Changing Woman (25 page)

Ella crouched next to the
body. Betty Nez was lying prone on the ceramic tile floor inches away from a tipped-over step stool, her neck twisted in an unnatural angle. One of the cupboard doors above the counter was open. At first glance, it appeared that she’d climbed up on the step stool to get something from the cupboard, then fallen off and broken her neck. But experience told her to withhold judgment. Betty worked for
the tribe in an office with the tribal chairman, and with a conspiracy going on, that raised questions in Ella’s mind that made everything worthy of a closer look.

Looking at the kitchen table, Ella saw that it was slightly out of alignment with the counter. Bending down to table level, she noted there were a few scattered grains of salt indicating the salt shaker had possibly been knocked over
when the table was knocked out of position. But who had set the salt shaker back up again, and why?

“Where’s Carolyn?” Ella asked Tache after asking him to get a shot of the table’s position and the spilled salt. “She’s been called, right?”

“Yep, and I’m right here,” Carolyn said, stepping into the kitchen. She’d put on weight recently and Ella guessed her good friend now weighed in at well
over two hundred pounds. For a large woman, however, she had an inexhaustible supply of energy. Dr. Roanhorse-Lavery was arguably the best medical examiner in the state, and virtually the only one still operating outside the State Medical Investigators Office based in Albuquerque.

“Hey, give the doctor some room to work,” she muttered,
turning sideways to pass between the table and where Ella
stood. “Not everyone is a bean pole, bones.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ella said with a tiny grin. No matter what Carolyn’s mood, the Navajo doctor was one of the most loyal friends anyone could ever hope to have.

“Man, this Elvis decor is a gag fest.” Carolyn glanced around, but once her attention shifted to the corpse, she was all business.

Ella knew the pathologist would miss nothing, but Carolyn hated
to have anyone looking over her shoulder while she worked. Ella backed off. One time when she’d hovered, Carolyn had taken off one of the plastic gloves she’d been wearing as she inspected the body and snapped it at Ella like a rubber band. Even the memory made her shudder.

Carolyn had just been teasing, of course, knowing that it wasn’t the sting that would annoy Ella but the physical contact
itself. Like Ella and all the Navajo officers, Carolyn wore a second set of gloves beneath to avoid direct contact with the body, which was a big taboo for Navajos.

Ella picked her way around the small house, studying everything. Betty Nez was an immaculate housekeeper, and the only room that appeared to have been disturbed was the kitchen. Satisfied for now, she went to join Justine, who was
still questioning the victim’s daughter.

“I can’t imagine what happened. Mom shouldn’t even have been home. I bet she came back to be with
him.”

Justine looked at Ella. “Betty was divorced, and recently she’d started dating again.”

“Who?”

“Millie doesn’t know.”

“I never met her boyfriend,” Millie said. “Mom was trying to keep the whole thing a secret. My sister and I suspected that she was
dating a married man, probably someone at work, since she very rarely went out on her own.” Millie paused and swallowed, big tears falling down her cheeks.

“Is there anyone your mother might have confided in, perhaps another woman she worked with?” Ella asked. “We need to track this man down in case he was here when she died.”

“Mom didn’t confide in people easily, but I imagine her co-workers
knew,” Millie said. “It’s hard to keep things like that secret for long around here.”

Aware, from the absence of the flash, that Tache had stopped taking photos, Ella let Justine continue questioning Millie and made her way back into the kitchen.

Ella crouched by Carolyn. “So what do you think?” she asked in a low voice. “Do we have a case here, or is it accidental?”

“Someone was trying hard
to make you believe it was a simple accident, but that’s not what the evidence tells me. All I’ve got is preliminary, mind you, but there are bruises on her upper arms, around her neck, and loose hair on the back of her head that indicates she fought with her attacker. I’ve already bagged her hands, and will be scraping her fingernails in case she managed to scratch whoever came after her. I’m thinking
that this person grabbed her, she pulled free, but he yanked her back by the hair. She fell, which would explain the bruise on her knee, and then her attacker slammed her head against the floor. The first time he did it, she would have gone out like a light. After that, it would have been easy for him to complete the job. I put her time of death at between ten and eleven this morning.”

