SEAL's Code (19 page)

“Ma’am, you’ll put that knife right down on the counter. Right here,” the FBI man said as he patted the countertop.

Zelda turned and threw the knife into the sink, sudsy water splashing over the countertop and onto the floor. She defiantly stood her ground facing Sanders, hands on her hips.

“Mrs. Tohe, in the course of my investigation, it came to light that you took your daughter, this same daughter you care so much about, down to the clinic and had her started on birth control pills. You want to tell me about that?”

This got Danny’s attention. “What?”

Zelda turned her back again quickly and bent over, but then she began to cry. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned further forward and started to grieve silently, soon sobbing uncontrollably. It broke Danny’s heart to see this and to watch the expression on Luci’s face as her mother went through it all.

Too late, he realized Sanders wasn’t giving up on his line of questioning. Danny could tell he’d hit a nerve in Zelda, and she was about to blow up without much more provocation. But Sanders had underestimated Zelda, like most men did.

“Apparently, this was done without her permission,” he continued. “Now who cares about whom, Mrs. Tohe?”

Both Danny and Luci groaned, but Zelda was on Sanders so fast he was unable to restrain her before she landed a loud slap to the side of his face, which was going to leave a red welt the rest of the day. Sanders had her handcuffed so quickly Danny couldn’t be sure he hadn’t pulled them out of thin air. Zelda struggled against the cold metal, and when that failed, kicked Sanders in the balls. As he bent over in pain, Zelda kneed him in the nose and Danny heard a loud crack as blood spurted from the huge man’s face and down his formerly clean white shirt.

The whole scene had taken on a surreal film noir air. Sanders was alternating between the pain in his balls and the gush of bright red blood coming from his nose. All of a sudden, he sneezed and blood spatter covered Zelda.

“You bastard!” she screamed, pointing with her index fingers, wrists joined by the handcuffs. Luci ran to get a wet towel for Sanders’ face, but as she passed her mother, Zelda grabbed it from her fingers. She used the cloth to clean off her own face and arms and then threw the tea towel on the ground, glaring at Sanders.

Danny handed the agent another towel from a hook over the sink, placing it into the man’s nose through Drew’s protestations. He felt the pieces inside the agent’s nose move slightly, and he knew the cartilage was broken.

“You’re going to have to get to the hospital and have that looked at, sir,” he said to the agent.

“Fuck!” Sanders was pacing back and forth in the kitchen area. Luci was wiping the blood from the floor. Zelda sat down at the table with a humph and a defiant scowl on her face. She refused to take her eyes off the FBI man, as if she could cause him further pain by the daggers she was transmitting.

Looking at how quickly the little circle had deteriorated into a war zone almost made Danny laugh out loud, but he kept it to himself.

‡

Z
elda had an
old tee shirt left by a former boyfriend, who was smaller. Sanders’ belly hung out underneath the hemline. Danny noticed his tummy looked like the pelt of a wild boar with patches of stiff grey hair that made him itch just from looking at it.

Sanders was leaning back, keeping the cool washrag to his nose, swallowing every thirty seconds at first and swearing profusely. By the time they were ten minutes into their trip to the Emergency Room in Flagstaff, the bleeding had temporarily stopped. Danny knew the doctors would re-set the nose, which would start the bleeding all over again. The flesh underneath the man’s eyes was already starting to swell, turning a dangerous color of deep purple.

Agent Sanders was already scary looking, but in a few hours, he’d be positively frightening.

Sanders began mumbling something Danny couldn’t make out. His nasally voice sounded ridiculous.

“Try not to talk, sir. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Just lean back and try to relax. It will help with the bleeding and the pain.”

Sanders mumbled something else, Danny picking up the words, “another agent,” which piqued his interest.

“What other agent?”

The FBI man removed the stained, deep burgundy washcloth but still spoke as if he had cotton stuffed up both nostrils, making him sound more like the character, Darth Vader, from Star Wars. “We had an undercover man working on the res. He’s gone missing, too.”

Danny knew this was not the work of a local gang. Most of res crime were assaults done in the heat of the moment and usually between family members who had consumed too much alcohol. Robbery wasn’t very common. Neither was murder. Suicides took more of their young population than any other cause of death.

“When did you last see him?” Danny asked.

“I never met the guy. I got a picture, though. Your lady and her mother met him. I guess Zelda used to hang with a George Yellowhorse. I read in James’ report he was concerned his cover had been blown with Sarah when Yellowhorse suggested he try to have some fun with the teenager, and he politely refused.” Sanders paused, wincing as Danny hit a pothole, which were commonplace on the dusty reservation highway.

“Sorry,” Danny muttered under his breath.

Sanders was glancing out the window, watching the countryside briskly sweeping by, not showing much interest. They were driving past a wilted cornfield that had no business growing there. “Ah, this is all fucked up,” he said after a minute or two of silence.

“She’s a pistol. Luci’s told me stories about her,” offered Danny.

“I’d like to take her in, and I’m more than within my rights, even though she is a victim herself. I can understand her frustration. I don’t really think being a bad mother makes her a murderer, either. She didn’t even know the other girls’ names when I showed her the pictures. And the story has been all over the Navajo Times.”

