Wild Wild Death

by Casey Daniels

  This whole keep-it-secret vibe actually worked out pretty well as far as I was concerned. Though I watched the dancers in their brightly colored costumes, I really didn’t understand most of what I saw so there was no way I was going to remember much of it, anyway.

  In fact, the only thing that really made an impression were the koshari. That’s a word that means sacred clowns. I’m not kidding. The clowns are men whose faces and bodies are painted with elaborate black and white stripes. They wear outlandish hats and beat drums, and for reasons I never did find out, they eat watermelon. Watching them, bewildered and kind of scared by their bizarre behavior, I heard people around me say that the koshari play tricks, act out pantomimes, and mimic people in an effort to teach lessons about the proper—and improper—way to behave.

  Hmmm…

  Aside from that strangeness, the feast was interesting enough. I ate some really good cookies full of cinnamon, watched a race and a pole-climbing contest, and saw Jesse long enough for him to remind me about dinner with his family. Gulp. I strolled through the booths of vendors and, for lunch, had something called posole, a sort of pork soup that was better than I expected it to be. While I was minding my own business, I wondered if I could slip away long enough to do some investigating in Taos and get back to the pueblo before Jesse even noticed.

  I was going to do it, too, and was on my way back to the car when I heard a familiar voice.

  “The corn ceremony was very important to the Taopi.” The words whooshed their way to me on the end of a chilly breeze. “If you come this way, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  The this way was actually that way, back across the plaza, and I turned in that direction just in time to see a troop of tourists following a costumed guide.

  Buckskin dress.

  Feathered headband.

  What was it Caridad had said? The clothes were all wrong for a Pueblo Indian.

  I wouldn’t have realized it without Caridad’s expert input, and maybe these tourists didn’t, either, because en masse, they followed Morning Dove. I slipped in at the back of the crowd, and we trooped to a less-crowded corner of the pueblo, where the Native American who I would bet wasn’t proceeded to talk (and talk and talk) about the importance of the corn ceremony in Taopi culture. When she was done (finally!), she gladly accepted the tips the unsuspecting tourists offered. I waited until the last of them was gone before I stepped forward.

  “Hey, Morning Dove, fancy seeing you here.”

  It took her a minute to figure out who I was, which was actually pretty bad PR on her part since she was the one who wanted to get into the cemetery where she thought I worked so she could do her corn mojo. I knew exactly when she recognized me because two spots of bright color popped in her cheeks.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I shrugged my shoulders inside the blue windbreaker. “Same as you, just enjoying the feast. Only…” She had a wad of dollar bills clutched in one hand and I gave them a knowing look. “Only that’s not exactly what you’re doing, is it?” Since I knew she wouldn’t come right out and admit it, I went on. “You think any of those visitors have any idea that you’re just a regular ol’ woman from Cleveland and not one of the Taopi?”

  “I never pretended to be anything I wasn’t.” A gleam in her eyes, Morning Dove hiked up her buckskin dress (she was wearing jeans under it) and tucked the tip money in her pocket. “All I said was that I was going to tell them about the corn ceremony. And I did. If they want to show their appreciation to me for sharing my knowledge, that’s their business.”

  I nodded like I understood this crazy way of thinking. “Might be the business of the pueblo police, too,” I said in that oh-so-casual way that always catches people off guard. “The chief just happens to be a friend of mine.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What, you want a cut of my tips or something?” A toss of those so-dark-it-had-to-be-a-phony-color braids. “You don’t know the police chief here.”

  “Slept with him last night.”

  I guess I must have had the look of a woman who’d had great sex in the last twelve hours because her face turned the same color as her pale buckskin dress. “You wouldn’t—”

  “Tell him? That depends.”

  Like she expected the cops to be hiding behind the nearest rocks, she shot a look from side to side. “On… ?”

  “On you telling me the truth. Seems strange finding you here. You know, since the last time I saw you, you were standing outside of the stadium in Cleveland talking about removing that curse Goodshot put on the team.”

