Del Rio could feel Chee’s eyes on him. He had mentioned his assignment in England without sharing any particulars last night at dinner, especially those regarding the day Sinquah was clearly referring to here. How the old man had found out about it escaped Del Rio. There wasn’t supposed to be that many people who knew and those that did were supposed to be keeping quiet about it.
“Sir, I am not sure what you’ve heard,” Del Rio began carefully, “but there are many cases I am not at liberty to discuss freely…”
“Yes, I know,” Sinquah said. “We all have our secrets that we are bound to keep, don’t we? Even cloaked from the truth the buffalo endures and overcomes.”
“I guess we do,” Del Rio said, wondering if the old man was trying to tell him there was something being hidden by the tribal leaders after all; that he needed to keep digging along that line. If this was so, then a clue on how to proceed would be helpful.
“It is good that you did not choose the coyote,” Sinquah continued, still looking at the mountain. “The coyote is the master trickster, especially so for the Diné, but every tribe is wary of him. He shows many different faces, especially to those he is trying to trick, to further his evil goals. Fortunately though, he always seems to trick himself in the end.”
Sinquah turned to face Del Rio and carefully regarded him for a moment before continuing.
“I was wondering if you would do me a favor?”
“If I can,” Del Rio answered, surprised and still trying to sort out any hidden meanings in the old man recitation of Native American folklore.
Sinquah reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a small figurine attached to a silver chain. He held it out for Del Rio to see.
“This is what we Hopi call a Katsina,” Sinquah said. “The white man called them Kachinas. Your people like to change the names of things. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Usually, they are much larger dolls than this. We sometimes make them small enough to be worn. This one is an Eagle Katsina. It is a warrior-protector, much like you yourself are in your world. I would like you to wear it while you are here. Your belief system would not agree of course, but there are many evil spirits lurking near these lands, and this will help keep them from you.”
Del Rio looked at the figurine a little askance. It looked to be no more than two inches in height and was a humanoid figure. It wore a mask that looked like the head of an eagle and the arms were cloaked in brightly colored feathers that gave the appearance of wings. Whoever had carved it, much like the young girl’s buffalo he’d bought, had done a fantastic job. It was an incredible piece of art, but he wasn’t too sure he wanted to wear the thing, so he tried to find a diplomatic way to decline the offer.
“Humor an old man,” Sinquah added as he noticed Del Rio’s reluctance, “if nothing else.”
What the hell, Del Rio thought, what can it hurt? And maybe it will buy me an answer or two later on down the line. Relenting, Del Rio dipped his head forward and the old Hopi slipped the chain around Del Rio’s neck.
“There,” Sinquah said with a gentle pat on the figurine as it nestled against Del Rio’s tie. “Now you are properly prepared, so I will let you be on your way. I wish you both good hunting.”
With a wave of his hand the old man retreated back into Eriacho’s office as they got into the car and Chee drove them out of the Pueblo. After two minutes of silence, Del Rio finally decided to meet it head on. When he had told Chee about his time in London, he’d omitted that particular incident. He could feel her curiosity like a weight on his head.
“You have a question to ask?”
“You never said anything major happened while you were overseas.”
“And you’re wondering why I didn’t tell you?” Del Rio finished. “The main reason is that there aren’t a whole lot of people in the entire world who are supposed to know that story. How Sinquah found out is going to be the subject of a very intense internal investigation at the Bureau, and the loss of someone’s head when I get back home.”
He debated with himself just how much he should tell her, but since it seemed the cat was out of the bag anyway, he decided one more set of ears hearing it wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
“Basically, there was a plot against one of the royals and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, depending how you look at it. The bottom line is I was the only one standing between them and their target. By the time the smoke cleared from the shooting, the royal was safe, no innocent bystanders were hurt, I was in one piece, and six terrorists were dead.”
“You should be proud. You did your job.”
“Have you ever killed anyone, line of duty or otherwise, Lucy?” Del Rio asked softly.
“No.”
“Good,” he replied. “Let’s hope you never have to. It changes you forever, and not always in a good way. Don’t get me wrong. Given the same set of circumstances, I’d do it all over again. I know I can pull that trigger and take a life if I have no other choice, but I hope and pray I never have to kill someone again, no matter the justification. Every day that goes by and I don’t pull that trigger and end a life,” he continued looking at her with an intensity that unsettled her, “I get back a little piece of the person I used to be before that day.”
With that he turned away and stared out the window at the passing trees, lost in thought. Probably reliving that day, Chee thought as she wondered how she would react if she had to take one life, not to mention six as he had. They had crossed into Arizona, taking a different route back to Window Rock that would not take them back through Gallup, before he spoke to her again.
“Did you get the impression back there that Sinquah was trying to tell us something without coming out and saying it straight out?” Del Rio asked.
“You mean like he knew more than he could let on and it was up to us to figure out what?”
“Something like that, and with no clue where to start added on just to make it really hard,” Del Rio paused as a thought struck. “He seemed to hit the coyote reference pretty hard. Is there some special significance in your culture about coyotes?”
