Coyote's Wife (17 page)

Another theory shot full of holes—if Wallace was telling her the truth

“Do you know if George might have had a girlfriend—recently, I mean?”

He thought about it for a while before answering. “Marilyn told me about the affair he’d had a year or so ago. I don’t know if he’d
been seeing anyone recently.”

Wallace turned to look at the front door as Tache and Justine came out. “Is it okay for us to go inside and get a few things?” he asked Ella.

“Yeah, we’re through here,” Ella said after checking with Justine.

While Justine loaded the SUV, Ella called the hospital to see if there’d been any changes in Marilyn’s condition.

“Can we question Marilyn yet?” Justine
asked once Ella hung up.

“No. She’s still heavily sedated,” Ella answered, climbing into the vehicle. “Did you find anything inside the house that might give us a quick lead?”

“The prints that didn’t match Wallace or Marilyn were mostly on the spray paint cans that were tossed aside. All of those were either smudged or partials. We may have a few comparison points, but definitely not enough
to make any absolute IDs,” Justine said as she started the engine.

“Wallace said all but one of the perps had worn gloves. Maybe that’s part of the reason. You’re picking up old prints—the ones from the employees at the paint store, for example. They’re mostly smudged now because people with gloves handled the items next.”

“Sounds reasonable. We do have tire impressions and those boot prints
to work with, but no Nikes,” Justine added as they drove west toward the main highway. “You still want me to go to Arthur Brownhat’s, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s see if we can push him.”

“Be prepared for trouble,” Justine warned. “I had to arrest one of his brothers a few years back. He came at me with a knife while I was questioning Henry, his father. Bad seeds, all of them.”

“So I’ve heard.” Ella
checked the small tape recorder she’d put in her shirt pocket this morning. “I think I’ll turn this on, too, once we get there.”

They arrived a half hour later at a neighborhood of tribal-built tract houses on the east side of Shiprock. Justine searched for the right house number, then pointed it out to Ella.

“That dog lying on the porch is huge,” Justine said. “What is it, a mastiff?”

“Yeah,
I think so. This is a modernist area, so we’re not waiting in the car. Bring your Mace just in case Rover gets nasty.”

As they approached the porch, the dog lifted his head, looked at them with drooling jowls, then lay back down. Seconds later, a man in his late fifties came to the door.

Ella pulled out her badge, identified herself, then asked to see Arthur.

“What’s my boy done now?” he demanded.

“We just want to speak to him,” Ella said.

“I want to know what he’s done,” he repeated, more firmly this time.

Ella was about to answer when a young man in his late twenties came to the door. The tall, fair-skinned, part Navajo’s hair reached down past his shoulders, and was tied back with a leather band. His eyes were light hazel. He stared defiantly at Ella, then switched to Justine.

“You
must be Arthur,” Ella said. “We’re tribal police officers. We need to know where you were between the hours of seven and ten o’clock last night.”

“Right here,” he said with a shrug, “watching TV with the family.”

“Is there anyone who can vouch for you?”

“Me,” Henry’s father answered.

“Yeah, Dad and I were watching TV,” Arthur said with a lethal grin. “Some cop show, I think.”

Ella locked
gazes with him and waited.

Seconds ticked by. Henry Brownhat glared at Ella, then mumbling something incomprehensible, walked back inside the small living room.

Arthur leaned on the doorframe. “Anything else, ladies?”

Ella noticed one of his knuckles was discolored and slightly swollen. “Marilyn Charley. Seen her recently?” Ella snapped.

“Never heard of her.”

“Really? I’ve got a witness that
places you at a crime scene.”

There was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “Man’s got a right to face his accuser. Who’s telling these lies?”

“You’ll see the witness in court,” Ella replied reaching for her cuffs.

“You arresting me? For what?”

“Come along nicely. You’ve got enough problems.”

“Screw you!” Arthur yelled, throwing a right jab.

Ella stepped
sideways and, as his fist brushed her cheek, she slipped inside the jab and countered with an uppercut into his groin.

The anger on his face turned instantly into a grimace of pain. As he doubled over, Ella spun him around, grabbing his wrists in a pinch hold while Justine cuffed him.

“Bad move, boy,” Ella said. “Looks like you picked the wrong woman to hit this time.”

Justine read him his rights and they placed him in the car.

“I’ll be out in less than twenty-four hours and I’ll have witnesses that’ll swear you attacked me first,” Arthur said, leaning back in the seat like it was his personal limousine.

Ella had no doubt that the punk would do as he claimed. This new generation of Fierce Ones was becoming more of a problem.
They knew how to play the system.

Ella held up her audio recorder so he could see it. “I have our entire conversation on tape and you’ll have other charges to face as well once you start up with the lies.”

“I admit
hearing
what happened to Marilyn Charley. Everyone knows that she had something to do with her husband’s death. I guess the cops are too busy arresting the innocent to look at what’s
right in their faces.”

“If you know anything about what happened to her, we may be able to work out a deal,” Ella said.

Brownhat shook his head. “Forget that cooperation bull. I wouldn’t live to tell the story,” he muttered. After a ten minute drive, in which Arthur kept quiet, they arrived at the station.

Justine and Ella tried to question him again, and although they kept at it for more than
an hour, in the end they got nothing new. By that time, as predicted, two neighbors had showed up at the duty officer’s desk to swear that they’d seen Ella and Justine attack Brownhat.

Ella was fairly certain that the elderly woman and the middle-aged construction worker who’d come in were not part of the Fierce Ones. They’d undoubtedly been coerced into making an appearance at the station. Their
statements were identical except for a word or two, and shaky at times because their rehearsal time had been brief.

