“Mother, don’t you dare talk to my friend about this. Don’t even hint!” Ella said walking down the hall with her.
Rose didn’t answer. Instead, she walked into her room and closed the door behind her.
As Ella trailed off to her bedroom, the sound of her mother’s soft laughter followed her, making her worry even more.
EIGHT
It was a few minutes before seven the next morning when a vehicle pulled up outside. Dawn, watching cartoons, remained glued to the spot. Rose’s admonitions about not opening the door to strangers had apparently worked. Ella, in the kitchen fixing coffee, went to see who it was.
A young Navajo woman with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, bundled up warmly in a wool coat, stood outside her vehicle waiting to be invited into the house. Two came out to the porch with Ella and watched closely, though he didn’t bark or growl.
Ella waved, inviting her to come in, suspecting this was Jennifer Clani. A traditionalist would never come up to the door without permission. Sure that her mother had noticed it, Ella breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Jennifer would work out.
“Yáat’ééh” the young woman greeted, using the Navajo word for hello. “I’m the granddaughter of your mother’s friend. The nurse who was helping your mother told me to be here at seven.”
Ella smiled as Jennifer, followed by Two, came into the living room. From what she could see Jennifer was just perfect. Ella took her coat and saw she was wearing a long velvet skirt, a thick knitted wool sweater, a wool shawl, and leather boots.
Rose came out of the hall, saw Jennifer, and smiled. “You’re my friend’s granddaughter.”
Jennifer nodded. “I’m here to help you around the house and do whatever you need. Grandmother told me to assure you that I’m not here to interfere, just to lend a helping hand until yours heals.” She looked at the bandage on Rose’s hand to emphasize the point.
Rose nodded and smiled. There was no doubt in Ella’s mind that having Jennifer rather than Gloria around the house would be easier for Rose to handle. Best of all, Rose would take it easy on her out of respect for her close friend Lena Clani.
Ella took Rose aside while Jennifer spoke to Dawn, who’d come up to talk to her. “I suspect that you antagonized Gloria to the point where she wouldn’t come back, but I know you’ll be nicer to this girl. Please try to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“I’ll take good care of her.”
“No, Mom. She’s here to help you.”
“Daughter, you worry too much.”
Ella picked up her buttered tortilla from the counter and turned to Jennifer, who’d followed them into the kitchen. “I’ll need you to start by helping fix Mom’s and my daughter’s breakfast. I have to take a shower and get to work.”
“My daughter is always rushing,” Rose said sadly. “So much like an Anglo.” She gave Jennifer a long look and, as Jennifer nodded sympathetically, Rose brightened. “You look just like your grandmother described you. She talks about you a lot.”
Jennifer smiled. “I’ll get started fixing scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon if you have it. How’s that, Aunt?” she asked, using the term out of respect.
Rose beamed. “That would be very nice, and more sensible than cold cereal,” she said, making a face at Ella.
Ella, following the dictum that said discretion was the better part of valor, fled the kitchen.
By the time Ella was out of the shower and dressed, her daughter and mother were in the kitchen eating a full breakfast. There was toast, butter, eggs, oatmeal and fresh bacon on the table. It smelled wonderful, especially the bacon, and Ella grabbed a piece for herself.
To her surprise, Dawn was ignoring her juice cup and actually eating her oatmeal. Knowing that her daughter hated oatmeal, she looked at Jennifer. “What did you do? That’s nothing short of a miracle,” she said, gesturing casually to Dawn’s efforts with the cereal.
“Brown sugar and bits of apple works with my nephew. I thought your daughter might like it that way too.”
“Great idea.” Ella kissed Dawn and her mother goodbye. “I’m off to work. Call if you need anything,” Ella told Jennifer. “My mom has my office and cell number.”
As Ella walked out of the house, she felt really optimistic about the arrangement. With luck, this would work out for everyone. Even Rose was happy—at least for the moment.
