Bad Medicine

by Aimée

  Ella watched Howard Lee scurry away like a dog who’d been caught up on the master’s favorite chair. “I didn’t hold him up.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. This guy isn’t going to make it through med school unless he gets his act together.” Reaching into the top drawer of her desk, she pulled out the autopsy reports on both Bitah and Angelina Yellowhair. “Everything’s pretty much the way I reported in my preliminary. Sorry there’s not much new to add,” Carolyn said, then reached into her pocket. “Oh, Justine just called. Here’s her message.”

  Ella glanced at the note. “Interesting. According to Justine, Bitah was a member of a splinter group of the Native American Church called the Native Justice Church. The Native American Church is very pacifistic while the Navajo Justice Church is militant in the extreme. They don’t operate under the same strictures, but they’re able to use peyote legally for religious purposes under the same legal umbrella that protects the NAC.

  “Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain where Angelina Yellowhair got her peyote,” Ella continued. “She didn’t attend either church, or any other according to what Justine has been able to find out.”

  Ella leaned back against the desk. “By the way, have you heard anyone, patients or staff, talking about a pro-Anglo organization called The Brotherhood?”

  Carolyn’s eyebrows furrowed. “No, I can’t say I have. You want me to keep my ears open?”

  “If you could.”

  “By the way, there is one thing that may help you. I found out Bitah had a girlfriend on staff here. Her name’s Judy Lujan.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate the tip.”

  “How are things going with you and FB-Eyes?” Carolyn asked, offering her a cup of coffee.

  Ella took a sip. “It’s hard to say. Sometimes I think we’re working well as a team, but I still have trouble thinking of him as someone who’s on the same side I am.”

  “Ingrained interagency competitiveness, you think?”

  “That’s part of it, sure. I hate relying on the Bureau. The tribe hired me to produce results because of my added training, and I want to be able to deliver the goods without calling in outside help. Big Ed, in particular, has taken a lot of flak on my account. I’d like to justify the trust he’s placed in me.”

  “When someone shows faith in either of us we tend to go overboard repaying them. That says a lot about us, you know, though I’m not always sure if that’s good or just pathetic.”

  “I’ll pass on that question.”

  Reports in hand, Ella went back upstairs to try to find Judy Lujan. It took awhile to track the woman down. Ella finally found her sitting alone in the staff lunchroom, nursing a cup of coffee.

  As Ella introduced herself, the round-faced, high-cheeked woman in her mid thirties looked wearily at her. “I’ve been expecting you to come by,” she said without inflection. “But I wish it hadn’t been today. I just lost a patient. Tuberculosis—that strain that nobody can do anything about because it’s resistant to antibiotic therapy. Medicine has come very far, but sometimes it just loops and takes us back to where we started.”

  “I need your help. I wouldn’t bother you if it could be avoided, but we have to find your friend’s killer,” she said, avoiding mentioning the dead man by name in case Lujan found it offensive.

  “I know.” She stared down into the coffee cup as if searching for answers in the thick blackness. “I dated him, but there never was anything serious between us. I think he liked me because I never asked him any questions he couldn’t answer easily.”

  “Were you aware of his activities outside work?”

  She nodded. “I know he was fighting The Brotherhood, but not the particulars about it.”

  Ella held her breath. This was an unexpected break. “Do you know who any members of The Brotherhood are?”

  “No, but neither did anyone else. That’s what my friend and his friends were working to uncover. They needed to find out who their opponents were before they could handle the problem.” Judy held up her hand. “And, before you ask, no, I never asked how they planned to take care of the problem.” She leaned back in her chair. “I can tell you this, though. My friend helped form his new church because he believed in using violence to fight violence. That attitude was the major reason our relationship was at a standstill. I told him I had no intention of becoming the widow of a crusader.”

  “You believed his work would jeopardize his life?”

  “When people use violence as a means to an end, they often end up its victim. In my opinion, that’s exactly why he’s dead now.”

