by Aimée
She jogged up the slope that obstructed her view of the area beyond, then back down the opposite side to a large arroyo where the others had gathered. As she drew near, she saw a tribal unit inside the narrow wash, barely visible. A few tumbleweeds were on the top of the vehicle, as if someone had attempted to hide it from the air. Ella recognized it instantly from the code number. It was Justine’s.
TWELVE
Ella helped Payestewa and Blalock search the vehicle and dust for prints while Tache and Sergeant Neskahi examined the area around it. Everyone worked as quickly as they dared. There was no doubt now in anyone’s mind that Justine was in trouble—just how serious was yet to be determined. All of them knew that Justine never would have abandoned her unit while it was still operational, leaving the shotgun in place and the keys in the ignition. Only one explanation made sense. Somehow, Justine had been lured out of her vehicle.
“There’s a six-pack of cola in the back that hasn’t been touched.” Agent Payestewa noted. “And there are no signs of violence or a struggle I can find.”
“Whoever she encountered passed up the shotgun and everything else inside,” Ella said. “They deliberately hid the unit here, too, to delay discovery.”
“There’s an empty water bottle in the front with lipstick smears on it. I’ll have the lab check against the brand Justine uses, but I’ll need a sample for comparison.” Blalock added.
Ella nodded mechanically. “I’ll get it from her mother.”
They continued to work the scene for three more hours. Ella, acutely aware of the passage of time, suspected that the news was probably all over Shiprock by now. A few cars had already driven by the original crime scene, and the presence of the FBI and the medical investigator’s vehicle would send off an alarm.
As Ella continued to help the other officers search and collect evidence, her restlessness grew. Hair samples and fibers were gathered, labeled, and sealed, but throughout the process, Ella couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing something important.
The department sent a tow truck, and Justine’s unit, though undamaged, was hauled away as evidence. An eternity later, the FBI agents and Ella and her team took a final look around.
“It’s time to process everything we’ve collected and then start talking to her friends and relatives,” Blalock said. “I don’t need to tell everyone that we’ll need to move fast on this.”
Ella nodded and started to reply when she saw a familiar old four-wheel-drive SUV approaching from the highway. She took a deep, unsteady breath. This was the last thing she’d expected or needed.
Blalock looked up and signaled Payestewa. “Get rid of them if they stop.”
“No, I’ll take care of it. That’s my cousin, Justine’s mother, and it looks like one of her other daughters is with her.”
A Chevy pulled up beside Ella’s Jeep, and Angela Goodluck jumped out immediately, followed by Ruth, Justine’s oldest sister. Seeing Ella, Angela and Ruth ran toward her. They were both pale and their eyes wide with fear.
“We heard the medical examiner was here and on the way passed my daughter’s vehicle being towed. Tell me nothing’s happened, that the rumors aren’t true,” Angela said, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“She’s missing, and that’s all we know,” Ella said, hating herself for not being able to give them the answer they wanted. “You should both go home. As soon as there’s any news, I’ll call right away.”
“Dr. Roanhorse was here, we heard,” Ruth interjected. “Is my sister…”
“A body was found, but we have no reason to conclude it was your sister’s,” Ella said. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
Angela gave Ella a look that seemed to go right through her. “Our family won’t rest until my daughter’s home or we have answers.”
Ella shared their anguish, but now the load she carried seemed even more pronounced. She had to get to the bottom of this, and quickly. Either Justine had suddenly taken off, which seemed unlikely, been kidnapped, or been murdered and her body burned beyond recognition. The other possibility, that Justine herself was responsible for the charred body, was such a far-fetched notion that she wouldn’t even consider it.
In either case, her priorities were clear. Justine had to be found, and the killer of the person they’d discovered in the shallow grave had to be tracked down and apprehended. Ella exhaled softly. There was no doubt in her mind that this would be the most emotional case she’d worked on since the death of her own father years ago.
As her handheld radio sputtered out her call sign, Ella answered, and Big Ed’s booming voice came out clearly.
“What’s happening out there, Shorty? Give me the highlights.”
Ella did as he asked. “It looks pretty bad no matter how we interpret it,” she added.
“Come to the station as soon as you finish. I want a full report.”
Ella waited while more patrol officers arrived to assist in securing the area. As the officers joined them, Ella looked at her old friends.
Philip Cloud and Michael Cloud had been unlucky enough to draw the responsibility of guarding the crime scene tonight. She could see from their faces that they’d already heard all about the dismembered, burned body and would have preferred to put as much distance from here as they could.
“Any questions?” she asked, after briefing them.
“How long do you think it’ll take to completely process this large an area?”
She knew what they meant. Finding officers who would step forward for this kind of duty was difficult. It was part of their job, but one no one here was really prepared for. Navajos considered nighttime at a place where someone had died an especially dangerous place to be.
“If you like, you can take four-hour shifts and spell each other,” Ella said sympathetically. “Just don’t let any civilians on the scene until Officer Tache, Blalock, or I say so. If the investigation here has to continue tomorrow, you guys will be free to leave once someone from the crime team returns in the morning.”