  She remembered, all right. “So? Is there something wrong with me trying to do the city a favor?”

  “There is if it involves kidnapping somebody, then asking for Goodshot’s bones as a ransom.”

  I’ll say one thing for Morning Dove, she was either a really good actress, or worse at hiding her emotions than anyone I’d ever met. The trick, of course, was to figure out which. Her mouth fell open. “Goodshot’s bones got stolen? Back in Cleveland? And then—”

  “Brought here to pay the ransom, yeah. And then they got stolen again. And three people got murdered. And the kidnapped guy is still missing. And…” I pulled in a deep breath. “And now out of the blue, here you are.”

  “That’s nuts.” She back-stepped away from me. “That’s just crazy. If you think I had anything to do with that… that’s just… it’s nuts, and I’m not going to stand here and listen to it.”

  “You are. Unless you want me to get my honey over here so you can explain why you’re taking money from tourists who assume you’ve got the tribe’s seal of approval.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “I don’t know anything about Goodshot’s bones.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know how.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “I came here for the feast. I always do. Every year. I go around to a bunch of the pueblos on feast days. You know, to take people around on tours and stuff.”

  “And take their money under false pretenses. Yeah, I get that part. And now you’re going to tell me you weren’t here on…” I did some quick mental calculations and came up with the day Norma had been killed. “You were here then.”

  She shook her head so hard, her braids whipped her cheeks. “Just got here.”

  “I don’t believe it. You were around a couple nights ago. In Taos.”

  “Yeah, sure. I mean, I just got here for the feast. I wasn’t—”

  I mentioned the date of the evening when Arnie was shot and Jesse and I were used for target practice. “You going to tell me you weren’t here then, either?”

  “I wasn’t. I swear.” Maybe buckskin is hotter than regular fabric. Even though I shivered in the next cool breeze to blow the dust around my feet, there was a sheen of sweat on Morning Dove’s forehead. “I don’t know how I can prove it except…” Again, she hitched up her dress and reached into her pocket. She shoved an airline ticket at me. “There. Check it out. My ticket from Cleveland. I got here two days ago.”

  Yeah, that’s what the ticket said. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t here before that, left, and came back.”

  She wasn’t prepared for a detective’s insight. “But I didn’t,” was all she had to say.

  Like I said, sincere as hell. Or a really good actress.

  “Prove it.”

  Thinking really hard, Morning Dove squeezed her eyes shut. “I… I… I know!” Her eyes popped open. “You can call my supervisor at work. He’ll tell you I haven’t taken a day off in months. I save all my vacation time. You know, for the various feast days. I work at Big Daddy Burgers.”

  Big Daddy, a place I’d once flipped burgers in an effort to get a suspect to talk. “I don’t suppose you know Ray Gwitkowski,” I said.

  “He’s my supervisor. And if you know him, you know he’s an honest guy. You can talk to him and—”

  If she expected me to take that at face value, she was sorely mistaken. I reached for my cell phone, th
en remembered the tribal rule about phones at the feast. “I’ll call him later,” I assured her. “And here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to let me know where you’re staying in Taos.”

  She did.

  “Next you’re going to tell me if you even think about leaving.”

  She swore she would.

  “And third, you’re either going to take off that costume because you know it’s all wrong and you don’t look like a Taopi Indian, anyway. That, or you’re going to leave the pueblo right now. Choice is yours. And if you don’t—”

  “Going.” She shuffled through the dust like her feet were on fire. “I’m leaving. I won’t be back. I swear.”

  Had I just let a murderer slip through my fingers? Give me a little credit here! I went over to the police station and called Ray Gwitkowski. He was a buddy of mine, a volunteer at Garden View, and he sort of owed me since I’d once rescued him from the clutches of an annoying-to-the-max woman who had the hots for him. Ray confirmed Morning Dove’s story—damn it—and that her real name (I knew I was right about the non–Native American thing) was Marlene Fritella. But that didn’t mean she was off the hook. A person clever enough to engineer the kidnapping and the murders would also be devious enough to figure out a way to make the timeline work. Just to cover my bases, I also called the sheriff in Antonito and gave him Morning Dove’s info. Like Jesse had mentioned, it was his case, and if I wasn’t going to be able to follow up immediately, somebody had to.

