Tracking Bear

by Thurlo, David

  “I bet he came unglued and called Sheriff Taylor.”

  “Yeah, the sheriff and his deputies came out, but there was no evidence that would indicate how the person entered his home and bypassed all of Branch’s sophisticated security systems.”

  “So he offered you a truce?”

  “Yeah, but the really weird thing is that I’ve done nothing to him. I wouldn’t have a clue how to disarm his security. Yet, the more I tell him that, the less inclined he is to believe me.”

  Ella glanced at Ernest, who smiled broadly but didn’t speak. Ernest was turning out to be a real asset to Kevin.

  “Take it as a win and go with it. You have a guardian angel somewhere,” Ella said.

  Kevin stood. “Well, I don’t know about that, but things are definitely looking up.” He glanced at his watch. “I better be going. I’ve got a meeting tonight. I’m now on the committee funding the police department.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “By default. No one else wants to be part of it because its a nowin job. We all want to give the police department more money to work with, but to do that, we’re going to have to cut other programs. Politically, it’s a powder keg. But there’s a ray of hope. We’re starting to see some profits from the casino near To’hajiilee. It’s doing better than we expected, and maybe we can funnel some of the profits to the department.”

  “If the tribe wants adequate police protection, they’re going to have to fund us somehow.”

  “I think it’s going to happen, Ella. Whether you realize it or not, the police department has the full support of the community. The news of how and why Jason Franklin died has gotten out, and it’s made an impact. You have more friends than you think.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Morale has been pretty low.”

  “I expect that’ll turn itself around real soon. You’re now getting the full support of the anti-NEED factions because they want to prove that we can find ways of funding our emergency services without a project like that one. You’re also getting the support of the pro-NEED people because they want investors, and a strong law enforcement presence is a draw.” He paused. “It’s an odd time for the tribe. For the first time we’re not really divided by traditionalist versus modernist. What’s at the heart of this new dispute is fear—some are afraid we’ll repeat the mistakes of the past. Others fear that if we don’t take a risk now, we’ll lose what’s left of our tribal identity and become no more than a welfare community.”

  “The ones who appear to carry the most influence now are people like my mother. She’s not only a Plant Watcher trying to protect our land, but also a respected tribal rights advocate.”

  Kevin nodded. “I agree. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Right now she has more actual power than most of us on the council.”

  After Kevin left, Ella sat alone in her office. She thought about her mom and what she was accomplishing. There were no limits to what Rose could do when she made up her mind. But she really worried about her. Even with widespread support, Rose was making enemies—the kind with long memories. If her mother continued down this dangerous path, there wouldn’t be much she could do to protect her.

  Ella remained at her computer, checking databases, digging into Margaret Bruno’s past and that of Shives. But there was nothing there that she didn’t already know. Justine made periodic reports on the SUV they’d brought in from the rental agency.

  Justine had run two sets of prints and confirmed they belonged to Margaret Bruno and Delbert Shives. The hairs they’d found were synthetic and a match for the wig hairs they’d found before in the science storeroom at the college. While Justine was examining vacuumed-up material from the upholstery and the floor mats to try and determine where the vehicle had been, Ella decided to go home and have a quick dinner.

  When Ella arrived she discovered the house was empty. A note stuck to the refrigerator told her that Rose had a meeting of the Plant Watchers, and Dawn had gone shopping with Boots. The pony was in his corral, searching quietly for clumps of grass.

  Alone, she sat in the kitchen table and looked around, remembering her teenage years in this house. Her father had usually been away, preaching at a revival somewhere or spreading the gospel to his “flock.” Clifford, more often than not, had hung around with his friends at basketball practice or out in Shiprock. Back then, she could come home, run several miles—track had been her sport—finish her homework, then try to find a reason to go back out again before her father got home. She and her brother had never understood the relationship between their mother and father, who’d always seemed to be fighting about something, yet chose to stay together.

  The total silence surrounding her here at the house now felt odd and disconcerting. In the all-encompassing quiet, the house could only echo with memories. Ella suddenly wondered how Rose had managed to spend all those years living alone in this place after Clifford had moved out to become a medicine man and she’d joined the FBI.

  Ella warmed a bowl of stew in the microwave and sat down to eat. She took a bite, and realized that only the stew at the surface was heated. Stirring it with her spoon, she put it back into the microwave for another minute. Ella stared at the microwave, and the implications of what she’d just experienced jumped to a completely different experience.

  If Wilson hadn’t found anything so far in his storeroom, maybe it was because he’d never looked past the surface, never stirred up the stew, so to speak. When he recognized what was on the top of a container, he never looked any further.

  Ella placed the bowl back into the refrigerator and hurried out to her unit. She knew it was late, but there was nothing she could do about that. This couldn’t wait. The layers of hot and cold stew had just given her the answer she’d needed, perhaps, to solve the mystery that lay at the heart of the murder investigations.

  By the time she arrived at Wilson’s door, it was past eleven. Ella knocked and waited. When no one came to the door, she banged harder on the door. “Wilson, wake up!”

