Cave of Bones

by Anne Hillerman

  “No. He told me to check with you before he went home, but I just got around to it. How bad is it out there?”

  “It’s snowing hard. The wind was fierce earlier, but it’s calmer now, only occasional gusts.” She didn’t think of weather as good or bad. Storms were an expected component of winter at 6,000 feet on the Colorado Plateau, and blizzards came with the territory. Wind, slush, mud, drought, rain—it all had a purpose in the way the Holy People had designed Dinétah, the Navajo universe.

  “No snow here in Shiprock yet. Any news on the lost guy? You know that sighting of somebody who might have been your man Cruz? Turned out he was somebody else.”

  “They suspended the search because of weather. A friend of Mr. Cruz was out searching tonight and ran into some trouble. He’s in the unit with me now.” She talked on, not offering the rookie the opportunity to say anything critical of Franklin or Cruz or the searchers. “Tell the captain I’ll be back as soon as the highway reopens. I’ll check in when I leave Grants.”

  “I’ll let him know.” The rookie laughed. “I don’t know what you did to attract Councilor Walker’s attention, but she acts like you’re her new best friend. She called for you several times and wouldn’t leave a message and doesn’t want to talk to me or anybody except you and the captain.”

  “That’s interesting.” Both the captain and Sandra knew her cell number and used cautious judgment in deciding who to release it to. Obviously Councilor Walker’s behavior had not met their high standards. “Anything else I should know?”

  “The new FBI came by. She looks like a California surfer girl wearing a business suit. She was asking about that car bomb that killed that dude at the high school, so I filled her in. She was happy to have the information.”

  Bernie remembered, with residual annoyance, the way the rookie had second-guessed her commands that night when the two of them had to handle crowd control and protect the crime scene until backup arrived.

  She turned the heater down a notch. It felt as warm in the car as in Merilee’s greenhouse.

  “And Largo asked me to look over that budget stuff you picked up from Cooper, remember that?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “He looked on your desk, in the vertical files, everywhere he could think of, but it was nowhere, and he was ticked off. So I guess that job boomerangs back to you.”

  She knew exactly where the files were. In her trunk. She hadn’t had time to leave them at the office, and Largo should have remembered that. “Is that it?”

  “Good luck finding a room out there. I heard the hotels in Grants are full, and they’re putting people up at the high school gym until the interstate reopens. Lucky you’re short. You can sleep in the unit.”

  She exhaled, breathing out her irritation. Sandra, Officer Bigman, even Captain Largo, would have offered to make some calls to find her a motel room at the discounted law enforcement rate. The rookie reminded her of the annoying little brother she was glad she never had. She shook her head once to get rid of the frustration and focused on driving.

  Truckers heading west to Gallup, Flagstaff, Kingman, and beyond took I-40 through New Mexico’s red rocks and lava as their preferred route. Tonight, the big trucks moved at a glacial pace toward the exits. Passenger vehicles, buses, pickups pulling horse trailers, and drivers who seemed to have never encountered snow before added to the confusion. Her unit’s wipers handled the test fairly well, although ice had begun to accumulate on the blade on the passenger side. She leaned toward the windshield for a better view as she passed a car on the shoulder with its emergency flashers on, the driver scraping her windshield and thumping the wiper blades against the glass to clear the ice.

  Bernie was concentrating so hard on the other drivers, the weather, and the challenges of the road that Franklin’s voice startled her.

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble. I didn’t expect you to follow me. I mean, you really don’t even know me. You could have gotten hurt out there in the lava.”

  “I was concerned about you because of the way you rushed out of the restaurant.”

  “You know, Dom did the same to me. We had an argument right before he left on the Wings and Roots trip. I said some things I shouldn’t have, but he was working himself to death. I told him he should only focus on photography—that was what he loved—and work with kids as a volunteer or something.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Nothing. He just stormed away from the house without a good-bye.” Franklin looked out the window at the snow. “Earlier he said his photography had led to problems, and he wished I hadn’t even brought it up.”

