“I presume my partners and I will fail to find acceptance and cooperation from the members of the tribe, the tribal police, the tribal leaders, the FBI, the assistant US attorney, or last but not least, the murderers.”
“You are a quick study, McGee. You have pretty much nailed it. Are you willing to get on board for such an exciting and profitable opportunity?”
“If you weren’t such a silver-tongued and persuasive devil, I would probably refuse on general principles; but, in all seriousness, my old friend, I recognize the quandary and will be happy to help.”
Lt. Begay’s second call is to the Yazzie Transportation Company, headquartered in Phoenix.
“Yazzie Transportation, to whom shall I direct your call?” the dispatcher asks.
“This is Lt. Naalnish Begay of the Navajo Department of Criminal Investigations in Window Rock, Arizona. This is an official call. Put me through to the CEO Asdzáá Yazzie.” He adds, “please,” as an afterthought.
“He’s in a conference. I will leave him a message, Lieutenant. I will ask him to call back.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I need to talk to him now. If I don’t, then I will come with a warrant and will shut down operations of your company until I am satisfied that I have all of the information I need, no matter how long it takes.”
“I’ll try,” the dispatcher says.
She does not like the tone of the police officer. They are all alike, she thinks.
Naalnish waits five minutes wondering if he has been cut off.
“This is Yazzie,” the gruff voice of the company owner says. “I presume this is to do with the murder of my wife, Bertha; how can I help?”
“I apologize for interrupting your work and for bothering you during this period of mourning, but I need to have an official interview with you back in Blue Mesa at the substation. Would you please meet me there tomorrow, say ten o’clock?”
“Sure. I would very much like to be brought up-to-date on your progress, Lt. Begay. I will rearrange my schedule.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, sir.”
The third call is to Utah State Highway Patrol Sergeant Cliff Moon’s cell phone somewhere in the vicinity of Navajo Lake, Utah.
“Moon,” the trooper answers.
“Cliff, this is Naalnish down here in the Painted Desert. As you would readily guess, it’s about the Sialea-lea Biakeddy case. Do you have some kind of list of people I can interview up there?”
“As promised. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. I wonder if it’s worth the trip up here.”
“For reasons that wouldn’t be obvious, I need to do it; and I need for there to be a solid public record that I did.”
“I can read between the lines; politics as usual, no?”
“Something like that. How many people do you have?”
“Eight that are even remotely likely to have something useful. She’s a widow for over twenty-five years. No known SOs [significant others] if you know what I mean. No real enemies. She has been doing good grandma stuff and a little community work, like Indian help projects since her husband died.”
“Does she have a will?”
“Yeah. Her kids are well fixed. She leaves some art treasures to each of them—three total—and the bulk of her holdings goes to a Navajo charity. I can’t remember the exact name of it, but it’s on the res. Has to do with helping Navajo and Hopi kids learn real education stuff—American things instead of just Indian lore. No offense meant.”
“None taken. Please get me a copy of the will, and bring the family, anybody involved in that charity, and anybody around who might have been protesting it. Even if the local medicine man hasn’t been protesting, would you ask him to come by for a meet?”
“I’ll get my guys and the local fuzz out to round them up. Probably best if we meet in the trooper headquarters in Cedar City. We can accommodate them there. Okay with you?”
“More than okay. I’ll owe you a favor,” Naalnish says.
“I’ll take you up on that. Sometimes it is pretty tough to chase somebody onto Navajoland. We can always use a little insider help.”
“I’ll do what I can do, but your description is probably right on—‘a little help.’ I’m about as popular as a Buffalo Soldier on the reservation at the moment.”
“Been there, done that. Politics!” Moon almost spat the word.
The Yazzie Transport Company helicopter lands on the helipad behind the Blue Mesa City Navajo Division of Public Safety substation. Asdzáá Yazzie and his pilot get out, duck down, and hurry to the back door of the police offices. It is quarter to ten.
