Coyote's Wife (37 page)

Ervin peered out, then waved at her. “Hurry up. Don’t just stand there.”

His appearance shocked her. Ervin looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His eyes were red and almost glazed, no doubt the effects
of sustained fear—and alcohol. His breath smelled of liquor and he was having problems speaking clearly. Seeing the wastebasket filled with empty bottles verified her suspicions. Worst of all, he smelled rank.

Ella looked around and spotted his thirty-thirty rifle standing beside the window, which was open about two inches. On the floor beside the baseboard was a box of cartridges. From where
she was standing, the mailbox was barely visible. The branches of a purple plum tree blocked the view enough to have misled someone whose vision was impaired by alcohol.

“You need to get hold of yourself, Mr. Benally,” she said in a hard, no-nonsense tone. “Shooting at shadows and the outline of your own wife? You’re becoming your own worst enemy. How long have you been shut up in this room?”

“You don’t get it. They want me
dead.
But they can’t get me here.”

“Who wants you dead?”

“Skinwalkers came after me.”

Since Barbara hadn’t mentioned this, Ella looked at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

“I stepped outside late last night for some fresh air. Everything was still, and I had to get out of this room, even if only for a little while. I was walking around when I saw my
father-in-law’s bolo tie lying out there on the ground, plain as day. I recognized it because the outer edge of the turquoise stone in its center was badly chipped. He’d never fixed it because he’d always said that it brought him good luck just as it was. My wife’s family buried him with it, or maybe they gave it to charity. Whatever—but there it was, plain as day.”

Ella decided to have the burial
site checked, just in case. “Did you leave it where it was?”

He nodded. “Of course. I came running back here, and stayed behind my locked door. I told Barbara about it this morning, but when she went for a look, she couldn’t find it. I don’t think she believes me now.”

Ella exhaled slowly. After what she’d seen, she wasn’t ready to discount his story as just a figment of his imagination. “I
believe you, Ervin, but you’re in bad shape. You need to go see a doctor.”

“Like a
hataalii
?”

“Maybe that, too, but I mean one of the doctors at the hospital. You’re falling apart, and you have to find a way to calm down, lay off the booze, and get some rest. If you shoot an innocent bystander or start becoming a danger to the community, I’ll have to lock you up. And in a cell, you’ll be out
of choices.”

“Catch whoever’s after me,
then
I’ll calm down. I can’t go anywhere. If I leave here, I’m a dead man.”

“A doctor could give you something to help you cope
with the pressure so you can get some sleep. StarTalk means a lot to you and your family. Don’t allow anyone to take it from you.”

His lips narrowed, and his gaze focused on something undetermined on the wall behind her. “StarTalk…that’s
been my dream for a long time.”

“Then fight for it,” she said. “Get help.”

“I don’t want to die,” he said in a barely audible whisper.

Ella’s heart went out to him. He’d come up with a way to make people’s lives easier here on the Rez, but he certainly hadn’t planned on becoming a target. A police officer dealt with that kind of threat on a daily basis, but Ervin had no idea how to come to
terms with it. Yet, unless he did, fear would destroy him.

“You think I’m just a coward, and maybe I am. But I’m not prepared to die,” he said. “Is anyone?”

“You need a trustworthy bodyguard to give you a feeling of security, but keep one thing in mind. The enemy that’s destroying you isn’t out there somewhere. He’s inside you,” Ella said. “Defeat your own fears and you’ve won half the battle.”

Leaving him to ponder that thought, she walked back outside. As she stepped out into the sun, Barbara, who’d been waiting for her, approached. “He’s still not coming out?” she asked.

“He might. Give him a little more time,” Ella said. “You know, I could arrest him for endangering the public with that rifle. At least he’d be safe.”

“Please give him another chance. I’ll talk to him and try to
get the rifle, or at least the booze. We’ve invested everything we have into StarTalk. If anyone else sees him looking and acting like this, or he’s locked up, word will get out and our credibility will be ruined. Everything we’ve worked for
will be lost. You need to find answers quickly so we can put an end to this.”