  “What problems?”

  “I don’t know.” Franklin sighed. “I was so angry I didn’t even ask.”

  “The only pictures of his I’ve seen are of petroglyphs. Does he do other things?”

  “Oh, yes. All kinds of photos. Landscapes intrigue him the most.”

  “I’d like to see them sometime. But for now, could you do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “My phone is in my backpack, on the floor behind you. Can you make a call for me?”

  Franklin pulled the backpack into the front seat.

  “It’s in the side pocket.”

  She saw the flash of light as the phone came on.

  “All set. Now what?”

  “Go to contacts, and you’ll see Chee.”

  He scrolled through the list. “Got him.”

  “He’s my husband. He knows I’m working out here, and he always watches the news and the weather reports—”

  She stopped, her attention caught by the steady beat of taillights on emergency flash reflected in the snow on the shoulder, where a small sedan sat beside the interstate at an odd angle. She turned on her own light bar and pulled in behind it. “I’ll be right back.”

  Franklin lifted her jacket off his lap. “You’ll need this.” His fingers felt cool but not ice cold, as he handed it to her. “Would you like your cap now?”

  “You keep it.” She zipped up her jacket and climbed out into the night. She stretched her back a moment before she put on gloves, grabbed her flashlight, and closed the unit’s door. It felt good to be standing. The frigid air sharpened her brain.

  The snow hid the ice on the road, and she nearly lost her balance as she hurried to the stranded car. Snow covered the windows, enough to tell her it had been parked for a while. She knocked on the driver’s side and yelled, “Anyone in there? You OK?” No answer.

  She brushed off the snow and shone the light into the little sedan. The car was empty.

  She said a little prayer of gratitude as she cautiously made her way back to the unit.

  Fastening her seat belt, she noticed that Franklin had set her phone down on the car seat and had his own up to his ear.

  “. . . cold and embarrassed, but I’m here.” A pause and then, “I’m with Officer Manuelito, you know, the Navajo cop.” He stopped to listen. “I’ll ask her.”

  He put the phone in his lap. “Merilee wants us to come by. She says the storm is supposed to keep up until after midnight. She’s inviting us to stay with her.”

  “Put your phone on speaker so I can talk to her.”

  He pushed on the screen and then held it closer to her mouth.

  “Merilee, tell me about the pot.”

  The voice on the phone sounded far away. “Bernie, you two should sleep at my house tonight. All the motels are full because of the interstate being closed, and Franklin’s road will be a disaster. And you can drop off the box.”

  “Tell me about the pot and your connection to Hoffman.” Bernie put more steel into the request.

  The phone was silent for a moment. “I asked him to sell it on consignment for me, but then I changed my mind. He was on his way to return it to me when you . . .” Static interupted her. “. . . him . . .”

  “Merilee?” Bernie waited for a response until the distinctive fade-away chimes came on to mark a lost signal. She pushed the phone back toward
Franklin.

  He squirmed to slip it back in his pants pocket. “If the weather was better, you could stay at my place tonight but it’s way out Cholla Road, and with all this snow we’d never make it. Merilee has a lot of room.”

  “I’ll drop you off there. I need to give her the pot, and there are some other things I need to talk to her about.”

  She drove through the curtain of snow, inching along with visibility no farther than the end of her headlights.

  Franklin adjusted the heater vents. “Do you still want me to call your husband?”

  “No, by now he would have made some calls, and he’ll know how bad the roads are. I’ll catch him later.” Or, she thought, he’d gone to bed blissfully unaware of the blizzard.

  Bernie followed a line of trucks to ease her unit off the interstate at the next exit and took Franklin’s directions to Merilee’s house, the unit sliding and slipping. Maybe luck would be with her, Bernie thought, and the interstate would reopen by the time she had talked to Merilee about the pot and the website with Cruz’s photo. She didn’t mind driving in the snow, but she was tired.

  “Did you and Cruz visit Merilee often?”

