by Aimée
Ralph cleared his throat. “Let’s go back outside and search again. We can consider this building ground zero and work outward.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ella said.
After thirty minutes, Justine and the others who’d worked the earlier crime scene came to join the search at Truman’s. Another ninety minutes passed, and although they found two shallow holes that had been freshly dug, those appeared to be the result of someone taking fill dirt to place elsewhere. The dig site, if it really was close by, still remained a mystery.
Justine came up to Ella, who was looking around the front yard one last time before leaving for the station to question Eileen.
“You really need to push Eileen, Ella. She’s been living with the guy. She must know the location of the dig,” Justine said.
Victoria, who’d been looking around the driveway, joined them. “For what it’s worth, ladies, I think what we’re looking for is right here on the property somewhere. We’re just overlooking it.”
“Gut feeling?” Ella asked.
“Yeah, but it’s one based on the evidence we have, like the purple fountain grass we found inside the boxed Anasazi pots. That plant isn’t native to our area.”
Ella nodded. “Yeah, makes sense.”
“You’re leaving to question the girlfriend?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah. Blalock will probably take the lead and I’ll follow up.”
“I took a training course in reading body language and learned to spot small tells. I may be of use to you there,” Victoria said.
“Good. Follow us back to the station,” Ella said.
* * *
Ella and Justine arrived just ahead of Victoria. As they went inside, Ella saw Blalock standing in the hallway next to the one-way glass, watching the suspect inside the interrogation room.
Seeing Ella, he greeted her with a wave. “Hey, Supergirl. Heard you deflected another bullet today.”
“Good thing for Kevlar and instinctive body-mass shots. How’s our girl reacting to captivity?”
“She’s nervous and way out of her element, so I think she can be pushed,” Blalock said. “If we let her know that she’s going to serve hard time as an accomplice to murder, I think she’ll cooperate.”
“Don’t underestimate her.” Victoria, who’d come up behind Ella, spoke as she watched the woman. “She’s more composed than she appears to be. Look at her more closely. Yes, her eyes are darting around and she’s hugging herself, but she’s handling her fear. She’s not pacing, she’s just waiting, knowing she’s probably being watched. That’s a woman with a plan. She’s made up her mind what she’s going to do next, and now she’s biding her time.”
“Dwayne, let me go in alone, at least at first,” Ella said. “We need to establish a line of communication, and for that to happen, she has to lower her guard. The fact that she and I are both Navajo, and women, may help me loosen her up.”
“Then go for it,” Blalock said.
Ella went inside, and instead of sitting across the desk, she sat on the empty chair beside the prisoner. “I’m going to give it to you straight, Eileen,” Ella said. “As it stands now, the evidence says you’re an accomplice to murder, but I’ve got a feeling that you just followed Truman’s lead. At first you looked the other way, then things escalated and one day you realized you were in way over your head.”
Eileen nodded. “That’s exactly what happened,” she said, almost eagerly. “I fell in love with Truman. We moved in together, and at first things were great. Then he lost his teaching job and everything changed. He was angry all the time and started fighting with Norman and Mrs. Yazzie. He really hated them.”
“How did the skinwalker thing get started?”
“The Yazzies kept provoking Truman, cutting across his land, letting sheep get into my garden, and creating ruts with tire tracks that turned into ditches every time it rained,” Eileen said. “That’s when Truman got the idea. I warned him that it was dangerous, but Truman said he’d stay in control and wouldn’t let it get out of hand.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Norman found out. He came over one day and said that unless we moved out, he’d tell everyone that Truman was a skinwalker. Truman refused to leave, so things got worse after that,” she said, then in a whisper-thin voice added, “Truman never figured out how Norman knew it was him.”
“But you did, because you were the one who told Norman,” Ella said, taking a guess.
