Turquoise Girl

by Thurlo, David

  “I told you I was in a fight. I got into it at the Double Play Sports Bar over in Kirtland. Some white boy called me a name I didn’t like, so we threw some punches. But I got the best of him.”

  She knew about the Double Play. It was one of the roughest bars around, and in a community full of hard drinkers that was saying something. She and Justine had been there before on business and had barely managed to avoid having to fight their way out.

  “I will check on your story. Count on it.”

  “Then that’s that. I’m not saying another word until my lawyer gets here.”

  A moment later there was a knock at the door, and a man she recognized was let in by an officer. Lee Yazzie was the tribe’s latest public defender. He was all of twenty-five, if that, but she’d heard he was very good and was acquiring a reputation for getting his clients off on the slightest technicality.

  “I’ll give you some privacy,” Ella said, standing up. “Have you been apprised of the situation?” she asked Yazzie.

  He nodded once. “I saw the paperwork. Now I need a few minutes in private to confer with my client. Once we’re done, I’ll call you back.”

  Ella knocked on the door, and the officer on duty outside let her out. Rather than return to her office, she walked down the lobby and got herself a cup of coffee from the machine. The coffee that flowed into the foam cup was syrupy thick. She grimaced as she picked it up, wondering if it would eat right through the foam cup.

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Justine cautioned, coming up the hall. “I had a sip of that stuff a while ago and nearly heaved. Either the machine’s out of whack, or the coffee grounds went sour.”

  “Can coffee go sour?” Ella dropped the cup into the trash. “Thanks for the warning.”

  She was about to put two quarters in the Coke machine when Yazzie came out into the lobby.

  Seeing Ella, he motioned to her. “We’re ready now, Investigator Clah.”

  Ella went back inside the room with the attorney and sat across from Yazzie, who was seated beside his client.

  “Mr. Tso has something to say to you,” Yazzie said.

  Gilbert squirmed in his chair and stared at a corner of the table. “You’re going to find the cash box that’s missing from the rehab center over at my place. I couldn’t get it open, so I just grabbed the whole thing. It’s a little dented up, but all the money’s still in there. We can just give it back, okay?”

  Ella glanced at Yazzie, whose expression remained neutral. “If the center presses charges, you’ll have to go to court. From there, it’ll be up to the system. But I’ve got to tell you, Gilbert, stealing a cash box should be the least of your worries. I need to know about you and your ex-wife, Valerie.”

  “Look, I didn’t tell you anything before because I thought you’d just twist my words around. But Mr. Yazzie has advised me to tell you what I know.” He looked over at his attorney, who nodded.

  “Please note that my client is volunteering information of his own free will,” Yazzie added.

  “Noted, counselor.” She looked back at Gilbert and waited.

  “I hadn’t seen Valerie in a long time, don’t really know how long—weeks, or months maybe. But I ended up in a jam last week ’cause my rent was due and I was tapped out. I’d heard she had a good paying job these days, so I dropped by where she worked and hit her up for a loan. She was glad to see me. That same night she came by and gave me all the cash she had. It wasn’t that much, but I scraped the rest together.”

  Something didn’t sound right. “Why would she help you, Gilbert? You two were history.”

  He gave her a cocky grin. “She never got over me, I guess.”

  “What were you doing yesterday, say between about four and nine P.M.?”

  He shifted in his chair, then looked at his attorney, who nodded. “Answer her,” Yazzie said.

  “I was at my place. Alone, unfortunately.”

  “Did anyone see you, neighbors, maybe? Anyone at all?”

  He shook his head. “If they saw me, I didn’t see them. I was mainly inside the house, watching TV and…just relaxing, you know?”

  “What were you watching?”

  He hesitated. “Reruns, probably. I can’t remember. I was a little drunk at the time,” he muttered.

  “Investigator Clah, we’ve already established that my client has a drinking problem, and he’s willing to admit he fell off the wagon yesterday. That’s not a healthy situation, but it’s also not a crime.”