  Feeling righteous and warmer after having spent fifteen minutes inside the station, I walked back outside, stuffed my hands into the pockets of the blue windbreaker, and stopped dead in my tracks.

  There was something dry and rough in my pocket.

  I pulled it out, gasped, and instantly stuffed it back where it came from.

  Goodshot’s skeleton hand.

  I thought back to the night of the body snatching and how I’d found myself holding the hand when the bier collapsed and the coffin shattered. All this time, the skeleton hand had been with me and I hadn’t remembered it. Then again, I’d been a little busy looking for the rest of Goodshot’s body.

  “Weird,” I mumbled to myself, then got a move on before the cop who just walked out of the station could wonder why I was talking to myself.

  Looking to kill some time, I headed for the plaza and the ancient pueblos beyond, and that’s when it hit. The idea, I mean. The best idea I’d had in as long as I can remember.

  “Goodshot wanted his bones buried on the pueblo.” Yes, I was talking to myself again, but since there was another dance going on a few hundred yards away, and more drumming, I figured nobody heard me. “I can’t bury all his bones but…”

  I spun around and hurried in the other direction, away from the dancing and the drummers. Away from the sacred clowns with their watermelon and off to the loneliest edges of the old village. I got to a spot far from the crowds, looked around to make sure no one was watching, took off the windbreaker, and set it down on a nearby rock.

  “You wanted to be buried on the pueblo, Goodshot?” Okay, I admit it. I paused after I said this, half hoping that I’d get some sort of response. But even here on the sacred grounds of the pueblo, the old magic was gone. No time to second-guess how I was feeling about it. I knew what I had to do, and I had to do it before anybody showed up and saw what I was up to.

  “All right, Goodshot,” I said into the chilly nothing. “I don’t know where the rest of you is, but this…” There was a stick lying in the dirt nearby and I grabbed it and started scratching at the soil. “This is the least I can do for you.”

  Lucky for me, skeleton hands aren’t all that big, and I didn’t need to make the hole too deep. I scraped away at the rocky soil with the stick, and when I’d loosened enough of it, I scooped it out of the hole with my hands, thinking as I did that in addition to getting filthy, I was probably violating every tribal law, federal regulation, and local ordinance there was. Messing with tribal land—literally. I was just as bad as those excavators up at the ancient pueblo. But for all different reasons.

  This did not deter me in the least. I scraped and dug and scooped the hard, dry ground, and after fifteen minutes, I was glad I’d taken off the windbreaker. I swiped my arm over my damp forehead and studied the hole. Another couple inches and I was home free. I could take the skeleton hand out of the pocket of the windbreaker and put it in the New Mexico earth where it belonged. Satisfied, I sat back on my heels for a well-deserved breather.

  Too bad breathing was something I never got the chance to do.

  Before I knew what was happening, and long before I could react, a rope looped around my neck and the person holding it—someone I hadn’t heard come up behind me—tugged and twisted. Hard.

  I gagged and fought for a breath that wouldn’t come. That’s when instinct and panic took over. My hands shot up and I struggled to wedge them between the rope and my neck, but my attacker’s hold was too strong. I thrashed and flipped, and behind my eyes, stars exploded and sparkled like a thousand supernovas. The last thing I remember seeing were the black-and-white stripes painted on my assailant’s legs.

  That and the hole I’d dug in the dusty New Mexico earth. The one I landed in, face first.

  Sputtering is not attractive. Then again, being choked to death isn’t all that good for a girl in the looks department, either, so I guess the fact that I was sputtering—and alive—was a big plus. So was Pete Olivas, who was standing over me when I came to. Apparently, he’d already used his radio to make the call about the well-dressed woman unconscious on the ground, and clearly, Jesse knew well-dressed could only mean me.

