by Don Travis
The Shiprock Pawnshop was right on the highway, housed in a one-story cinderblock building with two display windows crammed full of Native American jewelry and crafts. A weathered, oak coup stick festooned with eagle feathers on a beaded leather band was the centerpiece of one display; a short lance similarly adorned dominated the other. I took a closer look. Hawk feathers, not eagle.
Lonzo caught my double take and muttered, “Replicas. Tourist junk.”
Abe Novich, the owner, was a small brown man with a lean face and a jutting nose. His eyes sat well back in his head, which gave him a sly, crafty appearance. Given the trade he had adopted, the look likely reflected who he was. Pawnshop owners often have reputations as cheats, but in truth both sides of the pawn game sought the upper hand. Unless they were sharp, the lenders were victims as often as they dealt a bad hand to others. A long-time pawnbroker friend in Albuquerque was one of the most knowledgeable men I knew. His expertise covered an astounding range of subjects. He could spot a fake Anasazi pot as quickly as he could pick out a genuine Han Dynasty urn.
Gaines greeted the man by name—apparently they’d had dealings before—and then introduced me. The shop owner gave Lonzo a glare, which likely meant they’d crossed paths, and then fixed me with a fishy eye without saying a word. Plainer, the shopkeeper totally ignored. People skills were not included in his résumé.
The FBI agent laid Lando’s toilet kit on the counter, and Novich’s face revealed he’d known all along the thing would prove to be trouble. In response to questions, he shuffled back to his office and started leafing through small pieces of paper. The computer age had not reached this store. Eventually he came back and uttered his first complete sentence since we entered.
“Old man Hernandez brought it in. Crespido Hernandez,” he clarified. “Claimed he picked it up in a flea market down in Albuquerque.”
Gaines took Novich over his story several times. I gathered from the tone of the conversation Shiprock Pawn had had a few problems with its tickets over the years. We learned nothing beyond the original statement that Mr. Hernandez had brought in the kit.
As we left the pawnshop, Lonzo got a call on his radio and had to take his leave. Plainer opted to go with Gaines and me. We stopped by the closest chapter house and prevailed upon someone named Atcitty to take us out to see Hernandez, who lived in a traditional hogan with rough timber sides and a sod roof located ten miles from nowhere. The single door to the one-room dwelling faced due east.
Gaines, who apparently knew nothing about Navajo etiquette, parked, got out of the vehicle, and marched up to the hogan. If he’d read Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn and Chee mystery series, he would have known to wait in the vehicle until the occupant signaled he was ready to receive visitors. The agent banged on the door aggressively, announcing in a loud voice he was a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hernandez demonstrated his opinion of the mighty FBI by taking his own sweet time answering the call.
A stocky, mahogany-hued man, who must have been in his sixties yet looked in the prime of life, eventually stepped outside. His broad, heavy-featured face showed neither surprise nor curiosity. The small, sharp eyes moved restlessly over the three of us and settled on our Navajo guide.
“Yah-tah-heh,” Hernandez said in a deep voice.
“Heh.” Our guide was considerably younger and less formal than his elder. After an awkward pause, Atcitty spoke to Hernandez a full minute in his native tongue. By the end of the monologue, I suspected Hernandez had known our mission all along. Then Atcitty turned to Gaines. “Okay. You ask, and I’ll put it to him.”
Plainer frowned. “He doesn’t speak English?”
“Not much. Better if you ask me.”
Under these circumstances the interview was something less than ideal. The old man eventually invited us inside to search for other articles that might have belonged to Lando Alfano. We found nothing. Hernandez agreed to take us to where he had picked up the leather kit, but he refused to get into the car. Instead the old man threw a blanket over a bony pinto in a brush corral at the side of the hogan and set off on horseback across the desert hardpan. Atcitty elected to remain in the brush shelter as the rest of us piled into the SUV. It wasn’t long before we came to a long, narrow ditch that rendered the SUV incapable of proceeding any farther—as I suspected both this old curmudgeon and Atcitty had known would happen. Reluctantly we got out and plodded along in the heat. The sun had an extra bite in the high plateau country.
