Dark Reservations (12 page)

“I don't think I'm allowed to have much say in what you guys decide. But keep it small. I'm not into crowds much anymore.”

Cordelli took the opportunity. “That's strange. You like happy hour.”

The group laughed.

“Good one,” Joe said. He was in a better mood now that he had eaten.

Cordelli stood up and moved to the center of their little group. They all turned in their seats to face him. He held up his beer. “Down a thug, down a mug.” This was the squad's arrest ritual.

“You're a son of a bitch, Cordelli.” Dale said, grinning, a full glass in his hand. Everyone else had half or less. The others quickly finished theirs and watched Dale chugging. He slowed at the halfway point.

The squad started chanting, “Down. Down. Down.”

Dale drained the last gulp and put down the mug. Then he gave a slight bow.

Cordelli raised a hand. “Hey, Mickey. Another round on me.”

Dale leaned into Joe. “I was late because I got a call from Chief Cornfield over at Navajo Nation. He's angry. He thinks you're cutting his office out of the case.”

“That's because it goes from his ears to the front page of the paper.”

Dale nodded knowingly.

“So how is the Edgerton case going?” Tenny asked. But before Joe could answer, Tenny turned to Dale. “And by the way, boss, why'd you give it to him? He's leaving. I'd have worked it.”

“Yeah.” Cordelli stood behind them. “Joe's on his way out. That could've been a high-profile case. Now it's as good as dead.”

Stretch put his beer on the counter and turned to face Cordelli. “Why don't you back off.” Sadi also turned, but she kept quiet.

Cordelli smirked. “Well, it's the—”

“Shut up, Cordelli,” Dale ordered. “I assigned it to Joe. It's his. End of story.”

Joe stood and walked off toward the restrooms. The talk was turning ugly.

Cordelli yelled, “Hey, if you need a real investigator to work that case, call me. My number's in the book.”

“It's over the urinal, too,” Joe shot back.

Tenny whooped.

When Joe returned to the bar, Cordelli was recounting the detention hearing for today's arrestee.

“… so the marshals are shorthanded and they ask me to help take the perv back down to holding. We're on the elevator and he turns to me and says, ‘I don't understand why the judge thought I was a flight risk. I don't even live near an airport.'” Everyone laughed, including Mickey.

Cordelli saw Joe. “Hey, seriously, why don't you give me the Edgerton case?”

“Put it to bed, Cordelli,” Dale said.

Sadi, who had been twisting a napkin and tearing it to pieces, turned her attention to the argument. “I agree, dude. Give it a rest.”

Cordelli looked around at everyone. “What? It's a good case. He'll just run it into the ground. No offense, Joe, but you ain't exactly sprintin' these days.” He smiled. “I'm guessing some of the higher-ups don't want the Edgerton case going anywhere. That's the only reason that explains why they gave it to you.”

Joe stepped up to Cordelli. “You're an asshole.”

Stretch raised a hand. “I second that.”

Dale stood up and grabbed Joe's elbow, steering him to the front door.

When they were outside, Joe said, “I was wondering the same thing. Why did you give me this case originally?”

Dale waited a few seconds before responding. “I told you. I thought it might be good for your career.”

“Bullshit. If you were worried about my career, you wouldn't have told the board I was a drunk.”

They moved to the side of the door to let a group of women enter. A blonde with thick green eye shadow looked over, probably drawn to the raised voices. Dale lowered his. “It's a big case, and I need someone who's going to move carefully on it.”

“You mean slow or not at all.”

“I know you're a good investigator. This case is delicate. A lot of important people involved. Edgerton's wife is running for governor, so we don't want to be used by the press to further some political agenda. Plus, BIA conducted the investigation twenty years ago. We don't want egg on our faces now. We need to control what gets released to the public.”

Joe laughed. “You want to bury the truth.”

