Death and Desire (20 page)

I
made a U-turn toward the Nation.

“Dumb-ass kids,” Louis growled. “Got themselves killed. Dig a few pots, carry a little meth—and what did they get out of it? Dead.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “Poor Danny, stumbling along behind Keith. Imagine how Grandmother Kee feels.”

“No reason for her to feel guilty. Kids that age get out on their own and do all kinds of stupid stuff. Danny just hooked up with the wrong kid.”

We pulled to the side of the road, and I parked in the sand across the highway from the white crime-scene van from Flag. An ambulance and a couple of cop cars were haphazardly angled into the ditch. Louis grabbed a flip cam and a digital recorder. Two Navajo cops immediately turned to face us, barring us entry to the scene. Two small bodies lay under thin black tarps on the desert floor.

“What happened?” I asked Officer Nez.

“Two Navajo boys are dead.”

“Keith Dohi and Danny Kee?”

His face was immobile, but he nodded.

“How were they killed?”

His shoulders sagged and his face slackened. “Looks like an execution.” The lines deepened in his lean face and his mouth turned down with repugnance.

“What happened to them?” I asked softly.

“Beaten.” He was young and audibly swallowed before he continued. “Bad. Then shot in the head.”

I was confused. Something wasn't ringing right. “Tortured for information? They're just kids. Why?”

Trace walked up behind the officer. “The killings were to terrorize people, and of course, to silence the boys.”

“They never talked to you, did they?”

“No.” His face was grim.

“Who do you think killed them?”

“That's easy.” Trace angled his body away from us and failed to make eye contact. His attention was on the ring of policemen circling the two corpses. He swiveled his head our way and said quickly, “Their killers hung a cardboard sign around the boy's necks with the word
Zetas.
” He turned away and strode to the tight group of police ringing the bodies. I watched the men separate to include him in the group and then close ranks around him. Pride and admiration bloomed in my heart for my guy.

“I got plenty of footage. You ready?” Louis asked me. “Taylor?” He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a shake. “You in there?”

“Yeah. We need to move. Thornton just arrived and here comes the remote truck for the radio station. We have to hurry if we want to break it first.”

I called Marty on the way into town. “Pick a spot for a breaking story. Clear an edit bay for us. We'll be there in ten. The Zetas are involved in meth on the Nation.”

I wrote it, Louis cut the video, and I was nauseated when I did the voice-over. Marty cut into
Ellen
and ran the story.

“Marty thinks it's a big story if he's going to make good on all those ads for
Ellen
he just bumped. Let's congratulate ourselves because the old boy probably won't say a word of praise to us,” Louis said.

“He thinks his lack of appreciation keeps us working harder, hoping to pop a compliment from him.” My snark made Louis grin. “We need to talk with the families. We'll update the story tonight for the six.”

 

Battered pickups and one late-model minivan jammed the yard of the Kee's small home. A Navajo woman answered the door. She immediately said, “You're press. She don't want to make a statement.”

I held up the picture of Danny. “I borrowed this from Grandmother Kee, and I promised to return it. We also want to pay our respects.”

“Who is it?” a querulous voice demanded from the interior.

“Taylor McWhorter,” I called out over the shoulder of the woman guarding the doorway.

Footsteps shuffled to the door. The elder Mrs. Kee wore a ratty housecoat and worn slippers. Tears rolled through the wrinkles on her face.

“It's okay,” she said to the younger woman. She motioned us into the small front room. There were no empty chairs, and no one stood and offered theirs. Three women milled in the small kitchen making coffee and murmuring in low tones.

“Perhaps we could talk a minute in the back?” I asked her softly.

Mrs. Kee nodded, and we followed her back to the first tiny bedroom. She slumped on the edge of the bed. The only other furniture was a battered chest of drawers and an ancient floor lamp with no shade.

I knelt in front of her, taking her hands. “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Kee.”

Her chin wobbled, and she straightened her shoulders as though she were about to receive a blow.

“I brought back Danny's picture. I'm so sorry he died.” I pressed the child's picture in her hand.

She dug in her skirt for a Kleenex and wiped her nose. “He got my Danny killed just like I said. Beaten,” she wailed. “That's what the cops said, ‘Beaten badly.' ” Her shoulders sagged forward, rounding her back. I took her in my arms and let her sob.

“Help us find the killer.”

She raised her hands and shook her head. “I don't know anything.”

“Who knows Keith's friends? Who else was Danny friends with?”

