by Aimée Thurlo
“I hear you,” Rick said.
Bidtah handed him his card. “If you have a problem or need some backup don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Thanks for all your help,” Rick said as they parted ways.
Once they reached the main highway again, he and Kim drove west toward Copper Canyon, his gaze continually darting to the rearview mirror.
“Once we get home and take care of your shoulder, I’m going for a long, slow walk around the house and the shed. Maybe what I need to break Hosteen Silver’s code is one particular memory, something I haven’t thought about in years.”
“Become the teenager you were back then. See things through his eyes.”
Rick called Preston on the car phone to update him.
“That professor keeps coming into the picture, and it’s got to be the same guy.”
“Probably, but I have a hard time seeing a professor as a hit man,” Preston said, his sour voice mirroring his mood, from what Rick could tell.
“McCullough’s cultivated sources in the Four Corners that seem to be at the heart of this case,” Rick noted. “Don’t write him off yet.”
After hearing that they were on the way to Copper Canyon, Preston said, “I’m not sure if that’s a safe place for you anymore, particularly if you’re being targeted by the gangs.”
“Let them take one of their low-slung rides into the canyon. They’ll either high center on sandstone or be so worn out from getting unstuck they’ll turn around and head back down the highway,” Rick said.
Preston laughed. “Probably so,” he said, adding, “I’m going to send you the photo I found of Professor McCullough. It was on a college social website. I don’t know how old the photo is, but see if Kim can make a positive ID. I’m also sending you a copy of a paper he wrote for an anthropology journal.
“One last thing,” Preston added. “I ran a background on Angelina Curley. Although her husband’s death was ruled a suicide, there were some unanswered questions.”
“Like what?” Rick asked.
“The man died in his garage from carbon monoxide poisoning, and there was a suicide note next to him that matched up with his desktop printer. The department spoke to friends and neighbors, but the only person who claimed he’d been acting strangely was Angelina. There was no real evidence of foul play, however, so Angelina inherited his money and the business.”
“Good to know, but at the moment, Nestor Sandoval’s at the top of my list,” Rick said and ended the call.
Kim turned in her seat to face him. “I don’t think Sandoval should be our prime suspect. Maybe he played a role, but we’re dealing with a multilayered case. Until we have a lot more answers, nothing is going to fit together.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Intuition,” she said.
“Intuition’s good, but you have to make sure it’s not just wishful thinking or your own bias. You want it be Angelina, don’t you?”
“Maybe I do,” she admitted grudgingly, “but unfortunately she has an alibi. She was scheduled to speak to an association of minority businesswomen during your welcome-home event. She’d been practicing that speech for weeks.”
“Yeah, and the brief glances we’ve gotten of the suspect suggest it’s a man.”
“She could have hired out,” Kim said.
“She may also have canceled her plans at the last minute,” Rick said, then called Preston back. “Did you ever speak to Angelina Curley about her alibi for the night of the explosion?”
“I checked it out. She was speaking to the MWA— Minority Women in Action. People saw her there and there’s a DVD of the event that shows her staying late to talk to the participants.”
“Okay, thanks,” Rick said, disconnecting before he told Kim what he’d learned. “She’s still a viable suspect, but stop trying to make the facts fit. It’s an occupational hazard, I know, but what we need is hard evidence.”
* * *
THEY ARRIVED AT the house thirty minutes later. The weather had turned cold, with the jet stream bringing down much cooler air from the north. Rick built a fire while Kim checked out the materials Preston had sent them.
“How’s your arm?” he asked. “We keep reusable ice packets in the fridge. I’ll get you one.”
“Ice packs on a cold day. Brrrr,” she said, pressing it to her shoulder when he returned.
He smiled. “Don’t use it for more than twenty minutes,” he said. “I remember that from my high school football injuries.”
His concern washed over her like a gentle warm breeze. He was the toughest, strongest man she’d ever met, yet he could still show gentleness.
“Preston said he copied the file from your phone onto the computer over here,” she said, walking to the reconverted closet where the electronics were kept.
He pulled up a chair and sat beside her in front of the computer as she opened the file folder. She could feel the warmth of his body envelope her, and that made it hard for her to think clearly.
Locating the photo that Preston had sent, she took a moment to study it and nodded. “McCullough was much younger when this photo was taken, but it’s him.”
They used the link in Preston’s email to read Professor McCullough’s paper.
“The prof refers to his primary source only by initials, but A.T. could be Angelina Tso,” she said. “He also admits that there were other hataaliis he’d wanted to interview, since most specialize in two or three types of Sings only, but they wouldn’t cooperate.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Rick said. “The spoken word has power, so Sings would lose their effectiveness if everyone discussed them freely. Anglo professors interested in padding their résumés with tribal ceremonial secrets are generally avoided like the plague.”
Kim sat back, thinking. “This paper is interesting, but it’s far from a motive for killing anyone.”
“I agree.”
