Wild Wild Death (27 page)

I wasn’t sure, but I did know that, after that, I wasn’t quite as chil y anymore.

T

here’s a lot that goes on at a pueblo feast day celebration, and a whole lot of it has to do with centuries-old traditions and ceremonies. Which means most of what happens isn’t exactly secret—

because visitors are welcome to respectful y watch

—but there are no cameras al owed, no cel phones, no recording devices, no talking during sacred dances or clapping after. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is the Taopi don’t mind if visitors head home and tel their friends and neighbors what they saw at the feast, they just don’t want the whole thing treated like some kind of stage performance.

To the Taopi, this is sacred stuff.

This whole keep-it-secret vibe actual y worked out pretty wel as far as I was concerned. Though I watched the dancers in their brightly colored costumes, I real y didn’t understand most of what I saw so there was no way I was going to remember much of it, anyway.

In fact, the only thing that real y made an impression were the
koshari
. That’s a word that means sacred clowns. I’m not kidding. The clowns are men whose faces and bodies are painted with elaborate black and white stripes. They wear outlandish hats and beat drums, and for reasons I never did find out, they eat watermelon. Watching them, bewildered and kind of scared by their bizarre behavior, I heard people around me say that the
koshari
play tricks, act out pantomimes, and mimic people in an effort to teach lessons about the proper

—and improper—way to behave.

Hmmm…

Aside from that strangeness, the feast was interesting enough. I ate some real y good cookies ful of cinnamon, watched a race and a pole-climbing contest, and saw Jesse long enough for him to remind me about dinner with his family. Gulp. I strol ed through the booths of vendors and, for lunch, had something cal ed posole, a sort of pork soup that was better than I expected it to be. While I was minding my own business, I wondered if I could slip away long enough to do some investigating in Taos and get back to the pueblo before Jesse even noticed.

I was going to do it, too, and was on my way back to the car when I heard a familiar voice.

“The corn ceremony was very important to the Taopi.” The words whooshed their way to me on the end of a chil y breeze. “If you come this way, I’l tel you al about it.”

The
this way
was actual y that way, back across the plaza, and I turned in that direction just in time to see a troop of tourists fol owing a costumed guide.

Buckskin dress.

Feathered headband.

What was it Caridad had said? The clothes were al wrong for a Pueblo Indian.

I wouldn’t have realized it without Caridad’s expert input, and maybe these tourists didn’t, either, because en masse, they fol owed Morning Dove. I slipped in at the back of the crowd, and we trooped to a less-crowded corner of the pueblo, where the Native American who I would bet wasn’t proceeded to talk (and talk and talk) about the importance of the corn ceremony in Taopi culture. When she was done (final y!), she gladly accepted the tips the unsuspecting tourists offered. I waited until the last of them was gone before I stepped forward.

“Hey, Morning Dove, fancy seeing you here.”

It took her a minute to figure out who I was, which was actual y pretty bad PR on her part since she was the one who wanted to get into the cemetery where she thought I worked so she could do her corn mojo.

I knew exactly when she recognized me because two spots of bright color popped in her cheeks.

“What are you doing here?”

I shrugged my shoulders inside the blue windbreaker. “Same as you, just enjoying the feast.

Only…” She had a wad of dol ar bil s clutched in one hand and I gave them a knowing look. “Only that’s not exactly what you’re doing, is it?” Since I knew she wouldn’t come right out and admit it, I went on.

“You think any of those visitors have any idea that you’re just a regular ol’ woman from Cleveland and not one of the Taopi?”

“I never pretended to be anything I wasn’t.” A gleam in her eyes, Morning Dove hiked up her buckskin dress (she was wearing jeans under it) and tucked the tip money in her pocket. “Al I said was that I was going to tel them about the corn ceremony. And I did. If they want to show their appreciation to me for sharing my knowledge, that’s their business.”

their business.”

I nodded like I understood this crazy way of thinking. “Might be the business of the pueblo police, too,” I said in that oh-so-casual way that always catches people off guard. “The chief just happens to be a friend of mine.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What, you want a cut of my tips or something?” A toss of those so-dark-it-had-to-be-a-phony-color braids. “You don’t know the police chief here.”

“Slept with him last night.”

I guess I must have had the look of a woman who’d had great sex in the last twelve hours because her face turned the same color as her pale buckskin dress. “You wouldn’t—”

“Tel him? That depends.”

Like she expected the cops to be hiding behind the nearest rocks, she shot a look from side to side.

“On… ?”

“On you tel ing me the truth. Seems strange finding you here. You know, since the last time I saw you, you were standing outside of the stadium in Cleveland talking about removing that curse Goodshot put on the team.”

She remembered, al right. “So? Is there something wrong with me trying to do the city a favor?”

“There is if it involves kidnapping somebody, then asking for Goodshot’s bones as a ransom.”

I’l say one thing for Morning Dove, she was either a real y good actress, or worse at hiding her emotions than anyone I’d ever met. The trick, of course, was to figure out which. Her mouth fel open.

“Goodshot’s bones got stolen? Back in Cleveland?

And then—”

“Brought here to pay the ransom, yeah. And then they got stolen again. And three people got murdered. And the kidnapped guy is stil missing.

And…” I pul ed in a deep breath. “And now out of the blue, here you are.”

“That’s nuts.” She back-stepped away from me.

“That’s just crazy. If you think I had anything to do with that… that’s just… it’s nuts, and I’m not going to stand here and listen to it.”

“You are. Unless you want me to get my honey over here so you can explain why you’re taking money from tourists who assume you’ve got the tribe’s seal of approval.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “I don’t know anything about Goodshot’s bones.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “I came here for the feast. I always do.

Every year. I go around to a bunch of the pueblos on feast days. You know, to take people around on tours and stuff.”

