Turquoise Girl (17 page)

Blalock nodded. “Maybe Reverend Curtis will let us use his office.”

They were able to use one of the Sunday School classrooms, which had long, cafeteria-style tables. It took over an hour, but they finally managed to find the membership records
they needed. Except for those who’d left the reservation and a few others who’d dropped out for various reasons, the names had remained fairly consistent from year to year. The total number of members, however, had increased slightly over time, consistent with the community population growth.

“The two women who were killed out of state were members in 1994 and left the church when they both
moved away in 1995,” Ella said. “We have a common denominator now.”

“What about Valerie? She wasn’t a member,” Blalock said.

“Not officially, but we already know she was one of the girls who came to church to check out the bad boy.”

“If we can run the names of the men and find out who was the right age, maybe we can ID that bad boy—that is, providing he was an official member of the church.
The problem I’m betting we’ll run into is that most of the men won’t be on police data files. We need someone who can do DMV searches and whatever else is necessary to get the information we need.”

“Teeny,” Ella replied. “Bruce Little.”

“Good thinking. If anyone can do this quickly, he can,” Blalock glanced at Reverend Curtis as he came into the meeting room. “We’ll need to take the lists covering
years 1994 and 1995 with us. They’ll be returned as soon as possible, undamaged and intact.”

“I was told to give you access, but taking anything with you is another matter altogether. I don’t have the authority to okay something like that.”

“Then make the phone calls, Reverend Curtis,” Ella said. “I believe you’ll find out this isn’t a problem.”

When Curtis left the room to make the call from
his office, Blalock glanced down at his hands. “I’ve got a year’s worth of dirt here. I’m going to wash up in the bathroom across the hall.”

Ella nodded and coughed as she dusted herself off. “I could use some fresh air myself. I’m going to step outside for a minute or two. When you’re done, I’ll take my turn washing off.”

Passing Reverend Curtis’s office, Ella walked down the hallway and stepped
out the back door. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh air. As she strolled out onto the church grounds, Ella glimpsed a figure darting behind the cover of some trees on the far side of the irrigation canal.

Immediately on her guard, she moved closer to the tall cottonwood and placed the trunk between the person across the way and herself. It could have easily been a big kid playing along
the ditch bank, but her instincts warned her otherwise and she knew to trust them. They’d saved her on more than one occasion.

Ella watched for a moment longer and saw flashes of a man walking through the tall brush along the far side of the canal. He didn’t seem to be looking her way or acting in any threatening manner. Ella relaxed slightly, telling herself that she was getting way too jumpy.

Suddenly, the man stepped out into the open. Though he stood on the far side of the ditch, she could see him plainly, and he looked familiar. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and was unarmed from what she could see. He appeared to be his late forties or early fifties and had a wide scar that ran across his forehead right above his eyebrows. The Navajo man, taller than most at five foot ten or
eleven, was on the thin side and looked to be in fairly good physical shape.

“We’ve met, you and I,” Ella said coming out of cover. “Refresh my memory. Who are you?”

“Isn’t that something? You’re a cop, yet I know who you are and you don’t know me. Not much of a balance there.”

She recognized the voice and finally made the connection. It was the man she and Justine had seen patronizing Mrs.
Barela’s roadside sandwich operation a few days ago. There’d been the oil field workers and then this guy, who’d been wearing the sunglasses. He was Mr. Beach Navajo, and his sunglasses had hidden that scar. “You’re the man with the sunglasses who’d missed the roadside chow, the one who didn’t know I was a police officer. So enlighten me and identify yourself.”

He laughed. “Good memory, Officer
Clah. But it’ll take more than changing your name to keep the sins of your father from catching up to you. Unless you also change your ways, you’re going straight to hell. Listen and understand—before it’s too late.”

“I’ve got plenty of time—unless you know something I don’t,” Ella countered, wanting to keep him talking while she figured out how to get across the ditch. She wasn’t sure she’d
make it if she tried to jump across. Maybe with a running start from farther back…

“Luck’s been on your side so far, but that won’t last. By interfering at the construction site, you ruined a really good slugfest, you know. But you can’t avoid the Lord’s instrument of justice for ever…remember your mother’s sheep,” he added, grinning.