  “Who was your friend close to?”

  “That’s easy to answer. Billy Pete and Kevin Tolino.”

  “I know Billy,” Ella said smoothly, “but what can you tell me about Kevin?”

  “Kevin is a Navajo rights advocate and an attorney for the tribe. He handles all cases pertaining to discrimination on and off the reservation on behalf of tribal members.”

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to him.”

  “One more thing?”

  Ella stopped near the door and glanced back. “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell anyone that I helped you. I don’t need any more problems. I’ve got enough of my own.”

  “Are you afraid of our own people?” Ella asked, surprised.

  Judy seemed to consider the question. “Let’s just say that I’m not sure if I should be afraid of them or not.”

  Ella’s mind was spinning with speculations as she walked out to the parking lot. If the Dineh were afraid of the Navajo activists, as well as leery of The Brotherhood, then the problem was even bigger than she’d realized.

  She had almost reached the Jeep when she heard her name being called. Turning her head, she saw Carolyn rushing toward her.

  Ella turned back to meet her. “What’s going on?”

  “I just saw the evening paper. Have you?”

  “No, I haven’t had a chance.”

  “Here. Take my copy. I think you’ll find it interesting.” Pressing the paper into Ella hands, Carolyn glanced back. “I better get back before that student of mine screws up every slide.”

  “See you.”

  As Carolyn jogged back, Ella opened the Navajo newspaper, grateful as always that it was written in English. Her Navajo was as rusty as an old horseshoe nail left in an arroyo for a decade or two.

  As she unfolded it, three headlines competed for her attention. Bitah’s murder was one, the other two were about the Yellowhair family. The final story described how Senator Yellowhair had been in a motel with his aide, a bosomy young woman half his age, when the police had found him and delivered news of his daughter’s death.

  Her call sign on the radio interrupted Ella’s reading. She picked up the mike and identified herself.

  “I’ve got IDs on some of the Navajos in the shots,” Justine informed her. “It’s a pretty mixed bag. Even that medical student of Carolyn’s, Howard Lee, is in one photo. Apparently Lee works one shift a week in the First Aid Center at the mine for college credit. I’ve already tried to talk to the regular mine workers I know who were in the pictures, and I’ll get to all the others. Not everyone has been cooperative, especially because many didn’t know they’d been photographed in the first place. I did learn that Anderson liked taking photos as a form of harassment. It would be annoying to have someone taking photos of you if there was nothing you could do about it without starting a fight.”

  “I have a lead or two of my own. Meet me for breakfast tomorrow morning at seven at my mother’s house. Mom will fix your favorite: fry bread with honey, and eggs.”

  “I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss your mother’s fry bread for the world.”

  Ella folded up the newspaper and decided to head for home. It had been a long day. She’d read the rest of the paper there later, along with the full autopsy reports on Bitah and Angelina Yellowhair. Things just weren’t adding up right. A kid experimenting with drugs would have done that in the company of others, not al
one in a car. Finding out Bitah had also had peyote in his system certainly had given rise to many questions, but fewer answers than Ella had hoped. Bitah had been twice Angelina’s age and a member of a church where peyote was part of the sacrament. It seemed unlikely that he would have associated with Angelina unless she had attended his splinter church which, according to Justine’s research, hadn’t happened.

  As Ella sped down the highway she decided to take a detour. Maybe it was time to have a talk with her brother. Though the NAC was based on different beliefs and came from different roots, they both emphasized the spiritual. As a hataalii, Clifford might know more about it than the cops did.

  Ella turned off onto the road to her brother’s new home. After the trouble with the skinwalkers, and the threat to their baby, Loretta had insisted on a new start. Her brother had spent months building this new house on high ground, a few miles from her mother’s, but in a nearly inaccessible area bordered on three sides by dry arroyos, and rock outcroppings.

