The Ties That Bind

by Andi Marquette

"He might be scared. Or he might be trying to stay uninvolved." She turned and looked back at the house. "Maybe the same people who kept messing with Dad messed with him, too."

  "Seems that way." I stroked Brutus's head and swear to God, it looked like he was grinning. "I think we need to talk to Nestor." Something about Purcell was bugging me, but I wasn't sure what it was. I remonstrated myself. Bad researcher! Don't form judgments without evidence!

  "I'll call Tonya and get the number." Sage caught my eye and smiled. "I think she's more comfortable with me." She leaned in around Brutus and gave me a tap on my shin with the toe of her foot. "As charming as you can be, I think your academic edge scared her."

  I smiled back. "The truth is, nobody can resist you."

  River started laughing. "She is a piece of work," he said, pushing off from the car. "The things she convinced me to do when we were kids--"

  Sage smacked him on the arm.

  "Hey, you kids. Knock it off. Damn. Can't take you anywhere. Get in the car, both of you," Kara said sternly as she approached, Shoshana behind her.

  Sage stuck her tongue out at her then turned to Shoshana. "Thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate it." She gave Shoshana a hug, much to Shoshana's obvious surprise.

  "Let me know if you need anything else. Kara has my number."

  In more ways than one, I thought at the look Shoshana gave her. For some reason, knowing that Shoshana was attracted to Kara decreased my misgivings about her. I decided I'd try to like her. At least a little. "Thanks again," I said to her before gingerly moving Brutus out of the way so I could get into the driver's seat.

  "You're welcome, though you might have to come back to visit Brutus. I think he's in love," Shoshana said as she grabbed his collar and pulled him out of the way so I could shut my door.

  "He has good taste," Sage said. She smiled at her and waved as I started the engine. I backed up a bit and steered down the driveway.

  "So how about we go back to the motel so Sage can call Tonya and get Nestor's number?"

  I got three murmured assents and then nothing more on the drive back to town. Which I didn't mind, since I was busy sorting through some things as well. Maybe Nestor had the notebook that Bill had been using to document incidents. We also needed to call Detective Simmons, as well, and see if we could score a look at the autopsy report. And my note-taking compulsion had kicked in. I needed to write things down, organize them, and see where things fit, if at all yet. Every tidbit of information I collected, no matter the project, was part of larger patterns. Finding the ties between the tidbits was part of the investigative process, whether academically oriented or part of police work. That reminded me. I wanted to call Chris and bounce some things off her. Maybe after I talked to Nestor.

  I glanced over at Sage. She was staring out the side window. I took her hand and interlaced our fingers and she smiled at me. I held on until we arrived at the motel.

  Chapter Thirteen

  SAGE SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the bed closest to the window with me as she wrote a phone number down on the little notepad that the Super 8 motel supplied for every room. "Thanks, Tonya. I'll let you know what we find out, if anything," she said. "You, too. Take care." She hung up and addressed me. "Let's see if we can set something up with Nestor tomorrow."

  I looked up from my legal pad. "Sounds good. How's Tonya?"

  "Hanging in there. She said she was going to look through Dad's papers again, see if anything jumped out at her."

  "What about talking to Ridge Star?" Kara said from the one chair, where she was reading an environmental magazine.

  "How so?" Sage asked.

  "Call 'em. See if they'll give us a tour."

  I remembered our conversation in the kitchen and shrugged. "Give it a shot. All they can do is say no."

  "But they might not," Sage pointed out.

  "Can I use your laptop?" Kara asked. "The websites list more phone numbers than phone books do."

  I nodded assent and she got up to retrieve it from my briefcase at the foot of the bed. She took it back to the chair where she'd been sitting and set the laptop on the table.

  Sage squeezed my thigh and opened her phone to make another call. I figured it was to Nestor Bodie, so I paused in my note transcription to find out when we'd be driving to Shiprock the next day. Instead, Sage called someone else.

  "Ya-ta-hey," Sage said in Navajo greeting. Then she laughed at something the person on the other end said. Not a stranger.