“I have a few leads that are promising,” Ella said, still debating in her mind
what to do with Ervin. She knew she was close to an answer, but she hadn’t put all the pieces together yet in her mind.

Justine gave her a questioning look, but remained silent.

When they were back in the car, Ella glanced over at her. “I’m calling for a meeting with Blalock, Big Ed, and the rest of our team. I have an idea, but I’d like to run it past all of you first.”

“It’s going to be a
stretch, right?” Justine asked, knowing how Ella’s mind worked.

“Oh yeah, partner, and one practically guaranteed to make even more trouble for the department if we screw up.”

The meeting was held in Ella’s office. Big Ed was with several members of the tribal council and had told Ella to start without him.

Ella looked at Blalock and her team. “We’re not making progress fast enough. We still
don’t even have an ID on the guy I shot during the raid on my brother’s place.”

“I checked with the ME and she’s trying to find something that we can run a check on,” Justine answered. “But he’s never even had dental work done, according to Dr. Roanhorse. I ran his prints and we got zip.”

“We have to make sketches of the dead man’s face and post them at grocery stores and gas stations. Maybe
someone will recognize him and come forward,” Ella said. “Photos are out, because we’d only end up scaring people with an image of a dead man.”

“The connecting thread in all this seems to be Ervin, and experience tells me to go back to one of the basics—follow the
money,” Blalock said. “Who has the most to gain by ruining StarTalk?

“No one—that is unless you want to count the cash Abigail would
save if she stopped investing in it,” Ella said. “But that brings me to the reason I called this meeting. We don’t have any clear evidence against her, but I think we should take a much closer look at Abigail Yellowhair.”

While she was still speaking, Big Ed had slipped into the room. “If you go after Abigail Yellowhair, you’d better have a truckload of evidence to back you up. She’ll lawyer
up in a heartbeat and sue us for everything she can think of.”

“Abigail becomes our prime suspect if we narrow the field to someone with both the resources and malicious intelligence to keep us going in circles. She’s more than capable of manipulating people, and she certainly has plenty of contacts. I’ll admit that I can’t see her doing all this just to save a few bucks. If she’s behind it,
there’s something else at stake.”

“Focusing our investigation only on Mrs. Yellowhair doesn’t make sense,” Tache said. “The kind of terror campaign we’ve seen takes time and effort and, right now, that woman has her hands full. She and her daughter are fighting hard to keep StarTalk up and running. In addition to that, Mrs. Yellowhair has been busy selecting the Navajo students who’ll be awarded
full scholarships to Valley Academy this year. She pays for those and insists on making the selections herself. I know all about this because my niece was in the running, though she didn’t make the final cut.”

The news hit Ella like a bolt of lightning. For a moment all she could do was stare. “Abigail’s responsible for the scholarship?” Ella said dully, a very ugly picture forming in her mind.

“I thought you knew that. My niece told me that your daughter was one of the two selected to be this year’s recipients.”

Ella, who’d been standing, sat down heavily. “Abigail
knows
how close my mother and I are to my daughter. The possibility that Dawn might leave home has been unbelievably distracting to my family.” She took a deep breath, then continued, shaking her head as she spoke. “This
just reinforces it for me. Though we still don’t have a clear motive, I’m betting Abigail’s behind what’s been happening. Giving Dawn that scholarship was just her way of trying to keep me from focusing on the case and what was happening to Ervin.”

“But how does she fit in with the problems we’ve had with the skinwalkers or with the Fierce Ones? Are you saying she’s allied herself to both of
them so she can …what? Drive her son-in-law out of his own company?” Justine asked.

Ella thought about it for several moments, and at long last, had her answer. “Abigail wanted StarTalk to go statewide, remember? She had a big fight with her son-in-law several months ago over it and Abigail doesn’t give up easily. Maybe she came up with a subtle, long-term plan to get rid of the one person standing
in her way—Ervin.”