Ella’s skin went cold and her senses became so acutely alert
she actually
felt
Reverend Curtis coming up behind her before she even heard him.

“Is this man bothering you, Investigator Clah?”

“Don’t get involved in what doesn’t concern you, Reverend,” the man called back at them, his grin now replaced by an angry scowl.

Ella suddenly rushed forward at a full run, intending on jumping the canal. The desire to find out what the man knew about her mother’s
sheep drove her, and she leaped, putting her heart and everything she had into it.

Ella reached the other side—almost. She could touch the top of the embankment with her fingertips, but her feet were only inches above the water level. Fighting to firm up her hold so she could climb up, she dug her fingers into the dirt. She was just about to pull herself up, when a chunk of the embankment broke
away and she plummeted downward into the swirling water.

Ella gasped from the shock of contact with the freezing water, but managed to keep her wits. Letting the current pull her downstream, she grabbed hold of an irrigation pipe and its small gate valve. Her grip firm, she stood atop the pipe, grabbed onto the wheel that controlled the gate, and pulled herself out of the
canal.

By then Blalock was there. “There’s a footbridge right past those trees, Ella. Didn’t even get my feet wet. You okay?”

“Cold, but fine. Go after him. And call for backup,” she added, checking her gear to make sure she had everything.

Working together, Ella and Blalock thoroughly searched the far side of the ditch, but they found nothing, not even tracks on the hard-packed earth.

“What
made you suddenly enter the long-jump competition, Clah? You thought you’d sprouted angel wings or something?”

“Fifteen years ago I would have done that for fun—and I would have made it over without even straining myself,” she muttered.

“Yeah, well, get over it. None of us are as good as we used to be.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ella shot back.

Blalock smiled. “Seriously, what made you think he
was worth the risk of trying to make the jump.”

“The guy knew about the incident that nearly turned the demonstration at the plant into a violent confrontation. He also mentioned the attack on my mother’s sheep. Who would have known that besides the perp, or someone who was with him? The guy has a big cross tattooed on his arm, and he was talking like some die-hard religious nut. We should pull
out all the stops to find him.”

Blalock went to load the boxes of files, and Ella ran back to her cruiser. While she checked on the alert FB-Eyes had put out, she turned on the heater and tried to dry off. Taking a dry pair of socks and boots she kept in the back, she slipped both on, and then went back inside to talk to Reverend Curtis.

“Did you recognize him?” Ella asked the preacher.

“I
know all of our parishioners, and he’s not one of them. But he did mention your father, so based on some of what he said, I assume he has a Christian background.”

“Could he be the bad boy we’re looking for? He was around the right age.”

He considered it for a moment, then finally shrugged. “The person I remember was heavier, I think, and less…scarred.”

“Visualize the man we saw without that
big scar, and fifteen years younger.”

He tried, then shook his head. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I barely remember the days when your father was the preacher here and I can’t visualize someone in the congregation who didn’t really interest me back then. At that age I spent most of my time watching the girls. Church was more a social place to meet my friends. It was before God became
so important to my life.” He paused then added, “I’m sorry.”

“All right, but call me if you think of anything later on. Memory works that way sometimes.”

He nodded. “By the way, the board president said that you’re free to take whatever files and records you need. Agent Blalock is loading them onto a dolly right now.”

“Good.”

Ella went to meet Blalock who was coming out of the front entrance,
pushing a two-wheeled dolly with all four boxes. As they loaded the boxes into her vehicle, Blalock gave her the once-over. “Clah, I know you’re tough as nails, but are you sure you’re okay?”

“My underwear’s soaked, I smell like a swamp, and I’m still pissed, but I’ll live. I’m going to stop by Justine’s and change, then we’ll continue to Lori Neathery’s place. Brewster can wait a bit.”

“Why
don’t you drop me off at my office since it’s on the way? I’ll run the names through NCIC and VICAP, then take the membership records to Bruce Little and let him have a go at them.”

Ella dropped Dwayne Blalock off ten minutes later, then continued on to Justine’s. She changed quickly, and had about reached the door when she ran into her partner, who was coming in.

“I heard some of what happened,
Ella. Are you okay?”

“Sure. Pissed off, but okay. Do you have anything new on the knife or anything else that was left at my mother’s, like the note, or vehicle tracks?”

