Tracking Bear

by Thurlo, David

  “I can’t say I blame them. At the very least, we deserve reliable equipment,” Ella answered.

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you thinking of quitting, too?”

  She exhaled softly. “No. There are times I’ve been tempted, but I belong here.”

  “Me too,” he answered with a thin smile.

  After Big Ed left her office, Ella leaned back in her chair. This case was bound to increase the tensions within the department. It wouldn’t be long before everyone learned that a faulty radio had contributed to Jason Franklin’s death. More resignations were sure to follow, and there could be a lot of bad press. Maybe it would take a lawsuit from Officer Franklin’s family to wake the Tribal Council up.

  Closing her mind to any more negative thoughts, Ella forced herself to concentrate on the case. She picked up the report Justine had left on her desk. Martha Grayhorse was the owner of the garage where the officer had been killed. Ella scribbled down her address, stood up, and grabbed her keys. On her way back from Dr. Franklin’s home she’d stop and interview her. Ella was nearly at the door when Justine came in.

  “I thought you’d want to know. The officer’s handgun hadn’t been fired, and the only prints on it were his own. I did find some partials on the packing boxes, but my guess is that they’ll belong to the person who stored them there. I found others on the furniture as well, too old to belong to the killer unless he’d been there before. I’ve got a computer searching for matches on the more recent ones.” Justine paused, then added, “But to be honest, I don’t think we’ll get anything from the prints. This killer was careful, not to mention cold-blooded. Not many people would ambush a police officer at such close range.”

  “Do you think the officer was set up?”

  “Yes I do. Think about it, Ella. From what we’ve seen there was nothing in the garage worth stealing, let alone killing a police officer for. And the officer didn’t die after a struggle or in a firefight. If he drew his weapon at all, he put it back in the holster himself. Then he was shot at nearly point-blank range from behind.”

  “Maybe the officer knew his killer and saw no threat. That would explain him putting away his weapon. But there’s one fact that still doesn’t fit. I’ve just learned that the officer stopped by the garage several times a week, though he’s never stated why in his reports. Have you heard of any crimes that could be linked somehow to that particular garage?”

  Justine shook her head. “The only crimes of any consequence we’ve had lately are a few stolen cars, but there doesn’t seem to be a connection—like a chop shop operation. Those bay doors had cobwebs on them. They haven’t been opened in months.” Justine paused. “From what we saw, that place has been serving as a storage place for Martha Grayhorse for a year or longer.”

  “The name isn’t familiar to me. Do you know her?”

  Justine nodded. “I’ve met her once or twice. She’s my mom’s age. She was divorced, then married an Air Force officer. She’s in Germany with him now. I know because my sister Jayne is getting paid to keep her place rented while Martha’s gone.”

  “You just saved me a trip. Thanks. See if you can track down an overseas telephone number where Martha can be reached. I’m on my way to deliver the news to the father, if he’s home.”

  “That’s one job I’m glad I’ve never been asked to do,” Justine said softly.

  Ella would have given anything to avoid the sad duty, but she had a responsibility to her fellow officer. “I’ll see you later.”

  Ella drove toward Farmington at under fifty-five miles per hour, wanting the extra time to sort everything she’d learned. But as she reached the reservation’s borders near Hogback, an uneasy feeling began to creep up her spine. The badger fetish around her neck was warm, something that always seemed to happen when danger was near. She’d never been able to explain how it worked, but she never argued with facts.

  She checked her rearview mirror and took a careful look around her. There were a few cars within view behind her, and more than one had passed her recently, but none looked suspicious.

  Yet, despite all logic, the nagging feeling that someone was watching her slowly grew into a certainty. She slowed quickly and turned off onto a side road that led to one of the power plants to see if any car or truck followed her, but none did.

  As she turned around and pulled back onto the main highway, she caught a glimpse of something shiny behind her about a half mile, halfway around a curve, and on the shoulder of the road. But the flicker was gone so quickly, she couldn’t be sure what she’d seen. It could have also been a car going the other direction, she supposed.

  Ella kept a vigilant eye on the road behind and ahead of her as she drove directly to the Farmington address the chief had provided. It was located on the southwest side of the city in an old residential area among several apple orchards along the San Juan River.

  Dr. Franklin’s home was a well-maintained but old pitched-roof house on a half-acre lot with a few gnarled apple trees. Pulling up the gravel driveway, she parked in front of the attached garage and went to the front door.

  As she reached the porch, she heard classical music coming from inside. Ella rang the doorbell, hating the news she was bringing and the pain it would cause.

  A few seconds later, the door opened, revealing a Navajo man in his early sixties, with thinning gray-black hair and wearing thick wire-rimmed glasses. He was dressed casually but well, wearing a yellow shirt beneath a gray wool sweater, dress slacks, and expensive-looking loafers. The professor could have blended in any of a hundred college campuses across the country.

  Ella identified herself and saw the wariness that instantly crossed Kee Franklin’s features.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked. “My son?”

  “Can we sit down?” she asked gently.

