Coyote's Wife (35 page)

Unwilling to indulge those feelings, Ella stood up. The future would unfold at its own pace. Right now, she had work to do and a lot of things to accomplish before the day was done. She’d start out by going to meet with Roxanne.

Ella drove to Abigail’s where she knew Roxanne would be. Though it was barely eight-thirty in the morning, as she pulled up, signs of activity were everywhere.
Two white vans were parked outside, one from a janitorial service, the other a painting contractor from Farmington. Men carrying drop cloths and paint cans were going in through the front door. As she searched for a place to park she saw that the vandalized yellow sedan was gone and in its place was a dark brown rental vehicle. Roxanne’s green pickup was beside it.

Ella pulled up behind Roxanne’s
car and blocked it. Just as she climbed out of her vehicle, Abigail came to the front door, Roxanne to her side, and waved Ella in.

“Things are moving along, as you can see,” Abigail said as Ella joined her. “Do you have more questions for me?”

“Actually, I’d like to speak to your bodyguard,” Ella said. There was no expression on Roxanne’s face. In fact, it
was so neutral, Ella knew it was taking
an incredible amount of effort to keep it that way.

“In that case, I’ll go make sure the Anglo painters I hired do exactly as I’ve asked. There seems to be some confusion about which colors go where.”

As Abigail went down the hall, Roxanne’s gaze stayed on Ella. “There are a lot of strangers here today and I really should be with my client. Can we talk while I work?”

“I don’t think this is
a conversation you’ll want to have in front of Abigail,” Ella warned.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what’s on your mind,” Roxanne answered.

“Threatening a police officer is a crime. I deal with things like that quickly,” Ella responded without inflection.

“If you have proof someone has threatened an officer, maybe yourself, then why don’t you go arrest them?” Roxanne countered smoothly.

“I plan on it, particularly if you don’t stop playing games with me.”

“I
don’t
play games,” Roxanne answered flatly, but before she could say anything more, Abigail screamed.

Roxanne moved at lightning speed, Ella half a beat behind her. As they entered the bedroom, Roxanne and Ella saw one of the painters coming toward Abigail, holding out a small odd-looking knife in his hand.

Roxanne kicked
out twice, knocking the object out of his hand, then sending the man stumbling backwards to the floor. A heartbeat later, she had her boot at his throat, pinning him down.

“Wanna do your job, officer?” Roxanne asked Ella without taking her eyes off the terrified painter.

“I didn’t do nothing!” The thin, balding, brown-haired man choked and coughed as Roxanne applied just a little more pressure.

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” Roxanne snapped.

Ella brought out her cuffs. “Let’s sort this out,” she said. “Sir, would you please roll over slowly, face down? And keep your hands away from your body.” Ella then gestured to Roxanne, who stepped back.

Ella handcuffed the man, then told him to get to his feet.

“What’s going on? I didn’t do nothing to nobody. All I did was show her the weird-looking
knife I found. That’s it,” the man said, getting his voice back.

Abigail stared at the object, now resting on a heavy canvas drop cloth six feet away. With effort, she tore her gaze away and looked over at Roxanne. “Thank you for moving so quickly. If that had touched me …”

Ella took a closer look and immediately recognized the weapon. It was a crude bone knife, something skinwalkers were known
to possess and use in their practices. Whether this one was really made of human bones or not remained to be determined.

“Is it a real bone knife?” Abigail whispered in Ella’s ear.

“We’ll find out,” Ella said, pulling on two pairs of latex gloves before picking it up and easing the knife into an evidence pouch.

“Honest, I wasn’t trying to stab Mrs. Yellowhair,” the man protested. “I found that
thing behind the dresser when I moved it to one side to spread the drop cloth all the way to the wall. I thought it was some kind of tribal artifact.”

Ella nodded, then uncuffed the Anglo painter, who appeared to be telling the truth. “Okay, relax. The knife has cultural significance that would take too long to explain, so let’s move on.”

“Lady, you play rough,” the man said, looking at Roxanne
and rubbing his throat. “Gonna leave a bruise.”

Roxanne’s gaze drifted to Ella as she answered him. “I do whatever it takes to win.”