Rick stood and turned, looking across the main room. “We’ve made some progress. Now let’s see if there’s something else I can do. It’s time for me to visualize what this place looked like when I was growing up. My brothers updated it, but the past is still here. Like those bookcases,” he said, pointing across the room. “I helped Hosteen Silver build those.”
“He read a lot?”
“Yes, we all did, usually together. We had a TV, but it only got local channels and we were limited to two hours a night. Our dad loved reading history books, particularly those covering the Southwest or anything dealing with the Navajo code talkers.”
“They were radio operators for mostly Marine units in the Pacific theater, right?” she asked and saw him nod. “We read about them in school.”
“They transmitted messages the Japanese were never able to figure out by developing a sub code using Navajo words for military terms. For example, the word for navy was comprised of the Navajo words for needle, ant, victor and yucca. And the code word for tank was the Navajo word for turtle.”
“Do you think that’s the code Hosteen Silver used?”
“No,” he said. “That required those at both ends of the message to know the code, which never varied,” he said. “But his interest in codes was always there. That may have led him to use one that required something simpler, like a reverse-sequence key based on identical books. Anyone reading the message would just see numbers, but those numbers might indicate the page number, line number, word number or character number within that word. For instance, a number sequence 39, 14, 25, 5 could mean you look at the fifth letter of the twenty-fifth word on the fourteenth line on page thirty-nine of the book. That letter could be an a.”
“Okay, so each set of numbers gives you letters to spell words, and once you know the words and the sequence, you know the message,” she said.
He nodded. “The reas
on it would be hard to break is that the letter a could have a different number sequence every time it appeared. No pattern. Unless you had an identical copy of the book, you couldn’t decode the message.”
“If you’re right, figuring out which book he used is going to be tough,” she said.
“There are several dozen books still on the shelves, but over time the majority of what was there has been given away, taken home by one of my brothers or lost. We may not even have the particular book Hosteen Silver used anymore.” He was about to say more when his cell phone rang. Looking at the screen, he saw it was Preston.
“I did some more digging on McCullough,” Preston told him. “He took a sabbatical to conduct field research and he’s currently at an Anasazi dig on the Rez.”
“Where?” Rick asked.
“About twenty miles southeast of the ranch house. It’s on a low bluff about a quarter mile above the old riverbed. A recently formed arroyo apparently exposed some artifacts.”
“I think it’s time we went to talk to him,” Rick said.
“Something else... I spoke to Detective Bidtah. The professor’s already been warned twice about straying off the site. Once more and he loses his permit.”
“Okay, good to know. If I don’t find him at the dig, we’ll look around.”
“I’ll text you the GPS coordinates for the site,” Preston added.
After Rick disconnected, he glanced at Kim and filled her in. “Let’s go pay him a visit.”
“Excellent idea.”
En route he decided to take a shortcut, using the GPS on his phone to zero in on the location. Turning off the graveled road, Rick headed across an area of sandstone bedrock and shallow depressions where pools formed during the rainy season—when there was one.
The next half mile was filled with jarring, gut-crunching drops as they bounded along the desert landscape.
“This washer-board road is more like a death wish than a shortcut,” Kim said.
“We should be able to cut a few minutes of travel time this way and, coming in from another direction, we’ll arrive without giving anyone much warning.”
As they topped a rise he said, “There they are, just below us.”
Below was a narrow arroyo leading to the river through a break in a sandy plateau that extended for miles. An angular section of hillside had been carved out of the side of the arroyo. It was about three feet deep and wide, with neat, squared corners. A man in tan-colored pants and jacket was crouched within the dug-out section, examining the strata with the help of a small, bright lantern.
Around him wooden stakes and posts were laid out in a pattern that defined the site, which extended in a string-outlined rectangle about the size of a large house. Wooden screens with wire mesh bottoms were being loaded into the back of a white Land Rover carry-all by two college-aged men wearing green boonie hats. Beside the first vehicle was a light green Jeep.
“When you said a ‘dig,’ I envisioned more than three people,” Kim said. “I had in mind a camp with tents or RVs, floodlights and a dozen or so student volunteers.”
“This is clearly a low-budget operation,” he said. “It’s getting late, too, and this isn’t the kind of place you want to be once the sun sets. You could easily drive off a trail and end up stuck all night.”
“Good point,” she said, watching as the younger men finished loading their gear and climbed into the carry-all. The vehicle started up and then headed out along two ruts that comprised a route to the site. “Now that the students are gone, looks like we’ll have the professor all to ourselves, assuming he’s the guy still at the excavation.”
As Rick parked beside the Jeep, the man in the arroyo looked up.
Just as soon as Kim got out of the SUV, the man smiled, recognizing her. Then he took another look at Rick, turned off the lantern and walked over to meet them.
“I’m surprised to see you out here, Kim,” he said. “That’s your name, right?”