  “No, but the rest of it—like stealing, driving while intoxicated, and resisting arrest—is a crime.”

  “My client has cooperated and told you all he knows. So how about cutting him loose? You know where he lives, and he has no plans to leave town.”

  “He’s not leaving our custody until we finish searching his home. For now, he remains here.”

  “You don’t have much to hold him on. I mean, resisting arrest? I can argue that you didn’t identify yourself properly, that my client was on his way out and saw someone chasing him. He’d been in a fight recently, and was afraid of retribution.”

  “So two Navajo women were coming to kick his ass? I don’t think so.” Ella stood up and knocked on the door. “Sorry, counselor. For the time being, your client remains in a cell.”

  The officer outside opened the door and let her out into the hall. Justine was just coming in her direction. “I’ve been going over his records and checking with other agencies. Gilbert Tso has a long rap sheet for violence and petty crimes. He likes to use his fists, especially. I think he’s a strong suspect.”

  “But we need solid evidence to prove he killed Valerie, and we have nothing so far. We can’t even prove that he ever went inside her home, unless some of the fingerprints we’ve recovered end up being a match. How are Tache and Neskahi doing over at Tso’s house? Have they found anything that ties him to the murder?”

  “Not so far. I’m heading over there now.”

  “Any news from the ME?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What about our anonymous caller? Any ideas who that could be?”

  “No, but I haven’t had time to follow it up.”

  “All right,” Ella said with a nod. “Go give Tache and Neskahi a hand. I don’t want to let our suspect out on bail until I’m sure, but the clock’s ticking. In the meantime, I’ll try to get a lead on our anonymous caller. We already know that the call came from the Quick Stop down the street, so maybe the clerk will remember who was at the phone.”

  “Benny and Jane Joe run it these days. Jane said that she and Benny needed breathing room, so he takes the late shift and she the early one. They’re open until midnight.”

  “Then I better go by their home and wake Benny up. After that, I’ll stop by the morgue. I wonder what the holdup is? I expected Carolyn to have her preliminary report by now.”

  As Justine left, Ella looked up Benny Joe’s home address. It wasn’t far from the station, in an area of new family housing. Houses were sprouting up everywhere these days, it seemed, though it was anything but easy to legally build on reservation land. The first thing that had to be done was a thorough search for antiquities and that usually took months of digging. That phase was then followed by innumerable arguments at the local chapter about the required permits. Then there were the squatters.

  Benny and Jane’s home, in particular, was a real test of Navajo sensibilities. Traditionalists wouldn’t have been caught anywhere in the area, neither would New Traditionalists, who combined the old with the new, accentuating the old as long as they didn’t have to give up their microwave oven or satellite dish.

  Only modernists would have ever lived in the new subdivision. It wasn’t architecture that kept the traditionalists away, it was the location. A short distance behind the adjacent elementary school was a cemetery. Skinwalkers were said to frequent the place, exhuming bodies in their search for bones and personal items. Of course to a modernist, all that really meant was a call to the p
olice station to report grave robbing.

  Knowing where Benny felt comfortable living was a big help in figuring out how best to approach him. Sitting in the car until invited to approach—the old, respectable way of visiting a Navajo family—wouldn’t be necessary there.

  Ella located the address, then went up to the door and knocked. No one answered, so she knocked again. The next-door neighbor, a woman maybe in her sixties, poked her head out a window. “Nobody’s home.”

  “Do you know where I can find Mr. Joe?” Ella asked, showing the woman her badge.

  The neighbor came out onto her front porch a moment later, motioning Ella over. “I’m Alice Bitsillie,” she said. “I recognized you when you drove up. I know your mother.”

  “I’m looking for Benny. Do you happen to know where he is?” Ella asked her.

  Alice nodded somberly. “His wife thinks he comes home right after work. Wait ’til she finds out he’s going to visit Margaret Napolean. You know who she is?”

