Mourning Dove

by Aimée

  After a brief conversation, Ella hung up.

  “What’d he say?” Justine asked, her voice clipped as she concentrated on her driving. They were back down in the river valley now, and at the speed they were going, would be closing in on the Navajo Rez within minutes.

  “We’ve got a carjacking going down.” Ella reached over and turned off the siren, then called for a roadblock leading into Shiprock from the east. Racking the mike, she turned to Justine. “You heard my report and request for backup. Keep your eyes peeled. Leroy Enoah was the target. Albert climbed up onto his roof and looked down the road to where the woman was standing beside the car. No binoculars, but he has a scope on his hunting rifle. As he was watching, Leroy—who lives farther north but has to take the turnoff east of Albert’s place to get home—got sucked in and pulled over to help. When Leroy got close a big guy jumped out of the broken-down clunker and whacked Enoah with a big stick or axe handle. That’s all Albert saw. He climbed off the roof to get to his phone, and that’s when I got him on the line. Apparently Enoah has a big, brand new, white pickup with a long bed and extended cab.”

  Justine nodded, then Ella continued. “Albert saw the carjackers drive by his own home while he was still on the phone. The driver turned north, going down the same road Enoah lives on. If the carjackers don’t get back on the main highway, or encounter the roadblock being set up outside Shiprock, that truck’ll just disappear. Step on it, Justine. I want these guys.”

  They approached the steep sided walls of the giant rock formation of Hogback at high speed, with lights flashing but no sirens. As they took the old highway turnoff, to their right, they spotted a beat-up old sedan, brownish copper in color, parked on the shoulder of the road. Ahead, they could see Albert, standing beside Enoah, holding him steady.

  Justine slowed as they reached him, but Albert yelled, urging them on, and pointed ahead, indicating where the truck had gone. Justine kept going and turned down the narrow farm road.

  “Cut the emergency lights. When we finally spot them, I don’t want to give ourselves away immediately,” Ella said.

  They’d only gone a quarter mile down the one-lane road, past a farm and orchard, when they saw a white truck that fit the description coming from their left, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. The intersection coming up formed a T, which meant Justine had to go either right or left. The truck would have to continue straight, or make a left to get back to the highway.

  “There’s a one-lane wooden bridge ahead. Get there first and block the road. We’ll pretend we picked up a nail on the bridge. If they want to go this way they’ll have to stop and wait for us to let them by, and we’ll have them,” Ella said, reaching for the radio. “Worse case, they keep on going without making the turn toward the bridge and we’ll be right behind them.”

  Justine slowed the car, then came to a stop just off the bridge at the far end, blocking access completely.

  “Keep coming,” Ella muttered, her eyes on the speeding pickup as she got out and pretended to check a tire, blocked by the engine compartment. Justine was using the partially open door for cover, her pistol in hand.

  The white truck got close, slowed, then suddenly accelerated and raced on.

  Within seconds they were in pursuit but, this time, they were chasing a vehicle, eating dust, and barely able to see, instead of trying to intercept it. The road felt like a washerboard in places where vehicles traveling too fast had bounced causing ripples across the road, and Justine had to slow to avoid losing control. Within a mile they dropped down into an arroyo. By then the dust had drifted away, and they had no idea where the pickup had gone.

  “Keep going east,” Ella urged. “They’re trying to get off the Rez onto county land, but since we’re in pursuit of a suspect I’m not going to worry about jurisdiction.”

  Ella called it in, requested backup from the county, but then the road curved back south, onto private land, and they encountered a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer stopped at a closed gate along the fence line. Ahead, beyond a rise, was the main highway, and they could see a cloud of dust. Although the rancher left the gate open for them, by the time they reached the highway, the pickup was gone.

  Frustration, dark and crippling, washed over Ella, but she fought against it. Bad luck happened. She had to stay focused.

  “We almost had them,” Justine said through clenched teeth.

