’t parted on the best terms. I doubted she was handing out recommendations. “Why didn’t you go to Saro? Victor is his brother, right?”
“That’s how I know Victor is gone. Saro called me, pissed because Victor missed a meeting. Saro ain’t seen Victor for a day, and Victor ain’t answering his cell.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“Nope. He don’t answer to me. He’ll be the first to tell you that.”
“So maybe Victor took off on his own. Just to get away?”
“Huh-uh. Any time he goes off the rez, he’s got one of Saro’s guys with him.”
Was Victor so vital to the organization that he required a bodyguard? Or didn’t Saro trust his brother as much as he claimed? “When was the last time you saw Victor?”
“Night before last. He came to bed around one and was gone in the morning when I got up. He didn’t call, which ain’t unusual. He didn’t show up last night.”
“Didn’t that worry you?”
“I didn’t think nothin’ of it because Victor spends a couple nights a week at Saro’s place.”
“Where is Saro’s place?”
“Here on the rez in the middle of the housing development across from the park.”
“When did Saro contact you?”
“First thing this morning. He sent some of his guys out to see if they could find Victor or his truck, but they got a big fat nothin’. Which means Victor ain’t around here.”
“Had you gone out looking for Victor on your own at any point?”
“Nope. No need to. Now I can’t go track him down even if I wanted to. Saro has a guy sitting outside my house. He told me to stay put. When Saro says stay put, I do it.”
Weirder and weirder. “You sure Victor and Saro didn’t have a falling-out?”
“Are you kidding? Saro and Victor never disagree on nothin’.”
Even my mild-mannered sister and I traded verbal blows on occasion, so it stretched the limits of credibility that two volatile personalities such as Saro and Victor would be unicorns and butterflies all the time. “Never?”
“Never. Saro tells Victor what to do, and Victor does it.”
“Without question?”
“Uh-huh. Saro is the brains; Victor is the muscle. But Saro would be lost if not for Victor.”
Was that a hint of . . . pride in her voice about Victor’s station in the organization? I shuddered and thought of Stockholm syndrome. “No one would try to come between them on purpose? Play one against the other?”
“It’d never happen. Not with the guys in the group who owe their allegiance, and no one outside the group wants to cross either of them.”
That much jibed with what I’d heard. “Did Saro ask where you thought Victor had gone?”
“I told him I thought Victor was with him, which ain’t a lie. Sometimes, Victor bangs that whore Jessalynne, a runner who lives out east of town, but Saro checked and Jessalynne ain’t seen Victor for a few weeks.”
“So everything was hunky-dory between you and Victor the last time you saw him?”
She snorted. “Same shit sandwich. Different day.”
A disturbing thought occurred. Was she calling me as a cover? Acting the part of the concerned girlfriend when she already knew what’d happened to Victor? That was a stretch, but no more of a stretch than a stranger asking for my help finding her criminal and abusive boyfriend.
“I know you don’t understand why I care. I mean, you’re probably thinkin’ good riddance,