Wind Spirit: An Ella Clah Novel (Ella Clah Novels)

by Aimée Thurlo

  He pulled the reporter toward his car. “Get going. If you refuse to cooperate, I’ll arrest you and you’ll be sitting in jail when this story breaks.”

  As soon as Neskahi got the reporter into his car, Blalock and Justine took advantage of the extra cover and joined Ella behind her unit.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Blalock said. “He’s hunkering down and going to remain uncommunicative.”

  “I’ve got an idea.” Ella explained quickly and Justine left to get what was needed.

  A half hour later when Justine finally returned, no progress had been made.

  “I’ve got what you wanted, Ella,” she said, opening a case and bringing out a tranquilizer rifle borrowed from the local vet.

  Blalock shook his head. “You’re going to have to get close to your target for this to hit the mark and too many things can go wrong. We’re not after a feral dog who’s attacking sheep. What if you miss or the dart’s deflected?”

  “I’m going to try and place a shot through one of the open windows,” Ella replied. “This is the only way to avoid killing him. I don’t think he has any intention of surrendering.”

  “Agreed. But he may end up killing you.”

  Ella shook her head. “I won’t make myself a target, and I’ll have my regular pistol with me too.”

  “I know that the possibility he’ll go out as a martyr rankles you, but is it worth this?”

  Ella didn’t reply. A week ago that would have probably been her motivation, but things had changed. Life meant a lot more to her now. Although she had no desire to risk her own for his, she had to at least try to give him a chance to live. She’d received a second chance of her own, and she just couldn’t bring herself to deny someone else that same opportunity. But she’d be extremely careful.

  “I’m a good tracker because I move silently. My brother taught me that skill years ago. I can do this. Several windows are partially open for circulation and, hopefully, I’ll be able to take advantage of that.”

  Ella watched as Justine loaded the rifle with a tranquilizer dart. “Tell me what the vet said, Justine.”

  “Dr. Goldman uses this to help the animal control people capture animals that can’t be approached, like vicious dogs or a cornered bull. He said the dose will drop a two-hundred-pound man within fifteen seconds, at least theoretically. But you have to hit him in a fleshy area, not the skull or backbone or kneecap. You know what I mean.”

  “What if he just plucks it out?” Blalock interjected.

  “Too late. The impact injects the knockout drug,” Justine answered, handing Ella the rifle.

  “It’ll be up to you guys to keep him distracted,” Ella said. “Use the bullhorn to try and strike up a conversation.”

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Blalock said. “Just remember that once you go around this car you’ll be out of cover. And keep your eyes on the ground because he could have easily booby-trapped the area and that armored vest you have on only protects your upper body. If he reloads his own ammunition, and most of these guys do, he probably has plenty of gunpowder to make pipe bombs. And they may not be easy to spot, particularly if he buried them just below the surface.”

  “I’ll watch my step. We’ve got plenty of daylight left. As long as his attention is on you, I’ll be fine. And even if I don’t get a chance to dart him, it’s going to help us a lot if I can take a look inside the house and see what kind of ammo, weapons, and gas masks he has.” Ella took the small pair of auto-focusing binoculars from the ground beside her and stuck them in her vest pouch.

  “Just don’t try and go into the house,” Blalock said, then shook his head. “I wish you’d reconsider this, Ella. Too many things can go wrong with this plan. At least two of those rifles he’s supposed to have will easily penetrate that vest.”

  “I’ll be careful, and if I see an opening I’ll take the shot.”

  Blalock walked over to the rear of the vehicle and announced who he was. Then he began trying to convince Smiley to turn on his phone and talk.

  As he spoke, Ella crouched down and made a dash for the corner of the house where there was a blind spot, and then waited to see if Smiley reacted. When nothing happened, she inched around the side, checking the ground below her as she moved. Aware that a rifle bullet could go right through plaster and wood, she was careful not to even rub up against the wall and make a noise.

