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

by Richard Paolinelli

  “Ouch.”

  “Occupational hazard,” Del Rio said with a shrug. “It’ll be better to find out sooner rather than later if it’s going to be a problem with her, I suppose. How about you? Am I keeping you from someone?”

  “No,” she answered quietly, surprised by the sudden thought that she was very happy that Del Rio was having dinner with her instead of the woman back east. “Hasn’t been in a while. There just isn’t time it seems.”

  The waitress came to take their order. Chee struggled not to laugh aloud when Del Rio asked if there was anything on the menu that didn’t have green chilies on it. The look he gave the woman when she suggested the Ronald Reagan, a hamburger with fries and a side of jelly beans, silently spoke volumes. He finally settled on a basic steak and potatoes with a solemn promise from the waitress that neither chilies nor jelly beans would come anywhere near his plate.

  It was one of the most enjoyable evenings Chee could recall. They spent the time talking about family and old cases. Aside from an occasional trip to Flagstaff or Gallup, Chee had rarely left the reservation. She listened raptly as he told her about some of his time in England and his current posting in D.C. She was surprised at how closely he listened to her as she recounted her life on the Res, which must have seemed boring compared to his career, but listen he did, and even asked a few questions that surprised her in how quickly he seemed to grasp the significance. So when he tried, and failed, to suppress a large yawn, she knew it wasn’t from boredom on his part. His plane had left D.C. after midnight and he’d hit the ground running since he’d arrived.

  “How much sleep have you gotten in the last twenty-four hours?” she queried.

  “Including the thirty-minute nap I caught on the plane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thirty minutes,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “Then it’s time we get you to bed.”

  “My dear Miss Lucy,” he cracked, letting that teasing drawl trickle back into his voice, “what kind of a man do you take me for?”

  Chee felt the heat in her face, but wasn’t about to be deflected.

  “A man who is about to fall asleep in his chair, and I am not carrying you to your room.”

  “Well I suppose that wouldn’t be a dignified sight for an FBI Agent to be carted off like that,” he allowed, “and we do have an early start tomorrow. Which reminds me, I had two messages waiting for me at the desk. It seems the Governor of Zuni Pueblo and the Hopi Chairman would like to have a word with us down in Zuni. We’ll go hear what they have to say, swing by and see about this Tolchini character, and then head back to Window Rock and get to work.”

  “You think we’re wasting our time with the others?”

  “No,” he said with a sigh as he got up out of his chair. “They might have some bit of information that could be useful. I don’t think we’re going to find our killer too far from Window Rock. Our guy is a lot closer to Ben Yazzie than anyone wants to admit.”

  FOURTEEN

  The Sun was still an hour from rising in the Mountain Time Zone. Unfortunately for Del Rio, his body was still running on the Eastern zone. His brother had once joked that clock makers set their alarms to Jack’s internal body clock. A shower and a surprisingly decent cup of coffee from the coffeemaker in the room later, and there was still no sunlight, only a slight hint of color on the horizon.

  So Del Rio dug into files, looking for any scrap of information that might narrow down what was a wide open field of suspects at this point. He was still at it two hours later when Chee knocked on the door.

  “Find anything?” she asked after seeing the spread out files, somehow not surprised to find him dressed and already at work.

  “Too much,” he replied, pulling on his jacket. “For every one thing I find to make someone a prime suspect, I find three more to move them back down the list. At best, I’ve got a general picture of our suspect, enough to eliminate a few people at any rate.

  “Our killer is probably a male and has military experience. I know,” he said at her look, “there are quite a few men on the reservation with military experience. Like I said, one step forward, three back. This is definitely the work of a single person with a personal reason behind the attacks, not a group of domestic terrorists with a political agenda. He’s very confident, but he is also very cautious.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “He killed three people in pretty rapid succession and pulled off all three with such perfection that we don’t have a single clue as to who he might be. He’s spent a long time planning this out, and followed that plan to perfection until something happened that he hadn’t planned on.”

  “What?”

  “Yazzie called in the FBI,” Del Rio answered as they left the room. “He hadn’t expected Yazzie to bring in help from the outside — at least not so quickly. So he’s sitting back, waiting and watching to see what I will do before he does anything else.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Because there hasn’t been another killing since Yazzie made the call,” Del Rio said as they walked through the empty lobby. “Our suspect had been killing with no fear of being caught, which means he knows how your department and the President’s protective services work and has planned accordingly. He doesn’t know how the Bureau works, so he’s stopping long enough to gather whatever intelligence he needs to feel comfortable moving forward. That speaks of a man with military training, and someone close enough to his victims to be sure he can pull off his plans no matter what unexpected obstacles arise. This isn’t some loon.”

  “So how do we stop him?”

  “Just keep doing what we’ve been doing. We keep investigating until we find the key piece of information that leads us to him and hope he doesn’t add to the body count until we do, because I don’t think we’re going to get lucky and have him make a mistake that gets him caught.

  “By the way,” Del Rio added as a thought struck him. “I know you were close to Runningelk. How well did you know the other two victims?”

