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

by Richard Paolinelli

  “At least Yazzie will be safe if we have one or both in custody,” Tso said as they made their way to the elevator. By the time they returned to the emergency room Yazzie was ready to be moved.

  Small armies had moved with a lot less noise and much less activity than Yazzie’s transfer manifested. Dozens of armed officers swarmed around the gurney and the accompanying medical staff moving Yazzie as they made their way to the double elevators.

  The scene turned comical as they got to the doors and realized not everyone was going to fit into the two cars in one trip. A compromise was worked out, sending two groups of officers up first, with the second trip reserved for Yazzie, the medical people and Tso crammed into the one car, with Del Rio and Chee joining a small group of Gallup PD in the second car on the second run. The rest of the protective detail brought up the rear on the third trip.

  Once Del Rio was satisfied Yazzie was settled in and was as safe as humanly possible, he motioned for Chee and they headed back to the elevator. Tso caught up with them while they waited for the car to come back up.

  “Del Rio,” Tso called out, “find something, anything; whatever it takes to get one or both in custody. I think we got lucky today that Ben wasn’t killed. I don’t think we can count on luck much longer.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Del Rio promised.

  It turned out to be a colossal waste of time. They’d scoured the homes of Jim and Shelly without finding anything the least incriminating. There was no sign of the coyote pelt at Shelly’s home, which really neither confirmed nor denied Shelly’s story of giving it away on a Uruguayan liaison. They did find receipts covering several trips to the South American country confirming that much of Shelly’s story.

  Under the pretense of a bomb threat, they evacuated the government center once they got back to Window Rock. Shirley had just shrugged when Del Rio commented on the unoriginal cover story. They’d quickly searched the two leaders’ offices and had come up just as empty-handed as they had at their residences.

  “Well, it was worth a shot at least,” Shirley stated after they’d slipped back outside while the evacuees worked their way back in. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re on the right track. We just don’t have a shred of evidence to prove it. What?”

  “Nothing,” Del Rio said, the slight smile on his face that had drawn Shirley’s question already fading. “I was just thinking of a book I read recently on Judge Roy Bean. During his entire career on the bench he only ordered two men to hang, but there’s an old quote attributed to him anyway. Turns out he never said it. There sure are a lot of people who still think he did. I was just thinking it might be the only way to solve this case and keep Yazzie alive.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hang them all and let God sort it out,” Del Rio replied dryly.

  Shirley chuckled and almost told Del Rio he wouldn’t mind taking that approach, just this once.

  “We might as well head back to Gallup,” Del Rio continued. “One way or the other, however, this is going to end, and end there. Call me if either of our suspects goes anywhere, work or home, and whatever your people do, don’t let them out of your sight.”

  “Will do,” Shirley said, holding out his hand. “Good luck.”

  He and Chee were getting back into their car when it struck Del Rio that it was never a good sign for any investigator when he started relying on luck as his top chance to break a case. Too much could, and usually did, go wrong before luck smiled on an investigator.

  TWENTY

  Tso was waiting for them when they stepped out of the elevator. He handed Del Rio that afternoon’s copy of the Times.

  “You made the news,” Tso said. “Next to last page of the front section. You can’t miss the headline.”

  The front page story was the attack on Yazzie. Opening up the paper to the page Tso had indicated, Del Rio found an editorial written by Cardosa himself.

  I suppose I got off easy, Del Rio thought ruefully as he read the scathing piece. At least he doesn’t blame me for the last recession and for D.B. Cooper getting away back in the seventies.

  “I should have shipped the son-of-bitch off to Cuba when I had the chance,” Del Rio said aloud.

  “You’d probably be the next President of the Nation, yours and ours, if you had,” Tso said. He’d heard about Del Rio’s run-in with the surly, unpopular reporter. By now the story was all over the reservation, all three in the area for that matter, and probably most of Gallup.