  As she approached, Ella stared at the gray stucco house. To her it would always look like a bunker she’d once seen in a photo of the Maginot Line, but Loretta was happy here and the baby, well, he would be happy anywhere as long as his family was with him.

  She moved closer slowly, putting the vehicle in low gear and hoping that the headlights would help her spot anything on the unpaved road that could damage her vehicle.

  Light flowed from inside the house, bathing the porch in a soft glow. Ella passed the house and parked by the sturdy log hogan beside it. The blanket that covered the east facing door billowed as a breeze blew against it. She caught the flicker of firelight inside.

  Ella switched off the engine and waited. A minute later her brother came to the entrance, pulled the blanket aside, and waved an invitation for her.

  “What brings you here so late? Is Mom all right?” he asked quickly.

  “As far as I know. I came here to pick your brain, big brother.”

  “Ah.” He walked back in and sat down on a sheepskin on the left, or southern side, of the center where a warm fire was going in the fire pit.

  Ella entered, but according to tradition, went to the right, across from him and the fire, and on the north side.

  As she retrieved another sheepskin from the ones folded and stacked on a low wooden table, she glanced around. The peeled pine logs above her had been carefully arranged at angles to form the strong-looking roof, and the joints between the logs had been carefully sealed with mud. Out of respect for the Holy People who had built the first hogans, Clifford had placed small pieces of abalone, turquoise, and obsidian in several places along the walls.

  Ella sat down and turned to her brother. “What have you heard about that new splinter group of the Native American Church, the one they call the Navajo Justice Church?”

  “What is it you want to know? I have very little to do with them or the NAC, as I’m sure you realize. I follow the Navajo Way.”

  “Can you tell me what part peyote plays in their rituals?”

  “In the NAC, peyote is considered a sacrament. They claim the white man has the Bible to learn about God, and they have peyote, which induces visions to help them grow in wisdom. The church stresses family values, harmony and peace, and the avoidance of alcohol. I’ve heard the splinter group, the Navajo Justice Church, is radically different. They embrace the use of violence and use peyote to induce visions that may show them how to defeat their enemies.”

  “And jimsonweed?”

  “Nobody experiments with that. Jimsonweed, the many-flowered four-o’clock, is like most of the poisonous plants. It has a counterpart that restores health if used in time. Without the antidote used by our people for generations, you’d get very sick, and could very likely end up dead. But why are you asking me these things?”

  “Confidentially?” She saw him nod, then continued. “The senator’s daughter had ingested peyote buttons and a lethal dose of ground-up jimsonweed before her accident. The M.E. also discovered traces of peyote in the dead miner’s body. He’s a member of the splinter church, but the senator’s daughter is not, as far as we can tell. I’m looking for possible connections.”

  He appeared to weigh the matter. “What doesn’t make sense is why anyone would deliberately swallow jimsonweed. Many of our people have been taught which herbs are dangerous and know enough to avoid them. But you said that jimsonweed was ground up before it was eaten by the senator’s daughter?”

  Ella nodded. “There are only two options: suicide or murder. And suicide doesn’t fit in with the facts we have so far.”

  Clifford walked to a line of jars near the west wall, reached inside, and filled a small beaded pouch. “This is the antidote to jimsonweed, should you ever need it. And be careful what you eat or drink. The signs of jimsonweed poisoning range from headaches and thirst to drowsiness and convulsions. Eventually you go into a coma.”

  Ella nodded, taking the pouch and placing it carefully in her jacket pocket. “Thanks, brother.”

  “Once a person starts showing major symptoms of jimsonweed poisoning, it’s probably too late. The best time to take the antidote is as soon after ingesting the poison as possible.” He sat down again and regarded her thoughtfully for a long time. “We’re starting another cycle of sorrows and, as usual, our enemies are staying well behind the scenes.”

  “As a cop, it’s my job to find the ones responsible for creating trouble. I’ll put things back on track soon. Count on it.”

