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

by Richard Paolinelli

  The sun, shining in through the window and waking him up. Even on his days off back home he had always been awake and out of bed before sunrise. As he wondered how late in the morning it was, the sun did rise a little early this time of year, he realized his right hand was resting on the other half of the bed. It was the side of the bed that had obviously been slept in and was now just as obviously not occupied by the person who’d slept in it the night before.

  Surprised by the depth of the disappointment he felt upon that discovery, he cocked his head, trying to hear if Chee might be in the other room, but it was all quiet in there as well; for a few moments at any rate.

  He heard the door open in the other room and the rustle of a paper bag as someone stepped in the room and closed the door. Chee, in uniform, walked in with a white paper bag and two Styrofoam cups.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully, pulling out some type of wrapped food. “How is your arm?”

  “Not bad all things considered. Is it still morning?”

  “Yes,” she replied with a flash of a smile. “I figured you needed the sleep. You’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Indeed,” he said dryly and enjoyed watching the blush flower to life on her cheeks despite her skin coloring.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she protested lightly, handing him one of the wrapped items and a cup of coffee. He shook his head as she picked up the Ibuprofen bottle with a questioning look his way. “You need to eat and get dressed. We’ve got work to do. Not that kind of work either.”

  She felt the blush again as Del Rio lifted an eyebrow at her while she set the pill bottle back down.

  “Very well,” he said, letting her off the hook as he sat up and took the offered items. “So what’s for breakfast?”

  “There’s a donut shop in town that makes the most incredible breakfast burritos,” she said, unwrapping hers as she spoke. “You can’t come to Gallup without trying the place.”

  “Sort of like Richard’s?” he asked as he peeled away the wrapping and tried a bite. It actually was pretty good and he made very quick work of it.

  “Satisfied?” she asked and furiously blushed again as the corners of Del Rio’s mouth flinched. “You have a dirty little one-track mind Jack, you know that?”

  “You weren’t complaining about that last night as I recall.”

  Del Rio leaned forward suddenly and stole a quick kiss before taking pity on her.

  “You’re right though, we need to get the day started,” Del Rio said. “We need to talk about a few things as soon as we wrap this case up. Agreed?”

  “I’d like that a lot,” she said and deftly leaned over to steal a kiss of her own. “Now hit the shower so we can get to that talk faster.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied as she left the room, and caught himself wondering if she’d ever considered trying for the Academy in Quantico.

  He’d just barely finished showering, shaving and dressing, which wasn’t easy with one forearm in a cast, even one wrapped in plastic to keep out the water, and was down to his last remaining complete suit he noted, when his cell phone went off. The caller ID read a Phoenix area code.

  “Del Rio,” he said as he accepted the call, putting it on speaker so Chee could listen in.

  “Jackie, you are one scary man, my friend,” Cooper said without preamble.

  “How’s that?”

  “Most people would have accepted the original tests results and moved on,” Cooper replied. “You were right to look deeper.”

  “What did you find?”

  “A real devil’s brew, brother,” Cooper said, “in every sample you sent up, except for the one with your name on it I might add. I doubt they’d have found it even if they’d been looking for it with a basic lab. It’s a form of Rohypnol with a masking agent specifically designed to hide it from standard testing.”

  “A date rape drug?”

  “A form of it, which is why they didn’t find it in the first place. Since there was no sign of sexual assault, who would think to look for it? Still, even if someone had thought to test for it, the masking agent would probably have been good enough to keep a standard lab blind to its presence.”

  “But not you?”

  “I am not standard, brother Jackie.”

  “No, Bart, you most definitely aren’t,” Del Rio agreed. “You said there was some other stuff mixed in?”

  “Yeah, all sorts of nastiness. You give someone a hit of this and you could make them do whatever you wanted; not only would they do it, they’d never remember it. You could probably even convince them they’d done something else entirely.”

  “Could you convince them they’d seen something that wasn’t really there instead of what they should have actually seen, with this stuff?”

  “Easily, Jackie,” Cooper said. “A zombie would have more willpower than someone with this stuff flowing in their system.”

  “Do you know how it is administered?”

  “Could be several ways to do it. They could have inhaled or ingested it. Absorbed it through their skin would be the best bet. I doubt it was injected since no needle marks showed up in any of the autopsies.”

  “So at least know we know how. If we find some up here that matches what you have, we have solid proof for an arrest.”

  “I’m not finished yet, Jackie. Rohypnol is illegal as hell up here, and we try real hard to keep it out. Mostly it’s made all over South America, but we can usually pinpoint which country a given batch is from. With all the extra goodies mixed into this particular blend, I can almost tell you what city if you needed to know.”

  “So where was this stuff cooked up?”

  “Uruguay,” Cooper said. “Probably pretty close to Montevideo.”

  Del Rio looked up sharply at Chee and knew the same look on her face that was sitting on his. They had a prime suspect who frequently traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay.

  Shelly!

  “Bart, I owe you big. Put everything together and e-mail me your report, copy it to Collins, and to the Navajo Nation PD, too. Great job, Coop.”

  Del Rio ended the call and dialed up Tso.

