Cave of Bones

by Anne Hillerman

  He admired Captain Nailor, the woman who was teaching the day’s session, “Staying Alive at Traffic Stops.” She acted as though there was nothing else in the world she’d rather be doing. In her shoes, he would rather be hunting for elk or deer to stock the freezer for the year or spending time with Bernie or watching football on television or just being outside and enjoying the views. The captain handled everyone’s questions with respect, no matter how off-base, misinformed, and repetitious they were. She kept control of the room when someone wanted to talk on and on about an experience he’d had. She even drew out the quiet students, like the serious young Apache woman from the Jicarilla Police Department, without embarrassing them.

  The Apache officer’s beautiful black hair made him think of Bernie, a lovely distraction. He would have enjoyed his wife’s company, but, besides not being able to get off work, she didn’t care much for Santa Fe. Jim Chee liked it better than Albuquerque or Phoenix. It was smaller and had less traffic. In addition to the IAIA Darleen was curious about, there was a well-run community college and special schools where people could work on their projects in physics or archaeology, style hair, or study massage. He saw other Navajos here as well as Pueblo people, Hispanics, and an occasional Asian and African American, along with an abundance of gray-haired white folks. He liked the variety of restaurants. He could order spicy New Mexican chile, Chinese egg rolls, Thai dumplings, hummus rich with garlic, a good thick steak, or chicken wings.

  Mostly, though, he liked the setting at the base of the Sangre de Cristo, with the Jemez and the hills of Cerrillos, the Ortiz, and the Sandias spread out before him. He could get to a quiet place in the mountains in less than an hour.

  The room where this day’s training took place had no windows. That made it easier to watch the film Nailor showed after lunch about how law enforcement officers can stay safe and keep things from going wrong at traffic stops. He’d settled in when his phone vibrated. He pulled it out to see a text from Darleen: Wanna see my art? He typed Sure. Details? and slipped the phone back into his pocket as the instructor dimmed the lights.

  He ranked the film as average, with some good ideas but too much talking. About halfway through, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Captain Nailor. She motioned Chee to follow her, and they moved to the back of the room and then out to the hall.

  “Hey, Sergeant, I need a favor.” Nailor kept her voice low. “I plan to ask for stories of personal experiences with traffic stops. You look like you might have a few. You know, those times where you trusted your gut and things worked out fine. Would you share them?”

  “Sure. Why me?”

  “I’ve been watching you. You’ve had enough experience that you know most of this stuff, but you’re still paying attention.”

  Chee wasn’t used to compliments, especially from state police officers who were women. He didn’t know how to respond.

  “Raise your hand when I ask the question so I can call on you.”

  When the opportunity came, he told the story of Bernie’s traffic stop that resulted in the seizure of some endangered cacti, adding enough suspense that the officers in the audience chuckled when the open trunk revealed plants and not drugs.

  Then Nailor gave them a recess. Chee checked his phone and saw Darleen’s text: CU@art show and then a little thumbs-up symbol.

  He responded: Where & when?

  This would be a good time to talk to Caitlyn Vigil, he thought, but she hadn’t called him. Instead, he checked in with Largo and learned that life at the Shiprock station was rolling along, including the usual surprises.

  “Manuelito has her hands full with Councilor Walker. She thinks Bernie is part of a cover-up of misuse of tribal funds that involves Wings and Roots. She took her complaint right to the chief.”

  “I thought dealing with politicians was up to you and the chief.” As soon as he said that, Chee regretted it, but it was the truth.

  The captain chuckled and changed the subject. “Did you hear about the search for that missing group leader in the Malpais?”

  “Yes, sir.” Word traveled fast in law enforcement circles. “Nothing’s turned up yet, right?”

  “Yeah. What have you found out about George Curley?”

  “I learned that his mother-in-law doesn’t much care for him. He wasn’t home at the pueblo when I stopped by. I called his wife, Caitlyn, at work but she couldn’t talk. She said she’d call me back.”

  “Deborah Curley talked to the rookie again. Her son George still hasn’t been in contact with her. He’d promised to take her to Walmart and help her buy paint for her kitchen. She’s annoyed with him.”

  “If Caitlyn doesn’t call, I’ll try her again before I leave Santa Fe.” The crowd in the hall was thinning. “If there’s nothing else, Captain, I need to get back to class.”

  “Listen hard in there today. Don’t let any of those guys recruit you.”

  Nailor dismissed the group an hour later with a reminder about the Amber and Silver Alert program the next day. Chee checked his phone, texted Darleen again, and then headed toward the IAIA campus. Despite her lack of response, he’d find her and her work. While he was out there, he’d look for CS, talk to him about the death certificate, and move on to his choice of an ex-con for a companion.

  Chee parked the truck behind the video studios. This time there were a dozen vehicles in the lot, some identifiable rez cars, some newer and in better condition. Probably faculty vehicles, he thought. Mrs. Lomasi’s station wagon looked even worse in the daylight. The door he’d helped her with last night was unlocked. He walked down the hall toward an open space in the center of the building, noticing blinking red lights over several studio doors, with signs that read “Production in process. Please do not disturb.” The facility was nice but not fancy, busy but not too crowded with students. The hallway led past smaller rooms with desks and computers and into the larger central gathering room. Chee endorsed the idea of Native people telling their own stories, and he thought video, TV, and movies were great ways to do it.

