Mourning Dove

by Aimée

“Have you reconsidered your relationship with Kevin, Ella? You can’t tell me you don’t have any feelings for him,” Justine said, changing into the right-hand lane to take the next freeway exit.

  “I do care for him. And when I’m around him—and not furious about something he just did—I can certainly understand what drew me to him in the first place. But our differences would split us apart, no matter how hard we tried to make a go of it for Dawn’s sake. What binds us—and always will—is the beautiful child we created together.”

  “I don’t get it. If you know your relationship with Kevin isn’t strong enough to base a relationship upon, why have you taken yourself off the market? You don’t even date anymore, do you?”

  “It’s been a year or so, that’s true, but I haven’t been looking because my life was pretty much complete as it is, and I didn’t want anything else.”

  “Past tense? What’s changed?” Justine asked quickly, entering the left-hand lane of traffic, and waiting for an opening to pull into the row of one-story offices where the New Mexico State Police had a regional facility.

  Ella watched the cars on the interstate below the overpass they’d just crossed. “Mom’s finding a whole new direction for herself and that made me think and face a few facts. Truth is, Justine, I’d like another child someday, but time has a way of slipping by. I’d like to find someone who wants what I do—a home, career, and family, with all its ups and downs.”

  What she wasn’t quite ready to tell Justine was that she’d already met someone who intrigued her—a man who honored his highest sense of right—a man who walked his talk. And she wanted to get to know him better.

  Once inside the small facility, Ella met with State Patrolman Lex Harvey, the New Mexico State Police officer who’d arrested the suspect.

  “I pulled the vehicle over at one-thirty this morning after the driver started sending me the wrong kind of signals. I’d come up behind him and noted that the vehicle was going just over the speed limit. When the driver slowed way down, and kept watching me in the rearview mirror, squirrely-like, I pulled him over and had a look at his operator’s permit and registration. We get a lot of drug traffic along this corridor running into Colorado, and hundreds of undocumented workers coming in for the spring planting. You learn to spot trouble after a while.”

  Ella nodded, noting that, although Officer Harvey appeared to be around twenty-five, there was a weariness in his gaze that went beyond mere fatigue. She’d seen that look before on the faces of those who’d grown up knowing only hardship on the Rez, especially those who’d become police officers. “His papers were bogus?” she asked.

  “His N.M. operator’s license is valid—name’s Benjamin Luna—but the registration looked too new to be authentic. The ink was barely dry, and the paper was watermarked with a common discount-store brand name. I called it in, and of course it’s a phony. The suspect said he bought the truck cheap at one of these weekend flea markets at the fairgrounds, and was on his way to visit relatives in Juarez. Benji claims he didn’t know the pickup was stolen, but told me the seller—one Joe Montoya, address and phone number not given—had printed up the registration. This was so Benji wouldn’t get in trouble if he got pulled over. Of course Benji doesn’t have any bill of sale, and there’s nothing but dust in that truck. There must be a thousand Joe Montoyas in the Rio Grande valley, so even if Benji didn’t make it up, checking it out would take days. The bottom line is that the vehicle’s VIN numbers matched my hot sheet. It was stolen last month by the carjackers working your jurisdiction, ma’am.”

  “Can I speak to your prisoner?” Ella asked, trying not to smile after realizing that Justine was checking out Officer Harvey’s behind.

  “Knock yourself out,” he said with a wave of his hand, handing her a set of keys and nodding toward a solid-looking door to his left. “Just leave your service weapon outside.” Then he turned around and offered Justine a cup of coffee.

  As Justine waited outside with Officer Harvey, Ella set her pistol on the counter, then looked through the observation window of the holding cell to confirm the location of the prisoner. A moment later she unlocked the door and went inside. She sat across the table from the suspect, who was shackled by his leg irons to the anchored table itself, though his hands were free to sip from a cup of water.

