Black Thunder (18 page)

“What can I do for you officers?” he asked.

“Your partner, Elroy Johnson, has been found—dead,” Blalock said.

Ben’s eyebrows rose. “Come into my office and we’ll talk there,” he said. “I’ve got nothing but time. The construction business has been pretty slow for the past two years because of the recession.”

Leading the way, he took a seat in one of four leather chairs clustered
around a stained oak desk and gestured for them to do the same. The thickly padded chairs were comfortable and plush, and the air-conditioning silent and effective.

“I’ve been following the news,” Ben said. “Is his one of the bodies found over by the Hogback?” Seeing Blalock nod, he continued. “Are you one-hundred-percent sure it was Elroy?”

“Yes. A positive ID has been made,” Blalock said.

“Did he happen to have a large amount of cash on him, or maybe a deposit slip or storage key among his possessions?” Norman asked.

“Nope,” Blalock said.

Ella watched Ben carefully, thinking his question had sounded rehearsed. There was also no grief or regret in his tone.

“Why don’t you tell us about the last time you saw your business partner,” Blalock said.

He nodded slowly, as if expecting
the question. “It was four years ago, but I still remember that day as if it was yesterday. From the moment Elroy walked into the office, he was pushing his new plan. With construction booming, he insisted we branch out and take on more projects, private as well as commercial, even remodels. He wanted Thunderbird Construction to be the number one construction firm in this area and was willing to
do whatever was necessary to make that happen.”

“And you?” Blalock asked.

“My partner was a risk taker, but that’s not the way I like doing business. I didn’t want to gamble on our company’s future. I knew in my gut that the housing bubble wouldn’t last forever and, to me, it made more sense to allow our company to grow slowly and steadily.”

“Did you disagree often?” Blalock asked.

“Yeah,
but if you’re thinking that I had something to do with his death, you’re way off base. I needed him alive—then and now. We didn’t always get along, but we were a good team. I was better making the job sites work smoothly, and he excelled at bringing in new clients.”

“So what happened to the company once he left?” Blalock pressed.

“My partner disappeared overnight, and a couple of business checks
I’d written bounced on me a day or so later. That’s when I had our company’s accounts audited and discovered that the books were short by nearly one hundred thousand dollars. That was almost the exact amount of the loan we’d taken out. I hired an ex-cop P.I. to track Elroy down, but even he wasn’t able to pick up the trail. It was as if Elroy had vanished from the earth—and considering what you
just told me, I guess he had.”

“Did you ever get any leads on the missing money?” Blalock asked.

“No,” Norman answered. “That’s why I was hoping the detective would haul Elroy’s sorry butt back here. Dead, he’s no good to me. You can’t squeeze money from a dead man.”

“You mentioned bringing in an auditor. Did someone else handle finances for your company—an accountant, or bookkeeper, maybe?”
Ella asked, her glance taking in the office. Their business license, with both their signatures, was framed and up on the wall in a prominent location over Norman’s desk.

“We used an accountant to figure our taxes, but we didn’t have a secretary or office staff. Elroy and I were the only ones with access to our money. Either one of us could withdraw funds when needed.”

“Do you know a Navajo
man named Chester Kelewood?” Ella asked.

“The name sounds vaguely familiar. We may have employed him at one time or the other. We hire a lot of construction workers on a job-to-job basis, and sometimes we bring in consultants and subcontractors. Do you want me to check and see if he’s ever worked for us?”

“Do that,” Blalock said.

Norman typed the name into the computer, then after a brief wait,
looked up. “No one by that name shows up. Who is he?”

“Another missing person,” Blalock said.

“You think he knew Elroy?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” Ella answered.

*   *   *

Ten minutes later, as they climbed back into the Bureau’s sedan, Ella glanced at Dwayne. “Norman’s bitter about his situation, but I don’t think he’s our serial killer.”

“I’ll ask Nez to look a little deeper into his
background and see if Norman’s been in contact with anyone on our list of missing persons. It’s still possible he hired someone to off Johnson, so it won’t hurt to find out who he hangs around with.”

“Sounds good,” Ella said. “If we could figure out what triggered the killings, that alone could lead us to a suspect. That once-a-year pattern suggests this is the work of a serial killer acting
out of logic, not impulse.”