“Not coyotes, plural,” Chee answered. “Coyote. Singular. Coyote is a prominent figure in many Navajo legends, including the creation of the world.”
“How so?”
“When Begochiddy — that’s the child of the sun in our legends — created the world,” she explained, “Coyote was one of the six beings that already existed. Coyote was always close to the Grandfather Spirit, even as he tried to trick him, too.”
“Coyote helped Grandfather Spirit create man and woman,” Chee continued. “He was granted many magical powers so he could transform himself into anything he wished. He often used those powers to play tricks on others. In every case, no matter how hard he tried, he always managed to give himself away to his victims, and they would know what he had done.”
“So our Hopi friend is telling us that he doesn’t know exactly who the killer is,” Del Rio said slowly, working out the theory he was forming, “but he has good reason to think it is someone close to Yazzie, who could even be pretending to be a friend to Yazzie even as he is trying to kill him. Is that how you read it?”
“It would make sense.”
“So we’re looking for someone high up in the political food chain, someone who might have initially been strongly opposed to Yazzie when he was first elected, but has recently been more supportive in public or a little less vocal in opposition at the least. Sound like anyone you know?”
“Unfortunately,” Chee said wryly, drawing a questioning look from Del Rio, “because that description matches the Vice President, the Speaker, the Chief and most of the Council. A lot of them were very vocal in their opposition. Since then they have gradually swung over to his way of thinking and have been friendlier to him and his proposals. I thought it was because he’d begun to convince them to give him a chance before, but now…”
“Now you don’t
know which have genuinely swung to his support and which are faking it?”
“Something like that.”
“I was afraid of that,” Del Rio said, settling back in his seat.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“If you are certain it is someone close to Ben,” Chee began. “Then why are we going so far out of the way to talk to someone you don’t think is a suspect?”
“Because,” Del Rio replied with a sly smile, “you and I are being very closely watched every step of the way right now by a lot of curious people, including, in all probability, our unknown suspect. We are expected to roust this Tolchini, so that is what we will go out and do, and let our real target relax a little, thinking he’s tricked us into a wild goose chase. Maybe then he’ll finally trick himself so we can catch him.”
“Hopefully before he kills again.”
“Yeah, we’ve been lucky in that regard. Let’s hope our luck holds out a little longer.”
Chee nodded in agreement as she made the turn onto the small two-lane road that would take them deeper into the reservation, and in all likelihood, further away from the killer they sought.
FIFTEEN
The shortest route to get to Adam MacDonald’s house — no one else on the reservation ever bothered to call him Anaye Tolchini unless it was part of an insult — from Zuni took Del Rio and Chee straight through the chunk of acreage carved out of the Navajo Reservation that made up the Hopi Reservation. Had Chee not pointed out when they’d crossed over, Del Rio would have never known by looking at the landscape as they passed it by.
None of the towns they traveled through, even Kykotsmovi Village which served as Tribal headquarters, looked much different to Del Rio than Window Rock, Chinle, or Ganado had. Within an hour they had driven the entire length of Hopi territory, were once again back on Navajo land and yet were still over an hour from MacDonald’s home in Kaibito.
“The land for this ‘second casino’ Yazzie mentioned,” Del Rio said, struck by a sudden thought “is it anywhere close to the Hopi land or even this Tolchini character?”
“Not really,” Chee answered. “That location is still miles to the west of where we make the turn north to Kaibito.”
“Any sacred or historical significance for either tribe attached to the land?”
“No. Other than it being the closest point on the Res to the Grand Canyon, there really isn’t much of anything out there. Why?”
“Sitting in a car with nothing to do for hours at a time gives me plenty of time to start wondering if I’ve dismissed something I shouldn’t have and start second guessing everything. Sorry.”
Del Rio stewed over his thoughts for a few more moments, then shook his head dismissively. No, the casino story hadn’t rung true with him or Chee either, and MacDonald didn’t strike Del Rio as a match for their suspect’s profile. Still, he knew that the more information available, the better the chances of their being able to close this case.
“So tell me more about our friend MacDonald. Why the name change to Tolchini?”
“He’s not much younger than me,” Chee replied, wondering where this question was leading. “Couldn’t quite make the grades for college so he stayed on the Res. A couple of years ago, he made a big show of changing his name and proclaiming the Diné had lost their way and needed to return to the old ways.”
“And those ways would be?”
“Well I doubt he wanted us to go back to living in teepees and riding horses bareback,” Chee quipped, “but the general idea was that the white man’s way of living had corrupted the Diné and we needed to reject it. More blue corn flour and less Big Macs. No offense.”
“None taken. I prefer to know what type of animal I’m eating in my hamburger myself,” Del Rio replied, adding a slight smile to let her know he was joking. “So other than making grand proclamations of the lost ways of yesteryear, what else has he done?”
“He comes all the way in from Kaibito to attend all of the Council sessions, somehow without a car or truck, and generally makes himself as big a pain in the ass as he can. Other than talking a lot, he doesn’t do much else.”
“Making him even less likely to be capable of committing the three murders. So aside from being committed enough to the cause to go to great lengths just to be a thorn in the Tribal Council’s side, what does he do for a living?”