“Thank you for coming so soon. Can I get you anything—coffee, tea, a soft drink?”
“No, I’m good,” Asdzáá says, secretly a little proud that he is picking up the Anglo phrase of the day among the youth.
“I won’t waste your time, Mr. Yazzie.”
“You can call me Asdzáá,” Yazzie says.
“Good. I’m Naalnish. This is Henry Greywolf, my associate for today. It will be necessary to be quite formal today. We will videotape your interview. That okay?”
Yazzie frowns briefly, but easily agrees.
Why not, I have nothing to hide. We can get this over with and the cops can get back out there after the real killer, he thinks.
Patrolman Greywolf takes the lead to get a complete bio on Yazzie. It is done just as Lt. Begay ordered earlier that morning—repetitious, highly detailed, and highly personal.
Naalnish takes over once the formalities are recorded.
“Does your wife have a will, Mr. Yazzie?” he asks to start.
“Yes. We both do … did.”
“Who is the benefactor of your wife’s will?”
“Half goes to me, a fourth goes to our three children who have flown away from the res and anything to do with Indians. They’re now Americans,” he says and emphasizes the word ‘Americans’ as if it were a pejorative. “The final fourth goes to the Save the Minds of the Navajo Children NGO she and I and a few friends established. It’s an effort to help our kids learn enough to be able to get advanced education or skilled jobs and to be able—if they want—to live successfully on or off the res.”
“How much money does that involve?”
“All parts of the will?”
“Please.”
“A million to me, 175k to each of the children, and that much for the charity.”
“How are your finances, Mr. Yazzie?”
“Fine. Business is good. We survived the Great Recession because we had some savings, and now we can hardly keep up. Why do you ask?”
“Any temporary liquidity problems, sir?”
“No. And no, I do not need Bertha’s money. I am the source of the vast majority of it anyway. She just liked the independence it gave her. I had no bone to pick with her over what she did with the money. And I don’t like the implication you are making. I did not kill my wife to get her money!”
He is visibly disturbed.
Naalnish remains calm. Whatever else his law enforcement skills are, his ability to interview suspects is unequaled by anyone else in the Navajo Nation Police Department. Part of that skill is his highly touted icy calm under pressure and under fire.
“No one suggests that you did. But—along that line—can you account for your whereabouts when Bertha was killed? I can tell you that it was around sundown day before yesterday—between six-thirty and seven, thereabouts.”
“I knew you’d ask; so, I brought my alibi with me. This is my truck record for the past two weeks. I marked the pertinent page with a paper clip. You are looking at the computer record of where I was that day from eight in the morning until eight at night. This is a Xerox copy of my hotel bill from the AmericInn Cody, Yellowstone, about a mile from downtown Cody, Wyoming. And, finally, here is a copy of the Cody Enterprise News dated that day.”
Naalnish peruses the copies of the documents. The truck log is specific both to the truck and to the driver. In order for the
record to be made, the thumbprint of the driver must be on every page, and it must be placed there between ten and noon each day of driving. The driver is obligated to wear a wrist device that monitors a stream of ECG, blood pressure, and pulse rate as the trip progresses, which is almost as good an identifier as fingerprinting. The thumbprint identifier also includes an alcohol Breathalyzer test—all a formal part of the record. At the time of Bertha’s death, Asdzáá Yazzie was behind the wheel of his sixteen-wheeler twelve miles east of Cody on Highway 14, going a little over the permitted speed for the company’s trucks in order to get his rig parked before the mandatory curfew of seven p.m.
“I’m the CEO. I can fudge a little on the speed, but I can’t be on the road after curfew. That’s company policy and Wyoming state law,” Yazzie says.
“I’ll have to check all of this,” Lt. Begay says.
“Knock yourself out. I have nothing to hide,” Yazzie says.
Once again he has a small tickle of pride for his knowledge of pop culture lingo.