  Ella nodded. She’d heard of Margaret. The department suspected Margaret of moonshining, though they’d never been able to prove it.

  “I don’t know why he does it. Margaret’s nothing but trash and Jane’s a good, hard-working woman. But who knows with men? If you want to find him right now, I suggest you go over there.”

  “Thanks for the information.”

  “Do me a favor?” As Ella stopped, Alice continued. “Don’t tell him how you found out where he was. I don’t want problems with a neighbor.”

  Ella drove to the northwest side of Shiprock, past the old boarding school staff housing. The department had run a few stakeouts on Margaret’s place on weekends, hoping to get lucky and get enough evidence to tie her to some nasty batches of moonshine that cropped up on the Rez now and then. Unfortunately, due to their manpower shortage, they’d never been able to maintain the kind of watch necessary to get the evidence they needed.

  Part of the problem was that Margaret had the sympathy of most of the officers. When money was tight, as it was all over the reservation, people often came up with entrepreneurial, if not legal, ways of making ends meet. And, as long as the brew didn’t make anyone go blind…

  A short while later, Ella pulled up in front of a modern-looking home, one of the site-built houses that the Navajo Housing Authority had constructed for members of the tribe. The structure itself, instead of stucco, had siding and was well designed and constructed. Even from the outside, she could tell that it had a hogan-shaped great room on the east side. The front yard, landscaped with native plants that required little water, looked well kept and attractive. The tags on the late-model Ford pickup in the driveway matched Benny Joe’s.

  Ella got out of her unmarked police cruiser and went to the front door, ringing the bell. She didn’t have long to wait before Margaret answered. When Ella flashed her badge, Margaret sighed wearily. “Let me guess. You want to search my house. Again?”

  “No, that’s not what brings me here. I’ve come to talk to Benny. His truck’s in the driveway.”

  Margaret opened the screen door and waved her inside. “He’s in the kitchen,” she said. “And he’s a mess this morning, so go easy on him, okay?”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll let you ask him yourself,” Margaret answered.

  When Ella entered the kitchen, she saw Benny sitting at the center island, staring forlornly at the mug of coffee he held between his hands.

  “I knew you’d track me down,” he said glumly.

  As Ella sat across from him, she noticed that Margaret hadn’t followed her into the kitchen. Margaret knew the drill too well to want to stick around when police officers were asking questions.

  “Just tell me what I need to know,” Ella said flatly.

  “Okay, I admit it. I was the one who called the police about the trouble, and I didn’t leave my name. So what else do you need to know?”

  “Your store is a block away, so how did you find out what was going on? Start from there, and tell me everything you saw and heard.”

  He nodded, took a deep breath, then began. “There’s a shoe game every evening at Joe Curley’s house, down the street. So, every once in a while, I close up shop for an hour or so at around eight, and walk down to check out the action.”

  The shoe game, a popular way for Navajos to gamble, didn’t require any special playing pieces, like dice or cards. A team of players gathered up a pile of shoes, and hid something simple, like maybe a pebble, inside one. Then the others would try and guess which shoe it was in. The game required the ability to read faces and note even the smallest of reactions. And, of course, every attempt possible was made to mislead the players. Bets would then be placed on the likely shoes. It was a bit like poker, but in a more down-to-earth way.

  “Everyone’s seen the shoe game sign that sits on his front porch, but your officers never bother us. There’re never any fights or trouble of any kind. We just play.”

  Benny fell silent, and Ella waited, knowing he needed time to gather his thoughts. On the Rez, patience was not only a courtesy, it was a sign of respect for their culture.

  “I left early ’cause I’d already lost a bunch of cash and I knew I’d need some time alone to come up with a way to cover for that, or Jane’d kill me. Then, as I went by the café, I heard a woman screaming her head off from somewhere close by, and then there was this big crash, like furniture smashing or something. Everything went quiet after that.

