Coyote's Wife (21 page)

“Too many things are coming at me at once, Dwayne,” she said slowly, then shook her head. “Since I don’t believe in coincidences …,” she said, but her voice still held a trace of uncertainty.

“Go with your instincts. What’s eating at you about all these incidents?”

“Let me
go down the list. A guy gets killed in the wrong accident, in the wrong way—blades not brakes. My daughter gets a scholarship she didn’t apply for, one that normally isn’t given to a kid until she reaches middle school. Then there’s this nutcase ex-cop who keeps getting in my face. And now, every member of my S.I. team gets attacked almost at the same time. Logically, I’ll admit they appear to be
unrelated incidents. But it’s too much, too intense, and too close together.”

“Follow your gut, Ella. That works better here than logic alone.”

“You’re right. It does. But the problem is I still can’t see any firm connection between these incidents.”

“How about the obvious? Complete this sentence—’All this started happening just after I…’ what?”

“Hum. Interesting technique,” she replied, the
last few days running through her head as FB-Eyes drove toward Shiprock.

When they arrived at the station, Ella saw that Del had left her cruiser in her parking spot as promised. “Good thing he finished that oil change.”

Blalock parked in the empty space beside Ella’s tribal SUV. Spotting a small piece of paper underneath the windshield wiper flapping in the wind, Blalock burst out laughing.
“Hey, Clah, someone ticketed you.”

“What?” She leaned forward and, following his gaze, looked at what appeared to be a parking ticket.

“I got a ticket for using my own parking space? If that patrol officer isn’t just jerking me around, he or she is dead meat,” she muttered.

Ella got out of Blalock’s car and strode to the SUV. As she read the note, her mood darkened even more.

“Looks like the
dead meat response. Maybe it’s a rookie being set up,” Blalock said, accurately reading her expression.

“It’s
not
a ticket,” Ella said, her voice taut as a drum.

“What then?”

“It’s unsigned. It reads, ‘Last chance. Next time, expect a brick.’”

“I get the feeling you already know who left that message,” Blalock observed. “The nutcase, right?”

Ella didn’t answer right away, trying to bring
her temper back into check. Nothing to excess. She could hear Rose’s familiar warning echoing in her mind. She couldn’t allow anger to disturb her thinking. If she did, Roxanne would win.

Ella took a deep breath. “I’m not one hundred percent certain, so I’d rather wait until I get the video from the surveillance
cameras. Until recently only the doors were monitored. Now we cover the entire front
lot.”

Blalock followed her inside and went with her to Big Ed’s office. Ella told the chief about the note right away, using clipped sentences.

“I’m coming with you to review the footage,” Big Ed said.

They gathered in a small room close to the end of the hall. The sergeant in charge, Verna Poyer, looked uncertain when Ella made her request. “I’m still new to this assignment. It may take me
a while to find the right one,” she said. “But I’ll give it my best shot.”

“What happened to Sergeant Bidtah?” Ella asked. He’d run their surveillance hardware for the past four years.

“He’s taken a job with another P.D.,” Big Ed answered.

Ella looked at Big Ed, surprised. “He was the only one trained for this job after Teeny left us.”

“I know. It’s a problem. The tribe can’t compete with
some other departments and agencies when it comes to pay scales.”

Ella had lost two from her original team to higherpaying positions elsewhere, so she was very aware of the problem. Having taken a few classes on surveillance along the way, she knew a little about the setup. Ella tried to help Sergeant Poyer now, whom she’d known from the booking desk. It took them ten minutes to locate and run
the footage, which was recorded on black-and-white video.

“There,” Ella said, seeing someone coming up to her vehicle and pulling out the windshield wiper. “We need to take that segment, digitize it, then run it through the computer and clean up the image.”

Verna looked at the computer on the far desk. “I’ve done this before, and I wrote down the directions.…” She hurried to the desk, brought
out her notepad, then following the steps, managed to do as Ella has asked.

