She put the book in her backpack. “I didn’t see any pottery for sale in here.”
Hoffman hesitated. “I have a friend who asked me to help dispose of some Indian stuff. That couple is lucky. I’m not doing it anymore after this pot.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Let’s say my friend and I had a philosophical difference of opinion.”
Bernie drove toward the quiet junction for Indian Route 125, marked by the yellow “See the Wolves” sign. The road led to Mountain View and the Ramah Navajo Chapter House as well as the band’s school and jail and to the non-Navajo Candy Kitchen Trading Post and Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary. The Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation didn’t abut the vast Navajo Nation land but rather overlapped two New Mexico counties, west-central Cibola and southern McKinley, and adjoined an edge of the Zuni Indian Reservation to the west. It was separated from the Nation by private non-Indian holdings, national forest, state land, and an interstate highway. The folks who lived here spoke Diné with a slightly different accent than their non-Ramah relatives.
She stopped at the Ramah police station to say hello. Officers David Bluestone and Filbert Nakai had staffed the substation for the past few years. She told them about the search for Cruz. “A woman named Katz is the incident commander.”
“Good. She’s a smart one,” Bluestone said. “You sure got a surprise when you agreed to do Cheryl a favor.”
Nakai raised his eyebrows. “It seems strange that Cruz would get lost. He’s been working out there for years. He’d stop by sometimes to chat. Usually had his camera with him. Did the state police . . . I mean, Manzanares . . . show up?”
“Yes, but it seemed to take a while to get things rolling.”
The Ramah officers looked at each other. Bernie figured she had company in her assessment of the man. “What’s new with you two?” she said.
“The usual.” Nakai smiled. “I stopped a guy for crossing the center line—twice, right in front of my unit. A woman was next to him—practically on top of him—and I think there was some hanky-panky going on. He acted embarrassed, so I gave him a warning and told her to keep her seat belt on.”
“What were they driving?”
“A new black Jaguar, one of those big sedans, with Oklahoma plates.”
“That car passed me. It looked like they were speeding, too.”
Bluestone said, “Based on my experience, I think they had a body in the trunk. Probably her husband or his wife.”
Nakai chuckled. “Manuelito, mention that to your new FBI agent. Push her buttons a little. I heard the bureau sent her because they thought we had a testosterone overload out here.” He paused. “How’s Chee doin’?”
“He’s in Santa Fe for a training.”
“Tell him to learn something for us.”
Back on 53, Bernie headed toward the little community of Ramah at the edge of the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation land, a ranching and farming settlement founded by Mormon families, nestled against the backdrop of the Zuni Mountains. To the west lay Zuni Pueblo, at the heart of which an old village of multiroomed homes enclosed open-air dance plazas. The bones she’d encountered, she thought, could well belong to an ancestor of one of these residents. An ancient trail through the rock, perhaps a trade route, linked the Zuni and Acoma pueblos.
On this day, though, Bernie turned north onto NM 602 instead. The highway passed the low-lying buildings that housed the Zuni eagle sanctuary, home to birds that could no longer fly free but still produced feathers needed for ceremonies. Beginning the scenic climb through the sandstone and shale cliff that edged the Zuni Mountains, she passed the little settlement of Vanderwagen and its trading post, with plywood cutouts of the Zuni gods. She was headed for the south side of Gallup, the last town where travelers on I-40 could conveniently get a meal or spend the night before the Arizona border.
Bernie loved to drive. It gave her a chance to consider things, and on this stretch of familiar highway, she was considering the case of Domingo Cruz. She thought about Annie lying about her mother being dead, but not about the bones. She thought about the cave and the open van and the opportunity to specialize in domestic violence.
She stopped at a convenience store in Gallup for gas, using the department credit card. While the tank filled, her phone rang. The ID screen read bigman, the name of her clan brother’s wife and Mama’s companion at the auction. Why would the woman be calling? Bernie’s heart sank.
7
“Hello?”
