by Doug Ball
“Yeah, pickup, brand new, paper plates, rolled over taking exit 329 at 90. Driver died. Three transported. One disappeared. Dead man was murdered.” Tan liked running things by Bubba due to his experience and his knack of asking the questions Tan had missed.
“No crap? How did you get it? You were at training?”
“You oughta know, you sent me. Coming home, truck passed me at 90 and cut me off to make the exit. I was just gonna cite the dude. Turned around and went into chase mode. Didn’t go far. End of the ramp, slam bam thank you ma’am, got’em out, burst into flames just as I dragged the last vic clear. Chick took a swing at me. White guy disappeared from the hospital. Gonna check him out.”
Bubba was all ears, “Where’s the murder?”
“Dead man driver was stabbed in the ribs with a knife found at the scene.”
“No crap? Where’d you find the knife?” Bubba moved to get a cup of coffee.
“Under the edge of the cab. Just a cheap throwaway you can buy almost anywhere.”
Tim Wilkins at the other desk was sitting up and paying attention, too. “Were there Native Americans in the truck?”
“Yeah, dead man was Navajo. Two others were, also.”
“Black truck?”
“Yup.”
“I bet that’s the same one I cited about MP 314 going south. Got’em doin’ 84 in a 75. They were very silent and a white guy was driving. Navajo chick was in the cab with him and the other two Navajos were lying down in the bed, didn’t see them until I walked up on the vehicle. Both appeared to be sleeping. I let them sleep.”
“All four were in the cab for the rollover. Dead guy was the chick’s boyfriend. Could be a motive issue there.”
The three of them jawed about things including the case for a few minutes until both Bubba and Wilkins had to get on the road. Before they got out the door, Tan was on the phone.
Two hours later he was no closer to finding any of the three survivors. The girl had not been to the address on her driver’s license in six years and they didn’t know where she was. She was a drunk rebel and they wanted nothing to do with her. The Navajo man had never lived at the address on his license because that address was empty ground. The interesting thing was that his license had been issued only four weeks before. The white guy was still on the streets. Tan put a BOLO – be on look out – on all three.
He wrote what he could of his report and, after he talked with the Lieutenant about continuing the investigation, he left.
He wasn’t in his car yet, when the Lieutenant came running after him. “Just got a call from DPS, the patrolman that worked that rollover with you last night wants you to call him, pronto. Here’s his number.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll call from my personal on my way to Bellemont, wanna talk with the guy at the Harley dealership there about the bike thefts we been having. Had another one yesterday morning at the north side MacDonald’s. Again, folks sitting inside never heard the bike start up and no one saw any bike being rolled away.”
“You do that, Tan. I’m gonna get a detective to work this accident of yours.”
“How about me?”
“You ain’t a detective, yet.”
They both went their separate ways.
The guy at the Harley dealership didn’t have much of anything to say, almost seemed evasive. Tan asked for permission to search the place and got the go ahead. Found nothing out of the ordinary.
“2Adam19 – See the Lieutenant in the office at your convenience, please.”
“2Adam19 – 10-4.
Tan had forgotten the call to the Highway Patrol officer.
“Hello.”
“Deputy Brown here, you wanted me to call.”
“Yeah, that medicine pouch, you still got it.”
“Yeah, in personal property, wait, no. It’s still in the back of my unit, so, yeah, I got it.”
“Hold it. I’ll call later. This a good number?”
“My personal.”
“Lunch at IHOP, Flag?”
“Twelve-Thirty?”
“Works.”
“See ya there.”
Governor’s office
11 AM
“Josie, what or who is next.” She was trying to figure a way to tell Josie she had done a good job since their chat. “What the hey, you’re doing great. Let’s keep it up.”
“The next thing on your calendar is tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, Governor. There are no other appointments today and your first one is at 2 PM tomorrow, with the Supreme Court Justices, followed by the Superior Court Judges.”
“Those should be interesting meetings.”
“Yes, they should. Will you need a stenographer for them?”
“No, we’ll just record them and if I think there is some meat in there somewhere, then you can get them typed up.”
“Very good, Governor. Will there be anything else, today?”
“What, you want the rest of the day off?”
“No. I just have a lot on my desk because you don’t have a lot on your desk.”
“That was tactfully put, but to the point. Thank you, for the load on your desk and no load on my desk. I’d say, ‘have fun’, but it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“I don’t know, it is rather fun telling overstuffed whiners and lobbyists to go fly a kite. The most fun is the ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ responses to calls and letters. Those are great fun.”
“Then, have fun. See you in the morning.”
“Eight AM?”
“That’ll do.”
Josie left and the Governor showed herself out of the office by the back way, calling Art on the way down. Their apartment wasn’t too far away. She waited in the shade of a large palm tree wondering how a little ordinary gal from rural Arizona got this job. It all boiled down to a terminal case of blunt mouth, which she never could keep shut. ‘That would be me, if it wasn’t right in my mind, it wasn’t right, period. And, something needed to be done about it.’