“Yeah, but it was an accident, I swear. Norman got angry with me at the café one day when I got some lunch orders mixed up. He really lit into me, so I told him to back off or I’d tell the skinwalker to witch him. I never actually said it was Truman, but after that, he knew.”
“So things went even further downhill,” Ella said, and saw her nod. “Tell me about today. Start with why you left work early.”
“When that good-looking Navajo guy came into the diner, I saw the badge on his belt. He wasn’t tribal because it was a star, like the deputies wear, so I didn’t worry about it,” she said. “I served him and because he was nice to look at, I watched him through the little window in the kitchen door. That’s when I saw him switching water glasses and putting the one I’d touched into his jacket pocket. I’d seen that on CSI, so I knew what he was doing. I called Truman right away, and he told me to come home as soon as I could.”
“Truman used you to do his dirty work, so you knew that the net would close in on both of you once we had your fingerprints.” Ella’s voice was soft as she pressed Eileen.
“No, that’s not really true. I’m still not sure why you needed my fingerprints.”
“We lifted a partial from Harry Ute’s silver belt buckle, the big rodeo one. Truman got you involved, sure, but you’re now in this up to your eyeballs. You’ve got to give me something so I can help you, Eileen. Without that, you’re going to be an old woman before you’re ever out of prison.”
Ella had placed no particular inflection on her words, and maybe that’s what ended up scaring Eileen most.
She sat up in the chair and stared at Ella, wide-eyed. “But that’s crazy! I never hurt anyone! Even when we were on the run, he kept all three guns.”
“I’ll need more than that, Eileen. Give me something substantial, then we can make a deal.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said, almost in tears. “Truman killed the private investigator. Did you know that?”
“And you had no part in that?”
“I told you, I never hurt anyone!”
“Tell me what you know,” Ella said.
“The day the PI was killed, Billy O’Donnell came over. I heard him warn Truman that the Navajo ex-cop they’d spoken about before was closing in on their operation. Truman decided to check out O’Donnell’s story and found the PI staking out the road leading to the house. I went to work after that. It wasn’t until I got home that evening that I found out what happened,” she said, and shuddered.
Ella gave her a moment to compose herself. “And?”
“It was horrible. Truman told me that he’d gone back with his rifle and shot the PI. He said he gave him time to bleed out, and once he was dead, he took all the man’s things, including his gun. He also did things to him … with a knife and bolt cutters. He wanted to make it look like the work of a skinwalker.” Eileen’s hands began to tremble and she clasped them together so tightly, her knuckles turned white.
“You weren’t there?”
Eileen shook her head. “No, I told you. I was at work. That’ll prove I had nothing to do with that,” she said. “Truman also told me that he’d used the man’s keys to get into his apartment and steal his computer and flash drives. He wanted to make sure there was nothing that could lead back to him.”
“So what happened to the things he stole, including the laptop computer and drives?”
“Truman destroyed them as much as he could with a hammer, then threw the pieces into the river.”
“The gun,
too?”
“No, Truman thought he might need that someday, so we drove over to that arroyo, put it in two layers of plastic bags along with an extra magazine of bullets, and he buried them. That’s what I was digging up today when those two cops showed up. Truman had gone back to the car, so I hid in the arroyo when the shooting started. When you showed up, he ran over to where I was. We didn’t know what was going down, but we figured we better make a run for it.”
“You still haven’t given me any proof,” Ella said. “I’m trying to help you, Eileen, but you’ve got to give me something I can take to the DA.”
She considered it for a moment. “I’ve got videos on my phone that show some of Truman’s meetings with O’Donnell,” she said at last. “I also recorded Truman telling me about the PI’s death, though he didn’t know I was doing that. The phone was in my purse at the time, so the words are muffled. But I can fill in a lot of the details.”
“Why did you videotape and record all that?” Ella asked. “Were you trying to get back at him for something?”
“No, but I was afraid he’d leave me, and I wanted something that would force him to stay. I’d always thought I could make him fall in love with me again, but when he asked me to sleep with that detective, I realized I was just fooling myself. No man would ever tell the woman he loved to have sex with another guy.”
