Yellow Lies

by Susan Slater

  “You’re going to do okay, Doc. Passed your first test with flying colors.” Rose was beaming. “Your other appointment at eleven no-showed. Oh, I almost forgot. This came for you. Tommy brought it over.”

  Was it a copy of the autopsy? Ben tore open the envelope as he walked back to his office. There were copies of both the autopsy and the police report. He thumbed through the autopsy first. It was more or less what he had expected, no surprises. Ahmed’s death occurred before scalping. Would that be a relief for the widow? Less gruesome, somehow? The weapon used was a blade about five inches in length with an odd knob at the base, a part of the handle, probably a stationery blade. It ruled out switch-blades and most kitchen knives. The report used the word, “stiletto.”

  Ahmed had two wounds—both in the vicinity of the heart. One damaging thrust pierced the intercostal tissue between T4 and T5 vertebrae, penetrating the right ventricle. Did someone know what he was doing or was this done suddenly, without thought? Ben couldn’t control a shudder.

  The next three pages were discussions of organs, and the victim’s general condition. The lungs were bruised. That was to be expected. The man was slightly underweight for his age and height. Unfortunately, not something in his favor—he lacked the depth of tissue that might have kept the wounds from being fatal. Ben flipped to the last few pages.

  Ben had been right. Ahmed had been dead approximately twenty-four hours when found. The scalp wound measured four inches by three inches. It was the opinion of the pathologist that these cuts were not made with the murder weapon but with a razor—one continuous rounded cut and a straight slice across the hairline. Ben put down the report. Certainly, the trader’s death suggested preparedness, an element of planning on someone’s part. But who would kill a man and then decide to scalp him later? Or were two people involved?

  Ben turned to the police report. There was no blood in the vicinity of where the body was found to indicate that he’d been murdered behind Sal’s trailer. But there was evidence that the scalping had been done there. Bits of tissue found under the head bore this out. If Sal wasn’t the murderer, could he be the one who scalped Ahmed? No, that’s too bizarre. What was Ben thinking of? Sal was a bit taciturn now and then but there was no indication that he’d be capable of taking a scalp. Still, it was Sal who led them to the scalp itself. Ben continued to read. The skirting on the trailer had been removed, the body dragged out, lifted and deposited some ten feet from the dwelling. The body had been hidden there for the previous twenty-four hours.

  Ben flipped to the list of effects. Ahmed had been dressed in shirt and jeans, billfold and watch intact, an amber rabbit fetish in his front shirt pocket. There was that rabbit fetish thing again. The tourist had wanted one. Sal seemed spooked by them. Was it some kind of talisman? A lucky charm for the trader—or unlucky, Ben amended.

  According to a notation in the margin, the rabbit was in a gift box with a sales slip that electronically recorded the time of sale as 7:10 p.m. Maybe twenty minutes, twenty-five at the most, before the body was found. Ben leaned forward. It was obvious the trader hadn’t made a purchase. Could the husband of the tourist have gone back to the trading post in search of a gift for his wife? In a lucid moment he bought a rabbit fetish—but from whom? Who would know how to open the cash register? For that matter, the trading post itself? Sal. Sal would have had the keys. But during the interrogation, Sal steadfastly said he was resting in the trailer with his hearing aid out—from the time he left the kitchen to the time Ben found the body. Why’d he lie? Had he been, in fact, out back dragging a body—and how did the fetish end up in the trader’s pocket?

  “I took a chance that you’d be knee deep in that.” Tommy stood in the doorway. “Interesting, no? It sure suggests a whole new line of questioning for our pal Sal.”

  “What’s this about a rabbit fetish? I’m assuming the tourist purchased it, but who could have sold it to him?”

  “Sal, more than likely. Then the old guy goes back to the trailer a little later to talk to his new friend and finds more than he bargained for.”

  “Was there anything special about the fetish?”

  “It was one of Sal’s. Small, but well done.”

  “Have you questioned Hannah?”

  “This morning. She tried to cover for Sal. She said someone could have found the keys under the back mat, helped themselves and opened the trading post.”

