Tribal Law

by Jenna Kernan

  “My little sister might be visiting soon,” he blurted.

  Her attention returned to him as she cast him an odd look. “Jovanna? That’s good. Your grandmother told my mother that you had found her.”

  “She’s been adopted by a white woman.”

  Selena drew in a breath. “Clyne must be furious.”

  She knew his brother well enough to know that. Of course, she knew his family, or had known, them very well. His heart ached again at the losses, one upon the other.

  “Clyne wants her to know her roots, of course, become part of her tribe, and my grandmother wants her to be home for the ceremony.”

  “What do you want?”

  No one had ever asked him that. His first thought was that he wanted Selena. But he just couldn’t think how that could happen. Because of her actions tonight she was now part of another active investigation. That alone meant she was off-limits. Would they always be on opposite sides?

  “I want Jovanna happy. But I worry about her losing a second mother.”

  “Yes. I understand that. Being forced from her adoptive mother might be very hard on her.”

  Selena echoed Gabe’s thoughts, but as of yet, he had not raised them with his family.

  “I hope she will want to know us and learn about being an Apache woman. And I wonder if she even knows about the Sunrise Ceremony.”

  “She’ll need a sponsor. A woman to teach her what she must know. Has your grandmother asked anyone yet?”

  “Probably.” But he didn’t know. The woman who was selected must be a close friend, but not a relative. So it couldn’t be either Lea or Isabella, the new wives of his younger brothers. He looked at Selena, thinking she would be perfect.

  “What?” asked Selena.

  “I wish it were you,” he said, and then lowered his head, thinking he shouldn’t have said that.

  She rested a hand on his forearm and his muscles twitched beneath the gentle pressure. He met her gaze.

  “I would be honored,” she said in Apache.

  He responded in the language of their birth. “It would be our honor, Sunflower Sky Woman.”

  Her mouth gaped as she blinked up at him. Was she surprised that he remembered her Apache name? She shouldn’t be. He remembered everything about her. Couldn’t seem to forget a single thing.

  “I wish things were different, Selena.”

  “I wish that, too.”

  The silence stretched. He closed his eyes, praying for some path that would bring him to a place where he could be with her and still keep his position as chief of the tribal police. Selena zipped her coat closed. It had grown so cold inside the interior of the vehicle that he could see each exhalation she made. Her breath and his breath mingled, fogging the windows, obscuring the outside world and leaving them in an icy cocoon.

  “Gabe, I have to go in.” But she didn’t move to do so.

  “Soon,” he said.

  “How did those men find us?” she asked.

  He had no answer.

  “I don’t know.” He shifted in his seat. He needed to tell her something.

  She turned toward him, so that her back was to the passenger’s side window, giving him her attention.

  “When I reached your truck and I saw someone lying inside, I thought...” Here his voice failed him. The squeezing pressure across his chest grew too great. He dragged in a breath and blew out frost. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  She smiled. “I’m right here.”

  He had lost her once before, but the permanency of this, of realizing that she might have died, frightened him so much.

  “I don’t want you to go inside.”

  She cocked her head. “I don’t understand.”

  He didn’t know how to explain it. He just knew he needed to get her away from this house.

  When he said nothing, her gaze strayed toward her front door.

  “I wish I could be like you. Believe in something so much that it came before everything else. For me it’s always been a balancing act. What’s best for Tomas? What does my mother need? How can I get enough business to pay the loans, keep us fed and keep my sisters happy? And now my father. I want everyone safe.”

  And that love for them was going to get her killed, he thought.

  She gave him a beseeching look now. As if wanting him to understand something. He got that cold feeling in the pit of his stomach again.

  “Selena, don’t let him drag you any farther into this. Please.” He was about to ask her to come with him. To let him protect her from her family, which he now believed to be the biggest threat. Her love for them put her in danger. But Selena cut him off.

  “You have your job. I have my family. My sisters, my mom and my little brother all need me. My father needs me, too, in his way. They are everything to me.”

  “But you’re not safe here. Come with me. I can protect you.”

  “Protect us, my entire family? With twelve men? Or just me?”

  She waited.

  “Just you.”

  Her smile was so sad. She leaned forward and he followed, filled with a fragile hope. She stroked his cheek and then her fingers slipped away.

  He didn’t want her to put him through this again, making him choose between doing his duty and protecting her family.

  He knew what he’d do if she forced him to choose and it scared him to his core. He’d choose her and lose it all.

  “I’ll find the precursor,” she said. “Then you can arrest them, and things can go back to the way they were.”

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. It wasn’t what he wanted. Not anymore. He wanted Selena back.

  This time her father was working with DOJ, but he’d still managed to drag Selena into the line of fire twice in only twenty-four hours.

  He wished he could throw him back in prison.

  “So you’re willing to stick to Dryer’s story?” he asked.

  “That Nota took the truck because Dad’s parole officer stopped by? Yes. Nota didn’t call anyone. So Escalanti wouldn’t know I was with him, and his car is still here. Plus it explains the bullet holes in my truck. The story works.”