“Did you get along well with your wife, Mr. Yazzie?”
“Got along fine.”
His face betrays just the slightest flicker of reaction. He looks away from Lt. Begay’s gaze for a fraction.
“There seems to be some hesitation, sir. Would you care to rephrase your response? Let me remind you that this is a formal videotaped interview, and it or any part of it may be used in evidence.”
Naalnish’s gaze is steady. His obsidian eyes hold Asdzáá Yazzie’s captive.
“Well … yeah … we were having a spot of trouble between us. I presume you’ve gotten hold of her e-mails … probably both of our e-mails. Nothing important. Just a disagreement over her involvement in the charity. I thought she was taking too many chances. I was on the road, and I didn’t like her being alone without my protection. She got some threats from some loonies on the res. People who hated change and hated her for teaching regular subjects in the school. They wanted to go back to the thirteenth century before the whites ever came to America—specifically back to before 1491.”
“I’ll get back to that. First, tell me about your disagreements with Bertha—the stuff you two wrote about in your e-mails to each other.”
“Like I said, not much to tell. I told her I didn’t like her taking chances, even if she was a true believer in her cause to get the Navajo students educated in the real world outside the reservation.”
“Once again, Mr. Yazzie, let me remind you that everything you say is being recorded; and you may come to regret what you just said when you see and hear a replay of this videotape in a court of law. Try again.”
Asdzáá grinds his teeth and looks down sheepishly.
“Give me a break. This is tough, embarrassing. I know you have the e-mails; read them back to me; and I’ll try to give you an explanation. How about you ease off on the threats. I’m having a hard time getting over my wife of nearly forty years. Cut me some slack.”
“Mr. Yazzie, this is a murder investigation. ‘Cutting slack’ is not part of the routine. Now I’m going to read three of your e-mails and three responses from Bertha. Let me know what you were thinking.”
Naalnish chose a series of e-mails apparently sent between the marital couple indicative of some considerable underlying marital discord—mutual accusations of marital infidelity, equally strongly worded criticisms of how and how much each spends from their shared bank accounts. One particularly telling and very recent e-mail has Bertha suggesting that her husband may be embezzling from the truck company.
Yazzie looks as if he might cry. He is crestfallen and obviously embarrassed.
“What can I say? I did have a one-night-stand a couple of months ago while I was out on the road. I confessed, and she rubbed my nose in it. Wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let me apologize. She made me feel like a bug pinned to a cork board.”
“Did she want a divorce?”
“No, nothing as drastic. Not even a separation. At least not a legal separation. For a while we have been going our separate ways. For the first time in our entire married life we squabbled about money. She was just mad and using my expenses as a club to beat me with. As you likely already know, I had little to say back to her. I didn’t want to hurt our marriage any more than I had already done.”
“What about her accusation that you were embezzling from the company?”
“When the big recession hit, I had to move some money around to make ends meet. The accounting got to be kind of creative. The actual truth of it was that I shifted some money from our personal accounts—most of it from hers—to cover up the shortfalls. I certainly never stole any money from the company. I’d have slit my wrists first.”
“But she thought you did, right?”
“Yeah. She was so mad at me about the infidelity that I couldn’t reason with her. She threw in the e-mail about maybe I embezzled from the employees’ retirement fund just to hurt me—which it did.”
“Any truth to that?”
“Not a bit. You are free to do an audit, a forensic audit if you want. I’m clean. Besides, Bertha and me were getting along better. I had some little Sioux Indian artefacts I bought at the Cody Plains Indian museum. I called her almost every day, and she was happy about that. She wanted for us to get over our differences almost as much as I did. We were getting there.”
Lt. Begay took his time before asking his last question. His hard eyes riveted Yazzie’s and held them without blinking.
“Asdzáá, did you kill your wife with a spear; so, she couldn’t report you for embezzling funds and creating at least a severe embarrassment and at worst a public criminal charge and a trial?”
