Mourning Dove (35 page)

Ella sat down on the back step, and gestured for Dawn to join her. It was cold outside, but her daughter was dressed warmly, and this was one conversation she wanted to have away from Rose.

“Your father wants you to see his home as yours, too. He buys you
things so you can be comfortable there. But I also love you, and your place is with me,” Ella said gently.

“And with him, too. He said so.”

Ella said nothing for a long moment. She wouldn’t bind her daughter to her with bribes, nor would she turn her child into the center of a tug-of-war between the adults in her life.

“I’m working a case right now, pumpkin, so go ahead and sleep at your dad’s
if you want. But you won’t be able to come back until Monday. Your
shimasání
will make her own plans if you’re not here. She has a wedding to think about.”

“So I can go? Really?” Dawn asked, her voice rising with excitement.

“Yes, I think it’s a good idea all the way around. Your father needs to know what it’s like to have active children around his house. You, your friend, the puppy . . . I
think you’ll all be learning
about each other and that’s a good thing,” Ella said, trying not to smile at the prospect. Kevin had no idea what he was getting into, but it was high time he learned.

“Your dad will have to set up his own rules about who’ll feed the puppy, who takes him out, cleans up after him, when you do your homework, and so on.”

“Daddy doesn’t have rules,” Dawn said.

“Okay,”
Ella said. Just thinking what lay in store for Kevin this weekend brightened her mood considerably.

“Do I still have to keep my grades up?”

“Yes, that’s one of
my
rules. Nothing’s changed here, except that since you already have bunk beds, there’s no reason for me to buy them, too.”

“Then can I have something else?”

“What do you want?”

“Animal puzzles!”

“Puzzles?” Ella asked, pleased to
discover this new similarity between them.

“They’re on a Game Boy, so they start up new each time you press a button. Then you have to find the animals that are hidden in the jungle. I’m really good at it!”

“Okay,” Ella said with a nod. This she could deal with. “But you’ll have to honor our original deal. Your grades have to come up from a C average to a B.”

“Okay, Mom,” Dawn said, then hearing
the phone ring, ran past Ella and hurried into the house, Two at her heels.

Dawn was growing up too quickly. The knowledge filled Ella with mixed emotions. Half of her wanted to hold on tight and never let go—but that wasn’t what Dawn needed. Hearing her daughter on the phone, she tried to picture Dawn as a teenager, then shuddered. One step at a time.

Ella finished the rest of her burrito in
three large bites, but as she was walking toward her police cruiser, Rose came out the kitchen door to join her.

“I was in the laundry room and heard what you told your daughter,” she said softly. “I think your instincts were right.”

“Mom, Kevin doesn’t have the remotest idea of what it’s like to be the single parent of an active kid. Let her stay there for a few days—with a new puppy and her
friend—while he tries to get some work done. I may even insist that he take her for a week. Let him cook and handle things by himself. And do her laundry, too.”

“He’ll just hire Boots, you know,” Rose said sourly.

“Not for another week or so. Boots just left to spend some time in Albuquerque, remember?”

Rose laughed. “What a wonderful day this is turning out to be.”

Ella arrived at the station
twenty minutes later. One look at Blalock, slumped in a chair just outside the interview room, told her he hadn’t gotten any sleep.

“How did it go?” she asked him, handing him the cup of coffee she’d just picked up from the vending machine.

“I’ll let Carson brief you. The man’s a machine. He’s still at it. Exhaustion’s not in his vocabulary.”

“He’s in his late twenties—or early thirties, tops.
At his age, I could go two or three days without sleep, too,” Ella said with a grin. “But all things considered, maybe I should have stayed and lent you two a hand.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference. I got a call from the Bureau ordering me to let Carson take point shortly after you left. They’re more worried about the guns—and an out-of-control group of soldiers—than the death of Jimmy
Blacksheep. I kept looking in on him and took over a few times but, as of two minutes ago, he was still at it.”

Just then Carson knocked on the door. It couldn’t be opened from the inside, so Ella did the honors, and the big man stepped outside, closing the door behind him. Surprisingly, Carson didn’t look either bleary-eyed or tired. Ella didn’t even see the beginnings
of a beard on him, which
made her suspect that he’d shaved recently. As she looked at his clothing, she came to the conclusion he’d changed as well. He was still wearing dark slacks, and a white shirt, but they didn’t look crumpled.