  “Wouldn’t the cash register have been locked? Sal wouldn’t leave the keys to that under a mat.”

  “You’re right. I asked her, and she didn’t have an answer.”

  “Who besides Sal and Hannah would be able to ring up a sale? Did you ever ask him if he was in the trading post that night?”

  “I assumed he’d tell me if he hadda been.” Tommy paused and looked at Ben. “And don’t give me any shit about what ‘assume’ stands for.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.” Ben smiled. “Guess this means another visit with Sal.”

  + + +

  Julie hadn’t expected to see Ben back at the house for lunch but since he was with Tommy, it was probably business. Something to do with the break-in, maybe. So, she was surprised to hear them ask about Sal.

  “I think he’s down at the shed,” Julie offered, then decided to tag along. She liked Sal. She even had her own ideas about his involvement in the murder—mainly, that he was innocent. Hadn’t he trusted her with one of his most prized possessions that was sitting in the trunk of her car until she could get into Gallup later?

  No one said she couldn’t go with them. Ben, in fact, seemed to encourage it. It was Tommy who seemed reluctant. But he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She’d have to turn him down if he asked her out. Hadn’t Ben done everything but promise to give their relationship another try? Tommy’s lusting was just a little unnerving. And it wasn’t like Hannah said—she didn’t encourage this. With Tommy it wouldn’t take much inviting. He was barely past the hormone surge of an eighteen-year-old.

  “Hi.” Sal stood in the doorway to his shed a rough, unpolished chunk of azurite in his hand.

  God, we must look like the avengers swooping down on a victim, Julie thought. It wasn’t her imagination. She thought Sal’s eyes had temporarily darted past her, seeking escape. But he stood his ground.

  “I think we need to talk.” This from Tommy in a no-nonsense voice. Whatever it was, Tommy was put out. Thought he shouldn’t have to be here, probably. “I don’t think you’ve told me all there is to tell about the night Ahmed’s body was found,” he said.

  So that was it. It must be something big. Sal stared at the ground, not a yes, not a no, didn’t even blink, just turned and walked back into the shed with three people following and sat at his workbench.

  “If your memory needs a little refresher, read the last item that was found on the body. What does it say that they found in a box with tissue and a sales slip?” Tommy held out a sheet of paper.

  Sal read slowly, then looked up. “A fetish? Who would have sold him a fetish?”

  “I bet that’s what we’d like to know. It’s a good question because the man had been dead for about twenty-four hours which makes it real difficult to go shopping.” Tommy pulled up a chair, and dropped the snideness as he continued. “I want you to think, Sal. Any reason you know of that an amber rabbit fetish should be found on the deceased? One of your carvings?”

  Sal wet his lips. He knows something, Ben thought, something he’s not going to share. Was that a tremor in Sal’s right hand as he pushed away from his workbench?

  “Maybe the tourist bought the rabbit. His wife had wanted one earlier.”

  “And we’re right back where we started. Who could have sold the tourist a fetish? Who was outside, maybe dragging a body behind a trailer—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is that your last word on this?”

  Sal nodded.

  Clearly exasperated, Tommy stood and bent over Sal. “You’re in a heap of doo doo, pal. If I were you,
I’d work on improving that memory.” Tommy walked toward the door. “Were the keys under the mat that evening?” If Tommy had thought to catch Sal off guard, he did a good job, Ben thought as Sal stammered, “They were in my pocket.”

  “Key to the cash register, too?”

  Sal nodded.

  “Anyone have a duplicate set?”

  “Hannah, I guess.”

  “When you left the kitchen earlier—”

  “I went to the trailer, got a drink of water, took out my hearing aid and laid on the bed.” Sal leaned back against the shed wall and closed his eyes. “That’s when I saw Atoshle. I went to the window. His back was hunched, and he was bent over. Then I heard voices. Someone was talking to the kachina.”

  “Did you recognize either voice?” Tommy had returned to sit opposite him.

  “One was deep, a man’s voice I’d never heard before.”