  Halfway down was a small bathroom window. The glass was frosted, but the casement glass was open about three inches. Once she made it there, she’d peer inside and try to figure out where he was. If that didn’t work, there was a bedroom window farther down at the other end.

  As she crept slowly, she heard another vehicle pulling up somewhere behind the police line by the front of the house. Blalock was using every technique he knew—including building a wall of cars up close that would help them tactically—to keep Smiley focused on them.

  Ella sidestepped to the bathroom window. It was up high and she had to stretch to peer in. No one was visible. All she could see was the wall in the hallway through the open door. Inching toward the bedroom window, she suddenly spotted a strand of transparent fishing line stretched across the ground, connected to something buried beneath a thin layer of earth.

  She stepped over it carefully, now doubly alert. There was no telling how many of these were hidden here or around the other side of the house. Before she could take a look through the bedroom window, the crack of a single gunshot blasted through the air.

  Ella froze, then ducked and reached for her cell phone. “What’s happening?” she asked in a whisper.

  “You tell me,” Blalock said, matching her soft tone. “I thought he took a shot at you. We can’t see you from here. Let me see if I can raise Smiley on the phone.” A moment later Blalock spoke again. “No luck. He has it switched off.”

  “Let me take a look in there before anyone moves in. And alert everyone to watch where they step around the house. There are trip wires beneath some of the windows. Maybe elsewhere too.”

  “Then he’s probably rigged the windows and doors.” Blalock paused, deep in thought. “That one shot we heard means that he either committed suicide, or wants us to think he did. If he did off himself, then you can bet he’s left some surprises for us.”

  “There’s smoke coming out of the side window. Maybe he’s hoping to create a smoke screen to use as cover when he makes his next move,” Ella said.

  “Fall back, Ella,” Blalock said.

  Before Ella could reply, flames shot out the back window. “The place is on fire. I think he rigged it up so that it would catch after he was dead. No one would try to fry themselves alive. But I need to go in now because he might still be alive. A lot of suicide attempts miss.”

  “No, hang back and wait it out. This was his call.”

  “If he’s still alive I have to try to get him out.” Self-preservation told her to stay where she was, but she had to finish what she’d started. When she’d fallen into that mine, her rescuers hadn’t assumed she was dead, and that’s why she was here now. Everything was interconnected. To find harmony, one’s life had to be in balance. She’d survived against the odds. She owed the man inside the same chance, even if he was a criminal.

  Ella stood and peered in the bedroom window. No one was inside and the door leading to the rest of the house was closed. Leaving the air rifle propped up against the outside wall, she slid the casement window open and was about to crawl through when she heard footsteps behind her.

  Ella reached for her service pistol instantly and whirled around.

  “Whoa, Ella.” It was Neskahi and he was stepping over the trip wires.

  “I’ve got some explosives training,” he said. “I took the classes the FBI offered last winter. Let me go in first.”

  Ella lowered her weapon. “If you’re expecting me to turn you down, you’re going to be disappointed,” she said with a tiny smile. “Lead on.”

  She followed him in, staying low to the f
loor, trying to remain below the thin cloud of smoke coming in from beneath the door. Ella closed the window to cut down on oxygen feeding the fire while he looked around. Neskahi soon spotted a wooden clothespin and wires attached to the door.

  “It’s a old trick. When you open the door you pull out a piece of wood keeping the jaws of the clothespin apart. They snap shut and the wires around them touch, connecting a circuit to a battery and blasting cap. The explosives on the other side of the door then go off,” Neskahi quickly explained.

  The sergeant took a pair of wire cutters from his pocket and cut the wire leading from the top jaw, then bent it out of the way. After cutting the wire to the other jaw, he pulled out the clothespin. “It’s safe.”

  Ella touched the door. “It’s warm, but not hot. I think we can open it and this time I’ll go first. Fair’s fair. Ready?”

  Ella pulled the door open, then went through low and fast. The fire seemed to be concentrated in the kitchen, but it was spreading fast. The smoke was as thick as a wall, but it gave them some cover.

