Red Mesa Read online

  “It was just an accident. These things happen. It was dark, you were expecting someone with a gun, and there I was,” she said quietly. “But from now on, make sure to get a positive ID before using deadly force. That’s basic, Justine.”

  “I know, but I had every reason to believe you were the suspect. I’d pursued him out into the scrub brush beside the store and lost sight of him for a moment. When I heard someone in back of the store, I headed that way. Then I came around the corner, saw a figure who looked like the person I’d been chasing. He turned and pointed a weapon in my direction. I fired just like I’d been trained to do.

  “Ella, you know that it’s not just an excuse, it’s a conditioned response. I’d chased the perp to that spot, then the next thing I saw was a gun aimed at me. I hadn’t lost sight of him for more than a few seconds, and in the dark you looked just like him.”

  “You knew I was around.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t expect to run into you back there, or have you point a gun at me.”

  “Justine, how long had it been since you’d lost sight of the perp?”

  She considered the question carefully before answering, ignoring a strand of shiny black hair that drifted back and forth across her face in the breeze. “Less than ten seconds. When I saw you, I thought it was him,” Justine replied. “Or maybe it was you I saw all along.”

  Ella shook her head slowly. “Something’s not right about this. He couldn’t have moved that fast. I’d been chasing him for more than ten seconds before he went to ground beside the Dumpster. He couldn’t have gotten away from you and all the way around to the front of the store before I spotted him in that small amount of time, much less gone all the way to the back of the store where we met. Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?”

  “The only way to explain this otherwise is if we say that there were two perps involved, who looked and dressed the same and also happened to be wearing clothing similar to yours. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? And nobody saw more than one perp.” Justine shook her head. “But something is definitely fishy. Several minutes passed between the time I responded and you arrived on the scene. Why didn’t the guy make a run for it sooner?”

  Ella nodded. “Good point. Yeah, something about this entire thing stinks. We’ll have to keep going over it until we can figure this out.” She looked directly at Justine. “But look, let’s not make a big deal about the near accident, okay? As long as we’re both careful that it doesn’t happen again, we’d be better off moving on to the real issue here, which is catching the perp.”

  Ella knew an incident like this one could cost Justine plenty if it went in her permanent file, and she wanted to give her cousin a break. Justine had worked hard to get to where she was in the department, and a mistake like this would follow her for the duration of her career. Whatever had almost happened, when it came down to it, Ella still trusted Justine’s abilities as a cop.

  “Tone down that part of what happened today in your report,” Ella continued. “Otherwise Big Ed’s going to have a bazillion questions and it’s going to divert everyone from the work we have to do. All things considered, I’d rather focus on the crime, and I think you would, too.”

  “All right. And, Ella, it will never happen again.”

  “I know.”

  “How about if I start by asking around about the robbery and the damaged pickup? Someone out there knows this perp. There aren’t many secrets here on the Rez, and if the robber is a local, we should hear some talk right away.”

  “Go for it. By the way, I noticed your radio is working now. What happened before? When I got here I couldn’t hear a thing through the static,” Ella asked.

  “It just quit for a while. As far as I know, it’s okay now.”

  “I can’t figure out where all the static came from. Reception is not usually a problem in this area, and we were pretty close to each other.”

  “That’s true. And I could barely hear you.”

  “Walk around the side of the building and let’s see if that’s what was causing the interference.” Ella got into her car and tried calling Justine. This time Justine’s voice came through crystal clear. Ella then did a radio check with dispatch, which also came through as normal. The inconsistency just added another level to the puzzle.

  Ella put her radio away and shifted her attention to changing her damaged tire, weighing what was the most likely explanation for the radio problems, and not liking it one bit.

  Justine came back around to the front of the store, then leaned over, resting her elbows on Ella’s driver’s-side window. “You realize what this means, don’t you?” She continued, not waiting for an answer. “Somehow, the perp must have jammed our radio signals. I sure don’t like any of the other questions that raises, like how he did it, and why he went to all that trouble. This whole thing comes across as more than just a 2-11 if you accept that as a possibility.”

