Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames

by Richard Paolinelli

  The girl took the bill, the smile on her face would have easily lit the entire city had the sun not already been out, and very nearly dashed out of the room, the other potential customers forgotten.

  As he pocketed his purchases he noticed Chee looking at him, a strange expression on her face. The mayor and the sheriff were somewhat bemused and, just as he was enjoying having made a little girl’s day a little brighter; the chief had to try to ruin it.

  “You got taken, FBI man,” said Begay, who was one of many Navajo living in Gallup instead of the reservation. “You could have easily got all that for forty bucks. You Washington folks sure throw away a lot of money.”

  “Actually, Chief,” Del Rio said as he rose from his chair with Chee wondering if he’d just subtly managed to say the man’s official title and insult him at the same time without anyone else at the table knowing it. “For the grand total of one hundred dollars, I bought something that will make a friend very happy. I got a very nice work of art that I will enjoy for the rest of my life and, maybe for the first time in her life, made a little girl happy, filled her with pride that someone else saw her worth, saw beauty in something she created herself, and she also got to directly contribute to helping her family’s business. So everyone involved in that transaction walks away happy. Taken, Chief?” This time the insulting emphasis on the title registered. “Not at all. As far as I am concerned, I just made the deal of the century.

  “Now if you’ll excuse us gentlemen,” Del Rio concluded. “Officer Chee and I have a lot to do before the Runningelk autopsy this afternoon. Good day, gentlemen.”

  Del Rio strode out of the restaurant with Chee in his wake. The meeting had been mostly a waste of time, as far as what the three men had to offer were concerned. They’d had nothing to bring to the investigation. At least something good had come from it, he thought as he glanced over the roof of the car and spotted an animated Anna telling her parents about her sale.

  “Jack,” Chee said as they got into the car, “you can call me Lucy.”

  ELEVEN

  The Runningelk crime scene alongside the highway that connected Gallup with Window Rock was still taped off to keep the occasional looky-loo from getting too close. Even though the evidence had seemingly all been collected and any prints or other minutiae had been washed away by the previous night’s rain, Del Rio still wanted to stop by the site to see it for himself before meeting with Yazzie.

  Chee walked him through what she’d seen when she had first arrived, pointing to the spot where Runningelk’s body had been found. Del Rio had read all of the on-scene reports on the flight out, and was more interested in getting his bearings on the geography.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered as he looked to the west where the majority of the reservation land lay; much like the area immediately around Gallup was mostly barren rusty-red hills covered in rocks of every shape and size. Here and there, a house or some other building, usually nearer to the two-lane highways and roads that wove their way through the area, would break up the landscape.

  “What?”

  “His home is twenty to thirty miles that way,” he said, pointing in the general direction where Runningelk’s house sat, “yet somehow, for reasons unknown, after being attacked in his home in broad daylight, he runs that distance in near record time while managing not to be seen by anyone while doing it. Fleeing for his life he doesn’t run to any number of nearby homes or businesses, he even passed within shouting distance of one of your police substations, where he could have easily found help.

  “Instead, he runs all the way out here, comes to a dead stop, well within sight of another possible place of shelter and aid, and allows his pursuer to catch him. Then, since there were no defensive wounds mentioned in any of your reports, simply allows himself to be killed without putting up any kind of a fight. Does any of that make sense to you?”

  Chee shook her head. She’d been thinking along the same lines since she’d first seen the body and could not come up with any logical answers. Del Rio caught her staring at the spot, lost in thought.

  “How well did you know James,” he asked quietly.

  “Oh, not like that,” she said with a start as she heard the unspoken part of his question. “He was a good friend and a mentor. He and a couple of others helped get me into school and get on the job here. He did that for a lot of us on the Res. He wanted us all to be so much more than we could ever have hoped for ourselves.”

  “Sounds like a good man,” he replied as he knelt down near where the body had been. He quickly produced a pair of tweezers along with a small plastic baggie from a jacket pocket and collected something very small.

  She couldn’t make out what had caught his interest. “He was,” she said, looking back at the spot. Del Rio quickly stepped into the space between her and the object of her attention.

  “Mourn him later,” he said sternly, “after we catch the bastard that killed him. Yes?”

  The look he gave her was of such intensity, she took a step back. Gone was the good natured Jack Del Rio who would go far out of his way to accomplish nothing more than making a ten-year-old girl smile. At some point during the ride out, a switch had been thrown. Agent Del Rio stood before her now; a machine with one purpose, solve the case, arrest the guilty and let nothing get in the way of getting the job done. She felt an almost electrical jolt run through her, even as she wondered how someone could be capable of turning off and on like that, then felt some of his drive for the cause of justice rising up in her.

  They had a killer to catch and that was what they would do.

  “Yes,” she finally answered after a few seconds and he nodded at something he’d heard in her voice.

  “Good,” he said, taking another inquiring glance to the west, before walking away. “Well, the answers to this mystery won’t be found here. We have a few others to deal with in this case, including the one I hope we can solve when we meet your President.”

