Abducted Innocence (Emily Etcitty)

by Sandra Bolton

  6

  Monday, April 9, 1990

  Huerfano Substation

  Navajo Nation Tribal Police

  Emily sat at her computer and scrolled through the database on missing persons in New Mexico, going back the past ten years, pausing when she came to cases involving Navajo girls. Most had been runaways, as Hosteen had suggested. Nearly all had turned up eventually—either dead or alive. She had come to work an hour early to discover whether there had been similar kidnapping incidents in the past and, so far, had come up empty. It was chilling to realize how many girls had been reported missing. Then, a picture of a young Navajo girl caught her eye. Emily’s pulse quickened, and she stopped scrolling.

  02/05/1982—Mary Jo Claw

  Date Missing 02/05/1982 from Kirtland, New Mexico

  Age: 13

  Mary Jo Claw was last seen at the Claw residence outside of Toadlena, New Mexico. She was wearing a traditional dress and running on the final day of her Kinaaldá ceremony. If anyone has any information concerning her whereabouts, contact the Navajo Nation Police.

  The entry continued with a physical description of the girl and her clothing. No trace of her had ever been found, and there were no suspects.

  She would be twenty-one years old now, Emily thought. If she’s still alive.

  Emily scribbled information on a yellow pad and continued her search. Before Hosteen arrived, she had found reference to three more missing girls. All had been celebrating their Kinaaldá—and none had ever been found. And she had only researched New Mexico. The vast Navajo reservation extended into Arizona, Utah, and a small section of Colorado as well.

  She became so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice Hosteen when he sat down at his desk across from hers. He hadn’t been available when she had tried to reach him Saturday afternoon—out of range, the dispatcher said. He had Sunday off. It infuriated her to think he might have been intentionally ignoring her.

  “Mornin’, Etcitty,” Hosteen said. “What’re you doing here so early?”

  Emily glared at him and quickly returned to her computer screen. “Have you bothered to take a look at these files on missing girls, Joe?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Why are you so pissed this morning?” He put a bakery bag from Safeway on his desk.

  “Why couldn’t I reach you all weekend?”

  Hosteen set his cup of coffee down and stood looking at her with intense slate-gray eyes, his arms folded across his chest. “I was on the road. I went out to the Benally place to talk to the father and other men involved in the search. They didn’t find anything. Then, I had someone I needed to talk to way out in the Checkerboard area—took me all day—and I was off on Sunday, like you. Or, don’t you ever take a day off?” he asked, his voice edged with annoyance.

  Emily blew air out of her mouth in a long, exasperated sigh. “So the men on horseback never saw anything suspicious? Well, something is adding up here, and we should have jumped on top of it right away. There’s a pattern of young girls disappearing during their Kinaaldá. Why didn’t anybody pick up on this?”

  “How should I know? I’ve only been working this area for the past two years, remember. And if you’re interested, I already made a computer printout of the missing girls who fit the description. And I was out in no-man’s-land talking to some of the parents.” Hosteen put his hands on his hips, his voice rising in anger, drawing the attention of Captain Todechine, who had just entered the building.

  “What the hell’s going on? Don’t you two have anything better to do than snipe at each other?” Todechine’s massive frame towered over Emily’s desk as he stood glaring at his two candidates for sergeant.

  “It’s about the missing girl, sir,” Emily said. “I think we need to act quickly on this.”

  “Hosteen’s on it,” he snapped back.

  The ass kisser, Emily thought.

  Emily said, “Well, sir, the Chevy van I called in on Saturday? I think we should put an APB on it.”

  Hosteen continued standing, not saying anything.

  “An APB based on what, Emily? That someone saw a white Chevy van in the parking lot a few days before the Benally girl disappeared, and they didn’t see anybody get out, so they assumed it was suspicious? Do you know how many white vans go into that parking lot on a daily basis?” Todechine learned forward and pounded a fist on Emily’s desk before answering his own question. “About a thousand tourists on their way to Monument Valley or the Grand Canyon or out to buy a few Indian trinkets before they leave the Wild West. Jesus Christ.” Captain Todechine straightened his back, ran a hand through his buzz-cut white hair, shook his head, and scowled. “I’m getting a lot of flak from the community. I want the two of you working together on this. Stop bickering and get me something solid,” he said. He swung around and walked into his office, slamming the door behind him.