Philip looked around. “This place already feels differently,” he muttered. “Did you know that some officers are no longer calling it Beautiful Mesa? They’re referring to it as Red Mesa now that a body’s been dismembered and so much blood’s been spilled here. I have a feeling that name will stick.”
Ella suppressed a shudder. “Well, at least you know for sure that you won’t have curious Navajos dropping by. Not many of our people would come near here now that death has contaminated this place.”
Michael nodded slowly. “My brother and I will work out a schedule. The crime scene will be secured.”
Leaving them, Ella caught up with Blalock and Payestewa by their cars. “Big Ed has called me in to make a report. Anything in particular you want me to tell him?”
“Just that I’m putting a rush on all the lab tests that we’ll be sending through our Albuquerque lab. Without Justine, you have no one to process prints and that type of thing, is that right?” Blalock asked.
Ella nodded. “Carolyn can take care of some overlapping work when it falls under her area of expertise,” Ella said, reminding them of the tip of a finger that had escaped destruction. “But other than that, we’re not going to be able to do lab work. Hair and fiber samples will have to go to you, too.”
“Okay. The Bureau will handle it.”
After saying good-bye, Ella drove directly to Shiprock. Each time fear whispered that her cousin was dead, she fought to push back the thought. She needed to hold on to hope now more than ever.
By the time she reached the station, Ella was eager and ready to get to work to find answers. Everything was connected to everything else. By finding the connections in the case, she could solve the crime and restore balance, her own and everyone else’s. There were times, like now, when leaning on the old beliefs was the only way to find courage to face what needed to be done.
No one was around the station when she walked in except the staff behind the front desk. The officer o
n duty looked up, nodded, but didn’t say a word. Maybe it was denial, but none of the cops were ready to believe Justine was gone for good. They were clinging to hope as hard as she was. They wouldn’t speak her name, hoping to reserve the power it had just for her now that she was in trouble.
Yet their motives weren’t completely altruistic. There was fear of the chindi, too. She wasn’t kidding herself. Until they knew if she was alive or dead, calling her name would be considered dangerous and not to be risked unless absolutely necessary.
Ella knocked on Big Ed’s open door and walked inside as he waved at her. His face was grim. “What I hear disturbs me, Shorty, and I thought I’d heard it all. The crime on Red Mesa sounds particularly vicious.”
She noted that he’d used “Red Mesa” naturally, without even a second’s hesitation. Nothing could have given her a clearer indication of how deeply this crime was affecting everyone. Justine was a member of the force, and even the possibility that someone had done something like that to one of their own had every member of the department on edge.
“We have no proof yet that it’s my assistant’s body,” she said, wanting to clarify that first, then proceeded to fill him in on the details.
“You were the last person to see her,” Big Ed said slowly. “Tell me about your meeting.”
Ella did, reluctantly admitting to herself for the first time that she was a suspect herself.
“Whose idea was it to have that meeting?”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t really know. We both got notes we thought came from the other, but I didn’t send her a note, and from what she said, she didn’t send me one either. Someone set us up, Chief, but I didn’t say anything to her about it because I thought it was probably just a well-intentioned cop that we both work with. It looks like there was a lot more to it than that.”
“Who else knew about your plans to meet?” Big Ed said.
“I told my mother, but just her. Justine’s mother knew, but I don’t know who else they might have talked to.”
Big Ed nodded, but remained silent.
Ella didn’t interrupt the silence and waited, used to lengthy pauses. It was part of the rhythm of Navajo speech.
“If everything in her unit including her shotgun was left behind,” Big Ed said, “and there were no signs of a struggle in her unit, then that means she pulled over willingly—for a friend, perhaps.”
“Or a relative. It’s a reasonable conclusion. But I wasn’t there, so all I have to offer is speculation.”
“Shorty, I know you had nothing to do with this, but I’ve got to tell you the truth. This might end up pointing in your direction. If the victim you found turns out to be your second cousin, and we all pray that won’t happen, things are going to get really hot for you. Over the years you’ve made many enemies on the Rez, and I’m afraid they’ll all come to the surface once word gets around that you two were having problems getting along. You’ve got to find out what happened, and you’ve got to move fast before the gossip begins.
“This case hits very close to home, and that’s a strike against you in more ways than one,” Big Ed continued. “People will be screaming that I take you off the case. And there’s the chance that your intuition and logic won’t be as reliable now.”
“You can’t take me off this case, and not just because doing so will feed the rumor mill about me being guilty of something. I quit the Bureau to come and work cases like these for The People. I’m the person most qualified to pursue this and you know it. If you hand this investigation over to someone else, you’ll be using the second string. That’s not fair to her or to me.”
Big Ed nodded slowly. “Okay. For now, we’ll keep things as they are. But as you work the case, there’s a possibility I want you to look into. Our department has been responsible for foiling some big crimes since the Special Investigations unit was formed, and we haven’t had to pay any big price—so far. If your assistant was the victim, then this may be only the first of several planned attacks on our police officers.”