Ella,
working along with her team, took the house apart, searching for prints, for tracks outside, and signs of forced entry. As she worked, Ella found herself wishing Betty hadn’t been such a good housekeeper. She needed something—one clue—that would lead her to Betty’s lover.

Ella took a long look around the bedroom while Sergeant Neskahi and Officer Tache examined the rest of the house. The Elvis
lamp on the nightstand had a velvet lampshade with images of Elvis fining the bottom near
the red fringe. The bedspread had an image of Elvis in the center, with eyes that appeared to wink depending on the angle of the viewer.

Ella tore her gaze from it and checked the nightstand, then the floor, looking for anything that would point to the identity of Betty’s lover. But the room was clean, too
much so. It looked like a good hotel room after housekeeping had finished. Did anyone really clean this thoroughly, or had someone made a concerted effort to remove any traces of evidence? Even the wastebasket in the bathroom, which fortunately held no Elvis-inspired items at all, was empty. The vacuum cleaner in a hall closet had a new, unused bag installed.

She went back into the living room
and approached Millie. “Did you touch anything in the kitchen before or after you found the body?”

“No. When I got to the kitchen and I saw the body I just couldn’t move. I could tell Mom was dead from the way her neck... you know. Finally I just ran to the phone.” Millie shook her head slowly, tears flowing again.

“I’m sorry, but one more question. Would you say that your mother was a really
good housekeeper?”

“Yeah,” Millie managed a brief smile. “She was proud of her Elvis memorabilia, and she liked everything perfect so she could show it all off. She was constantly adjusting furniture and such to make everything look just right.” Millie wiped her tears with a tissue, then continued. “When one of your detectives asked me about the two glasses in the drain rack by the sink, I realized
Mom must have come home to meet her boyfriend, but then something happened. Mom
always
dried glasses and plates off immediately and put them into the cupboard. No way she’d have left anything just sitting there like that.”

Giving Justine a nod, Ella went back to the kitchen. Carolyn was bringing out the body bag to contain the corpse.

“You through?” Ella asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll need some help
putting the body away and loading the bag into the back of my van.”

Though Tache and Neskahi were within hearing distance, both of them vanished instantly.

Carolyn looked at Ella. “I’m not moving and neither is this body until I get help. Get Neskahi. I think he was the one who went out into the backyard.”

“I can help you,” Ella offered.

Carolyn glowered at her. “
I said, get Neskahi.”
“But
why?” Ella asked, puzzled.

Carolyn gave her a smug smile. “Because he made a crack about my weight.”

“Oh, well, since you have a good reason like that,” Ella said with a tiny smile, “it’s hard for me to refuse.” Ella went to the back door and signaled for the sergeant to come back in.

Neskahi’s face fell and he walked back slowly, shoulders slumped, head down. “That’s what I get for asking
if she’d already searched the refrigerator,” he muttered as he moved past Ella.

Once the body had been taken away and only the masking tape outline remained, Ella tagged and bagged the salt shaker.

She then sat down on the kitchen floor and turned over the trash basket onto a layer of paper towels. Except for two empty cola cans and a copy of yesterday’s tribal paper, there was nothing of interest,
not even a used vacuum bag. Then she noticed a piece of gum stuck to the newspaper. Ella picked up the paper with the gum still attached, then bagged and tagged it, along with both empty cola cans. With luck they’d get fingerprints off the cans, and be able to link the DNA on the gum to a suspect—if she ever narrowed it down to anyone.

Ella took one last look around and stared at the tape outline
pensively. Whoever had been there had been careful. There were no signs of a struggle except for a
few grains of salt and the slightly out-of-position table. A crime of passion? Not this well planned.

They left the crime scene nearly two hours later. The closest neighbors had been questioned, but houses here were at least a quarter of a mile apart and no one had seen or heard anything. The trash
pickup had been the afternoon before, they learned, and nothing was in the trash can outside the house.

“She was a real pretty woman,” Justine said. “I wonder why someone like her would get mixed up with a married guy?”

