Not spotting another moving vehicle, Ella, wearing latex gloves, walked over, switched cans, and, after looking inside the one from the post and finding it empty, put it into a paper bag she used to transport evidence.
Five minutes later, down by the river and out of sight, Ella stood outside the vehicle and watched while Justine dusted the can.
“I’ve got a lot of smears and a partial or two, but no complete prints,” Justine said, placing the can back into the paper bag.
“When we get back to the office, process what you’ve got. See if you can get anything by matching comparison points.”
“I’d like to have this fence staked out for the next day or so. Let’s see if the can gets removed, or placed elsewhere—anything that might constitute a signal. Joe and Anna can take turns keeping watch.”
“We have no guarantees that this is for real, or if it is, that the message hasn’t already been delivered. Will it be worth the manpower?” Justine asked.
“It is, when you consider our only known suspect lives a half mile from here.” Ella remembered the ammo Dr. Lee had been passed. “Something’s brewing, cuz, and it might involve a long-range weapon and some up-close firepower. The problem is, we can’t stop what we don’t see coming.”
Ella called Ford and gave him the password she’d found in Jane’s office, then continued surveillance on the two targets—Dr. Lee’s home and the fence line. With the open terrain, a pair of binoculars were all that was needed.
“This is making me nuts. She’s not going anywhere,” Ella said.
“Let Joe take over for us here,” Justine said. “Our time’s better spent elsewhere.”
Ella nodded. She still had a feeling she was missing something, but before she could say anything, her phone rang. It was Big Ed.
“We just got a call from the Bureau lab. They’ve completed processing the bomb fragments and have a sketch of the likely design and components. The electric timer was a cheap version that’s readily available, but we got a hit on the blasting cap. It came from Valley Construction. The charge used in the bomb was black powder, and that’s something Valley doesn’t carry or use. But they recently reported the theft of several bags of ammonium nitrate and sticks of dynamite, along with a few electrical blasting caps.”
“When was the report filed?” Ella asked.
“Late yesterday. They keep their supplies in a steel storage unit, and didn’t discover anything was missing until one of their foremen came to pick up supplies and noticed the break-in. The moment it showed up on the federal hot sheet, FB-Eyes called me.”
“We’ll get on that right away,” Ella said, hanging up and giving Justine the highlights.
“Black powder is mild compared to what they could do with dynamite, or that much ammonium nitrate,” Justine said. “If the bomb in the backpack had been dynamite instead of black powder . . .”
Ella nodded. “I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Want me to follow up on the theft and get a complete list of what’s missing, and how much?” Justine asked.
“Yeah. I’ll check in with Ford and Teeny and see if they have anything new for me.”
Less than an hour later, they were back at the station. Ella, after getting herself some coffee, went directly to her office and called Ford’s cell phone number. From the tone of his voice when he answered, she knew instantly that they hadn’t made significant progress.
“This code’s so random, it’s nearly impossible to break,” he said, frustration evident in his tone. “Whoever made it up is extremely intelligent or very lucky.”
“Don’t let it drive you crazy. Experience tells me that to make progress you sometimes have to get away from it for a while.” People usually had things in their lives that gave them a sense of purpose and made them feel good about themselves. With Ford it was God, and then ciphers. Right now the first didn’t seem to be listening, and the second wasn’t cooperating.
“You’re right. I need a break. Why don’t you meet me for an early dinner at the Totah?” he asked at last. “A little while ago Bruce took me back to my place to pick up my stuff and get Abednego. My car’s here now so after I stop for gas, I’ll join you there.”
Ella checked her watch. It was a bit past four. “Okay. You’re on.”
About fifteen minutes later, Ella was on her way to the Totah Café in downtown Shiprock. As she passed Tsosie’s Gas and Goods, all her muscles suddenly tightened and a chill ran up her spine. Maybe she’d seen something only her subconscious had registered, or maybe it was that special instinct all cops developed, but something was wrong.
The badger fetish around her neck grew uncomfortably warm as she pulled into the station. The last time she’d felt on edge like this, the bomb blast had followed. Ford, who was at the pumps, recognized her SUV and waved, obviously unaware of any possible danger.
Ella parked in a slot beside the building, then hurried to join Ford, who was putting the gas cap back on his car.
“Is something wrong, Ella?” he asked, watching her carefully as he walked toward her.
She barely heard, turning in a slow circle, looking for the source of her uneasiness. Catching a flash of light at eye level from a figure standing beside a tree atop the mesa, Ella suddenly tackled Ford to the ground. Something thumped into the wall of the store just beyond them as the echo of a gunshot reached their ears.
“Get down!” Ella yelled to the other people nearby, simultaneously drawing her handgun. Crouching low, she placed Ford’s vehicle between her and the tree in the distance.
“Stay behind the engine block,” she called out to Ford, feeling the heat flowing from her badger fetish. “This isn’t over yet.”
