by Aimée
“Thanks, Joe. Get to the others on the list as soon as you can, and write this up for me, will you? Just put it on my desk. You might be ready to call it a day,” Ella added, then hung up. She shared the information with Justine, who just shrugged.
It took them forty-five minutes over dark, treacherous dirt tracks that were scarcely more than ruts, before they reached the spring. Only a few families lived there, most still raising sheep, and no lights were on. Large holes left by rains and water coming down from the hills made travel slow, and they were still a mile or two south of their destination.
“Jeez, they come through this just for a card game?” Ella mused after they traveled over a bump that made her slam her head against the roof of the unit.
“I’ll bet you anything that to the guys this is fun,” Justine answered, clenching her jaw. “My brothers used to think this kind of driving was a hoot, and you see those SUV and pickup ads on TV all the time, bouncing around places like this.”
Justine paused, then when they hit a clearer stretch, continued. “How do you want to play this when we arrive? Like we’re making a bust for gambling and maybe selling booze on the Rez?”
“No, they’ll clam up then and we’ll get nowhere. We’ll go in looking for John Lee and haul him to the unit alone, if we can. Let the others continue what they were doing. With luck, John’ll wonder why he’s been singled out and start getting squirrelly. That may give us a slight edge when we start with the questions. But this plan’s flexible, so be ready to play it by ear.”
“All right. Let’s just hope nobody’s so drunk they get violent—or worse, start puking.”
As they crossed a small arroyo a hundred feet or so from the old building, Justine pointed to a spot illuminated at the edge of their headlight’s coverage. “There’s something going on behind the house. Just past that stand of junipers.”
Ella leaned forward and tried to make use of the bright moonlight to get a clearer look. “It’s a fight. Get as close as you can, then grab your stick. We need to break it up.”
SIX
Justine raced up and came to an abrupt stop just in front of a low juniper. Beyond, illuminated by their headlights, two men were rolling on the ground, wrestling furiously like bears at the zoo. Four others, one of them Amos Curtis, were standing together, cheering on the combatants like it was some kind of schoolyard entertainment. As Ella climbed out she spotted the pile of bills on the ground. The men were betting on the outcome.
Everyone must have been drinking because, despite the arrival of their vehicle, nobody even looked over until she and Justine closed their car doors. As they recognized Ella, one of the spectators squatted to grab the cash, but the others pulled him back. The pair on the ground kept fighting, still oblivious to their arrival.
As they walked past the spectators, one of the men grabbed Justine’s arm but her response was swift. She jabbed the end of the baton into his stomach, and as he doubled up in pain, she pushed him to the ground. Seeing another man coming forward, Ella swung her baton at his feet, striking him on the shins. He stumbled back with a yell.
Ella brought out the Mace. “Not another move, or I’ll spray you with something you’re not going to enjoy. Your choice.”
Justine came up behind her, Mace in one hand, baton ready in the other. “I’ve got them covered,” she said.
Ella looked at the dusty pair still rolling around on the ground, grunting and groaning as they grappled. Though their faces were bloody and their shirts ripped apart, she could have sworn they were enjoying themselves.
Employing her baton once again, Ella struck the fighter currently on top on the side of his knee. He howled in pain, then rolled onto his back beside his opponent. The second man lunged for Ella’s legs, trying to trip her but she dodged, then stepped on his hand. “Navajo Police, stay down!” she snapped.
Ignoring her order, he rolled, then scrambled to his knees. This time Ella struck him on the shoulder. “I said stay down.”
He sat back, grimacing in pain.
Ella looked around, and noted that, finally, everyone was staying still. Nobody appeared to have a weapon, either, except Justine and her.
“You two on the ground. Facedown,” she ordered. “And put your hands behind your back.”
Two minutes later, both combatants were seated on the ground, their hands cuffed behind them.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were a cop,” the man who’d struck out at her said. “I just wanted to wrestle you next—in a friendly way. I never got a chance to wrestle with a woman over in Iraq.”
“What’s your name?” Ella asked, already knowing the likely answer.
“Not supposed to say our real names. Don’t ’cha know anything about being Navajo?” he countered, his voice slurring just a bit.
Ella glared at him. He was in his mid-thirties—old enough to have matured beyond the nonsense he was involved with here. “You’re no traditionalist. Stop the phony excuses.”
“You want me to talk—then you want me to be quiet. What do you really want?”
Ella wanted to tape his mouth shut. Arguing with a man who was about half to three-quarters drunk was always a waste of time. “You’re going to the police station in Shiprock. We can talk there.”
“I’ll bleed all over your car.”
Ella stared at him. “I could cuff you to the door handle and let you walk until the blood cakes up. The dust will speed that up a bit, I’m sure. Or you can ride in the trunk.”
“You’re a mean woman,” he said, shaking his head. “Abusing a soldier just back from the fighting. Where is your patriotism?”
Ella ignored him, then glared at the other wrestler and ordered him to go join the spectators Justine was guarding.
