Jude Devine Mystery Series

by Rose Beecham

  Wiping perspiration from her forehead, she got back in the SUV and set off once more. If she hadn’t driven through Kansas before detouring through New Mexico, she might have mistaken the benighted vista around her for the worst hellhole in the galaxy. But having endured hour after hour of highway hypnosis in the flat monotony of the Sunflower State, she had a whole new perspective on the meaning of doom. The distance markers never seemed to change, and she’d even started to suspect Hal of some kind of robotic revenge: force the know-nothing human to drive in a daze, seeing nothing but white lines, until she drifts into the path of an approaching semi.

  A shattering horn evicted Pippa from her fugue state and she swung her gaze from a saw-toothed zigzag of sunburned rock to a sign that announced “Entering the Navajo Indian Reservation.” A few cars parked along the highway offered kneel-down bread from their open trunks. Pippa wasn’t hungry but the poverty around her made her sad, and she wanted to buy something from the people who lived in this miserable place.

  She stopped under the shade of a twisted tree and requested some of the delicious-smelling bread. As the Navajo woman wrapped the filled corn husks, Pippa asked, “Do I just stay on this highway to get to Cortez?”

  The woman turned her head to the right and seemed to point with puckered lips, her hands still busy.

  Not sure if she’d been given directions or the brush-off, Pippa said, “Thank you,” and overpaid for the bread.

  “Highway 491,” the woman said. “Hágoónee’.”

  Pippa repeated the Navajo farewell. Her version sounded weirdly mechanical and unmelodic. She took some lip balm from her top pocket and applied it as she returned to the CX7. The afternoon heat was intense, 104 degrees outside, according to the temperature reading on her radio display. She was ready for her trip to be over, but it would take another two hours to reach her destination.

  She drove until a sign directed her to H-491, a lonely two-lane road through a cratered landscape. A procession of power pylons followed the highway, providing an incongruous but welcome reminder that civilization lay somewhere beyond this desolation. Strange square rimrocks rose ahead, and far beyond them a mountain range undulated in the haze like a violet mirage. She passed broken bottles, torn tires, and occasional wreaths at the side of the road until finally she cracked up over a shabby wood sign that proclaimed “Welcome to Colorful Colorado.”

  She could see why this dismal stretch of road, once Highway 666, was known as the Devil’s Highway. A waitress on the New Mexico side of the state line had told her it had been renamed to ward off a satanic curse. When she heard this superstition, Pippa thought the girl was kidding. Now, as an odd waywardness entered her steering, she was not so sure. A few hundred yards past a sign that read “Toad Porter’s Haysales,” Pippa pulled over onto the gravel shoulder and got out of the SUV. A quick look at her back tires confirmed her worst fear. She was stranded in the desert with a flat tire.

  She stared at the hay sales sign in puzzlement. There was no evidence of hay, or fields it could grow in, or a store that might be operated by a man called Toad Porter. The only other vehicle on the road was a truck with tinted windows, slowing down as it approached. Pippa didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She tried to look like she had everything under control as the vehicle stopped and a tall man with straight silver-white hair to his shoulders got out.

  He approached the SUV in a casual gait. At his heel loped a gray dog with a heavy mane and a hind leg missing. The man wore jeans and a dark red shirt with a silver bolo tie engraved with a bird. His broad-brimmed black felt hat had a turquoise-studded leather braid around the crown. A cream and brown striped feather hung from a leather thong at the side of his face.

  “Flat tire?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Pippa waited for an offer of help.

  The stranger looked past her into the back of her car, then returned his quiet-eyed stare to her face. His expression was unchanging. “Got a spare?”

  Pippa hesitated. How many times had her father told her what to do in the event of a breakdown? She was supposed to call AAA roadside service and wait for them to arrive. Who knew how long that would take? She would probably be a skeleton picked clean by buzzards when they finally showed up.

  “Yes, it’s in the back.”

  “My name is Eddie House.”

  The man seemed to expect her to trust him. Irrationally, she did. She stretched her hand out into the golden glow of the late afternoon sun and shook his briefly. “I’m Phillipa Calloway. I’ll get my stuff out so we can reach the spare.”