  I looked at her, questioning. She wrote something down on the notepad that held Nestor's phone number and showed it to me. "Ellen."

  "She's well," Sage was saying. "Thanks for asking. How's Jim? Good. Yes, I'm in Farmington and things are strange, as I told you they would be."

  I went back to my notes as Sage chatted with Ellen. I'd created three columns on my paper. One I labeled "Tonya Daniels," the second "Jamison Purcell." The third would be Nestor Bodie's, but for now, I listed things in Jamison's column and looked to see what matched and what didn't with Tonya's. Bill was being hassled by someone or someones, both Jamison and Tonya confirmed. Most likely someones, and most likely from Ridge Star. Bill was an okay partner and a good guy to his fellow workers. I tuned back into Sage's conversation.

  "Nestor Bodie," Sage said to Ellen. "Based in Shiprock. He used to work at Ridge Star drilling until he was injured in January. Here's the number."

  I looked up as Sage picked the notepad up with Nestor's number and read the digits to Ellen. "I don't know who his people are and I was hoping you would--" Sage laughed again at something Ellen said. "Yes, I need a Diné hall pass. Any chance you can have one ready in the next hour or so?" She listened for a moment and smiled. "Sure. I'll take care of it when I get back to Albuquerque." Sage smiled, listening again. Something in her voice bothered me. A warm intimacy with an underlying something that spoke of shared moments that weren't entirely platonic. "Thanks, Ellen. I'll talk to you soon." Sage hung up and sat for a moment, thinking. I bit my question back, which I was sure would have sounded like an accusation.

  "The Navajo information express," she said to me, smiling again. "Ellen's going to do a little road-grading to get us in with Nestor."

  I relaxed, but only a little.

  "Take a walk with me to the car," Sage said, in a tone that meant she wanted to talk about something.

  Uneasy, I complied, tossing my legal pad onto the bed with my pen. "Back in a minute," I said to Kara, who nodded as Sage and I left the room. I made sure I had a key card before I shut the door and followed Sage down the hallway to the stairs. A lingering odor of cigarette smoke wafted up the staircase from the floor below as we went down a flight and exited into the parking lot behind the building. Sage started walking toward her car, parked about thirty feet away.

  I matched her steps, waiting for her to begin the conversation. She didn't until we arrived at the car. She leaned against the driver's side, back to the setting sun, and crossed her arms. I took a position to her left, leaning against the car as well, preparing myself for whatever Sage needed to unload.

  "Six months after I moved to Albuquerque," she began, "I started seeing a woman I'd met at UNM. She was Navajo, doing graduate work in anthropology and we met at a lecture series the department was doing about Indian art and material culture. We were together maybe three months before she decided she wanted to date a guy in her program. Which was fine. At least she let me know."

  I adjusted my position against the car but didn't say anything.

  Sage would get to the point when it was time to do so.

  "It was that woman who took me to the art opening in Santa Fe where I met Ellen." She turned then and looked at me, a troubled expression on her face. "I did something stupid, K.C., and I haven't told you this because I've been afraid that it would trigger some of your baggage with Melissa."

  Oh, fuck. My palms started to sweat and I didn't even know what she was going to say.

  Sage looked away for a moment, then back at me
. "I slept with Ellen. She was engaged to Jim at the time, but they were having some problems and she and I--" She stopped then and gazed across the parking lot. "Anyway, it was one night. Ellen was in Albuquerque visiting relatives and called me to see if I wanted to have dinner. I didn't make the right choice after dinner." She looked back at me, expectant, waiting for my response. My stomach hurt.

  "How long ago was this?"

  "Almost five years."

  My whole body exhaled. Five years. A while ago. "So...I'm guessing you still feel guilty?" I had no idea how to address this.

  "Not so much anymore. I did try to justify it, like I'm sure Melissa did with you. I didn't talk to Ellen for a couple of weeks afterward because I was mortified and confused. I didn't want to be with her in a relationship like that, I didn't understand why I did it, why she reciprocated--I was a fucking mess. I'd never done anything like that." Her tone was both hard and fragile.