Hauling the drunken soldier toward the unit, Ella half shoved him into the backseat. “Turn away if you want those cuffs off.” He scooted around, his back to her, and she unlocked his left hand, quickly attaching it around the extra seat belt latch so he couldn’t escape from the backseat.
“Hey, how about my right hand?”
“If you don’t quit complaining, you’re going to find both hands behind your back again.” She threw him a box of tissues they kept on the front seat. “Now shut up for a while,” she said and read him his rights.
Ella went back to help Justine, but the men were denying that gambling had been going on. “You’ve all got liquor on your breath,” Ella said, her gaze taking in the other fighter. He seemed bruised and scraped up, but otherwise in good condition. “We could haul all of you in, or you could save us the trouble and paperwork by just disappearing. Just give me your keys first. They stay here with Amos.”
Within a few minutes the men had gone into the old man’s house. Only Amos Curtis remained, the keys in his pocket. He stooped down and picked up the cash, which looked mostly like ones and fives, then started to hand them to her. “You gonna shut me down?”
Ella shook her head and waved away the money, which he quickly jammed into his pocket. “Probably not.” One look at his shabby house told her that he needed the money and, in any case, the charges would get thrown out. The men who’d been fighting had obviously been doing it for the money, and assault charges would be hard to prove without a cooperative witness. In the end, it would only end up costing the system.
“I’ll check on the prisoner,” Justine said.
“Be with you in a minute,” Ella called out.
Ella looked around, noting the very basic, simple life Amos lived, and wondering if someday the behavior of one of his guests would end up costing him his life. But then again maybe all the excitement helped keep him on his feet, too.
She took a step toward the department vehicle, then stopped and glanced back at Amos. “Why do you stay out here? There’s modern housing closer to Shiprock, and you could probably get your rent subsidized. Electricity, reliable heat . . . you could have things there you can only dream about here.”
Amos shook his head slowly. “When you look at m
e, you see someone with very little and maybe someone who’s doing something that could be dangerous at times, especially living out here all alone. But that danger makes life sweeter. You should understand that.”
Ella thought about what Amos Curtis had said as she went back to her unit. Like Amos, with his shadowy habits, she also needed the rush of uncertainty and the promise of a challenge that went past mere survival. But, unlike him, she also needed the clamor of voices and children’s laughter. To her a rich life was filled with sound, vibrant and loud.
Ella climbed into the passenger side of the unit, aware that their cuffed prisoner had managed to clean himself up a bit. Ella gestured wordlessly for Justine, who was behind the wheel, to get underway.
“So you’re really going to take me in? But for what? Disorderly conduct when no one was disturbed? Wrestling for money? Aw, come on!”
“Arresting you is a bonus, John. The reason we came here was to talk to you about Jimmy Blacksheep,” Ella answered.
“So you know me,” he commented, then nodded once, understanding. “I heard all about what happened to Jimmy, but that Navajo . . . well, he just didn’t get it. He might as well have put a bull’s-eye on his forehead, behaving the way he did. He was marked for death long before he got home.”
“What do you mean?” Ella asked, shifting in her seat to look at him. What she was hearing was just the opposite of what she’d been told only an hour or so ago.
“I’ll tell you—off the record—but I’ll never sign off on any kind of statement. It wouldn’t be right for me to talk badly of him.”
“Are you worried about the chindi?” Justine asked, surprised.
“No—it’s a different code. Soldier to soldier,” he answered, then looked at Ella directly. “We have a deal?”
Ella gestured for Justine to pull to a stop, then shifted in her seat and faced John. “Deal. So now talk to me.” Ella noticed that his cuts had stopped bleeding, though his face was puffy and bruised. A black eye was forming, suggesting that punches had been thrown, and landed, before they arrived, so it had been more than wrestling, at least at first.
“Going to war changes a person,” he said slowly, bitterness tainting his words and giving them an edge. “You either learn to do whatever you have to in order to survive, or you die. But as you become what you need to be, something twists up inside you. Most of us adapted to what was happening around us by forming a tight brotherhood that went beyond skin color. It was one way to hang on to your humanity, but it was mostly about fear. You watched out for yourself and your buddies because you couldn’t trust the Iraqis.”
John paused for a long time before continuing. “But Jimmy didn’t trust anyone. That kid was a loner from day one. Not like old man Curtis, either. Inside, Jimmy blocked himself off from the world. Even in a mess hall full of GIs, he’d go out of his way to stay by himself. He ate alone the entire time we were there.”
“And you think he made enemies because of his attitude?”
“Oh, yeah. You could never be sure about him. Even when he said his prayers to the dawn, I always got the feeling that it wasn’t out of devotion to culture. It was his way of pointing out to everyone that he wasn’t like them. A real in-your-face attitude.”
“So you think he got someone so pissed off they killed him?”
“Seems about right, but I don’t think it was anyone in our unit. I think he probably pulled the same crap as a civilian and someone who had it in for him was waiting when he got back. Either that, or he brushed fenders with the wrong guy packing a gun.”
“What makes you so sure it wasn’t another soldier?” Ella pressed.