  Ella nodded slowly. “It’s getting late. Give me a hand with my tire, and I’ll help with yours, then let’s both go home. We can fill out the reports first thing tomorrow. Maybe things will be clearer then.”

  “Don’t worry about my flat. Let’s get you on the road. Maybe you can still see Dawn before she’s put to bed.”

  “It’s too late already,” Ella said, checking her watch and trying to hide her disappointment. “She’ll be asleep by the time I get there. It’s always that way when we get a call around the end of the shift.”

  Justine started to say something, then changed her mind.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I just wondered … I’ve been avoiding serious relationships because I’ve been afraid they’d add too many complications to my life. But is it a lot harder for you these days, now that you have Dawn?”

  “Yes and no. I love my daughter more than I ever thought was possible. But being a single mom with a fulltime career is really frustrating. I try to spend as much time as I can with Dawn, but it’s never enough. It can tear you in two.”

  Justine nodded slowly. “I had a feeling that’s the way things would work.” She stood up and moved around to help Ella get her spare into position and secured.

  A few minutes later, Ella pulled out onto the highway, notifying dispatch of her status as she headed south. The events tonight had unsettled her far more than she’d allowed Justine to see. Deliberate jamming of police radio transmissions spoke of an operation far more complicated and deadly than a simple armed robbery of a convenience store.

  Although experience told her that her questions would be answered as the investigation took its course, instinct warned her that things would get a lot worse before they got better, unless they found those answers in a hurry.

  TWO

  Ella reached home fifteen minutes later. It was after ten and all the lights were off except on the porch. She walked inside silently, locked up behind her, and before doing anything else, peered inside the baby’s room. The nursery was her brother Clifford’s old room, next to her own.

  Ella stood in the doorway and watched her eighteen-month-old daughter sleeping. Dawn’s bed these days was a plain mattress placed on the floor against the wall. She could no longer be kept in the crib because she’d learned how to crawl out of it, and it was a long way to the floor. Ella shook her head. She’d wanted to get her a bed with a guardrail, but Rose wouldn’t have it. Traditionally, babies Dawn’s age slept on sheepskins placed on the floor where they’d be safe from falls. Had Rose had her way completely, Ella was pretty sure she would have opted for that.

  The one totally modern amenity Ella had insisted on was the child’s gate they’d set up at the doorway. The door would remain open, but if Dawn decided to move off the mattress and play, she’d still be confined to that one room, where everything had been child-proofed.

  Ella slipped off her boots and stepped over the gate, sitting down on the floor beside Dawn. She leaned over and brushed a strand of soft black hair away from her daughter’s eyes, enjoy
ing the scent of soap and her baby’s breath, which never ceased sending a feeling of pride that only another mother understood.

  Dawn’s tiny arm, which had been tightly wrapped around her stuffed dinosaur, was now relaxed, and Ella gently removed the toy, placing it a foot away on the mattress, so Dawn could find it again if she woke up.

  Ella sat there in the dark, listening to Dawn breathe for a while, marveling at the contrast between the dead-to-the-world child of the moment and the fireball that could empty her toy box in seconds or find a new way to get into mischief in the blink of an eye.

  After five minutes, Ella adjusted Dawn’s blanket, pecked her on the cheek, took another whiff of baby scent, then left the room. It was on days like these, when she arrived too late to put her own child to bed, that she regretted having such a demanding job, but it was the career she was meant for, and nothing else would ever give her the satisfaction that came from being a cop.

  Ella closed the door to her own bedroom, then switched on the computer. She was too keyed up now to sleep, so she decided to check her electronic mailbox. Seeing a letter from Wilson Joe, she smiled. It was too bad she’d never been able to see him as anything more than a friend. Wilson would make some woman a great husband someday.

  She was in the middle of replying to his invitation to meet for lunch when a tone sounded and an “instant message” flashed on the screen.