  “I knew of Hoskie. Never had much interaction with him,” she replied.

  “What about Kinlichee?”

  “Martin was a very good friend of my parents,” Chee answered in a voice filled with sorrow. “After my parents were killed, he made sure my grandmother and I were taken care of. Saw to it that I got to college, and had a job here when I got back. He was a great man and I owe him quite a lot.”

  “I noticed that neither of them had served in the military. Were they opposed to a specific war, or military service in general by chance?”

  “Hardly,” Chee said a slight defensive tone creeping into her voice. “They encouraged more than a few to sign up to help pay for college, or to straighten out an occasional hard case they knew could be salvaged. Why do you ask?”

  “Just trying to find the common thread that links them all to our killer.”

  “But the letter…”

  “I know what the letter says,” Del Rio interrupted. “We shouldn’t discount the possibility that the letter was intended to throw us off track. For what it is worth, I don’t think the letter is a red herring, but the best way to screw up an investigation is to start treating assumptions as absolute fact before they’ve been proven as such.”

  Chee had to concede the point as she pulled the car out of the lot, turning east to catch the loop running around the southern half of town and intersecting the highway that would take them to the Zuni Pueblo. Del Rio marveled at the layout of the town; homes, businesses and other buildings seemed to have been wedged into any available open space between the rocky hills. There were very few areas of flat land or green grass to be found, with the exception of the golf course they were now passing.

  “There’s a limited water supply,” Chee explained after he’d asked about the houses with decorative rock and gravel front yards. “A few years ago, they paid everyone to convert from grass yards to rock and concrete. They have a few parks, school yards, a
nd the course over there. So there’s a little bit of green, but not much. I suppose it seems like a different world compared to where you live.”

  “Different, yes,” Del Rio allowed, “but that doesn’t mean one is any better or worse than the other. What?”

  Chee had given her passenger a strange look.

  “Nothing. It’s just you’re not what I was expecting in an FBI agent.”

  “Better or worse?”

  “Different,” she said with a slight smile.

  “Fair enough,” he said, returning the smile. As they made the thirty-mile drive south, Del Rio was surprised to see the barren rocky hills give way to a thick covering of forest green trees. The wild variety of the natural resources in this area was amazing to him. He could see why people would happily call this area home. Chee interrupted his reverie by getting back to business.

  “So,” she began, “if you are convinced our killer is a Navajo and we’ll find him in Window Rock, then why are we going the opposite direction to meet with two non-Navajo?”

  “You mean beside the fact they are their respective leaders of sovereign nations that officially requested this meeting?”

  “Forgive me, Jack, you don’t strike me as someone who worries about the political niceties.”

  “I am wounded, madam,” he said in mock-seriousness, “but you’re right. We’re going to talk to them because you never know who is going to provide that one piece of information we need. So, we go out, we talk, and we see what happens. One question though, is it common for the Zuni and Hopi to be so chummy with each other? I didn’t get that sense from what I’ve read about the history of the three tribes.”

  “They’re not for the most part,” she replied. “Although the Zuni and Hopi have a common ancestry in the past that we don’t share with them, they tend to get along with each other a little better. For the present time, I think we all just try to tolerate the others’ existence and call it good enough.”

  “It can’t be easy with the Hopi lands completely surrounded by Navajo territory.”

  “It isn’t. There’s been trouble. Sometimes it got pretty bad and people got killed. It goes back well over a few hundred years. Like I said, nowadays we just try to tolerate each other without it leading to bloodshed. You know, this could be someone, either Hopi, Zuni or Navajo, that is looking to start all that up again.”

  “It could be,” he allowed. “Which is why we will listen to what these two men have to say and go from there.”

  “But you still think it is a Navajo behind this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t hold it against me if I hope you are wrong?”

  “Not at all. All I’m hoping for is that we find whoever it is before he kills too many more people.”

  So do I, Chee thought to herself as she drove into the pueblo and pulled up to the tribal government office. As they got out of the car, Del Rio caught sight of everyone staring at them.

  “Is it me, or are they not used to seeing an NNPD car here?”

  “A bit of both.”

  They went inside and were quickly shown into the Governor’s office. Norman Eriacho, who looked a little young for the job to Del Rio, quickly stood and introduced himself before introducing the older man seated to the side of the Governor’s desk. To Del Rio they looked in general much like the Navajo leaders had, making him wonder if there was more of a common ancestry between the tribes than any of them cared to admit.

  “This is Leroy Sinquah,” Eriacho said, extending his open hand to the seated man. “He is the Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council.”

  Whether it was the fact that neither man had bothered to acknowledge Chee’s presence, just a desire to stir the pot a little to see what might bubble up to the top, or even some other bit of pure mischievousness, Del Rio couldn’t say which drove him to do what he did next.

  “This is Officer Lucy Chee,” Del Rio said with a nod of his head in her direction. “She’s leading the investigation for the NNPD.”