Hernandez, who had pulled up while we got out of the car, wheeled his mount, leaving us to scramble along afoot in his wake, dodging fist-sized rocks and the pinto’s horse apples. He led us over the lip of an arroyo that ran in a generally east-west direction and turned his pony up the sandy bottom. After about a mile, he halted and dismounted.
“Here,” he announced. I was pretty sure a smile hid behind those dark eyes as he watched the three of us struggle up the bottom of the dry wash.
“Was there any sign of whoever left it?” Gaines asked.
The old man paused but finally admitted he understood English by answering. “No. No sign. Nobody. Wasn’t no man.”
Plainer had had his fill of the games. “If it wasn’t a man, what was it?”
I am absolutely certain the corners of the man’s thick lips curled as he answered. “Witch. They was green lightning night before.” The thick shoulders rose and fell. “Witch.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Plainer demanded.
“How long have you been out here in the Four Corners area, Agent?” I asked.
“About six months.”
“Let me guess. Your last assignment was back east somewhere.”
“New Jersey.”
“That figures. There’s a southwestern phenomenon known as green ball lightning. Nobody’s quite sure what it is, but the best guess is it’s a small meteorite containing copper, which burns green. Some of the Native Americans believe that’s not the case at all. They figure it’s the way witches travel around.”
The old man grunted at my explanation.
“Mr. Hernandez, were there any footprints? Anything at all?” Gaines asked.
“Here.” He stopped before a scraggly piñon. “Maybe where somebody set down to rest.”
“Did you look for anything else he… uh….” Gaines tripped over his tongue in an effort to avoid offending the old man again. “I mean, anything it might have left behind?”
The Indian hesitated a minute before waving a broad hand up and down the wash. “Nothing else. Look maybe a mile.”
I was unable to remain on the sidelines as an observer any longer. “Have any strangers been hanging around, Mr. Hernandez?” Gaines gave me a look but didn’t say anything.
“Old One-Eye’s shape-shifter.”
“Did you see him too?” I asked.
“Uh-uh.”
There was little more to see, although we split up and walked the arroyo for a distance in either direction. All Plainer and I turned up was a cranky little sidewinder, which we gave a wide berth. They are aggressive little creatures, more so than the larger rattlers.
As we reassembled to begin the trek back to the hogan, Plainer looked at the steep sides of the arroyo and groaned aloud. I knew how he felt; my knees were already complaining. The old gunshot wound in my right thigh throbbed from the exertion. Street shoes are not made for soft sand or loose rocks or steep, crumbling clay walls. The pinto, with Hernandez aboard, had little trouble getting out of the gulch and was almost out of sight by the time we topped the gully. Sweat-drenched, we recovered the car and paused at the hogan long enough to pick up our guide. Gaines cranked up the air-conditioning, and we were all thoroughly chilled by the time we arrived at the Begay hogan.
That interview was a virtual rerun of the previous, except One-Eye spoke not a word of English and dwelt a great deal more on shape-shifters—talk that made Atcitty noticeably nervous—without coming up with a good reason why a witch would have
any use for a costly nylon bag with dirty laundry—albeit expensive dirty laundry.
The only real surprise was that One-Eye wasn’t one-eyed at all. He merely talked with a habitual squint, which made his right eye virtually disappear behind folds of chestnut-colored flesh.
CREATED BY JUTOH - PLEASE REGISTER TO REMOVE THIS LINE
Chapter 22
THE SPECK in the New Mexico sky gradually morphing into a white Mitsubishi Marquise stirred mixed emotions. Aggie Alfano was likeable, cultured, and had a good sense of humor; he was easy to be around. Yet I harbored a growing belief that the two murders had their origins inside the Alfano sphere of influence—if not within the family itself. At the very least, they somehow tied back into the Sabelito money and Alfano’s bid for De Falco Fine Wines. That kind of suspicion tended to poison a relationship.
