by Win Blevins
I walked to Mr. John’s cabin, and those two were wrapping up a pretty good argument. Neither one of them paid me any attention when I knocked and went inside.
“And now you’ve gotten Yazzie into trouble with your hijinks. I’ll get him out of it, but I’m not sure how.”
“I—”
“Goldman, stay out of this.”
“Don’t talk to him that way.”
I didn’t care how either of them talked to me. I pretty much wished I could fade into the walls.
“We check on the ex-boyfriend in L.A. His time is accounted for, which means nothing because he wouldn’t come himself anyway. For good measure we called Mr. H, had him do a little surveillance, all of that. Your knight in shining armor telephoned Cantonucci and made a few threats. He suggested coming here, and I said that was not acceptable, in no uncertain terms.”
“Why is that?” she said.
“Because, I’m not having his ego all over my shoot. We’re just about done.”
I wondered who the devil this Mr. H. was.
Ford brushed her words away like a fly. “I’m not going into details, but he is irrelevant.”
Then he turned to Linda. “I’ve talked to Mike Goulding and asked her if you could stay with her for a few days while we wrap and I clean up things with the various law-enforcement agencies. She is happy to have you. And, she is a damned good shot.”
“I’m going back to the cabin.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“What happened is done. It’s over.”
“Until we catch the guy, it’s not over. And how can you think of going back to that place? Linda, I swear to God, you need a shrink.”
That did it.
“You—you are not allowed to speak to me like that. No one is. I am not running my life on fear. Understood?”
“No. I do not understand one damned thing.”
“Fine. Yazzie, will you please walk me back to my cabin?”
“Linda, I think Mr. John’s right,” I said. “Staying with Mike Goulding is a good idea.”
“I’ll go to the cabin by myself then.”
Mr. John whapped his hand against his forehead. “Linda, just go then. Yazzie, do what she wants.”
Seemed to me that was pretty much what I had been doing for a little while.
We walked up the hill and the moon spilled on her shoulders. She looked beyond exhaustion, and she had plenty of reason to. I didn’t blame Mr. John for being angry. She was infuriating. She also had more guts than most people I’d ever met. Maybe it was pride. Maybe a combination of all that.
I turned the key and checked inside. All clear. She staggered forward and flopped onto the bed, her eyes open and unblinking. I locked the door behind us. Checked it twice. Just then, lying on the bed, she looked like a little kid who needed a doll to hug or a thumb to suck. She was all in. I told her to give me a minute. She nodded her head yes.
I stepped into the water closet. It was literally that, a closet the movie carpenters had built so the bigwigs could use the chamber pots in privacy.
And sure enough, above was exactly what had to be there with the way that place was built—a panel opening into the crawl space.
I came out of the closet and sat down on the bed. Linda took my hand. I told her where I was going.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I’ll be right above you,” I said. “I’ll be able to see you.” Part of me was afraid of what I would see and what could be seen. Everything.
Back in the closet I turned one of the two chamber pots upside down, stood on it, pushed the panel out of the way, and muscled myself up. Here, next to the wall, the crawl space was so small I had to slither in. Newspapers were spread flat everywhere, an inch or so thick.
I saw prints in the dust right off. I went over to one side on hands and knees to avoid scuffing them, but I still had to get to the exact spot where the four-by-eights of plywood met, square in the middle of the room, where the light fixture dangled.
The wire slithered out from beneath the newspaper there, and a small hole let it through to follow a slender chain one foot or so down to the clear fixture.
I held the Coleman lantern toward each corner of the crawl space from that spot. The newspaper showed a clear pattern. Most of the paper was covered with years of dust and sand, but a path angling from the panel to the hole for the light was almost dust free, and a wiped-off spot had a human shape, chest to knees.
