Spider Woman's Daughter (13 page)

“Wait a minute,” Rose said. She hustled off to the kitchen and came back with a cardboard coaster, “Fire Rock Casino” embossed on it in bright red. Chee sat the sweaty cup on top of it. Rose perched next to Garrison on the couch.

“I made this table for Rose and me in woodworking class—that’s why she’s so particular about it.” Garrison moved his hand over the surface. “First big project. It’s good to have something to do at night rather than partying.”

“Nice job,” Chee said. “Your mom told me you make jewelry, too.”

Garrison grinned. “My brother Notah, he taught me a little. I play around with it. My big brother, now he’s an artist. You should see some of that stuff. He did this one.”

Garrison pulled up his sleeve to show Chee an inch-wide band of sand-cast silver. “He got the idea for the design from a white guy when he worked construction at Chaco Canyon. You know, the big place with all those ruins?”

“Notah is one of the reasons I’m here,” Chee said. “An officer got shot, and he was the one who sent Notah to prison.”

“Too bad,” Rose said. “I saw something about that on TV. In Window Rock, right? That officer was famous. I didn’t know he was the one who got Notah.”

“Me either,” Garrison said, “Notah is one crafty brother. That guy must have been pretty smart.”

“He was,” Chee said. “I mean he is. He’s still alive.”

“Notah is still in prison,” Garrison said. “And he’s not the same guy. I mean, he’s still smart, but he doesn’t have so much anger now. He says he deserved what happened because of too much drinking, drugs.”

Garrison got up, walked to the kitchen, turned on a fan that promised more noise than cooling. “I was going that way, too. But then I met Rose.”

Chee said, “We found your fingerprints in the car that was used in the shooting.”

“No. That’s messed up. I don’t even have a car. We only drive Rose’s truck.”

“And we haven’t been to Window Rock since last September for the fair,” Rose said.

“An eyewitness identified Jackson Benally’s car as the vehicle the shooter drove,” Chee said. “And Jackson confirmed that you had driven it.”

Garrison eyes widened. “Somebody used Jackson’s mom’s car to shoot that man?”

“That’s right,” Chee said. He felt his phone vibrate. Ignored it.

“What happened to the car? If it got screwed up, Mrs. Benally will kill him. I’m serious, man. That lady is fierce.”

“The car wasn’t damaged.”

“Jackson wouldn’t shoot nobody,” Garrison said. “He’s a straight arrow.”

“What about you?” Chee asked. “What about your fingerprints?”

“Whoa. Not me. No way. I didn’t even know the old dude. Just because I got into a little trouble once or twice, that doesn’t mean nothing.”

Chee waited.

“I use Jackson’s car on Tuesdays sometimes,” Garrison said. “I do a deal for the car while he’s in school. I used to trade him some weed, but not anymore. I give him a little money, maybe some jewelry he can sell or give to a girl. He lets lots of guys drive that car. Maybe one of them did it.”

Chee shrugged.

Garrison got up. Sat down again.

“You sure Jackson’s car was there at the scene?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe whoever saw it there got things wrong.”

“No,” Chee said. “The person who shot the policeman used that car. Where were you Monday morning?”

“At Earl’s, selling stuff. Rose drops me off before she goes to work. You can ask anybody there, man. They know me.”

“After that I picked him up and we went to a meeting,” Rose offered. “AA. Then we went downtown to Sammy C’s and got a pizza. I have the receipt somewhere. We brought it back here. My sister came over with her kids and we ate and they went home and we watched a movie and went to bed.”

Chee looked at them. “Do you have a gun, Garrison?”

“A rifle my uncle gave me. I keep it locked up because of Buddy, Rose’s boy. And her sister’s kids are here all the time. I’ll show it to you if you want.”

Chee went into the bedroom with Garrison, found the gun in a locked case. A weapon for hunting deer, not a pistol for shooting a man from a car at close range. Chee relocked it. Part of him celebrated the fact that this young relative of his had refocused his life for the better. But he felt profoundly disappointed that he’d failed again to find the man who shot Leaphorn.

They went back to the living room. “Did you ever notice any kind of sparkly sand in the Benally car?” Chee asked.

“Sparkling sand?”

“Light colored. In the front seat, on the floor of the driver’s side.”

Garrison looked surprised. “Jackson takes perfect care of that car, man. If anybody he rented it to left anything in it, he took them off the list. So where’s the car at now?”

Chee said, “The FBI has it. Still checking for evidence.”

“They better be good to it,” Garrison said. “Mrs. Benally will throw a fit, man, a big one.”

Chee reached into his pocket and handed Garrison the phone he’d brought from the couch cushion. He gave him a Navajo Police Department card and wrote his own cell phone number on the back. “Call me if you think of something that might help us solve this.”

