Dark Reservations

by John Fortunato

  Rushingwater raised his hands. He still held the bullhorn. “I have nothing to hide from my oppressed brothers and sisters. We are all used to the white man’s government trampling our rights as the great herds of buffalo once trampled these lands. We’re mere cattle to the white man, and the reservation is our range.”

  Sleeping Bear said. “Buffalo? This isn’t the—”

  “I have no secrets,” Rushingwater repeated, raising his voice, playing to the crowd. “What is this about?”

  “It’s about Arlen Edgerton,” Bluehorse said.

  The eavesdroppers seemed impressed. Heads turned to Rushingwater.

  “Tell that reporter to get back here,” Rushingwater said to Sleeping Bear. “Tell him the NPD wants to interrogate me regarding Congressman Arlen Edgerton’s disappearance.”

  Sleeping Bear shook his head. “Hold on. Let’s—”

  “I didn’t say that,” Bluehorse said. The honking from passersby had entirely stopped. All seventy or so protesters formed a shoulder-to-shoulder ring around Bluehorse and Rushingwater.

  “I heard you say it,” a woman in her sixties said. “I’m a witness.” She bore a mound of turquoise necklaces around her neck.

  The heads around Bluehorse bobbed up and down like chickens at feed time.

  The hair on the back of Bluehorse’s neck jumped up and tried to get his attention, yelled at him to get the hell out of there. “Look, I just want contact information for you.” Where was that Gallup officer? Was he still ticketing that knucklehead in the Toyota? He glanced over at the two employees by the front door. They were watching the show. Why didn’t they call the police? Because they thought he was the police, that’s why. If things went bad, Bluehorse would be on his own.

  “Why do you want to know how to find him?” the old woman said. “So you can get him alone? Make him disappear?”

  What was she talking about?

  “Ask your questions here,” Rushingwater said. “In front of my people. The people you sold out.”

  Someone bumped Bluehorse from behind. He moved his hand to cover his holster and turned to the threat. A wall of faces stared back.

  “Okay, everyone, move back,” Bluehorse ordered, his voice loud but slightly high-pitched.

  “Are you afraid of your own people, officer man?” Rushingwater said.

  Another bump. Bluehorse spun around and drew his Taser, afraid to draw his gun. Get out of there! his neck hair screamed.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Sleeping Bear yelled, arms raised, moving to stand beside Bluehorse. “This is a peaceful demonstration. Let’s not get carried away. This officer only came to talk.” He stepped forward, pushing his hands out toward the people. They moved back—slowly.

  “Everyone just back up,” Bluehorse said. He turned, showing the Taser to those around him. When the Taser moved in the direction of Rushingwater, the old woman reacted.

  “He’s going to shoot him!”

  A fist caught Bluehorse on the left side of his head. His vision blurred. He staggered. Another blow glanced off the back of his head. He fought the reflex to fire the Taser. An arm wrapped around him.

  “Stop! Back up! Back up!” It was Sleeping Bear standing next to Bluehorse, holding him up.

  “What are you doing?” It was the same woman. “He tried to shoot Rushingwater!”

  “Shut up, old woman!” Sleeping Bear started moving Bluehorse backward toward the vehicle. “Nightwind!”

  A hand grabbed onto Bluehorse’s right arm. He was turned around, walking forward now, his head clearing, his left ear ringing.

  “That was stupid, man,” Sleeping Bear whispered. “Never mess around with a crowd. Some of these people are crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Bluehorse said, holstering his Taser. “Lesson learned.” He shrugged off the helping hands. The crowd was moving back toward the road. “Which one hit me?”

  “Come on. You know I can’t say. I got you out of there. Be grateful.”

  Bluehorse looked from Sleeping Bear to the other man who’d helped him. It was the big guy with the Long Walk T-shirt. Nightwind. He didn’t look pleased to have saved a cop.

  “All right,” Bluehorse said. “Thanks for your help. But I still need to talk to him.”

  “No one’s stopping you. Just not here. We stay in a trailer three miles northeast of Chinle Chapter House.”

