Death and Desire

by P. H. Turner

“How about in half an hour?”

  “Whoever gets there first gets a table. See ya.”

  I couldn’t imagine what she wanted to talk about. I’d let her work her agenda. I had nothing scheduled except the meeting with Gage that evening.

  Parking was tight at the Bistro. I slipped into the last place in the tiny lot. If Alison wasn’t already here, she would be hoofing it a block or more.

  I got us a table in the corner, my back to the wall and by a window. I had a cup of coffee in front of me when Alison scurried between the tables, darting her eyes to me, away to the diners, and then back to me. She dumped her bag in the booth and scooted in. “I’m sorry if I held you up,” she said, rummaging in her voluminous bag.

  This woman was in some serious denial if she didn’t believe she was in a downward spiral. Her color was pale and her hands had a tremor. She was damn near furtive when she looked around the Bistro, her eyes rapidly surfing over each table of diners.

  “Alison, what’s going on with you?”

  She seized on my question. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, look in the mirror. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing is the matter.” She brushed her ratty hair out of her eyes. “I’ve been under some stress at the university. People have no idea how grueling the life of a professor is, publish or perish, bring in grant money, and oh, my God, dealing with the students.” She sniffed. “What’s that rawhide thong around your neck?” She leaned over the table for a better look.

  I held up the suede bag.

  She hooted. “Medicine pouch? You think that thing is going save you?”

  I ignored her question and said, “Let’s order and then you tell me what you need.”

  “Why do you think I need something?” she snapped. “You’re the one wearing a medicine pouch. Something sure spooked you if you think you need that around your neck.”

  The waitstaff bustled up. “What will you ladies have?”

  “I’ll have the Reuben sandwich and a full side of fries and onion rings.” Alison tossed the menu onto the table.

  “I’ll have half of a club sandwich and the tomato soup.” I picked up both menus and handed them to the waiter.

  Alison pounced when he walked off. “I want to know what’s new in your investigation. Anyone else caught stealing pots? Who are they selling them to? I mean, you got the ladle. I helped you with that. I told you about the auction house. You owe me,” she rushed.

  “All I know you have seen on the news.”

  “Are those two Navajo boys telling where they got those pots?”

  “No, interestingly enough they’re both frightened to death and not talking. However, they are doing well in rehab.”

  Alison blew by the welfare of the boys and whined, “I need to know who is fencing pottery and about the meth. That’s important, you know. And I am the expert on record here.” She idly picked at a scaly place on her arm.

  When the large man in the booth in front of us stood up to leave, I saw Susan Etisitty and Tomas seated near the door.

  “Who are you staring at?” She waved her hand in front of my face.

  I pulled my head back from her ragged cuticles and chipped nails. “Just someone I know. She works for the tribal police.” Susan was nearly sitting on Tomas’s lap. They were dipping fries in ketchup. I watched to see if they would feed each other. They didn’t.

  Alison looked over her shoulder, turned, and hunched down in the booth. “I don’t know them.” The waiter set my food down and before he could set Alison’s on the table, she grabbed an onion ring in midair.

  “You want part of my sandwich?” I asked when she had gobbled hers down.

  “No. I have to get back soon. I have a lot of work to do.” She shoved the rest of her fries in her mouth. “I want to hear from you.” When I didn’t respond, she added smugly, “I provide provenance for one of the world’s top collection of Anasazi pottery.” She stood up and leaned over the table into my face and hissed, “I deserve to know what is happening.” She tossed down a few bills and her napkin, grabbing the last onion ring on her way out.

  “Watch the news,” I called to her retreating back.

  I paid the bill and tip, then sauntered over to Susan’s table. She glanced up at me and I saw the recognition in her eyes. I had my mouth open to speak when she ducked her head, grabbed Tomas’s arm, and pulled him to her. He bent his head, and she whispered in his ear.

  Interesting, but damned awkward standing there while they ignored me. First, weird Alison, and now Susan. Why would Susan pretend she didn’t know me? She was just having lunch with her guy. And Alison, she’d taken a tumble down the rabbit hole.

