Turquoise Girl

by Thurlo, David

  “Was this ladies man about your age?” Ella asked.

  “Ten years older or so, which would put him in his early fifties now. I’m told I look young for my age,” he added.

  “What else do you remember about him?” Blalock asked.

  “He was devout, but I don’t think he was completely stable. He also knew a great deal about Jesus and the Bible and he loved quoting from the Old Testament.”

  Reverend Curtis pulled down the folding steps, then invited them to climb up while he went to answer a ringing phone.

  Ella went upstairs first, and flipped the light switch on a metal box once she was close enough to reach it. A single, bare bulb in a fixture attached to an overhead beam was the only light. Ella stepped onto the bare plywood floor and looked around. Blalock, a few steps behind her, started coughing.

  The attic was almost full. Stacked in several places were a dozen or more old wooden folding chairs, cardboard boxes of old hymnals, and two large boxes labeled VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL. Each of the five dusty gray filing cabinets was placed in a different spot, apparently to distribute the weight so the ceiling didn’t sag. Unfortunately there were no tags to label the cabinets or drawers, and a roof leak sometime in the past had created a rusty spot atop the closest cabinet where the water had pooled.

  “I’ll be down here if you need me,” Reverend Curtis called out to them, now that he was off the phone.

  “Which cabinet has the records?” Ella asked.

  “You’ll have to look around. I have no idea,” came his reply. “They used to be in order when they were in the old storeroom, but when they were hauled up into the attic, they were put anywhere there was room.”

  Ella saw footprints on the dusty floor, and noted that the little slots that had held labels were clear of dust. “Looks like somebody came up here and pulled out the labels, just to make our job a little harder,” she whispered.

  “Wonder who that could have been?” Blalock responded, pointing down with his thumb.

  They went to check different cabinets. Ella saw the mouse nest in a corner where old crepe paper had been piled up and shredded. A tiny creature on one of the ceiling beams came out of the shadows, stopped to look, then ran to the corner and disappeared into the nest. She had a flashlight, but there was no sense in shining it in that direction and stirring things up. “The nest’s in that corner,” she said and pointed. “They’ll stay out of our way.”

  “Cripes, Clah. What about the Hantavirus?”

  “Wrong vector. I got a look, and that’s not a deer mouse. Ears are too small. Just a regular house mouse.”

  “Thank you, Madam Science,” he muttered.

  Ella laughed. “Just keep looking.” She opened a cabinet and searched through the open file drawer. “I’ve got them,” she said after a moment. “This filing cabinet has records from 1990 to 1992.” She stepped over to another cabinet to her right and checked there, too. “This one has the files 1993 to 1995. Those are the dates my father was sole minister here.”

  “Okay, we pull the contents and go,” Blalock answered.

  They found several empty paper boxes, loaded everything into four of them, then working together, carried the heavy boxes down the stairs one at a time. “What do you say we get your team to search these?” Blalock suggested, looking at the containers resting on the hall floor.

  “They’ve got their hands full. We’re here, we should do it ourselves, now.”

  Blalock nodded. “Maybe Reverend Curtis will let us use his office.”

  They were able to use one of the Sunday School classrooms, which had long, cafeteria-style tables. It took over an hour, but they finally managed to find the membership records they needed. Except for those who’d left the reservation and a few others who’d dropped out for various reasons, the names had remained fairly consistent from year to year. The total number of members, however, had increased slightly over time, consistent with the community population growth.

  “The two women who were killed out of state were members in 1994 and left the church when they both moved away in 1995,” Ella said. “We have a common denominator now.”

  “What about Valerie? She wasn’t a member,” Blalock said.

  “Not officially, but we already know she was one of the girls who came to church to check out the bad boy.”

  “If we can run the names of the men and find out who was the right age, maybe we can ID that bad boy—that is, providing he was an official member of the church. The problem I’m betting we’ll run into is that most of the men won’t be on police data files. We need someone who can do DMV searches and whatever else is necessary to get the information we need.”

  “Teeny,” Ella replied. “Bruce Little.”

  “Good thinking. If anyone can do this quickly, he can,” Blalock glanced at Reverend Curtis as he came into the meeting room. “We’ll need to take the lists covering years 1994 and 1995 with us. They’ll be returned as soon as possible, undamaged and intact.”

  “I was told to give you access, but taking anything with you is another matter altogether. I don’t have the authority to okay something like that.”

  “Then make the phone calls, Reverend Curtis,” Ella said. “I believe you’ll find out this isn’t a problem.”

  When Curtis left the room to make the call from his office, Blalock glanced down at his hands. “I’ve got a year’s worth of dirt here. I’m going to wash up in the bathroom across the hall.”

  Ella nodded and coughed as she dusted herself off. “I could use some fresh air myself. I’m going to step outside for a minute or two. When you’re done, I’ll take my turn washing off.”

  Passing Reverend Curtis’s office, Ella walked down the hallway and stepped out the back door. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh air. As she strolled out onto the church grounds, Ella glimpsed a figure darting behind the cover of some trees on the far side of the irrigation canal.