  “Why so helpful now?”

  “Our supporters aren’t around now,” Sleeping Bear pointed with his lips toward Rushingwater, who was getting attaboys from the other protesters. “He can’t look weak before the man.”

  “And I’m the man?”

  Sleeping Bear grinned. “Today, you were the man.”

  OCTOBER 1

  FRIDAY, 11:31 A.M.

  ALBUQUERQUE POLICE HEADQUARTERS, 400 ROMA AVENUE NW, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  It was raining when Joe stepped outside onto the sidewalk. The clouds came in from the west, the smell of ozone strong. He had a pang of nostalgia and stopped to let the feeling manifest. The rain fell on him with a gentle patter. The memory took hold. The first time he’d met Christine. Twenty-two years ago. When he worked for INS. He’d traveled down to Roswell to interview an Iranian teacher on a work visa who taught math at Eastern New Mexico State University. It had rained that day. When he’d parked in the lot, he’d noticed a woman trying to lift a large box of papers out of her trunk. He’d offered her a hand and followed her inside. They’d dried themselves off with napkins from the cafeteria over a cup of coffee. She’d told him she taught English. That cup of coffee had lasted nearly an hour. Two years later, they were married. The following year, Joe took a transfer to BIA to stay in Roswell. Later, they moved to Albuquerque.

  His phone rang.

  The memory slipped away, and so did the feeling.

  “This is Dr. Lineman with OMI,” a female voice said when he answered. “I’m the forensic odontologist. I examined the jaw on the skull you brought in earlier this week. Sorry, I couldn’t get to it sooner. I was at a seminar in St. Paul. I got back yesterday.”

  “Nice city. I’m sure you enjoyed it.” Joe gave the response out of courtesy. He was anxious to hear what the doctor had found.

  “Anyway, I called to tell you that I compared the skull to the dental records of Nicholas Garcia and I consider them a match. I’ll have a report out to you in a couple of days.”

  No surprise there. Joe thanked her and clicked off.

  By the time he reached his car, which was parked two blocks from the police headquarters, he was soaked. He hung his sport coat up on a hanger in the backseat to let it dry. Christine would have yelled at him for not taking an umbrella, and she would have sent his sports coat to the dry cleaner’s the next day.

  On the trip back to the office, he ticked off the list of people he had to notify about the identification. But there was one call he didn’t have to make. Nick Garcia had no living relatives. No loved ones. No friends, except maybe Grace Edgerton—if she wasn’t the one who’d killed him. What a way to leave this world. Remembered only as an entry in a cold case.

  OCTOBER 1

  FRIDAY, 12:41 P.M.

  MICKEY’S BAR & GRILL, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  Joe decided to grab lunch instead of heading back to the office. He hadn’t yet made any of the notification calls regarding Nicholas Garcia. Whether it was his encounter with Bobby Lopez or the rain, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t in the mood to call people and tell them someone they knew was dead. He supposed it shouldn’t be that hard considering it had been over twenty years, but nevertheless.

  No one had needed to notify Joe when Christine died. He’d been at her bedside all night. Melissa had been there, too. The doctors had told them that would be best. Christine had looked so thin, so pale, none of the rich Latin color that he found so sensual when they’d first met. She wore the Mickey Mouse head wrap. Joe had promised to take her and Melissa to Disneyland when she recovered, so Melissa had bought her mother the scarf soon after the chemo treatments bega
n. When she’d first been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she’d been in stage 3, which meant it had spread to her lymphatic system. The doctors had been so quick to give them hope, but slow to render a prognosis. Cowards. Joe soon learned that stage 3 was a death sentence.

  Now, as he sat at the bar, making his way through a solitary lunch, he realized it had rained the day Christine died. Rain served as bookends to their love.

  “So you do lunch and dinner here?”

  Gillian stood behind him. Her hair was pulled up, revealing a slender neck. Her beauty made him wince. Christine’s neck had been slender as she lay dying, starving from a lack of appetite, a lack of will, worn out from her battle with a vicious and ruthless enemy, an enemy that gave no quarter. He put down his sandwich and grabbed a napkin, covering his mouth while he finished chewing. Then he swallowed. It stuck in his throat. He sipped his iced tea, trying to wash it—push it—down.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  Mickey waved to her from the other end of the counter. She waved back.