  Darleen might fit right in on this campus. She was good at drawing. Maybe she could make sketches for animation. He’d talk to CS about that, melt the ice a little before he delivered the news that CS was officially dead.

  Chee walked over to a pair of young men doing something on their laptops.

  “Hi. Do you guys know if CS is here?”

  One of them looked up. “He practically lives here, man. He hangs in studio four. You can knock when the light turns off.” He went back to his computer.

  Chee found a chair with a view of the studio doors. This part of the building, unlike the state police classroom, had windows and skylights. Above him, a cloud drifted by in the darkening December sky. He picked up a magazine, something called Local Flavor, and was reading a story about the renovation of an old hotel when he heard the door to a studio open.

  A tall, beefy Navajo man in his forties emerged. His nose had that off-kilter angle that came from being on the receiving end of too many fights. He glanced at Chee’s uniform and looked away.

  “Yá’át’ééh, bro,” Chee called to him. “Clyde Herbert, we meet again.”

  The man turned back. “What you doing here, man? Got lost on the way back to the rez?”

  “My sister-in-law thinks she might want to go to school here. I’m looking for CS. You a student in the video department?”

  “Student of life, dude.”

  Chee heard the door open again.

  “Here’s the man. Ask him about me, Mr. Law and Order.”

  As CS came out of the room, Herbert strode down the hall and away.

  “Yá’át’ééh. What brings you to my studio?” CS seemed even thinner than when Chee had last seen him.

  “Darleen told me you were working here. I wanted to say hello, check in, talk a minute.”

  “Have you seen Darleen’s new drawings yet?”

  “Not yet. I stopped by to catch you first and ran into your buddy Herbert again.”<
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  CS looked as if he were going to say something in response but instead changed the subject. “I haven’t seen the pictures in this show, but that girl has mad skills. I’m planning to walk over to the exhibit.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  CS went into the studio and emerged a moment later with his jacket. Chee saw him glance at his phone and then slip it in his pocket.

  Chee opened the door and motioned CS to go ahead of him. “Darleen and I went out for pizza last night. She was hoping you’d come with us.”

  “I know. I hated to disappoint her, but I had to stay in the studio. I can feel the hot breath of that deadline on my neck.”

  “Are you working on something with Herbert?”

  “Yeah.” CS zipped his jacket against the cold. “Do you remember the video D helped me with?”

  “You mean the grandmother who wanted to introduce her sheep to the Navajo president?”

  “Well, that project ate up a lot of weeks, but I’m almost finished. The editing was tricky. I realize now I should have shot more scenery and less of the sheep. D did a great job with the interview. Have you been out here to the campus before?”

  CS had deflected the conversation neatly away from the big Navajo, Chee thought. “I came yesterday to pick up Darleen for dinner,” he said. “Did you see that bruise on her arm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know how she got it?”

  CS didn’t answer right away. “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “I’m asking you. Darleen was upset last night, and it sounded like you two had been arguing.”

  “I didn’t give her that bruise, understand? And everyone argues. What about you and the cop you’re married to? That must be tough. I mean, you both come home fried or pumped up from dealing with people and then you have to deal with each other.”

  Chee stopped walking. “Don’t change the subject. Do you know the law about domestic violence?”

  CS turned toward him. “Yeah, firsthand, actually. My mom and dad were the king and queen of DV. The cops, guys like you, came to the house and scared the bejeezus out of me.”

  “Do you know that Clyde Herbert, your pal, beat up a woman? He hit her so hard he broke her ribs.”

  CS clenched his teeth. “There’s more than one side to a story.”

  “Oh, right.” Chee stepped close enough to CS to smell the cigarette smoke that clung to his jacket. “I forgot the part about how he was selling drugs out of their car, and when I pulled his wife over for speeding, I found the meth and the pills and arrested her. She denied being involved in the drug business, but the kids ended up with protective services before it got straightened out.”

  “Clyde kept all that secret from her to protect her and the kids. His old lady was drinking. She was no angel.” CS spoke faster now. “Why is my friend your business? You don’t know who he is since he got out of prison.”

  “I know he was acting like a badass when I saw him at the restaurant out by the police headquarters. And you pretended not to know me, remember?”

  CS exhaled. “Sorry about that. I didn’t recognize you right away. I wasn’t expecting to see you in Santa Fe, dude. And then, when I hadn’t said anything and Clyde started giving you grief, I got embarrassed.”

  Chee flinched at the excuse, and they walked in silence for a few minutes. He reassessed CS. “I don’t respect men who hurt women. I hope you aren’t someone like that.”

  “Herbert isn’t a stereotype. There’s more to him than a criminal record. The situation isn’t as simple as you make it sound. People change.”