  The message was curt and simple.

  Ella, keep that .22 Davis in your boot loaded. A conspiracy is growing on the Rez, and friends could become enemies. Don’t try to track me, I’m undercover. Tell no one. I’ll contact you when I can.

  Coyote

  When Ella tried to reply, Coyote had already logged off. She read the message over again, then quickly reached for the printer to make a copy.

  Puzzled, she studied it more closely. Many people used aliases on this computer network, so having no other name on the ‘from’ line except Coyote didn’t surprise her. But her curiosity was working overtime.

  It was possible that someone was just messing with her mind, but somehow she didn’t think that was it. The mention of the .22 Davis derringer in her boot was the key. Only a friend would have known about that. It wasn’t uncommon for officers to keep a backup weapon in their boot, but the make, model, and caliber of her weapon was something very few knew about. It was a weapon of last resort, and the few times she’d been forced to use it on an enemy, the criminal had not lived to tell the story.

  Ella put the printout of the brief message in her wallet. If it really was from an undercover cop, and there was some kind of conspiracy, all she could do was keep her eyes and ears open. But one thing worried her. The comment about friends turning into enemies made her stomach tighten until it ached. Justine had almost shot her earlier that night.

  She forced the thought away. That had been an accident, nothing more, even though the circumstances of the armed robbery had been unusual, to say the least. She wouldn’t get carried away with thoughts about conspiracies that could turn out to be nothing more than someone’s weird sense of humor, or the product of an overactive imagination.

  Ella’s sleep was restless that night, but instead of waking, she just seemed to drift from dream to dream. She tossed and turned as the faces of her old enemies came back in a haunting procession of the evils that had touched her life.

  Thankfully her daughter brought her out of the last nightmare. Dawn’s first loud squeal of the morning woke her up just after sunrise. As Ella opened her eyes, she saw her mother standing by the door, trying to hold Dawn back. Rose, a slender but slightly shorter and older version of Ella, was still in her red flannel robe, her graying hair a bit disheveled, but her eyes bright and wide awake.

  Ella smiled at her daughter, who was by now wearing a fresh sleeveless cotton top and training pants, then held out her arms. Dawn ran toward her and, with a little help from Ella in front and Rose behind pushing, managed to haul her chunky twenty-five-pound body up onto the bed.

  “Shimá,” she said.

  “My mother” was one of the first few Navajo words Dawn had learned from Rose, her shimasání, maternal grandmother. Since Ella spent her days and evenings working, Dawn was being reared by Rose, but it wasn’t that unusual a situation on the Rez.

  Many children on the reservation were traditionally raised by the mother’s sisters or by grandparents. The father normally only played a small role, if any, in the upbringing of a child. A mother’s brother often paid a larger role than the biological father. It was his duty to instruct and to discipline, along with the grandparents and the mother. Yet, despite this, Ella felt a twinge of disappointment that she couldn’t be the one always home to instruct and take care of her own child.

  Tickling Dawn and playing with her in the early morning hours, after she’d been to the potty, was one of the rituals Ella had established with her daughter. They both enjoyed the game and looked forward to it each day.

  Once Dawn had enough, Ella let her catch her breath. “She actually slept later than I expected,” Ella said, glancing at the clock on the nightstand, then back at Rose. “Did she get to bed on time?”

  “On time,” Rose scoffed. “Babies know what’s best for them. She sleeps when she’s tired.”

  Ella exhaled loudly. “Mom, a kid needs a certain amount of sleep in order to grow up healthy.”

  “That’s the Anglo thinking you can’t seem to leave behind, daughter. Children sleep and eat when their bodies tell them to.”

  They’d had this argument frequently, and Rose was not going to budge. Rather than force a hopeless issue, Ella let it drop. As Dawn crawled off the bed and padded over to Rose, Ella climbed out of bed.

