by Aimée Thurlo
“I’m armed so I can help you. Once we get there, what’s the plan?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Stay in the car or behind it, depending on the situation. We’re outside my jurisdiction and this is a Tribal Police matter. I’m not sure civilian help would be welcome.”
“Do you want me to hang on to Crusher?”
“No. He knows this drill. He’ll stay with me.”
They arrived on the scene about six minutes later, pulling up beside a white, unmarked police unit. Travis saw Detective Nakai behind the engine block of his vehicle, shotgun aimed toward a dilapidated shed fifty feet beyond a six-sided, hogan-style stucco building.
“I’m not going back to jail,” a voice from the shed called out. “I don’t care if you bring in the National Guard.”
Nakai crept over. “The guy’s name is Delbert Garnenez. I need him alive,” he said as Laura and Travis slipped out of the car.
“What’s the story?” Travis asked, opening the back door for Crusher, who jumped down and sat beside him.
“I believe he’s got information on the man who murdered Coach—Ms. Yazzie.” Nakai spoke the name quietly.
Laura identified herself. “How’s Garnenez connected to the crime?” she asked, her weapon out, barrel pointed up.
“Delbert’s the vic’s old boyfriend. He decided to stalk her after the breakup, so she got a court order requiring him to keep his distance. Wearing an ankle monitor was part of the deal. But he violated the order and went to the last game she coached. That led to his arrest. He was in jail the night she was murdered, so he’s got an alibi, but I wanted to question him about the day of the game. I was trying to find out who Coach had been with that evening, when Garnenez suddenly lost it on me and split.”
“Why’d he take off?” she asked.
“It has something to do with the new guy Coach was dating. Delbert’s terrified the man’s going to come after him,” Nakai said.
“Sometimes a woman’s voice can help calm a man down. How about letting me talk to him?”
“Go for it,” Nakai said.
“Can I call him by name?” she asked.
“Sure. He’s not a Traditionalist,” Nakai answered.
Laura stayed behind the engine block. “Delbert, my name’s Laura. I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator.”
“What do you want with me?”
“I’m hoping we can help each other out,” she answered.
“You’re in a no-win situation. You know that. Eventually you’ll have to come out. All the police have to do is wait. There’s no hope you can win a gun battle, either. You’ll just end up dead or crippled for life. Make it easy on yourself. Come out and answer a few questions.”
“And once you get the answers, I go to jail. Is that how it works?” the man yelled back. “No way.”
“Hey, Delbert, think about it. If the police had planned an arrest, Detective Nakai would have handcuffed you earlier and taken you to the station.”
Several seconds went by. “If I talk to the cops, I’m as good as dead. Go away,” Delbert said.
“We can’t. We need to know what you know about the man who killed the woman you loved. Don’t you think she’d want you to help us find her killer?”
“Drop it, I’m telling you. If I say anything, he’ll kill me—like he killed her.”
“So you do know something. That’s exactly what makes you a target, Delbert. Think about it. As long as you hold back, he’s got a reason to kill you. He wants your silence. Take some of the pressure off yourself and put it back on him. Tell us what you know. Once the authorities are on this guy’s trail, he’ll have a lot more to worry about than you. Follow?”
“Yeah, but unless the police catch him first, I’m still a dead man. He’ll know I gave him up.”
“If you don’t put down your gun, you’re liable to get shot anyway. Looks to me like you need all the help you can get, and that means siding with us, not protecting a felon. Do the smart thing.”
Silence followed. After a few minutes he called out to her. “Come over and we can talk one-on-one. I don’t trust Nakai or that other cop.”
“Nothing doing,” Nakai said. “Talk to us all or no deal.”
Laura moved closer to the detective. “Let me talk to him face-to-face. I can handle this.”
“No way. If he shoots you, I’ll have a ton of paperwork to fill out,” Nakai said, only half-jokingly.
“You’re not turning yourself into a hostage,” Travis said flatly.
