Ghost Medicine (2 page)

“Stay
in
the vehicle,” Justine called out to them, exposing only her head,
left arm, and handgun.

“We’re not armed, officers!” the passenger yelled back. “Don’t shoot.”

“Driver, keep your hands up and come out slowly,” Ella ordered, moving around the engine compartment, her sights on the young Navajo man’s head.

The driver slid out of the vehicle, but suddenly ducked below the door and ran down the arroyo, losing his hat in the process.

“Hold your man. I’ve got this
idiot,” Ella said, holstering her pistol as she raced toward the driver, who was trying to claw his way up a twenty-foot-high, forty-five-degree embankment.

Ella stood her ground and waited, watching as the man cursed, grabbed at the dirt and rocks, dug in his toes, and basically got nowhere trying to climb the embankment.

“Crap,” the man groaned, then gave up and slid down the five feet he’d
managed to climb. Raising his hands high, he turned and faced Ella, a sheepish expression on his face. “Okay, you got me. Now what?”

She brought out her yellow Taser and pointed it at the young Navajo’s torso. “You been drinking,
hosteen
?” she said, using the Navajo term for “mister.”

“No, ma’am. We just stopped to check out the pickup back there. The driver’s dead, blown away. He got shot in
the head but we didn’t do it—honest!” He coughed, and tried to take shorter breaths.

The subject’s clothing reeked with the odor of decaying flesh. “You got real close to the body, didn’t you?” Ella said, fighting not to gag.

“Too close. I’ll have to throw away this shirt. It really stinks but it’s nothing compared to what it’s like near the cab of that truck. It almost made me hurl. The guy’s
all covered with flies, even on his hands.”

“Turn around slowly, then go back to the center of the road, kneel down on the ground, and lock your hands behind your head.”

“Okay, okay.” The barrel-chested man followed her instructions to the letter.

Ella nodded to Justine, who’d already handcuffed the skinny passenger. He appeared to be somewhere around eighteen.

“We’ll secure them inside the
SUV, take a look in their vehicle for any weapons or possible evidence, then drive back to the scene and check things out,” Ella said.

“What about my truck?” the driver protested.

“I’ve got the keys, bro,” Justine said, “and you’ve got a flat tire. It’s not going anywhere.”

*   *   *

Once they’d placed both men in the rear of the cruiser, Justine drove back, much more slowly this time. Ella
used the men’s driver’s licenses to run a check through the MDT, the mobile data terminal.

“Petty crimes, but no outstanding warrants,” Ella said.

“See? I told you we were clean,” Ernest Cohoe, the younger man, said.

“So why’d you run?” Ella asked.

“Hello? We were stealing the battery,” Ernest said. “Well, technically, Andrew was.”

“Thanks, idiot,” the driver whispered.

Five minutes later,
they pulled in about twenty feet behind the gold pickup. As Ella stepped out of the vehicle, the unbearable stench of spoiled meat engulfed her, a reminder of what was waiting for them inside the truck.

Justine climbed out, looking around at the scene, one hand over her mouth. “This is going to be … really bad.”

“Yeah, but there’s no avoiding it,” Ella said, rubbing Mentholatum around her nose
to mask the scent, then handing the jar to Justine. “Let’s go check out the body.”

“Take short breaths, it’ll help. And watch out for the
chindi,
” Ernest said.

“Wise up, bro, they’re cops. They don’t believe in that BS,” Andrew said.

“It’s not BS. When we die, the evil side of us stays close to the body and will try to hurt the living. That’s why I stayed clear of the truck. The
chindi
can
make you nuts—or worse,” Ernest said.

“You’re already nuts, so don’t worry about it,” Andrew answered.

“You’re the idiot, bro. You already had a good battery in your pickup. Now we’re both going to jail.”

“Just shut up, man,” Andrew replied.

“Both of you shut up!” Justine yelled back to them as she and Ella continued walking toward the pickup.

As Ella drew near, she swatted away the big blowflies
that circled the open cab.

Ella stopped a few feet from the driver’s-side door and checked the ground. There was one set of footprints in the damp roadbed, probably a match for Andrew’s, the driver of the green truck who didn’t believe in the
chindi
.