  A moment later, a bleary-eyed Wilson came to the door wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

  “I need your help. Let’s go to the college. I need another look at that storeroom.”

  He gave her a dark look. “I’ve spent hours searching already, and haven’t found a damn thing. Unless you know there’s a body in there, I’m going to strangle you for waking me up. I have a seven o’clock class tomorrow.”

  “I’m looking for papers—important ones. And I need you to help me find them.”

  “You’re crazy. Papers? Go to sleep and let me rest.”

  He started to slam the door in her face, but she put her foot in the door, and pushed her way inside.

  “Have you gone totally off your rocker, Ella?”

  “Kee Franklin’s life is on the line, and you’re going to help me figure out why.”

  Twenty-Five

  Sorting through the boxes in the storeroom at the college seemed like an endless job. Finally, after reaching the end of the first aisle, Wilson, red-eyed, and in a foul mood, glanced at Ella. “It’s nearly two in the morning. Are you sure there’s something here to find?”

  “Truthfully, no, but I have a strong hunch.”

  “You brought me here at this hour for a hunch?” His voice rose an octave.

  “Wilson, just keep looking down inside the boxes below what you expect to be there. I don’t care what they’re labeled, or what’s on top. You were the one who told me that Franklin usually brought boxes of materials whenever he guest lectured here. It’s possible he left something behind inside another box. You can’t rule it out until you’ve checked.”

  “Ella, the boxes marked Test Tubes have test tubes. The ones marked Lab Manuals have lab manuals. There’s nothing here,” he said wearily.

  “So far. But you don’t know what we might find if we keep looking. I know you’re tired, and so am I. But I believe that the death of his son has sent Kee
Franklin over the edge, and now he’s involved in something that’s going to get him killed.”

  “Give me a hand with this one,” he said, spotting a battered box on the highest shelf. “I have no idea how it ended up over there with those outdated materials. I remember Kee used it to demonstrate alpha particle decay during his lecture. Be careful. It has a working model of a cloud chamber in it, and it’s a bit heavy.”

  Once they’d managed to lower it to the floor, Wilson opened the cardboard flaps and brushed away some of the packing material. “It’s essentially just a big black box with a glass front and an asbestos top.”

  “We know he used what was in the box, so look all the way to the bottom—just in case,” Ella said.

  Grumbling, Wilson lifted the cloud chamber out and, as he did, he found it had been resting on a large three-ring notebook. “That’s not my reference material.” As he opened the faded-looking notebook, a letter fell out. It was addressed to Kee Franklin, and it had the business letterhead of the Permian Energy Network.

  Ella picked up the letter as Wilson went to his desk with the notebook in hand.

  She read the letter quickly. “A few months ago Permian offered Kee Franklin a job. They wanted him to come to work for them as a research consultant on their uranium enrichment process using laser technology. It mentions Delbert Shives as the pilot program coordinator and contact person.”

  “Interesting,” Wilson said, looking up from his notebook.

  “What I suspected was right,” Ella said. “Shives probably stole Kee’s process, or at least part of it, then brought it to Permian as his own. He must have thought he could complete the research himself if they funded him. But this letter shows they went to Franklin about it, and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. There is a ‘cc’ at the bottom to Shives.”

  “So Shives was screwed. Franklin knew his work had been appropriated, at least part of it,” Wilson said, nodding.

  “Right. Shives must have realized he was running out of options. If Franklin got a look at what Shives had used to entice Permian and recognized his own research, he could blow Shives out of the water and sue him and maybe Permian, too. Instead of getting rich, Shives could have been facing jail time.”

  Wilson, who had been studying the papers in the notebook, looked up. “I can’t be one hundred percent sure without a lot of additional reading and confirming with real experts in the field, but these are Kee’s notes on his process—and according to his conclusions, Ella, the process worked, quadrupling the efficiency. He says here that the costs of a full-scale operation producing weapons-grade uranium would be cut by two-thirds, and high-grade uranium for fuel rods more than that. These numbers are out-of-date, but even at today’s costs that could make nuclear power competitive again.”

  They didn’t have to look any further. By the time they left, it was three-thirty in the morning. Ella took the papers, logged them in as evidence, and went directly home. It was quiet, and only Two woke up to greet her.

  Slipping through the house, she made it to her bedroom and closed the door before turning on the light. She reached down for her cell phone, replaced the spent battery with a fresh one, and when she turned it on again saw that she had a voice message waiting.

  Punching out the proper codes, she heard the message. It was Clifford. His words were cryptic, saying that he had news about the man she was looking for and should call him whenever she picked up the message, regardless of the hour.

  It was nearly 4 A.M. but she dialed his number. After two rings, he picked it up. “Sister?”

  “How did you know it was me? Never mind,” she whispered. “Who else would be calling at this hour? I just discovered your message. Is it news about the professor?”

  “Yes. I heard something earlier today, but couldn’t get to a phone until I got home, and by then it was already after midnight. Come over now, and I’ll tell you what I heard,” Clifford added.

