She explained about the follow-up interviews, the lurking person with the dark hoodie, and the man in the brown jacket—perhaps the man the rookie found on the asphalt—sitting in the car. “The feds identified the body as a guy with an arrest record for car theft, but nothing like bombing or murder.” She told Leaphorn the dead man’s name. She summarized the interview with the grandmother, Cordova’s unsuccessful search for bomb materials at the grandmother’s house, and Horseman’s lack of ties to the organizations on the FBI’s list. “His grandmother told me he had turned his life around, but she lied about something.”
Leaphorn stopped typing when she fell silent. She noticed that he had closed his eyes, and the way the sun illuminated his smooth face. She said, “What do think?”
He opened his eyes. “First, what are your questions?”
“Let’s see. If Aza Palmer was the intended target, why did the bomb go off before he got to the car? What about motive? I guess that should be the first question. Why would someone want to kill him? Cordova believes it’s linked to the mediation, but Palmer is a lawyer, and he told me he had enemies.” Bernie took a sip from her water bottle.
“More questions?” Leaphorn sounded like a patient father coaching a slow child.
“If the victim was the bomber, why did he die? If the dead man wasn’t the bomber, why was he outside instead of watching the game? If the attack is tied to the mediation, why not blow up the car there?” Bernie leaned back in the chair, then sat forward again. “Oh, I forgot to mention that the mediator’s ex-wife called the station and I talked to her. She wanted to know if Palmer was injured.”
Leaphorn raised his eyebrows.
“She seemed genuinely relieved that he wasn’t hurt. She said they were friends.”
He nodded and glanced at his laptop. “Dark sweatshirt?”
“The witness thought it was blue.” Bernie related as many details of Julie Pahe’s story as she remembered. “I don’t know how to track that guy and, well, the feds have moved on.”
Leaphorn rested his chin in his hands, the pose she’d noticed he used when he was thinking. He spoke in Navajo. “Interesting. Interesting and complicated. The dead man puzzles me. Did Palmer know him?”
“I’m not sure.”
Leaphorn said, “I’ll see what I can find out about the man who was killed.”
Bernie heard footsteps in the hall and then Louisa arrived with tea and some store-bought cookies. “I remembered that Joe and I have to go to his therapy appointment in about half an hour. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before now.”
“I need to leave soon anyway,” Bernie said. “I’m off work today, so I’m heading off to Tuba City.”
“Have some tea first. It will give you energy for the road.” Louisa handed them each a steaming cup and passed the plate of cookies. Bernie took a bite of a pink wafer, as crisp and flavorless as Styrofoam except for the ultra-sugary white filling. She hoped it might ease the shock of the tea. It didn’t.
Louisa said, “I heard about the bombing. They said someone was killed. Was it a police officer?”
“No. It was a young man.”
“Anybody you knew?”
“No. Thank goodness. I met his grandmother, Mrs. Nez, when I drove out to give her the news.”
Leaphorn put his cup on the table, the tea untouched. “Nez? Where does she live?”
Bernie explained.
“Do you know her?” Louisa asked.
Leaphorn shrugged.
Bernie was acquainted with at least a dozen Nezes; her mentor surely had met even more. Nez was as common a surname in the Navajo world as Johnson or Nguyen or Garcia outside the reservation.
Louisa started to chat, as white people do. Bernie’s mention of Tuba City and the possibility of a visit to the Grand Canyon stirred Louisa’s own girlhood memories of a mule ride from the rim to the Colorado River.
Bernie managed to make the cookie last through half a cup of tea and most of the story. When Louisa offered her more, she found the polite opening to say good-bye. She had to talk to Palmer about the dead man, connect the dots, and she wanted to do it face-to-face. More than that, she missed her husband.
The Toyota cruised along Arizona 264 toward Tuba City. She turned on the radio, didn’t like anything she heard, and turned it off. She was ready for a few hours of quiet. The Lieutenant had promised to e-mail her any insights he had on the case; it made her happy to know she had his help.
She stopped at Keams Canyon to get a Coke, to stretch her legs, and to chat with the manager of the complex, a trading post that now included gas pumps, a café, a grocery store, and a gallery featuring some fine Hopi art. She loved the scenery here at the border of Hopi and Navajo territory, the big rocks, the scattering of piñon, juniper, and Siberian elms leafless in the dark days of early winter. She took a deep breath of the fresh cold air and glanced out toward the Hopi mesas. Life was good.
Inside on the bulletin board she saw a green flyer, a call for protesters to rally at the Grand Canyon development meeting in Tuba City. It looked like the ones she had seen at the Shiprock gym. At the bottom was the logo for Save Wild America, a picture of the Grand Canyon with smokestacks at the bottom. Odd, she thought, since the proposed development was a luxury resort.
She took her Coke with her and cruised up the highway, past the Hopi High School, Polacca, and the road that climbs to the First Mesa villages of Hano, Sichomovi, and historic Walpi. She passed the handmade signs for in-home artist studios, the junction with Highway 87, which headed south to the interstate, and drove on to Second Mesa. She cruised through Shongopovi and stopped at the Hopi Cultural Center restaurant for a bowl of nok qui vi, the tribe’s equivalent of mutton stew. It had hominy instead of potatoes and lacked the carrots and onions Mama always put in hers. She figured the Hopis must like it, but next time, she’d go back to her regular choice, a hamburger.