Ella ignored her and, instead, searched the room for any other skinwalker objects. After coming up empty, Ella got ready to leave.

Abigail walked back outside with her. “Please don’t tell anyone you found that here—except your brother and the tribal police, of
course. Word is already spreading about what happened yesterday, and a lot of people are afraid to come by the house now. Even my own daughter kept her visit short last night. Your brother is going to do a Sing in about ten days, and a shorter ritual before then. But this is taking a terrible toll on StarTalk and my son-in-law. He found out about what happened to me and won’t go outside the house
without a gun now.”

“I know he’s been drinking, but is he also taking any kind of drugs—legal or otherwise?” Ella asked, remembering the glazed look in his eyes the last time she’d seen him.

“No drugs, just booze, as far as I know. But he’s an accident waiting to happen. My daughter’s not thinking right either. She’s so angry after seeing what they did to me, I’m afraid she might try to find
answers on her own, and put herself in even more danger.” She took a slow, deep breath. “Have you made any progress at all?”

Ella considered lying, then resisted the temptation. The truth was that Abigail had been her prime suspect until she, too, had fallen victim. “I think that the incidents we’ve seen that appear to be random acts of violence are actually part of some larger plan. That’s all
I can tell you at this point.”

“Good luck to you, Clah,” Roxanne called out as Ella walked away to the tribal cruiser.

Less than twenty minutes later, Ella entered the station and went to the lab. Seeing Justine at the computer, she gave her a quick rundown and left the knife with her.

Ella continued down the hall and saw Tache coming out of his office.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ralph said.
“I needed to talk to you.”

“My office then.”

As soon as they were both inside, Ella shut the door. “Any leads on who’s passing information to the Fierce Ones?”

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I’ve asked questions nicely and tried to push for them, too, but I don’t think Jesse knows. He told me that the information they’ve been given is pretty accurate. So if it wasn’t me, it
has got to be someone well-connected with our team,” he answered.

“Now for the interesting news,” he continued. “I also pressed Jesse for any new information about the beating of Wallace Curtis and Marilyn Charley. He told me that someone impersonating one of the leaders of the Fierce Ones gave that order. The imposter knew exactly who to call and used the right recognition signals. The individuals
involved—who’d already heard about the affair from one of George Charley’s relatives—didn’t even stop to question the move. Now the Fierce Ones are going full-out to find out who faked the orders and made those calls—and they want to know
before
we do. If they catch whoever’s responsible, he’s going to be nothing more than a footnote in history.”

“Once they make an example of whoever betrayed
them, fear of the Fierce Ones will grow. That’s why they don’t want us involved,” Ella said. “I’ll need you to talk to Jesse again. If he’s as well-informed as you’ve said, he probably has a list of likely suspects. We now know that it would have had to have been someone who knows the members of the Fierce Ones
and
their assigned tasks.”

“I’ll keep working on him.”

Justine came in just as Tache
left. “The knife is made from deer antler, not bone. You said it was at the crime scene?”

“In the bedroom behind the dresser.”

“It wasn’t there when we processed the scene,” Justine
said flatly. “I
always
search for anything that may have been dropped or that could have rolled beneath furniture. I used my flashlight to check under and around everything.”

Ella expelled her breath in a rush.
“I didn’t think you would have missed it. But why would a skinwalker put it behind the dresser of all places? The purpose of a bone knife is to use it on the victim and contaminate them, if not kill them outright.”

“What are you thinking, that the painter planted it there?”

“No. He was Anglo and I don’t think he had any idea what that was.”

“Who else could have done it?”

Ella thought about
Roxanne, but that didn’t seem to fit her style. She was getting her paycheck from Abigail, and appeared to be dedicated enough to the job. Maybe Abigail had planted it herself, or it could have been anyone who’d visited the woman. But, then again, to what end? The motive continued to elude her.

“I don’t get any of this. What are we missing?” Justine said, just as Big Ed appeared at her door.

“You better get rolling,” he said quickly. “Dispatch just sent a cruiser out to your brother’s home. Two gunmen are taking shots at his family. Clifford’s currently holed up in his medicine hogan with his wife and son.”

Ella was on the move even before her boss had finished speaking. Justine ran, getting ahead of her. “I’m driving,” she said.