  "But you and Ellen came to some kind of understanding..." I said, trying to stay focused on Sage and not think about the affair Melissa had that ended my relationship with her.

  "We did. Ellen called after that two weeks and told me I needed to participate in a ceremony with her and I thought she was fucking crazy, telling me that. But she said it was a way for us to come to terms with what had happened and to help me let go of the bad feelings I was having." Sage kicked at a pebble. "I told her I'd think about it. Two weeks later, she called again and told me the same thing." Sage smiled wryly. "I told her I'd think about it."

  "And two weeks later..." I raised an eyebrow, knowing how stubborn Sage could be.

  "Yep. She called again, and said the same thing. But this time she told me that she had told Jim what had happened and they had come to an understanding and it was time for me to come to something like that with myself."

  "And you said yes." I tried to imagine what Sage might have been thinking, after sleeping with Ellen and then finding out that Ellen had told Jim and wanted her to come visit.

  Sage nodded, thoughtful. "I went up to Farmington on a

  Wednesday and got back to Albuquerque the following Monday. It was my first Blessingway ceremony. Three days, Sunday as a recovery day, since it's pretty intense."

  We were both quiet for a while, and I thought about Melissa's affair and how I'd bailed without giving her a chance to explain herself. If I had--if I'd approached it like Ellen seemed to approach what happened with both Sage and Jim, would things be different today? Sage's indiscretion was one night. Melissa's was more than that. Did it matter? I turned to look at Sage and caught her watching me. If things had turned out differently, I wouldn't be standing here with her. As shitty as breaking up with Melissa was, it pushed me to the next step of my life, which in turn showed me another until the road looped back to New Mexico.

  "How were things after the ceremony?" I asked.

  "Better. I felt like I had managed to purge some things and allow the good that came of that into my life--for whatever reasons, Ellen's been a mentor to me in some ways, both in an artistic sense and in some personal matters."

  There was something she wasn't telling me. I saw it in the way she shifted her gaze toward the motel, then back to me, like she was debating whether to say anything further.

  "What?" I asked, opening the door.

  She looked at me, surprised. "Now who's the psychic in this relationship?"

  "Maybe I'm just paying better attention."

  She reached over and took my hand and I imagined warmth emanated up my arm from her grip. "Ellen was sort of a gateway for me, with regard to Navajo culture," Sage said. "I spent some time on the reservation with her and her family after the Blessingway." She paused and looked at me. "And I saw a few things that I don't understand. Many good things. But dark things as well. Bad. The kinds of things that you hear about in folktales and shit like that."

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I fought an urge to turn and see if anything was watching us. She squeezed my hand, comforting.

  "There are things that happen out on the Rez that can't be explained using western approaches," she said. "And don't think I wouldn't like there to be some kind of explanation, because I am, after all, from that tradition as well. But these things--" she leaned in closer to me and I was glad for it because I felt chilled, somehow.

  "Like witches, maybe?" I chose to use the generic term, not sure why saying "skinwalker" aloud bothered me.

  "The shape-shifting kind," Sage confirmed, also using a euphemism. "Like whatever was on the porch last week."

  I stared at her. "You think that was--"

  "You think the same thing. You're just trying to find an explanation that fits your ideological framework. And this is why I don't talk to you about things like this," she finished, with a resigned, almost tired tone.

  "Okay, back up," I said, defensive. "I haven't even said anything."

  "You're thinking it." She still held my hand, but tension crackled in the air between us.

  "That's not fair. Yes, I'm trained in certain traditions and certain methodologies. But will you give me a little credit? I considered the possibility that what happened on the porch was something maybe I hadn't encountered before." I pulled my hand from hers, a little stung.

  "And what conclusion have you reached?"

  I glanced at her, trying to determine if she was being sarcastic. "None. I don't know what it was. All I know is I don't like how it felt and I don't like the effect it had on you and I don't like not having a hook to hang my understanding on." I pushed off from the car and started to pace when Sage grabbed my forearm.

  "Honey," she said, tone gentle.