“She wasn’t getting any younger, cousin. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of choices and she was lonely.”

“But there are plenty of men around, no matter what age you are.”

Ella
laughed. “Yeah, but a lot of women have trouble connecting with them after they pass a certain age. And some of the leftover men have been leftover for a good reason.”

“I know, Ella. But if I were looking for a guy, I’d go to places where I could meet single men and just take my chances. And if I didn’t meet anyone I liked, I’d go it alone instead of settling. I can’t imagine picking a married
guy just ’cause he was the only one interested.” She shuddered. “I guess I’m not wired that way.”

“Not many women cops would be likely to fall for the tired lines these guys come up with. We deal too much in reality and have few illusions about human nature.”

“Which also makes it hard for us to sustain relationships, doesn’t it?” Justine observed.

“Yeah, that, too.” She gave Justine a concerned
look. “Are you and Wilson having problems?”

She nodded. “He wants to move things along at a faster pace than I’m comfortable with,” Justine said. “Right now I’m trying to cope with what happened to
my hand, and I’m working really hard to make sure I can qualify on the firing range. That’s my first priority—well, that, and keeping up with my caseload. Yet he’s talking about our future together
and how he wants to settle down. He’s even started mentioning marriage.” Justine shook her head. “I just can’t deal with all that right now.”

“You have to do what’s right for you, but be careful,” Ella said thoughtfully. “I’ve learned that life goes on whether we’re ready or not, and the right person can slip through our fingers before we even realize it,” Ella said, thinking about Harry.

Justine
glanced over at her. “Is that what happened between Wilson and you?”

Ella shook her head. “Wilson and I have always been such good friends that people believed there was more going on than there was. Wilson got wrapped up in that too for a while, before he finally accepted the fact that I just didn’t love him in that way. Then he got involved with Lisa and, in time, that turned out to be an even
bigger disaster for him. I think the reason he’s rushing you now is because he’s afraid that things will go wrong again and he’ll lose you.”

Justine nodded. “I thought that, too, so I offered to move in with him and see how it went, but he said no. He told me he’s not even remotely interested in halfway commitments.”

“Consider the relationships he’s had and you’ll understand where he’s coming
from.”

“What about you?” Justine asked. “Don’t you ever think of settling down with a man, particularly now that you’ve got Dawn? It would be good for her to have a full-time daddy in her life.”

“It’s precisely because I’ve got Dawn that I have to be careful. I don’t want her to be hurt. She’s my first responsibility. But to answer your question, yes, I would like to find the right man and settle
down.”

“Do you think Harry could be the right guy?” Justine pressed.

Ella laughed. Justine’s instincts were right on target, as usual. “I don’t know. We understand each other’s responsibilities very well, so that’s a start. What happens in the future is anyone’s guess.”

“But it’s always that way, isn’t it?” Justine said, looking down at what was left of her right forefinger.

“Yes, I guess
it is,” Ella said, wishing life came with a really good set of instructions.

Rose watched her granddaughter playing in her room with Jennifer. It bothered her to have a stranger practically living here, but what really annoyed her was seeing how easily Dawn had accepted this new person.

Turning away, Rose walked to what had once been her husband’s study. The room was divided in two these days—half
was Ella’s office and the other half was her sewing and weaving room.

Rose searched for a novel Ella had given her last year. It was the story of a Navajo man who’d been turned into a vampire, but he was subject only to the beliefs of the
Dineh.
Prayer sticks accomplished what crosses could not. Ella had found the novel entertaining and had recommended it to her.

Finding the book on the shelf,
Rose sat down on the sofa and began reading, but soon she was forced to give up. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate, her thoughts seemed to drift back to Herman. It had been nice having a man her own age to talk to yesterday, someone who remembered the good times and the bad times on the Rez as she did.

With a sigh, she tried to focus back on the book, but to no avail. Finally, hearing
a car driving up, she stood. A knock sounded at her door shortly thereafter. “I’ll get it,” Rose called out.

A man she recognized, a member of the Tribal Council,
stood on her porch. Ronald Etcitty was one of the leaders of the progaming faction pushing for the council’s approval.