“I won’t get that close. I’m going to stay out in the open where you guys can cover me, and I’m not giving up my weapon. I’m sure I can convince him that we’re the best chance he’s got of staying alive.”
“If he doesn’t shoot you first,” Travis said.
“He won’t. He’s scared, that’s all,” she insisted. “Shooting me would only get him killed and that’s the last thing he wants.”
Detective Nakai nodded. “Good point. Okay, we’ll cover you, but if he even raises that pistol…”
“He won’t,” she answered.
“Take Crusher with you,” Travis said. “If anything’s off the mark he’ll let you know.”
Laura called out to Delbert. “I’m coming out and I’m bringing the dog, but you’ll have to meet me halfway,” she said. “The officers I’m with need to keep an eye on me—and you. It’s part of the deal.”
“No way. What’s going to keep the cops from shooting me the second I step out into the clear, or the dog from tearing me to pieces?”
“You’ve got the information we need. If you’re hurt, you won’t want to talk, and if you’re dead, you won’t be able to,” she said.
“Yeah, okay,” he replied after a moment.
Laura stepped out slowly from behind the car, Crusher beside her. “I’m heading over. Now come out and meet me.”
Delbert waited until she and Crusher got closer, then came out of the shed. “That’s far enough,” he said as she got to within twenty feet of him. “And don’t say a word to the dog.”
Laura sat down on an old stump. Crusher remained standing, alert and sniffing the air as he looked around.
“Thank you for trusting me, Delbert. Now let’s talk,” Laura said in a calm, soft voice. “We know you were stalking Eva Mae Yazzie after she broke up with you—”
“Don’t use the name of the dead,” he interrupted.
“Sorry. Are you a Traditionalist?” she asked, wondering if Nakai had gotten it wrong.
“No, but it’s safer not to tempt some things.”
She understood. She didn’t consider herself superstitious, but given a choice, didn’t walk under a ladder. “Okay, so tell me what I need to know.”
“She and I had a real good thing going. Then out of the blue she tells me she’s met somebody else—an Anglo—and wants to break up. When I asked her about the guy, she wouldn’t tell me a thing. I figured that maybe he was married or she’d hooked up with the school’s principal. You get the idea. So I decided to follow her around, but she spotted me one night and went crazy. Then she filed that stalking charge. I ended up having to wear that ankle thing.”
“What happened after that?”
“I read on the internet that I could shield it with copper wire. So I did that and went to the high-school all-star game she was coaching. I figured that her new guy would be there to watch. And I was right.”
“You saw him?”
“Only from the back. He was in really good shape, big arms and shoulders, with blond hair and a cap. I saw her give him a quick kiss and tried to get closer for a look, but a cop caught me and hauled me away. The stupid ankle bracelet still worked. I made bail the next day, but the night I came home, the guy showed up here. He kicked the back door in and flashed a nickel-plated revolver.”
Her stomach suddenly tightened as she remembered her own encounter with the killer. “What did you do?”
“I grabbed my shotgun and started blasting away. Duh.�
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“What happened then?”
Delbert shrugged. “He backed off. Good thing, the shotgun was empty by then. He stayed outside for a minute and yelled that if I spoke to the cops, he’d made me wish I were dead long before he killed me.”
Before she could say anything, Crusher began to growl. As she looked at the dog, she saw his hackles rising. But he wasn’t looking at Delbert. Laura followed his line of sight and spotted the gleam of something on the hillside above them.
Crusher suddenly took off, running straight uphill.
Shots from above rang out in angry succession and Laura dived to the ground.
Chapter Nine
Laura grabbed her pistol and looked over at Delbert. He sagged to his knees. Before he pitched forward to the ground, she saw the bloody hole below his eye and another on his chest. It didn’t take a medical degree to know he was dead.
Laura rose to her knees and saw Travis racing uphill, zigzagging as he ran, trailing Crusher.