  Emily and Hosteen stared at each other. Neither smiled—neither wanted to partner with the other.

  “Well, shit,” Emily said. “Are you going to share with me who you talked to and what you found out?”

  “Saturday morning I did exactly what you’re doing right now—followed up on it by tracking down the families. Give me some credit, Emily. I was wrong not to act on the Benally case right away, and I felt sorry about it, but I’m a good cop. So lighten up.”

  Embarrassed for assuming Hosteen was avoiding her, Emily apologized, though she still did not like the idea of working with him. “Look, I’m sorry, Joe. I was out of line.”

  Yes, she had to admit to herself, he is a good cop, and if I don’t prove myself better than he is, he’ll get the promotion—not me. “Did you get any new information?”

  “All right. Apology accepted. Help yourself to a doughnut, but hands off the chocolate one.” He looked at her list and pointed to three names. “I only had time to meet with these three families. They’re scattered all over the Navajo Nation and Checkerboard area. They came up with the same story each time. The girls just disappeared—no trace of them ever found. No suspects, only a few tire tracks. They all vanished in isolated areas accessible by dirt roads only, and crisscrossed by a grid of pipeline roads leading in all directions.”

  “Since you accepted my apology, I’ll accept your offer of a doughnut,” Emily said. She made a selection, avoiding the chocolate, and took a bite. “There’s one more name on the list.” She paused to lick powdered sugar from her fingers. “Mary Jo Claw. Let’s take a ride out to the Claw camp and see what we can find out.”

  Their destination was three and a half miles outside of Toadlena, New Mexico, a drive of eighty-one miles on an unpaved Indian Service Route. Emily reproached herself for her outburst as they got into Hosteen’s police-issue Ford Explorer. She simply preferred to work alone, enjoyed the solitude while driving through the reservation’s remote boondocks. She hoped Hosteen wouldn’t talk too much.

  “It’s a goddamn desolate wasteland out here,” Hosteen said when they were off the main highway. “I don’t know how you people can stand to live in such a place.”

  The remark did nothing to endear her to her new partner, and she shot him a contentious look. “What do you mean by ‘you people’? Don’t you consider yourself a member of the tribe, Joe? Or are you ashamed to be Diné? If you can’t see the beauty in this land, I find it hard to believe you are Navajo.”

  “Get off your high horse, Emily. I’m as much Navajo as you, but I was born in Albuquerque. My mother left when she was a teenager, ran away like I figure some of these girls did because she saw there was no future for her here. She put herself through college, got a decent job, and provided me with a better life.”

  “Have you ever tried to find family members here? I bet you don’t even know your clan name,” Emily said, giving him a skeptical look.

  “I know this,” Hosteen said, matching her tone. “Fifty-five percent of the adults in the Navajo Nation are unemployed, and the poverty rate is forty-six percent. The alcohol and drug use are twice the natio
nal average, and so is the suicide rate. Do you seriously think I want to stay here and raise a family?”

  Emily winced. She knew the statistics behind what he said were true, but also knew there was more to life on the reservation than numbers. Her decision to remain on Dinétah and do whatever possible to improve conditions for her people had been made long ago; her ties remained longstanding and profound, with little tolerance for attitudes like Hosteen’s.

  Coward, she thought. Sellout.

  “Why do you stay here, Emily? You could live better in Albuquerque or Santa Fe.”

  Emily thought about her childhood, the hours spent sitting at her grandmother’s knee listening to stories—the Navajo Creation legend, trickster coyote, the magic of Spider Woman, and many more. She envisioned the powwows, the Sash Belt dance, the Basket dance, herself as a young dancer in a fringed blanket dress, and the communal sharing of food and celebration. But mostly it was the land—it held on to her as tightly and tenaciously as the root of a bindweed plant.