  “And that is?” she asked as she followed him back to the car.

  “I read the reports on the flight out,” he said without looking back at her. “Your people have done everything exactly the way we would have even if we’d been here from the very start, but in less than twenty-four hours your boss hits the panic button calling in the FBI. Why? How, out of all the members on the council, did he know who it was that was the next one in line to be killed? Your boss knows a lot more about what is going on here than he’s letting on to anyone. The trick is going to be getting him to tell us before someone else gets killed.”

  “Why wouldn’t he come out and tell us if he did know something?” Chee asked as she opened her door to get in, but she stopped as she caught Del Rio looking across the roof at her.

  “That, Officer Chee, is a damn good question.”

  ****

  George Shelly was still considered a handsome looking man even at the age of fifty-three, leading many to wonder why he’d never settled down and gotten married, and a few to remark that he certainly took full advantage of that freedom to play the field. He was fitter than most men half his age, a fact that he owed in part to his time in the Marines, where he’d learned to stay physically fit. He’d been honorably discharged, returned to the reservation to go into business and later on got started on his political career.

  He’d been an unqualified success every step of the way, easily one of the wealthiest men on the reservation, until Ben Yazzie had come along and had all but stolen the presidency out from under him. Another man might have become bitter, fading away to sulk for the rest of his life.

  As a member of one of the oldest Navajo clans George Shelly wasn’t just any other man. Salvaging what he could, he managed to secure the vice-presidency instead and waited for fortune to smile upon him once again. In the meantime, he had his import/export business to maintain while he waited for another chance to present itself for exploitation.

  Shelly immediately saw his chance materialize when news of the murders go
t out into the public domain. If he played his cards just right, he reasoned, he could turn it to his advantage no matter the ultimate outcome of the situation. If Yazzie could be politically crippled enough, he’d have to step down from office, and Shelly would be right there to finally claim his rightful place in the world.

  So when Yazzie had sent for the FBI, with many of the council members strongly protesting the move - the loudest protest coming from the Council Speaker himself - Shelly deftly stepped in and skillfully worked both sides of the aisle. He offered a whispered word of implied support to Yazzie, then turned right around and shared many words of concern to a room full of very agitated council members.

  Shelly wanted to make certain that he would get in the first few official words with the FBI Agent as well. So he stood alone outside in the government center’s parking lot while the others gathered in Yazzie’s office inside waiting for the agent to arrive. Being a wily politician and a war veteran, Shelly had many connections to draw from when needed; one of which provided him with some very useful information on this Agent Del Rio.

  He was wealthy with a personal value in money, property and other holdings that well exceeded Shelly’s. A rich kid playing at cop, had been Shelly’s initial impression of the man, but the FBI thought very highly of him. He was reportedly the agency’s rising star in domestic counter-terrorism. Although there was no official report to be found, no matter how high the security clearance his source had said with some surprise, there was a rumor being accepted as unofficial truth that Del Rio had crossed paths with some terrorists overseas, single-handedly taking them all out.

  The ex-Marine in Shelly had been impressed with that accomplishment. That was what the enemy was for after all, to be killed before they killed you. Despite this, Shelly hadn’t heard anything about the man that had overly concerned him or his personal plans. Del Rio was just another pawn in the game to be removed when no longer needed in Shelly’s plans for the Presidency.

  Shelly briskly walked up to the car as Chee pulled into the lot. He completely ignored the woman, knowing full well the level of disdain she had for him. The thought never ceased to amuse him, given what he knew of her past and what she would likely never know about his own. That thought was firmly set aside as he approached Del Rio’s side of the car.

  “Agent Del Rio,” he said, extending his hand even before Del Rio could completely get out of the vehicle. “I’m Vice-President George Shelly. I want to thank you for coming out to help bring this terrible killer to justice. If there is anything I or my staff can do for you, just ask.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that,” Del Rio said after a brief handshake. Chee could have sworn she saw him glance down at his hand as if he wished he had some disinfectant to dunk it in. “I was under the impression we would all be meeting inside?”

  “Of course,” Shelly said, “but I wanted to meet with you first. President Yazzie is under a lot of strain, especially with these terrible crimes hitting so close to home. We all want to do whatever we can for him. He’s one of the best men to have ever served in the office.”

  Although Shelly had turned his back on Chee, Del Rio had a clear look at her face as she rolled her eyes in response to Shelly’s last statement. Del Rio had been around long enough to know when a politician was laying on the bullshit, but this performance was a little too much. He was having some difficulty in not reacting to Chee’s facial theatrics, so to cover, he turned looking over at the landmark that had given the town its name instead.

  “Yes, it’s quite impressive isn’t it,” Shelly said, noticing where Del Rio’s attention had been drawn. “Legend has it that it was created by the wind that created the earth.”

  “Another legend says it’s a portal used by a giant invisible serpent when it comes out to hunt,” Del Rio said. “At least that’s what I read somewhere.”

  “Why yes, that is one of the legends surrounding it.” Shelly replied, surprised at the FBI Agent’s knowledge of obscure Navajo legend.

