Red Mesa (29 page)

“But it’s unmarked, like yours, and in the dark resembles my mom’s SUV.”

Ella nodded thoughtfully. “Good point.”

“Do you want me to talk to Jayne? I know she said some really nasty things to you, but I don’t think she meant them all. You don’t know her like I do. She’s just scared. She’s in a huge mess with these people because of her gambling
debts, and I think that deep down she’s terrified that somehow this led to Justine’s murder.”

“I hope for all our sakes that isn’t the case, because that means the danger isn’t over yet. Jayne could become the next target.”

“I don’t think any of us can help Jayne. She won’t allow it. But it’s Mom I worry about most. I know she’s a strong woman. That’s how she made it after Dad left. But my brothers
and sisters are everything to her, and it’s hard enough for her to accept that Justine’s gone forever. If on top of that she found out that one of her other daughters had a hand in her death…” Ruth shook her head. “That’s just too awful to think about. And if something happened to Jayne, as well, I don’t think Mom would ever recover.”

“Do you have any idea where Jayne is right now?” Ella asked.

Ruth glanced at her watch. “None of us can afford to take any more time off from work, especially Jayne. She should be at the Daily Double, over in Farmington. She usually works a lunch-to-dinner shift. But if she’s not there, check the Bull’s Eye, out on the Bloomfield highway. According to Jayne, they have a small-stakes crap game in the back. But I don’t know how you’ll get in if they don’t
know you. I tried to find her there once, and couldn’t get past the bartender. He looked at me as if I were crazy and swore there wasn’t anything in the back except cases of booze. But Jayne had the family’s SUV and it was parked outside.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find out anything new.”

Ella returned to her vehicle. Talking about Justine in the past tense seemed wrong, and having to
whisper her name to avoid danger from her
chindi
was even worse. Maybe part of her was just trying to deny reality, but she couldn’t quite accept the fact that Justine was truly dead.

Ella pushed her doubts aside and focused. She was a cop. She needed to concentrate on finding a trail of evidence. That was the only way she’d ever settle the matter once and for all.

She drove back to Farmington,
then continued east toward Bloomfield, easily locating the Bull’s Eye bar. With some luck she’d find Bobby Lujan there, or come across Jayne. Maybe the element of surprise would give her an advantage and help her get some useful information from her cousin or her male friend.

Ella went inside the rowdy country western bar, which was serving an after-work crowd of local cowboys, construction workers,
and oil field roughnecks. Finding a stool at one end of the bar, she ordered a draft beer. She rarely drank, and wouldn’t even be tempted to take more than a sip tonight, but it would give her a good cover as she watched people come and go.

Time passed. Every once in a while she’d see someone who was obviously not an employee come out of a door marked “Employees Only.” It was clear that some
kind of activity was going on back there.

As Ella saw a tall cowboy heading for the doors, she tried to follow, pretending to be with him, but the bartender intercepted her.

“No one goes back there, except employees.”

“Aw, come on, give me a break. There’s a game going on, and I have a little extra cash burning a hole in my pocket.”

“You don’t work here, and I don’t know you either. The only
entertainment around here is at the bar. You want another beer?”

“Come on, I’m just looking for a little action,” Ella continued, determined to gain access. “What do you say?”

For a moment or two she thought she was about to talk herself into the game, but suddenly the door opened and a Navajo man she recognized came out. She’d arrested Herbert Nez on several occasions, mostly for illegal alcohol
sales on the Rez.

The moment he saw her, anger flashed in his eyes. “What are you doing here, cop! Who sent you, my wife?”

The bartender glared at her. “Unless you can prove that you have jurisdiction here, I don’t have to waste my time talking to you.”

“You want me to bring in the county sheriff?”

“Do it. But use the phone outside. I’m sure they’ll be around in what, ten minutes? But don’t
plan on catching anyone doing anything illegal, and expect a lawsuit from my boss’s lawyer. He knows how to deal with police harassment.”

“Oh, I don’t have to leave the room. I have a cell phone, and a good eye for faces coming out this door in the meantime.”