  Through the ever-thickening haze in the short and narrow hallway, Ella saw a figure lying back in a recliner with what appeared to be a forty-five auto on the floor by his feet. She didn’t have to move any closer to see the gaping hole where his temple had been. “He’s gone,” Ella said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Neskahi pointed to wires leading away from the front door. Following his gaze, Ella saw a stack of ammunition, gunpowder, and a can of kerosene on the floor in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. A blasting cap and lantern battery were wired into the center of the makeshift bomb. A second nonelectrical blasting cap was beside the first, connected to detonating cord that extended into the kitchen.

  The wooden table had been turned on its side and pushed against the kitchen window. Smiley’s second-to-last act had apparently been to throw a kerosene lantern against the table and set the fuel on fire.

  Flames had already ignited the detonating cord. They only had seconds and the front and back doors were blocked. Ella grabbed a folding chair from beside the computer desk and threw it out the front window. Then reaching for a sofa cushion and keeping it in front of her, Ella dove through the shattered window. She hit the ground a heartbeat later and scrambled to her feet, Neskahi right beside her.

  “Bomb!” Ella shouted to the others behind the police line. As everyone dove for cover, Neskahi and she raced away from the house.

  When Ella heard the sudden pop of a blasting cap behind her she instinctively stretched out in a desperate dive to reach cover. A wave of hot air and heat caught her like a leaf and flipped her over in midair. Deafened by the roar, she landed on the ground faceup, then rolled over and covered her head as a storm of debris came raining down on her.

  EIGHT

  Moments later Ella felt someone helping her off the ground. Her ears rang and she couldn’t quite focus as someone carried her back behind the police line, then eased her down onto the sand behind one of the vehicles. Trying to get her bearings, she looked up, blinking, and saw Dwayne Blalock and Justine looking down at her.

  “Damn, Ella,” Blalock said in a breathy voice, “you gaining weight?”

  There was a moment’s confusion, then Payestewa and a big county deputy she didn’t recognize eased Sergeant Neskahi to the ground beside her. Joseph was covered with dust and pieces of wood and gravel, had a cut on his cheek, but still insisted on sitting up. Everyone around them crouched low as rounds of ammunition continued to go off at a rapid rate. For a brief moment she was reminded of the Fourth of July celebrations at the old drive-in movie theater in Farmington.

  Sitting up, Ella looked at Justine, who handed her a bottle of water, then at Blalock. “I think you darned near pulled my arm out of its socket when you drew it over your shoulders, Dwayne.”

  “Beats being dragged over the ground by the arms,” Neskahi grumbled, then smiled at the Hopi agent who’d hauled him from danger to let him know he was grateful.

  “Next time, FB-Eyes, I carry the girl, you carry the guy,” Payestewa announced. Blalock scowled at him and Payestewa laughed. Justine joined in, and finally Blalock smiled as well.

  “This makes the second time this week you’ve tried to get yourself killed, Ella,” Blalock sighed.

  “Maybe I’m going for the record,” she joked, reaching down to ensure that her medicine pouch was still intact. Her luck was still holding.

  A loud but less spectacular explosion suddenly shook the ground and everyone ducked. “Maybe I should just keep quiet,” Ella said, glancing around for her car. “Where’s my unit?”

  “I moved it before the big blast,” Justine said.

  “What happened in there?” Blalock looked back and forth between Ella and Neskahi, who was now drinking from the water bottle.

  Ella shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “Smiley took himself out with his forty-five, but he had the entire house rigged.”

  “Was all this just about his gun collection?” the same redheaded reporter rushed up, holding a small tape recorder.

  Although Ella’s thoughts were still in the process of clearing, her response was automatic. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I came back. Were you there when Bruce Smiley killed himself? Do you blame yourself for his death?” The woman crouched low, inching closer but watching the burning house with anxious eyes.