  “I wanted to call you,” Joe said. “I thought you might like to see a show tomorrow at a little theater in North Valley.”

  Her smile faltered. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you, too.”

  His chest tingled. The bar wasn’t full, yet he felt crowded.

  “I got a call from my ex Wednesday. He broke up with his midlife hottie.” She looked away, seeming to have an interest in the other customers.

  Joe pushed out the stool next to him, moving it close to Gillian. “Do you want to sit and talk?”

  “I have to get back with Sue and Linda.”

  Her two coworkers sat at a table in the dining area. They weren’t their usual smiling selves.

  “He wants to come back. We went to dinner last night.… I don’t know … it’s all so confusing. I mean, not you. We just met. But with him. It’s confusing with him. We were together nineteen years. I feel I owe him at least a chance. At least that.”

  Joe wasn’t sure what to say. He barely knew this woman. He had hoped to get to know her better, perhaps a lot better, but they were nothing more than acquaintances right now. She wasn’t upset about their relationship, of course. He’d been around victims long enough to recognize confusion, and the emotions associated with it. Her ex had sprung a surprise on her, and she didn’t know how to handle it.

  “I think you should do whatever you feel is right. I would’ve liked an opportunity to get to know you better, I won’t lie about that, but I also think nineteen years is a lot of history. I know if it was me, I’d be kicking myself right now, mad that I ever let you go.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Your friends are waiting for you,” he said. “I have a feeling they’re eager to give you advice.”

  She looked back at Sue and Linda. “They are.”

  “I’m glad you have someone to talk to,” he said. “Let me know how things go.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” She stood there a moment, awkward, her eyes searching, meeting his, lingering. Then she walked away.

  He turned back to his plate, no longer hungry. He hadn’t known Gillian except for a single dinner date, a friendly meal, but he had liked her, and had really wanted to see her again.

  Mickey came over. “You look like you just lost the big game. What’s up?”

  “Give me a beer.”

  OCTOBER 1

  FRIDAY, 2:10 P.M.

  BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  After lunch, Joe had stopped at a Walgreens and picked up a pack of Life Savers. He used to call them “Job Savers” back when he worried about Dale finding out he’d tipped one back midday. But he didn’t care anymore. What could Dale do now? Joe would be out by Christmas. Ho ho ho.

  When Joe told him about Nick Garcia, Dale said to hold off releasing the news for an hour, until he notified D.C. So Joe waited. He was playing the game, keeping Dale happy.

  Work proved to be good therapy. It helped push Gillian from his mind. He hadn’t considered before now what finding Nick Garcia’s body would mean to the investigation. It made the theory that Edgerton and Faye had run away together that much more feasible. If either one of them had been found, it would have changed things considerably. But that wasn’t the case. The dogs had combed the area around the vehicle. Only one body.

  Joe pulled out a photo of Nick from the file. The driver/would-be writer wore a tux and stood next to a woman in a pink fluffy dress. A wedding photo? Joe hadn’t found any mention of Nick’s friends in the file. Malcolm, the lead investigator at the time, had sure done a real bang-up job. So much for a thorough investigation. Joe studied the picture, trying to get a feel for the dead man. Nick looked happy. He was big and round, and he fit the stereotype of the jolly fat guy. He also wore glasses, which hadn’t been found with the body. Joe stared at the photo. He was missing something. He could feel it. Why would Edgerton kill this man? A friend. It would have been much easier for the congressman simply to drive himself that day. Give Nick the day off. No, Edgerton hadn’t killed him. He was sure of it now. What about Faye? Could Faye have killed Nick and Edgerton? If so, then where was Edgerton’s body? And how could Faye have dragged Nick so far from the vehicle to bury him? And how did she get out of there? She’d left the vehicle, so she would have needed a ride, someone to pick her up. She could have stashed a car nearby, but she would still have needed someone to get her back to Albuquerque. Bobby Lopez? It didn’t make sense.