  I headed back to work.

  “You still on to meet Gage?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah, he hasn’t ditched me. In fact, I better head that way. I’d hate for him to get to crunch time and do a runner.

  “Text me when you get home,” he called.

  Northeast of Flagstaff, the land flattened out into desert punctuated with monoliths of red Moenkopi sandstone. Dozens of pueblo ruins of ancient people were scattered over the dry, rocky area. I pushed my odometer to zero when I turned on the dirt road to Wupatki so I could back out the three miles and find the side road Gage directed me to. I put the Rav in four-wheel drive and roared up the side of a dry wash. Around a corner, I gained on a dust trail ahead of me. The sun glinted off Susan Etisitty’s big truck. She had to have seen my dust trail behind her. She had off-road tires on her pickup, which made this a much easier ride for her. Unease crept over me, and I stopped to idle behind a nest of scrub. She abruptly turned off the hard-pack road and up a rocky arroyo, trailblazing north toward the park. This whole area was rimmed with four-wheel trails for desert buggies and trucks. What was she doing out here? Four-wheeling? Meeting someone? Had she followed me and gotten ahead of me on some parallel trail a local cop would know?

  I drove until I saw the line of cottonwood trees, marking the spot of a seep providing water in a dry land. No dust trail plumed behind me. Gage’s Toyota 4Runner was nestled so far back in the trees, I missed it the first time I drove by the area. I had told him I would be driving a Rav, and when I crept past the second time, he stepped from behind the stand of trees, waving me into the cottonwoods.

  I parked beside him. He reached across, opened the passenger door of his truck, and waited for me to get in. The truck was stifling hot, even with the windows down. A dry desert breeze drifted in, sifting red dust on my clothes. I didn’t hear a car motor or any human sound on the wind. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “I have a family, a five-year-old son. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “But you have trouble, don’t you? The financial statements?”

  “I . . .” He faltered. Sweat rings stained his armpits in a shirt that barely contained his ample belly. “Were you followed?”

  “Susan Etisitty went cross country about a mile from here. Is she meeting you?”

  “No, I don’t know why Susan’s out here. She’s my cousin. She’s a cop—maybe she’s doing cop stuff.”

  “She know about your problem? Providing you a little protection ?”

  His fat face puckered. “Oh, God no. I don’t want anyone in my family to know.”

  Sweat poured down his face while he worried a lint pill on his pants, but I didn’t think he was concerned about Etisitty.

  “I need your permission to record our meeting.” I turned on the flip camera.

  He shrunk back, his pasty face ashen. “Don’t take my picture. My family . . .”

  I laid the camera in my lap with the lens facing the door handle. “I’m recording a picture of your car door. I won’t record your face, only your words.”

  He seemed relieved, but not entirely on board.

  “I need your statement, Gage,” I said gently.

  “I won’t put my son in danger.” His double chin quivered.

  “I’m a reporter. I don’t burn sources. You have my word. I’ll pu
t a voice-distortion filter over your audio and your own wife won’t recognize your voice.”

  He blanched at the mention of his wife. “Okay, then . . .” He was still wary, but compliant.

  “Tell me about these financial records.”

  “I created fake bills and paid receipts for stuff we paid cash for,” he blurted out. He sniffed his runny nose and plunged on. “The company pays cash for everything they can, but I enter the payments we made to our vendors in our books, like we drew a check on the corporate account.”

  “Where is the cash coming from? The sale of the uranium?”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. The cash comes from the Anasazi pottery Chavez sells on the black market. They dig it on the site. We cleanse the cash by faking the paid receipts for stuff we paid cash for.”

  “Like what?”

  “Trucks, heavy equipment from some guys Chavez knows down in Mexico. But small stuff too, like our gasoline bills and food. I make it look like we paid by check for all of it, but we didn’t.”

  “You’re laundering money through the mine.”