  Eriacho seemed to be uncertain of what to say in response, unsure if the information Del Rio had just shared was true and whether he should start off the meeting with a challenge. For her part, Chee tried to keep a neutral face and not expose her recent promotion. The old Hopi’s eyes twinkled in merriment for a moment before he stood up and shook Chee’s hand.

  “Then I have no doubt that justice will be served with such competent investigators on the case,” Sinquah said as he turned to shake Del Rio’s hand as well. The old man hadn’t been the least bit fooled by Del Rio’s gambit. The FBI Agent was certain that Sinquah, who reminded him of the grandfatherly type that would sneak a piece of candy to a grandsire with a conspiratorial wink behind a parent’s back, had initiated this meeting here in Zuni far away from prying eyes that would wonder what he had to say.

  Del Rio noted that while Eriacho wore a blue business suit that could have been found in any boardroom in the country, Sinquah was dressed much more casually. His royal purple shirt, blue jeans and tan boots were all plain enough, but the man was attired in all manner of jewelry from rings, to a turquoise bolo tie and an oval silver belt buckle littered with turquoise and corral stones that was about the size of a softball.

  With a better idea of who the players were in this little set piece, it just remained to be seen what the endgame was, and Del Rio got right to business by asking Sinquah why he’d asked for this meeting.

  “We have heard much of what has been happening on your lands in the last two days,” Sinquah said with a quick look at Chee. “We are naturally concerned with any unrest.”

  “Especially if it could spill over to either of your lands,” Del Rio added. “More so for your people, I would imagine, Chairman, than for the Zuni.”

  “Indeed. There has not always been peace between our tribes. Recently at least, there has not been too much trouble. Should whoever is behind this succeed with their plans against the Diné, they might then turn to bringing back the old troubles.”

  “Excuse me,” Del Rio interrupted. “The Diné would be?”

  Sinquah merely looked over at Chee who quickly answered.

  “Diné is what my people call ourselves, Jack. Navajo is a white man’s term.”

  “Ah,” he replied. “Chairman, I can understand your concerns. It is our hope to wrap this up as soon as possible. So far, as you also must know, we don’t have much in the way of any solid suspects. Can you think of anyone specifically who would want to cause this kind of upheaval?”

  “There are always those from both tribes looking to cause trouble,” Sinquah said. “None that I would have considered a serious threat, nor of being capable of doing what has been done.”

  “What about the three murdered Council members?” Del Rio asked, thinking of Yazzie’s mention of a new casino in the western part of the reservation. “Was there any business connection or any contentious issue between them and someone in your tribe?”

  Del Rio had been watching Sinquah carefully as he asked his question, but he could still see Eriacho’s face in his peripheral vision. Del Rio thought he saw the slightest flicker of something flash across the older man’s face; it was so fast he wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it. The young Governor on the other hand had a lousy poker face for a politician, and there was no mistaking his reaction. The answer should be yes, but Del Rio wasn’t the least bit surprised when it wasn’t.

  “I can’t answer for the three dead councilors’ business relationships,” Sinquah said, “nor can I speak of any possible connection between them and someone from my people.”

  There had been something in the way Sinquah had delivered his answer that struck Del Rio as not quite the truth and not quite a lie while leaving no room for Sinquah to be called on it. It was similar to the feeling he’d had while speaking with Yazzie the day before.

  Chee stepped into the conversation with a couple of questions while Del Rio debated whether or not to push the old man and try to shake loose more of what he clearly d
idn’t want to share. Something inside of him told him not to push the issue — at least not right now. So when the conversation seemed to be winding down, Del Rio decided to steer them toward an end to the meeting so they could get moving on to their next interview of the day, but Sinquah beat him to the punch.

  “We have taken enough of your time,” Sinquah said, standing up. “I am sure you have many more people to interview. Thank you for coming.”

  “It was our pleasure, Chairman, Governor,” Del Rio replied, grateful for the easy out.

  He followed Chee outside, pausing by the car instead of getting in to look around the Pueblo. It had probably been many years since a new building had been erected; they were all looking like they’d seen better days. The most impressive landmark was the huge mountain that loomed over the pueblo. A conical-shaped pile of rocks and dirt with a wide flat top that was barren of much vegetation.

  “It is their sacred mountain,” said Sinquah, who had followed them out to their car. “Legend has it that when the great waters covered the Earth, the Zuni people were saved by fleeing to the top of the mountain where the water could not reach them.”

  “Every culture across the globe has a version of the Great Flood story,” Del Rio replied.

  “Indeed,” Sinquah agreed. “People are not as different as they would like to believe.”

  Del Rio nodded in agreement, wondering where this conversation was leading.

  “I understand you purchased a Zuni fetish yesterday, a white buffalo?”

  “Yes,” Del Rio replied, not hiding his surprise that such a small transaction would be that news worthy to begin with.

  “The buffalo fetish signifies an endurance to overcome,” Sinquah said. “An interesting choice and a fitting one for you, considering your past in general and what you did in London in particular. One of the perks of being a tribal leader is having connections back east who can find things out for me. I fear you may be called upon once again as you were that day in England.”