“Don't put words in my mouth. I just don't want to lose control in the press and make BIA look bad.” Dale pulled out a pack of Camels from his inside breast pocket and shook one out. He rarely smoked.

“So you assigned it to me, hoping it wouldn't go anywhere, right? No investigation. No bad news.”

“I assigned it to you because you have the most experience on the squad, and you're careful.” Dale patted his pockets. He didn't find what he was looking for.

Joe nodded toward the entrance of Mickey's. “They think it's bullshit.”

“Why don't you go home. We'll talk about it in the morning.” He returned the unlit cigarette to the pack and shoved it back inside his breast pocket. He hitched up his pants.

“I'll be out with the cadaver dogs tomorrow.”

“Fine. We'll talk Wednesday.”

Joe pulled out his wallet. He handed Dale some bills for his tab.

Dale shook his head. “I got it. And do me a favor. Don't let Cordelli get under your skin.”

“That's too much to ask.”

S
EPTEMBER
28

T
UESDAY
, 9:25
A.M.

A
LBUQUERQUE
A
IRPORT
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO

Helena Newridge yanked her oversize suitcase off the luggage carousel, gave a loud
tsk
to the geeky-looking guy next to her who hadn't offered to help or get out of her way, and headed to the Enterprise rental counter.

She pulled out her phone and punched in the number she had called only ten minutes earlier, when her plane landed.

“Hey, sweetie. This is Helena Newridge again. Did the chief get in yet?”

He had. She was transferred.

“Hello, Chief. I got your message.… Yes, thank you.”

She listened as Chief Cornfield welcomed her to New Mexico.

“If you give me directions, I'll be fine. Unless you want to lend me one of your cute Navajo officers as a guide.”

The chief gave her directions.

S
EPTEMBER
28

T
UESDAY
, 9:42
A.M.

J
ONES
R
ANCH
R
OAD
, C
HI
C
HIL
T
AH
(N
AVAJO
N
ATION
), N
EW
M
EXICO

“
Ya'at eeh,
my friend,” Bluehorse said.

Joe nodded. “Sorry I'm late.”

“They started about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Why's Andi here?” Joe had recognized her Suburban parked with two other vehicles in the field.

“She's anticipating bodies.”

They walked into the woods, heading to where Edgerton's vehicle had been found. Andi and Mark sat on folding chairs, drinking coffee and chatting. Starbucks in the woods. In the distance, two women worked, each with a dog. One of the dogs raced over to Joe to say hello. The second dog followed. They were both chocolate Labs. The cadaver dog team. Joe introduced himself to the handlers, and then the dog team returned to work. He didn't direct the handlers. He trusted that Bluehorse and Andi had already worked all that out with them. But really, it didn't matter. They had no leads that suggested any particular direction. It was a guessing game at this point. Educated guesses, but still guesses. In investigation parlance, this was called a “logical investigation.” Looking for bodies near a bloody vehicle was the logical next step. Nothing brilliant. Nothing flashy. Nothing that would sound good in a book someday. And like most successful investigations, it would be the fundamentals that solved the case, not psychics, high-tech gadgets, satellite imagery, or any other fancy techniques shown in the movies. Joe had never been afraid to try something new, but it had always been the basics that had led him to the clues that solved a case. He hoped the basics would hold true again.

It was almost two hours later when the dogs hit on something. The elder of the two handlers called to Joe. She looked like a librarian in shorts, her platinum hair in a pseudobeehive and large red eyeglasses covering half her face.

“Hemingway found something,” she said.

They were maybe thirty yards north of where the vehicle had been recovered. A juniper lay flat on the ground, its once-dark green needles now brown and scarce. Hemingway, the bigger of the two Labs, began whining. The handler went to the dog and stroked his back, which seemed to soothe the animal. Joe had learned over the years that some cadaver dogs became depressed after finding a body. Either they were traumatized by death or they picked up on the emotions of their handlers. Whatever the reason, Joe had seen the change in some dogs.