  As she opened the rear hatch, a second person emerged from Eddie House’s truck, a gangly fair-haired youth in cargo pants and a T-shirt. The three-legged dog nuzzled him.

  “My boy, Zach,” Eddie said. “This lady is Ms. Calloway. We need to change her tire.”

  “Want me to fetch the tools, sir?” Zach patted the animal’s pale lupine mane and smiled tentatively at Pippa.

  Eddie gave the young man a nod and helped unload boxes from the back of the Mazda.

  “I can’t believe I got a flat.” Pippa sighed. “I’ve been driving for five days and I’m so close now, it’s insane.”

  Eddie lifted the floor panel to extract the spare. He didn’t ask where she was headed.

  Feeling the need to let this stranger know that she wasn’t just a lost tourist no one cared about, she said, “I’m on my way to the mountains. I have family past Dolores.” She fished her cell phone from the side pocket of her jeans as Eddie wheeled the spare alongside the SUV. “I should let them know where I am.”

  She took a few steps away, avoiding broken glass and discarded soda cans. She’d called Uncle Fabian earlier in the day to warn him about her imminent arrival, and he’d told her to drive carefully once she reached the mountain roads. He sounded really happy that she was coming. She waited for him to pick up but the phone cut over to voicemail. He was probably out buying her favorite foods. He always did that just before she arrived. There didn’t seem much point leaving a message, but she wanted Eddie to see her talking to someone. Just a simple precaution.

  Cheerfully, she said, “I’m just a few miles south of Cortez on the Devil’s Highway and a man called Eddie House is helping me with the tire. I guess I’ll reach your place in about an hour.”

  Zach returned with a jack and a steel toolbox and the two men set about swapping the wheels. For family members they bore no resemblance.

  Pippa said a few farewell pleasantries to the imaginary person at the other end of the phone. “My uncle offered to drive out here,” she informed her rescuers. “But I said everything was fine.”

  Zach grinned at her. “We’ll have you all set in no time.”

  “What’s your dog’s name?” Pippa asked, disconcerted by the pet’s intense tawny-eyed stare.

  “He’s a wolf.”

  Pippa froze the hand she was about to extend. Laughing nervously, she said, “Well, that explains the big teeth.”

  “He won’t harm you.” Eddie made a hand signal and mumbled something guttural in another language. The wolf crouched to rest on its belly. “His name is Hinhan Okuwa. I told him you’re a friend.”

  Pippa decided Eddie was a Native American and his son must be some kind of albino. She asked, “Do you folks live on the reservation?”

  Eddie didn’t answer for so long that she thought she must have offended him. Was it wrong to ask?

  Zach said, “Our house is a ways out of Towaoc going toward Cortez.”

  Not exactly an answer, but Pippa nodded as if everything was now perfectly clear. Feeling the need to explain herself, she said, “It’s just that I’ve been driving through the Navajo Nation. I wasn’t sure if I’m still on tribal land.”

  “This is the Ute Nation,” Eddie said.

  Zach explained, “The Weeminuche live here, in the Four Corners, and the White Mesa people have their lands in Utah. There’s about two thousand Ute left.”

  Pippa gazed around at the barre
n plateau extending east to west. What would two thousand people do on land like this? She couldn’t see many signs of habitation, only litter and abandoned cars. “Where does everyone live?”

  The men got to their feet and Eddie lowered the jack. As they gathered their tools, he said, “There was no water on the reservation for a hundred years, then we made a deal with the government for water, so the people can return.”

  With a note of pride, Zach said, “Most everyone can get a job. There’s the casino, and the ranch project, and the construction company. Dad makes pottery. He’s famous.”

  “You’re an artist?” Pippa smiled. Uncle Fabian had a huge collection of Native American pottery. He displayed stunning examples in each of his homes. “I’m familiar with some of the Southwestern styles. Santa Clara. Acoma. San Ildefonso. My uncle is a collector. Perhaps you’ve met him. Fabian Maulle.”