“I could be wrong, Agent Sanders, but I’m not sure Zelda reads.”

“Now that’s fucked up.”

“A lot of the older Dine have a problem with reading. Their education was traditionally mostly oral. That’s changing now, thank God. They’re even teaching the old language forbidden to them for more than twenty years all during the pre and post WWII era.”

“You say
they
and
them
as if it doesn’t apply to you. Don’t you consider yourself Navajo or Dine?”

“I’m half. My mother is Miwok, one of the tribes from Northern California. She took me off the res because my cousin, Wilson, and I were getting in trouble all the time. My father had disappeared on a hunting trip, so my mom brought me to her people. Except for the dance we do when we gather the tribes together, we don’t have much in common with the Dine here. Completely different landscape makes for different lifestyles and living situations.”

“Thanks for the fuckin’ history lesson.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“I think it would be more helpful if you’d just shut up. I need to clear my head and think about things for a bit. Then we’ll talk.”

“What things?” Danny was anxious to know.

“I said, shut the fuck up, Begay. I’m not exactly having a good day. And when I get crabby, people start getting hurt.”

Danny shook his head, irritated the agent had such thin skin.

“You know, I’m not sure why the hell they even got you sprung from your active duty to help out. You don’t know anybody now. You didn’t grow up with anyone who could teach you about these people.”

“I was twelve when we left. I remember plenty.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Danny suspected Sanders’ demeanor worked well on suspects, getting them angry so they’d spill their guts and he could get intel. He’d done the same over in the sandbox. Although they could dish out pain, the bad guys over there didn’t like having it meted out to them. And their culture made them quick to react to something they saw as an affront to their religion or their God. Picking fights was good business in the snatch and grab business. He figured it worked the same here, too, for Sanders.

“You know, Sanders, my grandfather was somewhat of a hero here. One of the last of the Code Talkers. You know, those guys—”

“I know who the fuck they were,” Sanders said angrily.

“He was kind of the storyteller, the keeper of the stories about the old ways. For what it’s worth, some of that respect might now fall to me. I left as a troubled boy. Came back a man, and then came back again as a SEAL. That’s got to count for something.”

They’d pulled up to the Emergency entrance at the hospital.

Sanders pulled out his truck keys and dangled them in front of Danny. I’m going to call Lyle and ask him to ride back with you to get my truck.”

“Sure thing.”

He started to open the passenger side of the rental car, thought better about it, and leaned back into the vinyl seat, leaving one foot outside the car, the door ajar. “You can answer me one thing, though.”

“Sure.”

“This George Yellowhorse. You know him?”

“Mostly by reputation. He’s bad news. Luci was real glad when her mother stopped seeing him. I think he used to get heavy with her.”

Sanders slowly turned and faced Danny, his left eye now almost completely swollen shut, a dark blueberry stain now covering the underside of both eyelids. “Looks to me like that woman can handle herself pretty damned good. I never saw it coming.”

Danny tried not to smile at Drew’s expense, but he couldn’t help it. “I honestly think she’s capable of killing someone who messes with her, providing she’s sober. On that score, I think you’re right.” Danny motioned for an orderly with a wheelchair to come over to his rental car, pointing to Sanders in the front seat.

Two men in white helped Sanders out of the car with difficulty because the chassis was so low. They assisted him to the wheelchair and began wheeling the agent to the entrance. Danny could hear him barking orders to someone on the cell phone and knew he’d next be meeting Lyle.

‡

L
uci was sorting
through the computer Sarah shared with her mother. She’d wanted to get Sarah her own computer some time ago so she’d be one step away from some of her mother’s “friends.” They each had their own moniker, but Luci had set up Sarah’s passcode, so she was able to get into her account. What she found surprised her.

Sarah had been conversing with a couple of other girls online who were not from the Navajo res but from a nearby pueblo in Nevada. Most of the conversations were harmless, but Luci noticed Sarah shared more about herself and her life and routine than the other girls did.

And they were too interested in her. Being a youngster of fifteen, Luci could understand why she’d like the attention, but it still made her uncomfortable. And while Sarah wouldn’t notice it, Luci saw the names of these girls as perhaps sounding Native American, but not something one would normally use, or a name that would be given.

Luci scrolled down one long thread, done over two weeks ago, and had continued off and on for days. This particular message lasted nearly a half hour in a private group message with the title: Indian Girls 8. The name of the group concerned Luci right away. Were there seven other groups? She found the beginning of the thread and started to read.

Bleeding Horse:
I get so frustrated with my parents sometimes. Seems like if I ever get a boyfriend and want to fool around, I’ll have to run away. Do either of you guys feel the same?

Sarah Tohe:
I don’t have to worry about that too much. Not really interested in boys as in finishing my school and getting into a good college. Besides, there aren’t any guys here on the res I like, anyway.

Sun Worshiper:
OMG Sarah. Tell me you are not a virgin?

Sarah Tohe:
Of course I am. Although, my mom tried to get me to go on the pill. How lame is that?

Bleeding Horse:
So did you do it?

Sarah Tohe:
No. I threw them away. The exam was awful. You’ve been through them maybe, but it was a first for me.