Death and Desire (16 page)

“Come here, cowboy,” I said. “It's time we took that ride.” I headed for the bedroom hearing the swish of his coat behind me.

We collapsed on the bed in a tangle of limbs. He touched my core, and my world shrunk to the pleasure of his touch. The black duster fanned out around our bodies. He dipped his head and plundered my mouth at the same time he thrust into me. I bit his lip, and he grabbed my hands, holding them above my head, loosely intertwining our fingers. Cascading waves of pleasure pushed me higher to the cusp of release. We coupled, coming together in a frenzy. He rolled over on his side, holding me tightly. When he caught his breath, he covered me with the edge of the duster.

“Don't ever lose that duster,” I said.

“Not a chance,” he said huskily.

I drifted off, snuggled in the comfort of his arms.

I
watched the station clock crawl slowly toward midmorning. Time was dragging with no breaking news to chase after. My thoughts were as tangled as the bedsheets had been this morning. Trace. I was falling in love—was in love—might be in love. Hell, I wasn't sure. I was a careful woman about opening up, but when I fell in love, I was a one-man woman and all the way in. Trace had dredged up memories of men in my life with whom I had bantered around the words “love” and “future.” But I had nothing with them that was as intense as what I had with Trace.

My cell rang and I snatched it up like a life preserver. Alison Garcia.

“Hi Taylor. Can you catch a quick bite of lunch? Maybe at the Bistro on Main by the University?”

“Sure. What time?”

“How about in half an hour?”

“Whoever gets there first gets a table. See ya.”

I couldn't imagine what she wanted to talk about. I'd let her work her agenda. I had nothing scheduled except the meeting with Gage that evening.

Parking was tight at the Bistro. I slipped into the last place in the tiny lot. If Alison wasn't already here, she would be hoofing it a block or more.

I got us a table in the corner, my back to the wall and by a window. I had a cup of coffee in front of me when Alison scurried between the tables, darting her eyes to me, away to the diners, and then back to me. She dumped her bag in the booth and scooted in. “I'm sorry if I held you up,” she said, rummaging in her voluminous bag.

This woman was in some serious denial if she didn't believe she was in a downward spiral. Her color was pale and her hands had a tremor. She was damn near furtive when she looked around the Bistro, her eyes rapidly surfing over each table of diners.

“Alison, what's going on with you?”

She seized on my question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, look in the mirror. What's the matter?”

“Nothing is the matter.” She brushed her ratty hair out of her eyes. “I've been under some stress at the university. People have no idea how grueling the life of a professor is, publish or perish, bring in grant money, and oh, my God, dealing with the students.” She sniffed. “What's that rawhide thong around your neck?” She leaned over the table for a better look.

I held up the suede bag.

She hooted. “Medicine pouch? You think that thing is going save you?”

I ignored her question and said, “Let's order and then you tell me what you need.”

“Why do you think I need something?” she snapped. “You're the one wearing a medicine pouch. Something sure spooked you if you think you need that around your neck.”

The waitstaff bustled up. “What will you ladies have?”

“I'll have the Reuben sandwich and a full side of fries and onion rings.” Alison tossed the menu onto the table.

“I'll have half of a club sandwich and the tomato soup.” I picked up both menus and handed them to the waiter.

Alison pounced when he walked off. “I want to know what's new in your investigation. Anyone else caught stealing pots? Who are they selling them to? I mean, you got the ladle. I helped you with that. I told you about the auction house. You
owe
me,” she rushed.

“All I know you have seen on the news.”

“Are those two Navajo boys telling where they got those pots?”

“No, interestingly enough they're both frightened to death and not talking. However, they are doing well in rehab.”

Alison blew by the welfare of the boys and whined, “I need to know who is fencing pottery and about the meth. That's important, you know. And I am the expert on record here.” She idly picked at a scaly place on her arm.

When the large man in the booth in front of us stood up to leave, I saw Susan Etisitty and Tomas seated near the door.

“Who are you staring at?” She waved her hand in front of my face.