  When I pulled myself out of the dirt and sat up, Jesse was sprinting in my direction. He was winded, his hat was missing, and when he saw me breathing and conscious, a look of such relief swept over his face, I swear if I hadn’t already fallen for him, it would have happened right there and then.

  He was on his knees beside me in an instant, directing Pete to get the paramedics over there at the same time he gently fingered the abrasion on my neck, checking for damage. It hurt like hell and my guess was that what felt like a rug burn all along the front of my neck didn’t do much for the overall look of my outfit. But then, neither did the coating of New Mexico dust I was wearing like a second skin. I scraped my hands over my arms, brushed my skirt. Trying to swallow was another matter.

  “Water,” Jesse instructed Pete, and when he gave me a bottle of it, he looked into my eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Water, huh? It felt like fire going down, and I coughed and forced myself to take another sip. In the great scheme of things, the pain gave me the chance to develop my strategy because, let’s face it, the truth wasn’t exactly going to put me in a shining light, law enforcement–wise. “I was…” Another sip, another cough, and lucky for me, a couple paramedics showed up just at that moment, and while they checked me out, it gave me a little more time to stall.

  Thank goodness, this time no one insisted I go to the ER. They cleaned up my neck and put some ointment on the abrasion, then they transported me back to the police station in an ambulance. I think this last bit was because Jesse insisted more than because anyone thought I really needed it. His arm around my shoulders, Jesse walked me to his office. More water, and thank goodness an officer (it was a woman, of course, because only a woman would think of it) gave me some wet paper towels. I did as much damage control as I could without the benefit of running water, shampoo, and a hot oil treatment, and by the time I was done, Jesse had made me a cup of tea and added a couple spoonfuls of honey.

  “It will help soothe your throat,” he said.

  I smiled my thanks but the expression didn’t last long. It hurt. And besides, it was time to explain.

  “I found Goodshot’s hand,” I said. “His skeleton hand. It was in the pocket of the—”

  I looked around the office. The blue windbreaker wasn’t there.

  Yeah, there was still fir
e in my throat. But now, it shot through my veins, too, I jumped out of the chair. No easy feat considering I’d just nearly met my maker at the end of a rope.

  “The windbreaker.” Holding on to the chair for balance with one hand, I pointed with the other at the nothing that should have been on the chair next to me. “Pete… the paramedics… did they… what did they do with my windbreaker?”

  Jesse called Pete into the office, and Pete swore that when he found me, there was no windbreaker anywhere nearby. Just to satisfy my sputtering protest that he must be wrong, he even went back to check out the dusty corner of the pueblo where I’d been attacked. A few minutes later, his voice crackled over the radio. “Nothing here, Chief. No windbreaker.”

  The fire faded and ice settled in my stomach. Jesse was standing nearby and I grabbed his hand. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You get to go shopping for a new blue windbreaker?”

  I forgave him for being obtuse, but only because I’d seen how upset he was when he thought I was in real trouble. Of course he wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “Forget the windbreaker! I hate that windbreaker!” I didn’t need to muffle my screech since my throat was raw and it came out sounding froggy. “It’s not the windbreaker that guy was after, it was what was in the pocket of the windbreaker.”

  “You said…” Jesse plunked down on the edge of his desk. “Goodshot’s skeleton hand. But why were you out there with the bones and what—”

  “Long story.” I waved away the question as if it didn’t have federal-penitentiary significance. “The night I… er… borrowed the bones, the hand ended up in my pocket, and I forgot all about it, but I found it this afternoon and I took it out… you know, just to look at it…”

  “And if whoever has the rest of the bones knew the hand was missing and was following you in the hopes of finding it…” Three cheers for Jesse. He’d gotten to the heart of the matter and done it in a way that avoided the whole messy tampering-with-Taopi-land thing. He was already at the door and had already told Pete to get together whatever officers could be spared from the feast before he turned back to me. “He’s got the entire skeleton.”