“You got it,” Garrison said. “Think you might wanna buy some jewelry or something?”

Rose opened her purse and pulled out little plastic bags, each with a set of heart-shaped earrings inside. She showed some to Chee.

“I’ll keep it in mind. I might need a present for my wife.”

Rose nodded. “Wives like presents. We’ll make you a special deal.”

Garrison said, “A buddy of mine sells my stuff down at Earl’s for me when I’m not there, if you change your mind on your way out of town. I’ll keep my ears open for you, cousin.”

E
arl’s Restaurant waited for customers along Route 66, a few blocks east of the classic El Rancho Hotel. Chee remembered interviewing a woman at the hotel—an interesting assignment that involved a suitcase of missing diamonds, a plane crash over the Grand Canyon, and a young relative of his Hopi friend, Officer Cowboy Dashee. He remembered looking at the old black-and-white photos of the Hollywood stars who’d once stayed there as he waited for Dashee in the hotel lobby, and grabbing a bite at Earl’s when they finished questioning the woman.

Customers loved Earl’s for its ample servings, good chile, fried chicken, and Navajo tacos. And for allowing Navajos and Zunis to set up stalls outside and sell their work from table to table. Eating here was like having lunch at a craft fair, Chee thought, or a flea market, depending on who showed up selling what.

He talked to Earl’s manager. Yes, Garrison Tsosie had been there every morning that week with his jewelry and wood carvings.

“He makes quality items and seems to sell pretty well,” the manager said. “Especially to tourist ladies. Nice guy, especially now that he isn’t drinking.”

Back in the car, Chee took a deep breath and picked up the radio to call Largo with the bad news that their best lead had fizzled. But before he could, his phone vibrated. Bernie. She sounded frazzled.

“What’s happening out there? I figured you were busy when you didn’t pick up, but then I got worried . . .” She left the thought hanging. He knew the rest of the sentence.

Chee said, “I’m as well as can be expected for a guy who ate too many raw onions at lunch. And for a guy who just discovered that his main attempted-murder suspect has an ironclad alibi.”

“You’ll figure this out. You’re a wonderful cop. Be careful.”

He heard Bernie’s mother in the background.

“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll see you at home. I love you.” Her phone clicked off.

He got out of the car and went back to the porch at Earl’s and bought a pair of Garrison Tsosie’s earrings. Silver hearts with a piece of red agate in the center.

11

B
ernie’s mother sat in the kitchen wearing her old purple bathrobe, looking out the window at the mountains. Bernie had made a pot of coffee for them, poured them both a cup, added sugar to hers and to Mama’s.

“Do you like to sleep in the morning, Daughter? When you were little, you always rose with the dawn. But people change.”

Bernie laughed. “I still get up early. Last night we had a cat in the house and it made noise and then it wanted to sleep on my head. I was happy to get out of bed.”

“Is this the cat that got lost?”

“Somehow it made its way back to our friend’s place,” Bernie said. “The one who got hurt. So now Husband and I will take care of it until he gets well.”

Mama said, “Cats should be outside where they can work.”

“I know, but I don’t like it when they kill birds,” Bernie said.

“It’s their nature,” Mama said. “Nothing to be done about that.”

Mama pushed the bowl and spoon away. “I will get dressed, and then let’s take a little walk before the heat comes.”

Bernie took her arm so Mama could leverage herself out of the chair. She helped her dress, noting that the clothes hung too loosely on her gaunt frame. They went outside. The summer sky was sprinkled with a few high clouds that could, but probably wouldn’t, bring rain. They walked slow step by slow step for about half an hour, examining the new plants that had come up from seeds Bernie had gathered and the wildflowers and shrubs she had transplanted last fall and that Mama and Darleen watered for her. As they walked, Mama mentioned a weed with healing power and a plant the old ones used as a dye for yarn. Bernie tried to remember the names to jot down so she could look them up later.

“What happened to the one who got shot?” Mama asked.

“I saw him in the hospital,” Bernie said. “He could not open his eyes and look at me.” When they got back to the house, Bernie helped Mama lie down in the bedroom. She moved on to the living room. Her UNM texts sat on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. She’d saved the books from her favorite classes: botany and southwestern anthropology. She sat on the floor and looked at the titles on the spines. She pulled out a thick volume,
Native Arts of the Southwest: Roots and Routes
. It left a sprinkle of dust in the air.