“No, the perp was really careful,” she said, then after a beat, added, “If we could find out why someone wanted Valerie dead, then I think the rest of it would fall into place.”

Ella nodded lost in thought. “Gilbert Tso is
a liar and thief. He has an alibi, but he might have hired someone else to do the job. Then there’s Brewster, who’s slime and has already admitted he likes to slap women around. There’s this new guy—a troublemaker who apparently knew my father. We have no shortage of suspects. But what we still lack is a clear motive. So we have to keep digging. Why don’t you come talk to Lori Neathery with me?” Ella
asked.

“I’d love to—anything that’ll buy me some time away from the lab. I’m getting cross-eyed looking through that microscope.”

Ella was in the car with Justine when her cell phone rang. It was Clifford. He came right to the point. “We need to talk, sister. I know what happened to Mom’s sheep. The officer who came by gave me the details. But there’s something you need to know. The motive may
not necessarily be connected to you. It appears I’m making some enemies, too.”

Ella felt her muscles tighten. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“It’s this business with the power plant. I’ll explain when I see you.”

Ella glanced at Justine and filled her in. “My brother thinks the attack at Mom’s place may have something to do with his stand on the power plant issue. But I don’t think the
two things are related. After what that guy at my dad’s old church said, I still think I’m at the center of what’s happened.”

Justine considered it for a while. “Let’s look at this from a slightly different angle. What if the person with the scar originally had a beef with your father? Now that your father is out of his reach, that anger is being transferred to his family—you, your mother, and
particularly your brother. In that light Clifford, in particular, becomes a target. He’s a practitioner of a pagan religion. As such, he may be more vulnerable than either of you.”

“That’s a possibility,” Ella said, nodding slowly. “Clifford’s on his guard and he also has police protection, so maybe we’ll get lucky and this guy’ll come after me next. I’d sure love another shot at him.”

“Maybe
we’ll all get lucky and he’ll come after you at my place,” Justine said. “I know three
armed
officers who would love to be there personally to greet him. Shall we send him an engraved invitation?”

Ella smiled. That had been Justine’s way of reminding her that she wasn’t alone, and Ella appreciated it. “Thanks, partner. Now let’s get cracking. We have business at Lori Neathery’s.”

Lori’s home
took over an hour to reach, not because it was so far from Shiprock, but because the roads were all but impassable once they left the main highway. The collection of dirt tracks southwest of Shiprock led through alternating sections of sandy arroyos and tipped beds of sandstone in uneven layers. The ride jolted every bone in their bodies even at the lowest speed.

En route they passed three abandoned
hogans, two with holes punched on the sides to signify a death had occurred there.

“I don’t get it,” Justine said, after maneuvering around a gash in the dirt track that was deep enough to conceal a horse. “Why does anyone live out here?”

“Loneliness doesn’t factor for many of our people. You know that.”

“It’s not about loneliness, Ella, just the basics. If anything happened to you out here,
who would you call? I mean assuming you had a cell phone that actually worked in this area.”

“The older
Diné
live from day to day. If there’s a problem, someone walks or rides their horse to a
hataalii,
and arranges for a Sing. Then you can walk in beauty again. To be honest, Justine, I wish I were more like that. No worries, just take things as they come and do the work the day demands.”

“I
like amenities. I like TV. I like recording my favorite shows. I like hot water,” she answered with a smile. “Guess I’m part of the spoiled generation.”

“We all are. The gods gave us the land between the sacred mountains and for generations that was enough. But now even the most traditional Navajo needs way more than that,” she added pensively.

As they reached a single dwelling in the sloping
terrain leading to the Chuska foothills, Justine reduced their speed to an even slower crawl. They could see an elderly woman they assumed was Lori Neathery up ahead. Her white hair was topped by a cloth scarf tied under her chin, and she was wearing a long, shapeless cotton dress, white socks, and comfortable-looking sneakers. Lori was carrying a metal bucket into a corral containing five
churro
sheep. The enclosure had been formed by blocking off the lower end of a blind canyon with a log fence. There was a rifle propped up against the gate.

They waited in the car until she turned around, waved, and signaled them to approach. “Been having trouble with coyotes who want my sheep,” she said, then added, “I’m Lori Neathery. Reverend Tome said you might come by and talk to me.”