After scraping off the frost from her car windows while the engine warmed up, she left for the station. Her only worry today was that Dawn might prove to be more of a handful than Jennifer had expected. Though her little girl was generally good, Dawn was extremely active. Taking care of Dawn and Rose would require the patience of a diplomat and the stamina of a cross-country runner.
Today, she’d make it a point to call Jennifer and make sure things were going all right. If she had to, Ella was prepared to stop by home and read Rose and her daughter the riot act.
Ella had just sat down at her desk with a cup of coffee when Justine came into her office. “Hey, you’re in early,” Ella said looking up at her.
“You usually beat me, I know, but today I had so much work waiting, I came in at seven.” She placed a file folder on Ella’s desk. “That’s my report on the car vandalism we investigated at the Riverside neighborhood.”
“Anything interesting?”
“One thing—and it’s something we should go check out,” Justine said.
“Give me the Reader’s Digest version,” Ella said, not bothering to read the report at the moment.
“I split the work with Neskahi and we made it a point to go back and talk to everyone on that street. As it turns out, this incident may not be related to the others. Ranelle Francisco is the manager at the First Trust Bank, and she said she’s been having a lot of problems with one of the tellers, Lea Tsosie. There was a problem with her cash drawer, and Ranelle told Lea that she would have to make up the missing money or the police would be called in. Lea apparently threatened to get even with her.”
“And Ranelle thinks Lea and a friend vandalized every car parked on that street just to get back at her?” Ella asked incredulously.
“Ranelle says that it would be very difficult for the tellers to get hold of her address but, apparently, Lea followed her into the neighborhood a few nights prior to that incident. Ranelle didn’t know if she was in danger or not, but when a cop car drove by, Lea headed back to the highway and left the area.”
“Lea could have been in that neighborhood for any number of reasons,” Ella said.
“That’s what I thought, too, so I checked it out. When I dropped by Lea’s home, she wasn’t there, but I spoke to her parents. I found out from them that she didn’t come home the night the cars were vandalized.”
“Okay, so we need to see if she has an alibi and access to a pickup like the one we chased.” Ella glanced at her watch. “It’s still early. Let’s go. We may be able to catch Lea at home.”
Justine drove and Ella gazed out the window, gathering her thoughts. Even when events seemed to be random they seldom were. “It’s a matter of finding the pattern, then we’ll have answers,” she said under her breath.
“Now you’re sounding like your brother, the hataalii” Justine teased.
Ella smiled. “Sometimes the old ways make a heckuva lot of sense. Right now we’re being pulled in every direction following up on all these petty crimes and trying to find our sniper. We need to stay centered and focused, and the way I found to do that was to lean on what my mother taught me about ’walking in beauty.’ The Navajo Way teaches that everything in life is interrelated, and only by seeing the pattern can one reach harmony. That’s what I’m going to do on this case—I’m going to concentrate on seeing the whole picture and then try to figure out where everything fits.”
Justine drove down a gravel lane that led up to a white-and-blue mobile home. It had been well maintained and a simple wooden porch had been built beside the front door. On the right was a small area fenced in by chicken wire that was appare
ntly used to grow vegetables in the summer, but now it stood barren except for the brown stalks of a few dead plants. The shaded ground still glistened with frost.
Ella zipped up her jacket, stepped out of the vehicle, and waited. This wasn’t a traditionalist area, but a little courtesy couldn’t hurt. A moment later, an elderly woman came to the door and waved for them to come in.
“Hurry. It’s freezing outside,” Ruth Tsosie said. “It’s not very warm inside either, but it’s better than out there.”
Ella noticed immediately how cool the interior of the trailer home was. It had to be around sixty.
“We’re low on LP gas,” she said. “The company that supplies us hasn’t stopped by yet. We pay our bills, but it’s been such a cold winter, supply is low, and they’re having trouble getting around to all their rural customers.”
“How about electric heaters?” Ella suggested.
“We have one of those in the bedroom.” She paused, pulling her heavy cardigan tightly around her. “So tell me, what can I do for you?”