I pulled my head back from her ragged cuticles and chipped nails. “Just someone I know. She works for the tribal police.” Susan was nearly sitting on Tomas's lap. They were dipping fries in ketchup. I watched to see if they would feed each other. They didn't.

Alison looked over her shoulder, turned, and hunched down in the booth. “I don't know them.” The waiter set my food down and before he could set Alison's on the table, she grabbed an onion ring in midair.

“You want part of my sandwich?” I asked when she had gobbled hers down.

“No. I have to get back soon. I have a lot of work to do.” She shoved the rest of her fries in her mouth. “I want to hear from you.” When I didn't respond, she added smugly, “I provide provenance for one of the world's top collection of Anasazi pottery.” She stood up and leaned over the table into my face and hissed, “I deserve to know what is happening.” She tossed down a few bills and her napkin, grabbing the last onion ring on her way out.

“Watch the news,” I called to her retreating back.

I paid the bill and tip, then sauntered over to Susan's table. She glanced up at me and I saw the recognition in her eyes. I had my mouth open to speak when she ducked her head, grabbed Tomas's arm, and pulled him to her. He bent his head, and she whispered in his ear.

Interesting, but damned awkward standing there while they ignored me. First, weird Alison, and now Susan. Why would Susan pretend she didn't know me? She was just having lunch with her guy. And Alison, she'd taken a tumble down the rabbit hole.

I headed back to work.

 

“You still on to meet Gage?” Louis asked.

“Yeah, he hasn't ditched me. In fact, I better head that way. I'd hate for him to get to crunch time and do a runner.

“Text me when you get home,” he called.

Northeast of Flagstaff, the land flattened out into desert punctuated with monoliths of red Moenkopi sandstone. Dozens of pueblo ruins of ancient people were scattered over the dry, rocky area. I pushed my odometer to zero when I turned on the dirt road to Wupatki so I could back out the three miles and find the side road Gage directed me to. I put the Rav in four-wheel drive and roared up the side of a dry wash. Around a corner, I gained on a dust trail ahead of me. The sun glinted off Susan Etisitty's big truck. She had to have seen my dust trail behind her. She had off-road tires on her pickup, which made this a much easier ride for her. Unease crept over me, and I stopped to idle behind a nest of scrub. She abruptly turned off the hard-pack road and up a rocky arroyo, trailblazing north toward the park. This whole area was rimmed with four-wheel trails for desert buggies and trucks. What was she doing out here? Four-wheeling? Meeting someone? Had she followed me and gotten ahead of me on some parallel trail a local cop would know?

I drove until I saw the line of cottonwood trees, marking the spot of a seep providing water in a dry land. No dust trail plumed behind me. Gage's Toyota 4Runner was nestled so far back in the trees, I missed it the first time I drove by the area. I had told him I would be driving a Rav, and when I crept past the second time, he stepped from behind the stand of trees, waving me into the cottonwoods.

I parked beside him. He reached across, opened the passenger door of his truck, and waited for me to get in. The truck was stifling hot, even with the windows down. A dry desert breeze drifted in, sifting red dust on my clothes. I didn't hear a car motor or any human sound on the wind. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“I have a family, a five-year-old son. I don't want any trouble.”

“But you have trouble, don't you? The financial statements?”

“I . . .” He faltered. Sweat rings stained his armpits in a shirt that barely contained his ample belly. “Were you followed?”

“Susan Etisitty went cross country about a mile from here. Is she meeting you?”

“No, I don't know why Susan's out here. She's my cousin. She's a cop—maybe she's doing cop stuff.”

“She know about your problem? Providing you a little protection ?”

His fat face puckered. “Oh, God no. I don't want anyone in my family to know.”

Sweat poured down his face while he worried a lint pill on his pants, but I didn't think he was concerned about Etisitty.

“I need your permission to record our meeting.” I turned on the flip camera.

He shrunk back, his pasty face ashen. “Don't take my picture. My family . . .”

I laid the camera in my lap with the lens facing the door handle. “I'm recording a picture of your car door. I won't record your face, only your words.”

He seemed relieved, but not entirely on board.

“I need your statement, Gage,” I said gently.