  The prisoner, probably nineteen, wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt, several sizes too large, and had baggy black pants with about five hundred zippers. His hair was so short it was almost invisible, and his chubby face held a day’s stubble of beard. There was a scar on his eyebrow, barely healed and still looking pink against his skin. He gave her the once-over, then either winked, or had a sudden muscle spasm. Both would have been equally enticing to her at the moment.

  “Mr. Luna, you’re in a world of trouble, you know?” she said, then when he didn’t respond, continued. “This is more than a stolen vehicle case, my friend. Someone has been murdered and you just moved to the top of my list of suspects. You’re an adult now, and I don’t think you want to spend the next thirty years pumping iron at the state pen no matter how buff you end up. Talk to me.”

  “Like I’m scared now. I never killed nobody,” he said flatly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you can’t prove squat.”

  “You really expect me to believe that you bought a truck with a fake registration and you didn’t think it might be stolen?”

  “Hey, the guy said he’d bought a new one, and the dealer had told him he could get more money for his trade-in by selling it on his own. He cut me a good deal, so I took it.”

  “Describe this man, Mr. . . . ?” Ella shot back.

  “His name was Montoya. Dark hair, my height, about thirty. Dark eyes. That’s about it.”

  “We could call your possession of a stolen vehicle joyriding and you’d probably get a minimum of jail time, if any, but murder means life—unless of course, the jury goes for the death penalty. Lots of people get really upset when a returning vet is gunned down. Are you willing to take a chance in court once the press gets hold of this?”

  “I know nothing about a murder,” he said, then shrugged.

  “That’s a dumb move. Who are you trying to protect?”

  He gave her a thin, grim smile. “You have a murder and you want to blame it on me—but that’s not going to happen. I’m not guilty. All the speeches in the world can’t prove something that isn’t true.”

  “And once you get to prison, you can tell that to the rest of the lifers. They’ll believe you.” Ella gave him her bad-cop grin, then waited as he squirmed a while.

  “Listen, Benji, you were driving a truck that was carjacked on the Rez. You have phony papers for the vehicle. You add grand theft, possession of stolen property, fraud, and whatever else we can come up with, and you’ll lose twenty years of your life if we get a good judge,” Ella warned. “And then we add on murder to the list . . .”

  “You’re not thinking right, chica. Carjackers make their living stealing cars and robbing people. Murdering the drivers, well, it’s not good for business. Gets way too much attention. Next thing you know, people who’d otherwise give up their car and walk away are scared and fighting back even though their insurance covers it. I mean they’ve got to—why not fight back if you thought you were going to die anyway? Carjackers and murderers . . . not the same animal. Comprendes?”

  “A murder took place during a carjacking,” Ella answered flatly. “Somebody screwed up. Overreacted. It happens.”

  “I hear you, but that’s not the way things are done. If you want to keep me locked up for buying a stolen car—okay—give it your best shot. Fraud, that’s weak. I just had the paper in the glove compartment. I didn’t know it wasn’t for real. But killing someone over a car—it don’t even make sense.”

  Ella nodded thoughtfully, then left the room. Officer Harvey looked up as she stepped out and relocked the door. “You believe him?”

  “He believes it,” she said firmly, handing back the k
eys, then retrieving her weapon. “Which means he knows for a fact that the M.O. of the carjackers doesn’t include murder, or he wasn’t there, or he’s one heckuva liar.”

  “Benjamin Luna may have just been a courier—delivering the vehicle to a buyer. You mentioned checking out the truck for evidence?” Justine asked Harvey.

  He nodded. “Wiped clean, according to the Albuquerque PD crime lab that processed it for us. The only prints there were the driver’s. And they found one hair—from a blond wig.”

  “Have them send me what you’ve got. I may have a match to the wig hair,” Justine answered.

  “And see if you can get Luna to offer up the buyer, or maybe the person who’s going to sell it out-of-state or out of the country. If you do, we might be able to make some headway, at least with the carjacking ring,” Ella said to Officer Harvey.

  After a few more minutes spent exchanging details, Ella and Justine left the facility, getting back on the interstate. They were on their way back to the main reservation, northwest of New Mexico’s largest city, less than an hour after their arrival.