Nakai came up behind her, heading for the victim.
There was no more gunfire, so Laura ran uphill, staying to the right, hoping to cover Travis’s flank. Weapon ready, she stayed low and used the few clumps of brush and rocks around for cover. Somewhere ahead she could hear Crusher barking.
Travis had stopped just below the crest of the hill and waved at her. “Hold your position and watch for movement on your flank,” he called.
“I’ll cover you,” she answered. “Keep going, then take cover at the top and protect me while I circle around.”
“No. Work your way back down and keep an eye out for a flank attack. You’re on this guy’s list, too. Don’t give him what he wants,” Travis said.
That stopped her cold. Travis was right. She couldn’t help him now. Her presence would only increase the danger he was already facing.
He continued ahead, disappearing quickly as he advanced over the crest of the hill.
Out of breath, she made her way downhill slowly. Travis was a born warrior and tactician. He didn’t wear his masculinity like a badge—up front and easily seen. He let his actions do the talking for him. She’d never met anyone quite like him and probably never would.
A few minutes later she joined Nakai, who’d seen her approach. She saw him remove one pair of latex gloves, then a second pair.
“Two sets of gloves?” she asked.
He nodded. “It keeps us from coming into contact with anything that touched the dead. It’s common Navajo practice.”
Laura didn’t have to ask about the victim. She already knew what Nakai had found out. No one could have survived those hits. “Did you call it in?” she asked.
He nodded. “We’ll have every available unit here within the hour. The crime-scene team is gearing up, too. They’ll be coming from Shiprock, so it won’t take long.”
Travis walked briskly back five minutes later, Crusher by his side, panting heavily. “The shooter had a motorcycle parked on the other side of the rise. Crusher gave chase but there wasn’t really any chance of catching up. I called it in to tribal dispatch,” he added, looking over at Nakai, who nodded in approval.
“Do you think he left anything behind—shell casings, footprints?” Laura asked.
“Maybe,” Travis said.
“Did either of you get a good look at the sniper?” Nakai asked Laura and Travis.
“What I caught were mostly impressions,” Travis said. “He was husky and had dark hair, brown or black. He was wearing a baseball cap, tan sweatshirt and jeans. The scoped rifle was on a sling, over his shoulder. Once he cleared the top of the hill, he jumped on a black motorcycle and raced away. If I’d had a rifle…”
“How about you?” Nakai turned to Laura.
She shook her head. “I never even saw him. The dog alerted me, then the shooting started.”
“How’d he know what was going down?” Nakai said, his voice thoughtful.
“Maybe he listens to radio calls and heard us,” Travis said.
“That’s not a lot of preparation time,” Nakai answered.
“He might have heard your initial report when you headed out here, Detective Nakai,” Laura said. “Or maybe the victim was being watched, with the sniper waiting for his chance to take a shot. Garnenez said the coach’s new boyfriend was after him.” She related what Delbert had told her about the break-in.
Feeling the wind picking up, Nakai looked up at the sky and saw the storm clouds rolling in. “We should start collecting evidence,” he said. “It looks like we’re in for a downpour.”
“Let me help,” Laura said. “I was with the FBI for a few years so I know the procedure,” she added for Detective Nakai’s benefit.
New Mexico summer rains had a way of washing away everything in their path. Natural arroyos became raging rivers, and any ground with more clay than sand quickly became sticky mud.
Working quickly they managed to find the sniper’s initial position, where he’d laid prone to take the shots, and found one shell casing there. By then, the crime scene team finally rolled up and they turned the work over to them.
Laura rode with Travis as they followed Nakai back to the station.
Forty minutes later, they sat in a conference room sipping coffee Detective Nakai had provided.
“The tech from the Office of the Medical Investigator is arranging for the body to be sent to the OMI facility in Albuquerque. She believes that the round that killed the subject was the one that tore through his face. The sniper was using hunting rounds, too, for maximum expansion. A 30-30 slug was recovered. It had penetrated the back of the skull and fell out when the body was moved.”