“If you managed to come out of that mess alive, you don’t wish death on anyone, except the enemy.”
“What about the moneymaking schemes that were going on?” Ella pressed. “Did Jimmy get involved in that?”
He gave her a long look, then shrugged. “I really doubt it. To get involved in stuff that got your hands dirty you had to be a team player and that’s one thing Jimmy wasn’t. But all I saw going on over there was kid stuff, nothing worth getting killed over. A few guys in our unit came up with some ways to make a few bucks on the side, but it was nothing, really.”
“Give me an example.”
“One of the guys grabbed a primo laptop he found in one of the palace stashes, and started burning music CDs for the other guys. He had somebody sending him the latest music from back home, then he’d sell the CDs for five bucks a pop. Made several hundred on it. Like I said—small stuff.” He paused then, as if he’d just remembered something.
“Okay. What else?” Ella pressed.
“Yeah . . . well, it’s probably nothing. . . .”
“Let me decide.”
“One evening about five months ago, I was sent to find Jimmy. No one knew where he was, and we had to attend a briefing for a supply mission scheduled for the next day. I found him in the vehicle maintenance area with a crumpled letter in his hand. He was really pissed off, pacing back and forth and cussing in English and Navajo both. At first I figured his old lady had dumped him. You see a lot of that. When he looked up and saw me, I asked him if it was bad news from home but he didn’t answer me right away. When he finally did, he looked me straight in the eyes and said that it was a good thing he’d learned how to kill, because when he got home, he had a score to settle. That surprised me because Jimmy never showed any emotion. It must have shown on my face, because he eased up then and told me to chill. He said he was just planning to shove some guy’s teeth down his throat. But maybe whoever he was talking about got to him first.”
“You’re pretty sure his problem wasn’t with another GI?”
“Positive. Jimmy didn’t fraternize with anyone, not even with the guys he shared quarters with. Randy Billey suggested that maybe Jimmy didn’t want to make friends with anyone who might end up dead. See, you get to know people in a different way over there—not only the names of their family members, but what problems they have, and what their dreams are for the future. When something happens to them, it really eats you up inside.”
Ella nodded, understanding the sentiment. Had she served in the military, she would have also had to find a way to insulate herself—it would have been critical to her own survival.
“But why all the interest about what happened in our Guard unit? Shouldn’t you be looking for the carjackers?”
Ella regarded him for a moment. “What have you heard about the carjackings?”
“They were the ones who took Jimmy down, weren’t they? I’ve only been back a short time, but I heard that those guys are well organized and they don’t recruit.”
“How do you know that?”
He gave her a cocky grin. “Is this off the record or can it be used against me?”
“Give. I’m not out to burn you, unless you know who killed Jimmy and aren’t telling.”
“I heard about their operation from reading The Dineh Times on the Net over in Iraq and I thought it might be a kick to work with them for a while. Piece of cake after driving around Iraq waiting for a bomb to go off under my ass. And it would keep my adrenalin going, you know? Things seem pretty tame around here now—well, I guess not for Jimmy.”
She’d heard of similar stories before. After months and months of living on the edge, coming back to a routine life took some adjustment. “So what did you do?”
“I asked around pool halls, bars, auto shops, used car places. I figured that if I let word out that I’d be useful to them, after riding shotgun along the hottest highways in the world, they’d contact me.”
“And did they?”
“Nah. Nothing. Just got blank stares and a few insults. Those doors aren’t open. I heard a rumor from somebody who knows a cop that those guys are smooth. Nothing’s left to chance.”
She nodded slowly. That much she’d put together on her own.
“But I’ve got a theory ’bout what happened to Jimmy, if you’re interested.”
“Go
for it,” she said.
“When Jimmy got ’jacked he pulled his piece because he still wanted to mix it up—cap some bad guys. He had guts in a firefight, and the rougher it got the more he liked it. But this time he went down. Backup didn’t arrive in time. It happens.”
Ella nodded, glancing over at Justine, who’d been silent. Her partner shrugged almost imperceptibly.
“If you do happen to get contacted by the carjackers, try to set up a meet and get in touch with us immediately—if you really want to nail those who did this to him,” Ella added.
“You’ve got it.”
“Good. We’re less than a mile from Curtis’s place. You got transportation?”
“Yeah, my pickup.”
“Think you can make it back?”
“No sweat,” he said. “Don’t have to worry about snipers anymore. I can walk wherever I want. Missed it more than women . . . almost.”
“Okay,” she said, then opened the back door and unlocked his other handcuff so he could climb out. “You’re free to go, but stay in touch.”
Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Ella watched him walk off as she wiped off the dust and grime from her handcuffs with a tissue, then she got back into the SUV. “Do you recall how much cash Jimmy had in his wallet when we found him?”
“Two hundred and something. He wasn’t robbed.”
“Credit cards?”
“None with him, but I checked and found out he had a MasterCard account. He didn’t have it with him overseas, so I guess he left it in a safety deposit box or with his brother. I put a watch out for any charges made in the past few days. So far nothing’s turned up,” Justine said. “Clue me in. What are you thinking?”