  “Let’s keep looking. They may have holed up, and, if they took off toward Shiprock, they’ll encounter the roadblock,” Ella said, then looked at the edge of the asphalt highway where the dirt road ended. “Look, dusty tracks coming from here turned left, back toward Farmington.”

  “But there are county units heading this way. The carjackers will have to turn off again,” Justine pointed out as she eased onto the highway.

  “If I were them, I’d get back off the highway as soon as possible. Keep a sharp eye on your side for a dust trail along one of these lanes.”

  They continued east, past farm houses, a few small, roadside businesses, and the inevitable cluster of new homes that had begun to pop up along the valley. Those belonged, by and large, to a new generation who’d inherited their parents’ land but weren’t interested in agriculture. Sections of old apple orchards remained, as did fields destined to become filled with new crops of alfalfa and corn once the danger of frost was gone.

  Passing a large red barn close to the road, Ella caught a glint of light and a flash of white several hundred yards down a dirt road behind a cluster of cottonwood trees. “There’s something back there. To my right.”

  Justine found a place to turn around about a quarter mile down the road, then came back up the highway, heading west. Crossing the median, she drove down the gravel lane. Up ahead was a solitary farmhouse about fifty yards from a large red barn and a shed with a shiny metal roof.

  Ella immediately located the white truck. It was in the shade of the old cottonwood at the beginning of the driveway leading to the house, partially hidden by the tree trunk. “There.”

  “That the same one?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Ella answered, then called it in and verified the vehicle plate number. “Block the drive,” she said, noting that the only alternative direction of flight would be across a freshly plowed field. “We’ll move in on foot.”

  Leaving the tribal unit in the middle of the small driveway, they approached in a crouch, covering each other and using the tree trunk to screen themselves from the vehicle cab. As they reached the tree, they could see that the vehicle appeared to be empty. The doors were open, and a closer look revealed the key was still inside the ignition. Ella grabbed the key while Justine kept watch.

  They moved toward the house, which was shaded by two willows at opposite ends of the rectangular, shingle-covered frame building. Keeping a fifty-foot distance between them, they were able to watch the house and both sides. There was no cover, but they kept moving. As they got close, Ella saw a few chickens wallowing in the dirt in the shade of one of the willows. The birds rose up and started to scatter, all in the same direction, toward the shed, which lay closest to her side of the house.

  Ella crossed over toward Justine. “If anyone else had come up, they’d have also spooked the chickens.”

  “Unless the chickens belong to them, maybe?”

  Ella stood still and listened, watching the house and the yard at each end of the structure.

  “Somebody’s in the house,” Justine mouthed, gesturing toward a window.

  Ella didn’t see any other vehicle around except for an old pickup with four flat tires and a missing hood. “You saw someone?”

  She nodded once. “Curtain moved, and the window is closed.”

  Ella, with Justine alongside her, continued toward the door. They got within fifteen feet of the porch when a shot suddenly rang out.

  There was a flurry of squawking from the frightened chickens, then a shaky voice. “Get off my property,” a man ordered. The tip of a shotgun barrel was v
isible from the left corner of the building. It was pointing skyward.

  “We’re police officers looking for car thieves,” Ella called out, crouching low and keeping her sights on the edge of the building. “Put your shotgun down.”

  A heartbeat later an elderly Anglo man with long white hair in a ponytail came around the corner of the building, hands in the air. “Don’t shoot, Officers.”

  Ella moved toward the man, but stayed close enough to the building to keep from presenting a target to anyone inside. Passing a window, she ducked down while beneath it, not taking her eye off the owner. The last thing she wanted was to push an elderly man into a heart attack, but there was no way of knowing if he had someone else in the house—perhaps a son or grandson armed to the teeth.

  As Justine watched the other side of the house, and the front door, Ella gestured for him to approach. “Are you all right, sir?” she asked, seeing fear in the man’s eyes.

