Earthway

by Thurlo, Aimée

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s my fault. I should have searched harder for hidden triggers like those, but I got impatient. Maybe I’ve been out of the game for too long.”

  Her heart went out to him. He wasn’t used to failure—no more than she was. “We all make mistakes. I nearly got someone hurt back at that red light.”

  “You’re good at what you do, Ella. But I got sloppy. I’m doing too many things and none of them well.”

  She could relate to his frustration, she’d been there herself. “These days no one does just one thing, Ford. I’m a mom and an investigator and both are full-time jobs. When I make a mistake, I dig in, fix it, and keep going. That’s the only thing we can do.”

  “You don’t understand. I love being a preacher, but I also needed . . . more,” Ford admitted in a barely audible whisper. “Nothing could have stopped me from taking this job for the Bureau. The fact that they came to me was one heckuva rush. I’ve missed the challenges of pitting my mind against a terrorist’s or a criminal’s.”

  “You’re benefitting others with your work. Isn’t that what you’ve told me your God expects of you?”

  He looked at her in surprise, then smiled. “You might have something there, Slim,” he drawled.

  Ella laughed.

  Forcing her focus back on the case, she gestured to the tribal SUV. “We’re almost done here, so get ready to leave. We’ll be heading back to Teeny’s in another few minutes.”

  Once they were on the road, Ella tried to push back her frustration. So far, she’d been outplayed, but she was determined to change that.

  “If that file you tried to open is irretrievably lost, then she’s got some fancy equipment. That tends to support our contention that she’s got something to hide,” Ella said, for his benefit as well as her own.

  “If there’s any way to bring that file back, I’ll find it. I intend to ask Bruce for his help, too.”

  That was another thing she liked about Ford. Most men would have rather cut out their tongues than ask for help. Ford didn’t share that affliction. “Teeny’s the perfect person to go to with a problem like that. He loves a puzzle and dinking around with computer problems. He’d give up sleeping and sit at a keyboard twenty-four/seven if he could.”

  “There’s an incredible feeling of satisfaction connected to this type of work when things go right. But it has another side, too. When you work hour after hour and get nowhere, it feels like you’re drowning one inch at a time.”

  “My work’s like that, too,” she answered. “Take this case, for example. I want answers, but each time I get close, they slip right through my fingers.”

  “You expect too much from yourself—more so than anyone else does,” Ford said. “We’re barely out the starting gate.”

  They arrived at Teeny’s fifteen minutes later. Once in front of the computer, both men became completely engrossed in what Ford had downloaded from Dr. Lee’s laptop.

  Ella watched them for several minutes, then realized that neither of them would have a quick answer for her and there was little she could add to their conversation. Moving away so as to not distract them, she contacted Justine.

  “Were you ever able to follow up on the rat poison or the capsules?” she asked her.

  “The poison was stolen from Garner Feeds, as Bruce discovered. The capsules are tougher to track. They’re sold over the counter at almost every pharmacy in the area, not just health food stores. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

  “Nothing about this case is easy. Marianna’s keeping Dr. Lee under surveillance, but I’ve realized that we need to double-team the professor and combine short- and long-distance surveillance.”

  “If you need my help, I’ll squeeze in some extra hours.”

  “Good. Let’s work up a schedule. I’ll see you at the station.”

  Ella and Justine met twenty minutes later in the station’s parking lot. They’d just entered through the side door when Big Ed motioned them into his office and asked for an update.

  Ella told him about her plan to double-team Dr. Lee, but as she finished speaking, Big Ed shook his head. “Use Joe Neskahi. Justine fits in easier with the student population, but a lot of people know Justine’s your partner. I doubt Dr. Lee has ever seen Joe unless he’s pulled her over in traffic.”

  “Good point.”

  As they left his office, Justine glanced at her. “Guess he’s right. Joe’s a better choice.”

  Ella was about to answer when her cell phone rang. One look at the caller ID told her it was Ford. Ella started to say hello, but he broke in immediately with news.