“Is your daughter home?” Ella asked.
Ruth nodded, then asked, “Is this about the problem at the bank? My daughter would never steal money.”
Lea appeared from down the hall, and apparently having heard the conversation, added, “I really think that Ranelle or someone else is messing with my cash drawer. No matter how careful I am, I always seem to come out short.”
Ella sat down as Ruth waved to the couch, but she didn’t take off her jacket. Justine sat in the chair opposite Ruth. “Do you think Ranelle’s out to get you?” Ella pressed.
“She sent you here, didn’t she?” Lea didn’t wait for an answer from Ella. “But I told her I’d sue her for harassment, or false injury, or whatever the lawyers could dream up.” She smirked. “The problem is that she knows I can’t prove anything, so she’s not really worried.”
“Do you know where she lives by any chance?” Ella asked, keeping her tone casual.
Lea thought about it. “Somewhere up on the mesa, I think. West of the highway would be my guess, but I’m not sure. I saw her there not long ago when I dropped Henry off one night.”
“Henry?”
Lea’s eyes widened. “Never mind. He’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Ella answered. “Right now I need to get a feel for what’s going on at the bank. Does Henry work there too?”
“Will you tell Ranelle what I tell you?”
“Not unless it involves a crime against the bank or her specifically.”
Lea thought about it, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll trust you. Henry Yabeni works at the bank as a loan officer, and he and I have gone out a few times. Ranelle would go ballistic if she found out. She hates me, and Henry is a member of her clan.”
As Ella began to question her about her whereabouts on the night the cars had been vandalized, Lea began to fidget nervously.
“I can’t remember where I was.”
Lea’s mother stared hard at her. “They asked me the same question earlier, but all I know is that you didn’t come home that night.”
Lea looked at the floor, her lips pursed.
“It would be a lot easier for you if you just answer the question,” Justine said.
Lea exhaled loudly. “I was at Cecelia Yazzie’s, okay? She’s been teaching me about weaving.”
“All night?”
“Yeah. It got late, so I just slept over instead of driving home half-asleep.”
Ruth gave her daughter an incredulous look, but didn’t say a word.
Ella watched Lea looking everywhere but at her mother. The young woman was lying and doing a really bad job of it. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Ruth looked at her daughter, then at Ella. “What’s this all about? I get the feeling this isn’t about the cash drawer.”
“I’m not at liberty to say anything more at this point,” Ella said, “but if Lea’s alibi checks out, she’ll have nothing to worry about.” Ella looked at the young woman, but Lea was staring at the turquoise ring on her finger. She looked as though she were about to be ill.
Ella and Justine walked back to the SUV. Once they were both inside, Ella glanced at Justine. “Did you see the look on her face when I told her we’d be checking out her alibi? She’s terrified.”
“It’s almost a waste of time to check with Cecelia Yazzie. I’m virtually certain she won’t back up Lea’s story.”
“Unless Lea gets to her first. But I’ve got to tell you, Lea doesn’t strike me as the kind to go around bashing cars like that, but there were two people involved. Maybe she drove and someone else tossed the bricks.”
“Where to next?” Justine said as they reached the highway. “The Yazzie home?”
“Right. I know where Cecelia lives. She sometimes hosts the Weaver’s Society meetings that my mother attends.”
They arrived ten minutes later at an old cinder-block house north of Shiprock along the Cortez highway. Smoke was coming out the chimney, and a ramshackle pickup was parked in front of the house. There were no trees and only native grasses and brush around. Out here, nothing was around to stop the cold wind when it blew. Off to the north were tall mesas and isolated rock formations that reminded Ella of Monument Valley.
Justine parked in view of the front window, and before long someone waved at them from the front door. “Quick. I don’t want to open the door for one second longer than necessary.”
Cecelia was in her midforties and lived alone in the two- or three-room house. Ella saw the cordless telephone and a half-filled cup of coffee beside it on the dining table. She had a feeling that Lea had already called her.