“Knock yourself out. But you’ll also need a search warrant or some kind of reasonable cause before I allow you or anyone else to look
around. How long do you think that’ll take?”

Ella knew that she’d never be able to get any cops here in time to stop an illegal gambling operation, but that hadn’t been her objective anyway. As the door opened and a surprised cowboy stopped in the entrance, she glanced inside. She caught a glimpse of an open back door, and a woman who looked like Jayne ducking outside.

Intent on intercepting
her, Ella turned on her heels and ran to the front entrance to the bar, colliding with a man and woman coming in at the same time. By the time she and they had untangled and apologized and Ella reached the parking lot, Jayne’s SUV was gone.

Cursing her luck, Ella returned to her vehicle and drove back to the reservation. It was shortly after seven when Ella arrived in Shiprock. She needed to
meet with Blalock and fill him in on what she’d learned. Picking up her cell phone, she punched out his number. He answered on the first ring.

“I have some information you may find useful,” she said.

“Stop. Don’t give it to me over the air. I still don’t trust these wireless things. Let’s meet and exchange information face-to-face,” Blalock said.

Ella arranged to join him for a working dinner
at the Totah Cafe, and twenty minutes later she sat across the table from him in a corner booth.

Mary Lou brought them two chalupa platters, cup-shaped tortillas filled with beans, salsa, and cheese, garnished with guacamole. As they ate, Ella filled him in on what she’d learned about Jayne and her activities. “That’s all I know,” she said at last.

“You’ve gotten further than I have, but that’s
not surprising,” Blalock said, finishing the last of his dinner. “I’ve worked this area for years, but the Four Corners is still your turf.”

“I wish I could find all the answers before things really get ugly. My cousin is gone, my life may be irreversibly changed, and now this fight is taking all of my time. I have a little girl who I’ve barely gotten to see since this happened.”

“There are
always times like this for a cop—no matter where you work, whether you’re federal or local.”

“I know. It’s lousy pay, even lousier hours, and yet it’s the work I love. That’s the irony of all this, you know. I’ve given my career everything, and whoever’s behind this trouble has not only taken someone I love, he’s now trying to take away my job, my reputation, and everything else that defines
me, as well.”

Hearing a familiar voice over the cafe’s radio, Ella groaned. “George Branch. He’s all I need to complete a crappy day.”

One of the employees turned the volume up, and Ella suddenly heard a reference to law enforcement. Branch was on a tirade, accusing the tribal police of protecting their own by not kicking “a criminal cop” off the force and bringing the officer to justice. To
make things worse, he was accusing the tribal government of widespread corruption, mentioning kickbacks and bribes to outsider big businesses such as power companies, mining operations, and manufacturing concerns.

Ella listened for as long as she could, then stood up, tossing several bills on the table. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her as she headed to the door.

Mary Lou hurried over to
her. “I’m sorry about that, Ella. I was out in the back when one of the waitresses turned the radio on. Our customers like to argue about him. By the time I heard what he was talking about, it was already too late.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just one of the many things I’ll have to deal with until my cousin’s killer is arrested. Unfortunately, the Constitution protects idiots like him.”

Ella
was halfway to her vehicle when Blalock caught up to her. “Can you have one of your people follow Branch and see who he meets and where he goes when he’s away from work? I think we better check this guy out and see what’s on his agenda. I’d just love to find out he’s got his hand in something dirty so I can come down on him like a ton of bricks.”

“I’ll pass your request along to Big Ed,” Ella
replied.

Ella parted company with Blalock and drove directly to the station. There were no new cases waiting on her desk. With a sigh of relief, she delivered Blalock’s request to Big Ed.

“The heat’s coming down on this department, Shorty, and I’ll have to juggle schedules to find any officers to check up on Branch. As for you, I want you to keep a low profile. Take time off if you want. But
whatever you do, don’t make waves right now.”

“What’s going on?”

“The usual—politics. When Abigail Yellowhair had all the references to you pulled from her ads, one of the tribal councilmen was overheard saying that it was because she had the inside track on the investigation and knew of evidence that would prove you were involved in our officer’s death.”