“And take their money under false pretenses.

Yeah, I get that part. And now you’re going to tel me you weren’t here on…” I did some quick mental calculations and came up with the day Norma had been kil ed. “You were here then.”

She shook her head so hard, her braids whipped her cheeks. “Just got here.”

“I don’t believe it. You were around a couple nights ago. In Taos.”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I just got here for the feast. I wasn’t—”

I mentioned the date of the evening when Arnie was shot and Jesse and I were used for target practice. “You going to tel me you weren’t here then, either?”

“I wasn’t. I swear.” Maybe buckskin is hotter than regular fabric. Even though I shivered in the next cool breeze to blow the dust around my feet, there was a sheen of sweat on Morning Dove’s forehead. “I don’t know how I can prove it except…” Again, she hitched up her dress and reached into her pocket. She shoved an airline ticket at me. “There. Check it out.

My ticket from Cleveland. I got here two days ago.”

Yeah, that’s what the ticket said. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t here before that, left, and came back.”

She wasn’t prepared for a detective’s insight.

“But I didn’t,” was al she had to say.

Like I said, sincere as hel . Or a real y good actress.

“Prove it.”

Thinking real y hard, Morning Dove squeezed her eyes shut. “I… I… I know!” Her eyes popped open.

“You can cal my supervisor at work. He’l tel you I haven’t taken a day off in months. I save al my vacation time. You know, for the various feast days. I work at Big Daddy Burgers.”

Big Daddy, a place I’d once flipped burgers in an effort to get a suspect to talk. “I don’t suppose you know Ray Gwitkowski,” I said.

know Ray Gwitkowski,” I said.

“He’s my supervisor. And if you know him, you know he’s an honest guy. You can talk to him and—”

If she expected me to take that at face value, she was sorely mistaken. I reached for my cel phone, then remembered the tribal rule about phones at the feast. “I’l cal him later,” I assured her. “And here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to let me know where you’re staying in Taos.”

She did.

“Next you’re going to tel me if you even think about leaving.”

She swore she would.

“And third, you’re either going to take off that costume because you know it’s al wrong and you don’t look like a Taopi Indian, anyway. That, or you’re going to leave the pueblo right now. Choice is yours.

And if you don’t—”

“Going.” She shuffled through the dust like her feet were on fire. “I’m leaving. I won’t be back. I swear.”

Had I just let a murderer slip through my fingers?

Give me a little credit here! I went over to the police station and cal ed Ray Gwitkowski. He was a buddy of mine, a volunteer at Garden View, and he sort of owed me since I’d once rescued him from the clutches of an annoying-to-the-max woman who had the hots for him. Ray confirmed Morning Dove’s story—damn it—and that her real name (I knew I was right about the non–Native American thing) was Marlene Fritel a. But that didn’t mean she was off the hook. A person clever enough to engineer the kidnapping and the murders would also be devious enough to figure out a way to make the timeline work. Just to cover my bases, I also cal ed the sheriff in Antonito and gave him Morning Dove’s info. Like Jesse had mentioned, it was his case, and if I wasn’t going to be able to fol ow up immediately, somebody had to.

Feeling righteous and warmer after having spent fifteen minutes inside the station, I walked back outside, stuffed my hands into the pockets of the blue windbreaker, and stopped dead in my tracks.

There was something dry and rough in my pocket.

I pul ed it out, gasped, and instantly stuffed it back where it came from.

Goodshot’s skeleton hand.

I thought back to the night of the body snatching and how I’d found myself holding the hand when the bier col apsed and the coffin shattered. Al this time, the skeleton hand had been with me and I hadn’t remembered it. Then again, I’d been a little busy looking for the rest of Goodshot’s body.

“Weird,” I mumbled to myself, then got a move on before the cop who just walked out of the station could wonder why I was talking to myself.

Looking to kil some time, I headed for the plaza and the ancient pueblos beyond, and that’s when it hit. The idea, I mean. The best idea I’d had in as long as I can remember.

“Goodshot wanted his bones buried on the pueblo.” Yes, I was talking to myself again, but since there was another dance going on a few hundred yards away, and more drumming, I figured nobody heard me. “I can’t bury al his bones but…”

I spun around and hurried in the other direction, away from the dancing and the drummers. Away from the sacred clowns with their watermelon and off to the loneliest edges of the old vil age. I got to a spot far from the crowds, looked around to make sure no one was watching, took off the windbreaker, and set it down on a nearby rock.

“You wanted to be buried on the pueblo, Goodshot?” Okay, I admit it. I paused after I said this, half hoping that I’d get some sort of response.

But even here on the sacred grounds of the pueblo, the old magic was gone. No time to second-guess how I was feeling about it. I knew what I had to do, and I had to do it before anybody showed up and saw what I was up to.

“Al right, Goodshot,” I said into the chil y nothing.

“I don’t know where the rest of you is, but this…”

There was a stick lying in the dirt nearby and I grabbed it and started scratching at the soil. “This is the least I can do for you.”

Lucky for me, skeleton hands aren’t al that big, and I didn’t need to make the hole too deep. I scraped away at the rocky soil with the stick, and when I’d loosened enough of it, I scooped it out of the hole with my hands, thinking as I did that in addition to getting filthy, I was probably violating every tribal law, federal regulation, and local ordinance there was. Messing with tribal land—

literal y. I was just as bad as those excavators up at the ancient pueblo. But for al different reasons.

the ancient pueblo. But for al different reasons.

This did not deter me in the least. I scraped and dug and scooped the hard, dry ground, and after fifteen minutes, I was glad I’d taken off the windbreaker. I swiped my arm over my damp forehead and studied the hole. Another couple inches and I was home free. I could take the skeleton hand out of the pocket of the windbreaker and put it in the New Mexico earth where it belonged.