“Sit down, please. I have something to explain to both of you. I supposed you’re here about Lea?”
Ella nodded, and Justine silently took out her pocket notebook.
“She just called me. She feels terrible about this, but she didn’t want her mother to know where she really had been that night, so she had to make up a story. Lea’s been spending some time with Henry, her boyfriend. But her mother, Ruth, wants her to marry Wilbert Vigil. You see, Henry works for a relatively low salary at the bank, but Wilbert Vigil owns his own business.” She shrugged. “Ruth wants financial security for her daughter, but Lea has her eye on Henry instead.”
“Maybe she’s in love,” Justine said with a tiny smile.
“Love?” Cecelia shook her head. “That’s Anglo thinking, girl. Romantic love is nothing more than hormones. When two people commit to each other and look to the future together, that becomes a love that can endure. The other fizzles out as fast as an open can of cola on a hot day.”
Ella nodded slowly. Romantic love usually played no part in Navajo thinking. But both she and Justine had seen too much of the Anglo world not to be affected by it. Ella knew she wanted both, and she had a feeling that Justine did too.
Ella stood, thanked Cecelia, then added, “We better go speak with Henry. Think he’ll be at the bank already?”
“Lea figured you’d want to check with him, and told me to let you know that Henry is supposed to be helping his father gather firewood today out near their home by Narbona Pass. John and Claudia Yabeni are traditionalists and all their heating comes from a woodstove.”
Ella glanced at Justine. “We need to find out exactly where the Yabenis live and head up there. If they’re out cutting wood, we’ll find out where or wait for them to return. But we better get going. It’s a two-hour ride from here provided the roads are in good condition.”
“If you locate Henry you might want to take the time to really talk to him. He’s a gossip, but an informed one. That guy knows a lot of people in the area.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Ella said.
Justine settled behind the wheel as Ella fastened her seat belt. “Are you sure you want to go all the way out there?”
“We need to verify the stories, and the sooner the better,” Ella said. “But let’s go back to the statio
n and get my vehicle. The jeep is better off-road, and I have a feeling we’re going to need some heavy-duty traction if there’s any snow in the woodcutting area up there.”
As they drove back to the station, Ella wondered why it always seemed she had to travel long distances when ever there was a crisis at home. The last thing she wanted to do on Jennifer Clani’s first day on the job was to go on a long road trip.
“How are things going with your mom?” Justine asked as if reading her mind.
Ella filled her in. “I think, or maybe I should say, I’m hoping, Jennifer will work out.”
“Do you mind a suggestion?” Seeing Ella shake her head, Justine continued. “Invite Harry over to dinner as often as possible while he’s here. It’ll keep Rose distracted and on good behavior.”
Ella burst out laughing. “Harry might have something to say about that.”
“I doubt it. Harry loves to eat, and I bet he’s always up for a dinner invitation. It’s a wonder he used to be so thin. In fact, if you want his undying loyalty, serve chocolate cake. The gooier the better.”
Ella gave her a quick look. “And you’re so knowledgeable because?...”
Justine laughed out loud. “My older sister Jayne had a thing for him years ago. She found out everything she could about him.”
“I didn’t know they’d dated.”
“Please, Jayne? I think she’s dated everyone on the Rez at one time or another.”
“If you recall anything else like that about him, fill me in.”
Justine smiled. “I thought you’d say that.”
Ella said nothing.
“Of course, you’ve already got a huge head start,” Justine said.
“Huh?”
“Harry always liked you.”
“What’s this ’always’?”
“Yeah, it’s true. Ask Ralph Tache. You just never noticed until recently.” Justine paused. “Of course, I can see what’s caught your eye. Harry’s changed since he joined the Marshal’s Service. He’s more confident—and his body’s looking real buff, too, now that he’s put on about thirty pounds.”
Ella burst out laughing. “Well, hands off, cousin. At least until further notice.”
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