  Ella gave Justine the highlights of her interview with Benji Luna, then Justine reminded her of the meager evidence they’d retrieved on the aborted carjacking the other day.

  “I’ve checked the wig hair we found but it’s just a cheap synthetic that several mail-order catalogs offer. I contacted them and asked for a list of customers living in New Mexico and I got over two hundred names—none of them in our immediate area,” Justine said.

  The ride back to Shiprock would be time consuming, but Ella’s thoughts were racing, and she couldn’t wait to get back to a more productive activity. “If Luna was telling me the truth, then our suspicions have been right on the mark. Jimmy Blacksheep’s murder was a setup, made to look like a carjacking gone wrong.”

  “But if Jimmy brought contraband with him, and that was a motive for his death, the military’s going to be reluctant to share what they know about that with us,” Justine said.

  “Yeah, but the capital crime was committed on our turf and, for now, the players are all pretty much at home. That’ll change soon, so we’ve got to push forward hard or the killer may slip through our fingers. Clifford struck out, but I’m still hoping Ford can break that blasted code. He’s one smart cookie.”

  “You’re really interested in him, aren’t you? Nah, don’t answer. I already know. It’s kinda hard to miss, actually,” she teased with a grin. “I saw that look in your eyes the other day after you two spent all that time in his office. That was after you hosed each other off, I might add.”

  “Speaking of interest, I saw you checking out Officer Harvey’s butt, Justine. He’s about your age, too. You gonna make a move or are you just window shopping?”

  “Changing the subject? You’ve confirmed my suspicions,” Justine said, laughing. “You are interested in ’ole Ford, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve only seen him on departmental business,” she protested.

  “But next time it’ll be personal. Am I right?” She grinned widely. “Come on, ’fess up!”

  Ella laughed. “If you must know, we cut a deal,” Ella said, still chuckling. “Apparently, Lila Curtis keeps trying to fix the Reverend up. When I told him I get that from Mom and her friends, Ford came up with a plan. I’ll pose as his girlfriend at the church rummage sale. Once the gossip takes over, he’ll get some breathing room and so will I.”

  Justine burst out laughing. “How perfect! Now you can take him out for a test drive and see if he’s really what you want. And it was his idea!”

  “It’s just a way of getting some people to back off,” Ella said, giving Justine her best glare.

  “You can give me all the dirty looks you want, but I know sparks when I see them,” she said. “You’re interested.”

  “You’re so irritating,” Ella said flatly.

  “It’s a pain when someone knows you as well as I do, isn’t it?” Justine asked happily, not really expecting an answer. “Get ready because it’ll be even worse for you when Rose hears.”

  Ella groaned. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  “But on second thought, your father was a preacher, so she can’t come at you for that,” Justine said. “And, who knows, she might even be relieved.”

  Ella smiled. “I think Mom’ll approve of anyone at this stage, providing he’s not currently under indictment. She thinks I’ve sworn off men.”

  “Well you have—had.”

  They lapsed into a thoughtful silence and Ella gazed at the area around them. A few hours later, now late afternoon, she recognized one of her favorite locations off the Rez. They were ten minutes outside Bloomfield, in the very scenic area where the highway wove down and around a series of foothills descending from the high mesa behind them onto the river valley still ahead. The road dropped down, straddling a wide arroyo—more of a narrow valley—crossed a long, low bridge, then rose up onto another hill.

  Ella caught a glimpse of a car behind them, flying around the curve they’d just navigated. Monitoring it from the passenger’s side mirror, she noted it was speeding up.

  Almost intuitively Justine slowed down. “I see him.”

  There were no other cars on this stretch, at least for now, but as the beige sedan accelerated, Ella glanced at Justine. “Maybe it’s a government car, or a gas company honcho late for a meeting. He’s doing twenty over the speed limit easy.”

  As the car came up close, and whipped around to pass them, Ella caught a flurry of movement from the passenger’s side and a window being rolled down. “Gun,” she yelled, ducking down.