“Why did he want you to hook up with Harry?” Ella asked.
“I was supposed to find out how much he knew. But I didn’t get anywhere. I tried to get him to lower his guard and mess around—that’s how my prints got on his belt buckle—but he wasn’t interested. I don’t think he trusted me.”
Ella bit back a smile. That was Harry. When he was working a case, nothing else was allowed to interfere, no matter how tempting, and he always had good instincts about people.
“So where has Truman been getting all the Anasazi stuff? Digging it up? Buying it from someone?”
Eileen stayed very still and stared at the floor. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. I followed him one time, but he saw me and got really mad. That was the only time he threatened to hit me.”
Ella knew she was lying and was about to confront her when Justine came in and whispered in Ella’s ear.
“We found her phone. There’s nothing there,” Justine said.
Ella glared at Eileen as Justine left the room. “You’ve lied to me, so I’m finished with you. My team checked your phone, and there’s nothing in the memory. Good luck in prison.”
“Wait. I wasn’t talking about the one in my purse,” she said quickly. “To make sure Truman never found out what I was doing, I had two identical phones. Truman snooped through my phone from time to time to see who I talked to and what I was doing, so I hid the one with the stuff I needed.”
“Where’s that phone?”
“It’s in my locker at the Little Bear Café. Check it out. You’ll see.”
“You still haven’t told me why Truman killed O’Donnell with that revolver,” Ella said, letting Eileen assume she already knew that’s what had happened. “Did O’Donnell figure out that Truman had killed the PI?”
“Yeah, and he was using that to pressure Truman into giving him a better deal on the Anasazi stuff,” Eileen said. “It was a standoff until Truman spoke to one of Billy’s cashiers, Cassie something. She told him that Billy was in trouble with the police.”
“Truman was worried that Billy would sell him out,” Ella suggested.
“Oh, yeah. He drove to Billy’s house to find out what was going on. Billy said he was going to cut off his ankle bracelet, get rid of the evidence, then turn himself in. He promised to keep Truman out of it, but Truman wanted his pots back. Billy said that they’d all been sold, but Truman didn’t believe him. He followed Billy to his stash and shot him. Before he could search the place, you guys showed up, so he had to take off.”
Ella said nothing for several long moments, then spoke slowly and deliberately. “You know exactly where the dig is, Eileen.” Ella stood and, with one hand on the back of Eileen’s chair, leaned over, invading her personal space. “So why are you still playing games with me, mixing in lies with the truth?”
Eileen remained rock-still. “I’ve cooperated completely and told you everything I know. Now I want a tribal lawyer. I’m not saying another word.”
Ella met Victoria out in the hall. “What do you think?”
“She remained calm when you got in her face. That much control tells me she’s holding back,” Victoria said. “She knows exactly where the dig is.”
Ella stared at the floor for a second, gathering her thoughts, then looked directly at Victoria. “My brother said that you have a remarkable gift.”
Victoria quickly held up one hand. “Don’t go there, Ella. I’m a good observer, and my police training is a real asset to any investigation. If you’re willing to accept my help on that basis, I’ll go back to Truman John’s home and help you find that dig site.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
Blalock, standing by the coffee machine, waved them over. “There’s nothing more we can do here until the tribal attorney arrives. Coffee, my treat?”
“Instead of coffee, why don’t you join us at Truman’s home and help us search? I’m convinced the dig is there,” Ella said, then looked at Justine, who was jogging over.
“Got some good news,” Justine said. “The patrolman we sent to the Little Bear Café found a phone in Eileen’s locker. He’s bringing it in along with the rest of the locker contents, including a red wig and some sexy clothes. His words, not mine.”
“No surprise. Stay here and check out the phone, Justine. We need to know if Eileen was lying about the recording and the video. As soon as you know, call me,” Ella said.