“Partner, I’m sick,” Justine mumbled, then suddenly covered her mouth with one hand and ran back across the road.

Ella breathed through her mouth
as much as possible. They were both seasoned homicide detectives, but the rain and the heat had done their usual job on the body. It was difficult even to take a breath without triggering a gag reflex.

With a burst of self-discipline, Ella forced herself to focus. The tall, slender Navajo man with the military-style haircut was slumped over, partially resting on the passenger’s side. The position
wasn’t natural. It was more likely that someone had pushed the body aside.

There was a bloody hole about the size of a dime in the left side of his skull two inches above the top of his ear. The right side of his head was splattered all over the passenger’s inside door panel—which accounted for most of the flies.

Ella tore her gaze from the victim’s head and, swatting away the flies, glanced
down again. The tips of the man’s fingers and thumbs on both hands had been chopped off at the top joints, probably with something like bolt cutters. He’d undoubtedly been dead at the time because there was no evidence of a struggle, but the mutilations had been immediate. Blood had oozed from each wound, creating a real mess on the seat and floorboard.

Ella swallowed hard. This was a skinwalker’s
MO. She’d seen it before but usually at perverted ceremonial sites where Navajo witches had mutilated bodies stolen from their graves. This time, however, the skinwalker had also done the killing, which meant that trouble was only beginning.

These secretive people distorted Navajo beliefs to generate fear among their targets, usually to intimidate and control members of the community. They were
also skilled tricksters and often created illusions or magic tricks to demonstrate their “power.”

Ella tried to focus on the physical evidence. Theories would wait till later. Despite the swelling and discoloration from maybe two days’ exposure to the elements, something about the man looked vaguely familiar to her.

Silently giving thanks that the last couple of days had been a little cooler
due to the cloudy weather, she climbed up on the running board, canted her head, and looked into the dead man’s face. The little mole above his left eyebrow and the tiny scar along his jawline …

A sudden chill enveloped her, and her heart began to race. She staggered back a step or two, nearly fell, but somehow caught herself in time.

“I know who the victim is,” she said in a strangled voice
as Justine returned. “We both knew him.”

Justine stood beside Ella, looking pale but ready to work. “Who is it?”

“Harry Ute,” Ella said, her voice a tight whisper.

“
Our
Harry, the officer who was part of our team for years?” Seeing Ella nod, Justine shook her head. “No way. Ralph and I took him out for coffee and apple pie just a few days ago. He came to the station to catch up with old friends.”

Though the temperature was in the high seventies, Ella felt ice cold. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, trying to warm up. Harry was more than a friend. They’d dated exclusively for almost a year, and before leaving to join the U.S. Marshals Service, he’d asked her to be his wife. Though it had broken her heart to say no, she just hadn’t been ready to make that kind of a commitment,
so they’d parted ways. That was almost ten years ago, she realized, when Dawn was starting first grade.

The connection they’d shared once and faded memories of another time lingered in her mind along with an overwhelming sense of loss. A shudder ripped through her.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I saw his hands,” Justine said. “Stealing the whorls, the fingerprints, that’s the mark of
 … the evil ones.”

“I know, but I’m still hoping it’s just some sicko thinking we won’t be able to ID the body now,” Ella said.

“I suppose so, but that would mean he’s not particularly bright,” Justine said. “We could trace the pickup from the plate.”

“I better call this in,” Ella said. She moved around the area, holding up the phone in hopes of getting a signal. “No luck. I better use the radio,”
she said at last, and went back to the SUV.

TWO

While waiting for the crime scene unit and the tribe’s own medical examiner to arrive, Ella and Justine separated the men and questioned them thoroughly. Both had records for shoplifting and, when employed, usually worked construction, often for the same contractor.

The men claimed to have been on their way to Shiprock to look for work when they saw what they’d thought was an abandoned
truck. Short on cash and knowing the battery would be easy to sell, Andrew had stood on the running board, reached inside through the open window, and pulled the hood release.

“So, Andrew, did you intend on reporting the body?” Ella asked.

