Death Walker (25 page)

“I hope not, but I am doing all I can to nail this killer. The other things—well, they’re beyond my ability to prevent, or fix.”

A car behind Ella honked and she realized she was blocking the way. “Gotta go. Talk to you later.”

“Sure. Say hi to Justine for me, okay?” Furman stepped back and waved again as Ella drove past.

Moments later, Ella
was on her way to the station. Picking up her mike, she checked on Justine’s whereabouts and asked to be patched through. Justine seemed eager to meet as soon as possible. After agreeing to rendezvous at the Totah Café, Ella racked the mike. Justine was on the trail of something. Ella could tell from the change in her assistant’s tone. Curious, she pressed a little harder on the accelerator.

Twenty minutes later, they met at the coffee shop. Justine was already sitting at a table that faced the room, waiting with coffee and two slices of pecan pie. “You’ve got to try this pie, boss. It’s excellent.”

Ella smiled as she sat down. Taking a bite, she found her assistant was right. “Do you have something for me
besides
the best pie around?” she teased.

“Well, I asked Vernon Kelewood to
check the list of items his teacher had with him when he died. He did, and noticed something was missing.” Justine’s voice rose slightly.

“According to Kelewood, his teacher always carried a special piece of abalone shell in his medicine pouch. It was supposed to have special healing powers.” Justine shifted, leaning forward conspiratorially. “The shell was not there—not in the pouch, and not
in the area. We did a thorough grid search the other day, even raked through the sand in several places. Had it been there, we would have found it,” Justine assured her.

“You think the killer took it with him,” Ella concluded, nodding slowly. “It’s very possible.”

“And guess what else I found out. The historian was missing a page from his notebook. Our killer is taking souvenirs from his victims,”
Justine said.

“Or maybe he views them more as trophies,” Ella answered. “Anything else?”

“Well, nothing as intriguing as what I’ve just told you. I did complete a background search on all the people who attended the historian’s lectures. Not everyone has an alibi—in fact few do—but none of them has a criminal record. I’m now checking to see who may have a connection to both victims. Oh, and
one last thing: I did find out that the Singer was approached by the college to teach classes on traditional Navajo medicine.”

“What was his answer?” Ella asked.

“He refused to teach just anyone to become a Singer. He insisted that wasn’t the way it was done. But he would teach classes
about
Singers. He would tell about their lifestyle, what was expected, how difficult the training was, and
why some chose to follow that life path anyway.”

“Was the fact he’d been asked common knowledge?”

Justine hesitated. “Everyone in administration knew. One of the secretaries said that she was asked to do a course description of it for the fall catalog.”

Ella considered everything she’d learned. “I sure wish that the trail to the killer was a little more clear cut. All these bits and pieces
still don’t map it out enough.” She exhaled softly. “The next thing I’m going to do is bring mug books over to Naomi’s and see if she recognizes anyone.” Ella paused. “I sure wish we had a police artist available. Ever since we got that computer graphics program that allows us to generate sketches of suspects, we haven’t kept anyone on the payroll. It does a great job with Anglos, but that program
has a hard time creating images of Navajos.”

“I have a friend who’d help. He’d stay quiet about it too.”

“Who?”

“Victor Charlie.”

“You want me to go to a cartoonist?”

“He does caricatures and portraits too,” Justine said. “He sketches well, and fast. He’s got the skill, believe me.”

Ella considered Justine’s suggestion. “Do you think he’d agree to go with us to Mrs. Zah’s hogan? I think
this would work better if we brought him to her, rather than the other way around.”

“I can ask.” Justine shrugged.

“Good. You take care of that while I go find Officer Joseph Neskahi.” Ella dropped a few bills on the table. “Let’s get busy.”

FOURTEEN

As the road stretched out before her, Ella planned her meeting with Neskahi carefully. The request she wanted to make was going to be tough on him, but she needed his cooperation. Her dealings with Naomi Zah would become easier if she could get Neskahi to do things her way. Yet this wasn’t something she could ever order him to do.

Ella went through the dispatcher and got a location
on Officer Neskahi. After being patched through, she arranged to meet him back at the station.