“Almost certainly a lever action, likely a Winchester or Marlin,” Travis said.
“I don’t recall many 30-30s with slings either,” Laura said.
“Maybe tracking that accessory can generate a lead, if the sling was purchased recently. From what the vic told me, we also know that the killer prefers carrying a revolver with a nickel or chrome finish for any close-up action. I can verify that, as well. The man I encountered at the scene of the crime in Arizona also used one of those,” she said, explaining.
“We’ll follow all that up, but I’m not expecting miracles,” Nakai said. “For one thing, tracking a 30-30 is going to be nearly impossible. Those rifles, even with scopes, are just too common in these parts, though the sling does narrow things down a bit.”
“What about footprints?” Travis asked.
“Our trackers found a few spots sheltered from the rain. The trail there was faint, the kind that results from covering your shoes with cloth sacks—the technique drug runners and illegals use when crossing the border. It’s effective but also common knowledge these days.”
“But we at least have definite motorcycle tire tracks, right?” Travis asked.
“Yes, and that’s being researched. We also have that one cartridge, but it was clean. We figured he used gloves and scooped up the ones he had time to locate,” Nakai said.
“Getting back to the coach’s murder,” Laura said. “Have you checked possible sources for the ether used to knock out the victim? Is the tribal hospital a possibility?”
“Our hospital doesn’t show any missing supplies. They track things like that on a computer, so there’s not a big chance of error. We also checked with area clinics out on the Rez. All their inventory is accounted for.”
“So what you’re saying is we’ve basically got nothing except for what the vic told us about the coach’s new boyfriend,” Travis said, exasperated.
“Yeah, but don’t start mixing these cases together yet. Keep in mind that we have no proof that the coach’s boyfriend is Garnenez’s killer,” Nakai warned. “And the hair color doesn’t match. According to Laura, today’s victim said the boyfriend had blond hair. You said the shooter had brown or black hair, right?” Nakai added, turning to Travis.
Travis nodded. “It wasn’t blond, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe he wears a wig or dyed his hair. Th
e way I see it, the boyfriend’s still our best suspect, particularly in view of what today’s victim was able to tell me,” Laura said. “Hear me out?”
Nakai nodded and waited.
“The similarities in the three strangulation cases indicate we’re after a serial killer, and that’s a guy we do know something about. Our suspect’s got a strong build and is good with women. The victims all had consensual sex prior to death, but afterward he turns on them, knocks them out and kills them. The question I’ve yet to answer is why does he bother to knock them out first?”
“To make it easier to kill them. If they’re mostly undamaged, he can also arrange the body and stage the scene without getting blood all over himself,” Nakai said.
“That’s a good point,” Laura said, nodding. “These were athletic women who would have fought hard if they hadn’t been out cold at the time of death.”
“We also know he likes tanned, or dark-skinned, young-looking females with dark hair and light brown eyes,” Nakai said, studying the photos from the two regional crime scenes. “Does that description also fit your friend from Flagstaff?” he asked.
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a photo of Nancy from her wallet. “She sent me this snapshot a month or so ago. It was taken after a softball game,” she said.
In the photo, a suntanned Nancy was wearing shorts and her team’s shirt. Although it had come via cell phone, Laura had cleaned it up and printed it out so she could put it in her wallet. “My friend loved the outdoors.”
“Maybe we’re dealing with a sports-equipment salesman,” Travis said.
Nakai shook his head. “Not here on the Rez. The high school where Coach taught has a tight budget. For the past few years, the girls’ equipment has come from donations and hand-me-downs from the boys’ teams. They have to have fundraisers just to pay for transportation costs.”
“And you know this without checking?” she asked, giving him a puzzled look.
Nakai smiled. “My wife is the girls’ basketball coach. She’s always complaining because they never have enough money for anything. It’s the same with the other girls’ teams.”