  “No. Not at all. The two of them are friendly, but not cordial. Dom is thoughtful, analytical. Merilee jumps in with both feet and then tries to figure out what’s next. I think not knowing what their clans are or why they were put up for adoption has left some, you know, issues for both of them.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “I met Domingo through his sister. I’d done some carpentry work for her back before her husband died, custom cabinets she’d seen in a magazine. She introduced me to Dom. She asked her brother to come by and give her some ideas for the kitchen while I was there. And, well, one thing led to another.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Merilee is a powerful woman. I always tease Dom that she got the energy and the good looks and he got the brains and the big heart.”

  The streets of Grants were deserted. Families would be hunkering down in the face of the ongoing storm—parents watching the news, wondering if schools would be closed the next day. It took Bernie longer to reach Merilee’s house than she’d expected. This time, even from a distance she could see warm light shining from the windows.

  “Watch it!” Franklin yelled at the same time she saw the big coyote lope directly in front of the unit. She just tapped the brakes, but even the small change in momentum put the unit into a skid. She tried to correct, to steer and cajole it back to the street, but conditions worked against her; the snow was too deep and the angle too sharp. The car slid off the road at the edge of Merilee’s driveway and skidded down a short embankment. The coyote stopped, watched, and then disappeared into the blizzard.

  After a few futile tries, Bernie realized that the vehicle couldn’t extricate itself and radioed for help. The dispatcher sympathized and told her what she already knew: all available tow trucks and wreckers were in use, but they’d get to her as soon as they could. She gave Bernie the direct phone number of the service they used.

  Franklin, unlike many men she knew, sat quietly while she struggled to get the unit unstuck, only speaking after she’d radioed in her problem.

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to leave the police car here for now.” He pushed the blanket from his bare shoulders and reached for his shirt. “I’m glad we made it this far. Let’s go.”

  “Wait. Put that back on. You don’t have a coat, remember? And your shirt will still be soaked.”

  “I feel like a fool in this thing.” But he kept the blanket.

  They walked past the Range Rover in the driveway, crowned with at least six inches of sparkling snow. Before Bernie could ring the bell, Merilee opened the front door.

  “Michael Franklin! You could be a refugee or homeless. What in the world happened to you?”

  “Oh, I went for a hike in the snow and we just slid off the road because of the blizzard, but I’m fine. Thanks to Bernie here.”

  “Come on in, you two. Warm up. Would you like tea, soup, coffee, something hot?”

  “Sure, whatever—some of everything.” Franklin pulled the blanket around him. “I’m chilled to the soul.”

  “Thanks,” Bernie said. “I have some questions for you.”

  “I know you do. Warm up a bit. It’s brutal out there. Is your car damaged?”

  “No, but I had to call for a tow.”

  Franklin followed Merilee down the hall to the kitchen, leaving sloshy footprints. Bernie knocked the snow off her boots on the welcome mat, took off her coat and gloves, and put them on a bench by the front door. The petroglyph picture in the entryway was gone now. In its place Merilee had hung a large color photograph of magpies, their wings glowing blue-black and their ebony heads shiny in the sunlight. One of the birds sat on a wire fence, and the others looked as though they had just taken flight. The hogback formation near Farmington towered in the background.

  As Bernie entered the kitchen, Merilee motioned her to a seat at the counter next to Franklin. She put a red teakettle on her black stovetop and turned on the heat beneath it, took a plate with cheese and grapes out of the refrigerator, and found some napkins in a drawer. Then she returned and stood in front on Bernie.

  “Do you want to talk now, or warm up and relax a little first? You both look like you’ve had a long day.”

  Franklin reached for a grape. “I don’t want to think about anything right now.”

  Bernie looked down. Residual snow from her hiking boots had fallen onto Merilee’s sparking floor and begun to melt. “Let’s talk now. I’d like to get business out of the way, so if the tow truck comes, I can head back to Shiprock when the roads open. By the way, what happened to Dom’s photo that you had in the entrance hall?”