  “The other?” Tommy asked.

  “The old man, the tourist.”

  Tommy rocked back in his chair and stared at Sal. Obviously, from the look on his face, this was the first that Tommy had heard this part of the testimony.

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “I’d swear to it.”

  “But you have no idea who the other voice belonged to?”

  “I’d never heard it before—or since,” Sal volunteered.

  Julie fully expected some admonishment of “why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” but, to his credit, Tommy kept quiet, then he leaned forward.

  “Sal, you’re smart enough to know what this looks like. The skirting on your trailer had been removed, a body which had been under there for twenty-four hours was dragged out and scalped while an old man with Alzheimer’s is off shopping in the trading post, being helped by some stranger who just happens to have keys.” Tommy raked the sides of his burr haircut with both hands. “If you can help me on this one, explain how all these things happened, you give me a call.”

  “So what do you think?” Ben asked as the three of them walked back to the house.

  “It doesn’t look good that Sal didn’t come forward with this stuff about hearing voices and seeing something from his window. And the rabbit fetish seems to place him outside when he swears he was dozing,” Tommy said.

  “Why do you think he might be lying about the fetish?” Julie asked.

  “Why don’t you ask me how I think he could have missed a body being dragged in and out from under the trailer?” Tommy shrugged. “¿Quien Sabe? I just hope he doesn’t come up with any more surprises. I really don’t want to find this man guilty.”

  + + +

  Gallup wouldn’t have been her choice of destination on a hundred degree day but the rental’s air conditioning worked, thank God! She’d be glad of that when she was out of the mountains and in the lower elevation of the plains in the hot, dry heat that radiated off the pavement. But, Julie didn’t mind helping Sal. For whatever reason, he felt he couldn’t ask Hannah to do it—or a relative, and that struck her as odd now that she thought about it. Hannah could have easily gone. She went into Gallup for supplies once a week. But maybe he didn’t want anyone local to know he was hiding a family artifact. Maybe he was breaking some kind of taboo.

  But why didn’t he trust Hannah? Unless he knew that someone had been in his trailer while he was in jail, had taken the twelve thousand dollars, and he wanted to play it safe but not arouse suspicion. Maybe, he did suspect Hannah. No, that didn’t make sense. He seemed to genuinely like her. He always stood up for her, anyway.

  Julie drove the length of Gallup’s main street, one of those Out West kind of main drags that divided commerce into two sides of the street that could be called a “downtown.” Malls had appeared later sometime in the fifties. And it was across from one of these strips of green concrete buildings that housed an insurance company, Furr’s supermarket, Bible bookstore, Goodwill, and pawn shop that she saw the depot.

  Out here, if you didn’t have a car, a bus could make the difference between getting to places like Joseph City or Winona, Arizona and staying home. There were no planes. The largest airport of any size would be in Albuquerque. The Santa Fe Railroad had only two trains a day—the eastbound Amtrak and the westbound. No, Greyhound was alive and well in Gallup, New Mexico with good reason.

  Julie parked to the side of the building. There were four buses under a covered area connected to the terminal. Two were charters promising the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with stops in the Painted Desert and Flagstaff. One looked to be full of elderly tourists. Another bus was still loading; its luggage compartment filled quickly with boxes, grocery sacks and plastic-sided luggage. The message strip in the bus’s front window read: Window Rock, Ft. Defiance, Chinle, Lukachukai.

  Navajo women in long tiered dark skirts and velvet blouses waited to board. The strings of turquoise around their necks gleamed softly beside large round silver pins of small, polished, individually set stones. Most wore moccasins. Young Indian women in jeans and T-shirts balanced round-faced, diapered but naked, chubby babies on hips and supervised the baggage. They wore very little jewelry and seemed to favor Nikes or Adidas. Good examples of the contrast one could find on any present-day reservation, Julie thought.