“That’s a lie. She was just playing
it safe, trying to distance herself from any scandal or controversy. She wants to be elected.”

“I know that and you know that, but you’ve made quite a few enemies over the years. For instance, bringing down the terrorists who’d set up their base of operations here made you an international hero, but also resulted in the Tribal Council and some of their appointees looking really bad. Publicly
they applauded your investigation, but privately they’ve always wanted revenge for making them look corrupt and gullible.”

“I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. Even after I find the truth about my cousin, they’ll still be lying in wait for me, and biding their time, like hawks circling above a rabbit hole.” She stood up. “I’m going home. For once, I’d like to see my daughter
while she’s still awake enough to know who is giving her a good-night kiss.”

Ella arrived just as Rose had finished bathing Dawn, and Ella helped her into her pajamas. As the freshly scrubbed little girl ran into the living room to play, Ella joined her on the floor, each making her own stack with the colored pieces of plastic. Every once in a while Dawn would take one of the blocks off of Ella’s
stack and put it on top of her own.

“
Shimá,
play,” Dawn said, laughing as she took another of Ella’s blocks.

Ella handed Dawn the blocks, asking her each time what color it was. Dawn already knew her basic colors, but Ella loved to reinforce the lesson. She watched her daughter, entranced as Dawn struggled to arrange the blocks. It was easy to see a piece of herself mirrored in her daughter’s
curiosity and her attention to whatever she was doing. It filled her with a sense of awe as she thought of the continuity of family and the future Dawn represented. Right now Dawn was completely absorbed in her stacking game. Her attention span was never long, natural for a child her age, but her concentration was complete. Ella was already planning on buying more blocks, this time with letters
or animal images on them.

Dawn seemed much smarter than any of the other children Ella had seen, including Julian at this age. But maybe that was just the proud mom in her. To her, her daughter seemed like a miracle in motion.

As Dawn tired of the game, she stood and, with her bowlegged-looking gait, ran to where she’d left the rag doll Rose had made for her.

“
Shimasání
make present,” she said,
and showed the doll to Ella.

“It’s very pretty! Did you say thank you?”

Dawn shook her head. “Navajos say
ahéhee’
.”

Ella laughed. “Mom, that’s cool. She’s going to know Navajo before she reaches three, at this rate!”

“I raised you the same way. Maybe with her, it’ll stick. Sometimes I wonder how much you actually remember. You spent too many years trying to forget who you were.”

Ella steered
clear of the old argument, not wanting to remind her of the scarcity of Navajo-speaking agents to converse with those years she was part of the Bureau. Besides, her mother was right about how much of the language Ella retained. She understood Navajo a lot better than she spoke it.

Dawn finally walked to the TV set and pointed. “Watch TV.”

“No,” Rose said.

“Mom, she’s got the cartoon video I
bought for her. That would take her up to bedtime.”

“I don’t like to have her watch TV at night. She’ll end up sleepy and cranky because she won’t go to bed when she gets tired. A little in the morning, but that’s all.”

Ella bit back the curt retort that often seemed foremost in her mind. Dawn was her kid, and she should have the final say-so in how she was raised. But that kind of autonomy
was impossible while they all lived here with Rose. Besides, she knew her mom was probably right. The cartoon would probably just get Dawn excited at the wrong time, and she’d get restless and cranky later on.

Ella looked at her daughter, who was now pulling a toy horse around the room. The wooden toy had been something she’d inherited from Julian. When the toy snagged on the back of a chair,
Dawn pulled on the string, fell down on her bottom when the toy remained snagged, then let out an ear-piercing shriek.

“
T’adoo.
Stop that,” Rose said, adding the English translation immediately. “There’s no need for that.”

Rose leaned over to untangle the string, but then groaned, slipping down on one knee.

Ella stood up and rushed to her mother’s side. “Mom, are you okay?”

Rose pushed her
away. “I’m fine. It’s just age talking. My joints don’t work as well as yours do some days.”

She made it a point to untangle the string before Ella could, gritting her teeth the entire time.