“Yeah, sure. As soon as I got to Shiprock, I would have stopped at a pay phone and called it in. Ernie probably wouldn’t have. He thinks he’ll call the
chindi
if he even talks about the body. He really believes in all that traditional stuff. He’s already talking about going to a
hataalii
for a blessing—once he scrapes up enough money, that is.”

“Did you look at the body?”

“Me? No, not after I knew the guy was dead. Why would I? That’s too gross even for me.”

Ella questioned him for several minutes, and once assured he had no more information to share,
placed him back in the SUV, still handcuffed. Moments later, Justine followed, securing Cohoe there as well.

With their prisoners put away, Ella and Justine moved out of the men’s hearing range to discuss what they’d learned.

“Our friend wasn’t killed today, and maybe not even yesterday,” Justine said.

“Unless those two morons decided to return to the scene just to see what else they could
find, there’s no way we can link them to the homicide,” Ella said. “They don’t have anything on them or in their vehicle that ties them directly to the shooting. No rifle, no bolt cutters, no … trophies.”

“All we can prove is that they were about to take the battery and that they fled the scene,” Justine said. “They also weren’t planning on stealing the truck, though the keys are still in the
ignition, or they wouldn’t have removed the battery.”

“My guess is that they wouldn’t have wanted to touch anything that had been in direct contact with the dead, not even Andrew, who’s clearly a Modernist,” Ella said. “These two will probably lawyer up once they’re at the station, but I’m going to hold them for twenty-four hours. Once the ME establishes a time of death, we’ll question them again
and verify their alibis.”

Justine glanced off at the mountains, purposely avoiding looking back at Harry’s truck. “Our friend was as thin as a rail when I first met him. Then he bulked up, started with the bodybuilding, and his face filled out. For an old guy—no offense—he was pretty good looking. And a fine investigator, too,” she added quickly, looking back at Ella. “I know you two were real
close for a while. Are you sure you’ll be okay working the scene?”

“I’ll be fine. What we had ended a long, long time ago,” Ella said, for her own benefit as well.

“Do you have any idea what he might have been doing out here?” Justine asked.

“No, but that’s only one of the many questions we’ll need answered,” Ella said.

As she waited for the crime scene team, Ella glanced back at the tribal
SUV, checking on their prisoners. They both appeared to be fine but bored. That would end soon enough. A patrol car was en route and they’d be taken to the station and processed within the hour.

Ella took another look at Harry’s truck, then the surrounding terrain. Her old friend had been ambushed, and from the angle of the wound, he’d never even seen it coming. In a way, that was a mercy. The
mutilations had been performed postmortem, and he never suffered. She’d take all the comfort she could from that.

“I’m going to start taking photos,” Justine called out.

“Yeah, do. In particular, I’d like you to document what the evidence has already told us.”

“Like what, specifically?”

“His head had been facing forward, so he’d been looking out the front windshield when the bullet struck
him high above his left ear. It passed through him completely, then continued through the passenger’s door and into the exposed road cut. From the angle, I’m guessing the shooter was on the top of the opposite slope.”

Justine nodded. “Yeah. A drive-by shooter would have been at about the same level as him, and the bullet would have passed out the open passenger’s-side window instead. Hopefully
the round won’t be too badly deformed when we find it and we’ll be able to match it to a specific weapon eventually.” She paused for a moment. “I know he was doing PI work, but do you happen to know what kind? Background checks, business thefts, security?”

Ella shook her head. She’d noticed that, like her, Justine was avoiding using Harry’s name. That was said to call a man’s
chindi,
and though
neither of them were Traditionalists, some habits were too deeply ingrained to ignore.

“All I know is that he was working for Teeny,” Ella said. Bruce Little, an old friend and former cop, had his own PI agency. Despite his name, Teeny stood just shy of seven feet and was shaped like a barrel with arms. “Stay sharp out here, partner. We’ve already seen that there’s a lot more to this murder than
just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

*   *   *

Ella was marking off the area by setting out orange cones and Justine was taking photos when the tribe’s crime scene vehicle roared up the incline.