  “Yes,” he said, hanging his head. “All the mine employees except the office staff are paid in cash. I produce fake payroll checks.”

  “You received a legitimate check?”

  “Yes.” He preened with pride. “I told him I wouldn’t be paid in cash. I want to be right with the IRS.”

  “I think the IRS is the least of your problems.”

  His chin wobbled, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I didn’t know,” he whined.

  “You knew they were looting and selling your own heritage and you didn’t do a thing. You’re guilty of not reporting that. And maybe at first, you didn’t know about the money, but you implicated yourself when you started fudging the books.” What a spineless man.

  “But I had to ! He would have hurt my boy and me. He would have killed me,” he sobbed.

  “Who?”

  “Chavez,” he whimpered.

  “So why come clean now? Why are you telling me this?”

  “I can’t live this lie anymore. I can’t sleep. I jump at every sound. I shouted at my wife and son this morning!” Weary lines etched his face. “I was so proud when I graduated from NAU. First in my family to go to college. I wanted to make good. When Dinetah offered me a job in their accounting department, my family threw a big celebration. Everyone was so proud of me. My wife brags to everyone about ‘Gage’s job.’ ”

  “How do you enter the cash from the pottery sales in your accounts-receivable ledger?”

  “Chavez has me enter it as payment from one of five ore companies who buy uranium, but we only sell our uranium to Tri-Ore and they pay us by check once a month.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?”

  His pudgy little face contorted in pain. “One evening, Chavez came to my son’s soccer game. On the sidelines, he said he wanted me to take a bigger role in the business. He offered me a raise, said my family deserved more, and he knew I would do right by them. He started bringing me duffel bags of cash to stack in bundles of less than ten thousand. He gave me a list of banks to use and told me to deposit the money on different days. He gave me a wad of cash every time he came, too.”

  The smell of his flop sweat poured over me. “Did you ask him where the cash came from?”

  He mopped his brow with his arm. “Not at first.” He took off his glasses and polished them. “I didn’t want to know. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I wanted him to tell me some plausible answer. I wanted to believe in him.”

  He wanted to keep his job and feel good about it.

  “But you did finally ask him, didn’t you?”

  Gage didn’t look at me. He focused his gaze out the front windshield and shifted in his seat. “Chavez said I had a good job and a really nice kid. If I wanted to keep my job and my kid, I wouldn’t ask any questions.”

  He was terrified.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “My son—he’s getting older. I don’t want to shame him. I have no peace. I’m living a fuckin’ lie.” He beat his hand on the steering wheel. “My wife tells everyone how good I’m doing,” he anguished.

  “You’ll go to jail. You know that, don’t you? Even if you cut a deal.”

  He nodded miserably. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want my family to die. Please,” he begged. He looked horrified. “Can’t you help me? I can’t go to the police. Chavez will kill my family before I can get back home. He has spies everywhere. You go, tell them I talked to you and gave you those documents. Please.”

  I couldn’t put this right for Gage. “I’ll take the documents in after I’ve had a professional verify they’re legitimate.”

  “You think I’m lying to you?” Gage challenged.

  “You admit you forged balance sheets, took a duffel of cash, and watched them auction off your heritage. I need an expert to look at this before I do anything. You’re welcome to take them to the police.” I held out the papers to him.

  “No.”

  I softened. “You can’t go back to work. You realize that. You need to take your family some place safe. Tonight, Gage.”

  He nodded morosely.

  I turned the camera off. “Go home and tell your wife,” I said quietly. “Get out tonight. And, Gage, stay in touch.” I handed him my card with my personal cell number.

  He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and gave a halfhearted nod.

  The sun was low when I made it back to Flag. I texted Trace and Louis that I was on my way home. No reply from either of them.

  Chapter 24

  Louis was booting his computer when I arrived at work carrying coffee for both of us.

  “Listen to this, Louis.” I plunked the camera down in front him.

  “You shot video of a side door panel?”

  “I didn’t say look—listen,” I said excitedly.