Thirty minutes later, Ella was in her office, waiting. The areas the tribal cops patroled were vast, and backups were not always possible. She knew of the long hours and dangers the officers faced constantly, and wouldn’t have second-guessed any of them under normal circumstances. But she had no choice
now.

Officer Joseph Neskahi came through her office door just as she closed the folder on the report he’d filed.

“You wanted to see me, Investigator Clah?”

Joseph Neskahi was a young but experienced officer with a lot of energy. He was built like a safe—square, hard, all planes and sharp angles. “Have a seat, Joseph,” Ella invited him.

He sat down stiffly and stared at her. “Is there a problem
in my patrol area, or with one of my reports?” He glanced down at the folder on her desk.

“No, I just need some information from you. The matter came up as I was conducting our two homicide investigations. I’ve been tracking down every lead, though there are precious few of them.”

Neskahi nodded and seemed to relax a little. “I’ve heard about the killings. What has that to do with me?”

“You
investigated the assault on Naomi Zah a few months ago. Tell me what you remember about it.”

He shook his head somberly. “I took Mrs. Zah’s statement, but there was no physical evidence except the bruises on her neck. By the time we were called in, there were no footprints or vehicle marks, nothing we could follow up on. The wind had covered everything by then. The only thing I had was her description
of the suspect, and it was much too general. I was looking for a young Navajo with long hair and a scraggly beard who smelled funny. I checked with local mechanics and painters, even a guy who sprayed houses for bugs. I didn’t get anywhere. I went to see her after that. I told her that she hadn’t given me much to work with, and that there was nothing more I could do. She got angry, but I
couldn’t change the facts.”

“Any gut feelings about it?”

“At the time, the only thing I could figure was that she was trying to find a way to get Raymond Zah to stay home. From what I’d heard, he had a habit of going off on his own for several days at a time, drinking. It was still winter, and I think she was worried about him. If you’ve been out to that hogan, you know it’s in the middle of
nowhere. He’s the only company she has out there.”

“But now you’re not so sure?”

“We don’t have violent crimes out here very often. The murders put a new perspective on that case.”

“She had the impression that you thought she was lying.”

He shook his head. “No, I told her that she should have called us in sooner. Mrs. Zah didn’t report the crime until the next day, when she went to town. By
that time, the trail was gone.”

“It would help me out a lot right now if you’d stop by there and talk to her. Can you do that?”

“Talk to her about what? I was right. There was no physical evidence.”

“Oh, I know you were right. But I need her to cooperate with me, and she’s not going to do that easily if she thinks we didn’t do all we could to protect her before. Maybe you can reassure her that
you never doubted her word, that kind of thing.”

“I
did
increase my patrols in her area,” he said slowly. “Maybe it would help if I told her that.”

“Have you maintained those extra patrols?”

“No. I stopped a while back, when there was no other trouble.”

“Start again.”

“Do you think she’s a target of a killer? Do you think he’s the one who attacked her before?”

“I don’t know, and that’s precisely
my point.”

“Okay. I’ll go talk to Mrs. Zah this afternoon. Maybe she’ll calm down a little when she hears I kept an eye on her before.”

“Point out that you’ll be around again,” Ella suggested, “so if anything happens she should call in immediately.”

“Problem is she has no phone out there. I don’t think she has the money for a two-way radio either.”

“We’ll provide her with a CB radio, then.
Get the one the Hit-and-Run officer used on that truck driver case. Take it there and show her how to operate it.”

“On whose authority?” Neskahi asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Sign it out in my name. I can authorize this as part of our ongoing investigation. I’ll tell Big Ed just as soon as I see him, since he wants to be kept current.”

“Bringing her that phone should certainly help me smooth
her things over with her,” he conceded.

“Do me a favor, will you? Tell her that I’ll be by later to talk to her.”

“Sure thing.”

As Neskahi left her office, Ella stared at the sheet of paper before her. Today she had dropped a note by Big Ed’s office to fill him in on her plans. Now she had to update him on current and future action. She began listing her next moves when Justine came in.