  Eddie’s gaze was suddenly more personal. “Yes, I know him.” He glanced down at her hands. “Are you the sculptor?”

  “He told you about me?”

  “He showed me one of your heads.” Eddie peered deeper into the vehicle, his face concerned.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t try to move any of my works. If I decide to stay, I’ll have them shipped out here.”

  “You’re coming to live in the Four Corners?” Zach sounded astonished.

  “Possibly. It depends.” Pippa started lifting her stuff back into the SUV.

  Eddie helped her, then handed her a card. “Come to the pottery factory. I’ll show you my work.”

  “I’d like that.” Pippa smiled. “Thank you for your help. It was very nice of you.”

  Eddie and Zach farewelled her solemnly.

  Zach advised, “It’s best you don’t drive out here at night in the future, ma’am. We get a lot of accidents on the triple six.”

  “Drunk drivers.” Eddie’s voice was very flat. “It’s a problem.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Pippa got back in the CX7 and lowered her window, allowing a rush of warm air to invade the SUV. She started the motor and turned the a/c up high.

  Eddie and Zach waited until she was on the road before getting in their truck. She gave them a wave and turned on the GPS.

  With gloomy disapproval, Hal said, “Recalculating.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Pippa told him.

  Staring at a bizarre chimney-shaped rock formation ahead of her, she hit the random setting on her CD player and cranked up the volume. As she drove toward the future, she sang along to one of those maddening White Stripes tunes that would lodge in her brain until something genuinely compelling drove it out.

  *

  Lonewolf watched a group of black helicopters buzz overhead as she mouthed the lyrics to yet another moonbat anti-war song. As the final off-key notes faded, she offered her “War Profiteers” placard to a protester standing in the shadow of the ten-foot-tall Dick Cheney effigy. He looked about twenty. Sierra Club ballcap on back to front, souvenir T-shirt from a Washington peace march, shoulder bag weighed down with peacenik buttons.

  He thanked her for the placard and offered her a bottle of Gatorade in exchange, saying, “If I drink any more I’ll have to go pee again.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” she said, declining the drink. They joined the chant of “Down with the dictator.”

  Around her, so many people were recording the event on cell phone cameras and videocams that it was hard to identify the professionals. But Lone had no doubt that the Secret Service and the FBI had plants standing out in the sun in disguise, pretending to care that their country was becoming a fascist dictatorship right under their noses. She’d been surprised by the turnout for the peace rally. Over two hundred. Quite a showing for Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the summer golf retreat of the man she intended to neutralize.

  She’d arrived two days earlier and had spent some time getting the lay of the land and experimenting with different looks. After several dry runs she found she attracted the least attention dressed as a man in baggy khaki shorts and a tee. The red Nike ballcap she’d chosen for the rally was emblazoned with “OU” and “Sooners,” identifying her as a misguided Oklahoman to the hirelings who would later analyze event footage.

  She’d dyed her short, nondescript mouse hair dark brown and tinted her eyebrows a few shades darker. The color was temporary and she planned to get rid of it before she drove back to the Four Corners. She kept her Oakley photochromic sunglasses on at all times. Anyone in a security detail paid close attention to eyes in a crowd. No one would notice anything special about hers even if the glasses came off. Contact lenses had dulled her distinctive bright blue to a mundane shade of gray.

  Lone had distorted her muscular build with fake flab around the middle, but she couldn’t do much about her height. She had lifts in her hiking boots and walked tall, trying to give the impression of five ten instead of five eight. She wore an iPod and made a point of tapping her feet and looking lost in her music, so she didn’t seem as focused as some of the rally-goers. That was another thing agents watched for—the stillness of the predator, an unconscious byproduct of intense concentration. To blend in, she needed to move, but not with any obvious sense of direction. As she drifted toward the gates of the poncy Teton Pines Resort and Country Club, she kept her head down and her iPod in her hand, as if her playlist was more interesting than the events unfolding around her.

  “Hey, is that the Nano?” A guy with designer stubble and artfully tousled brown hair sidled up to her. Beneath the baggy pants and T-shirt, he was built. The backpack slung across his shoulder looked new. So did his sneakers.