  It might work. Or it might get Selena killed. If Escalanti thought she was working with the federal authorities, would he kill her or just call off the deliveries?

  It was a huge risk. One he didn’t want Selena to take.

  If he were Escalanti, he would either move the lab and call things off, or kill the Doselas on the suspicion they were playing him.

  “I should arrest you,” he said. The threat was halfhearted. “At least then I’d know you were safe.”

  To arrest her was to blow the investigation wide-open. He chafed at the need to do his job and his instinct to keep Selena with him.

  “I just want this to be over,” she said. “Good night, Gabe.”

  She shifted and the door release clicked, then Selena slipped from his unit.

  She hesitated. He knew he should say something. But words failed him. Selena closed the door and he let her walk away, waiting until she was inside before starting the engine. Had he thought she might change her mind and come back to him?

  She wouldn’t. She had her family and he had his job.

  He stared at Nota’s muscle car, which gleamed yellow under the light from the Doselas’ living room window. It wouldn’t be long before the Salt River gang missed their two gunmen and Escalanti knew that Nota and Martinez were not coming back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabe returned to the crime scene after dropping off Selena and met with his lead investigator and Murdy, who had bad news. His men had run the snowmobile’s trail and hit a dead end. The precursor had been off-loaded at the shoulder of the road that ran parallel to Piñon Lake Road
. They could determine nothing of the delivering vehicle or vehicles. In other words, they had not found the location of the storage site for the precursor.

  “Another dead end,” said Gabe.

  “Seems so,” said Detective Juris.

  “Any notion on how the Salt River gang members knew about this delivery?” asked Detective Murdy.

  Gabe shook his head. “Love to know that myself.”

  Unfortunately the ones who could tell them were both dead. He stayed until the scene was released and then drove back to the station to jot down some notes.

  When he was finished he was too tired to drive home, so he once again stretched out on the wide leather sofa. His last thought before slumber stole him away was of Selena sitting at his side, her thumb caressing the back of his hand.

  There was a gentle rapping on his door. Gabe startled to a sitting position, catching his big sheepskin jacket before it hit the floor. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced up to see Detective Randall Juris looking at him from beneath a creased brow.

  “That’s two nights in a row,” said Juris, pointing to Gabe’s choice of sleeping arrangements.

  “It saves time and it’s quiet.”

  Juris looked around at the Spartan little box of an office. Filing cabinet, minifridge, desk, chair and couch. Gabe knew that Juris had been married many years and thought his smile looked indulgent.

  “Quiet might be good, but when Dora goes down to see her folks, it drives me a little crazy. You know?”

  Gabe understood. Too much quiet was not good, especially compared to having a woman you loved share your home and your bed. Gabe thought of coming home to a family, as Juris did every night, and felt an unexpected surge of envy.

  “All ready for tomorrow?”

  He meant the funeral. The assemblage would be tremendous. Bigger even than some of their festivals.

  “Thanks to Yepa, we are. She has been coordinating with the family. Arizona law enforcement will be here. US Marines, state politicians and representatives from the Apache tribes in Salt River and Oklahoma. Chee had family up there.” Gabe had never given a eulogy and in his heart he knew he was not up to the task.

  “I thought he was army,” Juris said.

  Juris massaged his neck with one hand and gripped the latch with the other. Gabe recognized this as a sign that whatever news Juris had, he was not anxious to deliver it.

  “Salva asked me to come get you, Chief,” said Juris. “They’re all assembled.”

  Gabe’s gaze flicked to the wall clock. It was almost time. First shift would be gathering in the conference room. But today was different because they had located Chee’s body, confirmed he was dead. So today all twelve officers in the brotherhood of tribal police would assemble for roll call. Gabe corrected himself. Only eleven officers, now.

  He and Juris exchanged a grim look.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Juris left him. Gabe headed to the bathroom to throw some water on his face, his bones suddenly weary. When he entered the briefing room a few minutes later, all the men stood.

  Sergeant Franklin Salva addressed him. “Chief Cosen, would you like to call the roll?”

  “No, Sergeant. It’s your honor.”

  Although the funeral was tomorrow, today they would perform a private ceremony for Officer Chee. The men remained standing, responding, as always, as Salva took the roll, but with one exception. He left their fallen officer for last. When he called Dante’s name all the men stood in silence as their sergeant called for Dante Gerald Chee again, and again and one final time. Then Salva turned to his chief and said, “Officer Dante Gerald Chee, end of watch.”

  The gathering of men remained standing in somber silence until Sergeant Salva broke through their contemplation in a voice thick with determination.

  “Okay, listen up because I have some information...” Salva launched into his briefing, concluding with a warning. “And I will personally kick the butt of any man who is not wearing his Kevlar.”

  Gabe headed back to his office and was on the phone with the state’s evidence lab when Parole Officer Ronnie Hare stopped by a little before ten.