Joe surveyed the ground, not expecting it to reveal its decades-old secret, if it even held a secret. Withered grass, loose rocks, discarded piñon husks, orphaned weeds, and hard-packed clay refused to offer witness to what rested below. The oak nearby, strong and silent, said nothing. But it didn't have to. Buried remains usually spoke for themselves.

“It's all yours,” Joe said.

Andi and Mark got to work. They took several photographs, then excavated the ground using trowels. The area the dog had identified showed a slight depression, which was consistent with a body decomposing and the soil sinking to fill the void. Not always, but sometimes. It depended on the depth and the soil composition.

The topsoil here was the color of sand. It became darker as Andi dug. One, two, three inches. She lifted a scoop of the deeper soil to her nose. It had a russet color. She sniffed.

She held it out to Joe. The soil had a slightly rancid odor, which was stronger than decaying vegetation. He recognized the odor from other recoveries. Not nearly as strong, but still present.

Mark was the first to hit bone. He had uncovered a two-square-foot area eighteen inches deep when he hit something hard. He brushed away soil to reveal fabric. Ten minutes later, he uncovered what appeared to be the upper thighbone of a person.

Joe bent down and gave Hemingway a vigorous neck rub. The dog enjoyed the attention and tried to lick Joe's face.

“Why Hemingway?” Joe asked.

“He's my favorite author,” the handler said.

“Are you an English teacher?”

“No, a librarian, twenty-seven years. I still work part-time.” Amused, Joe continued to give Hemingway attention.

Some handlers worked for police agencies, others for nonprofit groups. This group was out of Albuquerque and consisted of volunteers not directly associated with a specific law-enforcement agency. They survived through grants and occasional donations from the requesting department or the families of missing persons. He'd worked with this group before, but not these handlers. When he got back to the office tomorrow, he would put in a request for payment to the organization. Since they didn't invoice their services, Joe would have to work out a dollar amount to cover their travel expenses and incidentals. A few hundred dollars, maybe five if Dale wasn't penny-pinching this month.

Bluehorse came over and patted the dog's head. The officer wore a smile, which Joe knew didn't derive from the dog or the body. It was from the satisfaction of finding a lead. The young officer's instincts had initiated this investigation. Finding this body confirmed that Bluehorse's gut had been right. He would make a fine criminal investigator someday. Maybe a fine agent.

Andi took more photos, then started sketching the scene.

By noon, most of the body was excavated. Turned soil, stained from leeched human oils, encircled the small depression where the skeleton lay. The air was now heady with the smell of mild putrefaction, the miasma of death. Time had surely weakened its potency, but it was still present.

From the bits of clothing around the bones, it looked to be the skeletal remains of a man. Light-colored dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes.

Bluehorse stood several feet behind Joe, slipping his hands in and out of his pants pockets. Navajo do not like to look upon dead bodies. They believe evil spirits gravitate to onlookers.

“I appreciate your hanging in here,” Joe said. “I know it goes against your traditions.”

“You grow up hearing the stories and taboos and don't really believe all of it, and yet…”

Joe had heard much of the Navajo lore over the years, but he was always interested in learning more. “So, what are some of the taboos for a situation like this?”

“We believe evil spirits are everywhere, just waiting to bewitch you. They linger mostly in the dark and around dead bodies. Touching a bone will draw them to you. Saying the name of a dead person draws them to you. And walking over a grave will draw them to you—though that can also give you a sore leg. Dead bodies are never good.”

“How do you protect yourself?”

Bluehorse grinned. He reached for his duty belt and removed a small leather satchel. He held it up. “A medicine bag. Corn pollen.” He pulled a silver chain through the collar of his shirt. “And Saint Michael.”

Joe grinned and touched his own medal around his neck, which Christine had given him their first year together. She'd said she wanted to make sure someone was looking out for him. He was about to ask Bluehorse if he was Catholic, when Andi spoke.