She took the book with her to the couch, slipped off her shoes, and opened it to the table of contents. She realized that this was one of the same books the lieutenant had left on his desk. She remembered the instructor who had assigned it, Professor Stuart, her favorite teacher at the university. In addition to teaching cultural anthropology, he used art created by the Southwest’s first inhabitants to explore the patterns and stories of exploration, colonization, and social disruption. The Pueblo pots pictured in the book included the simplest early work, and ceramics created during the days when Spanish conquistadors and settlers came to the Southwest looking for gold and souls to save. Other photos depicted ceramics from Mexican rule, the American period, the Indian Wars, boarding schools, World War II, and beyond. Finally, the illustrations showed work considered contemporary art as well as Indian pottery.

She remembered Professor Stuart telling her class that at Chaco Canyon’s Pueblo Bonito alone, seventy thousand artifacts had been removed. Many went by the crate-load to big museums in the East or into the private holdings of collectors who looked the other way when it came to legality. Seventy thousand from just one of the cities that formed the Chaco complex. Amazing.

Now, she thought, thanks to the AIRC, a few of those pieces would be coming back to the American Southwest, shipped all the way from Japan. They would be home, or at least closer to it, available to be studied and admired. And the lieutenant had something to do with that homecoming.

She scanned the index for references to Chaco Canyon and found many, too many. She stretched out, her head resting now against the arm of the sofa. It was easy to relax at Mama’s house, maybe because when she was here, she knew Mama was safe.

Bernie looked at the first sets of black-and-white photos. Ancient artists decorated the bowls, pots, plates, figurines, vases, and canteens with swirls, lightning designs, and triangles similar to the ones the lieutenant had sketched. She pictured a group of sisters sitting under a shady ramada somewhere, each with a pot in front of her and a yucca fiber brush, chatting as they painted black designs on the white surfaces. Copying from one another, perhaps, but each adding a unique flare to make her design ever so slightly individual. They probably never imagined that a thousand years later some curious Navajo would be thinking about them.

She felt her eyes growing heavy. Heavier. She’d just close them a moment, she thought. As she hovered on the groggy edge of dreams, she heard a car approaching. She was in the parking lot at the Navajo Inn. She saw the lieutenant stagger.

Bernie startled awake. A door slammed. Darleen walked in and headed straight for the bathroom as Bernie heard a car drive away.

By the time Little Sister came out, Bernie had her shoes on and her wits collected.

Darleen spoke first. “I’m glad you showed up today. I thought you’d be working. My stomach hurts. I’ve got a headache, too.”

“I’m on leave for a while,” Bernie said. She stood and walked toward Darleen. “I need to talk to you. You haven’t been buying groceries or keeping the house up like you promised. And the other day, you smelled like you’d been drinking. You do now, too.”

“So?”

“So I don’t like it. You’re not taking care of this place or of Mama.”

Darleen said, “Mama’s fine. Give me a break. I can’t argue about this now. I need to lie down.”

“You never want to talk about it.”

“That’s right. Why should I? You never listen. You already know everything.”

“What—” Bernie stopped herself. She took a breath. Fighting never got them anywhere. “That one who was here with you that day, is he your boyfriend?”

“He’s a guy I know. I don’t wanna talk about him. I didn’t even want to go with him that day, but he sort of made me. And I don’t want to listen to you nagging me either.”

“What do you mean, he made you? Does he threaten you? Hurt you?” Bernie felt her blood rise hot, ready to go to battle for her little sister. “Nobody has the right to make you do something you don’t want to do.”

“He’s kinda like you,” Darleen said. “He’s got my life all figured out, like you do. You make me do what I don’t want to. You think I want to be here every stinking day? Listening to Mama tell the same stories over and over? So what if I drink a beer or two?”

Darleen wobbled to the couch, stretched out on her back, pulled a pillow over her eyes.

Bernie said, “When you dropped out of high school, you promised to use the time you weren’t helping Mama to study for your GED. Remember? You agreed.”

“Whatever. That was then. I changed my mind. Why bother getting a piece of paper? This is now. I need to have some fun.”

“Fun? You need to live up to your agreement. You need to start taking better care of Mama. And you need to get your GED before you forget what you learned in high school.”

“Shut up!” Darleen wrapped her arms over the pillow. Her voice was muffled. “You come in, handle some little things, go away. I’m here day after stinking day with nothing to do except slave work. Borinnnng.”

“So do something,” Bernie said. “You could spend all the time you save
not
cleaning,
not
shopping,
not
cooking, studying for your test. You’re living here for free, coming out fine, except you think you have to whine and feel sorry for yourself.”

“I’m working on my drawings.” Darleen took the pillow off her head and sat up slowly. “That’s important to me. You are Mrs. Perfect Navajo Police Department, and you know everything. I’m like hired help. My life stinks, but nobody cares.”