  “I guess so. What’s going on? Why are the Navajo Police here, off the reservation? Does it have to do with that pickup out by the road?”

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” Ella pressed, sidestepping his question for now.

  The man nodded. “My wife. She’s bedridden.” He turned his head and saw Justine peering in the windows.

  “No one else is in there, so please don’t upset my wife. If you want to come in and look around, do it, but if you want to check out our bedroom, I’ll have to go in with you. Otherwise you’ll scare my Margo. She’s deaf, too, and if you just walk in carrying a gun . . . ”

  Ella went inside with him, and Justine followed, providing cover, alert to the slim chance that someone was being held hostage. They looked around the rooms quickly, but it was clear that everything was all right. The man’s wife was asleep in bed, obviously alive.

  Ella and Justine went outside into the backyard with the old man to make certain no one was hiding in the barn or shed. The old man showed them everything, explaining himself as he walked from his barn, which contained an old but serviceable-looking pickup, to the shed, which had been converted into a chicken coop. “I fired a warning shot because I’d seen a few people skulking around and figured they were up to no good. They roared up in that big new pickup, then jumped out and climbed into a beat-up old green van, which had followed them up the lane. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I went to grab my shotgun. By then, the green van was gone. I kept watch, then you came up and I saw you had guns. I didn’t know you were with the police because you don’t have a regular police car.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry. The people who drove up had just stolen that white truck. We were in pursuit—” Before Ella could finish the sentence, she heard sirens and two county sheriff’s vehicles raced up the lane.

  “I’ll go fill them in,” Justine said, holstering her weapon and bringing out her badge.

  “Can you tell me anything more about the people you saw? A description?”

  “A man and woman jumped out of the pickup and ran over to the van. There was a driver, of course, but from the angle and distance I couldn’t tell if anyone else was in there. The man and woman jumped into the van through the side door and the driver backed up the lane to the highway. Then the van drove off toward Kirtland—east. It happened fast, like it was one of those reality TV stunts.”

  “Did you happen to notice if the van had any markings?”

  “It was a Chevy, all beat up, like I said. The green was more olive than green, faded, like from the sun, and there were no windows in the back. I remember a lighter, rectangular spot on the side, like maybe a sign had been there at one time, then sanded off.”

  Ella gave him her card. “You’ll be asked to give the county officers a statement, and they’ll give you their names and numbers as well. But keep my card. I’d really appreciate a call, too, if you remember anything else once things calm down a little here. It happens that way sometimes.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  After exchanging information with the county deputies, and making sure that the pickup would be held and processed for evidence, Ella and Justine headed west back toward the reservation.

  “I want to talk to Albert Tom and Leroy Enoah. Call our PD and find out where they are right now.”

  Twenty minutes later, they met with both men at the station in Shiprock, where they’d been taken to make their statements. Leroy Enoah was in his forties and looked like he took bodybuilding seriously. If he’d been injured in the attack, he certainly didn’t show any outward signs of it. He was sitting behind the table inside the nicer interview room reserved for victims of a crime, or those who’d witnessed a crime. The wooden chairs there had cushions on them, and the walls were painted a soft blue.

  Ella joined Leroy and offered him something to drink, but he declined. “I can’t believe that they set me up and stole my truck! I had to put in some serious overtime to get those wheels.”

  “We’ve already recovered your vehicle, but it’ll have to be processed for evidence before you can pick it up at the sheriff’s station,” Ella assured him.

  “Is it in one piece?” he asked quickly, leaning over.

  “I think so. All I could see from a quick outside inspection is a little dust.”

  He exhaled, then leaned back. “Good. I have insurance, but it probably wouldn’t have covered everything.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Ella asked.

  “I got suckered, that’s what happened. I’ve always had a soft spot for blondes.”

  She’d heard it before, but she’d never been able to figure out why some men turned into instant idiots over the color of someone’s hair. “Okay, so you saw a blonde . . . did she flag you down?”