Unfortunately, the hole for the wire and chain was not so small. Someone had scraped it wider open, maybe with a knife. I leaned over with a push-up that let me down, touching as little of the newspaper as possible, and put my eye to the hole. The fixture blocked sight of the floor straight down, but it gave a clear and unobstructed view of the beds and everything else. I was gazing down on Linda, her eyes fixed open.
Painful clarity: The bastard had to have been in the cabin when we got there, and he’d laid right here and watched us make love. When I left and she’d started napping, he crept to the water closet, lowered himself, dropped the few inches—that was the heavy step she heard—and jumped her. Afterward, he hoisted himself back up and watched, laughing silently while she was discovered, people scurried around, the cops came, and Linda got stretchered away. After nightfall he slipped off.
My gullet was hot coals.
I crawled back the way I came and let myself down.
“Let’s not talk now,” I said.
She nodded, bleary with oncoming sleep.
I sat with her until she dozed off. I breathed with her and felt awash in tenderness for her.
But I had to take care of business. I locked the door, sprinted to Mr. John’s cabin, brought him back with Colin, and pointed out in a whisper what I’d discovered.
Colin sat with Linda, and Mr. John called me outside with one crooked finger and gave me a good clap on the shoulder. “You out-detected the feds,” he said. “We don’t know who, or why, but we know how. That’s huge.”
He looked around. Complete darkness. He said, “Linda must be exhausted. I came down on her too hard. I’m on edge and I took it out on her.”
“She’s already asleep, and you know Linda—probably a squabble with you perked her up a little.”
I wasn’t so sure that was true, but he needed some kind of ease.
“I’ll send the agents up in the morning.” He shook his head and threw his white handkerchief away. “Will you watch Linda tonight?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re back on studio payroll, too. Show the agents what you found, and don’t let them screw anything up.”
He called Colin out and started to walk away with him, and then he turned back to me. “No hanky-panky tonight. Got that?”
I got it, and it was about the last thing on my mind, anyway.
Fourteen
Rap-rap.
The federal agents were right up and at it the next morning. Which was a shame, because Linda, still sound asleep, could have used more rest. I’d slept badly on the floor next to her, tossing and turning on the wood planks. When the feds pounded on the door, I was sitting with my back against it, dozing.
Rap-rap again. “Goldman!”
Sounded like an order—“Snap to!”
I cracked the door open. “Yes.”
They introduced themselves with a swagger, like I am power, you are shit. Special Agent Tuckerman had thick hair that would have been gray had he not blackened it with liquid shoe polish. Special Agent Mize was a generation younger than his partner, as tall as me but wider, and had the face of a choirboy. First suits and ties I’d seen in this desert, and the first official titles I’d heard. Out of place.
“Mr. Ford said you figured something out. What?” They were playing roles, Shoe Polish in front as the spokesman, Choirboy backing him up with the cop stare.
I was figuring out how to play this, but apparently thought wasn’t allowed.
“I asked you a question,” Shoe
Polish said.
I decided to tread softly. The way they stood reminded me of what I learned in the navy—that a lot of jerks like to throw their rank around. They were trouble. By doing their job better than they did, I had made them look bad. Made J. Edgar Hoover look bad. Time for some tail-saving.
“Sir, I think I know how the perpetrator got to her.”
“You what?”
I held a finger to my lips. “Miss Darnell needs to rest. Can’t this wait a few minutes?”
“Nobody gets to sleep through an FBI investigation.”
“Excuse her,” I said in a soft voice, stepped outside, and closed the door behind me. Then I explained to them what I had suspected, why, what I did, and what I found. I concluded, “So I know how it was done. Don’t know who or why.”
“You don’t know squat,” said Shoe Polish.
I waited for the good cop part of the routine. Instead I got from Choirboy Mize, in a sharp tone, “Goldman, what makes you think you’re entitled to stick your nose into our investigation?”
“Sir, I do not believe I am intruding. First, an accused man has the right to try to prove his innocence.” Not that I expected an appeal to common sense to work. “Second, sir, Miss Darnell is paying me to protect her. I let something terrible happen. I’m doing my job double-time now.”