Bernie heard Mama’s voice. Mama sounded fine, and as usual, she didn’t waste time with preliminaries.
“Have you talked to your sister?”
“Not today. I’ve been busy working out where there’s no service. I was surprised to see you calling from Mrs. Bigman’s phone. How are you, Mama?”
Mama ignored the question. “I think something’s wrong. When I called her before we left for the auction, she didn’t sound right to me. That school is too far away.”
“You might have caught her at a bad time.”
“You talk to her. Maybe you should pick her up and bring her back here.”
Bernie knew better than to argue with Mama, especially over the phone. But the “maybe” gave her hope. “My husband is in Santa Fe, and he told me he would go by to see her, make sure she’s all right.”
“You talk to her.”
“I will call her and see if I can find out what the trouble is.”
“OK then.” Mama’s tone of voice said she’d switched to the next subject. “It’s good to be in Crownpoint. I’m seeing people I had not talked to in a long time. Some of the ladies are like me, getting too old to weave much. But now their daughters are weaving, helping them. You see all the people here, more than when we used to bring my rugs here. Some of them ask about you and your sister. When I tell them you are a policeman, they say that’s a good thing.”
Bernie waited for Mama to ask if she had been at the loom, but Mama said, “You call me at home tomorrow when you’ve talked to your sister. You tell her if she wants to come back, you will pick her up.”
And then she was gone.
Bernie went into the convenience store for a Coke, only her second of the day. She looked at the M&M’s and the crispy, salty pork skins and then selected a bag of jerky and a small package of brownies, Mama’s favorite. She’d save them until she saw her mother next.
The clerk pushed her money away. She smiled at Bernie. “Did anyone ever find out who stole Mr. Harrison’s Jeep?”
“Not yet. Is he related to you?”
“My sister’s father-in-law. She’s glad it hasn’t come back.”
Bernie remembered the case. The Jeep wasn’t worth anything, and the officer who investigated assumed that someone in the family had absconded with it to keep the old man from driving on the wrong side of the road with his lights off.
The girl laughed. “Now that grandfather is riding his horse again and they are both losing weight, we don’t care if you guys never find the Jeep.”
As Bernie walked back to her car, she caught a flash of motion out of the corner of her eye and stopped. A gray mouse scurried into a pile of dried leaves that had blown up against the building. Except for dogs, Bernie was friendly with most living creatures, but mice spread hantavirus, a disease that, like bubonic plague, arose on Navajo land periodically. Mice outside were part of nature, essential in the diets of hawks and coyotes. Mice inside, sharing living space with humans, caused a nest of problems on the Colorado Plateau. She wondered if avoiding hantavirus—in addition to avoiding contact with the dead—was one of the reasons her people wisely stayed away from the abandoned ruins of the Pueblo ancestors that dotted the reservation. Fear of lingering spirits might be linked to the fact that mice urine and feces carry the deadly virus after the mice and the people had departed.
When she opened the door to the unit, the radio squawked. It was Officer Manzanares.
Bernie said, “Did they find Cruz?”
“N
ot yet. I’m not calling about that. A Cibola County deputy told me one of the kids in that group got violently ill—a fever, rapid heart, hallucinations. The hospital in Grants was full so she’s on her way to Gallup. The sheriff’s department notified her parents. But here’s the deal. She told the officer on the scene and the ambulance guy that she needed to talk to you because she lied about something.”
“Annie Rainsong, right?”
“You got it. The attendant asked me to give you the message. He knew I’d been with a Navajo officer at the search site, so he called to see if I knew how to reach you.”
Odd, Bernie thought. “Did the girl mention if what she wasn’t truthful about had something to do with Cruz?”
“How would I know? I wasn’t there, remember?”
“Are you sure she’ll be at the hospital in Gallup, not Grants?”
“Gallup. She’s going to Indian Medical Center. That’s a good place for a drug overdose.”
