Death Walker (48 page)

“I know we discussed this before, but I think you should keep in mind that there’s still a chance Furman and Peterson are working together,” Big Ed said.

“It’s not that likely. That’s not the profile of most serial killers. They rarely work with anyone else. Do you think Peterson would trust someone like Furman, or take him into his hiding places, or let him know who any
of his followers are? Peterson is too smart to deal with a psycho. According to his grandmother, Furman would eventually target Yazzie anyway. Peterson would have figured that out too.”

“You’re right. Peterson is an ex-cop, and that stays with a person. He might have been judged crazy by the courts, but he’s certainly not stupid.” Big Ed glanced at the clothing that lay on Ella’s desk. “I wonder
how soon Peterson will show up. I hope we won’t have to wait long. I’d like him in custody and out of the way as soon as possible.”

“The morning news will broadcast at six-thirty, an hour and a half from now, and the papers will hit the stands shortly after that. Depending on how close he is to Naomi’s hogan, I expect him to strike soon afterwards. He knows the terrain around there like the back
of his hand, and he’s taken tactical training. Providing he has adequate transportation and weapons, and I think he probably has both, we shouldn’t have too long a wait.”

“He won’t expect you to be alone. I wonder how he plans to get around that.”

“He’ll undoubtedly use trickery to get through my screen of officers, and count on striking before we’re ready for Brownhat.”

“You’ll have the best
team with you.”

“Then let’s get moving. I’ll park behind good cover and carry my disguise in. I want Peterson to know for sure that it’s me impersonating Naomi, so I won’t be changing clothes until after I’m there. Just one more thing. Remind the others that it’s possible Peterson got early word about the press release and is already in position, ready to strike. Having two of our officers out
there all night doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t manage to circumnavigate them.”

Ella picked up her disguise, patted her pocket to verify the badger fetish was with her, then went to the parking lot. The time had come to confront her enemies. Fear made her mouth feel as dry as the sand that surrounded her. She had no wish to die, but the possibility was inescapable. Forcing herself to concentrate
on the details of their plan, she placed her key in the ignition and began the journey.

TWENTY-SIX

Ella made no effort to hide her arrival at Naomi Zah’s hogan, and everyone had been briefed. Peterson’s ability to alter his appearance had been explained to each officer. The last time Ella had faced him in a deadly confrontation, when she’d arrested and sent him to jail, he’d almost managed to fool even her by appearing as an elderly woman.

Today, despite the care taken to make
her appear a good target for Peterson, she wouldn’t be alone. She took comfort in that. The majority of the police officers would be “hiding” where an experienced hunter like Peterson could spot them. They were to allow Peterson to evade them, maintaining radio silence unless they came under individual attack. The key was to make it hard, but not impossible, for Peterson to get through. The frightening
thing, Ella realized, was that Yazzie probably would have been able to elude them anyway.

Only Justine and Big Ed would maintain surveillance on the hogan from carefully selected places of concealment nearby. Just to make sure she’d get some advance warning, Ella had ordered hidden video cameras set up, covering the area around the hogan for fifty yards. If anyone approached, the cameras would
record them. Peterson’s skinwalker powers of illusion and misdirection might confuse a human being’s senses; the camera, however, could not be tricked as easily. It was a totally objective adversary that had a greater chance of remaining unseen while it continued its relentless monitoring.

Ella walked around the hogan several times, performing Naomi’s routine chores. Although she made sure she
was visible, she always stayed close to cover. The time she spent waiting inside the hogan was the more difficult. The morning was cool, but curiously silent. She tried to let her fear work for her, attuning her senses. She had the battery-powered camera monitors there inside the small hogan and kept her eyes on them, searching, vigilant.

Minutes ticked by. Three hours passed. She had expected
Peterson to act by now, or at least to show some sign of his approach. The stillness grated on her nerves. Suddenly, as she watched the monitors, she caught a flicker of a shadow. For a moment she wasn’t sure if she’d really seen it at all.

Her muscles tensed and she scarcely breathed. The next camera would be only yards from the hogan. She kept her eyes on the monitor and saw Peterson pass by,
his body blending in well against the junipers and sagebrush.