Art arrived and before he could get out, she opened her own door and jumped in. “Take me out to eat, I am starved.”
“Where to, m’lady?”
“You decide. That’s what they pay you the big bucks for, I’m done making decisions for one day.”
They bantered a bit until Art stopped talking in mid-sentence. She looked over to find him staring at the rearview mirror. “What’s up?” she asked, a bit alarmed.
“The car behind us just cut in to and through the traffic to get there. Almost caused a wreck. Almost was one. I don’t like the way the driver matches my every move and is staring at me over the steering wheel. Just doesn’t look right.”
“You’re just paranoid.”
“You have your Glock, don’t you? I think we may need it. I just saw a gun flashed back there as the passenger pulled the slide back. This is just like in the movies.”
“Only this is for real, Art.” She grabbed her purse off the floor and pulled her Glock 27. “We’ll find out if this baby can do the trick if they are serious and you are right.”
Art watched, “Where’s a cop when you need one?”
“I have my little beacon. Want me to push the panic button?” She had always wondered what would happen if she did. The security guy had told her a cop or two would be on her like flies on horse apples in July in less than two minutes. She thought, ‘So for two minutes we must care for ourselves.’
“Yes, now!” She felt the car swerve and heard the sound of the left rear fender being crunched by the front right fender of the car trying to pass.
“Oh, darn, Governor, we just had a fender bender.” She pushed the button, two or three times.
“I pushed it.”
Art was trying to duck between cars and get away from the one behind him, but the guy was a pretty good driver. Cars on Jefferson were honking and drivers were flipping him off and yelling out the window. He drove like a mad man, the woman he loved was in danger.
>
The driver of the attack car tried approaching from the other side, but he had trouble getting the car positioned right with his arm out the window holding a gun which he couldn’t get lined up for a shot. They were obviously after the Governor. Both men in the chase car were dark skinned, but Indian or Hispanic, Art could not tell.
“You really made somebody mad with your changes, gal. I don’t think they like you or us, and I got all dressed up for them, too.”
She was trying hard to stay composed, and when he said that she just started laughing. “I am gonna shoot somebody in a minute. Let them get alongside me.” She rolled down the window and got the Glock in her right hand, ready to fire.
“Here they come.” He swerved a bit but not as much as before, he didn’t have room. The right rear fender hit the oncoming car, but didn’t slow it. “Almost there. Ready. Now!”
She turned and emptied the gun at the man hanging out the window pointing a gun at her. She saw his face blossom red and the flash of two guns pointed at her, heard the windshield explode outward, felt the air coming through, heard Art grunt, felt the car swerve sharply to the left, jump a curb and stop in the parking lot of a KFC. The attacking car traveled down the lane for almost a block before jumping the curb and careening into the parking meters of a parking lot. Nobody got out.
“We whupped’em, Art. It’s over.”
Sirens sounded from every direction and in a moment of furious activity both cars were surrounded by no less than seven state, county, or city units.
She looked at Art to find him slumped over the wheel with his right arm and side covered with blood. The first officer stuck his head in the windshield opening, “We need an ambulance over here, now,” he screamed in a voice that was heard a hundred yards away, plain and clear. “Just sit still, Ma’am, the medics will be here in three minutes. If you pop the unlock button I can get to him to help stop the bleeding. Looks superficial across his arm and chest, but we need to know, don’t we?”
She pushed the button, released his seat belt, reached in her purse for her knife, and began cutting his shirt off right where he sat.
Ten minutes later Art was lifted into an ambulance with pressure being applied to a long gash across his chest and a hole through the bicep muscle on his right arm. She gave him a kiss as she climbed in after him and the sirens fired up again for the ride to the hospital.
“How are the men in the other car?” she asked the medic.
“Wait one, ma’am. Let me check.”
He asked the question on the radio and she heard the reply, “One is dead and the other is stable and will probably live. That lady shoots pretty damned straight if you ask me.”
She smiled and pictured the five o’clock news tonight. FOX and CNN would probably have it before they got to the hospital. ‘Rough way to get publicity’ she thought.
On the 1 PM news – “Governor has shoot out with two gunmen. One is dead, other serious. Governor’s husband wounded in the shoot-out on Jefferson. Details at 5”
6
Wednesday
IHOP
Flagstaff, AZ
12:30 PM
Robert Jaeger was seated in his usual booth. He had been with the Department of Public Safety for 17 years, most of that time on the highways of rural Arizona. He never married and had no children which gave him plenty of time to investigate his favorite subject, Native Americans and all the skills they used to survive and live in such a resource impoverished place like the southwest, specifically Arizona and New Mexico. Yeah, there are some very bountiful areas, but many regions were empty of anything that appeared to be useful or edible. IHOP was his idea of roughing it, not harvesting and eating sunflower seeds that were only an eighth of an inch long or lizards that didn’t have a bite of meat on their whole body.