  “From my perspective, it’s pretty simple.” Chee stopped walking and used his fingers to dramatize the points. “A man loses his cool, probably because he’s been drinking. He hurts his lady. Maybe he hurts their kids. The process repeats itself until the cops get involved and he goes to the joint or she figures out how to get away from him, or until he kills her. The only thing complicated is the excuses they come up with. The way they spin the situation is to say it was the wife or the girlfriend’s own fault, how she provoked them into breaking her arm or choking her.” Chee put his hand back in his pocket. “Getting the woman to agree that she deserves better, that can be a challenge, and sometimes the case falls through the cracks. But DV itself? Simple. Simple and disgusting.”

  Chee took a breath, checked his anger. “I know what I’m talking about because I’ve seen too many guys like Herbert. I’m sick of it. You need to keep Darleen away from him.”

  “You’re wrong about Herbert.” CS started down the sidewalk again ahead of Chee. “And don’t worry about D, man. No one will hurt her while I’m around, if I can help it. But, you know, she’s so strong-willed she’s her own worst enemy.”

  Chee caught up to him in a few steps. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. An investigator friend of mine discovered that your death certificate is on file with the state of New Mexico. What gives?”

  CS tugged his cap down tighter against the December chill. “Oh. Strange how that . . .” He stopped talking and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ve got to take this. Darleen’s art is in the show in that building with the green roof ahead to the left. I’ll catch up.”

  If he’d been on duty, Chee would have pursued it. But he knew Darleen would be expecting him and that he would have another chance to talk to CS. He found the building for the art show without difficulty.

  The fierce Mrs. Lomasi was seated inside the front doors at the gallery entrance at a table with a small stack of flyers that told the visitors about the exhibit and the student artists. She offered one to Chee.

  “Welcome. Glad you could make it.” He could tell that she didn’t recognize him. Probably because of his uniform.

  “I’m looking for Darleen Manuelito’s drawings.”

  “You’ll find her work over there by . . . oh, you’re her uncle. Thanks again for helping me last night.”

  “Brother-in-law. You’re welcome.”

  “Her drawings are by the big red sculpture.”

  He took the information sheet. “Do you know if Darleen is here?”

  “All the students were asked to stay until the show closes at six, another half an hour.”

  “How’s Darleen doing?”

  “Well, she’s an interesting young woman with a lot of talent. Take a look at what she’s done here.”

  “Do you think this is the right place for her?”

  Mrs. Lomasi straightened the pile of papers. “We’ll see. She’s got some growing up to do, but that’s true for many of our younger students.”

  The visitors at the exhibition were mostly twentysomethings, probably fellow students, with a few parent-age folks in the mix. Clusters of students, probably the artists, and a handful of other people were studying the artworks. Although the show consisted of a variety of art, each individual’s work had its own space. Chee found Darleen’s drawings grouped near the center of the small gallery.

  Darleen’s work stood out for its intricate detail, and because she worked mostly in black and white, with just a bit of red here and there. Other students who were into drawing used vivid colors. Some of them had dozens of pieces; Darleen had only four, each highly complex. He’d be the first to admit that he didn’t have the vocabulary for describing art, but two of them depicted beautiful, surreal-looking creatures that reminded Chee of wolves or maybe coyotes, with a supernatural, graphic-novel-type edge to them. The other two were dreamy landscapes, one that he thought was Ship Rock. They had some swirling parts, as though the land were being created or perhaps destroyed. He’d have to ask her what they meant.

  He scanned the gallery for Darleen and watched other visitors come by and study her work. Her drawings seemed to attract a bigger crowd than many of the other installations and displays, and he heard comments that they were interesting and well done, especially for a beginning student.

  Chee strolled ar
ound the room, stopping to look at photographs of horses and a large bright painting of lines converging in the center of the canvas. Arrows at a target? A maze of highways? It made him feel old to be around so many young people, but energized, too. One group of students seemed to have an assignment to write about the show because they were moving from section to section, taking notes. They spent longer looking at Darleen’s work than most of the other artists’. As he watched them, he realized that some of the older folks were students, too.

  Finally he spotted Darleen talking with a small cluster of girls. One put her cup of punch on a table and reached in her suitcase-size purse for something—was it a liquor bottle? Her back was toward him, so he couldn’t tell for sure. He wondered if Mrs. Lomasi had noticed.

  Darleen saw him and left her group to greet him.

  “You came. Cool. I forgot to text you back. Did you see my stuff over there?” She waved her arm toward the wall behind the big sculpture. The bruise had changed from solid deep plum to include accents of yellow and green.

  “I saw them. Nice.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I like your drawings a lot,” he said. “They look good in here.”

  “Which one do you like best?”

  Chee’s automatic response was to say All of them, but he thought harder. “I think the one you called Secrets, the one that has something that looks like Tsé Bitʼaʼí in the lower right corner. How about you?”

  She smiled. “I like different ones on different days, but today I like them all the same. I did more, but they weren’t good enough for the show. I’ve been working like crazy to get ready.”

  “I saw you talking with those girls. Are they in the program with you?”

  “Some are.”

  She looked about the room, then back at Chee.