  I leaned over to put the camera closer to him and the bag slid out of the front of my shirt.

  “When did you start wearing a medicine pouch?”

  “Since Yanaha gave it to me.”

  “She got you blessed?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I guessed. Makes the pouch more protective. How’s that working with your Scottish beliefs?”

  “Fine, I hope. I nailed a horseshoe upside down on the front door to keep the evil out. That’s a Scottish belief.” I threw up my hands and shrugged. “I’ll try anything. Just listen to this.” I played the audio from Gage’s interview. Marty heard the audio begin and bulled his way over to my desk. He stared at the ceiling as he listened to Gage. “Who is that guy?”

  “Gage Notah, an accountant at Dinetah. I promised him his name wouldn’t be used.”

  “You got those records he’s talking about?”

  “Yes. You told me to get corroboration. Here it is.” I pointed at the camera and the paper files.

  “You gonna blow this town up. That mine is the biggest employer in the area.”

  “Are we going to turn a blind eye to corruption?”

  He harrumphed. “I’m damned sure smart enough to run what you got past the station’s legal adviser. You know this guy could be playing you, wanting to get revenge on his employer.”

  “Then he gave an Academy Award-winning performance of terror. He’s real, Marty. I’ll get a forensic accountant to review these statements.”

  “Make me a copy.” He gestured to the statements. “And copy of that audio, too. I’m getting the lawyer on the phone.”

  I burned the files to a flash drive, walked down to Marty’s office, and laid it on his desk. He picked up the USB, idly running it through his fingers. “Best accounting firm in town is Madler and Associates. Station uses them. Here’s their card. Talk to Madler—not one of those kids he has working for him. I told him you would be calling.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Marty.”

  I called Mr. Madler’s office and begged for an appointment in the morning. �
��Nine sharp and I don’t have much time to give you on such short notice,” Madler grumbled.

  I left town too tired to grocery shop, so when I got home I fed Mac and fumbled through the pantry looking for something to eat. All I found was a jar of peanut butter and a package of unopened dates. I took them and a glass of wine back into the living room and flipped on the TV to cable news. I mindlessly dipped the dates in the peanut butter and popped them in my mouth while CNN told me every bad thing that had happened anywhere on the planet in the last twenty-four hours.

  Mac ambled over and sat on my sock-clad feet, warming them. I flipped through channels and stopped the roulette game of what to watch by settling on the Travel Channel. I capped the peanut butter and began to relax, letting Rick Steves take me to Italy.

  I felt the vibrations before I heard the sound. Drumming? I glanced at the clock. At eleven o’clock? I had been half-asleep while the TV droned on. Couldn’t have been drumming. I must have dreamed it.

  I shook off my drowsiness. Mac was up and his ears pricked forward. Low, clear, rhythmic booms punctuated the night stillness. Easing over, I turned off the lamp and TV. “Shush, boy.” I grabbed his collar and pulled him with me to the back window.

  The outside lights were off, but a half-moon cast an eerie light across the deck. My eyes were slow to adjust to the gloom. Mac lowered his head, rumbling out a deep growl.

  Movement rippled through the darkness. A figure was slinking inside the yard. Just as I covered my mouth to stifle a scream, moonlight caught his shirtless body in the cool night. Fur covered his head. He lifted his head to scent the night and caught our smell. He rotated his head slowly, and leered at us. Mac went wild barking and clawed the wall.

  Black stripes on his face glinted in the moonlight. Long fur trailed down his back, waving in the wind. He went to step up on the deck. He stumbled, tried again to take the stair, and lost his balance, going down on one knee.

  The steps were only six-inch risers. Why couldn’t he get up on the deck? I held my medicine pouch in front of me, praying, Oh God, help me.

  He tried a third time to step up on the deck, but it was as though an invisible wall kept him out. Fear shot through my gut and the room temperature dropped to an intense cold. Foreboding hung in the heavy air and the yellow eye of the reptilian side of my brain lazed a wink.