A look at their faces told me I was pissing into the wind, but I soldiered on.
“Third and last, sir, I was a cop in the navy. Shore patrol, stationed in San Diego, and trained in NCIS investigative techniques.”
And I figured out the “how” when you couldn’t, you asses.
They emitted trained-seal barks intended to sound like mocking laughter.
“Fart one, fart two, and fart three,” said Shoe Polish Hair. He had a rear-end fixation.
“Let me give you one, two, and three, Goldman,” said Choirboy. “One, Keep your nose out of our investigation. Two, Keep your nose out of our investigation. Three, Keep your nose out of our investigation.”
What a clever guy. I waited quietly. Finally, they came around to the present reality.
“Show us what you think you got,” ordered Shoe Polish.
Finger to my lips, I ushered them inside to the water closet. Their clumping woke Linda up. She switched on the light and stared at us.
I helped them get their creased trousers and shiny shoes through the hole without getting nicked or scuffed. They duckwalked, one to each side, saving their dry-cleaning bills. I stuck my head through the panel opening to point out the prints. They had government-issue flashlights that could have been chandeliers. You could read the prints in the dust like a newspaper headline.
“These are what you consider to be the old prints?” Shoe Polish said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And these hand and knee prints are where you crawled?” Choirboy said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Enough,” said Shoe Polish. “Let’s get back down.”
They did, and brushed hints of dust off their sleeves and cuffs.
“So, Goldman, what do we have here?” said Shoe Polish.
I shrugged. “You just saw for yourself.”
“What do you think?” Shoe Polish asked Choirboy.
“I think Goldman is conning us. He made all of those prints,” Choirboy said.
Linda bumped in with, “I told you, he didn’t do this,” and pointed to her bruised face.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Darnell,” said Shoe Polish, “please let us do our jobs.”
She jumped in again. “He didn’t need to sneak into my bed. I gave him full access.”
Choirboy’s lips curled with disapproval, but a junior agent couldn’t talk back, especially not to a movie star.
“It-was-not-Yazzie,” Linda repeated, each word like a hammer whacking a nail.
Shoe Polish said to Choirboy, “Go get the camera. We need pictures of the prints.”
I was dealing with a government agency, and everybody knows what SNAFU stands for.
Shoe Polish said in a supplicating tone, “Sorry to intrude, Miss Darnell. We’ll have to ask you some questions later.”
He took my elbow and steered me outside. He stood on a step so he was tall enough to get right in my face. “Right now is the last time you get to open your mouth or do one damned thing about this investigation. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” And screw you, sir.
“You got any thoughts about who did it?”
I considered. Didn’t matter whether I tried to be helpful or avoided inflaming these jerks. Best just to tell the simple truth.
“I don’t know a thing but what she told me, which is what she told your man in Flagstaff. You’ll want to get it from her.”
“After I hear it from you.”
“Well, sir, she says a wiry, strong middle-aged man, at least half a foot shorter than me, brown-skinned.”
I stopped. Like any interrogator worth his salt, he waited.
I went on, “But that age is based only on seeing the backs of his hands and hearing his voice. I believe it was a Navajo.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of a word he said to her.”
“What did he say?”
“A possible Navajo word. She didn’t know it.” I wasn’t going to lie, but I didn’t have to volunteer anything.
“Mr. Ford thinks it’s a boyfriend who went off the deep end.”
“Could be.”
He waited. Mize slid by me with the camera and, judging from the clumping noises, boosted himself up into the crawl space.
I waited, thought, and decided they needed a little more. “Why would a Navajo do this? Nobody local makes sense. This shoot is a bonanza for the whole region, which is very, very poor. Mr. Ford pays the Navajo extras and laborers eighteen dollars a day. He says he’s coming back next year, and that other shoots will come here. For a Navajo to cause trouble…”
I shut up. It was all true, except that the word Jēsho or Joshay just didn’t fit. Words heard while you’re being beaten? Hard to count as hard evidence. Still, it was a distinctive word, and the one word like it in English that sounded anything like it, “gesso,” made no sense.