“He’s a taxidermist. Learned the trade from his grandfather and took over the business when the old man died.”
“So he stuffs dead animals. Does he kill them himself?”
“Not that I know of. Mostly he works on whatever local hunters bring in, but he does sell some at a couple of tourist traps in and around the Res.”
“So our Big Macs are evil but our money is just fine?”
“Even a true believer has to eat, Jack,” she said.
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
Del Rio processed what he knew about MacDonald as they continued on. As they neared Kaibito he had an idea on how to quickly wrap up their visit with the Navajo anarchist.
“I have a favor to ask,” Del Rio began. “When we get there, let me do all of the talking and follow my lead with as little reaction as you can.”
“Why?” Chee asked, her eye narrowing suspiciously. “You’re not thinking of violating Mr. MacDonald’s civil rights are you?”
“Violate?” Del Rio replied with a feigned air of innocence. “Never. Wouldn’t dream of it. Ruffle a feather or two of said rights? Now that is something entirely different.”
“Jack, even out here you can’t…”
“Relax,” Del Rio said. “I’m not going to shoot him. I’m not even going to pull my weapon. He likes to talk a big game, but doesn’t seem to have what it takes to back up the talk. If I push him hard enough we might kill two birds with one stone. Get him to quickly confirm what you and I suspect, that he isn’t our killer, and maybe crack loose some kernel of information we need he otherwise might not volunteer. At least we might be able to make the long drive out here worth it.”
“Okay,” Chee said after a few moments, “but I can’t let you go too far without stepping in or saying something, Jack.”
“I know. Trust me, you won’t have to.”
I hope not, Chee thought to herself, still uneasy with Del Rio’s unspoken plan. MacDonald’s property was barely within the city limits of Kaibito, and his home was more an old mobile home that had grown additional wings of sheet metal and old weathered posts wandering off in every conceivable direction. To call the place a dump would be insulting to all of the dumps in the world.
The dilapidated door that served as the only visible entrance looked to be tilted to the point of being unusable and was guarded by one of MacDonald’s works, a large stuffed black bear. Del Rio reached up to touch the extended paw and Chee saw a look of puzzlement flash across his face as he rubbed his fingers through the fur. Before she could ask about it, the door creaked open loudly and MacDonald stepped outside.
“What do you want?’ he demanded angrily.
“Agent Del Rio, FBI,” Del Rio said, flashing his badge so quickly that MacDonald barely registered seeing it. “This is Chee, my driver. I have some questions for you if you are Adam MacDonald.”
Chee wondered at what point in their journey from Zuni she’d been demoted from ‘lead investigator’ to plain old ‘driver’ and only barely managed to keep any reaction from showing on her face.
“Yeah,” MacDonald shot back. “You got a warrant?”
“Sure don’t.”
“Then screw you, I know my rights. No warrant, no talking.”
“Yep, that would be how it would work,” Del Rio agreed, “if we were in United States territory, but as you like to point out, Adam, this is Navajo land, and I am operating under the authority of the Navajo President who’s given me carte blanche. Which means I don’t need a warrant and you will answer my questions.”
With that, Del Rio planted his open palm in MacDonald�
��s chest and powered him through the doorway and back into the house. Chee followed, wondering if this is what Del Rio considered ruffled feathers, then what would he consider outright violations?
She had never been inside MacDonald’s home before, but she wasn’t the least surprised at what she saw now. It was a mess, and the smell was little better. If a cleaning crew went at it for a full day she doubted it would make much difference. Books, papers, and magazines littered the floor, every table and counter, some held in place by examples of MacDonald’s work. The kitchen was a disaster area she decided to avoid as much as possible to keep her lunch down.
As she inspected the interior, Del Rio and MacDonald were engaged in conversation that ran from outright belligerence on MacDonald’s part, to insulting on Del Rio’s. When MacDonald tried to get his tormentor to call him by his assumed name, Del Rio finally got in the insult that pushed MacDonald over the edge.
“Look chief,” he began, and even Chee felt some offense at the tone, “I really don’t care if you want to call yourself Geronimo and stuff your face with blue corn tortillas in your jammies. I’m here to find out who killed three members of your tribal council and you seemed to be just as good a suspect as any until now that I’ve gotten a good look at you.”
“And why is that FBI?” MacDonald fired back, his face beet red.
“You,” Del Rio said, somehow finding a way to dial up his insulting tone another notch, “sneak up on James Runningelk, slash his throat and dump his body in a trash bin? Walk right up to Martin Kinlichee and bash in his skull with a baseball bat? Douse Rick Hoskie with gasoline and set him on fire? A little shit like you, do all of that? I doubt you could even swat a fly.”
Chee was more than slightly confused. That was not the way any of them had died and Del Rio knew it. Then it hit her, he was laying some type of trap for MacDonald and she noticed Del Rio was ignoring what MacDonald was saying, intently reading his face.
“Well that shows you how smart you are FBI,” MacDonald sneered, “because that’s exactly what I did. I killed all three just like that.”
Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames Page 11