  He nodded and led her inside to a tastefully decorated living room that looked right out of Middle America rather than the Southwest. He took a seat on a worn leather chair beside a table lamp piled high with scientific magazines and journals, then waved her to a comfortable-looking sofa.

  When she delivered the sad news, the man’s face turned ashen and he held on to the arm of the chair so tightly, it turned his knuckles a pearly white. For several moments he sat there, shaking, unable to speak.

  Ella walked quickly to the kitchen and, taking a glass from the drain rack, returned with some water for him.

  He took it from her slowly, disbelief and shock etched on his face. “I just saw him…well, just a week ago. We had lunch and talked.”

  “About what?”

  “The weather, ice fishing, nothing in particular,” Dr. Franklin said, his voice shaky. “Jason…he’s gone? It couldn’t be a mistake? Are you sure?”

  Her heart aching for him, Ella nodded and saw the last glimmer of hope fade from his eyes. Her chest tightened as she thought of Dawn and the fear that had gripped her when her daughter’s safety had been in doubt. To face what Kee Franklin was experiencing now…she just didn’t know how anyone could stand the pain. Nothing could prepare a parent for the loss of a child.

  “We’re going to need your help now, sir,” Ella said softly. “Is there anything you can tell us? Did your son have any enemies you know about, anyone who would want to hurt him?”

  His eyes filled with tears, and he watched her silently. Ella wondered if he’d even heard her words. She waited patiently.

  “Where…and how?” he managed.

  “On duty, in an old garage, late last night. He was shot, and died instantly.” She’d spare him the details, except for that one important point. It was the only kindness she had to offer him. “I found the body myself not long after it happened.” She gave him the address and saw him look up at her in surprise. “You know the place?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “My ex-wife uses it for storage. I keep some old books and odds and ends there myself.”

  “Can you think of any reason your son would have stopped by there during his pa
trols? We know he was checking the place often.”

  Dr. Franklin thought about it for a while before speaking. “Maybe he had things of his own there…or more than likely, he was just keeping an eye on the place for his mother.” He took an unsteady breath. “Does she know yet?”

  “No, sir. We think she’s in Germany with her husband. We’re trying to locate her now. Do you know her address or telephone number, or the name of the base?”

  Dr. Franklin shook his head. “It’s been a very long time since she and I had anything to do with each other. When she remarried, that was the end of it for us. I haven’t spoken directly to her in years.” He took another drink of water, and as he did, Ella saw his hand was still trembling.

  “She loved our son, and should be told…” he said. His voice broke, and he took another swallow of water.

  “We’ll track her down, sir. I know this is difficult, but I need you to think back. Did your son ever mention having any enemies?” she asked again.

  He shook his head. “Enemies? No, it was impossible not to like that boy once you got to know him. I can’t think of anyone who would have done something like this to him.” He paused, and set the glass down. His hand was shaking so hard, water sloshed over the side. “But police work is a dangerous profession. Maybe a criminal, someone he had arrested…”

  Ella watched Dr. Franklin carefully, afraid he’d have a heart attack. The man seemed to have aged ten years since she’d given him the news. “As soon as you feel you can handle it, Professor, would you look at photos of the garage, and maybe through the boxes we found in there, and tell me if anything is missing?”

  “I can’t help you with that. I only went there one time to drop off some extra books I needed to store away. I used to live in Los Alamos. After I retired from teaching at the branch college there, I came back just to be closer to my son. He is, was, my only child.”

  The words broke Ella’s heart. “Please let us know if you plan to have a funeral or a memorial service. His fellow officers will want to pay their respects.”

  “No funeral,” he said, his words thick and heavy. “He wouldn’t have wanted that. He wasn’t a traditionalist, but he told me once he hated funerals. Said he wouldn’t be caught dead at one. I’ll hold…something else,” he said slowly. “Where should I pick up my son?”

  “The medical examiner’s office is in the basement of the hospital at Shiprock,” she said gently, and gave him her card. “If there’s anything at all you need, or that I can help you with, give me a call—day or night. My cell phone number is on the back.”

  Dr. Franklin walked her to the door, but his movements were mechanical.

  Ella stepped outside and, as she turned around to express her regrets one last time, she saw that he had turned around and was staring at photographs of Jason on the wall. Softly, she closed the door, returned to her car, and drove west toward the Rez and Shiprock.

  Ella considered her next step. Big Ed had told her that Dr. Franklin gave guest lectures at the college. Wilson Joe, her longtime friend, might be able to give her some insight into the Franklin family—and maybe a lead.

  One thing was clear. She had to find answers quickly, before the trail got cold.

  Three

  Forty minutes later, she arrived at the college, a modern facility with the core classrooms and offices constructed in an architect’s interpretation of giant eight-sided hogans.

  Wilson, a popular, good-looking professor about her height and a year older, sat alone in his office grading papers. Seeing her, he beamed a smile. “Hey, stranger. I haven’t seen you around much lately.”

  “Work and family. That’s my whole life in a nutshell.”

  “How’s Dawn? I heard that she’s going to day school.”