  “Yeah, it’s fucking awesome,” Lone replied in the deepest version of her unfeminine voice. “Hey, pal, have you seen a blond chick in a pink top?”

  The guy gazed around, bringing his backpack into view. The peace sign in the center was a recent addition and the patches were extremely clean. He pointed to a young female waving a sign. “Over there?”

  “No, that’s not her. Damn.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Fuck, no.” When the guy looked confused, she said, “Get with the program, man. Look around. It’s Babe Central and we’re in the minority. Know what that means?”

  Her companion acted cool. “Oh, yeah, you gotta love the peace movement.”

  Lone angled her head a little. “Check it out. Yellow placard. ‘Bring My Brother Home.’ Don’t let her see you looking.”

  As her companion took a moment to ogle the braless female, Lone checked out his ankles for a concealed weapon. One hem lifted slightly, telling her all she needed to know. Anyone who had worked in covert ops developed certain instincts. Most often, she had no idea how she made someone. Her mind seemed to process the subtle clues unconsciously, and by the time she carried out a closer inspection she was simply working through a checklist, making sure she wasn’t mistaken. For this operation, agents were fair game, innocent civilians were not. She wondered which branch of Big Brother this faux peacenik took his orders from.

  “Do you think the Democrats will impeach?” he asked in an unsubtle attempt to place her on the threat assessment spectrum. Liberal tree-hugger, crazy commie, or neurotic screwball with a martyrdom complex.

  Lone hoped she would fall into that other category: horny loser. She wondered why she’d been tagged for closer inspection and decided she was just a statistic, one of the twenty percent of this crowd identified as a male between eighteen and forty-five. No one looked Middle Eastern enough to have earned instant arrest.

  “Impeach?” She let a disgusted sneer show. “No way. Those pussies aren’t gonna strap on balls anytime soon.”

  “I guess.” Her new best friend glanced around. “Do you know which house is the VP’s?”

  “Nope, but if you find it let me know. That’s one doorstep begging for a steaming pile of dog turd.” Snorting with laughter, she continued, “Hey, Cheney steps out for another day at the golf course and ‘Fuck—what’s this on my shoes? Call the feds. Shoot some old g
uy in the face. It’s a fucking terrorist attack!’”

  Her comedy skit raised a phony laugh from her companion and he glanced past her, no doubt lining up his next target. Lone could tell she’d been dismissed as a dork who should have auditioned for American Pie. All those years in high school drama had paid off.

  The protestors wheeled the effigy closer to the stone-pillared gates of the tony country club and tied a rope around its neck. Lone stared up at the papier-mâché face of evil. Here in the midst of a beautiful, natural wilderness lurked the draft dodger who had cynically sent thousands of servicemen and women to their deaths. He knew all along that Iraq would be a quagmire. That’s what he told ABC news in 1991, explaining why we didn’t occupy Iraq in the first Gulf War. He repeated the same opinion over the years until he became VP of the Bushdom, then suddenly his rhetoric changed.

  Lone knew why, and it wasn’t because Iraq was any different. The men of the evil alliance knew the American public had a short memory. They figured, after 9/11, they could sell anything with enough patriotic spin—invading counties, sidelining army generals who disagreed with them, torturing prisoners, suspending habeas corpus. Of course the decision to invade Iraq had been made long before the Twin Towers came down. Anyone who bothered to inform themselves could ascertain that fact. Not that the so-called “news” media would ever join the dots and ask tough questions. Those lackeys knew the truth, but they would never print it. They were in the propaganda business.

  The simple fact was, war profiteers didn’t get to walk away with billions during peacetime. Lone’s family was dead because bloated fat cats didn’t have enough money. They needed to play golf on immaculate greens beneath majestic mountains while soldiers on extended tours of duty swallowed dust and sand with their jerky. Cheney “had other priorities” when his country was at war with Vietnam and had obtained five deferments. Nothing had changed. He was still out to lunch while heroes were paying for his comfort with their lives. He was eating lamb chops when Private First Class Brandon Ewart was being dragged out of a poorly armored Humvee by insurgents before they cut his throat.