She motioned him toward an empty chair, but he stood beside her instead. “When did you have time to shave and clean up?” she muttered, glancing at Blalock, then back at Carson.

“I keep a
kit in my vehicle, along with a change of clothes. Military expects it.” He looked at Blalock. “We’re all done here. Why don’t you get some sack time, then come back?”

Blalock threw back his shoulders and rolled his head to get the kinks out of his neck. “I’m fine. Fill us in on what you’ve got,” he said.

Ella knew that Blalock was wiped, but she also knew that he would have thrown himself through
the one-way glass before admitting that to Carson.

“Richardson is still sticking to his story about not knowing the identities of the others in the theft ring, but he suspects the unit’s imbedded photographer played a big part. The guy, a civilian, would apparently disappear for days at a time, and none of them ever knew where he went.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Martin Zamora, a freelance journalist.
CID is checking his background as we speak, and will try to locate him.”

“I’ll put it through our records, too,” Blalock said, then stood. “I’ll be in touch. I’m going home to clean up, then I’ll be back.”

Ella watched Dwayne as he walked down the hall. Blalock gave the Bureau one hundred and ten percent and, even though he was close to retirement, he never cut corners. “He’s a good man. Even
better in a fight,” Ella told Carson, recalling how FB-Eyes had taken a bullet meant for her several years ago, and still walked with a limp because of it.

“Sharp, too.”

“My turn to have a go at Richardson,” Ella said.

“Okay. Let’s get to it,” Carson said, cocking his head toward the room with their prisoner.

“No, let me try it alone for a while. Men act differently around other men—macho
crap—and are more prone to keep their guard up. Right now he’s got to be exhausted, and if I keep it low key, he might loosen up and give me something.”

“I think I’ve already gotten everything he’s going to say, but knock yourself out.”

Ella went inside and sat down across the table from Ben Richardson. There was an empty foam cup. “You want a refill? Coffee, or water?”

The question surprised
him. “CID through with me?”

“For now, I think.”

His shoulders sagged as the tension washed out of his body. “When’s chow served in this joint?” he asked with a thin smile.

“You’ll be getting something to eat after they take you back to your holding cell. When we’re done, Ben.”

He leaned back in his chair. “So now what?” he asked, his gaze never wavering from hers.

“That’s pretty much up in
the air. You’ve been with us overnight, failed to show up for work at your police department job, so your pals are probably wondering where you are. If they manage to find out you’re here, they’re going to assume you cooperated—maybe even sought us out. I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, Ben,” Ella said simply, meaning it.

Maybe it was because her tone of voice had made it clear that
she was simply stating a fact, not passing judgment, that the seriousness of the situation hit him hard. She could see it on his face.

“I’m going to need police protection,” he said, leaning forward. “If you turn me over to the Army, the guys I worked with will know about it, and they’ll find a way to kill me. Believe it.”

“Protective custody for more than a day or two is the domain of the FBI,
not the tribal police,” Ella said slowly. “And, just so you know, they’ll need more than what you’ve given them so far
to make it worth their while. If you don’t have any actual names to trade, or pertinent information that’ll lead to a conviction, you’ve got zip, as far as they’re concerned. We’ll let you go, and you’ll be on your own.”

Richardson thought about it a moment, then swallowed hard.
“I have something to trade.”

“Like what?” Ella said skeptically.

He hesitated. After about ten seconds, Ella stood up as if getting ready to leave.

“Just listen to me for a minute, okay?” he asked. “I’m thinking.”

She sat back down and waited a full minute. “Okay. What have you got?”

“I knew from the beginning that I’d have to watch my own back. So I did a little extra bookkeeping—insurance,
kind of. I kept a record of all the weapons I handled, cleaned, assembled. I took photos—or if you prefer—visual souvenirs.”

“Where are they?” Ella asked, trying to sound unimpressed.

“Do we have a deal?” Richardson pressed.