Big Ed leaned over, taking a closer look at the screen. “What the heck is
she
doing here?” he muttered.

“I see you recognize former tribal officer Roxanne Dixon,” Ella said.

“If you’ve been having problems with Dixon, why didn’t you come to me right away?” Big Ed demanded.

“It wasn’t a problem—at first. Now, it is,”
Ella said.

Big Ed motioned for her and Blalock to follow him back to his office.

Once they were seated behind closed doors, Big Ed gazed hard at Ella. “I want details. What exactly has transpired between you and Roxanne Dixon?”

Ella filled in the blanks she’d left out, then waited.

“Dixon is a loose cannon, Shorty,” Big Ed said after a long pause. “From what you’re saying, she’s still obsessed
with Kevin Tolino, and that makes her even more unstable. This isn’t the first time she went after someone because of Tolino. I put her on suspension after she threatened Mona Todea. Not long afterwards, I asked for her badge.”

Mona was Kevin’s long-standing administrative assistant. She was pretty, smart, and as ambitious as Kevin. The only reason Kevin hadn’t started dating her—and more—was
because
she
was smart enough not to try and mix business and pleasure. “I hadn’t heard about that. What happened between Roxanne and Mona?”

“Roxanne became convinced something was going on so she confronted Mona, demanding that she stay away from Kevin—hard to do since she works for Tolino. Not long after that, Mona caught Roxanne trashing her apartment. She’d broken her routine that day and
had just happened to come home early. Mona recognized Roxanne’s car, so she went up to a window and, using her cell phone camera, recorded what Roxanne was doing. Roxanne spotted her and tried to take away her cell phone, but Mona threw it
up on the roof. Roxanne took off before the officers arrived, but we had her anyway. Besides the photos from the cell phone, Roxanne had left some of her blood
behind after slicing her finger while taking a razor knife to the furniture.”

“Was she prosecuted?” Ella asked.

“No. She cut a deal, and the charges were dropped, but I still fired her from the department. Could she have been the one who jumped you out back by the fence?”

“No, my attacker was shorter, stronger, and didn’t fight with the skill of a woman with her training. And the motive doesn’t
fit at all,” Ella replied. “If she’d wanted to jump me, Roxanne would have chosen a different location than the police grounds, don’t you think?”

“You’re right,” Big Ed said.

“Kevin should have told me about this,” Ella said.

“The incident happened while he was away. He may not know about it,” Big Ed said.

Ella nodded. From what she knew about Mona, she liked handling her own problems, and
wouldn’t have necessarily involved Kevin after she’d taken care of the situation. “I’m going to have another talk with Roxanne,” Ella said. “I want to know where she was when those firecrackers were tossed in front of my daughter’s horse.”

“Take someone with you,” Big Ed said. “That’s not a request—it’s an order.”

Ella studied Big Ed’s expression, reading it accurately. “So you think she’s capable
of that stunt with the firecrackers?”

“She’s done some crazy things, so who knows? You need someone else there with you just in case you find out she was responsible.”

“All I’d do is bring her in.” Damaged, perhaps, but she would have brought her in.

“I’ll back up Ella,” Blalock offered.

Moments later, they walked out to the parking area. Ella was very quiet, and Blalock allowed the silence
to stretch out until they were well underway. “You’re not going to shove her teeth down her throat, are you?”

“If you’re squeamish, you might want to stay in the car while I question her.”

“Not a chance,” he replied. “Let
me
question her.”

“Fine. I’m more interested in her answers.”

“Even if she confesses, I want you to let
me
handle it,” he said firmly. “Clear? I know you want this to be
Roxanne’s doing, if for no other reason that you could end it then. But I don’t buy it. To come after you, sure, but endangering your kid? That wouldn’t get her any brownie points with Kevin.”

“You’re right about that,” Ella admitted. “The only thing that would accomplish is getting Kevin seriously pissed off. But she still may know something about the attacks on me and my team since she’s been
shadowing me. She may have spotted something that’ll help us now. Police officers, even former ones, are observant. Or she may have heard something through one of her snitches. Officers often maintain their contacts long after they’ve left the department.”