“I did not kill my wife. Not for that or for any other reason. I did not kill her with a spear or with any other weapon. Now, get off this and get out there and find who did.”
Chapter Seven
Patrolman Dodge Maryboy sits on a rough lumber stool on a dirt floor facing a wiry leathered Navajo whose face is as wrinkled as the layered red sandstone hills surrounding the hogán in which they are meeting. The old man sits cross-legged on an old—and likely very valuable—handwoven carpet. Although it is hot in the conical hogán, it is a good fifteen degrees cooler than the world outside the rectangular doorway.
“Yá’át’ééh abíní [Good morning],” he says.
The medicine man, Tsosie Halne’é, insists that they speak only Diné Bizaad [Navajo], and Dodge is scrupulous not to let any English slip in.
Halne’é nods. He is waiting to speak until he thinks there was something worthwhile to say.
“T’aa shoodi [Please], Mr. Halne’é, you know why I have come. Three of our people are dead—murdered—and maybe because they were opposed by some of the people who love the old ways because they wanted to teach our children the ways of the outside world. I need your help to find the killer, or killers, before someone else is hurt.”
“I don’t like policemen. The old ways are better,” Halne’é replies, maintaining his taciturn expression.
Dodge is determined to avoid getting off subject; so, he lets the non sequitur pass. He really is not in the mood to hear why—in police matters—’the old ways are better.’
He waits. That does not provoke any further speech.
“Mr. Halne’é,” he says for shock value, “did you kill Bertha Yazzie, Sialea-lea Biakeddy, and Hyrum Kieyoomia?”
Dodge sees a brief dark anger cloud pass over the medicine man’s face.
“No,” Halne’é answers in a monotone voice. “I did not know a person named Sialea-lea Biakeddy. Maybe she is a foreigner—maybe from New Mexico or Utah. Not one of our Arizona people. And, young man, you have lost your Navajo ways. It is not our way to speak the names of the dead.”
It was a non sequitur or maybe even a lie, but was certainly accurate about the strong Navajo taboo against saying dead people’s names because it disturbs their spirits.
“Did you kill any one of those people?”
“No.”
“No. Bad people, I guess.”
“Do you know people who hated the ones who are dead?”
“Many who respect the old ways do not want the children to be stolen away.”
“I need to talk to them. Please tell me who was a hater?”
“Beware, young man. Do not open your mouth when you see a snake, or he will jump in. You know that.”
“I have to do my job, Mr. Halne’é. I will not be afraid of the snake when I see him. Give me a name today, and I will have a talk with him. Then seek the wisdom of the spirits or our people to find others. I will come by your home later today when I drive back to Blue Mesa.”
“It would not be desirable to see you again. Remember, don’t point at a rainbow with your finger. The rainbow will cut it off or break it.”
Dodge takes that as a veiled threat, but decides not to challenge the old man.
Tsosie—the name means, skinny—Halne’é becomes thoughtful.
“Maybe you should go see Lashena Tall Woman. She is a talker.”
It was obvious he was not going to get anything more from the stolid medicine man; so, Dodge decides to follow up on the one new lead he now has, however dubious it might be considering Halne’é’s obvious reluctance to communicate.
The patrolman knows where Mrs. Tall Woman lives. There is no address for her eight-sided hogán, and he has only experience in the desert to go on. It will take him until noon before he can get to her place. The heat is now altogether oppressive; so, he tanks up on all the water he can force down to avoid the dangers of dehydration.
He is thinking about that as he makes his way over the rocky and steep ground on the mustang he tamed himself. He leaves his truck and horse trailer in a flat area out of sight of Halne’é’s home. He does not trust the old man, and he knows the medicine man holds him in contempt. Maybe enough to steal from him, or to destroy his belongings, or even to carry through with that superstitious old threat about the ‘rainbow’ cutting him.
Death on a Pale Horse Page 4