Yazzie had selected his clothing with the precision of a soldier going on an assault, and would be hard to spot even out in the open. She checked the clip on her nine-millimeter pistol, reached down to touch the fetish in her pocket, then set a pot on the stove loudly, the clanking metal a warning sign for Big Ed and Justine.

Ella
pressed her back to the thick log wall as she stood beside the entrance. An explosion, a short distance to the north, shook the hogan, loosing dust into the air and tossing Ella to the dirt floor.

Chaos erupted all around, and she heard loud voices everywhere. As she tried to scramble to her feet, the opening of the hogan went dark for a second, then Peterson slipped inside. He spun around in
the semidarkness as if sensing her presence behind him and threw a cloud of fine white dust into the air.

Ella rolled behind the stove and held her breath, but she reacted a second too late. Everything in the hogan started to slant as if she were on a boat during a storm. She wanted to fire her pistol, but her finger was suddenly frozen in place.

Peterson’s laugh was low and deadly. “Now, it’s
time.”

Through a slow-motion haze, she saw Peterson approach. He reached for the long dagger at his waist. “For you, Ella, the end will be quick. Your family won’t be so lucky. First will come their capture, then, eventually, their deaths.”

Before he could take another step, she saw the outline of a small figure in the doorway.

“Stop!” Justine’s voice cracked in the hogan like a whip.

“Okay.
Relax. You’ve won.” Peterson turned around slowly, then with a flick of his wrist sent the dagger flying. It struck Justine just above her armored vest, near the collarbone. Crying out in pain, she fell to her knees, the pistol dropping out of her hands.

Ella felt as if her body was frozen. Yet seeing the attack on Justine allowed her to summon strength beyond the power of Yazzie’s drug. Swinging
her pistol around, she fired three times.

Peterson stared at her in surprise as he crumpled to his knees. “I misjudged you. You are strong…” His voice faded, and he fell facedown.

Blood stained the packed sand, flowing quickly into a growing pool that coated the parched floor. Ella stumbled to where Justine was. Her cousin sat leaning against the hogan wall. She’d pulled out the dagger and was
holding one bloody hand over the wound, her recovered pistol in the other. Big Ed rushed into the small room, pistol in hand. Surveying the scene in a glance, he quickly pulled out his radio. He called for paramedics and notified his officers to verify each other’s safety, then assemble near the hogan.

Crouching next to Justine, Big Ed lifted the handkerchief Ella had given her and studied the
wound. “You’ll be okay, young lady. You were quick to react, and lucky as well. The knife missed your artery, thank God!” He glanced up at Ella, who was standing unsteadily behind him. “What the heck happened here, and what’s that strange odor?”

“I don’t know,” Ella admitted. At least the room had stopped spinning like a child’s wind-up toy. “He threw some powder in the air, then everything went
crazy.”

Big Ed nodded, understanding. “Go outside. I’ll stay with Justine.”

Giving Justine an encouraging smile, Ella stepped out into the open. She took several deep gulps of the cool morning air. Although it helped, her legs still felt rubbery. As she leaned against the side of the hogan, Peterson’s last threat echoed in her mind.

Ella hurried back inside the hogan, and Big Ed looked up,
startled. “Send more people to the hospital.” She quickly explained what Peterson had said would happen.

“All right. We’re also going to have to release the press statement now, to announce an arrest. The news has to reach Furman soon if we’re going to try to enact phase two of your plan. If we don’t act now, we’ll lose our advantage. Are you up to it?” Big Ed stepped out of the hogan and allowed
Officer Philip Cloud to enter with a first-aid kit.

Ella forced herself to focus on the job that remained to be done. “Yes. Let’s finish this. We’ll clear out as soon as the paramedics take Justine in. Then I’ll release the story that the Packrat, our serial killer, has been caught, but withhold news of any death, or he’ll know that Naomi would never return here. We’ll also withhold any ID on
the suspect, saying that we’re awaiting final confirmation of the Packrat’s identity.”