The sergeant who took the statements, having been warned by Ella that the Fierce Ones would be sending in people to testify against her and Justine, interviewed each witness separately. Neither had even been able to describe what Ella and Justine had been wearing. When the officer
showed Ella the statements, none of it came as a surprise to her.

“The Fierce Ones aren’t any better than the gangs we’ve got running around here,” Ella told Justine, once they were back in her office.

“That audio tape you made only establishes what was said, but it does cover us somewhat.”

Ella was about to reply when Big Ed buzzed the intercom and asked to see her. “Just what I needed,” Ella
said, glancing at Justine. “Check on the footprints to see if any are the size of those Nikes but stay at the station. After Arthur’s cooled his heels in a holding cell, we’ll try to question him again.”

“If they haven’t had to release him,” Justine said. “We really won’t have enough to detain him for long once he lawyers-up.”

Ella strode down the hall. When she reached Big Ed’s door, the chief
stood. “Let’s go get some coffee,” he said, signaling
her not to speak, then motioning for her to follow him.

Walking a step or two behind him, Ella followed Big Ed outside to the parking lot. By then, her mind was filled with questions.

Once they reached the large pine beside the rear gate, he stopped and turned to face her. “We’ll talk here.”

“What’s going on?” she asked quickly.

“We obviously
have a leak, Shorty, and I don’t want to talk inside. We’ve got to find the snitch fast, so I’ve come up with a plan. We’ll narrow down who’s responsible by giving slightly different stories to each one of the officers who’s a potential suspect. I’ll make sure it’s information that’ll get a reaction from the Fierce Ones.”

The conclusion that there was a traitor in their ranks, though not unexpected,
was still hard to take. “Who do you suspect?” she asked, though she already knew the answer, at least in part.

“My office assistant, the members of your team, and the desk sergeant who was on duty when we were discussing George Charley’s death. Earlier that day, I’d had him take a look at my computer. He’s good with that kind of thing and I was having problems. I left him alone in my office for
quite some time. He may have planted something, then taken it back out shortly thereafter.”

“You had your office swept for bugs?” Ella asked.

He nodded. “I had it done by one of our own people once we’d all left so it wouldn’t raise any questions. He said it was clean.”

“I’d swear by my team, chief,” Ella said.

“I figured you’d say that, but we’ve got to play this out.”

Ella knew it would
do her no good to argue. “So what’s the plan?”

“These next few days I’ll be individually asking our
suspects to give me backup while I meet with one of the Fierce Ones. I’ll say it’s someone I’ve recruited as an informant and to protect his identity, I’ll be the only one who’ll interact with him directly. I’ll ask the officer to watch my back. That game plan will change slightly, of course, when
I test out my office assistant. I’ll be giving her bogus information in the form of a report to file.”

Big Ed paused, getting his thoughts together and waiting for two uniformed officers to pass by on their way to their units. Finally he continued. “I’ve arranged to have phony New Mexico plates put on the truck my informant will be driving, and I’ll make sure the officer covering my back gets
at least one quick look at them. If the officer looks up the plate, Bruce Little’s computer program will identify the officer accessing the data,” he said, referring to Ella’s friend Teeny.

“Who’ll be driving the target vehicle?”

“A friend of mine from the Ute Mountain Tribe. I’ll be starting the sting operation tonight. Do you care which one of your team members is tested first?”

Ella paused,
then reluctantly told the chief about Tache’s connection to the Fierce Ones. “He’s the logical one to start with but, for the record, he’s never given me any reason to distrust him.”

Big Ed nodded slowly. “Let’s make sure your faith in him is justified.” Big Ed began walking back with her, then added, “Until we get this business all cleared up, don’t discuss anything that has to remain confidential
with anyone except me. And
never
inside my office, or even the building, if you can help it.”

Ella nodded, lost in thought. “What do you want to do with Arthur Brownhat?”

He considered it for several moments. “You might consider letting him go and putting a tail on him. He’s bound to
get cocky if he thinks he got away with something, like outwitting the police.”

“I see your point,” Ella answered
reluctantly. Envisioning the sense of satisfaction that would be mirrored on Brownhat’s face made her hands ball up into fists and her knuckles itch.

“I understand the sentiment, but we’ll get him,” Big Ed said, accurately reading her expression.

As they walked inside the station, they passed the watch commander’s desk and continued down the hall.

“Stay on your guard,” Big Ed said softly, then
went into his office while Ella continued to her own.

Ella returned to her desk, her thoughts on Ralph Tache. She then remembered that she’d meant to ask him about Roxanne Dixon. She hadn’t seen Roxanne in the last day or so, but she couldn’t ignore something that involved her kid.

Ella found Tache by the coffee machine in the hall and asked him to join her in her office. Closing the door, she
gestured for him to take a seat.

Ralph said nothing and waited, looking at her curiously. Usually when he was called into her office she never bothered closing the door.

“Ralph, I need to ask you a few questions about Roxanne Dixon.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me she’s back on the force?”

“No, but she’s still in the area and I need to know what you know about her. I ran into her at my
kid’s school.”

Ralph’s eyebrows knitted together. “She doesn’t have—” He looked up at her. “That’s the point isn’t it? What she was doing there? You never had any assignments with her, did you?”

Ella shook her head. “Not directly. Roxanne is playing some kind of personal game. She said she was keeping an eye on my kid for Kevin, but Kevin dumped her weeks ago and doesn’t want any more contact
with her. I know you two
had—something—once, so I thought you could give me a heads up on the best way to deal with her.”

Ralph took a deep breath. “She’s bad news, Ella. Really bad news. My wife and I were already having problems when she got on the scene, but that woman had her own agenda from the start.”