Bernie gave the Cibola ambulance crew a gold star in her imaginary tally of good public servants, even though Manzanares had delivered the message with attitude. Ambulance medics had plenty to do without conveying a request from a teenager.
When she called the hospital, after getting passed around to several desks she connected with someone who told her Annie was in the emergency room.
Then, as promised, she called her baby sister, putting her phone on speaker as she drove to the hospital. When Darleen didn’t answer, Bernie left a brief message. “I talked to Mama. She’s all right but wanted me to ask you something. Call me.”
At the Gallup hospital, Bernie went directly to the emergency room. The man at the registration desk responded to her uniform with a shift in expression from overwhelmed to interested.
“What is the patient’s name again?”
“Annie Rainsong. She came from Grants by ambulance. One of the ambulance medics said she asked me to come to see her. How is she?”
“Give me a minute.” He typed something in his computer and then looked up at Bernie. “I’m sorry, Officer. I don’t have any information except that Annie arrived about half an hour ago. And—”
“Hey!” A heavyset, frazzled-looking woman walked up to them and grabbed Bernie’s arm, trying to stand directly in front of the information window. She wore her hair in a ponytail, and there was a touch of gray at her temples. “Who do you think you are, Ms. Policeman? That girl is none of your business.”
Bernie pulled her arm free from the woman’s grasp. “Calm down. Go back to your seat.”
The man at the desk frowned and leaned toward the opening in the glass. “Ma’am, I’ll be with you as soon as—”
“No. Tell me, why is this cop asking about Annie?”
The man pulled back slightly. Bernie read his nervousness and turned to the woman.
“I’m talking to the gentleman here, and then it will be your turn. Relax. I don’t want to have to call hospital security.”
Instead, Angry Woman grew more belligerent. “Leave that girl alone, you hear me? There’s no proof that drugs are involved in this.”
Bernie felt her temper rising. “Ma’am, you’ll be removed from the waiting area if you keep yelling.”
The woman stared at the nameplate on Bernie’s uniform shirt. She turned to the man at the desk. “If you dare tell Officer Bernadette Manuelito anything about my daughter, I’ll get you fired and then I will sue you.”
Knowing Angry Woman was Annie’s mom cast the situation in a different light. Bernie felt a pang of compassion for the girl. She gave civility another try. “I got a message from the state police that Annie Rainsong had something to tell me, that’s all. I didn’t realize you were Annie’s mother.”
“How dare you accuse my daughter of being a criminal.”
“Ma’am, I’m not accusing your daughter of anything. I met Annie at Wings and Roots earlier today. She told the ambulance attendants she wanted to see me.”
The woman responded with a laugh filled with bitterness.
“Drop the stories. I know why you’re really here. Whatever trouble she’s in, it’s no surprise. That girl never thinks of how inconvenient all this is for me and her brother. Leave our family alone.”
Angry Woman turned to the attendant. “I need to see my daughter now. I’ve been waiting half an hour, and that is thirty minutes too long.”
The man looked pale. “Christine will take you back. She’s over there by the big door.”
Bernie watched the woman stomp off. Her disappointment at not being able to talk to the girl surprised her even more than the anger that tightened her throat. Maybe Annie did crave attention, but she hadn’t made up the story about the cave. What did Annie want to tell her?
She found a vacant waiting room chair next to a man with a sweaty little boy dozing fitfully in his lap. The room was crowded with people. Frail old ones surrounded by relatives, an assortment of drunks, a woman with a bloody face, and a man with a large “Semper Fi” tattooed on his arm and ripped pants showing an oozing leg wound. An elder, his gray hair in braids, sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. A woman just as old sat quietly next to him. A very pregnant woman with a small girl at her side stared straight ahead.
Bernie pulled her notebook and a pen from her backpack and composed a message. She folded the note in half, wrote “Annie Rainsong” on the outside, gathered her pack, and walked back to the desk. She handed the note to the man at the window.
“Could you give this to Annie’s nurse to give to her?”
The man looked skeptical.