TWELVE
As Ella brought out her cell phone and hit speed dial, another bullet struck the car with a thud. A third whistled by so close she could almost feel it. The sniper had a high-powered rifle with a scope, and judging from the way he was shooting, he was an expert marksman.
Ella reached the dispatcher and asked for backup. As soon as she ended the call, Ford crept closer to her, staying low.
“Who’s doing this?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“An expert who’s got us zeroed in. Stay down.” Yet even as she spoke, she could feel the badger around her neck cooling. Unwilling to trust that completely, she waited another few minutes.
At long last, Ella moved to the rear of Ford’s car and risked a quick look. The shape she’d seen by the tree was gone. By the time she rose to her feet, the fetish was cool to the touch, as all turquoise should be.
After backup arrived, Ella turned the job of interviewing witnesses over to the officer. As he worked, she processed the scene, searching for the places where the three rounds had struck.
The first bullet fired had ended up striking the foundation of the store, just below the wood. The copper-jacketed round that had mushroomed upon impact appeared to be a hunting round from a .308. Ella knew those bullets were designed to do maximum damage. Unfortunately, that caliber wasn’t difficult to acquire and was available for many weapons.
Ford came over while she was inspecting the second bullet hole from the round that had struck the engine block instead of them. His pallor said more about his state of mind than words could have.
“How . . . ,” he managed, but his voice broke. With his hand clenched around the cross he wore around his neck, he tried again. “How did you know? You reacted before he fired.”
“The badger fetish my brother gave me . . . it warns me. The stone gets hot whenever there’s danger.” Seeing his reaction, she wished she hadn’t said anything. His hand was now wrapped so tightly around the cross, his knuckles had turned white.
Justine and Marianna, the only available members of her crime scene team, arrived next. As they processed the scene, Ella phoned Joe Neskahi.
“Where’s Dr. Lee?” she asked.
“At home. She hasn’t moved.”
“Are you absolutely certain that she never left the
house? Is it possible she went for a walk without you being aware of it, and someone else picked her up?”
“No way. I’ve got a clear view of the fence line as well as her house. Since her curtains are open, I can see inside her living room with my binoculars, too. Right now she’s reading a book.”
Anger wound through her. While her prime suspect was relaxing at home, Ford and she had been dodging bullets.
Ella hung up, looked around for Ford, and found him inside Tsosie’s store, drinking a cup of hot cocoa. “That looks good,” she said.
“Comfort food.” He held it out to her, but she declined. “When I was a kid, my mom would always make hot chocolate whenever we had a big problem. Her cocoa was nothing special, but the whipped cream made the difference,” he added with a shaky smile.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “God was keeping watch over us today. It was His hand that brought us through this.”
Ella noticed that he was staring at her badger fetish. “Does it matter whose side kept us alive? Maybe one of your God’s people makes the fetish change temperature.”
“This isn’t a matter of my side or yours,” he said quickly.
“That’s not what I’m hearing,” Ella countered. “But what difference could it possible make who or what’s responsible? We’re alive. Take it as a win.”
“It matters to me,” he said quietly. “But there’s something neither of us can refute: You’ve saved my life twice now,” he added in a gentler tone.
“It’s all part of my job. You save souls—I save lives,” she said with a smile. “And speaking of jobs . . . I’m going to need you to answer some questions for me.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you always gas up at this place?”
“Yeah, they’ve got the best prices. I usually come here once a week—about this time, come to think of it.”
“You’re being targeted. You can’t afford to follow any of your regular routines or schedules.”
“I should have thought of that, but today I was more focused on other things,” he admitted. “But why would someone want me dead so badly?” He looked around, making sure no one but Ella was close enough to hear. Even so, he lowered his voice. “I’m nowhere close to breaking that code. And killing me wouldn’t solve anything. There are others who could do the job if I couldn’t. I’m certainly not irreplaceable.”
Teeny drove up before Ella could answer. “Wait here, okay?” she asked Ford, then went to join her old friend. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Teeny nodded. “I heard the police calls on my scanner and thought I might be able to help. What do you need me to do?”
“Take Ford with you and keep him out of sight. He was the sniper’s target.”
Within the minute, Teeny and Ford drove away. Ford’s car was still parked by the pumps. After the bullet strike on the engine block, she had no idea if it would even start. She’d have it towed to the impound yard to be checked out. Ford would be without transportation for a while, but it didn’t matter. He’d have to stay in protective custody anyway. Experience told her the person after Ford wouldn’t stop until he was dead.
Ella met Teeny two hours later at his secure compound just east of Shiprock. Ford was sitting outside in the enclosed courtyard, a Bible on his lap and Abednego at his feet.
“That episode with the sniper really threw him, Ella,” Teeny said quietly. “I don’t think he ever really believed that the bomb had been meant for him—not until now. He told me that the sniper would have taken him out if you hadn’t knocked him out of the way when you did.” Teeny paused for several moments. “Something about that is eating at him, too. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t think it’s male pride.”
“It’s not,” Ella answered grudgingly. “He needs to believe that it was his God, not my badger fetish, that gave me advance warning. But the badger, for whatever the reason, turns hot when danger’s close by. Whether or not he can accept it, it’s the truth.”