“
His
brand of logic,” Blalock said. “What we’ve learned about the first victim may be the key.”

“If we could put the pieces together.”

“We need another brainstorming session. I’ll call Nez and have him join us at my house in Bloomfield. You can call your partner and bring in the rest of your team, if they’re available.”

“I’ll have Justine meet us, but Ralph, Benny,
and Joe need to keep working on that missing person’s list. I’ll also have Justine run a check on Ross Harrison.”

Blalock drove directly to his house outside Bloomfield and forty-plus miles east of Shiprock. As he pulled into the driveway Ella was struck by how much work had been done in the garden. “It’s beautiful, and the flowers look like they’ve been there for years. Everything’s flourishing.”

“They’re all drought-resistant varieties. Ruthann looked into all that. She loves working outside.”

They went inside and Ruthann called out a hello from a room down the hall.

“She’s probably painting,” Blalock said.

Ella followed Dwayne down the hall but stopped at the doorway of what was Ruthann’s artist’s studio. The wall was lined with colorful, realistic watercolor paintings of flowers
and plants.

“You do beautiful work,” Ella said, greeting the short, stocky, blue-eyed blonde. Ruthann looked comfortable wearing jeans and a faded yellow tee-shirt. “I love that one,” Ella added, stepping through the doorway and pointing to one of a native plant with bright green leaves and red berries.

“Come and take a closer look.” Ruthann invited Ella in with an engaging smile. “I’ve retired
from teaching, but art’s still my passion. I do watercolors as a way of relaxing.”

Ella studied the paintings, mostly of desert wildflowers she’d seen since childhood. She immediately recognized the blue and purple asters with their bright yellow centers.

“Do you plan to sell any of these?” Ella asked, knowing Rose would probably love to have one.

“No. If I do that, then it becomes work, and
I’d rather keep it strictly a hobby. I’m always running out of room, so I give most of them away to people I think will appreciate them. Would you like one?” she said, waving her hand around the collection.

Ella glanced back at the first one that had caught her eye. She remembered seeing that plant somewhere before. Though she couldn’t name the variety, the image brought back pleasant memories
of family outings in the Chuska Mountains. “I’d love that one. Do you know the name of the plant?”

Ruthann shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. I just thought it was pretty. There’s one growing out back.”

“Mom will be able to tell me what it is.”

“Is your mom familiar with the local native plants? If she is, I’d love to talk to her. I’d like to know more about what I’m painting.”

Ella told
Ruthann about the Plant Watchers. “Their knowledge is generally passed on from one generation to the next, but these days our younger people are too busy trying to make a living, or have other interests. The Plant Watchers membership is dwindling.”

“Back when I was teaching grade school, we’d often have people from the community come talk to the kids and give presentations. Your mom and I could
do something like that here if she has the time. I could discuss my painting and she could talk about the plants themselves. Do you think she’d be interested in something like that?”

Although she had a feeling Rose would jump at the chance, Ella had been raised never to speak for another. “I’ll bring it up when I show her your painting and have her give you a call,” Ella said, still admiring
the watercolor. “This is just beautiful, Thank you, from both of us.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Blalock came in, brushed a kiss on his wife’s forehead, then smiled at Ella. “Hey, Clah, we gonna work, or are you gonna spend all day chatting?”

There was no anger in his voice so Ella smiled. “I’m ready whenever the others arrive.”

“Nez and Justine showed up while you two were plant-talking,” he
said, turning to wink at Ruthann.

As they walked into the massive den, Ella sighed with envy. This wasn’t that fake laminated wood paneling; the material here was the real thing.

“This must have been the room that sold you on the house,” Ella said, nodding at Dan and Justine, who were already seated.

“I admit that I’ve always wanted a study like this, and when I saw this room it blew me away.
But to answer your question, no, this isn’t why I bought the house. Remember the big windows in the studio? I knew that room would be perfect for Ruthann.”

Ella smiled. There was no mistaking the love in his voice when he spoke of his wife. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she would ever again find that kind of relationship, a love she had shared only briefly, just out of high school, with
her late husband Eugene. Then she brushed the thought aside. She had a wonderful family and a great job. That was enough.