“I won't put my son in danger.” His double chin quivered.

“I'm a reporter. I don't burn sources. You have my word. I'll put a voice-distortion filter over your audio and your own wife won't recognize your voice.”

He blanched at the mention of his wife. “Okay, then . . .” He was still wary, but compliant.

“Tell me about these financial records.”

“I created fake bills and paid receipts for stuff we paid cash for,” he blurted out. He sniffed his runny nose and plunged on. “The company pays cash for everything they can, but I enter the payments we made to our vendors in our books, like we drew a check on the corporate account.”

“Where is the cash coming from? The sale of the uranium?”

“No, no, you don't understand. The cash comes from the Anasazi pottery Chavez sells on the black market. They dig it on the site. We cleanse the cash by faking the paid receipts for stuff we paid cash for.”

“Like what?”

“Trucks, heavy equipment from some guys Chavez knows down in Mexico. But small stuff too, like our gasoline bills and food. I make it look like we paid by check for all of it, but we didn't.”

“You're laundering money through the mine.”

“Yes,” he said, hanging his head. “All the mine employees except the office staff are paid in cash. I produce fake payroll checks.”

“You received a legitimate check?”

“Yes.” He preened with pride. “I told him I wouldn't be paid in cash. I want to be right with the IRS.”

“I think the IRS is the least of your problems.”

His chin wobbled, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I didn't know,” he whined.

“You knew they were looting and selling your own heritage and you didn't do a thing. You're guilty of not reporting that. And maybe at first, you didn't know about the money, but you implicated yourself when you started fudging the books.” What a spineless man.

“But I had to ! He would have hurt my boy and me. He would have killed me,” he sobbed.

“Who?”

“Chavez,” he whimpered.

“So why come clean now? Why are you telling me this?”

“I can't live this lie anymore. I can't sleep. I jump at every sound. I shouted at my wife and son this morning!” Weary lines etched his face. “I was so proud when I graduated from NAU. First in my family to go to college. I wanted to make good. When Dinetah offered me a job in their accounting department, my family threw a big celebration. Everyone was so proud of me. My wife brags to everyone about ‘Gage's job.' ”

“How do you enter the cash from the pottery sales in your accounts-receivable ledger?”

“Chavez has me enter it as payment from one of five ore companies who buy uranium, but we only sell our uranium to Tri-Ore and they pay us by check once a month.”

“Why didn't you leave?”

His pudgy little face contorted in pain. “One evening, Chavez came to my son's soccer game. On the sidelines, he said he wanted me to take a bigger role in the business. He offered me a raise, said my family deserved more, and he knew I would do right by them. He started bringing me duffel bags of cash to stack in bundles of less than ten thousand. He gave me a list of banks to use and told me to deposit the money on different days. He gave me a wad of cash every time he came, too.”

The smell of his flop sweat poured over me. “Did you ask him where the cash came from?”

He mopped his brow with his arm. “Not at first.” He took off his glasses and polished them. “I didn't want to know. “I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wanted him to tell me some plausible answer. I wanted to believe in him.”

He wanted to keep his job and feel good about it.

“But you did finally ask him, didn't you?”

Gage didn't look at me. He focused his gaze out the front windshield and shifted in his seat. “Chavez said I had a good job and a really nice kid. If I wanted to keep my job and my kid, I wouldn't ask any questions.”

He was terrified.

“What changed your mind?”

“My son—he's getting older. I don't want to shame him. I have no peace. I'm living a fuckin' lie.” He beat his hand on the steering wheel. “My wife tells everyone
how good
I'm doing,” he anguished.

“You'll go to jail. You know that, don't you? Even if you cut a deal.”

He nodded miserably. “I don't want to die! I don't want my family to die. Please,” he begged. He looked horrified. “Can't you help me? I can't go to the police. Chavez will kill my family before I can get back home. He has spies everywhere. You go, tell them I talked to you and gave you those documents. Please.”

I couldn't put this right for Gage. “I'll take the documents in after I've had a professional verify they're legitimate.”

“You think I'm lying to you?” Gage challenged.