Aggie made a faultless landing and nosed the Mitsu over to a tie-down. I watched as he emerged to give instructions to a lineman on the care and feeding of his mechanical baby. Then he turned and approached with outstretched hand.
“BJ, good to see you. Anything new?” he asked, smiling.
“Not much.” I accepted his shake and pulled him toward the parking lot. “Let’s talk in the car.”
As we drove to the motel, I sketched the events of the last few days, and he gave me the developments on his end.
The De Falco purchase was stalled because his mother, worried over her younger son, claimed she was too ill and in no shape to deal with the transaction. Alfano was furious; De Falco was impatient and threatening to withdraw the offer of sale. His brother-in-law was about to blow a fuse. William Vitrillo, Aggie made clear, was not on the best of terms with most of the Alfano clan. Aggie considered him a boorish opportunist, which made me wonder why his sister married the guy in the first place. But there’s no accounting for taste in that clan, especially in the matter of mates.
A lot of people in the Alfano organization stood to gain or lose on the De Falco deal. Frank Baratta, old Paolo’s son, wanted the transaction to proceed because it would double his sales staff and enhance his importance to the organization. Ariel Gonda, the treasurer, opposed the purchase, claiming the acquisition was too big to digest so soon after their last buyout. Tom Scavo, who headed the labs, was eager for the opportunity to begin experimenting with the De Falco recipes. The motives of the De Falco people were less clear, except for the dollars that would flow their way.
“Does your sister support her husband’s position?”
“All the way. She gets a healthy income from the Sabelito Trust, but she’s anxious for Bill to make it on his own. Frankly, the man goes through money like so much confetti. He always seems to be strapped.”
I had reserved a room for Aggie, and Melissa checked him in efficiently and effusively. Women reacted to Aggie Alfano the way men did to Jazz Penrod.
While he freshened up, I phoned the office from my room. Hazel had located two aircraft in the Alfano name. One, a Gulfstream executive jet, was under Alfano Vineyards. The second was Aggie’s plane, which was his own despite the Alfano business logo painted on the tail fin. The De Falco organization also owned a jet, but it was too large to have utilized the primitive field at Black Hole. Hazel said the N-Numbers and plane specifications were already in my e-mail, a not-so-subtle reminder to check my laptop occasionally.
Charlie had contacted two-dozen remote airfields and turned up a couple of possibilities. A single-engine, two-seater aircraft had landed at a small field in southeastern Utah with no passengers. The pilot, whose name meant nothing to me, said he was headed to Salt Lake City. Charlie was confident he could trace the plane back to its point of origin.
The second was a larger craft with two men aboard that set down in northern Arizona, fueled up, and took off for Phoenix. Charlie was on that one as well.
“BJ, there’s a hundred little private fields out there. Some of them’s cow pastures with a homemade sock and nothing more. They store gas in cans with hand pumps and probably refuel drug and other contraband runners. We’re not going to get anything out of them.”
“Probably not, but keep looking. Anything else?”
“Yeah, they say the De Falco buyout’s on hold.”
“That’s what Aggie told me.”
“The story about the missing Alfano kid broke in California two days ago, and the whole valley’s gaga over what’s going on. Some claim the pressure on the kid got so bad he ran away with his boyfriend. Others say the old man chased him off because of the boyfriend. The rest just mutter about dark and dirty deeds. This Alfano clan’s got a rough history, especially a couple of generations back when they came over from the mother country. So far, nobody’s mentioned the murders. I guess the press hasn’t found out about them yet.”
I asked how he and Hazel were doing, and he said they were handling things okay. Was he purposefully misunderstanding me, or was my question too oblique? I let it go.
AGGIE HAD changed into dark blue walking shorts with all sorts of buttoned and Velcroed pockets, presumably his climbing attire, topped by a burgundy knit pullover. His black leather ankle boots were obviously hand fashioned, most likely in Italy. The outfit heightened his resemblance to his younger brother. I tossed him a beer from the room’s tiny refrigerator, and we sat down at the table beside the bed. I filled him in on every detail, inferring—but not outright proclaiming—my suspicion that the danger came from the west.