As Ella took a seat next to Justine on a leather sofa, a sturdy-looking bulldog ambled in, snorting and sniffing the air noisily.

“Hey, Cat,” Blalock said, scratching the dog behind the ears before stepping across to a big blue recliner.

“You know the first time I heard
that, I figured it was just a cute name—a dog named Cat,” Ella said.

Dan looked at her, then at Blalock. “It isn’t?”

“No, the dog belongs to my son Andy, a Marine captain. Cat comes from category nine, Marine speak for ultra stupid, he says. I’m taking care of the beast while Andy’s deployed.”

Dan laughed as he reached down to pet the dog, who was sniffing curiously at his new, brown Tony Lama
Boots.

As the dog wandered off with a snort, he brought out his BlackBerry and glanced around the room. “Why don’t I start?” Dan said, then seeing the nods, began. “I’ve been digging through everything our department managed to get on Elroy Johnson. According to sources interviewed at the time he disappeared, Johnson was an honest man with big dreams. Those who knew him flat-out refused to believe
he’d embezzle from his own company and then just walk away—much less leave his wife.”

“What about his personal finances? Do you have anything on that?” Ella asked.

“Our records show that he was overextended, but if he stole that money he also hid it extremely well. There’s no record of it anywhere and his wife never showed any sign of coming into a large sum of money.”

Ella shared what Blalock
and she had learned. “His business partner, Norman Ben, hired a P.I., so I doubt Ben knows where that money is.”

“So it makes sense he’d want to keep a close eye on Johnson’s wife,” Dan said. “But the fact that there’s missing money doesn’t clear him. Let’s say Ben and Johnson had a fight and, during the course of that, Johnson ended up dead. Ben wants his money back, but with Johnson gone, his
only shot at recovering it is via Johnson’s wife. So he focuses on her, hoping she’ll lead him, or Harrison, to it somehow.”

Ella nodded. “Yeah, it sounds plausible, but what possible link could Ben have to the other three victims?”

“They may have been attempts to cover up the first murder—getting rid of people who knew too much, maybe,” Dan said, then shook his head. “No, never mind. The killings
were a year apart and the acts themselves were cold-blooded assassinations. My theory doesn’t add up right.”

“What’d you get on Harrison?” Ella asked Justine.

“The man is ex-FPD, served in the department for nine years, rising to detective, then resigned four and a half years ago and got his P.I. license. He has no criminal record except for a few speeding tickets,” Justine said, looking at
her BlackBerry.

“Why’d he resign?” Blalock asked.

“Personal reasons, according to what I could get. Death of his fiancée. He’s never been married,” Justine added.

“He have a concealed carry permit?” Ella asked.

“Yeah, a Glock 30—a forty-five. Right company, wrong caliber for the killer,” Justine added.

“Glocks are popular. Anything that might suggest a motive?” Dan asked.

Justine shook her
head. “Nothing that jumps out at you. He didn’t have an aggressive reputation, any known prejudices, no flags on his personnel files—at least according to those I spoke to. He’s a dead end right now.”

“He’s a pain in the butt. Too bad,” Ella said. “Let’s move on.”

After another half hour of brainstorming, Ella and Justine headed back to the reservation. The watercolor painting Ruthann had given
Ella was lying flat on the rear seat.

“Mrs. FB-Eyes is a talented artist,” Justine said.

“Yeah, she is, but you know what? Even if she couldn’t draw a figure eight, Dwayne would think she’s brilliant,” Ella said with a smile. “The guy’s in love all over again.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Justine said. “I’m jealous. I’ve never had a guy look at me the way he does her.”

“Maybe you aren’t looking
in the right direction,” Ella said.

“You don’t mean Benny, do you?” she asked, giving Ella an incredulous look.

“Okay, he’s not exactly the longing-looks type,” Ella said, “but he really seems to care about you. It’s there in the way he acts.”

Justine smiled, but said nothing, keeping her eyes on the road.

Ella glanced out the window. To find a perfect someone who fit all your needs, someone
whose life you could also complete, that was the stuff of romance novels. In her experience, relationships were seldom that simple or clear cut.