  “If I have to explain, you don’t get it and never will, Joe.” She chewed her lip, irritated with him for pointing out what every white person who came to the reservation remarked on.

  Except Abe.

  Wanting to change the subject and focus on the job ahead, she said, “We’re almost there, and dammit, try not to let your prejudices get in the way while we do this interview.”

  The Claw homestead consisted of a weather-beaten trailer with a rusted old Dodge truck parked alongside. The ruined remnants of a sheep corral stood broken and abandoned about a hundred yards beyond the trailer. The land appeared desolate and unforgiving—with no indication of the presence of children or animals. Two heavyset women, their eyes narrowed in overt hostility, lips clamped in identical frowns, sat on metal chairs in front of the trailer. They watched as the Explorer pulled up.

  “Honk your horn and roll the window down,” Emily said. “See if they’ll let us get out. I understand you don’t speak Navajo.”

  “Not too much,” said Hosteen.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s helpful. What if the people we interview don’t speak English, like plenty of old-timers?” To his shrug she answered, “Let me do the talking.”

  Hosteen gave the horn three blasts and waited while the women looked impassively at the occupants of the Explorer. Finally, one of the women stood up and walked stiffly toward the police vehicle, stopping at Emily’s open window. Emily knew that because of lack of proper nutrition, nearly one in three Navajo were diabetic or pre-diabetic. Watching the heavy woman struggle to walk on swollen legs was a clear indication that this woman was one of the sufferers.

  It wasn’t always like this, Emily thought, before all that white flour and lard.

  She was brought back to the present by the woman’s raspy voice.

  “We didn’t do nothing wrong. What do you cops want?”

  “Yá’át’ééh,” said Emily. “You’re not in trouble. We’re looking for some information about the girl that disappeared five years ago. Can you help us?”

  A shadow crossed the woman’s face, clouding her flat Indian eyes. “The cops never found her—why are you here now? Did you find my daughter’s body?” she asked in a tremulous voice. “Did you find Mary Jo?”

  “No. Are you her mother?”

  The woman heaved a heavy sigh. “Yes. Get on down.” Looking back over her shoulder at the other woman, she said, “Nonni, grab two more chairs outta the kitchen, and heat up the coffee.”

  The only people remaining in the Claw household were the two middle-aged sisters, Blanche and Nonni. Blanche, the mother of the missing girl, said her husband had run off a couple of years after she lost her daughter, and her parents had both died.

  “So that’s when I told Nonni to move in with me. She didn’t have no husband or kids of her own, and I didn’t have no one left.”

  The coffee was thick as tar and mixed with some kind of bitter-tasting herb. Emily took a sip, trying not to make a face. She glanced at Joe, registering his grimace as he set his mug down. “Tell me about your daughter’s Kinaaldá,” Emily said.

  Blanche Claw lowered her substantial body into the sagging lawn chair with an audible moan. “It was her grandma who arranged it. Mary Jo being her only grandchild, she wanted her to have a traditional Kinaaldá when she came of age.” The woman wrung her hands. “We had a big party ready for when she returned from her run—singers, a feast. She didn’t come back. I never learned what happened to her. Afterward, her father drank more and took it out on me. One day he ran off. Then my mama died—later Dad. I didn’t care about the sheep or nothing else after that.” Blanche’s eyes became watery, and her sister patted her trembling hand.

  Hosteen, who had remained quiet up to this point, broke into the conversation. “Mrs. Claw, if you speak English, I’d like to ask you a question. I noticed you had some trouble walking? Arthritis?”

  “Yes, and diabetes,” she answered in English. “Runs in the family.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Hosteen. “My mother has diabetes, too. How long have you been afflicted?”

  “All my life, just about,” said the woman. “Nonni here has diabetes, too, and so does—did—my girl.”

  “So I guess there are people from Indian Services who come out here and check your blood sugar to see how you’re doing?”

  Emily studied Hosteen, wondering where this was going.

  “Sure do,” said Blanche, nodding her head.