  “Get out of the crime scene,” Blalock growled at the woman, then looked at Payestewa and added, “You can carry her all the way to Farmington—if she won’t leave under her own power. Now!”

  The reporter glared at Blalock, took a step back from Lucas, who was reaching for her halfheartedly, then stomped back toward the van where the press had been detained. A county deputy followed her, making sure she didn’t circle back.

  “I don’t know what Smiley told those reporters over the phone before we moved in, but I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be under attack on this one,” Blalock said. “No comments until we debrief,” he told them.

  “Good idea,” Ella said, wondering if her hearing would ever be the same again. The fire department was coming up the road, and their sirens made her head hurt.

  An hour later, after receiving first aid for small cuts and bruises, Ella left Justine and her crime-scene unit on-site with Lucas Payestewa to gather evidence. She, Blalock, and Big Ed met back at the police station.

  “Give me your Cliffs Notes version of what went down,” Big Ed said once they were all seated.

  “I think Smiley wanted to go out like a hero. He hoped that once he was dead and his home destroyed, we’d never be able to find enough evidence to link him conclusively to the fire and Mrs. Hunt’s death. That would have left the element of doubt in people’s minds as to whether he was really guilty. He could be remembered as a martyr and patriot who’d stood up for a cause he believed in.”

  “Do we have proof that he was the arsonist?” Big Ed asked.

  “We have witnesses that’ll attest to suspicious behavior, but that’s all circumstantial. The glass bottles that held gasoline used to torch the place shattered, and according to Justine’s report there were no prints on the fragments and shards. Without finding evidence in his home that linked him to the crime, we would have had a tough time making a case against him. He admitted to me over the phone that he’d set the fire, but that’s not a signed confession—all we have there is my word,” Ella explained.

  “We’ll also never be able to prove to the press that our actions didn’t precipitate the incident that led to the man’s death and the explosion,” Blalock said. “No matter how you slice it, we’re going to be screwed on this one.”

  “It goes that way sometimes,” Ella said, standing up. “If we’re done for now, I’d like to go jot down some notes for my report.”

  Blalock remained seated. “I’ve got a few other things to discuss with your chief. I’ll catch you later.”

  Ella returned to her office. At the end of a good day she
was always filled with an incredible feeling of accomplishment, but today all she felt was a sense of futility and the weariness that came from swimming against the current. She’d lost a battle today and the cost had been a human life.

  Ella went directly to her desk but as she passed the fax machine she saw that someone had sent her a copy of the statement Smiley had sent the media and press before she’d arrived at his home. From the telephone number printed at the top that identified the sender, she realized that this copy of the original had come from Jaime Beyale, the editor of the Dineh Times.

  As she retrieved the fax, her phone rang and she reached for it with her free hand.

  “Did you get the fax I just sent you?” Jaime asked.

  “Yeah, I have it now.”

  “I thought you might want to see it. According to Peter Finch of the Albuquerque paper, Smiley sent this letter to a targeted few. All I have is a fax of his fax, but basically it’s Smiley’s rant on the rights of gun owners and his unqualified support of George Branch. But what’s most interesting is the last paragraph. He calls Lewis Hunt an enemy to anyone who believes in the Bill of Rights.

  “He wanted to be remembered as a martyr in the fight to preserve The People’s rights to bear arms.”

  Minutes later, Ella took the letter into Big Ed’s office. Bla-lock was still there. “Just to make a bad day worse,” she said, handing the papers to the chief, who read them over quickly, then passed them to Blalock.

  “We’re going to have a tough time with Councilman Hunt unless the crime-scene team finds something that ties Smiley to the arson,” Chief Atcitty said. “The man lost his wife and will want definitive closure.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Ella said.

  An hour later, after her team came in, Ella learned that they’d found evidence in the outbuilding near the propane tank and gas generator. One metal can that had fallen behind some old trash cans held traces of gasoline and several blades of bluegrass were stuck to the bottom where a store label had been peeled off. The Hunts had such a lawn around their home but Smiley didn’t.