“You’re all forgetting one thing,” Big Ed said. “Someone used her for a punching bag. How does that fit in with this theory?”

Ella was the first to break the long silence that followed. “It’s possible she engineered that herself. They pull their punches but still make it look good, and suddenly she’s a victim, not a suspect. There’s no better alibi that than, is there?”

“You’re reaching, partner,” Justine said flatly. “Think about what else happened. Do you really believe she would have hired skinwalkers to put a curse on her? Even a modernist
would hesitate to mess with those people. If nothing else, skinwalkers, by and large, are unstable and dangerous.”

“My point exactly,” Ella answered. “If she hired skinwalkers to work her over, they may have deliberately
exceeded their instructions. Treachery is one of their MO’s.”

“Okay, I get your point,” Joe said. “But why mess with skinwalkers at all, if she’d already found a way to get the Fierce Ones to do her dirty work?”

“She couldn’t continue to manipulate the Fierce Ones after they found out they’d been used,” Ella answered. “Ralph’s informant told him that someone had used their recognition signal
and given out orders. They’re now determined to find out who that was. Security’s super-tight for them right now.”

“What makes you think Mrs. Yellowhair would be able to get those codes?” Joe asked.

“She could have bought them. We’ve met at least one Fierce One who was willing to bend the rules so he could make a fast buck.” She looked over at Justine, then Blalock, thinking of the custodian
who’d been caught siphoning gas at school.

“You’re relying on inference, not evidence. You’ll need a lot more than that to even bring her in for questioning,” Big Ed said, just as his pager went off. He checked the digital readout, excused himself, and quickly left the room.

Ella watched him go, then looked back at the others. From their expressions, she knew that Big Ed had voiced what they
were all thinking.

“I’ll see what the Bureau has on Abigail Yellowhair,” Blalock said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”

Tache followed. “I’ll make some more inquiries and find out what the Fierce Ones have uncovered about their imposter.”

“Do something else for me first,” Ella said. “Check out
State Senator James Yellowhair’s grave site. Let me know if there’s any sign of tampering.”

“You mean
like digging him up and stealing his jacket and bolo tie?” Justine asked.

“Exactly.”

As Tache left, Sergeant Joe Neskahi stood. “Don’t expect me to ask Abby out and ply her with drinks,” Joe said, a solemn expression on his face. “But do you have any particular direction you want me to take on this?”

Ella smiled, remembering that Mrs. Yellowhair had flirted with Joe after the incident at the
Chapter House. “Try to find out where Abigail has been going when she’s not at StarTalk, and what she’s been doing when she’s away from the Benallys and the office. Also see if you can befriend someone in the office staff and get an unofficial look at her phone records. We don’t have enough for a court order, but the person directing this operation must have a way of contacting whoever’s doing the
dirty work.”

“I can do all that, but keeping Abigail from finding out is going to be tricky. How about if I ask about Barbara, Ervin, and some members of the office staff, too? That’ll disguise our real focus,” Neskahi said.

“Smart tactics. Go for it,” Ella replied

Joe left, leaving Justine behind. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re way off the mark on this one, Ella. None of this fits Abigail.
Her position and standing on the reservation are important to her, and to maintain them, she has to keep her hands clean.”

“All the more reason for her to hire others to sully theirs,” Ella replied.

“I know her. She’s not evil,” Justine said. “She’s spent her entire life doing what she thinks is best for the Navajo Nation.”

“She looks out for herself, too. Taking StarTalk statewide could make
her a fortune.”

“The tribe will get some of those proceeds.”

“Just keep digging, partner.”

After Justine left, Ella sat back in her chair. She didn’t care if Abigail’s motives were noble or not. If she was behind what was happening, she’d chosen to align herself with evil to accomplish her goals. Evil had its place in the intricate web of life that connected all things, but it was up to people
like her to restore harmony by bringing it back under control.