  “Call Shirley,” he instructed Chee as he listened to Tso’s phone ringing, “and tell him to arrest that son-of-a-bitch right now.”

  Chee nodded, grabbed her phone and called her boss as Tso answered Del Rio’s call.

  “Tso,” she heard Del Rio say, “it’s definitely Shelly, no doubt about it. Call whoever has eyes on him and tell them to take him down right now. What’s that?”

  Del Rio’s eyes narrowed as he listened for a moment, then reached for a pad and pen and started writing furiously.

  “How do we get there from here?” he asked, and more writing followed. “The search warrant should cover that too. We’ll meet you out there. Call me when they have him hooked up.”

  Chee’s call to Shirley ended at the same time and they exchanged what they’d heard as they headed outside.

  “Tso said the records search turned up a plot of land right next to the Hopi Reservation that was owned by a late aunt of Shelly’s. There’s nothing out there but an old barn now. What do you want to bet we’re going to find some Rohypnol and a lot of other evidence out there? Tso is having his men arrest Shelly now.”

  “Shirley is telling his people to arrest him, too, if they see him first,” Chee reported. “We’ve got him Jack, it’s over.”

  “Almost Lucy, almost,” he replied. “I’ll feel better once we have him cuffed in a cell with something to tie him directly to the drug found in the victims, but we’re definitely close to the end for sure.”

  They drove out to the location and found Tso and a few of his men waiting for them. Before they entered the old weathered barn, Tso delivered some bad news.

  “Shelly gave my men the slip,” Tso said glumly. “We’ve got a bolo out on him and every agency in the region has an eye out for him. We’ve notified every airport in the area in case he tries to leave the country. He won’t get far.�
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  “Okay,” Del Rio said, knowing the FBI would pick up the “be on the lookout” alert and transmit it nationally and internationally. “Let’s get in there and see what we can find.”

  What they found was the final nail in Shelly’s coffin. Tarp-covered tables lined the walls; underneath were boxes of pills, packets or powder, large bottles of liquid, and what appeared to be aerosol sprayers filled with the same clear liquid as in the bottles, as well as other drug-related equipment and paraphernalia. Del Rio had no doubt the material would match the drug Cooper had found in his tests. Shelly wasn’t just attacking a threat to traditional Navajo ways, he was trying to keep his illegal drug trade a secret too.

  “We’ve made our case,” Del Rio said to Tso and Chee. “Now, let’s go bag our man.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Shelly had made many contacts during his trips to Uruguay. Most were legitimate businesses, but many were not. One of them paid off for him more than he could have ever hoped. When Cooper had pinned a country to the drug cocktail his testing had uncovered, he had called a government lab in Montevideo to confirm his findings.

  It was pure bad luck for the investigators that the man Cooper had spoken with was on the payroll of the local drug producers. Cooper had barely hung up before the man called his criminal friends to warn them, and they, in turn, had contacted Shelly. Ten minutes before Del Rio had ordered his arrest, Shelly slipped away from his house.

  His first instinct was to head for the old barn and dispose of everything out there. But, observing from a small pine grove, Shelly could see that Tso was already there, with too many men.

  How had they found it, and so fast? Shelly wondered bitterly as he retreated back to a car that could not be traced back to him, at least so he hoped, but his confidence level was not so high at the moment. It had to be that damned Fed from D.C. that Yazzie had called in.

  He’d almost caught Shelly in Window Rock after interrupting his attempt to kill the President. If Del Rio had been half a second faster, he wouldn’t have picked up the coyote’s trail and missed Shelly hiding in a small cut in the rocks. How that damned fool Dineh had missed at point blank range was beyond comprehension. He had escaped detection that day as well. No one had noticed what had appeared to be just another cop in the room, nor had anyone noticed him borrowing and returning the coat and hat he’d found in an open office, but the cat was out of the bag and every law officer in the country would be looking for him now.

  He should go to ground. Uruguay was out, but there were other countries nearby that he had contacts in. He could start over down there and make a good life for himself. No! That would mean Yazzie would win again, and that was something he could never live with. It was bad enough the arrogant punk had beaten him out of the one job he wanted most, then he wanted to hand over land his people had fought and died for, and ruin a perfectly lucrative business as well. He could not accept that. Not ever.

  He’d barely concealed his horror when the Walker woman had approached him about joining their odious conspiracy; pretended to go along with it only long enough to find out who was involved and punish them for their crimes against their people.

  Smuggling the hybrid Rohypnol drug into the U.S. had provided Shelly with plenty of untraceable cash, and using it on his enemies to exact his vengeance on them bordered on divine justice.

  Kinlichee had been sound asleep in his bed when Shelly had entered the house in his Coyote guise. A quick blast of the drug in an aerosol form and the old man was helpless to do anything but obey the order to get up, go to the kitchen and wait for Coyote to administer a large enough dose of the drug to kill him while making it look like a heart attack suffered in the kitchen. It had been much the same scenario with Hoskie, as he, like Kinlichee, never locked his front door.

  Runningelk however had been a little more of a challenge. Shelly ambushed Runningelk with the aerosol spray just as the young man stepped out of his bedroom. The idea to make the investigation as difficult as possible was quickly formed, and just as quickly executed.