  The heat from the idling buses was intense. The overhead trapped the fumes and held them shimmering under the steel corrugated roof. Julie walked a little faster toward the lounge. She could feel prickling sweat dotting her shoulder blades and gathering between her breasts. But the blast of refrigerated air that greeted her when she pulled the door open did little to offer relief. Two degrees above a temperature that would preserve Fudgesicles, the air was not only frigid but stale—cigarettes, the butts in a canister beside the door, baby formula, diapers, booze. Two men stretched out on benches next to the restrooms appeared to be sleeping off the effects of alcohol rather than just napping. But the office personnel were friendly and polite. Julie placed Sal’s package on the counter while a young man checked his book to determine what locker was available then asked her to follow him into a hallway that led away from the waiting area.

  She fit the package into number fifty-seven, one of many narrow upright metal boxes embedded in the wall and closed and locked the metal door. Then at the attendant’s urging opened the lock again with the key he’d provided just to make sure. It worked easily. She followed him back to the office.

  “How long will you be needing the locker?”

  “Thirty days.” Julie made that up. She’d forgotten to ask Sal. She’d remind him of the time limit. But again it struck her as odd that this was so temporary. He must know about the stolen money and is using this as a stop-gap measure. He’s afraid the burglar might come back.

  “Will that be all?” Julie could tell that the young man must have asked her twice because he was looking at her strangely.

  “Yes.” She smiled and signed the paper on the line where the man had put an X before she pulled her billfold out of her purse.

  She hesitated, “Is it possible to have two keys?” Why was she doing that? She heard a little internal voice whisper “safeguard.” But against what? She sighed. It was done now as the man turned to take another key from a locked drawer.

  “This will be extra.” He laid the matching key on the counter, small silver keys with a distinct cut-out shank and the stenciled number fifty-seven underneath the hole that could secure them to a key ring.

  “Yes, of course, no problem.” She watched as he rang up the purchase of locker rental on the cash register. Thirty dollars plus two for the extra key. About a dollar a day for peace of mind. She supposed it was worth it. She assumed the sealed jar held fetishes—relics from the past that had guided Sal’s family—how could anyone put a dollar value on that?

  She walked back out into the heat. Two of the buses had pulled out, but that did little to make the boarding area more pleasant. She continued around the front of the building and eyed the pawnshop across the street. A part of her strategy for the show on Native Amer
ican symbols was to film “old pawn”—jewelry and fetishes left to secure loans in shops such as the one in front of her. She’d use this tactic to give some perspective on how the Indian used his art as money, the liquidity of his talent. As long as she was in Gallup, she might as well make the most of the afternoon.

  A jangle of bells announced that she had opened the front door. In moments a once-tall man from somewhere in back pushed through a curtained doorway but not before Julie’s eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting coming from one long, dusty hanging florescent fixture with four yellowing bulbs. Much of the large room’s light came from smaller tubes suspended from the underside of shelves in the countless number of glass cases that lined the walls and formed a horseshoe in the center.

  Brown-edged posters announcing Indian events—powwows, dances, markets—from years past attested to the longevity of the shop. Wooden support columns reaching to the ceiling were carved totems from the Pacific Northwest. There were shelves everywhere overloaded with pottery, kachinas, and sand paintings. It was more of a museum than a place of business and Julie was congratulating herself on the find.

  “What can I help you with?” The man had to be the owner. He was the same vintage as the posters. What had the sign said out front? Morley’s Wagon Wheel Trading Post and Pawn? Something like that, and this had to be Morley. He loomed over her and adjusted his glasses with a gnarled finger, pushing them to rest lower on his bulbous nose as he leaned against a counter. The man had probably been six-four before age had compacted discs and pulled his shoulders forward.

  Julie explained her reason for doing research in the area, pausing to show him her ABC identification card. And that was all it took. A somewhat grumpy Morley instantly threw down the proverbial red carpet.

  “My wife died last year. God rest her soul. Wouldn’t she be excited to see me now? That show of yours was always her favorite. Even when she couldn’t get out of bed, she’d have me prop her up to watch morning television. She’d be just tickled pink to meet you. Why, you could make a celebrity out of the old Wagon Wheel.”