  “Why not just tell me now, so we can both go back to sleep?”

  “You won’t be able to sleep once you hear what I have to say, and I don’t want to give out this information over the phone. You’ll find out why when you get here,” Clifford said.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay?” Ella hung up, checked her pistol, then grabbed a flashlight from the nightstand before turning out the bedroom lights. She left the house silently, careful not to wake up her mother or Dawn. Two was in the kitchen, and she patted his head on the way out. “Keep an eye on things, boy,” she whispered, locking the door behind her.

  She should have been tired, but there was enough adrenaline pumping through her to keep going indefinitely. When her brother was reluctant to tell her something except in person, it usually meant there was a strong element of danger involved.

  She arrived at her brother’s darkened house, which was farther down the dirt road, in less than ten minutes. Anxious to speak to Clifford, Ella noticed the front door was open, though the screen door was shut. He’d obviously opened the front door since speaking to her, but the lack of a light in the house suggested he was outside somewhere. She naturally looked toward the medicine hogan, but there was no light coming from the interior, nor was there any smoke coming from the metal chimney of the small cast-iron woodstove, which projected from the hole in the center of the hogan roof.

  “Brother?” Ella stood by the entrance. When there was no response, she parted the blanket and looked inside, expecting him to be lighting the lantern, or perhaps poking around with a flashlight. Seeing two medicine pouches lying on a sheepskin pelt, her skin began to prickle. The pouches would have never been allowed to remain on the ground, so her brother must have set them here, then left the hogan. Perhaps he’d gone back into the house, and maybe his electricity was out. Even so, she’d have expected to see light from a lantern.

  She reached for her weapon and turned around, looking into the darkness. It was pitch-black tonight, and traditionalists like her brother usually didn’t wander around outside after sundown. Ella caught a whiff of something in the breeze just then and crinkled her nose. “Skunk. Ugh.”

  Grabbing the small flashlight she kept in her jacket pocket, Ella went ahead toward the main house, bracing her gun hand with the light. Suddenly hearing twigs snapping, she spun around.

  Seeing the pistol aimed at his chest, Clifford froze. “I saw you poking around, and I came over to tell you not to worry. I came outside, intending on waiting for you in the medicine hogan, then discovered a skunk hanging around the henhouse. I had to throw a few rocks in his direction to get him on his way.”

  “You scared me, you toad. I could have shot you. Next time wear a bell.” Ella quickly holstered her weapon.

  “No, you wouldn’t have shot me. You always identify your target,” Clifford said calmly.

  “I need to know what you’ve learned about the scientist. It’s critical that I find him soon. I’ve just discovered something that leads me to believe he’s in mortal danger. And why couldn’t you just tell me over the telephone?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. This afternoon I traveled west into Arizona to perform a healing ceremony for one of my patients. After my work was done we had supper together, and the daughter of the man I was treating said she’d seen the scientist at the old sheepherding camp southwest of Big Water Spring, up in the foothills as far as you can drive a pickup.”

  “Where is that, over by Narbona Pass?”

  “Northwest of there, closer to Crystal.”

  “That’s a pretty isolated area this time of year.”

  He nodded. “And here’s why I didn’t want to speak about it on the phone. I have one of those old, wireless units that others might be able to listen in on. We’ve made some powerful enemies, you and I, and I don’t have to name them to get your attention—and I certainly don’t want to turn them in my family’s direction either.”

  Ella nodded. Navajo witches, often called skinwalkers because of their custom of sometimes wearing coyote or wolf hid
es, were evil magic practitioners. Skinwalkers hated and feared medicine men like Clifford, who countered their efforts and knew how to fight against them. And Ella had foiled several of their attempts to harm others in the past.

  Clifford continued. “I’ve been told that the evil ones have taken to gathering in that general area, too. The ground is polluted because uranium tailings were buried there. Navajo witches are the only ones who go there these days, so you should stay away. If they recognize you, and they have the opportunity, they’ll kill you, or at least try to harm you with their magic. You’ve always been a thorn in their side.”

  “And you as well.” Ella noted that her brother always avoided mentioning skinwalkers by that name. Many believed that even saying the word attracted their attention. Although medicine men knew the best defenses against them, Clifford was always very careful. “I’ll stay on my guard, but I’m going after them,” she added.

  Ella glanced at her watch. It was barely five in the morning, and the eastern sky was starting to lighten up a bit. She’d called Justine about thirty minutes after she’d left her brother’s house. She’d hated to get her partner out of bed for what could turn out to be a wild-goose chase, but she didn’t have a choice. If the tip panned out, they’d have to move quickly, and backup was scarce and slow to arrive.

  Although she hadn’t slept all night, Ella was very much awake. This lead had to pan out—Kee was as good as dead if it didn’t. She thought ahead to what she’d have to do next. She knew the family who owned the trading post over by Crystal, which was in the general vicinity of the sheepherding camp. If luck was with her, one of them would be up offering prayers to the dawn. She wanted to talk to them before proceeding any further.