  “Well, yeah,” he answered. “She was waving her arms in the air, and that little halter top of hers was barely covering her breasts—which were large enough to pass for cantaloupes, if you have to know.”

  She nodded impatiently and tried to curb her temper. “Besides the abundant produce, what else did you notice?”

  “Not much—my eyes just kind of hovered there,” he said slowly. “Until I heard a noise and saw the guy with the baseball bat or whatever he was swinging. By then, it was too late to duck.”

  Ella was tempted to smack him in the head and knock some sense into him. “Okay. What about the guy who hit you? Was he big, small, short, fat? How about hair color? Was he Indian or Anglo?”

  “Dunno. He was wearing a ski mask and leather gloves. Big, like me, wearing a stretchy black T-shirt. I don’t think it was a bat he hit me with, come to think about it. Maybe an axe handle. At least there wasn’t an axe on it. Caught me right across the back and knocked me down.” Leroy squirmed slightly. “Gonna leave a bruise.”

  “Anything else about the guy?”

  “Well, he had on shoes, lace-ups. When I went down I saw his feet. They were running shoes, I think. Black or blue, with white laces. That’s it.”

  “Okay, I’m going to turn you over to a police artist. See if you can come up with a sketch that’ll tell us something about the woman from the neck up.”

  Leroy gave her an embarrassed shrug. “Yeah, sure, I’ll be glad to help.”

  As she left the room, Tache was approaching. “Ella, we’ve got the car they used to draw their victim in. And we now have a photo of the plaster cast made from the tracks of the van that picked up the car thieves—courtesy of Sheriff Taylor.”

  “They steal a piece-of-crap car, which they leave behind, and drive away in the stolen truck, while someone in a van keeps lookout. I think I remember seeing a van on the road when we first responded. All in all we have more than we had before. Progress.”

  “With luck, we’ll get prints or hair samples this time that’ll establish DNA,” Tache said.

  “I want you and Justine to get in touch with the county crime scene team and see if they’d like your help processing the truck and that decoy sedan. They know why it’s a priority case for us now, but mention that anyway. In the meantime,
I’ll question Albert Tom.”

  Ella went into the next interview room and saw someone had already brought Albert some coffee. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she got right down to work. “I need you to think back and tell me exactly what you saw.”

  “I was driving home, and saw that blonde babe. I considered stopping but remembered the warnings about the carjackers from the paper. When I got home, I called the station, then climbed onto the roof of the house to take a look and see if she was still there. I have a ten-power scope on my Winchester, so I could even see the cleav—the woman—really well. Then Leroy stopped, and walked right up to the babe. The next thing I saw was this guy coming around from behind the car. He nailed Leroy across the back with that board or whatever. For a second, I thought maybe Leroy had made some kind of comment and the husband or boyfriend turned on him. But as soon as Leroy went down, the guy and the woman jumped into Leroy’s truck and hauled ass. That’s when I scrambled down from the roof and called you guys again. The truck whizzed by my house going sixty, at least. I ran over to check on Leroy, and you drove past me just about then.”

  “Tell me about the woman—what you saw through your scope. And the man who came out of the car.”

  “The woman had shoulder-length blonde hair, and boobs that would block out the sun. The guy was big-chested, too, but more like Popeye, with big arms and one of those muscle T-shirts. It was a smooth operation and they were out of there in ten seconds, like in the movies.”

  “Pros?”

  “Had to be. You could almost hear the stopwatch counting down. Each second was planned.”

  “Okay. Thanks for your help.” Seeing him yawn, and noting his drooping eyelids, she added. “You drive here on your own?”

  He shook his head. “Naw, Sergeant Neskahi picked us up where it went down, and checked out Leroy. Anyone else would have needed an ambulance, but Leroy just shrugged it off, like just another bar fight. The sergeant said that when you were done, we should check in at the desk. They’d find someone to take Leroy and me home.”