  Immediately on her guard, she moved closer to the tall cottonwood and placed the trunk between the person across the way and herself. It could have easily been a big kid playing along the ditch bank, but her instincts warned her otherwise and she knew to trust them. They’d saved her on more than one occasion.

  Ella watched for a moment longer and saw flashes of a man walking through the tall brush along the far side of the canal. He didn’t seem to be looking her way or acting in any threatening manner. Ella relaxed slightly, telling herself that she was getting way too jumpy.

  Suddenly, the man stepped out into the open. Though he stood on the far side of the ditch, she could see him plainly, and he looked familiar. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and was unarmed from what she could see. He appeared to be his late forties or early fifties and had a wide scar that ran across his forehead right above his eyebrows. The Navajo man, taller than most at five foot ten or eleven, was on the thin side and looked to be in fairly good physical shape.

  “We’ve met, you and I,” Ella said coming out of cover. “Refresh my memory. Who are you?”

  “Isn’t that something? You’re a cop, yet I know who you are and you don’t know me. Not much of a balance there.”

  She recognized the voice and finally made the connection. It was the man she and Justine had seen patronizing Mrs. Barela’s roadside sandwich operation a few days ago. There’d been the oil field workers and then this guy, who’d been wearing the sunglasses. He was Mr. Beach Navajo, and his sunglasses had hidden that scar. “You’re the man with the sunglasses who’d missed the roadside chow, the one who didn’t know I was a police officer. So enlighten me and identify yourself.”

  He laughed. “Good memory, Officer Clah. But it’ll take more than changing your name to keep the sins of your father from catching up to you. Unless you also change your ways, you’re going straight to hell. Listen and understand—before it’s too late.”

  “I’ve got plenty of time—unless you know something I don’t,” Ella countered, wanting to keep him talking while she figured out how to get
across the ditch. She wasn’t sure she’d make it if she tried to jump across. Maybe with a running start from farther back…

  “Luck’s been on your side so far, but that won’t last. By interfering at the construction site, you ruined a really good slugfest, you know. But you can’t avoid the Lord’s instrument of justice for ever…remember your mother’s sheep,” he added, grinning.

  Ella’s skin went cold and her senses became so acutely alert she actually felt Reverend Curtis coming up behind her before she even heard him.

  “Is this man bothering you, Investigator Clah?”

  “Don’t get involved in what doesn’t concern you, Reverend,” the man called back at them, his grin now replaced by an angry scowl.

  Ella suddenly rushed forward at a full run, intending on jumping the canal. The desire to find out what the man knew about her mother’s sheep drove her, and she leaped, putting her heart and everything she had into it.

  Ella reached the other side—almost. She could touch the top of the embankment with her fingertips, but her feet were only inches above the water level. Fighting to firm up her hold so she could climb up, she dug her fingers into the dirt. She was just about to pull herself up, when a chunk of the embankment broke away and she plummeted downward into the swirling water.

  Fifteen

  Ella gasped from the shock of contact with the freezing water, but managed to keep her wits. Letting the current pull her downstream, she grabbed hold of an irrigation pipe and its small gate valve. Her grip firm, she stood atop the pipe, grabbed onto the wheel that controlled the gate, and pulled herself out of the canal.

  By then Blalock was there. “There’s a footbridge right past those trees, Ella. Didn’t even get my feet wet. You okay?”

  “Cold, but fine. Go after him. And call for backup,” she added, checking her gear to make sure she had everything.

  Working together, Ella and Blalock thoroughly searched the far side of the ditch, but they found nothing, not even tracks on the hard-packed earth.

  “What made you suddenly enter the long-jump competition, Clah? You thought you’d sprouted angel wings or something?”

  “Fifteen years ago I would have done that for fun—and I would have made it over without even straining myself,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, well, get over it. None of us are as good as we used to be.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Ella shot back.

  Blalock smiled. “Seriously, what made you think he was worth the risk of trying to make the jump.”

  “The guy knew about the incident that nearly turned the demonstration at the plant into a violent confrontation. He also mentioned the attack on my mother’s sheep. Who would have known that besides the perp, or someone who was with him? The guy has a big cross tattooed on his arm, and he was talking like some die-hard religious nut. We should pull out all the stops to find him.”

  Blalock went to load the boxes of files, and Ella ran back to her cruiser. While she checked on the alert FB-Eyes had put out, she turned on the heater and tried to dry off. Taking a dry pair of socks and boots she kept in the back, she slipped both on, and then went back inside to talk to Reverend Curtis.

  “Did you recognize him?” Ella asked the preacher.

  “I know all of our parishioners, and he’s not one of them. But he did mention your father, so based on some of what he said, I assume he has a Christian background.”

  “Could he be the bad boy we’re looking for? He was around the right age.”

  He considered it for a moment, then finally shrugged. “The person I remember was heavier, I think, and less…scarred.”

  “Visualize the man we saw without that big scar, and fifteen years younger.”

  He tried, then shook his head. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I barely remember the days when your father was the preacher here and I can’t visualize someone in the congregation who didn’t really interest me back then. At that age I spent most of my time watching the girls. Church was more a social place to meet my friends. It was before God became so important to my life.” He paused then added, “I’m sorry.”