“Danny didn't have any friends but Keith. The kids made fun of him at school. Called him slow,” she sobbed. “My Danny hated school.”

“Do you know any of Keith's friends?”

“Craig Tah. I saw him with Keith and Danny some. Craig is older.”

“Where does he live?”

She pointed west of her house. “Five doors down, has a green door,” she whispered.

I patted her shoulder. She held Danny's photo and traced the lines of his face repeatedly with her index finger, touching his eyes, circling his cheeks, and coming to rest on his small mouth. I'm not sure she realized when we tiptoed out of the room. Not one person in the cramped living room acknowledged our good-bye.

Back outside, Louis shot some video of the front of the house and the cars nestled up to it. “I'm done if you want to find this Craig guy.”

“Yeah, we're going to need his parents' permission to talk to him and they might deny us access to their son. I'd be real careful if he were my kid.”

“They may have taken the kid and disappeared,” Louis said.

“I would have.”

A blue pickup had nosed close to the bumper of my Rav. I rocked the car back and forth steering hard to the left to ease out of the tight spot. We rolled slowly five houses down and there was the green door.

“Looks vacant to me.” Louis craned his head for a better look.

I parked in the yard and we hopped out. “They're gone,” called a woman's voice.

A young woman juggling a fretting baby on her hip stood on her stoop next door. “They left in the night. I would know,” she added ruefully, “this little guy keeps me up all night.”

Louis knocked on the green door, but no one answered. He peeked in the front windows, shook his head and headed around back of the house.

I crossed the dirt yard to the woman. I reached out and took the fussy baby's finger. He quit crying long enough to grab mine and give me an inquisitive look before he snatched his chubby hand back, burying his face in his mother's shoulder.

“Teething.” She jiggled the fussy baby. “Nothing makes him happy for long.”

“I'm Taylor McWhorter with KNAZ. We wanted to talk to Craig. He was a friend of Keith Dohi's. Did you ever see Keith and Craig together? Or with Danny Kee?”

“I don't know Danny Kee. I did see the Dohi's boy over here with Craig a few times.” She pointed to the Tah's sand-packed driveway. “Last night they were raising a ruckus loading their pickup. I peeked out the window while trying to get the baby back to sleep.”

“What were they packing up?”

“From what I saw, a lot of stuff, bedding, groceries, gas cans, you name it.”

Louis came around the back of the house and shrugged his shoulders. I handed her my card and asked if she would call me if the Tah's returned.

Louis and I headed for the car. “Did you see anything through the back windows?”

“Boxes and paper on the kitchen floor. Cupboards hanging open. Looked like they were in a hurry. If the Tahs don't want to be found, it's going to be hard to find them,” Louis predicted. “Just like Gage and his family. Lot of open country out there.”

T
wilight was falling when I turned into my cul-de-sac. Louis and I had updated the boys' story for the six o'clock with a human interest angle and ran the boys' photos over the tip line. It was all I knew to do, and anonymous tips had solved plenty of crimes.

Trace was parked in front of my house. When my lights flashed over his Tahoe, he eased out and stretched. He looked so damn good.

I opened the car door and stepped out into his arms. “You feel wonderful.” I sighed contently. “I'm glad you're here, cowboy.”

“Me too. Missed you.” His lips grazed mine with a sweet kiss. With one arm hooked around my waist, he grabbed my gear bag and we headed into the kitchen.

“Missed you more. How are you?” I searched his face. “It must have been terrible telling the boys' families.”

He wiped his hand over his face, then rubbed the back of his neck. “There's no good way to tell a mom her kid is dead.”

We collapsed on the sofa and held onto each other, exchanging comfort. “You want a beer?” I offered.

“Nah, I'm way too tired and I'm hoping to get some sleep. You got decaf coffee?” He rested his head on the back of the sofa. Weariness etched his face.

“No. I just drink the leaded. But I have an old Scottish remedy, a nice cup of tea.” I got up and put the kettle on. While I waited for the tea to steep, I asked him, “How is Yanaha? Is her cough better?”

“Finally.” He lifted his head from the back of the sofa. “I took her to the doctor and he gave her some new medicine. She complains it tastes terrible.” He smiled.

“I'll go out and see her.”

“Thanks. She'll enjoy having you out there.”

I passed him two coasters and napkins and handed him his tea. “I saw Grandmother Kee a couple of hours after you talked to them.”

“How were they?”

“Bad, like you would expect. She holds Keith responsible for Danny's death. She told me about a friend of Keith's, Craig Tah. We went over to the Tahs, and according to their neighbor, the Tahs packed up and left during the night.”