  "I don't know what it was," I said, more emphatically. "I don't think it was a dog. Or any kind of animal. And I don't know what to do with that."

  "K.C.," she said. "Come here." She pulled me into her embrace and held on until I relaxed.

  "And maybe I'm kind of jealous of you and Ellen," I muttered against her hair. "Maybe that brought up some Melissa stuff, like you thought."

  "I wasn't fair to Melissa," she said against my shoulder. "When you told me about her affair with Hillary, I said I'd never do that to anyone. But I sort of already did, to Jim. Even though he and Ellen were in a bad place and not really seeing each other at the time--I was being hypocritical."

  "It's in the past." And I hoped saying that aloud would somehow keep it there, though I was uneasy because Sage hadn't brought this up earlier. "But please, talk to me about things. I don't want to fall into patterns that fuck things up."

  She giggled.

  "What's so funny?" I didn't conceal the frustration in my voice.

  "You. Me. This." She pulled away and brushed my cheek with her fingertips. "I love you so much and I know how hard you work, trying not to repeat your past. I have a hard time with mine sometimes and I forget that you're not part of that, and that I can tell you things." She put her fingers against my lips and I kissed them before she trailed them down my neck, leaving warmth in their

  wake. "I should have told you about Ellen sooner."

  "Yes, you should have. Because it feels kind of creepy and dishonest that you didn't." And I did not like that. At all. I needed to think a bit about that. Was it worth it to worry about? Should I wonder what else she wasn't telling me?

  She kissed my neck. "You're right. I'm sorry. That's something maybe I should work on."

  "Yes, it is. And apology accepted." But I still wasn't sure how to process this information, or if I should at all. "Goddammit," I whispered. "I don't know what that thing was on the porch. I don't know what the hell your dad has to do with anything. I don't even know why the fuck we're here. I don't know how to fix any of this."

  Sage tightened her hold on me. "You can't," she said. "All we can do is get through it. As for my dad--I don't know, either. Maybe I'm just trying to understand who he was as a person, rather than as a parent. Maybe I'm looking for part of myself in all this. Or some kind of closure." She touched my face. "I
just ask that you suspend your logic about some things."

  I nodded, thinking that walking through fire might be easier for someone like me. "I'll try. I'm trying now."

  "I know." She kissed me and some of the unease I felt dispersed beneath her lips. "And I love that about you, too."

  "I love you back," I said against her lips.

  "I'm so glad," she whispered against mine as her cell phone rang. She sighed and pulled away. "That would be our Diné hall pass. Let's find out when we can go to Shiprock."

  I LEANED AGAINST my car, waiting for the rest of my motley posse to finish up in the motel so we could head over to Shiprock. The late morning sun forecasted a summer day, but the breeze presaged fall, a crisp, cool undercurrent flowing down from Colorado. With one hand, I held a cup of Starbucks coffee and with the thumb of the other, I speed-dialed Chris. She picked up on the second ring.

  "Hey, esa. I was just going to call you."

  "Yeah, yeah. You say that to all the girls."

  Chris laughed. "So what's up? Did you see the autopsy report?"

  "Yes. This morning. Detective Simmons was very amenable, as you suspected." I set my cup down and rubbed my forehead for a moment, trying to stave off a headache. "There's some weird shit in it."

  "Like what?"

  I took another sip of coffee and set the cup back down on the hood of my car next to my legal pad, hoping the caffeine would help with my headache, since I hadn't had any yet and it was almost lunchtime. "Okay," I said, scanning my notes. "Bill's body was found off one of those unmarked roads near the Shiprock formation. Graded dirt, not used much. You know how it is out there. Long stretches of nothing but wind and sagebrush. The Medical Examiner estimates the time of death within about five days of his body being found. That would put his death around the Saturday after he mailed the letter to River, or maybe Sunday."

  "What day did you see that newspaper article?"

  "It was in Saturday's paper, a week after Bill disappeared. According to Simmons, his body was found on Wednesday morning but the story wasn't released for a couple of days as they started the investigation."