  When Cardosa had come out on the losing end of another physical confrontation with the Mayor a few years back, he’d used his paper to try to get his adversary voted out of office. He dug up every piece of litigation the Mayor had been involved in, and a few he hadn’t been, and tossed in a few innuendos alleging criminal misconduct all the way back to his teen years.

  It obviously hadn’t worked, but that hadn’t stop Cardosa from trying to employ the same tactics against Del Rio. Not having a lot of background information hadn’t seemed to pose much of a problem for Cardosa, who tossed in some dubious conclusions along with a rather loudly proclaimed declaration of Del Rio as an incompetent buffoon.

  Chee read the blistering editorial and was outraged. As usual, Cardosa was hiding behind the shield of the First Amendment to try and bully an adversary. She glanced at Del Rio’s face and was surprised by the lack of emotion. He caught her looking at him and shrugged.

  “Let him go,” Del Rio said. “At the end of the day little men like him just don’t matter. This doesn’t help or hurt us in what is important; finding out who’s behind the murders and stopping them.”

  With that he tossed the paper into a nearby trash can.

  “As good a place as any,” Tso remarked. “My wife used to line the bottom of the birdcage with it until the bird went on strike and refused to poo in his cage until she changed lining material.”

  “Smart bird,” Del Rio quipped with a grateful grin at Tso. “How’s Yazzie?”

  “About the same,” Tso replied as they headed down the hallway. “His wife is with him now. We’re setting up a room for her to stay in across the way. Shirley called in and said you didn’t find anything.”

  “Nothing useful,” Del Rio said, “which is about what we were expecting unfortunately.”

  “It would have been nice to have found something to clear one of them at least so we could bust the other,” Chee interjected, not adding that she’d been hoping they would have found something to pin on Shelly.

  “We will,” Del Rio said with a lot more confidence than she felt he had a right to. “One constant with criminals, they always make a mistake no matter how well the plan or how well the execution. When they do, we’ll have them.”

  Del Rio glanced into Yazzie’s room. Yazzie’s wife was seated with her back to the door holding her husband’s hand as he slept. Two of Tso’s men were stationed inside and were doing their best to give the couple their privacy while still doing their job. Not wanting to intrude either, Del Rio quickly stepped back out of the room and saw Tso waving him over to the nurse’s station.

  Del Rio worked his way over; the area was crawling with Tso’s people and several cops from the Gallup Police including Chief Begay as well as the county Sheriff’s Department. There had to be at least thirty if not forty cops crammed into the sealed off area of the hospital floor. Fortunately for Yazzie his wounds were not so serious that he needed close monitoring by any medical personnel, there simply wasn’t any room for them anywhere near his room. Out of the corner of his eye, he vaguely registered one of the cops talking intently to someone in a fedora and black top coat.

  Someone’s taking the detective bit too far, Del Rio thought bemusedly as he stepped up to Tso.

  “Forgot to tell you earlier,” Tso said as he handed a few sheets of paper to Del Rio. “These were faxed over for you. Looks like military transcripts.”

  “Yeah,” Del Rio said as he read the top page. “I asked a friend back in D.C. to track these down f
or me. Should tell us where Jim and Shelly were during their careers as well as any special training or operations they were involved in. I wanted to see if there was anything they’ve done in the past that would link up with what we’ve seen. Kind of crowded in here isn’t it?”

  “We’re just walking through the setup for the reliefs and night shift so they’ll know what’s going on and won’t leave any holes in our security,” Tso answered. “They’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

  Del Rio scanned the first two pages, but paused at the third. The printing was hard to read and it was impossible to tell if the original had been in poor condition, or if the copying was poor on this end. Del Rio turned to try to get a little more of the ambient light to fall on the page so he could make out what was on it. The turn saved his life.

  The unmistakable popping sound of a gun firing, louder than normal because it was in an enclosed space, was quickly followed by a blinding pain in his left forearm as the bullet smashed into the bone, fracturing it before ricocheting back out and up into the ceiling. The force of the blow sent the papers in Del Rio’s hand flying in every direction as his entire arm went numb.