  Gabe motioned him to a seat. Ronnie relaxed back into the chair before Gabe’s desk, glancing around the room until Gabe returned the handset to its cradle. The two spoke in Apache for a while, just exchanging pleasantries and news from each reservation. Salt River was connected to the southern border of Black Mountain reservation. But each reservation had its own government. Ronnie’s reservation was a mixture of several different Apache people, while Black Mountain was almost exclusively Mountain Apache.

  Ronnie switched to English. “Hey, I’m real sorry to hear about your guy. That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah. He’s the first man we’ve lost.”

  “Just awful. You got any leads?”

  “We’re running forensics. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

  “And you had some gang violence.”

  Gabe’s brow lifted. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I was chatting with Yepa. Her husband is a classmate of my cousin.”

  “Were you?” But he offered nothing more.

  He recalled Dryer’s complaint that everyone here was related to everyone else. Gabe forced a smile and resisted the urge to look at his watch.

  “Think they’re connected?” asked Hare.

  “It’s early in the investigation. Can’t rule anything out.”

  “Sure. Sure. Anyways, I went out to visit Frasco Dosela yesterday,” said Hare. “Unannounced visit. So that’s why I’m here. I was getting a vibe. You know? Like something was going on. Thought I’d let you know.”

  Gabe believed that what Hare had noticed was that his untimely arrival had kept Frasco from riding along with Selena, as they had planned.

  “A vibe?” asked Gabe.

  “Yeah. I’ve been at this a while and Mr. Dosela seemed agitated at my arrival. Really restless.”

  “Interesting,” said Gabe.

  “And I didn’t like the looks of his daughter’s boyfriend.”

  Gabe’s antenna went up as he realized the weakness in Dryer’s cover story. Here was a witness to Selena being at the house when Nota arrived. Had he seen them leave together in her truck?

  “Why not?” Did his voice still sound casual? He wasn’t sure. He needed to get to Dryer. Let him know.

  “He seemed a little young for her. Plus that car. And he was dressed...” Hare waved his hands as he struggled to come up with a description. “Like one of my parolees.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Plus they took the box truck instead of his car.”

  Gabe’s heart sank. Nota’s car was still at the Dosela’s. He needed to get it out of there before Hare saw it again.

  “Why would they take that truck?” asked Hare.

  Gabe rubbed his neck. “Better traction?”

  “Maybe. It was weird. Anyway, Yepa said gang violence, so I thought I’d mention it to you.”

  What would Hare think when he learned that one of the victims was the man he had seen leaving with Selena?

  “Hey, next time I go out there, would you like to ride along?” Ronnie asked.

  Gabe did look at his watch this time. “Not unless you feel you need me there.”

  “Oh, no. I can handle my job. Just, well, as I said. Something seemed off.” Hare’s eyes drifted, turning to the files on Gabe’s desk before sweeping back to him.

  “You going out there today?” asked Gabe.

  “No. Seeing another release.” Hare provided the name.

  Good, Gabe thought, because if Hare were going, Gabe would need to speak to Selena first. Likely impossible now as she’d be on her run and her phone got no service on much of the route. St
ill he’d try until he got through to her.

  Gabe stood, signaling an end to the chat.

  “Well, if anything seems wonky with Dosela, I’ll let you know.” Ronnie rose and Gabe walked him to the door. They shook hands and they said their farewells in Apache.

  Gabe waited until Ronnie Hare was out of sight to call Juris and explain the problem.

  “I’ll run a check on him. But if he’s got a big mouth, that could be a problem. I can send a unit to stick with him,” said Juris.

  “No. That will just make him suspicious.”

  “Okay, then.” Juris turned to other matters. “We have positive ID on all of the shooters. Red Hawk down in Salt River helped with the ID of the ones who attacked the truck. He knew them on sight.”

  “Maybe Nota’s death will flush Escalanti out of his burrow,” said Gabe.

  “Hope so. Oh,” said Juris. “I spoke to Sammy Leekela about his brother’s death. Routine interview. He seemed more nervous than grief-stricken. Think they might move that meth lab?”

  “Dryer’s got men watching it.”

  “That’s good, I suppose.” Juris certainly didn’t sound pleased with that news. “I hate that they’re on our land.”

  “I know,” said Gabe. “But it’s too big, Randall.”

  “We need to nail Escalanti,” said Juris.

  Once the prospect of taking down the leader of the Wolf Posse would have filled Gabe with anticipation. What he was feeling now was more like dread.

  Yepa buzzed him with a call, which Juris could easily hear.

  “Later,” said Juris, ending the call.

  Gabe picked up the call from Detective Murdy of the Arizona state police crimes investigation unit. Murdy had been one of the two men on-site at last night’s shooting.

  Murdy told him they had a match between the tracks at the site of Chee’s body and the ones of Nota and the second man, Alfred Martinez. Initial results indicated they had found the killers of his officer.

  He’d only just replaced the handset when Yepa buzzed him again. She had another call for him and asked if he wanted it patched through. He needed to call Selena. Tell her about Ronnie Hare.