“I
managed to get hold of Victor, our artist. He wants to cooperate, but his truck won’t start.” Justine chuckled. “When you see his truck, you won’t be surprised.”

“So he wants us to pick him up and take him to Naomi’s?” Ella asked, and saw Justine nod. “That’s not a bad idea. I was going to suggest it anyway. I’d like to speak with him first to brief him on what we need to know.”

“Do you want
me to take you both? My unit is a lot newer than that old interagency car you’ve been saddled with. Victor lives in an area that’s crisscrossed with sandy arroyos and big boulders. You never know what’s right underneath the surface. But I’ve been there before so I can pick my way through.”

“If anything else happens to whatever vehicle I’m in, yours or mine, Big Ed’s going to have my hide pinned
to his wall. How confident are you we won’t get stuck or rip out an oil pan?”

Justine bit her bottom lip pensively. “The odds with me at the wheel are in our favor, but there are no guarantees. The reason Victor’s truck is a mess is because of where he lives.”

Ella sighed. “We’ll go at a snail’s pace then, and walk in part of the way if we have to. I
don’t
want to have to explain why our two-officer
section has lost another vehicle.”

“Clear. I’ll drive
very
carefully.”

Ella took five minutes to finish updating her report for Big Ed and then dropped it off at his office. They were under way moments later. Justine made good speed on the highway, but twenty minutes later she turned off, heading down a dirt road that quickly became more like two wagon ruts. She downshifted, then inched along
slowly.

“At least there’s no way we’re going to get stuck here. The ground is as hard as asphalt. Is this part of the old Santa Fe Trail?” Ella joked.

“The terrain will change soon. We still have to cross a big, dry arroyo.”

“This guy’s really young. Why the heck does he live out here so far from everything?”

“You’d have to know Victor to understand. He’s a bit on the eccentric side. He used
to live in Shiprock, but people would drop by during the day. Since he works at home, the interruptions began to affect his concentration. He decided that the simplest answer was to move someplace where no one who wasn’t extremely motivated would want to drop by. One of his uncles gave him some sheep and helped him set up a prefab house out on a little mesa. He’s got a generator for electricity
and he heats with LP gas. Almost no one visits so he’s totally happy out here.”

As they approached a wide, dry-looking wash, Ella loosened her seat belt and peered ahead. “No way. We’ll get stuck in that sand, and we’ll have to send for help. Can we walk from here?”

Justine pulled to a stop. “We could, but it’s about a mile of rough hiking.”

Ella considered the heat. It was nearly noon. “Have
you driven across this before?”

“Yeah, sorta. I got over halfway before I sunk. I had to get Victor to tow me out. Today that wouldn’t be possible.”

Ella took a deep breath and muttered a curse. “We’ll walk.”

It took them thirty minutes of hiking, then a rugged uphill climb to finally get to the top of the mesa. Through weeds and brambles, Ella could see a small structure in a clearing below
them. The house stood amidst sand and rocks, a solitary outpost against the beaten earth. A bit farther away, she could see an empty sheep pen. In a low spot of the mesa were about fifty sheep munching on the dry grasses and brush.

“At least it’s downhill from here,” Ella commented.

“You’ve seen his sheep. Did I tell you about Toad Dog?” Justine smiled.

“What is that? Some sort of fable?”

“No, it’s his dog. Toad Dog looks after the sheep, but that isn’t how he got his name. He likes to play with toads, but never kills them, though I’m sure some of them have died of fright. TD—that’s what he’s called for short—is about the size of a small pony, and all hair. He’s Victor’s buddy, so try not to say anything against him even if he drools on your pant leg. He’s been known to back people
up against a tree if they misbehave.”

“Wonderful,” Ella answered sarcastically. Is there anything else you might have neglected to tell me?”

Justine shook her head. “No, not that I can think of offhand.”

As they descended the hillside, Ella heard something rustling through the cluster of stunted junipers to her left. Expecting a sheep, she jumped when a huge black beast appeared. It looked
like a bear, but they usually didn’t come down from the mountains during years when the forage was good.

Justine knelt down on the ground and reached out her arms. “Hiya TD, did you come to show us the way in?”