Blalock drove to Roxanne’s last known address near downtown Shiprock. As they pulled up beside an inexpensive apartment building—a converted
former church, actually—Ella saw Roxanne sitting outside at a small bistro-style table typing on a laptop computer. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans, and her feet were propped up on another chair.

Though she was determined to stay cool, Ella’s muscles tensed up.

“Chill out, Clah,” Blalock said, parking. “I’ll do the talking.”

As they walked up, Roxanne closed the top of her computer and
came down the steps to meet them.

“I heard what happened to you and your girl. Is she okay?” Roxanne asked Ella immediately.

“She’s fine,” Ella said, wondering if Roxanne’s concern was as real as it sounded, or just a new tactic.

“That was a cheap stunt. You’re an officer and that makes you fair game, but your kid should be kept out of it. If you’re going after whoever did this—” She paused,
her eyebrows suddenly furrowing as she looked at Blalock, then back at Ella. “Why the Fed? You think
I
had something to do with that?”

“How did you find out?” Blalock asked.

“Are you kidding? By now the entire reservation knows what happened to Ella, her kid, and her team. Word travels at the speed of light here.”

Although Ella knew she was right, something told her Roxanne also had a scanner
that picked up police radio calls.

“Do you have an alibi? Where were you for the past three hours?” Blalock demanded.

“I was right here. It’s Saturday and kids get up early. They had a game of kickball going on in the street, and they all saw me when I came out on the porch with my coffee.”

“Kids come and go. How long was the game?” Blalock pressed.

“The game went from kickball to hoops at
that basket over there.” She pointed to a basketball net attached to a wooden pole. “They were at it for a couple of hours. After that wound down I stayed out here working on my computer. The temperature’s nice outside today and I wanted to take advantage of it. Two of the moms drove by and waved.”

“I’m sure you won’t mind if we go talk to some of your neighbors and have them verify that,” Ella
said, watching her reaction. Roxanne was a hypocrite, pretending to be
concerned about Dawn now, but nearly stalking her around school earlier at the science fair. Anyone who would put children in the middle when it suited her didn’t deserve a lot of trust.

“Knock yourself out,” Roxanne said. “And I’ll even do you one better. You and I aren’t buds, but you have my backup on this. Only an asshole
would endanger a kid. If I hear anything, I’ll pass it on. Catch this loser.”

“I will,” Ella growled, “even if I have to turn the entire reservation upside down.”

Roxanne nodded. “See that? We’re not that different, you and me.”

“We’re poles apart,” Ella said, her voice flat and steady.

There was a flash of fury in Roxanne’s eyes, but it disappeared as instantly as it had appeared. “Relax.
You’re upset and you want to break someone’s face. I get it.”

Ella started to answer, but felt Blalock nudge her. “We’ve got to talk to some of the neighbors,” he said, reminding Ella to stay focused.

They spoke to three neighbors, two of them with children who’d been playing outside earlier, and they all verified Roxanne’s alibi. At long last they walked back to Blalock’s sedan. It wasn’t until
they got underway that Dwayne broke the silence.

“Be smart, Ella, and stop letting her manipulate you like that. Don’t be your own worst enemy.”

“She was right, you know. I did want to smash her face in,” Ella said after a moment.

Blalock laughed. “I know!”

“Right now she’s probably calling Kevin’s office and leaving him a message saying that she’ll be working nonstop to neutralize the threat
to Dawn. That
she
knows how to get the job done. She doesn’t have Kev’s personal number,
but Roxanne won’t waste an opportunity like this, even if it’s Saturday. She knows that Kevin works weekends.”

“Who cares? Take it as a win. We can use any help that’ll point us in the right direction.”

“Having her take advantage of this only makes me want to push her face in all the more.” She glanced over
at Blalock and smirked. “So I’m not perfect, huh?”