Darleen was crying. “What’s the point, anyway? What’s the stupid point? So I get the GED, become a second-class high school graduate. What then? Huh? What do I do? Work? Work where? There’s no jobs here on the rez. Move? No money for that. I’m still stuck here, watching my life crawl by. My art is good, I know it is. But nobody cares about that. Yeah, I like to drink. It’s the only vacation I get.”

Bernie took another deep breath. It broke her heart to see her sister cry, even though she was still mad at her. “I didn’t realize how frustrated you were.”

“And I thought you were the bright one, Big Sister,” Darleen said. “Frustrated? Yeah, right. You ignore my texts. I can never get you on the phone when I want to talk. Whenever I call your house, you’re not there and I talk to the Cheeseburger.”

Bernie said, “You know my hours are weird. Sometimes by the time I get home it’s too late to call. I call back.”

“Hardly ever. Lie as much as you want.”

Bernie swallowed. “Okay. Sometimes I see it’s you and I don’t answer. I’m tired. I’ve dealt with too many upset people. I don’t have the energy to listen to you complain about Mama and how bored you are. But fine. I’ll call you every day. Even if it’s late and I’m exhausted. I promise. You like that?”

Darleen leaned back against the couch. She looked pale. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Your stomach hurts?” Bernie said.

“Yeah. Too much coffee on top of too much beer.”

“I didn’t know you drank coffee.”

“I don’t, but Charley Zah said I should. Maybe that’s what’s making me sick.”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Darleen gave her a dark look. “I told you I don’t have a boyfriend. Babies? Mama gave you that job, having the babies. You’re not doing it very well.”

Bernie went to the pantry and found a box of saltine crackers. Let her anger cool.

“Eat some of these,” she said. “They might help settle your stomach.”

“No, thanks.”

Bernie found her backpack, extracted a roll of Tums. Gave them to Darleen. “You can keep them. Chew a couple. They won’t hurt you.”

Darleen peeled back the paper. “Thanks.”

Bernie said, “I appreciate what you do for Mama. I know—”

Darleen said, “No. You don’t know the first thing about what it’s like here day after day.”

“You want to tell me?”

“I wanna tell you that I can’t do this forever,” Darleen said. “I need to have a life. I need time to do my art.”

“Get your GED,” Bernie said. “That was what we agreed on. You have to take the first step. Then we’ll figure out what’s best for you and for Mama.”

Darleen crunched on the antacid. “Did you know that guy, that retired cop who got killed in Window Rock?”

“He isn’t dead,” Bernie said. “I know him. He’s a sort of friend of mine, more like an uncle or something. He and Chee worked together on some cases.”

“What happened to him?”

“Somebody drove up, shot him, drove away.”

“Just like that, some random freak thing?”

“The FBI doesn’t think so,” Bernie said. “They think the shooter was out to get him.”

Darleen looked at her. “Don’t let that happen to you.”

“I’m off work for a few days, so you don’t have to worry,” Bernie said.

“I’m serious,” Darleen said. “Mama needs you.”

“Mama needs you, too,” Bernie said. “And so do I. I’m sorry if I’m bossy.”

“You’ve always been like this. I guess you can’t help it.” Darleen hugged a throw pillow to her midsection. “I’m going to sleep now.”

Bernie went back to her research. She noticed, on pots from several of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Pueblos, flowers, lizards, bird designs, as well as a stunning variety of geometric forms. She knew archaeologists had discovered pottery in ancient Pueblo kivas. But the book’s text made no mention of research that linked any of the designs to ceremonies or sacred rituals. She found scant references to any of the pots themselves being created for special ritual use. Maybe Davis was right and Leaphorn was just doodling. Or maybe Bernie needed a reference book with better and deeper information.

In a while, Mama was awake and ready for lunch. After they ate, Bernie showed her Leaphorn’s notebook with the triangle drawings. Darleen snoozed on.

“Those drawings are like the old ones made,” Mama said. “The ones who lived at Chaco Canyon.” She looked away from Leaphorn’s pictures. “The man who drew them, was he your friend who got hurt?”

“Yes.”

Mama closed the notebook. “Don’t look at them too long.”

“Are they sacred?”

Mama smiled. “Some say everything natural on this mother earth is sacred.”

Bernie went back to the photographs. She found pictures of canteens and bird effigies, of pictographs and petroglyphs pecked and painted on the Chaco Canyon walls. She found images of centuries-old turquoise and argillite beads and beautiful gaming pieces. Interesting and frustrating. She put the book back on the shelf and took out another. This time, she turned to a page with photos of pottery cylinders.

She read, “Found in Pueblo Bonito, these rare cylindrical jars have flat bases and can stand upright. The small holes or clay loops near the opening indicate that they could hang from a cord and perhaps were used as drums. The asymmetrical geometric black-on-white designs complement the shape, rare in Anasazi pottery.”