  “I walked over and peeked into the café window, but it was empty and closed. Wondering if the noise had come from the little house in back where Valerie Tso lived, I stepped over there, but just as I got close, her TV came on. Once I heard that, I breathed again. Her car was there, and it was the only vehicle I could see, so I figured she was okay, and I should get the heck out of there. Valerie…well, she has a reputation with men. If anyone saw me there they’d think the wrong thing and I’d catch hell from my wife.”

  “So why did you call us at all? What am I missing here?” Ella asked.

  “Later, I was half watching the cable news at the store when they ran that story about the lady in Rhode Island who’d died and none of her neighbors noticed. Her body had been on her kitchen floor for weeks before they found her. Anyway, I started feeling guilty after that, so I decided to call the station and have them check on Valerie. I was hoping to keep my name out of it. Otherwise, I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do. If Jane ever found out, I’d be screwed in more ways than one.”

  “Did you see anyone on your way to the game or when you were coming back?” Ella asked, keeping Benny on track. “Or any vehicle other than the victim’s?”

  He paused, considering her question. “On the way to the game I heard a coyote howl and I remembered my mother’s words. She’d taught me that First Man gave Coyote the name First-to-get-angry. Trouble always follows him. He brings bad luck. And death sometimes. I should have gone straight home then and forgotten all about the shoe game. Instead, I ended up losing my entire roll on the first bet. After that, I figured I should head back to the store before Coyote brought me even worse luck. But then Coyote really let me have it. First there was that scream, then the awful silence. It was as if everything that hides in the darkness was suddenly holding its breath,” he said and shuddered.

  “Think hard. You were walking home. Did you see any cars drive past you?”

  “Yeah, later, when I was farther down the block, two or three went by. But I didn’t really pay any attention to them.”

  “Who was at the shoe game?”

  He listed several names and Ella wrote them down.

  “But they all live in that neighborhood. I bet they walked to the game, like me.”

  Ella waited, hoping that he’d remember something useful, but he just stared at the cup of coffee as if it contained the secrets of the universe.

  “I want you to think back,” Ella pressed. “Did you have any customers at the Quick Stop before you left, or maybe right afte
r you came back?”

  “Reverend Campbell pulled up just as I was unlocking the door. He came in to get some coffee and a loaf of bread. And right before I left, one person showed up to get gas at the pump outside. A glonnie, nobody important.”

  Navajos often referred to the drunks as glonnies. It was an Anglicized version of the Navajo word. But the word could fit a lot of people. “I’ll need a name.”

  “Marco Pete. You’ve seen him. He takes his half of the road out of the middle. It’s a wonder he’s still alive.”

  Ella knew whom he meant. But it was doubtful that Marco had been the perp. His hand-to-eye coordination was nothing more than a distant memory, even when sober. She still remembered the comment he’d made last time Joe Neskahi had arrested him for DWI. In olden days the only time a man would cut his hair was after a long illness. Seeing Joe’s short military buzz, he’d asked very sympathetically how long Joe had been sick.

  “Was he drunk?”

  “Not at the time. When he comes in I always watch him. If he has trouble finding the hose on the pump, I won’t let him fill up his tank.”

  “Any idea where I might find him?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. He drove off the road and ended up in an arroyo. He’s at the hospital in bad shape, last I heard.”

  “Getting back to Reverend Campbell. Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior when he came in and you spoke to him?”

  “He didn’t have blood on his hands, or look like he’d been in a fight or anything, if that’s what you’re really asking.”

  “No. Just looking for other potential witnesses.” Ella slipped a card out of her wallet and placed it on the table in front of him. “If you remember anything else, call me.”

  He nodded. “You telling Jane?”

  “I came to interview a witness. What you choose to tell your wife is your business.”

  He suddenly looked more hopeful than he had since she’d walked in.

  “I’ll think hard on this. Maybe I can remember something else,” he said in a hopeful voice.