  Shelly loaded the compliant man into the trunk of his car and drove to within three miles of where the body was eventually found. Taking the still drugged man out of the car, Shelly ordered him to run to a certain point as fast as he could and then stop and wait for Coyote to come and finish him off.

  When he needed to keep a witness, or even a patsy, alive to give false testimony, he had found several ways to use the drug effectively. Until his failed attack on Yazzie, it had all worked out to perfection.

  He had managed to slip a small dose of the drug into Yazzie’s coffee and implant the suggestion to go to the roof at a certain time. Under the guise of personally thanking each man for their service as Yazzie’s protectors, he administered each a small dose with instructions to allow Yazzie to leave the room without question.

  It had all gone like clockwork until that damned FBI Agent had interfered and prevented Shelly from sending Yazzie to his death. He’d do that much at least before he left his homeland for good, he resolved. He’d finish what he started with Yazzie, and take out that smug Del Rio, too. If he played his cards right, he might be able to leave a parting gift for that Chee bitch as well.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  With every cop on the reservation looking for Shelly under every bush or tree, there was little need for Chee or Del Rio to get in the way. Before getting back into the car, Del Rio made the decision to head back to the hospital in Gallup.

  “He’s got some unfinished business,” Del Rio explained when Tso asked why they were heading back. “I can’t help but think he’s got to make one more try for Yazzie, and if your men, or Shirley’s, can’t run him to ground, then that’s where we’ll find him.”

  “You may be right,” Tso allowed. “As soon we’ve secured all of this, I’ll be right behind you. If he wants another shot at Ben, he’ll have to go through me first.”

  As they crossed the state line back into New Mexico, Del Rio put in a call to the nurse’s station, but no one answered. The same held true when he asked the switchboard to connect him to the hospital’s security. Concerned, he called Tso and asked him to call his men and ask for an update. Less than a minute later Tso called back and reported that he couldn’t reach them.

  “We’ll be there in two minutes,” Chee said as she floored the accelerator. Knowing just how much could happen during the interval, it was a very long two minutes before their car skidded to a halt in front of the hospital.

  Chee was out and running first because the cast on Del Rio’s arm got hung up in the seat belt, slowing him down for just a second or two. Knowing the stairwell closest to Yazzie was locked and the elevators would be too slow, they dashed for the second stairwell located at the opposite end of the main wing and charged up the stairs.

  Chee held her lead over Del Rio all the way down the hallway of the second floor and reached Yazzie’s room first. A quick check of the room assured her both Yazzie and his wife were alive and well, appeared to be sleeping, but there was no sign of the two men who were supposed to be standing guard inside.

  Del Rio had stopped short of Yazzie’s room, listening for word from Chee as he puzzled over a lone white shoe lying behind the counter at the nurse’s station. Stepping closer he spotted a drop of blood, then another, leading around the opposite corner.

  He reached back for his gun and turned to alert Chee just as he felt the cold bite of a steel blade drive into him from behind and near his right shoulder. The force of the blow drove his whole body forward and down, his head crashing directly into the edge of the counter. A blinding flash of white before everything went black, and Del Rio crumpled lifelessly to the floor.

  Chee had been stepping back to the door when she heard the loud thump of Del Rio falling and made her first mistake. She stepped out into the hall before reaching for her own weapon and found herself immediately confronted by Shelly, dressed up in his coyote skin outfit, a gun in one hand leveled directly at her. While she couldn’t
see it clearly, it looked like Shelly was holding a knife of some sort in his other hand and she could see the blood dripping onto the floor from it. All she could see of Del Rio was the lower half of two unmoving legs. There was no way of knowing if he was dead or alive.

  “That’s right officer,” Shelly said. “Keep coming out here and take out your gun, nice and slow.”

  Chee weighed her options and liked none of them. She doubted she could get the gun out and a shot off before Shelly could fire, and she was too far away to lunge for his gun. For now, she could only hope that Del Rio could get back into action, which seemed unlikely, or that Tso wasn’t too far behind.

  She gently eased the gun out, lowered it to the floor, and stood up with her hands extended.

  “Good girl,” Shelly said. “Now kick it away. Well away.”

  She did as instructed, glaring at Shelly.

  “Still defiant?” Shelly asked, taunting her. “Your father had the same look on his face you know, the night I killed him and your mother. He thought he could take me and be the hero, too. I enjoyed showing him otherwise.”

  “You didn’t kill my parents,” Chee snarled.

  “No?” Shelly sneered as he brought forward his left hand so she could get a clear look at what it held. “Look familiar?”

  It most certainly did. She’d seen that one-of-a-kind blade in her head for years as she imagined what it looked like based on the coroner’s drawing from her parents’ autopsy reports. She felt the blood drain from her face as the shock hit her. Shelly chuckled, enjoying the moment as he watched the emotions play across her face.

  “Fitting isn’t it?” he taunted. “The first two people I killed as a civilian all those years ago, and here I get to kill their one and only child. It’s almost worth all the trouble you and your boyfriend here have caused me.”