Teeny shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I suspect that what’s bothering him is that you can’t—won’t—share his beliefs.”
Seeing Ella, Abednego yipped and Ford looked up from his reading. Ella smiled and waved, asking him wordlessly to come back inside and join them.
“Have you made any progress finding the sniper?” Ford asked quickly as he came up.
“We’ve learned a few more things about him,” Ella said, following Teeny to the conference table. “We know he’s a confident shooter who can fire accurately at what must have been four hundred yards. He’s also cool enough to police his brass afterwards. All we found were some scuffed-out bootprints. He parked on the asphalt road that runs along the rim of the mesa so he wouldn’t leave tire tracks. The area is now being canvassed to see if anyone saw the sniper or his vehicle. Most important of all, I believe the shooter is afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me? Why?” Ford looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Look at the facts. In each attack he’s kept his distance. That leads me to believe that you know your assailant and he—or she—is afraid of coming too close in case the attempt to kill you fails and you end up recognizing him.”
“She?” Ford stared at her.
“It might be a woman,” Ella said. “What I need you to do now is think hard. You deal with a lot of people, some of them deeply troubled, I’d guess. Who hates you enough to want you dead?”
“What about Dr. Lee? She’s the one I’ve been investigating. She might have figured out that I was the one who placed the device in her purse. If she’s really planning an attack against the power plant, she might see me as a serious threat.”
“She was at home when it went down. But there’s another alternative I think we need to consider. Maybe we’re dealing with two separate, unrelated crimes. Number one, Dr. Lee’s involved in some kind of covert ops, and number two, someone’s got a grudge against you.”
“No one has a serious grudge against me, Ella. I’d know about it. Dr. Lee is the best bet,” Ford said. “Although we’ve yet to establish who her associates are, we know she has them. Their interest in the Tsétaak’á Generating Station makes me their common enemy.”
She nodded, lost in thought. “Our sniper might be the man who slipped her the ammo,” Ella said, then filled him in on what she and Vera saw. “We didn’t see a rifle at her house, so I’m guessing she gave it to the sniper before we started watching her every move. Thing is, the shape of the box looked wrong. The bullets that were passed could have been for her .38, which she might have easily stashed almost anywhere.”
“Maybe some of the interesting bits we’ve turned up will help you,” Ford said.
“Wait—you’ve made progress?” Ella asked quickly.
“I was going to tell you when we got together at the Totah,” Ford said.
Ella gave Teeny a hard look saying without words that they shouldn’t have waited.
He shrugged. “I was hoping for a little more time to run some new decryption programs. That way we could have given you something more definitive,” Teeny said.
“What we’ve discovered was that her blog, dated the day before the bomb incident on campus, mentioned the words ‘Red Rock’ and ‘dawn.’ Those were the only references to time of day and location. The rest read like a travel brochure and were totally different from her other blogs, which dealt with women’s issues. Also, the only times she ever mentions locations is when she’s using it to make a point about poverty, or the need for medical care in remote areas on the Rez,” Ford said.
“Any idea who visits her site?” Ella asked.
“We can identify servers, and have picked up some screen names that we were able to track back to some of her students. But there are others we can’t identify for various reasons,” Teeny said.
“Does she get a lot of hits per day on her Web page?” Ella asked.
“We counted ten to twelve on average,” Teeny said. “Most have URLs t
hat can be tracked back to the college. The others came from well-known, popular servers, and those are harder to isolate to individuals.”
“I checked her e-mails and she’s also been getting messages from individuals who have obvious, phony addresses,” Ford said. “Like spammers who want to avoid being nailed, those URLs are used only once and are virtually untraceable. I was trying to find something that would give us a lead when I saw that one of the letters mentioned plaid shirts sold at the trading post near Hogback. But I’ve been there and know they only carry a few of those tourist T-shirts. So I’m sure that was code, but I haven’t been able to correlate it to any other incident that happened around that time.”
“Anything based on a system or mathematical analysis of speech or word patterns and letter placement, like the code generated by the famous Enigma machines of World War II, can be broken,” Teeny said. “But something this random is practically unbreakable. The message only becomes clear after the fact. Without the key, we can’t break the code unless we can link each portion to an action, date, time, individual, or location.”
“We need to stick to what we know, then,” Ella said firmly. “Besides Dr. Lee and her associates, who else is your enemy, Ford? Give me some names.”
“That’s just it, Ella. I have no enemies,” he said flatly. “My mission is to counsel people spiritually and to love them no matter what they do or say. As I said, no enemies.”
“Not admitting a person’s your enemy doesn’t change the hard facts.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Ford said softly. “The way you perceive someone can ultimately change how they think about you . . . and themselves. Love can turn an enemy into a friend.”
She exhaled softly. Her father would have said pretty close to the same thing. Yet the police officer in her just wanted to pick Ford up and shake him until his brains rattled.
Earthway Page 14