“I knew the Tahs had taken off. Probably safest for them to get their boy out of there. We could provide protection, but were it my son, he'd be hidden in some remote corner where I could see anyone coming.”

“I haven't heard from Gage.” I snuggled closer to him. “I wish he'd call me.”

“Me too. I went by Basha's to talk to Bidziil and he was gone. Bidziil told his manager he needed time off. He bought a whole lamb and butchered it himself before he left.”

“Do you think Gage and Bidziil's family are together?”

“Would be much safer.”

“My God, I hope the Notahs and Tahs are well hidden. It's all tied together somehow—the Chavez brothers, pot hunting, money laundering, and meth.”

Trace got up and stood behind me, his big hands working on the kinks in my shoulders, easing my tension. “I suspect the boys were digging pots on their own and maybe selling them directly to a collector, inconsequential to their deaths. Double-crossing the Zetas got them killed.” He finished his wonderful massage and dropped down on the sofa beside me.

I was apprehensive to broach what I wanted to say, but it had to be done. “I'm suspicious of Susan Etisitty.”

Trace's head snapped up. “What? Why are you talking about Officer Etisitty?”

“Her grandparents are in an expensive Alzheimer's facility running a tab of eighty-five hundred per month. She listens outside doors at the police station, and she turns up in odd places.”

His eyes widened as he jumped up and stood over me. “That's a nasty assumption.”

I was determined to avoid adding emotional fuel to the conversation so I decided to deal only in the facts. “Remember the three-day weekend in Las Vegas Susan took about a month ago? Plus, you've seen her vehicle, a decked-out extended-cab pickup. She drives it to the station every day.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I know about the truck. None of this proves Etisitty is working for the cartels.”

“Of course not. But it paints a picture of Etisitty living beyond what her salary provides. Plus, Susan was out near Wupatki when I met Gage out there.”

He edged closer to me. “Did she follow you?”

“I don't know. When I saw her, she was ahead of me and turned off the road before I met Gage. He said they were cousins, but he denied talking to her about meeting me.” I put my hand on his arm. “Police on both sides of the border are on the take.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand. “Last year, a border-patrol officer in El Paso got a twenty-year sentence for taking five million dollars from the cartel for telling them where the least patrolled border crossings were. Five million dollars is a big payoff.”

He sat beside me. “We've had some corrupt officers, but Susan Etisitty?”

“I caught her listening at Officer's Nez door when I talked to him about Niyol's death. She's listened to our conversations, too. She pretended she wasn't eavesdropping, but she was. And I don't think she was out four-wheeling at Wupatki Park.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did she recognize you out at Wupatki?”

“I don't know. She veered off cross-country, but was still headed toward the place Gage and I met. I didn't see her when I left.”

“So you don't know if Susan recognized your car.”

“No, I don't,” I admitted.

He digested that information. “Sani Begay was murdered. Got the report today. His brakes had been tampered with by a professional. Our lab guys missed it the first time. Too many people are dying. My place, or do I stay here tonight?”

I gasped. “Begay was murdered? Go get your stuff!”

“Don't open the door for anyone.” He roamed the house, checking all the windows and doors. Satisfied, he said, “Lock it up behind me. I'll get my Dopp kit and be back in twenty minutes.”

I shucked my dusty clothes and stepped into the shower. Hot water rained down on me and echoed off the tiles. Immediately, I thought of the Bates Motel scene. Really dumb idea to get into the shower. I couldn't hear anything in here, and Mac was in a dog kibble-induced canine slumber. I hurriedly rinsed out the shampoo and skipped the hair conditioner. I gingerly opened the shower door.

I slipped through the house wrapped in a towel. Mac was my first line of defense and he was softly snoring by the cold fireplace. But unease dogged me. I told myself I was spooked. Not without good reason, but spooked all the same. The image of Danny and Keith in body bags had wormed its way deep into my brain and Sani Begay and Niyol were dead, too.

I put on some comfy sweats and pulled my wet hair back to air dry because I was too scared to risk running the hair dryer. I circled back through the house, sensing a dark presence. Fear prickled my neck.

It was quiet. Rationally, I knew there was nothing out there, but my fear urged me to look out on the deck. I darkened the room behind me and pulled up one blind slat. Sitting no more than ten feet from me was a large coyote, his luxurious fur gleaming in the moonlight. Red eyes bored into mine.