  Then it hit him. Drag the body. Nick was big. Too heavy to drag too far. No, they hadn’t found the others because they were buried much farther away. The killer would have figured that someday the vehicle would be found, so he or she would have wanted to drag the bodies as far as possible so they wouldn’t be found. But Nick had been too big. Too heavy. He checked Nick’s driver’s license. Five nine, 285 pounds. The others were out there. Joe felt certain of it. He would get the dogs out again and expand the search area. The killer had been careful. Thorough. Had taken the vehicle to a desolate location, a place that had been even more desolate twenty years ago. The person had known Edgerton was at Professor Trudle’s dig site that day and had probably known the area, or at least had scoped out the dump site. Who knew the area? Joe checked his list of suspects. The AIM member, Hawk Rushingwater. He was from the reservation. Joe pulled his interview. Rushingwater had been living in Mentmore twenty years ago, which was on the west side of Gallup. Not far from the dump location, maybe fifteen miles. Rushingwater probably would have known the area. Joe grabbed his list of suspects and wrote “From Mentmore” next to Rushingwater’s name. Wait. Rushingwater wouldn’t have known Edgerton would be out there that day, would he?

  He flipped through his case notes. Rushingwater seemed the most likely suspect right now, but Arthur Othmann was also an interesting lead. The art collector might have found out about Edgerton’s visit if he were connected with William Tom and had been following other digs around the state. Joe still needed to work out the whole Othmann angle. Joe tried to plug everyone into their own little hole on his game board. Othmann just wasn’t fitting. Yet.

  Stretch’s advice came back to him, and he reminded himself to keep it simple. He needed more on Othmann before he could even theorize about his involvement. And if he did decide to talk to him, he would need something more concrete than an accusation from a slightly animated professor.

  William Tom was also a good suspect. Very good. He knew the area and could have known about Edgerton’s visit. He might even give Joe something more on Othmann. Professor Trudle had been passionate about the connection between William Tom and Othmann’s black-market art dealings. He decided to talk to the former president of the Navajo Nation next.

  Joe checked the time. Dale’s one hour was up.

  He called Sierra.

  She took the news well at first, but when he asked if she knew of any of Nick’s friends, she started to cry. She said she needed to cal
l him back later.

  Next, he phoned Grace Edgerton. She took his call while in a meeting. When he told her the body was that of Nick Garcia, she said, “I see.” He thought he picked up disappointment in her voice, which he supposed was appropriate. She probably wanted it to be her husband’s body. It would mean for certain that he hadn’t run off with Faye.

  She asked what he planned to do next.

  He didn’t hesitate. “Continue my investigation.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice warm, genuine.

  The next call, he liked least of all. But he’d promised.

  “Joey,” Helena Newridge said. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

  “I don’t think you let anyone ever forget about you.”

  She laughed. “You’re right. I’m guessing you identified the body.”

  “Nicholas Garcia. OMI identified him from dental records.”

  “Damn.” That made two people who were disappointed.

  “Is Garcia’s dead body not good enough for you?”

  “No. Of course not. That’s not it. But finding Edgerton or Faye would have changed the whole case.”

  Joe agreed but didn’t say anything.

  She continued: “When I spoke to the wife, she said an AIM member had sent her husband some threatening letters. I’m guessing she wants to throw suspicion elsewhere. Anywhere but on her. It’s a good lead, but she doesn’t remember the name of the person. What do you say?”

  He contemplated giving it to her.

  “You still there?”

  “Hold on. I’m thinking.”

  “About his name?”

  “About giving it to you.”

  “Oh, come on. I thought we were gumbas. I scratch your back. You scratch mine. Kind of like bathtub buddies.”

  “I’m thinking how I want to be scratched.”

  “Are you flirtin’?”

  Joe didn’t answer. He was still weighing the pros and cons of telling her.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “I give you the name and you run a search for any news reports on the guy and then check it with your source. You also run anything you have about AIM on the Navajo reservation.”