  It was actually her day off, but despite that, she still had work to do this morning. She’d have to make out her report on the convenience-store robbery, and talk to Justine about the particulars to make sure their stories matched the facts and events. After that, she’d finally be off the clock.

  Ella showered and dressed quickly. As she brushed her hair and tied it back in a ponytail at the base of her neck, she could hear Dawn in the kitchen. Rose refused to use the high chair. Instead, she sat Dawn on her lap and allowed the little girl to eat whatever she pleased. Dawn liked her small cup, but more often than not, Ella would find her daughter drinking tea.

  At least it was herbal tea, which wouldn’t harm her, but Ella still would have preferred for Dawn to drink milk. Unfortunately, that was an Anglo practice that wasn’t followed by many traditionalists. They believed that cow’s milk was good—but only for calves.

  Ella walked into the kitchen and picked up a tortilla her mother had just made. It was still warm to the touch.

  “Wait until I can fill it with some beans for you, daughter.”

  “No time,” she said, pouring honey on it and folding it in half. “I’ve got to go into the office for a while.”

  “It’s your day off. Why are you going to work? Didn’t you make another promise?” she reminded, looking at Dawn.

  “I’ll be back in plenty of time to take her to play by the river,” Ella whispered.

  Dawn clapped her hands. “Want to play!”

  “I’ll be gone for a little while, then I’ll come back and we can go.”

  Rose’s gaze was penetrating. “Something bad happened last night, didn’t it?” Before Ella could even answer, she sighed loudly. “It’s starting again. There’s going to be another cycle of trouble for us.”

  Her mother’s intuitions were not to be scoffed at. Many said it was a gift. Others claimed it was a curse. Only one thing was for sure. Her predictions were amazingly accurate.

  “Some unusual things happened, but I don’t know what’s at the root of it yet,” Ella said slowly. “I don’t think we’re dealing with any of our old enemies, though.”

  “Be careful, daughter.”

  Dawn wriggled out of Rose’s grasp and ran into the living room. Ella looked at her mother as she slowly got to her feet. “Mom, you�
�re still having problems moving around with your bad leg. Why don’t you let me hire someone to come in and at least help you with her,” she said, gesturing toward Dawn.

  Rose’s expression grew firm. “She’s my granddaughter. I don’t need help taking care of her.”

  “But she’s constantly on the run, and these days she can go almost anywhere. It’s got to be exhausting for you.”

  “I can handle an active child. I’m not a useless old woman.”

  “I never said you were.” Ella knew that Rose was determined to see this through on her own. She’d turned it into a matter of pride, though it was the last thing Ella had wanted.

  “And I don’t want strangers in my home,” Rose added.

  “We could pick someone you know. The daughter of one of your friends, for example.”

  “No.”

  Ella decided not to pursue the matter for now. Sooner or later Rose would have to see that it had nothing to do with admitting age, but rather accepting reality.

  Glancing at her wristwatch, Ella rolled up a second tortilla, then went to find Dawn and gave her a kiss. The little girl’s attention was now focused on the rag doll Rose had made for her, and she barely looked up.

  Ella smiled, admiring her daughter for one last moment. Dawn was fiercely independent already, and was developing a mind of her own. Though she was still just a baby, Ella knew Dawn would be a leader, never a follower. Dawn, like most children, feared nothing, but there was something special about her child. She wanted to learn about everything around her, and her intelligence allowed her to grasp things kids her age seldom could. But then again, maybe that was just the pride of motherhood talking.

  “Shimá work too hard,” Dawn said.

  Ella chuckled softly, recognizing Rose’s words despite the fact that they were coming from her daughter. “Shimá is needed by the tribe.”

  Dawn nodded solemnly, then turned her attention back to her doll.

  Saying good-bye, Ella walked out, waving back at her mother. Unlike many of the non-Indian kids she’d seen, Dawn seldom cried or made a fuss when Ella or Rose had to leave. Dawn was always with a relative, and that support made for a very extended family. If anything, she missed Dawn far more than Dawn ever missed her.