Ella remembered the instant message warning her about a conspiracy. Without hesitation, she told Big Ed about her secret contact, leaving out the name “Coyote” in order to protect the person in case he or she was really undercover. “The problem is, I have no idea where the message came from or how valid it is. I tried to backtrack, but I reached nothing but dead ends and addresses that no longer exist. But the warning was clear. I was to trust no one.”
“I’m glad you told me. But just in case this contact of yours is legit and working deep cover, we need to keep it to ourselves for now. If you’re contacted again, talk to me right away. Maybe I can do some checking behind the scenes. There’s one federal agency already working on our turf with someone undercover, but that’s all I was told. I don’t like it, mind you, but I was lucky to get that.”
Ella nodded. The Marshals Service had notified Big Ed, undoubtedly. She wondered if Harry knew.
Ella returned to her office, more unsettled than ever. She wasn’t sure which theory she preferred—that someone might be trying to frame her for Justine’s disappearance, or that there was a conspiracy against police officers under way.
Knowing she needed to get started on the trail for the truth, Ella reached for the phone to dial Carolyn. The phone rang just as she touched the receiver.
Ella picked it up and immediately recognized Blalock’s voice on the other end, though he didn’t bother to identify himself.
“Ella, I have some very bad news. I had your department send me Justine’s prints for comparison, and they’re a match for the one Dr. Roanhorse lifted from the severed fingertip. That’s Justine’s body. I’m so sorry, I know how close you two were.”
Ella’s stomach sank. “But we can’t be sure. It’s just her fingertip,” she argued, knowing how pitiful her protests were, but unable to let go of all hope. “What if it’s a trick of some kind, and she’s being held hostage somewhere?”
“There’s more. One of the bone fragments we managed to find was from a severed finger, and the tip was missing, probably cut off by the same tool used to separate the fingertip. I know this is difficult for you, but reason it out. Why would somebody deliberately destroy a body so thoroughly, even smashing the teeth, unless they wanted to avoid positive proof of who they murdered? Killing a cop is a guarantee that the department will go after them full force.”
“But we don’t know anything for sure,” Ella insisted, not wanting to even consider the possibility that Justine had been tortured before being killed.
“Does it really make sense to you that the perp killed one person and chopped off the finger of another just to mislead us? The fact is that he was planning on burning the body—and the evidence—then, in the dark, he missed burning the fingertip.”
“Why bother chopping up the hands anyway, if he or they were going to burn up the entire body?” Ella wondered about the seeming inconsistency. “Any fire hot enough to destroy the femurs and the skull would have easily done away with the fingers.”
“Whoever it was could have been full of rage and just lost control. It was, after all, an extremely violent crime. I’ve seen victims of stabbings and beatings where there were many post mortem blows inflicted. The killer or killers had worked themselves into a frenzy and just couldn’t stop until they were too tired to continue. Psychological overkill, I guess. The profilers have a lot more to say about this than I do.”
“I think all that chopping was deliberate rather than the act of a crazed, out-of-control killer, because the rest of the crime scene was so organized. The victim was shot first, and mercifully dead before the body was dismembered. That means that either the fingertip was dropped there for us to find and assume it was a slipup, or was accidental. Either way, it was a mistake, and if he made one mistake, he’ll make more,” Ella said. “We’ll play it out before making any conclusions.”
“Face facts, Ella. Officer Tache also found what turned out to be blood on some blades of grass close by
where the body was burned. It’s being tested now. Nearly all of the victim’s body, even the skeleton, was turned to ashes in that fire pit.”
“Let see what that evidence tells us then.”
“Okay, but you should know that the ME doesn’t think any of the other remains will be sufficient to refute her preliminary ID, though she really wanted to give us some hope that it wasn’t Officer Goodluck who died.”
Ella tried to keep her voice from cracking. “What else do we know from the vehicle?”
“The fingerprints we lifted from inside the car are hers, yours, and those of a prisoner transported recently named Zah.”
“Even the ones right above the door on the roof, where someone talking to a driver would place his hand as he leaned against the car?” Ella managed.
“There were no clear prints on there, just smudges. The car was washed and waxed recently.”
“Hair and fiber samples?”
Blalock sighed. “I called in a favor and had the Albuquerque lab check those for me right away, and most of the hair samples appear to be Justine’s as well. They’ll need samples of your hair, and also Zah’s, the prisoner, to compare with those found that don’t appear to belong to Justine.”
“So there’s no evidence that someone else got into the car or forced her out?”
“No,” the FBI agent said, then continued. “But my guess is that she was approached by a friend, relative, or acquaintance she trusted. There was no call to dispatch, so she didn’t pull anyone over or make a stop to investigate something she saw. The only theory that makes sense is that she was taken off-guard. But that’s going to make your life difficult,” Blalock warned.
“Do you think I had something to do with my cousin’s death?” Ella knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been having trouble getting along with Justine lately. To single her out was unfair.
“No, but my opinion doesn’t count. It’s the DA you have to worry about. For the record, I believe you’ve been set up. I think you better check your enemies and see who among them would have the know-how and be in a position to do this.”