  “First we backed up everything I’d downloaded so we’d have a duplicate copy. Then we retrieved part of an e-mail exchange she’d deleted last week. It was an automatic delete, but it was still there because it hadn’t been overwritten,” Ford said.

  Ella could hear Teeny in the background giving Ford information in that clipped voice of his that told her they’d found something important.

  “We’ve learned that Dr. Lee bought a revolver from Jake Rowley—actually Rowley’s Pawn Shop in Farmington. What we still don’t know is if she’s picked it up already,” Ford added. “One more thing. She had Jake work on the pistol so she’d have a smoother trigger pull.”

  “Like a hair trigger?” she asked, thinking out loud.

  “Could be,” Ford answered. “But why a professor would need something like that . . . well, that’s the real question isn’t it? All of a sudden she’s thinking self-defense?”

  “A background check should have been made, but come to think of it, I doubt that her misdemeanor arrests in past demonstrations would be enough to deny her the purchase. I’ll check with Blalock and see if the Feds have the application on file,” Ella said.

  Teeny’s booming voice came over the phone a moment later. “Don’t count on it being a legitimate purchase, Ella. Rowley does a lot of business under the table. When you go talk to him, watch your back, too. The Farmington PD has arrested him several times, but the charges never stick. He’s half-weasel and half-cutthroat, and word has it that he’s greased a lot of pockets to keep his firearms dealer permit.”

  “Good to know. Thanks. Rowley’s outside our jurisdiction, so Blalock will ride along with me,” she said. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “The stuff that’s in the pawn shop is run-of-the-mill. Rowley generates the bulk of his income by offering special services. It’s said that he can get any weapon a customer requests, then modify it to suit. I understand that he knows how to convert a variety of weapons to full automatic, and that he makes quality silencers.”

  “Thanks for the intel,” Ella said. She then called Special Agent Blalock and gave him the details. “See if you can find any record of a background check.”

  Ella drove to Blalock’s office on the mesa as they spoke. Ten minutes later she sat across his desk in a building that held mostly tribal offices.

  “Give me another minute, Clah,” he said, hitting the print button on his computer, then collecting the pages as they came out.

  Blalock stacked the pages neatly and added them to what was already inside a file folder on his desk. “I’ve been working on this since you called, and here’s everything I managed to get on Rowley. He’s a real gem. From the sounds of it, I think he’s got a judge or two in his pocket.”

  “What about Dr. Lee’s gun purchase. Is it legal?” she asked.

  “No background check was ever made. So if Jane Lee bought the handgun from Rowley’s Pawn Shop, it was done illegally,” Blalock replied. “But she could have purchased the gun from a private owner, or even at a gun show with Rowley as the middleman. No background check would have been done under those circumstances.”

  “If that pistol’s crossed Rowley’s workbench he might at least be able to confirm its existence. What we need now is his cooperation,” Ella said.

  “We won’t get it without leverage,” Blalock said, placing a photo of Dr. Le
e in the file as well.

  Ella skimmed the contents of the file. “There may be another way,” she said slowly. “Let’s go. I’ve got an idea,” she added, hurrying back to the SUV.

  TEN

  Ella drove in silence as she firmed up an idea in her mind. Blalock knew her well enough not to interrupt, but she could feel his curiosity working overtime.

  “Here’s what I was thinking,” she said at last. “I read in the file that Rowley’s dating a Navajo woman by the name of Wilma Pete. I know who she is, and maybe that’s a way for us to get what we want without a major confrontation.” She drew in a quick breath, then continued. “When Wilma’s mother got sick, my mother and the other Plant Watchers took care of her. Wilma knows my family and, more importantly, she trusts us.”

  “I almost forgot that everyone knows everyone else here on the Rez—they’re either part of the same outfit or clan, or friends of friends.”

  “Not always, but it does work that way a lot of the time,” Ella conceded.

  “So we’ll be playing on your connection to his girlfriend when you talk to Rowley?”