I looked away at his paws and fingered the medicine pouch. The key rattled in the front door and I screamed, whirling around to see Trace coming through the door. He raced to the window.

I was shaking so badly, the blinds were banging into the glass. “There was a coyote on the deck, right here at the window.”

Trace craned his neck to get a better look out of the window.

“Did you see it?” I asked.

“See what?”

“The sole of a man's foot. It's the last thing I saw when he jumped the fence.”

“I'll take a look.” Trace eased out the door and slipped into the shadows. Low clouds obscured the moonlight, and I couldn't see him when he rounded the deck to take the stairs down to the small yard.

I slipped out the door and shivered in the cool wind. Last night's rain had turned the yard into sticky clay mud. His flashlight bobbed along the ground, casting a fragile circle of yellow light. The light stilled and I sensed more than saw that he had bent down for a closer look at the ground.

When I joined him, his flashlight was hovering over a footprint. A man's large, bare heel topped with four toe pads and sharp claw marks gouged into the soft ground.

I squeaked, “Shapeshifter.” My teeth chattered, and I tugged on his arm. He rose to join me and hugged me tightly. He broke away and took a photo with his cell, then sprinkled a little corn pollen from his medicine pouch and pushed me toward the stairs.

My teeth were still clattering when we got into the house. Trace locked the deck door. I grabbed his arm. “He's back. And I'm wearing the pouch Yanaha gave me. Why me?”

He held me close. I inhaled his scent—sweat, aftershave, and man. “Because you have a bold and courageous nature and you report on TV. If he can kill you, he absorbs your power and becomes more malevolent. His crime will get media exposure, lots of exposure.”

“He's getting closer to me. Help me, please.”

“I intend to. Tell me what happened before I got here. Did you hear anything?”

“No, Mac didn't even bark this time.”

“Are you sure you heard nothing?”

“Yes, it was quiet.”

“Why did you go to the window?”

“A sense of foreboding.”

“I've heard that before, but usually the shapeshifter mimics a sound that lures people out of the safety of their house, like a baby's cry or the voice of your mother.

“I'll take care of you.” He ran his hands up and down my arms, warming me. “I'll do what my granddad did to take care of his family. I was no more than six, and we were spending the night in Granddad's hogan. We were getting ready to go to sleep and heard a baby crying. Scared the bejesus out of me. I thought someone left a baby out in the cold. Grandfather caught me as I ran to the door. I remember him holding me in a vise grip and saying, ‘Don't open the door. There's no baby.' I flailed at him to get loose. I couldn't understand why he would leave a kid out on a winter's night.”

“What happened?”

“Something rattled the door and then there were footsteps on the roof and banging on the metal stove pipe on top of the hogan. The howling. My God, the unearthly wailing rattled my teeth. Then it was quiet and the shapeshifter was gone.”

“Why didn't he come in? Walk through the wall?”

“After my uncle's death, Grandfather nailed a spray of giant hyssop to the front door. He ground the little blue flowers to dust and sprinkled the dust around the hogan and over the top.”

“Your grandfather was expecting a shapeshifter?” I was puzzled.

He shook his head. “My grandfather was a careful man after my uncle died. My uncle was out working around his sheep camp early one evening. A coyote loped to within a few feet of him. As my uncle pulled his pouch out, the coyote shifted into a witch and blew black dust in his face. Uncle ran back to his home, and his wife summoned a shaman who prayed and smudged him with herbs. But by morning, his tongue had swollen and turned black. He convulsed and died later that day.”

“Crap.” I pulled the medicine pouch out of my shirt. “This thing needs to be turbocharged or whatever you do to make it stronger. He's gained about three feet out there—from standing on my grass to getting up on my deck. What do I need to do? The son of a bitch is not getting any nearer to me.”

“I'll gather the hyssop. It's grows wild all around here.”

“And do what?”

“I'll smudge this place and your yard.”

“You mean burn incense?”

“Not exactly.” He smiled. “Smudging for protection is done with sage, cedar, and sweet grass. We'll walk through the house and around your yard, letting the smoke drift while we pray for protection.”

I tapped on my iPad, pulling up a picture. “Is this the right plant? Giant hyssop?”

“Yeah. I'll bring everything with me tomorrow and we'll smudge.”

“Is this the same hyssop mentioned in the Bible in Leviticus when God commanded his people to use it to cleanse themselves and their homes?”

“Yes.” He bent softly to whisper in my ear, “Does that make your rational Scottish brain feel any better?”

“This makes it feel better.” I kissed him.