Shooting Chant (35 page)

TWENTY

That evening Ella sat alone in her vehicle, which was parked directly across from the judge’s home, and hidden in the long shadows of night. She was restless, wishing something would happen.

“This could turn out to be a long, boring night,” Justine’s voice came over the handheld provided by the FBI for this particular operation.

Their group was small, but Ella couldn’t have asked for
better backup. Agent Blalock was on the case, Sergeant Neskahi was watching the rear of the home, and even Big Ed Atcitty was playing a role.

“Just keep an eye on everyone coming or going, especially any vehicles not on the list or someone on foot.” Ella set the handheld down for a moment and shifted in her car seat, trying to get comfortable in the extra long vest as she kept looking from side
to side. Her intuition told her danger was near, she just hadn’t been able to find it yet, and the tension was getting to her.

Earlier, Big Ed had notified Judge Chase, the most important official in the Navajo court system, about the danger, but Chase had already scheduled a retirement party that evening for another judge, and had insisted on going through with his plans.

The police and FBI,
at the judge’s insistence, had been instructed to remain inconspicuous and, because of the large number of guests, the request had been easy to fulfill. Big Ed, an invited guest, was inside, monitoring the situation from there.

“Having so many people could either work to our advantage or help the bad guys, I don’t know which,” Ella said, as she kept her eyes on the new arrivals.

“It’s a distinguished
crowd,” Justine called back on the radio. “I either recognize or know all these people. It’s like a Who’s Who of VIPs on the Rez.”

“Judge Chase is known for being a tough judge. Many Navajos who’ve gone through his courtroom are convinced that it’s because he’s half Navajo and always had to prove himself to people. He had to work hard, and expects everyone to pull their own weight, too,” Justine
said.

“I can see how someone like him would have made enemies,” Ella said.

“He’s sure a lot different than the other half-Navajo we’ve been dealing with lately,” Justine answered.

“You know what? Something’s not right here. Judge Chase’s photo wasn’t there at the LabKote office,” Ella said, thinking out loud. “Near as I can figure he has no connection to LabKote. I just can’t see how he fits
into anything. Yet I’m getting the feeling something is about to go down.”

There was a brief silence, then Blalock came on. “There’s movement in the bushes behind you, Clah. I can’t tell what’s back there.”

Ella adjusted her rearview mirror, ducking down slightly to make herself a harder target as she reached for her weapon. She could feel the badger fetish getting warmer against the skin of
her neck, a warning she’d never failed to heed. “I’m going to take a look.”

She’d just placed her hand on the door handle, when she saw the bushes stir. A glowing object was suddenly hurled toward her car, shattering the rear windshield.

Ella threw the door open and dove out, hitting the gravel road and rolling away as the interior of her car burst into flames. She scrambled to her feet, vaguely
aware of the screams and shouts coming from the house.

Chase appeared at the door to his home, but Big Ed pushed him back inside, looking around, gun in hand. Justine was running after a shadow through the underbrush, with Blalock trailing her, several yards behind.

Ella wavered slightly as she tried to stand. Philip Cloud, dressed in civilian clothes, came to her side. “You okay?” he asked,
holding her arm and shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she muttered, shaken by how close she’d come to being toasted. “Did you get a look at the perp?”

He shook his head. “When I heard FB-Eyes warn you, I came out the back door to get into position. But, before I could get around the side of the house, whoever it was threw that firebomb.”

As they were walking away, her vehicle’s gasoline tank suddenly
exploded, shaking the ground beneath their feet and shattering windows in the house. The powerful rush of air rocked them, and flying pieces of debris whistled by.

Two of the guests grabbed garden hoses and turned the spray on her flaming vehicle. As they worked, Ella’s gaze went to the others watching from the lawn and front porch. Chase’s home was too isolated and too well guarded for anyone
to have sneaked up that easily. The perp may have been one of the guests.

As she studied the familiar faces, she began to rethink her theory. The people here, as far as she knew, had no reason whatsoever to want her dead.

Justine came back several minutes later to join her. “He’s gotten away, at least for the moment.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Ella asked her assistant, who was still
catching her breath.