Bernie said, “Open it if you want. I’m telling her I got her message, giving her my cell and office number, and hoping she feels better soon.”
He took the folded paper. “I’ll hand this to whoever is assigned to her.” He shook his head. “Maybe they can hand it over when her crazy mother isn’t around.”
Bernie walked back to her unit and began the drive home. She rolled down Nizhoni Boulevard back to NM 602 and drove across the bridge over Interstate 40. From there, the road number changed to US 491. She passed Blake’s Lotaburger with its delicious green chile burgers and drove beyond Tohatchi and Naschitti, sharing the four-lane with big trucks with their heavy loads and watching as cars going over the speed limit realized that the vehicle they planned to pass was a police car and slowed down.
As she rolled along, she replayed the encounter with Annie’s mother. She was sure she had seen the woman before but couldn’t remember exactly where, and the memory lapse gnawed at her. Angry Woman’s reference to drugs helped her make sense of Cooper’s assumption that Annie had hidden drugs somewhere. Cooper and Mayfair both dismissed the girl as a liar. Drugs and lies went together like warp and weft.
The transition from an assumption that Annie’s problems came from drugs to Darleen’s trouble with alcohol was fluid. Her sister had stopped drinking—or said she had, and left no evidence to the contrary. The opportunity to spend a week at the Institute for American Indian Arts enlivened her, and Bernie had encouraged it. The short course would help her decide if she wanted to go to art school and if she felt, well, mature enough to be away from home. Mama had questioned the whole idea, but eventually Darleen’s eagerness and good behavior had paid off and Mama approved the idea.
But now Mama was concerned. Was her sister unhappy? Bernie wondered. Or had Mama misread the conversation because, as much as she wanted Darleen to find her own way in the world, she liked having that girl at home?
Bernie remembered her first weeks at the University of New Mexico—the stimulation of the classes, the excitement of being in such a situation with so many distractions, and her miserable loneliness when the campus fell quiet, and how homesick she was, how she missed being home and hearing someone speak to her in Navajo.
Why hadn’t Darleen called her? And why hadn’t she heard from Chee, who’d promised to check on her sister? Unlike Mama, she assumed her sister was having too good a time to check in with them. When she got h
ome, she’d phone her again.
Her brain returned to Annie and the mystery of Mr. Cruz, who hadn’t returned to base camp. What if he wasn’t lost? What if someone had done him harm? What if he had decided to run away? But if someone wanted to murder him, following him out to the Malpais and relying on the coincidence of a girl getting lost was an enormously complicated scenario. Why not just shoot him? The Cruz-as-a-runaway plot demanded more consideration. So far, she hadn’t talked to anyone who had suggested that he might want to disappear, but because he raised money for the group, he might have been tempted to engage in some funny business.
Bernie’s brain had filled with questions by the time she reached the convenience store. If she planned to see Mama, she’d turn onto the Toadlena road here. But now she headed for the Shiprock trailer she and Chee, the one person who loved her as much as Mama did, shared by the winter-tempered San Juan River. Maybe the song of the river would inspire her thinking.
8
Bernie had finished her morning prayers and was getting ready to go for a run, trying to decide whether she needed gloves and a hat to keep out the December chill, when the landline rang. She hoped it was Chee—it was too early in the morning for Darleen, and besides, her sister always called her cell.
But the voice on the other end was Sandra. “The captain needs to talk to you.” Her friend sounded stressed.
“He’s in early. Did they find Mr. Cruz?”
“No. The captain is in a terrible mood, and it has something to do with the search. How could that man, of all people, get lost out there? I don’t understand it.”
“It sounds like you know him.”
She heard Sandra’s change of tone. “One of my clan sisters went through the Wings and Roots program when she was fourteen. She talked about how Mr. Cruz really helped her. He even stayed in touch with her afterward, now and then, you know, to make sure she was all right. She invited him to the first laugh party when she had her baby. I met him there.”
Cave of Bones Page 9