  “All right, but call me if you think of anything later on. Memory works that way sometimes.”

  He nodded. “By the way, the board president said that you’re free to take whatever files and records you need. Agent Blalock is loading them onto a dolly right now.”

  “Good.”

  Ella went to meet Blalock who was coming out of the front entrance, pushing a two-wheeled dolly with all four boxes. As they loaded the boxes into her vehicle, Blalock gave her the once-over. “Clah, I know you’re tough as nails, but are you sure you’re okay?”

  “My underwear’s soaked, I smell like a swamp, and I’m still pissed, but I’ll live. I’m going to stop by Justine’s and change, then we’ll continue to Lori Neathery’s place. Brewster can wait a bit.”

  “Why don’t you drop me off at my office since it’s on the way? I’ll run the names through NCIC and VICAP, then take the membership records to Bruce Little and let him have a go at them.”

  Ella dropped Dwayne Blalock off ten minutes later, then continued on to Justine’s. She changed quickly, and had about reached the door when she ran into her partner, who was coming in.

  “I heard some of what happened, Ella. Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Pissed off, but okay. Do you have anything new on the knife or anything else that was left at my mother’s, like the note, or vehicle tracks?”

  “No, the perp was really careful,” she said, then after a beat, added, “If we could find out why someone wanted Valerie dead, then I think the rest of it would fall into place.”

  Ella nodded lost in thought. “Gilbert Tso is a liar and thief. He has an alibi, but he might have hired someone else to do the job. Then there’s Brewster, who’s slime and has already admitted he likes to slap women around. There’s this new guy—a troublemaker who apparently knew my father. We have no shortage of suspects. But what we still lack is a clear motive. So we have to keep digging. Why don’t you come talk to Lori Neathery with me?” Ella asked.

  “I’d love to—anything that’ll buy me some time away from the lab. I’m getting cross-eyed looking through that microscope.”

  Ella was in the car with Justine when her cell phone rang. It was Clifford. He came right to the point. “We need to talk, sister. I know what happened to Mom’s sheep. The officer who came by gave me the details. But there’s something you need to know. The motive may not necessarily be connected to you. It appears I’m making some enemies, too.”

  Ella felt her muscles tighten. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “It’s this business with the power plant. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Ella glanced at Justine and filled her in. “My brother thinks the attack at Mom’s place may have something to do with his stand on the power plant issue. But I don’t think the two things are related. After what that guy at my dad’s old church said, I still think I’m at the center of what’s happened.”

  Justine considered it for a while. “Let’s look at this from a slightly different angle. What if the person with the scar originally had a beef with your father? Now that your father is out of his reach, that anger is being transferred to his family—you, your mother, and particularly your brother. In that light Clifford, in particular, becomes a target. He’s a practitioner of a pagan religion. As such, he may be more vulnerable than either of you.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Ella said, nodding slowly. “Clifford’s on his guard and he also has police protection, so maybe we’ll get lucky and this guy’ll come after me next. I’d sure love another shot at him.”

  “Maybe we’ll all get lucky and he’ll come after you at my place,” Justine said. “I know three armed officers who would love to be there personally to greet him. Shall we send him an engraved invitation?”

  Ella smiled. That had been Justine’s way of reminding her that she wasn’t alone, and Ella appreciated it.
“Thanks, partner. Now let’s get cracking. We have business at Lori Neathery’s.”

  Lori’s home took over an hour to reach, not because it was so far from Shiprock, but because the roads were all but impassable once they left the main highway. The collection of dirt tracks southwest of Shiprock led through alternating sections of sandy arroyos and tipped beds of sandstone in uneven layers. The ride jolted every bone in their bodies even at the lowest speed.

  En route they passed three abandoned hogans, two with holes punched on the sides to signify a death had occurred there.

  “I don’t get it,” Justine said, after maneuvering around a gash in the dirt track that was deep enough to conceal a horse. “Why does anyone live out here?”

  “Loneliness doesn’t factor for many of our people. You know that.”

  “It’s not about loneliness, Ella, just the basics. If anything happened to you out here, who would you call? I mean assuming you had a cell phone that actually worked in this area.”

  “The older Diné live from day to day. If there’s a problem, someone walks or rides their horse to a hataalii, and arranges for a Sing. Then you can walk in beauty again. To be honest, Justine, I wish I were more like that. No worries, just take things as they come and do the work the day demands.”

  “I like amenities. I like TV. I like recording my favorite shows. I like hot water,” she answered with a smile. “Guess I’m part of the spoiled generation.”

  “We all are. The gods gave us the land between the sacred mountains and for generations that was enough. But now even the most traditional Navajo needs way more than that,” she added pensively.

  As they reached a single dwelling in the sloping terrain leading to the Chuska foothills, Justine reduced their speed to an even slower crawl. They could see an elderly woman they assumed was Lori Neathery up ahead. Her white hair was topped by a cloth scarf tied under her chin, and she was wearing a long, shapeless cotton dress, white socks, and comfortable-looking sneakers. Lori was carrying a metal bucket into a corral containing five churro sheep. The enclosure had been formed by blocking off the lower end of a blind canyon with a log fence. There was a rifle propped up against the gate.