  Del Rio’s training kicked in through the surprise of the attack and the accompanying pain. Even as he registered others ducking for cover he vaulted over the top of the station and down to the floor just in the nick of time as a second shot smashed into the countertop where his head had been just a second earlier. He landed heavily, right on the already abused arm and took a few seconds to gather himself through a dazzling display of fresh pain before drawing his weapon.

  It occurred to him at that point that he’d only heard two shots and both had been aimed right at him. By now the room should have sounded like a shooting gallery, but no one else, in a room full of armed police, was shooting or even telling whoever was shooting to drop their weapon.

  What the hell is going on over there? Del Rio wondered as he crouched behind the barrier.

  What was going on was pure shock. In a room full of uniformed cops, no one had paid any particular attention to the Gallup cop as she moved toward the FBI Agent. She pulled her gun and fired so quickly that it simply did not register to anyone not diving for cover that she had opened fire. The delay gave her enough time to squeeze off the second round, and had Del Rio been a fraction slower in reacting, it would have been a fatal shot.

  Chee was the first to react, bringing the woman down with a solid flying tackle in the back that drove her heavily into the counter and dislodged the weapon before a third shot could be fired. She had the handcuffs slapped on before any of the other cops started to reach for their weapons, which turned out to be very fortunate. At that moment, Del Rio fired out from the other side, weapon out and level despite being one-handed, looking for anyone holding a gun. Judging from the look on his face, he very well might have shot first and asked questions later. Not that Chee could blame him.

  “Weapons down, nobody move!” he bellowed, eyes tracking for a target.

  “Jack,” Chee called out and only then did Del Rio, adrenaline flowing, realize it had been the third time she’d spoken his name before it registered with him.

  “What?”

  “We got her,” Chee said, pointing at the woman still pinned to the floor. Del Rio looked down, recognizing the cop. He looked back up and quickly scanned the area.

  “Where is he?” he asked aloud, still looking around the room.

  “Where’s who?” asked Tso.

  “The man she was talking to. He looked like a detective with a hat and a black top coat. He was just here, talking with her right before she shot me. Did anyone else see him?”

  Every cop in the immediate area simply shook their head. Tso held Del Rio’s gaze for a moment before pointedly looking down at the still drawn and cocked Glock. Without being the least bit apologetic, Del Rio lowered the weapon and holstered it. Everyone in the room visibly relaxed.

  “I’ll check and see if he’s still in the building,” Tso said, heading for the guarded elevators to check with his men. Chee stood up, keeping a boot firmly planted on the back of the cuffed cop.

  “Jack, your arm,” Chee said with alarm, reaching for the dangling left arm. Blood had soaked through the shirt and jacket sleeve and was dribbling down his hand. She inspected the wound, gently lifting the arm to try to slow down the flow of blood. “It looks like a through and through.”

  “Not quite,” Del Rio replied with a grimace against the now growing pain in his arm. “It chewed on the bone a little on the way. It’s broken.”

  Chee snatched a towel from the station and wrapped the wounded area. Del Rio grabbed the towel and gripped it, putting as much pressure on the wound as he could stand.

  “We need to get you down to ER,” Chee said.

  “You stay here,” Del Rio said with a shake of his head. “Take her down to that break room and keep her there until I get back. No one talks to her but me.”

  Chee nodded and leaned down to haul the woman to her feet. Begay stepped forward to protest.

  “Now wait a minute, that’s one of my officers and you can’t…”

  “That is one of your officers who just tried to murder a Federal Agent in cold blood,” Del Rio interrupted with more than a little heat. “So unless you’d care to explain your officer’s actions Chief, then I suggest you don’t try to tell me what I can and cannot do right now.”

  It was in Begay to push the argument and defend his officer despite his own anger and surprise over her inexplicable actions, right up until he looked in those cold blue eyes. Something in them made him back down without another word.