  There’ll still be problems, ones you won’t be able to fix.” He shook his head. “The Dineh’s children are caught between cultures: searching for an identity and looking everywhere except in the right direction. The gangs are getting stronger with each passing day. They, too, use drugs, but without reason and without regard to others or themselves.”

  “One step at a time, big brother. First, I have to find whoever is behind the two deaths we already have. That’s what the tribe pays me to do. The unrest at the mine is an additional concern and may be connected to the murders. I don’t know yet. That company’s presence on our land has always caused trouble, only the form it takes changes. And as far as the gangs go, that’s a problem that may be here to stay. We have to accept that some kids may turn away from our ways forever.”

  “They are our future.”

  “It’s their right to follow a path of their own choosing.”

  “Sometimes I look at my son and wonder what legacy he’ll inherit.”

  “The Dineh won’t disappear, and neither will our ways. We’ve endured too long and come too far for that.”

  “I hope you’re right.” He leaned forward. “Do you still wear the fetish I gave you?”

  Ella pulled out the leather cord, bringing the stone badger out from inside her shirt.

  He smiled and nodded. “I’m glad. It may be the only protection you can count on.”

  Ella felt a chill seeping through her skin, and piercing her bones.

  “I can say a blessing over you, if you’d like.”

  Ella nodded.

  Clifford took a pinch of pollen from a pouch at his waist, touched the tip of his tongue, the top of his head, and Ella’s, then threw it toward the heavens, invoking the gods.

  “Keep your wits about you,” he said, at last. “And don’t forget that there is more to life than what you see with your eyes. When you discount everything you don’t understand by labeling it as superstition, you stop being aware of an enemy who can destroy you.”

  Ella left her brother’s hogan more disturbed than ever. Once again, she felt torn between the old ways and the new. She envied the way Clifford’s staunch beliefs helped him face dangers with assuredness.

  Ella then felt the weight of her pistol and the bulge in her back pocket where she kept her badge when it wasn’t displayed. These were the things that defined her and gave her purpose. The old ways had power, she wouldn’t discount them, but neither could she adhere solely to them. The truth was, she was a blend of the old
and the new, and that was where her strength lay.

  By the time she arrived at her mother’s house it was very late. The house was encased in darkness. Ella went inside quietly, left a note informing her mother that Justine would be joining them for breakfast, and went to her room. Only Two, lying in the hall outside her mother’s door, acknowledged Ella’s presence.

  Tired, but too keyed up to sleep, she began her nightly ritual, answering the few posts she’d received on E-Mail, then switching over to her never-ending game of solitaire. Maybe someday those cards would align right, but then again, that victory would only mean the start of another round.

  SEVEN

  Ella was at the breakfast table, reading the last of the article on Senator Yellowhair. Justine read the story over her shoulder while taking bites out of a piece of fry bread she’d loaded with honey and butter. Ella could hear her chewing, and the irritating sound was getting on her nerves. “The way you eat, you should weigh about nine hundred pounds,” Ella said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m on a special diet,” Justine said. “I eat only what tastes good. But then I jog until I’m ready to drop.”

  Ella remembered a time when she’d done the same thing. Lately, she hadn’t done much jogging, and her favorite slacks were feeling as if they’d shrunk. She took a deep breath then let it out. Maybe it was time to diet. Then she saw the plate filled with fresh tortillas and eggs with chile that her mother was bringing over. The diet would wait until lunch.

  “I can’t believe the senator. He blames everyone but his own seedy self,” Justine said.

  Rose glanced at the article after setting the plates down. “That public apology of his doesn’t amount to much. He says he met with the elders of his clan in his uncle’s hogan and has promised to address his problems with his wife. Well, if he really did do that, you can bet it was only because he thought it would sound good to the tribe. And I don’t believe his claim that his wife has forgiven him and harmony has been restored in his household. That statement has enough fertilizer in it to feed my herb garden for ten years.”