“Yes, Professor McCullough. I’m glad you remembered. I’m helping investigate what happened at the Brickhouse Tavern,” she said.
“I heard it was a case of arson,” the professor said.
“From who?” Rick asked.
“Just here and there,” he answered, then focused on Rick. “Are you the son of the medicine man known as Hosteen Silver?”
“I am,” Rick answered.
“Well, talk about serendipity! I’ve been trying to find out what happened to the hataalii. All anyone would tell me is that he’s gone.”
“We believe he walked off into the desert to die. It’s the way of our Traditionalists when their time draws near.”
“I know, and I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I was hoping to work with him. I’ve been trying to preserve and document Navajo healing traditions. Word of mouth is uncertain because it’s subject to opinions and memory, but a written record would be there for generations to come. Would you or your brothers be willing to help me?”
“Our medicine men don’t allow Sings to be recorded or written down in their entirety. Sharing that kind of knowledge indiscriminately is believed to be dangerous.”
McCullough’s eyebrows knitted together. “You don’t strike me as a Traditionalist.”
“I’m not and neither are my brothers, but we respect our foster father’s wishes on something like this.”
“All right, I understand. How about this instead? His paraphernalia—the artifacts used for the Sings... No one will use them now because of the chindi. If I could buy them from you, or maybe you could donate—”
Rick held up his hand, interrupting McCullough. “We have no idea what he did with them. He clearly took care of those things before he left for his final walk.” Rick paused, then added, “Tell me something, professor. Do you normally offer to pay people for information?”
“I did at the beginning. I thought it might speed things along, but it didn’t,” he admitted. “Angelina Tso, a former medicine woman, seemed more cooperative after I offered to pay for her time. She delivered a few of the Sings, but when she found out that I’d have to verify their accuracy with another healer, she refused to have anything further to do with me.”
“You didn’t trust her?” Kim asked.
“My reputation is on the line with every monograph or article I write, and having two or three independent sources is standard practice,” he said. “I was sorry to lose her, but it was the weird stuff that happened afterward that bothered me most.”
“Like what?” Kim queried.
“A few weeks later someone vandalized my car and office. I was sure it was her because I found ashes scattered everywhere—a bad omen for most Navajos—but I couldn’t prove she was responsible.”
“You’d had problems with Angelina but you still came to her shop looking for help? How come?” Kim was curious.
“I made sure she wasn’t there before I went in. I knew she had contacts, so I wanted to talk to the clerks. I’d hoped to get the names of some high-end carvers. One of the papers I’m currently researching deals with the power of fetishes and their role in the Hopi and other Southwestern tribal cultures,” he said, then checked his watch.
“All right then,” Rick said, sensing this was all they’d get for now. “Thanks for your time.”
“If you find anything among your foster father’s possessions that might shed light on what it was like to be a hataalii of his stature, I’d appreciate the chance to catalog it—keeping the name of the source confidential, of course. A copy of my paper will go to the Navajo community college at Tsaile, so you’d be adding to the tribe’s storehouse of knowledge.”
“I don’t think we can help you with that, not yet anyway,” Rick said.
“You want closure first,” he said, nodding.
Rick didn’t reply. As was customar
y, he didn’t say goodbye, either, he simply walked back to the SUV with Kim.
“He’s right about one thing,” Kim observed gently. “You and your family need closure. Once you know what really happened to your foster father, the rest will fall into place.”
“Let’s go back to the ranch house. I need a chance to think.”
Once they were on the highway again, Rick’s attention focused on something on the road ahead.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Maybe nothing. There’s a pickup coming in our direction, and he’s really making time. Could be kids, a drunk or just someone in a hurry. Seat belt on?”
“Always. Better give him as much road as you can,” she advised. “He’s not slowing down.”
As she spoke, the pickup eased toward the center line of the two-lane highway.
Rick touched the brakes again and eased to the right, hugging the shoulder. Though they’d avoided a head-on, the pickup driver tossed something out his window.
Glass shattered onto the SUV’s reinforced windshield and quickly coated Rick’s side with a black, flowing goo that completely blocked his view.
“Hang on!” he yelled.
Chapter Fourteen
Rick held the SUV’s steering wheel steady, took his foot off the gas and looked out the side window to gauge his position on the road. He already knew the big vehicle tracked well, so if he could keep it on the highway...
“Can you see anything ahead?” he asked Kim, whose side of the windshield wasn’t completely covered.
“You’re doing great, drifting just a little to the right. Just hold us steady,” she advised.
As they slowed to a crawl, he looked over. “How close to the shoulder am I?” he asked.
“About three feet. You can come over just a little more. Gently... That’s good.”
He braked and came to a full stop, flipping on the emergency blinkers to warn oncoming traffic, despite not seeing any vehicles.
“You okay?” he asked, glancing over.
“I’m fine, just a little rattled. I knew something was wrong after the way he raced up to us like that, playing chicken like in the movies. For a second I thought we were dead.”