  Ella shook her head. “No, we’re going to pay Wilma a visit first and ask her to come with us. I know where she lives. I dropped off my mother at her place several times. But the Petes are Traditionalists, so this may entail a wait.”

  Blalock nodded, used to the way things worked on the Rez, despite his occasional grumble of impatience.

  Within fifteen minutes they arrived at the wood-frame house just west of Hogback, the local name for the enormous geological formation that ran north and south near the eastern edge of the Rez. Tsétaak’á Generating Station, named after that spine-like ridge, lay barely visible farther south and across the river.

  Ella saw smoke coming out of the ceremonial hogan in the back, and her brother’s pickup parked nearby, along with two others. “There’s a ceremony going on, but it’s probably not one of the Sings that take several days, or I would have heard something about it. I’m guessing it’s a blessing of some sort.”

  “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Blalock asked, leaning back.

  “No telling,” Ella answered, rolling down the window and making herself comfortable. She could hear her brother’s monotone chant. The sameness of it was soothing.

  Fifteen minutes later her brother came out of the hogan followed by Wilma Pete, who was holding the arm of an elderly Navajo woman.

  “If the senior citizen is your brother’s patient, whatever he did must have worked. Did you see that huge smile on her face?”

  “Even simple hozonjis, songs of blessing, can accomplish remarkable things,” she said, speaking from experience.

  Wilma Pete stopped and, shielding her eyes from the sun, looked at the SUV, trying to make out who was inside. When Ella and Blalock stepped out so they could be seen, Wilma relaxed. Waving, she took her mother into the main house, then came back outside a few minutes later and gestured an invitation to them.

  Noting that her brother had returned to the hogan to gather his things, Ella walked inside the house to meet Wilma.

  “It’s good to see you. Why don’t you visit for a spell, or do you need to see your brother?” Wilma asked, waving them to the couch.

  “Actually, we came to talk to you,” Ella said.

  Wilma looked at them curiously, and waited.

  “We understand that you’re seeing a man from Farmington, the one who owns the pawn shop,” Ella said, avoiding names.

  She nodded. “You’ve probably heard some bad things about him, but he’s been good to me and my family,” she answered, avoiding looking directly at Ella out of respect. “It’s thanks to him that my mother was able to hire your brother to do a blessing.”

  Ella waited, but Wilma didn’t elaborate. Silence stretched out. Ella caught a glimpse of Blalock’s expression and knew that he was getting impatient. Anglos, even ones who had lived on the Rez as long as he had, usually found it hard to deal with the long stretches of silence which often marked conversations with Navajos.

  “The police in Farmington are out to get him,” she added at last. “But the judges aren’t fooled. They always let him go.”

  Ella allowed another lengthy silence to pass before she finally spoke. “Have you heard about the tribal police officer who was badly hurt while disarming a bomb at the college?”

  Wilma nodded somberly. “Everyone has.”

  “We believe your friend has information that can help us find the person responsible, but I’ve heard he doesn’t like talking to police officers.”

  “It’s because he doesn’t trust them. They’re always trying to blame him for something.”

  “This time it’s not about him. It’s about our friend, an officer here on the Dinétah.”

  “Then I’ll speak to him for you,” she said after a pause. “If I do that maybe he’ll help you.”

  “Will you come with us now?” Ella asked.

  “Let me make sure my mother’s okay, then I need to pay your brother for the Sing. After that, I can go.”

  “Thank you,” Ella said.

  Less than five minutes later, with Wilma riding in the backseat, they set out for Farmington—the largest city close to the eastern border of the Navajo Nation. The only thing that disturbed the silence inside the SUV were radio transmissions that would occasionally come over the speaker.

  “Jake’s a good man. You’ll see,” Wilma said softly. “People just don’t understand him.”

  Ella and Blalock exchanged a look, but neither said anything.

  When they arrived at the pawn shop, which was a few streets south of Main, the paved lot beside the establishment was nearly empty. Only two cars were parked near the back door.

