Neil Knight Private Dick

Break a Leg Norma

Winnie Saratoga was born and raised in Wolf Point Montana.

Big Sky Country.

In 1805 Lewis & Clark camped on the banks of the Wolf Creek where it flows into the Missouri River. They were the first white visitors to the land that now defines Wolf Point, the county seat for Roosevelt County, named to honor Theodore Roosevelt, which was created by the Montana Legislature more than one hundred years later.

Wolf Point is part of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to the Sioux and the Assiniboine nations. Today the town is almost a perfect racial split of fifty percent white and fifty percent Native American Indian, which is what Winnie reflected as well.

Residents of the town would tell you that everyone there was nice to each other. That might simply reflect that no one there had much of anything except family. When you don't have much, and your neighbor doesn't have much, then there isn't much to covet. Being poor is life's lowest common denominator.

Of course, data has a way of running counter to one's opinions.

Crime statistics show that Wolf Point has one registered sex offender to every ninety-eight residents, higher than the city of Lambert, whose ratio is 583-1, yet lower than Brockton who has the staggering ratio of one offender to every twenty-six.

Most registered offenders there are identified as of Native American or Alaskan descent, and many of these had appeared before the Fort Peck Tribal Court of the Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes, established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs pursuant to the Tribe's constitution in 1965, to plead their case and be judged.

In 1997, having recently completed her high school education at Saratoga Springs High School in the city of the same name in northern New York State, Norma Fredericks headed west to California, to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. The school's drama club was a perennial contender for the Schenectady Light Opera's High School Musical Award, and Norma had starred in school performances for her entire four-year tenure.

Blonde, blue-eyed, fit and talented she packed her belongings into her Chevrolet Cavalier and hopped onto I-90 toward points west, against the advice of her parents but with the blessings of her former music and drama instructors.

Break a leg Norma.

To defray the cost of a cross country trip she would stop in small towns along the way and take advantage of day jobs at summer events to make food and gas money, which is exactly what she did on July 11th when she arrived in Wolf Point.

Each year the Wild Horse Stampede rodeo rolls into town on the 2nd weekend in July for a three-day extravaganza of steer wrestling, bronco busting, and bull riding fun. Tickets needed to be sold at the door and Norma was made for the job. Decked out in short denim shorts, cowboy boots and hat, plaid shirt tied in a knot beneath pert ample breasts, Norma gained the attraction of male participants and the disdain of their female companions.

Working security at the event was Ahanu, which meant 'he who laughs' in his native Sioux tongue. He was a true reflection of his name, inviting those who met him to enjoy the time they spent in his company, however long or brief.

On the first day of the event Norma ran into Ahanu, literally, as she turned a corner under a full head of steam on her way to the rodeo office with a bag full of cash receipts.

She bounced off of him and went down. He barely moved.

She was taken by the offer of his hand to help her to her feet, which she noted to herself seemed to be very soft and smooth for an Indian.

Over the next two days Norma found every opportunity to 'run into' Ahanu, and, as the rodeo came to a close, she accepted his invitation to attend, as his guest, the Wadopana Pow-wow, the oldest traditional pow-wow in Montana, which came quickly on the heels of the Wild Horse Stampede.

During their time together before the great gathering of Indians, she learned that Native Americans did not have surnames or family names, but that many do have two names: one of which is never made public because of the power it would give another person over them. By their second week together he had willingly revealed that name to her.

Waking early in the morning in a teepee after the first night of the pow wow, she felt like she was living a dream. At eighteen years old she was alone, naked, warm and cozy under Indian blankets, still held in the spell cast by her Indian lover.

She sighed, rolled to her left and closed her eyes once again. The flap of the tent parted and the muffled sound of moccasin footsteps filled the otherwise quiet tent.

'Ahuna' she thought. Her Man. He was back from the sunrise dance honoring one of the many spirits they revered.

But it wasn't Ahuna.

In addition to registered sex offenders, Wolf Point is overcome with vagrancy and panhandling by the homeless, alcohol and drug dependent. The precise number of "street people" on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation is poorly documented, but best estimates set the number at around 110, and this day one had found his way into her abode. The stench of intoxication and body odor hit her first before the needle tracked arm and hand clamped over her mouth.

She woke up in an unfamiliar bright setting, arms connected to intravenous needles and an oxygen tube running into her nostrils.

One month later she was released from Trinity hospital, having missed her period ten days earlier, pregnant and unmoored.

But Ahuna once again offered her his hand, and she accepted, and they were married in front of his nation's elders, in a traditional water ceremony, washing away past evils and memories of past loves. She gave birth to Winnie eight months later by the tribe's midwife surrounded by other female family members of the tribe, welcoming the child into this world.

Twenty-one years passed quickly by, and upon graduating with a degree in Informational Technology from Montana State University, Winnie picked up the trail her mother had begun years before and headed west to California.

But prejudice knows no bounds, and employment was difficult to find as a person of mixed ancestry. In the IT world she was known as an Indian, but not the 'right type' of Indian, not the type for which technology companies were looking.

Finally, she was given a chance by the City of Santa Ana. Not running their security for their entire pubic parking facilities. Not acting as the Chief Security Officer of a public parking facility.

No.

With four years of Internet Technology schooling behind her and a 3.90 grade point average she had been hired to watch the video monitors at the Public Parking Garage on West Fifth Street in the Historic Downtown district of Santa Ana and manage the library of digital video footage.

She was being paid twenty-six thousand five hundred dollars per year.

It was only an hour ago that the detective had called and plead his case about asking to review tape from the night of December 15th.

For twenty-six thousand five hundred dollars per year she was happy to oblige him.

"Meet me at the back entrance" she had said.