  “Well, I hope it is just a legend. I wouldn’t want to be around when something like that pops through,” Del Rio said, adding in a perfect deadpan, “besides, it’s hard enough to avoid getting bitten by the serpents you can see coming at you, don’t you find?”

  Chee’s eyes threatened to pop right out of their sockets and she had to bite her tongue hard to keep from making a sound. If Del Rio had hauled off and slugged Shelly right in the nose, she would have been much less surprised. She could tell Shelly was struggling to decide if the remark, delivered with such perfect innocence, without a trace of insult or sarcasm in the voice, was something more than just a simple observation, or had been a very well-hidden shot below the belt.

  Privately, she enjoyed Shelly’s brief discomfort. There wasn’t any one specific thing she could point to, but for some reason any time she was near Shelly her skin would crawl. That Del Rio had apparently not found Shelly to his liking either was definitely a point in the FBI Agent’s favor as far as she was concerned.

  “Why, yes, I suppose I do,” Shelly finally said after a few moments. “Well, let’s get you inside so we can get to work.”

  Shelly turned for the building and practically sprinted back inside as if he couldn’t leave Del Rio and Chee behind fast enough. Chee made a small show of scraping off the sole of her boot, as if she’d stepped into something unpleasant. Del Rio reached down with a wink tugging at a pant leg, revealing a low-heeled black shoe and gave it a quick inspection to check for the very same thing.

  “You are a very bad man, Agent Del Rio,” Chee said jokingly.

  “Me? Why I have no idea what you mean, Officer Chee. Everyone loves me,” he replied, with mock indignation.

  “I just bet they do,” she said as she opened the door to the building. The switch had been thrown, which would no doubt flip right back as soon as they got to the President’s office. For just a brief moment, she caught herself thinking it might be nice to take some time to figure out what made this man tick. After of course, she reminded herself, they had caught the bastard that had killed her friend and mentors.

  TWELVE

  The latest meeting of politicians went just about the way Del Rio had expected it to and little better than the first one in Gallup had earlier in the day. Shelly had already made his pitch outside, such as it was, maneuvering for whatever political angle he was shooting for, then briefly introduced Del Rio to the others in the room. He repeated his pledge of support to Yazzie before retreating to one of the office’s corners. There, he took a seat next to Speaker Jim. A small stuffed coyote in a seated position had been placed between the two men’s chairs, an arrangement Del Rio noted briefly only because of his recent dreams before setting it aside for the business at hand.

  Yazzie looked to Del Rio like he was on his last legs. He said little aside from welcoming the Bureau’s assistance in the investigation and concluded with his hope that Del Rio could help bring a swift conclusion to the matter. Emerson Jim, the longest serving Speaker of the Navajo Council’s history, was easily the oldest man in the room. While not openly hostile to Del Rio, he was certainly far from cordial in his greeting.

  Even sitting, Jim was an imposing figure physically. His weathered, wrinkled face was perfectly complimented by flowing gray hair tied back in a ponytail. He reminded Del Rio of some of the Chiefs from the 1940s westerns his brother loved to watch as a kid. Since many of those films had been made in this area, Del Rio wasn’t surprised by the resemblance.

  There was also a presence radiating from within the man that was hard to ignore. Here was a man used to getting things done, usually exactly how he wanted to have them done, and didn’t mind having to do the hard work himself if needed.

  The other two men in the room made little effort to hide their clear resentment at Del Rio’s presence. Frank Tso was the head of the Navajo’s version of the Secret Service. Having the man they were sworn to protect turn to an outsider for protection had to rankle. Del Rio wasn’t about to hol
d that against him. The same was true for Chief Shirley, Chee’s direct superior.

  Both men were very similar in size and stature. If you ever saw them together when not in uniform, Del Rio decided, it would be damn near impossible to tell them apart if it were not for the fact that Tso had broken his nose at some distant point in his life and it hadn’t been set correctly at the time.

  The first order of business would be to smooth things over with the two as best as he could while still getting his job done. So he listened as they laid out what they had discovered so far; what they themselves suspected was going on.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” Del Rio said when they’d finished. “I want you to know that you have handled this investigation as near to textbook as I’ve ever seen. It’s a credit to both of your departments. If you could have copies of all of your reports, photographs, notes, anything connected to your investigation boxed up and waiting for us when we’re ready to leave, I’d appreciate it. Also, any collected blood or tissue samples are still being preserved, I assume?”

  Tso nodded.

  “Good,” Del Rio said, turning his attention to the Speaker who sat facing him with his arms crossed over his chest. “Sir, if you could inform your staff, and the other council members as well, that I will likely be coming around to ask most — if not all — of you a few questions, and that I will try to be as brief as possible, I would appreciate that as well.”

  Jim’s head barely moved. Del Rio took it as assent, then plowed on.

  “Then in that case,” he continued, “if all of you would excuse Officer Chee and me, we’d like to speak with the President now. Alone,” he added with a pointed look at the President’s Chief of Staff. Yazzie nodded slightly in assent and the room silently emptied out save the three of them.