Since I was standing there, not speaking, the agent assumed I didn’t have a thought in my head. I recognized the way he looked at me. Only his training kept him from snickering, or saying, “Red nigger.” I’d heard it before.
As Choirboy came back with the photo gear, Shoe Polish said, “Set it down. I need your help for a moment.”
He looked at me like a scientist curious about an insect. I heard Choirboy setting the gear next to the chamber pot. “Okay, Goldman, that’s all for now. You’re through here.”
The tone, the attitude? My stomach went right to the bottom of my feet. Before I could turn, Choirboy levered my hands up high behind my back. The sneaky son of a bitch clamped on cuffs.
“And I,” Choirboy said sweetly sick, “am personally going to escort you to jail.”
Tuckerman said what I least wanted to hear. “Yazzie Goldman, you are under arrest for obstruction of justice.”
Damn it. No Navajo has a clansman in the FBI. I doubted that my grandfather had any relatives there, either.
* * *
We walked over to the Fibbie rental car. I knew exactly where I was headed. Albuquerque, brick jail, door with bars slamming shut with a metallic clang.
Worse, much worse, Linda was being left with less protection right when she was in deep shit.
Mary Ford stepped out of her cabin and started downhill toward the shoot. “Mrs. Ford,” I called, “I need help. Would you please get Mr. John?”
“Shut up.” Mize jacked my cuffed wrists up higher behind my back.
I’ll remember that, Choirboy.
Mary walked toward us, fast. “Is Seaman Goldman being arrested, Agent…?”
“Special Agent Tuckerman. He’s being charged with obstruction of justice.”
Mary Ford nodded to herself. She knew cop-speak. �
�We’ll see what we can do about that, Yazzie.” Down the hill she went. No telling what would happen. Mr. John was damnably stubborn about having his filming interrupted.
I said calmly to Tuckerman, “Mr. Ford needs to know you’re leaving Miss Darnell without a bodyguard.”
He tilted his head sideways. “So what’s that?”
Colin squatted underneath the cedar.
“It’s what did her no good before. Mr. Ford needs—”
Shoe Polish said, “He needs to know what we want to tell him. Period. Get in the car.”
Maybe they’ll buy themselves some trouble. Hard on the heels of that thought came, If their actions get Linda hurt, I will wipe the floor with them. Just for starters.
As Shoe Polish was about to stuff me into the backseat of the rental car, Julius Roth came striding toward us, moving faster than I thought he could manage. I was damn glad to see him.
He introduced himself, and Tuckerman gave his name, emphasizing the words “Special Agent.”
“Commander Ford would like a moment with you before you go anywhere,” said Julius.
“Commander?” said Shoe Polish.
“Commander, U.S. Navy, retired. Wounded and commended for bravery at Normandy. He wants a word.”
Nice surprise, Julius, I thought.
Choirboy started stowing his photo equipment in the trunk.
“I repeat,” Julius said, “Commander Ford is on his way.”
There was too much power on parade here, a major outbreak of I-am-a-big-deal stuff. White people. I hoped not to spend the rest of the day in the back of the car, hands pinioned, while they worked it out.
Mr. John stalked up the hill like he was stomping scorpions. Behind him was…? Then I remembered—Roy Pease, the unit publicist. Every shoot had a man on the spot who made radio calls and wrote copy and mailed out photos to generate as many stories as he could for the press and the radio. Never too soon to start marketing. I had no idea why Mr. John brought him along now.
“Seaman Goldman”—more of that BS—“is anyone inside watching after Miss Darnell?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. John jerked his head toward the cabin, and Julius hustled.
I watched Ford suppress an angry look and replace it with formal courtesy. “What’s going on here?” Mr. John said to Tuckerman.