“I never saw more than a figure in the dark. I followed him, but he hopped onto a trail bike, then jumped an arroyo and kept going. I couldn’t stay in pursuit, but Blalock approached from a different angle so he was already on the other side of the arroyo. He got a better look, I think. Neskahi caught up to Blalock in his car, and they took off after the suspect. I know Big
Ed’s already called for roadblocks, but if the biker travels cross country, and that’s what I’m guessing he’ll do, we won’t catch him right away.”

“Don’t underestimate Blalock, or the sergeant. Both are persistent.”

“It’s not that. I saw the way the perp handled that bike. That was no kid raising hell just for fun. It will really help if Blalock is able to tell us whether the bomber is Navajo
or not,” Justine added.

“Let’s see what he says when he gets back.”

Ella and Justine searched the grounds and found a spot in the brush where the attacker had been hiding, possibly for hours. The boot-prints they found were all too familiar.

Ella went inside the house and, with Justine’s help, questioned all the guests while Big Ed joined forces with Blalock, out searching for the attacker.
At the end of two hours of questioning, Ella knew nothing more than when she’d started. No guests were unaccounted for, and none had seen anyone outside just before the bombing.

As Ella wrote a few notes to herself on the pad she kept in her shirt, Justine approached. “So, it looks like you were right. This was all a setup, and you were the target, not Judge Chase. The guy who firebombed you
was extremely patient. He probably got set up here before we did, and just waited. Blalock said he was wearing camouflage fatigues. This fellow in the boots is really starting to get on my nerves,” Justine said, annoyed. “Branch is responsible for this, so I think I’ll head over to his house and roust him.”

Ella bit her lip to keep from smiling. Justine was only a little over five feet tall.
It would be hard, if not impossible, for her to give Branch anything to worry about.

“We’ll do it together. Let’s go now. I want every bit of information that man has and, if we wake him up in the middle of the night, we’ll have a temporary advantage.”

As Ella climbed into Justine’s vehicle, she could feel her body thrumming with tension and fear. She’d been a target before, but it was different
now. Her unborn baby deserved a chance to live, and this incident had just been too close.

“Are you okay?” Justine asked.

With a burst of will, Ella forced her body to grow still. The baby needed her, but so did the tribe. She was fighting not only to keep her baby safe, but so that everyone else’s babies could grow up safe on the reservation. This was their home, the land prepared for them
by the gods who had given them the four mountains and four rivers to protect them. It was The People’s right to live here in peace and to have a safe place to raise their children.

“It was a close call,” Ella said at last, “and I’m determined to see to it that no one ever takes me by surprise like that again. One way or another, I’m going to catch this boot-wearing jerk and throw his sorry butt
in jail. But this guy is crafty. He comes in darkness and disappears like the wind.”

“We’ve had tough enemies before, boss. We’ll catch whoever it is.”

It was close to midnight when they reached George Branch’s home. The old farmhouse was dark, and everything was quiet inside and out except for the crickets in the yard. Branch’s SUV was parked in the driveway, and the tiny blinking red light
on the dashboard indicated the vehicle had an alarm system.

“Let’s go give him something to think about,” Ella said.

She knocked loudly on the front door, identifying them as the police, then continued knocking until a half asleep George Branch came to the door, turning on the porch light.

“What the heck are you two doing here? Just because you don’t sleep doesn’t mean no one else does.”

“We need to ask you some questions right now, Mr. Branch,” Ella said. “Would you prefer to do this at the station?”

He turned on the light in his living room, and motioned for them to come inside. “What is it with you? What’s so damned important it couldn’t wait until morning?”

“You set me up,” Ella said, pushing him so he fell back onto the sofa in a sitting position.

“I have no idea what you’re
talking about and I’m too sleepy right now to try and figure it out. Save us both some time and spill it.”

“That was no kidnapping attempt your informant clued you in on. Someone tried to roast me alive, and I’m holding you responsible,” Ella snapped, then recapped the events for him.