“The man who hocked Lando’s shaving kit didn’t see anyone around his place?” Aggie asked.
“Hernandez—his name is Crespido Hernandez—claims he didn’t see anyone. He took us to where he found the kit, and there was no sign anyone had been there.”
“Why wasn’t it in the traveling bag the other fellow found?”
“Maybe Lando was using it when something interrupted him. Of course, it’s possible the kit was left there by someone else.”
He sat for a long time with a frown creasing his brow and then chose to ignore my last remark. “That ‘shape-changer’? Do you think it was Lando that fellow saw?”
“Who knows what One-Eye Begay saw?”
“I just don’t understand why Lando would abandon his stuff.”
I sipped my diet cola. “Could be a number of reasons. Exhaustion. Dehydration. He could have been halfway out of his head from wandering around the desert. Or maybe he’s hurt and not physically able to carry the bag—although it wasn’t heavy.”
“Or he was running from someone and had to abandon the bag. Which was found first, the tote bag or the shaving gear?”
“That’s a little hard to pin down. Both men are vague about dates. We know the pawn was made August 28. That was a Tuesday.”
“Was that before or after Santillanes was murdered?”
“After, but that doesn’t tell us anything. It could have been found before he was killed.”
“You say there’s an airfield out where you found him?”
“Looks like one. A primitive one.”
Aggie sat up straight. “Take me out there. I want to see it.”
“Okay, but there’s not much to see. The wind does a hell of a job sweeping away evidence.”
“I don’t care. Take me, BJ. Please.”
We headed west toward Shiprock in my rental. I watched Aggie out of the corner of my eye as we turned off the highway and started up the rough grade leading to the lip of Black Hole Canyon. When we arrived he got out of the car and took off toward the nearest pile of charred ashes. I leaned against the fender and watched as he went from one dead signal fire to the next. He walked with his head down and his hands in his pockets, kneeling occasionally to study the ground more closely. A quarter of a mile in the distance, he stood staring off to the south for a long time. What was going through his mind? Fear for his brother or fear of exposure?
He turned and started back, motioning me forward as he walked. I met him halfway up the makeshift airfield.
“You’re right. This is a drag-tail marking.” He indic
ated a faint scratch in the hardpan. “There’s not much left, but from what I see, it was probably a Piper like you thought.”
“What other type of plane can land and take off here?”
“A number. It could handle anything up to the size of my Mitsu, but I wouldn’t want to try it at night with only bonfires for light. A pilot needs to see where he’s going and when he’s approaching touchdown.”
“Wouldn’t the instruments tell him that?”
“The altitude out here’s close to a mile above sea level, but yeah, you could make an instrument landing. Personally I’d want eyeball contact on a rough field like this.”
He stood observing barely discernable scratches in the dirt, obviously fretting over his brother. I gave him a few minutes to himself before interrupting his thoughts.
“Have you ever heard your father—or anyone else, for that matter—mention Hugo Santillanes?” I nodded toward the lip of Black Hole Canyon. “Could the PI who was killed out here be an associate of your brother-in-law, Vitrillo?”
“Until he got himself killed, I’d never heard of him. He could be Vitrillo’s. He could be De Falco’s. Hell, he could even be Papa’s, for that matter. I’m not privy to all the old man’s connections.”
“He says Santillanes wasn’t his.”
“My father isn’t into full disclosure.”
“You’re saying he doesn’t always play straight.”
His confirmation of my supposition was interrupted by a call from Jazz on my cell phone. He wanted another meet.
AGGIE AND I rendezvoused with Jazz at a café on the extreme western edge of Farmington. Henry, who was taking vacation time from his job to play detective, was with his brother. A few minutes after being introduced to Aggie, he flexed his shoulders and relaxed, signaling he had decided this new guy was okay.
Jazz barely waited to order his steak and potatoes before getting down to business. “I think we got two sightings, boss.”
“Of Lando?” Aggie asked quickly.