She remembered a funny story Chee had told her about the time he started a fire here in an effort to flush out a bad guy, nearly burning down the cultural center without the sanction of the Hopi authorities or Captain Largo. Not her husband’s finest hour, but he solved the crime.
The dining room stood relatively empty, only two other tables occupied. The Hopi women at the table closest to hers discussed the meeting in Tuba City energetically enough that she could listen without feeling like a spy.
“I’m glad they brought in a mediator. Even though he’s Navajo, at least he’s a Native,” the one with the blue blouse said.
“You know the developer is underwriting everything, even though the Navajos are the ones who set it up. You think a person doesn’t know who signs his paycheck?” Her companion wore a wide silver bracelet in the classic Hopi overlay style, a bear-claw design cut into one piece of silver topped with another and then soldered together.
“Aren’t you the cynical one.” Blue Blouse patted her lips with a napkin. “The delegates, even ours, agreed on him. They could have opted for somebody else, but they thought this man had the integrity to do a good job. Give him a chance.”
“I hope that’s right. And I hope they come up with a plan that protects the sacred places. I don’t care what else the developer and those Navajos do out there.”
Blue Blouse laughed. “Yes, you do. You’d like your boys to be able to live closer. A resort out there would bring some jobs for everybody. You remember Michael’s girlfriend? The one from Third Mesa?”
“Sure. Did she finally get a job?”
“Not exactly but . . .”
The women talked on. Bernie added some salt to her stew and took another bite. She didn’t disagree with the women’s observations on the resort, but she didn’t know all the intricacies of the argument. Until the attack on Palmer that had drawn her in, she had been only peripherally interested. Not that development at the Grand Canyon wasn’t an important topic, but it had been under discussion since she was a girl, one of those issues that never got resolved and never went away.
On the way back in the car she checked her phone for messages. She’d turned it off at Leaphorn’s house out of courtesy and, she now realized, forgotten to turn it back on. When it powered up, she noticed two missed calls from Chee.
She sent a text: Surprise! Leaving Second Mesa now. See you soon. She called Leaphorn to thank him, got no answer, and remembered that the Lieutenant had his therapy appointment. She didn’t leave a message.
The Hopi villages were islands of Pueblo culture surrounded by the vast Navajo reservation. In a region known for long views and empty country, the arid and rugged Hopi mesas elevated landscape to a fine art. Navajo families and their sheep spread out over landscape like this; the Hopi people clustered together like bees in a hive. Many hives, actually, linked by shared ceremonies that brought the people of the mesas together.
She remembered Cowboy Dashee telling her that the gods had given the Hopi their sacred mesas because they didn’t want life to be so easy that the people forgot to pray. Indeed, the dry land made farming difficult. In the old days during the growing season the men of the Pueblo hiked down to the fields to tend their corn and then back up again each day to their homes. The ancient ways were fading, but many Hopi still farmed. The old village of Walpi, which some said was the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States, still had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Tribal members who wanted less isolation and difficulty lived elsewhere.
Dashee, Chee’s friend and now hers, had invited them to dances here. Someday, she told herself, she’d come up here to hear the drums and see the ceremonies.
She heard her phone buzz and reached over to extract it from the backpack on the seat next to her. It was Sandra from the office. She thought about ignoring the call for a split second, then picked up the phone and put it on her lap on speaker.
“Hey there.”
“Hi, Bernie. Where are you?”
“In Hopiland, on my way to Tuba City. I’m surprised you got through. What’s up?”
“A woman called for you, said it had to do with the bombing. I told her the rookie and the feds, mainly the feds, were working on that, but she said she needed to talk to you personally. She sounded upset.”
Policy was for dispatch to contact off-duty officers only if they thought an urgent message could not wait until the person returned to work. Sandra conscientiously refused to divulge personal phone numbers, but had trouble deciding what defined urgent.
“Who was it?”
“Wait, I’ve got it here. Lona Zahne.”
“Let me have her number.”
“I’ll text it.”
Bernie slowed as a truck loaded with firewood pulled out in front of her. “What else is happening back there?”
“The rookie has been talking a lot to Cordova. He’s all puffed up, like he’s personally made a breakthrough in the bombing case or something.”
“A breakthrough?”
“Oh, I’m just guessing. But I did hear that the feds identified somebody from the pictures you or the rookie took. Some bearded guy in the background looks kinda like someone wanted on some other bombing case.”
“Wow. That’s great. Thanks.”
“Be careful out there.” Sandra ended the call.
If there had been a breakthrough, Bernie wondered why Largo and Cordova hadn’t kept her in the loop. As the only two women in the Shiprock substation, Bernie and Sandra had a solid working relationship based on mutual respect. They didn’t make a big deal of it, but they watched each other’s backs.