  “If you want to do something useful,” Del Rio continued, “then clear everyone out of here that does not need to be here at this time.”

  As the room cleared out, Del Rio heard the cop who’d shot him mumbling under her breath. He’d been in the area long enough to recognize she was speaking in Navajo, but he had no clue what she was saying. He asked Chee to translate, and could immediately tell he wasn’t going to like her answer.

  “She’s saying she saw the Coyote,” Chee said quietly. “She says she shot him and he ran away. I don’t think she realizes what she’s really done.”

  Perfect, Del Rio thought.

  “Get her back there,” Del Rio said aloud. “See if you can get something that makes any sense out her while I deal with this arm.”

  Chee nodded and escorted the woman down the hallway. Tso walked back up and took a quick look at the red-stained towel.

  “Come on, let’s get you down there before you bleed out,” Tso said. “There’s no sign of your mystery man anywhere in the hospital.”

  “Of course not.”

  “It gets better,” Tso said as they stepped into the elevator. “I just spoke to Shirley. Both Jim and Shelly are here in the hospital. And before you ask, all their watchers say they never lost sight of either since they arrived here.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if we’re ever going to catch a break,” Del Rio groused as the elevator reached the ground floor and the door slid open.

  “We caught one already,” Tso said as they stepped out. “If you hadn’t been there this morning, I’m thinking Ben Yazzie would be dead right now.”

  Del Rio shot a grateful look at Tso, but before he could say anything a team of medics, alerted by someone upstairs, glommed onto Del Rio and hustled him into a treatment room in the ER. Del Rio fished his Bureau ID and wallet out of his jacket pocket as a nurse started cutting away the left sleeves of his jacket and shirt. Once the material had been cut away, the doctor began examining the wound and the nurse finished by cutting enough of the jacket’s seams to slip the rest of it off without disturbing the doctor.

  Old Man Bernetti is going to lecture me on taking better care of the jackets he makes for me, Del Rio thought, I’d better not let him see what happened to this one.

  A clerk quickly stepped up with forms for Del Rio to sign and he pulled out the medical card used for on-duty r
elated injuries. Once she swiped that card, it would flag the FBI, and Del Rio figured his boss would be on the phone within the hour. As soon as she stepped away, a portable X-ray was wheeled in to snap a picture of Del Rio’s forearm. Over the doctor’s objection, Del Rio refused any strong pain killers, wanting to keep his head clear.

  “It looks like the wound is pretty clean,” the doctor reported, stitching the twin wounds closed after a local anesthetic had numbed the area. The bullet had struck the meaty part of the forearm, closer to the elbow than the wrist. “Depending on how your X-ray comes back, you might get out of here with a light cast.”

  The hospital might have been out in the middle of nowhere, but they had kept up with the technology. Within a few minutes the X-rays popped up on a bedside screen. The fracture was pretty easy to see.

  “Not bad,” the doctor muttered. “Yes, I think we won’t have to insert any screws. We’ll slap a cast on that forearm and you’ll be out of here before you know it. The stitches will melt back into your skin so we won’t have to worry about taking that cast off too soon. Looks like you’ll heal up good as new.”

  “Sounds good to me, doc. Thanks.”

  One of the techs wheeled up a cart and started laying out the materials to wrap the arm.

  “We’ve got all kinds of colors and patterns to choose from,” the tech said, entirely too cheerful for Del Rio’s taste. “We’ve got a really neat electric orange that’s my favorite. So what’ll it be?”

  “Black,” Del Rio replied, his tone dry enough to jerk meat. “Just basic black.”

  “But…”

  “Black.”

  “Okay,” the man said, disappointed. He made quick work of the cast, doing a neat, professional job of it.

  In black.

  ****

  Del Rio had barely signed his discharge papers, gathering up the tattered remains of his jacket on the way out of the ER, when his cell phone rang. Even before he pulled it out to answer the call he knew who’d be on the other end.