The deputy walked through the front door as he looked around. The Patrol Sergeant that had joined him on the rollover was sitting in the back corner booth behind the kitchen door. Tan thought, ‘He definitely wants a private spot.’ Tan then noticed that there was no one seated closer than three tables away and that was an old couple that were having trouble making themselves heard across the table. The DPS officer caught his eye and waved him over.
“Glad you could make it.”
“Yeah, you eat here often? They empty the corner for you or was this just an accident?”
“Got a waitress that works here who knows I want this table and, if possible, I don’t want anyone close. Today I called ahead and asked them to make sure we were alone. You mind having your back to the door?”
“Naw. I know you’ll watch my back and it’ll make it easier for me to eat watching the wall behind your back.”
The two of them instantly liking each other made lunch a pleasant time in an otherwise hectic day for both of them. “What’s the big deal?”
“Order first.” He waved at the waitress.
Once they had ordered, Robert introduced himself and went a bit into his hobby. “It’s about that medicine pouch.”
The food arrived and was spread out on the table.
Tan thought intently wondering what the pouch had to do with anything. “It’s out in the back of my unit. Want me to go get it?”
“No. Leave it there and don’t take it out where anyone can see it, Native Americans in particular.” He bit into his burger and dipped a fry into the catsup. “You may have run into something you don’t even want to look into. It’s scaring me.”
“What’s up that’s so scary? It’s just a medicine pouch with all kinds of stuff in it that meant something to the driver of that truck. Lots of the local Indians have them and many carry them on deer hide thongs around their neck.” Tan watched a young waitress come through the kitchen door with a tray almost bigger around than she was tall loaded to the max with plates of food and all else that goes with those meals. She delivered it to another table as he cut off a piece of chicken fried steak and shoved it in his mouth after dipping it in salsa.
“Not like that one. It’s special, only a warrior of the Ghost Shirt Society would wear a medicine pouch like that one.”
“What’s the Society and what’s so special about them?”
“The Ghost Shirt Society goes way back to the middle 1800’s. The Indians were getting whipped, tribe by tribe, and somewhere along the way the society was established in an attempt to gather all the Indians under one leader and goal, so they would fight together and throw the white man back into the sea, kinda like Genghis Kahn or Attila the Hun uniting many tribes.”
“Sounds a bit far-fetched to me. All that stuff died out at Wounded Knee, didn’t it. No Indian in his right mind would want to go back to where the tribes were before the white man.”
Both of them took a drink and grabbed another bite, “There have always been a number of individuals of various tribes who still believe in the idea of tribal independence. Look how touchy the Navajo are in constantly reminding all us white folk that it is the Navajo Nation, not the Navajo Reservation or Tribe. The Apache, Pima, and other tribes in Arizona are doing the same thing in one form or another.” He shoved the last bit of his lunch in his mouth.
“Okay, so they want to go back. What are they gonna do, band together and declare war or something? Come against our well-armed and trained troops with bows and arrows again. Come on, ain’t gonna happen.” Tan finished his lunch with the last gulp of his iced tea.
“You may scoff, but I have it on good authority that there is an uprising in the planning, but no one will listen to me. My dog was killed and hung from my porch light, the antique Corvette I have been restoring was rolled out of my locked garage and set on fire while I was patrolling the highways - I got the first hint of it when the fire department was called to my address on the radio - and last night as I rolled in the driveway a man walked calmly to my car and as I got out, gun drawn, he said, ‘Drop the subject of the Ghost Shirts and walked away. I cuffed him and talked to him for an hour, but he would not respond. My Lieutenant said I c
ould lock him up, charged with destroying the grass he had walked across. I let the sucker go. He had no ID, no labels, no nothing in his pockets except a cheap cigar which he lit as soon as I let him go, putting the match in his pocket so I couldn’t lock him up for littering. Gutsy, huh?”
Tan asked, “How many Native Americans you figure are in on this?
“Not a lot. Maybe enough to cause some serious trouble and a high death count. Just think of a home at the end of a block. Ten to twenty Indians surround the place and ring the doorbell. Man answers the door. Bang. He’s dead. No matter how many guns he has in the house, he’s dead. Maybe after two or three houses people would be on the defensive, but I doubt it the way folks curl up in their homes with all the windows blocked and the AC running full blast. The vast majority would never even hear a gunshot next door. Now, would they?”
An Indian about six feet tall walked up to their table, leaned forward, saying, “I hope you got the message about the Ghost Shirts, Sergeant. We don’t desire any misunderstandings at all.”
Tan calmly stood and patted him down. Nothing. “Not a thing on him, except his clothes.”
“Thank you, Deputy. I have no desire to alarm anyone or to have a misunderstanding.”
“About what?”
“The Sergeant knows, don’t you Officer?”
“I know.”
In the parking lot, the Arizona State Highway Patrol Unit began sounding its horn, flashing all its lights, and the siren sang to the neighborhood. “Sir, will you come with me to my car?”
“Yes.”
They walked out to the car, Jaegar put his key in the door lock and watched the button come up as he turned it. Reaching inside all the flashing and noise ended before he could touch anything. He popped the hood. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. “Will you get in the back seat, Sir?”