  Justine hit the brakes and steered away toward the shoulder, simultaneously crunching into the seat and trying to lower her profile. The sedan flew past, loud pops rattling off in rapid succession.

  Glass shattered, and Ella heard several hard thumps and a groan.

  “Hang on!” Justine yelled, running off the road onto the shoulder, then onto the dirt. The emergency braking system slowed them down without flipping over the vehicle, and, though they bounced along madly for a hundred yards or more, the vehicle remained upright and didn’t careen into the cattle fence enclosing the right-of-way. By the time they came to a full stop, the sedan had disappeared over the hill, no longer a threat at the moment.

  Remembering that at one point she’d heard Justine groan, Ella shifted to look at her. “Are you hit, cuz?”

  “No, just really short of breath,” Justine whispered, sounding like she’d just run ten miles. “Something knocked the wind out of me.”

  “Check again. Are you hit!?”

  “I don’t . . . think so. Let’s go after them!”

  Justine tried to urge the car back toward the road, but it just dragged along in the soft earth. “Crap, feels like we’ve got a flat.”

  “I’ll call it in. You check yourself out, just in case.” Ella picked up the radio mike and called the county sheriff’s dispatch, reporting the incident and the shooter’s vehicle description.

  Justine unfastened her seat belt, wincing as she shifted to move the seat cushion back. Attuned to her partner, Ella gave Justine a long look. “Feel around your vest for holes or blood. Are you sure you’re not hit? He had two pistols, and got off at least six shots, maybe more.”

  “It hurts . . . ow, here. Okay, I feel it now, beneath my blouse. The vest stopped a round, and it feels like I’ve been kicked by a horse,” she answered, her voice unsteady. “Wait till I catch their sorry asses.”

  Ella sighed loudly. Blunt-force trauma was sometimes enough all by itself to disable or kill but, overall, vests saved lives. It sure beat being dead, but Justine would be bruised for weeks even if no ribs had been broken.

  It was deathly quiet now, except for the tic tic of the cooling engine. Suddenly it felt stifling inside the car, and Ella opened her door to let in some fresh air. Ella’s gaze passed over the interior of the car, noting the fist-sized hole in Justine’s window. She turned to look, and saw another hole in the rear w
indow behind her. One bullet had passed between them.

  The drive-by had seemed to take an eternity but, in reality, it had lasted less than five seconds. Of course five seconds was a long, long time, particularly when you didn’t know if that last breath would be your last.

  Justine was looking around, and pointed to a hole in the door panel just below the window trim. “Where did this one go?”

  Ella estimated the position of the shooter, then looked around in the vehicle. She found an impact location just above where her feet had been during the attack, in the right side, forward of the passenger door. “Here it is. I don’t see light, so it’s probably still around somewhere.”

  “There’s the one that struck my vest, the one that passed between us, and the round down by your feet that came through my door. That makes three. I wonder where the others hit?”

  “We’d better check before we get out and make sure we’re not going to dump anything important on the ground,” Ella said.

  “I’ve already pulled the slug from my vest.” Justine held the bullet up, then put it into her jacket pocket. “But what was this all about? Teen gangbangers hitting the wrong car?” Justine asked, checking the door panel and interior within her vision.

  “I don’t think so. I only got a fast glimpse, but the driver was wearing a ski mask so I couldn’t make an ID and the shooter looked big and fit. He was firing those two handguns like some Hollywood perp,” Ella answered.

  “Good thing you saw it coming in time. If I hadn’t hit the brakes and veered off . . .” Justine pointed to the hole in her window. “That might have hit one of us in the throat. Or the one that hit my vest could have gone under my arm instead—and into my spine.”

  “The sedan was new . . . maybe a Ford, but I can’t be sure. The color will help us narrow it down. And there were two men, the driver and the shooter,” Ella said.

  “Let’s see if we can change the tire,” Justine said.

  “No,” Ella said quietly. “It’s evidence and county will want things intact. We can get out, though, and look around.”