“I’ll talk to the Feds for you. Let me see what I can do,” she said, then stood and knocked on the door.

Carson let her out, but didn’t speak until the door was closed
again. “Smooth. But who’ll handle protective custody? This guy can’t just disappear, you know. If he does, the others will scramble to get rid of the evidence like he was doing, or more likely, head for Mexico.”

“We need to put someone in place with him at his home. He can call in sick and we’ll stick to him like white on rice. But I don’t expect any problems. He knows that if he tips someone
else off, he’ll have to take all the heat himself, including the murder of Jimmy Blacksheep. But just to stay on the safe side and make sure he plays nice, we’ll monitor his e-mails, his phone calls, any deliveries. The works.”

“That sounds like my responsibility. I’ll do the babysitting,” Carson announced.

“I was thinking you’d like the job. If a cop goes bad, other cops like to come in and
clean up the mess. Same with the Army, right?”

Carson nodded. “But let him stew for a while before we answer him. Like we’re wondering if we can get a better deal from someone else in his unit.”

“My thoughts exactly. So, why don’t you come with me to my office? There’s something you need to see,” Ella said, leading the way. Once there, she waved him to a chair. “I received this from Private
Blacksheep after his death,” she said, showing him a copy of Jimmy’s story. “We backtracked. He mailed it the day before he headed home from El Paso, and apparently, sent another package to his brother on the Farmington police force at the same time. The brother, Samuel, denies getting any mail from his brother. So either he never got it, or Samuel’s lying.”

Carson read it over quickly. “Looks
incomplete—and cryptic in a mishmash folklore way. Why wasn’t I shown this before?”

“Would it have done any good?” Ella countered.

He shook his head. “Only thing I can assume is that it’s some kind of user-generated coded message. Why else send it to you?”

“Our thoughts as well,” she answered, giving him more details of what they suspected, a brief explanation of why she believed that part
of the message was missing, and their attempts to break the code. “Until recently, I wasn’t sure who to trust or how far-reaching this arms smuggling operation was. So it wasn’t just a matter of letting you in on what was going on. I was worried about the chain of command you have to follow. If senior officers in the unit are involved, and other units as well, we might have tipped them off.”

“But now that you’ve reduced the list of suspects to local members of the company, things are clearer,” he concluded.

“Exactly. But we need more than this to bring charges, and what the tribe wants is the killer or killers.”

“I understand. Let me know if Reverend Tome, or anyone else
breaks the code. Insider intel would come in handy trying to bust this gang—lead us to the physical evidence.”

“Give me a half hour to round up my team. Together we’ll see if we can break this code once and for all.”

After Carson left, Justine came into her office and Ella briefed her. “Blalock will focus—pardon the pun—on the photographer, Martin Zamora. In the meantime, I’d like the rest of our team here ASAP. I want to brainstorm and see if any of them might have some ideas.”

As Justine left, Ella
called Ford. “Can you come over as soon as possible? Bring anything you’ve got, ideas, doubts, solutions, guesses. I need to bring you up to speed on what we’ve learned. That might give you some new insights on Jimmy’s story.”

She’d just hung up when Carson knocked lightly on her door frame. “I was out in the hall and happened to hear you talking. I know you trust your team, but you’re relying
on this Reverend Tome a great deal. What have you got to convince me he’s as trustworthy as you think?”

“Not a whole lot. Mostly my instincts,” Ella said, just as Justine came in.

“Let me do a more thorough check on Tome—first name Bilford, correct?” Carson asked.

“If you’re running him down, you’re going to encounter some firewalls,” Justine warned.

“Humm. Sounds like a challenge,” he said,
and walked down the hall and outside.

“He’s going to his car. You think he’s got a wireless laptop?” Justine asked, envy dripping from each syllable.

It was no secret that she’d wanted one for a long time, but the department’s budget was strained and there was no way her request would be honored anytime soon. “It’s probably one of those five-thousand-dollar Department of Defense jobs,” Ella
said. “His budget comes from the Pentagon, not Window Rock.”

The meeting was switched to Big Ed’s office—at his request.
Ella was walking in that direction when Carson caught up to her. “Reverend Tome has more clearance left over from his old career than you and I put together.”