By the time they arrived at the site, they were running out of daylight. With luck, they’d have another hour, maybe a little more, before they’d need floodlights.
“Okay, everyone. Search the ground for new vegetation or plants that are different from the ones growing in the surrounding area. Keep your eyes open and trust your instincts.”
“It’s not here,” Blalock said after thirty minutes. “I think this is one secret Truman may take to his grave.”
Victoria shook her head. “It’s here.” She stood completely still, facing away from the house.
As Ella waited, she saw Victoria playing absently with something in her hand. Curious, Ella watched for a second longer and caught a glimpse of the rock crystal bracelet that was now in Victoria’s palm. She wasn’t gazing at it; she was just holding it, as an Anglo might a good luck charm.
Victoria smiled slowly, then turned to look at the property. “There’s one place we haven’t looked. I bet it’s there.”
Ella glanced around. “What are you talking about? We’ve looked everywhere.”
“No, not really.” Victoria pointed to the sixty or more bales of straw that had been stacked on large wooden pallets inside the loafing shed. “He doesn’t have animals that might use the straw for bedding, and his landscaping barely makes use of one bale. Although he’s used straw for packing before, that amounts to maybe one more bale. So why does he have a stack that size, and why use pallets to keep them off the ground? They’re on a high spot, so it’s not a drainage issue.”
“Maybe he intends on reselling them off-season and making a little profit,” Blalock said.
“Alfalfa, maybe; straw, I don’t think so,” Victoria said. “I’m guessing those bales are there to cover up something.”
“Doesn’t make much sense to me,” Blalock said. “Each time he wanted to excavate and search for artifacts, he would have had to move those bales. That’s a lot of hard work. Those pallets aren’t on rollers, and he doesn’t have a forklift to shuffle them around.”
“Okay, if we assume he’s hiding something below the pallets, here’s another idea. What if he’s booby-trapped the bales?” Ella said. “This guy was a game player—for keeps.”
“We’ll k
eep an eye out, just in case, but there’s no way we’re moving those fifty-plus bales without some extra muscle. Call in reinforcements,” Blalock said.
Ella put out the call, then got hold of Big Ed and updated him. Once she hung up, she turned to the others. “Before we waste more energy on speculation, let’s take a closer look at the bales and the area around them. Maybe we can find something that’ll tell us if we’re on the right track. And keep a sharp eye out for anything that doesn’t look right, like a trip wire or a pressure plate. I suggest we start with the corner pallet least visible from the road, then check every corner pallet before working toward the center of the stack. If it were me hiding something I needed easy access to, I’d put it around the perimeter of the stack.”
It wasn’t long before Philip and Michael Cloud, who’d been off duty, arrived to help out. Ella worked alongside them while Tache, their explosives expert, checked out each bale on the corner pallet before they removed it. Several of the officers had horses of their own and were used to handling bales of alfalfa or grass. They found these straw bales lighter than expected and easier to move, which led to them breaking a few open to look inside, just in case.
When they got down to the last two bales on the first pallet, Ella saw the wooden platform wobble slightly.
“Hold it, guys,” she said.
Working together, Blalock and Ella carefully lifted the two remaining bales and tipped the pallet on end.
“It scraped something solid underneath,” Ella said, reaching down. After brushing away a layer of straw and sand, she exposed a thick sheet of plywood coated with sand-colored deck sealer.
They set the empty pallet completely aside, then lifted away the sheet of plywood, which had been reinforced on the bottom with rails of sealed pine. Beneath it was a space about four feet deep resembling a basement. It was supported on top with an intricate wooden framework that also shored up the other pallets. A battery-powered lamp lay inside close by, and when Ella dropped down and turned it on, she saw a ladder leading into a vertical shaft.
Victoria jumped down beside Ella. “This is the dig site. My guess is that when he and Eileen were setting up her garden, they stumbled on a real treasure trove.”