Ella noticed
how she rested her hand on the head of one sheep who’d pushed her neck out between the logs of the fence. These were pets who provided wool.

“Do you weave?” Ella asked, noticing that all the animals had been sheared recently.

Lori nodded. “That’s what I do. I make small rugs to sell to the tourists. The money provides for me and for them, too.”

Ella noticed that the sheep were being fed grain,
something not everyone could afford.

Following her gaze, she added, “When I was a girl we’d take the sheep up to the Lukachukai Mountains in the summer to graze, and in winter they’d have grasses here. But not much rain has come lately, and the land’s tired,” she said. “So am I. But we both keep going.”

She led them inside the sturdy cut stone house, and Ella noted that the woodstove had a fire.
With the heat retaining ability of the stone walls, it was warm and comfortable inside.

“I can guess what brought you here,” she said with a knowing grin. “I’m old, and I know many secrets. Perhaps you’d like me to share some of those with you.”

“Yes, we would.” Ella was having a problem guessing her age but she didn’t think mid-eighties would be out of line.

“People don’t remember nothin’
these days, not even the old stories. But maybe their mothers didn’t teach them what was important.”

Ella had a feeling the comment had been meant as criticism for Rose, but she didn’t take the bait. “I understand that you went to the Divine Word Church when my father was there preaching.”

She nodded. “I didn’t like him very much, your father, that is, just so you know. Didn’t like the way
he’d try to scare people when they missed Sunday services. But I didn’t give him problems, not like some others.”

“Like who, for example?” Ella asked.

Lori looked at Ella for a long time before answering. “You and our new preacher, Reverend Tome…you getting married?”

Ella blinked in surprise and for a moment, she just stared at Lori. “Not that I know of,” she answered at last. “We’re friends,
that’s all. At least for now.”

“That’s not what your eyes are telling me,” she said, laughing. “But this is a good thing. I wouldn’t want the gossip to take away his position in our church.”

“Is his job in danger?” Ella asked, curious now.

She laughed again. “See? You care. That’s
very
good,” she added, nodding. “Okay, you told me something and now I tell you something. It’s balanced that way.
I believe in all that, you know. I guess you can call me a Christian traditionalist.”

Ella smiled, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Justine almost beaming.

“There’s always a first for everything,” Lori said.

Ella nodded. “I was wondering if you could tell me about my father and his church back then.”

She grew serious and her expression, thoughtful. “Your father liked things
just so. Many, mostly the gossips, claimed he was such a dictator at church because at home he couldn’t control his own family. I don’t know about that, but I do know he didn’t like anyone to challenge his authority, and few ever did. Your father could squash any opposition with just a few well-chosen words. But one man went head to head with your father. I remember it because, at first, we all thought
the young man was more of a son to him than his own son was. They were that alike. Then things changed.”

“Do you remember the man’s name?”

She thought about it. “Carson? No, wait. I think it may have been Cain…or Calvin?” She shook her head, then continued. “Can’t be sure about that. The only reason I remember him at all is because he tried to date my niece. I put a stop to it, of course. I
knew he wasn’t what he seemed to be at all.”

“What do you mean?” Ella asked, leaning forward in her chair.

“I overheard him talking to my niece one day. He was telling her that God had a great plan for him and that she could be part of it, if she’d spend a night with him. That’s when I knew he was corrupt. He was handsome and the women just loved him, but there was something evil in him. Like
with Coyote, lying came too easy for him.”

Ella didn’t really understand the comparison, but she waited, sensing Lori had more to share.

“When Coyote met Porcupine, Porcupine lived in a small hut make out of bark. Coyote was hungry but Porcupine had no food to share with him. Knowing that his guest was hungry, Porcupine tore a piece of bark off his hut, pricked his nose using one of his quills,
and allowed the blood to drip onto the bark. After that, he placed it on the fire. When Coyote looked back at it, he saw that the bark had turned into a roast. Coyote ate and had his fill. Then he went to build himself a hut of bark. Then he tried the same method Porcupine used, pricking his nose until it bled, but nothing happened. That was because we’re all different inside and what you expect
isn’t always what you get.”

“Who were his other women?” Ella asked, bringing Lori back on track.

“There were many. I don’t remember their names.”