  Ella smiled. Everyone tended to know everyone else’s business in this community, one of the largest on the Rez, but barely a “town” based upon population alone. “Yeah, and she loves it. I think it’s good for her. She needed to be around kids her own age. She’s learning Navajo and English and seems pretty comfortable with both—though I have to admit she makes up her own words with alarming frequency. Shush is bear in Navajo, but she calls her teddy bear Shooey. She’s also fond of playing ‘pretendly’ games.”

  Ella stopped speaking and smiled. “Jeez, I sound like one of those mothers who’s convinced everything her child does is adorable.”

  “And you’re not?” Wilson laughed as he walked over to a small coffeepot on the counter, carrying his empty cup.

  “Most everything she does is cute,” she said, laughing. “And I don’t have to pull out a wallet full of photos—which I have, by the way—to prove it.”

  “You’ve got your life organized the way you want it,” he said, pouring her a cup of coffee without asking, then topping off his own mug. “I envy you that. I wish I could get my life more on track. Justine and I…well, we have things to work out.”

  Wilson offered her the coffee in a foam cup, and she took it silently with a nod. “But you didn’t come to talk about this, Ella. What’s up?”

  “How well do you know Professor Kee Franklin? I understand that he guest lectures here.” She glanced at a mural painted on the far wall. At one end it depicted an eighteenth-century Navajo family huddled around the fire pit inside their hogan, and at the other end was an unpainted section Ella knew Wilson was saving for a portrait of the first Native American astronaut.

  Between the beginning and end, the mural featured tall vignettes in Native American history, from the prehistoric cultivation of corn to the arrival of the Spanish. It concluded with the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII and Navajos building solar collectors to provide electricity for traditionalist families on a remote mesa.

  “Dr. Franklin conducts demonstrations and lectures often. And, by the way, he loves the mural as much as you and I do,” he said, following her gaze. “I’ve had him here often, and he always comments on the space program, and his desire to see a Navajo at the International Space Station before he passes on. He’s a very gifted professor, and an inspiration to my students.”

  “Do you know him on a personal level?”

  Wilson shook his head. “We’ve made small talk and discussed the Dineh’s relationship to science and technology, but that’s about it. Why do you ask? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “Not the kind you think. Have you heard that a tribal officer was shot and killed?” Seeing him nod, she added, “It was his son.”

  Wilson took a deep breath. “That’s going to devastate Dr. Franklin. His son was the world to him. They hadn’t been close while the boy was growing up, but their relationship really improved since Kee moved back to this area. I know they went hiking and fishing together as often as possible.”

  “When I gave him the news he took it really hard,” Ella said. Hearing someone approaching, she turned her head and was surprised to see her mother standing there. “Mom! What on earth are you doing here?”

  “You’re not the only one with business to attend to, daughter,” Rose said, taking the chair Wilson offered, then glancing up at him and folding her hands on her lap. “I came to get your opinion on the proposed ‘nuclear casino.’ You explain things to people every day in words they can understand, I figured you could speak plainly to me about it.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” Wilson offered, waving toward the coffeepot.

  “No thank you.” Rose replied, then got right to the point. “What do you think are good reasons for building this nuclear power plant, Professor?”

  “You have to hand it to the New Traditionalists,” Wilson said. “They’ve come up with something original that could add a whole new dimension to the energy industry in the Four Corners. If it passes and a nuclear facility is constructed, the electricity produced could bring our tribe a great deal of revenue in the first half of the new century. Right now many outsiders operating the coalfueled power plants, the mines, and so on, have a lot of control over what happens to our land. But with a n
uclear power plant here, owned and operated by the tribe, those days would be over. We’d be calling our own shots at last.”

  “That must be why Permian Energy keeps talking to our council, asking for approval to run the operation,” Rose asked. “If they’re operating the plant, then they’ll maintain control of the facility.”

  “Exactly.” Wilson sat forward, then continued. “And if Permian calls the shots because they own and operate the facility, they’ll be taking the bulk of the profits, and we won’t be any better off than we are with the current coal power plants. We have to maintain controlling interest in this enterprise ourselves. There’s a small core of scientists right now among the Dineh who have the technical expertise to get this thing started, and the uranium required to fuel such a power plant is already on Navajo land. With the need for more energy across the nation, especially the West, such a project could turn things around for us as a tribe. Marketing clean energy that we produce and control will give us economic clout in the Anglo world, and the funding we need to educate and support our own people.”

  “What I’m most concerned about is the safety issue.” Rose crossed her hands across her chest. “It’s only clean energy when everything goes as planned. The Holy People warned us that certain rocks should stay in the earth. When the bilagáanas, the white people, came to our land during the Cold War and council elders allowed them to take the uranium out, the mining ended up causing disease and misery. We can’t afford another mistake like that. Polluting our scarce water supplies is unforgivable.”

  Ella glanced at Wilson. “That’s been bothering me, too. Most of us who live here know that the largest radioactive spill in the history of the United States happened on the Navajo Nation, but few off the Rez had ever even heard about it. You say ‘Three Mile Island’ and everyone knows what you’re talking about, but in 1979 millions of gallons of radioactive waste spilled down the Rio Puerco.”

  Rose nodded. “And when the uranium companies closed operations, we were left to clean up the mess.”