Sirens wailing, they quickly passed through Shiprock,
then raced south down the highway at pursuit speed. “An attack in broad daylight? And why
my
brother?” Ella asked, not expecting an answer.

“
Hataaliis
and skinwalkers are mortal enemies,” Justine said, not taking her eyes off the road.

“But why get lethal now, shooting bullets at my brother’s family? Why not something more ritualistic, like what we’ve been seeing?”

“Bullets have been used to
trump rituals and magic before. Maybe they want to punish the
hataalii
by endangering those he loves,” Justine answered.

Ella used the unit’s radio to contact the patrol officer already approaching the scene. Marianna Talk identified herself clearly and quickly, reporting that her ETA would be less than a minute.

“We’ll be right behind you, maybe four minutes,” Ella said, looking over at Justine.

“Five,” Justine answered, easing up on the gas as she saw an old pickup ahead in their lane, loaded down with firewood.

Every minute felt like a lifetime to Ella thinking of her brother and his family under attack. She tried to keep herself busy checking her weapon and spare magazines. At least Herman and her mom, who lived close to Clifford’s, were away and not likely to be swept up in the attack.

Marianna called back to report that shots were still being fired as she approached the scene. Ella could hear the gunfire over her radio.

They raced down the dirt road by Ella and Rose’s home at fifty miles an hour, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Thirty seconds later, Clifford and Loretta’s place was within sight.

The wood-framed stucco home stood fifty yards from the medicine hogan,
and halfway between the two was a low-roofed structure covering several cords of firewood. Across the dirt road, to the south, was Marianna’s department vehicle. Ella could see her crouched low beside her door, using the engine block as cover. Marianna had her shotgun aimed over
the hood. No perps were visible at the moment, but the direction of Marianna’s aim gave Ella valuable information.

Justine pulled up a vehicle length away from the squad car, stopped at an angle to create a shallow V with the vehicles, then ducked down as Ella scrambled out the passenger side. Justine came out behind her on her knees and, shielded by the body of the car, reached back for the shotgun.

Pistol in hand, Ella crouched low beside the right front tire, out of view of the structures. Marianna, careful
to stay low, glanced over at her.

“They have rifles, and fired two shots in my direction when I pulled up,” she warned. “One’s behind the firewood, and another shooter is more to the east, behind the boulders to our right. The last time he fired, he was near the corral, but he moves after every shot.”

Ella shifted over to the front bumper, and looked at the sandstone boulders, her head low.
A shot rang out from behind the stacks of wood, and she saw dust and splinters as the bullet struck the frame of the medicine hogan’s entrance. The blanket that served as a door was pulled back about a foot, but she couldn’t see anyone against the dark interior. Clifford had obviously extinguished his lantern—a good idea.

Ella fired two rounds at the wood pile just to keep the shooter from moving
out of cover. There was not much chance of hitting him, an entire winter’s supply of wood gave him plenty of protection.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw Justine lying prone beside the rear tire so she could fire beneath their unit. “I’ve got the wood pile covered, Ella. If he comes out on either side, or moves west, I’ve got a clear shot.”

“Tactics?” Marianna asked.

Ella looked to the
east, noting that the ground sloped
away from the road on their side—the south. If she kept low, she’d have a chance to outflank both shooters from that direction. “Justine will cover the wood pile, keeping anyone from moving to our left,” Ella said. “You cover the rocks. I’m going to move east down the road, and try to come up from their left. Their only escape will be retreating to the north,
toward the mesa.” Ella glanced back at her partner. “If the opportunity presents itself, Justine, advance to the house with cover fire from Marianna. That’ll compromise the guy behind the wood pile.”

Ella moved downslope, then, crouching low, ran east, using the roadbed as cover. She heard a rifle shot, then two shotgun blasts as the officers returned fire. Noting that the rifle fire had come
from farther away this time, Ella suspected that the suspects were making a run for it now that Clifford had help. They would be long gone before she could outflank them. She moved upslope to take a quick look, and caught a glimpse of a rifle swinging toward her from behind a cottonwood tree beyond the rocks. Ella dove to the ground as a bullet whined overhead.