Branch’s eyes finally opened wide, and he leaned forward to listen. “You don’t really think
I
had something
to do with that, do you? Think about it. You’ve annoyed me a few times, but that scarcely gives me a motive for murder. A lot of people annoy me, and I don’t go out and try to kill them.”

“Have you considered the fact that you’ve been set up, too?” Ella pressed. “They used you like they tried to use me. They wanted you to look responsible when I ended up dead.”

His jaw dropped open and, for
a moment, he said nothing. Finally gathering himself, he shook his head. “I did what you told me to do. I passed on information. What happens after that has nothing to do with me.”

“What happened tonight was attempted murder. Think of the term ‘accessory’ and you’ll get a clearer idea of where you stand,” Justine said.

“I had nothing whatsoever to do with what happened,” he roared.

“Why should
I believe you? You’ve done nothing except play games,” Ella demanded.

“What do you want from me?” Branch groaned.

“You can start by telling me who tipped you off?” Ella asked calmly, sitting down across from the sofa. Justine remained standing, but took out a pen and small notebook.

“I never saw him. He called me at the station.”

“And you didn’t recognize the voice?”

“No, I really didn’t.
I was about to go on the air, and there were a dozen other things going on at the time. Believe me, if I knew who it was, I’d take you to his house myself.”

“That’s not good enough. You’re giving me nothing, Branch.”

“I can’t give you what I haven’t got!” he moaned.

“Try harder,” Justine insisted.

“I can tell you a bit about what’s been happening behind the scenes in Shiprock, if you want,”
he sighed, and seeing Ella nod, continued. “I heard from Avery Blueeyes yesterday. He got scared to death when he heard about the kidnappings. He’s terrified he’s being set up as the one responsible.”

“Why would he think that?” Justine asked.

“I already told Officer Clah how Yellowhair really ruined Avery’s land deal. Well, the other person who stood with Yellowhair against Avery and backed
his position was Ernest Ben, the head of economic development. That was one of the rare times those two men stood together on an issue.”

“We’ve been looking for Avery lately, but his family says that he’s fishing somewhere, maybe Navajo Lake. But that’s a big place. Do you know where we can find him?”

“Not a clue. But I don’t think he’s out in some boat on the lake. He’s around, he called me
from a cell phone. I can tell because there was a certain kind of interference—you know, the type where it fades in and out. If I were you, I’d look in Farmington, Aztec, Bloomfield, or thereabouts. Even if he tried, he couldn’t stay low profile here on the Rez where everyone knows him.”

Ella stood up slowly. “I want you to understand one thing, Branch. If I
ever
find out that you’ve been holding
out on me, I’m going to be all over you. Your life will become one never-ending string of misery. If you so much as breathe wrong, we’ll bring you in.”

As she walked toward the door, she glanced into the adjoining room. The door had been closed before, and she’d assumed it was a bedroom. Now, seeing inside for the first time, she had to admit it looked more like an armory. An expensive wall-length
gun cabinet was filled with a variety of old and new, expensive, high-quality pistols and rifles. Ella remembered the .380 auto used at the clinic break-in, and was about to ask Branch a few more questions, when she saw him following her line of vision.

His eyes glittered, and his expression hardened. “You didn’t see those last time, did you? If I’d wanted you dead, Investigator Clah, I wouldn’t
have fooled around with some knife or messy firebomb.” He waved an arm toward his collection. “I’m a gun rights activist, if you didn’t catch the message from my program.”

“Have any weapons from your collection ever been stolen, or turned up missing?”

“Not ever. The door to that room is lined with steel, and is kept locked except when I’m at home. I also have a sophisticated alarm system set
up in there. My entire house is modified to offer certain surprises, too. Suffice it to say that I’ve never had a gun stolen. I’m almost waiting for someone to try. Take a closer look, if you want. These guns, for the most part, have never even been fired.”

“What do you mean ‘for the most part,’” Ella said.

“I belong to an association of gun collectors. Every once in a while we hold special
functions, and we get to show off some of our classic weapons on the firing range.”

“You said you had surprises for a would-be thief all over the house,” Justine said. “What kind of surprises do you think would stop a determined thief?”