“The big headlines and TV program interruptions should enrage Furman,” Big Ed said. “It’s obvious from the newspaper clippings he had hidden in his apartment that he wants all the attention he can get. He won’t want to share it with some impostor. Hopefully he’ll come here and try to strike tonight or tomorrow
morning. It’ll get really tough if he remains calm enough to wait.”

“His ego won’t let him wait long,” Ella said. “He’ll have to prove to us again how clever he is, and how stupid we are. He needs that as much as you and I need air to breathe.”

Ella looked down at her youthful partner. Officer Cloud had Justine’s bandage in place and had convinced her to lie down on his jacket.

“Justine won’t
be here to back us up,” Big Ed said, pointing out the obvious. “Who do you want here instead?”

“Officer Neskahi knows this area better than all of us. I think he’ll want this opportunity.”

As the paramedics arrived, Ella and Big Ed moved farther away, letting them get on with their work. Ella saw Officer Cloud move as far away from the hogan as he could while remaining within sight of Ella and
Big Ed. Now that Peterson had died here, Naomi would not be returning to the hogan. Everyone else would stay away too once word got around. Peterson’s
chindi
would be feared far more than Peterson’s abilities as a skinwalker ever had been.

Ten minutes later, certain Justine was stabilized, the paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her to the ambulance.

Before they could place her
inside, Justine reached for Ella’s hand. “I did okay, right?”

Ella smiled. “You saved my life. I don’t think it gets more okay than that. Get that shoulder healed and get back on the job soon. I need you.”

*   *   *

Ella, now out of her disguise, weathered the pandemonium at the press conference with Big Ed by her side. The details they gave the reporters fueled a frenzy of questions that left
her exhausted by the time it was finally over.

Afterward, Big Ed led her down the hall to her office. “I think I’d rather face an armed opponent.”

“Funny. I was just thinking the same thing.” Ella dropped wearily into her desk chair.

“I spoke to Officer Neskahi. He’ll back us up. I’ll have patrol units in the vicinity, but no one close. We don’t want to spook Brownhat.”

“The three of us will
be able to handle this. Furman will want to approach and catch me unawares, so he can follow through on his usual style of killing.”

“The monitors are still there, and the cameras. Their batteries are being recharged now. They served us well before, so I figured they could do so again.”

“Naomi Zah goes outside her hogan each night to do her stargazing. I’m going to follow her usual pattern.
I’m not as worried about a high-powered rifle with Furman as I was with Peterson.”

“Once he gets close, he’ll recognize you.”

“True, but by then, he’s ours.”

Big Ed nodded once. “We’ll go out there separately and sneak our way in from different directions. Just remember that we’re in this together. We’ll take him down as a team.”

Ella watched Big Ed leave her office. The reporters were already
long gone, hurrying off to get their stories into print. Ella called the hospital and asked for her mom. After several minutes, Rose picked up the phone.

“Are you all okay?” Ella asked.

“There’s been no trouble. We have extra men here now,” her mother answered noncommittally. “And your cousin is here in the next hall, right by the children’s ward, with an officer by her door. She’s asleep now,
but she’ll be fine.”

Ella breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Take care of everyone. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Remember what I warned you about?” Rose’s voice was whisper soft.

“About the danger to all of us?” Ella asked.

“It still exists,” Rose answered.

Ella felt her skin prickle. “Keep the officers right there, and Clifford. No one can strike in such a public place when you’re under
such tight guard.” She knew her mother’s predictions were invariably true, but logic dictated that for now it would be all right. “Tell no one but Clifford that our old enemy is finally dead. My work isn’t over yet.”

“I understand.”

Ella hung up the phone as Big Ed came in. “It’s time.”

Ella nodded, and followed him out to the parking lot. Big Ed drove away first and she followed five minutes
later.

The late afternoon heat set her nerves on edge. She was tired. Despite several cups of coffee, lack of sleep and tension were catching up to her, and at the worst possible time. She aimed the air-conditioner vent directly at her face. The blast of icy air helped.

By the time she reached the rough juniper and piñon plateau, it was the hottest part of the day. She parked her vehicle a few
hundred yards off the highway, got into her disguise, then began the mile walk to the hogan. Heat blazed against the rocks and sand, and the body armor beneath her blouse accentuated every degree.