  Her sister, Nonni, nodded along with her. “There’s that home health-care person comes out every two weeks, and a social worker. Used to have a tutor come out here for Mary Jo before she went missing.”

  “You had the same people coming all the time?” asked Hosteen.

  “Sometimes—pretty much, I guess,” said Blanche. “Course the tutor don’t come no more.”

  Emily’s pulse quickened as she realized where Hosteen’s line of questioning was headed.

  “Could you give us the names of all the people who made home visits at the time your daughter disappeared, Miss Claw?”

  “Well, if I can remember all their names. They come and go.” She closed her eyes in concentration. “You don’t think one of them . . . ?”

  Once they were back in the car, Emily had to admit it, reluctant though she was. “Smart questioning, Joe. I should have thought of that.”

  “You would have,” he said. “In time.” He smiled, looking smugly pleased with himself—or so Emily thought.

  “Let’s stop in Shiprock at the Department of Family Services and see what we can find out about these names Blanche Claw gave us,” said Emily. “I’m curious to know if any of them still work on the rez.”

  “That’s where I’m headed,” said Hosteen. “It makes sense. Someone familiar with the land had inside information about when these different girls were having a Kinaaldá ceremony. But first, we need to talk to the other parents—the ones I saw yesterday—to see if they were receiving home services from the same people as well.”

  “Right,” Emily said. “I’m getting ahead of myself. I know we should, but we don’t have much time. It’ll be quicker to check the records at Family Services.” She paused and stared out the window as the image of Shiprock, a hazy peak on the horizon, appeared. “There’s going to be a Kinaaldá for the Nez girl out at Mexican Water on Wednesday. I plan on being there.”

  “To keep an eye on things?” said Hosteen. “Good idea.”

  “To participate,” Emily answered in a near whisper.

  Hosteen gave her a sidelong glance. “I’m coming along.”

  “Lina and I run at sunrise,” Emily said.

  7

  Monday, April 9, 1990

  Mattie Simmons’s Churro Sheep Ranch

  Bloomfield, New Mexico

  Monday morning, as the rising sun set fire to billowing cumulus clouds, Abe crawled out of bed, stretched, and yawned. He wished he could sleep longer; his body ached after a day of wrestling and castra
ting lambs, but today there were piano lessons to give, and before that, animals to feed and water and pens to clean.

  He was out by the sheep pens filling a watering trough when a pickup pulled up and honked.

  A woman with close-cropped red hair sat behind the wheel. A towheaded teenager was seated on the passenger side. “We brought your sheep back,” the woman said. “We would have brought it sooner if I’d seen it, but Danny hid it in the shed.” She switched off the ignition, and the engine shuddered to a stop.

  Abe walked to the older-model Ford and peered into the bed. Sure enough, there was his yearling, tethered to a tire to prevent it from jumping out. The lamb baaed loudly when he approached and appeared to have a bandage wrapped around its right hind leg.

  “Why do you have my sheep?” Abe asked the young man as he opened the tailgate and gently set the animal on the ground. “What happened to its leg?”

  “I . . . I . . . was only trying to help. It was caught on the fence, and you weren’t home. I didn’t steal it.” He nervously rubbed his hands on his pant legs. “I’m sorry I had to cut the fence.”

  Abe looked at the kid. He appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen. Gangly limbs, freckles scattered across a pale face, green-speckled hazel eyes like his mother’s darting from side to side, not meeting Abe’s gaze.

  “Okay, I fixed the fence. At least you brought him back.”

  “Danny,” the mother said, “why don’t you take Mister . . . ?”

  “Freeman. Abe Freeman. Just call me Abe. I don’t go by mister.”

  “Abe.” She smiled. Her eyes were the same color as her son’s, only more alive. “Why don’t you take Abe’s sheep to the corral with the others?”

  “Okay,” said Danny. “Can I stay and watch him awhile? Make sure he’s gonna be all right?”

  “Yes, for a few minutes.” When Danny scooted out of the truck, the woman held out her hand. “Ellen Jorgenson. I guess you noticed my boy is a little slow, but he’s good-hearted, and he didn’t mean no harm to your sheep.”