The road climbed to Third Mesa and past some dry springs, then slipped down into the Moenkopi Valley, a sleepy place, gray now without the summer’s blessing of green cottonwoods and cultivated fields. Past Moenkopi, the Hopi tribal government had constructed the fancy Hotel Hopi, with a swimming pool and meeting rooms. She’d read that future development plans included a marketplace/fairground in the empty lot just beyond the hotel.
She was curious about the meeting and if Chee had adjusted to his unwanted assignment as bodyguard. And she wanted to call Cordova and talk to him about the person who had shown up on the video or the photos she—or the rookie—had taken. But first, she decided, she’d check into the motel.
That’s when the trouble started. The young man was polite but firm.
“I can’t give you a key to that room without Mr. Chee requesting it. Company policy. Sorry.”
Bernie frowned. “Let’s call him. He can authorize it over the phone.”
The clerk dialed a number and let it ring.
“Sorry, he’s not in the room.”
Bernie felt her patience growing thin.
“Of course he’s not. He’s working. Can you call his cell phone?”
The clerk looked at the registration information on the screen again. “He’s a cop, huh?”
“Right. Me, too.”
He looked at her skeptically, but dialed the number and left a message for Chee to call the motel. “Well, that didn’t work. Why don’t you just come back later?”
“No. I’d like to talk to the manager.”
“I can ask him to call you soon as he gets in, or you can come back in a couple of hours and talk to him. You’re welcome to wait in the lobby until we get this worked out.”
Bernie settled into a well-worn chair and called the number Sandra had texted for Lona.
Lona didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Why didn’t you tell me about the man who was killed by the car bomb?”
“You asked me about Aza Palmer and I told you he wasn’t hurt. The bombing is an ongoing federal investigation. I don’t remember if the man had died yet when we talked.”
Lona’s irritation had transformed into audible sorrow. “Why did you keep it a secret? I thought we were friends.”
Stay professional, Bernie told herself. “Calm down. I didn’t have the identity of the victim when I talked to you.” She took a breath. “I didn’t know he was dead, and how could I have guessed that it would matter to you?”
“He was my relative. The son of my younger sister.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“But why is he dead, and Aza’s still alive?” Lona stopped talking. Bernie heard her blowing her nose. She came back to the conversation more composed. “I can’t believe he’s gone and just when he’d turned his life around. He wasn’t an angel, but he had no reason to try to kill Aza even if he could have figured out how to build a bomb. That guy was an artist, not a chemist.”
Bernie said, “The FBI man who went with me to talk to Mrs. Nez doesn’t think your nephew was linked to the bombing.”
“Thank goodness.” Bernie heard Lona sigh. “I shouldn’t have lost it with you. I’m shocked and frustrated by all this. And angry. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Lona sniffed. “Go ahead.”
“Do you know why your nephew would have been out there when the bomb went off?”
“How would I?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to make sense of this.”
Another sniffle. “I’m glad you’re working on this, Bernie. I remember watching you during those basketball games. You were the one with the most determination.”
“I was the shortest one out there. I had to be determined.”
“If anyone can find out why my nephew is dead, it’s you.”
After Lona hung up, Bernie went back to the registration desk.
“No callback yet.” The young man winked at her. “Next time, you ought to tell your boyfriend you’re coming.”
“Next time, you ought to keep your opinion to yourself. Where is the meeting about the Grand Canyon development?” Bernie knew she sounded irritated and she didn’t care.
“Oh, that.” The clerk gave her directions.
She walked outside into the cold, switched on the car’s engine, and drove to the meeting. She thought, It’s a good thing driving while grumpy isn’t illegal.
11
; Joe Leaphorn awoke from his nap clearheaded and with a mission.
He grabbed his cane and went to his office, thinking about Bernie and her drive to Tuba City but mostly thinking about the questions she asked. She’d given him a challenge.
Back before he retired, he’d seen the cool gray eyes of advancing technology racing toward him and backed away as fast as he could. He resisted buying his first telephone answering machine, one of those with the little tapes he could erase until they got so scratchy he couldn’t understand the messages on them. He’d learned what he had to know about computers and nothing more when the Navajo Division of Public Safety in Window Rock brought them in. He couldn’t help noticing how technology had changed the face of law enforcement, making it easier to search records and keep track of details that could lead to solving crime. And when they went down for unexplainable reasons, computers made it nearly impossible to do what used to be called paperwork.
After he’d left his job as a police detective and begun his work as an investigator and consultant, technology moved ahead even faster. Officers drove units with cameras to record their encounters with the world. In some parts of the country, cops wore body cameras. Maybe it was good, Leaphorn thought, or maybe it was a distraction from the heart of police work, people helping people to make the world a little safer.
Back when he’d first become a cop, nobody thought of suing anybody, especially not on the reservation. And no one sued the police. No one had a lawyer except the big-time politicians who got caught spending the tribe’s money as they shouldn’t.
He’d resisted having a computer in his office at the police headquarters, but he knew he was swimming upstream. Once he got used to it, he liked it as long as it worked and didn’t lose things. When he retired, the chief let him buy it, saying it was obsolete. He made a place for it in his home office, and it had worked fine. Even though Bernie and Chee thought the machine belonged in a computer museum, he was content. With anything electronic, his philosophy was: “If it works, leave it be.”
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