  “Oh, I took it down. I took them all down. I like to rotate the art. These that replaced them are his work, too.”

  “I saw one of your brother’s photos on an Indian antiquities website. Tell me—”

  Merilee picked up the thread. “Oh yeah, that was a failed experiment.”

  Bernie shifted a little on the stool. “There’s a Navajo Nation Council member who thinks something fishy is going on with the Wings and Roots funding. Dom is her main suspect because he works as the organization’s fund-raiser. She isn’t convinced his getting lost before he was scheduled to become the program director is coincidence.”

  “That’s crazy talk.” Merilee turned to Franklin. “Right?”

  Franklin nodded. “Dom would never do anything to hurt the program. He put some of his savings in to keep it going.”

  “The board was looking forward to having him as the director.” Merilee sounded angry. “I couldn’t have voted on his appointment, of course, because of the nepotism rules, but I know all my colleagues thought he would do a fine job. That councilor is flat wrong. Dom would never—”

  The shrill whistle of the teakettle interrupted her, and she turned to the stove. When she spoke again, she’d regained her composure. “I’ve got tea, hot chocolate, instant coffee, and decaf.” She phrased it like a question.

  “I’ll have some hot chocolate.” Franklin shifted on the stool. “Dom loves the program. He likes working with kids, but he was ready for a change. Being director would be easier in some ways. He and Cooper get along great, and she told him she’d help with the transition.”

  “Bernie, how about you? A cup of tea?”

  Tea? She shivered at the thought. “Oh, no thanks, only some water for now.”

  Merilee filled a glass and gave the water to Bernie. She took a swallow before she spoke. “I have another question for you. How much progress had you and Dom made on that book of his photographs?”

  “I’m exploring it, but as fine a photographer as he is, he’s an unknown. We created a prototype, and I’ve been showing it to publishers, but no luck. I would have to pay for the book myself. That’s expensive. I’m still looking into options, but I need money to do it.”

  Franklin glanced up, his voice tinged wi
th surprise. “Dom thought the book was still in the works. That’s why he kept knocking himself out, going to the Malpais to get more shots, better photos, different lighting, all that. When were you going to tell him about the money?”

  Merilee’s face clouded. “I kept thinking I could figure out a way to write a grant or something. I hadn’t told him about the problem yet because I knew it would be hard for him to swallow. He’s got enough on his mind with the Wings and Roots finances.”

  Bernie broke in. “So, were you selling Native artifacts with fake provenances to help finance the book and to keep Wings and Rocks afloat?”

  Merilee shook her head, her dark hair swinging from side to side. “No. Of course not. All I sold, or tried to sell, through my online art business were Dom’s photos. Why did you even ask me that?”

  “I’m trying to make sense of Dom’s disappearance.”

  Merilee sighed. “I can’t understand it. Are you having any luck?”

  “Well, because he’s so familiar with the area, I’m thinking he may have disappeared on purpose because of something questionable he got involved with. Or he did something or knew something that made someone angry enough to hurt him.” But even as she said that, Bernie dismissed the second option. If someone wanted Cruz dead, there were many easier places to kill him.

  Merilee went to the sink, and they sat in silence while she cleaned up, or perhaps collected her thoughts. The little containers that had been on the counter when Bernie first visited were missing. “What happened to the herbs?” she asked.

  “I gave them to Mayfair. She wanted them for some recipes.”

  “They came from your greenhouse, right? I looked for you in there when I stopped by this afternoon to drop off the pot. I saw those white angel trumpets. Impressive. Amazing to see them blooming this time of year.”

  “I’ve encouraged them.” Merilee wiped a damp spot off the countertop with a napkin. “I found the card you left in the door. I must have been at the hospital with poor Larry. I’ve got some apricot trumpets and pink ones that are almost done blooming.”

  Angel trumpets had been one of Bernie’s favorite plants when she was a college student. In the dry, windy Southwest, the big, showy flowers survive best in botanic gardens or in the hands of devoted fans with greenhouses.