  “He’s alone right now, except for his clerk,” Wilma said. “Let me go inside first and talk to him. I’ll call you when he’s ready to see you.”

  Ella and Blalock watched her go inside, but remained in the SUV. Blalock checked his watch. “This is Anglo territory. If she doesn’t come out in five minutes, I’m going in.”

  “Agreed,” Ella replied, sorting through the file.

  Wilma came out a short while later and waved at Ella. As Blalock approached, Wilma moved to block him from going inside. “He’ll see her, but not you, FB-Eyes,” she told Blalock.

  “That’s too bad,” Blalock said, refusing to step back. Seeing Ella shake her head, he smirked, and moved away from the threshold. “You sure, Investigator Clah?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got this covered.”

  Wilma nodded in approval. “I’ll wait out here, too,” she said, looking in Blalock’s direction. “This has to be between them.”

  When Ella stepped inside, she recognized Jake Rowley immediately, from his mug shot. If anything, the man looked even less appealing in person. He had a narrow face and frame, with weasel-looking eyes that were too close together. His blue chambray Western shirt, bolo tie, and jeans were a cut above, but weren’t enough to salvage his appeal. Love was definitely blind, Ella concluded.

  “Ella Clah,” he said, giving her the once-over as she stepped up to the counter. “You’re well known even in this ‘burg. I understand you need information—and maybe a favor,” Jake added. “I’ll be happy to help you—but there’s something I want in return.”

  “Let’s hear it.” Ella braced herself and hoped that he knew she had no jurisdiction in Farmington. If what he wanted was to cut a deal with the police here, there wouldn’t be much she could do to help him.

  “Wilma’s brother, Joe Pete, was busted for DWI over by Window Rock. He’s awaiting a court date, but he’s been busted twice before for drinking and driving and he’s going down hard this time. If you intercede for him and ask the court for leniency, I’ll guarantee that he goes into the top substance abuse program on the Rez. I’ll even cover all the costs.”

  She blinked in surprise. Knowing Jake’s reputation, she’d expected something entirely different.

  “He’s family,” he added
by way of an explanation. “Or will be after Wilma and I tie the knot.”

  Ella nodded slowly. “That’s out of my district, you know. But I’ll do everything I can for you.”

  “Good. Now what do you need?”

  Ella brought out the photo of Dr. Lee, which Blalock had placed in the file. “Do you know this woman, and have you had any dealings with her?”

  Taking a quick look, Jake nodded. “She’s a professor at the community college who’s having problems with a stalker,” he answered. “I sold her a rifle and a .38 revolver I owned personally. It was a private transaction away from my business and didn’t require all that background crap. The .38’s trigger was stiff, really hard to pull, so I offered to do some custom work for her at the shop if she wanted to bring it in. She did and went away happy with the results.”

  Ella knew the sale was dubious and she could probably create problems for him, but right now she needed information. “It would be kind of hard to fire a rifle and a pistol at the same time unless you’re Rambo. Just how dangerous is this stalker?”

  He shrugged. “I advised her to get a shotgun instead, but she said that the rifle wasn’t for her, that she was planning to give it to a friend. I got the impression that the rifle was more of a bribe—a gift to one of the professors or maybe a neighbor in exchange for backup if it became necessary.”

  “She should have reported this stalker to a tribal officer. If she returns, will you give me a call?” Ella said, handing him her card. “And keep this conversation between the two of us.”

  “What conversation? Just remember our deal.”

  “You’ve got it,” Ella answered.

  As she walked back outside, she found herself envying Wilma. She’d found a man who loved her enough to put her and her family first. Not a bad deal, even if he looked like a weasel.

  Ella thought of her own life. No one except God would ever occupy the number one slot in Ford’s life, but she was happy being number two. In an odd way, considering her own life, it made for a more balanced relationship between them. Whoever needed her most—Rose, Dawn, or Ford—usually got top priority for however long was necessary.