Spider Woman's Daughter (4 page)

Largo said, “Good work. But remember—”

“I know. This isn’t my case. When we’re done, I’m taking the day off,” she said. “Going to see my mother.”

I
n Bashas’, Chee learned that none of the twelve adult grocery store customers, six children, three clerks, and four stockers had seen anything or anyone unusual that morning. At least, not until Officer Wheeler arrived in the parking lot. The search found no one hiding. He left his card with the manager in case anyone recalled something relevant, and allowed the store to reopen, to the relief of the staff and a dozen potential customers baking outside.

At the front door, Chee stopped at an industrial-size trash can.

“Hold the base while I get the top off,” he told Wheeler.

Chee pulled gloves from his back pocket, put them on, and hoisted the lid. He looked inside. No gun, at least not on top. But he extracted a black hoodie.

“I’m going to bag this.” He looked at Wheeler. “I want you to take the rest of this trash, just in case.”

By the time Chee and Wheeler got back to the suspect blue sedan, the tow truck operator had attached the hooks and begun rolling the car up on the big flatbed. Mrs. Benally stood next to the driver.

“Be careful,” she said. Several times.

Chee asked Wheeler to update the captain.

“Largo says no record on Gloria Benally. Nothing on Jackson Benally. He asked the gang unit to see if the shooting might be some sort of initiation ritual or something,” Wheeler said.

“What description is on Jackson’s license?” Bernie asked.

Wheeler gave her the details. “Black hair, dark brown eyes. Five foot eight, one-forty.”

“What about the other kid, Nez?”

“Nothing yet.”

Mrs. Benally watched her car disappear down the highway, then walked over to them. Bernie introduced Chee, explaining that he was in charge of the Navajo side of the investigation.

“We need to get your fingerprints,” he told her. “That way, we can make sure when the car is examined, they can sort them out from the bad person’s.”

Mrs. Benally made a noise, something between a laugh and a snort. “Will you take my picture, too, with a number underneath?”

Chee said, “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

Bernie said, “Remember that we need your help to solve the crime. You are important to us.”

Mrs. Benally sighed. “Let’s hurry up with all this. I want to get home.”

While a technician took Mrs. Benally’s prints, Chee met with Captain Largo. Bernie came along.

“There’s something odd about that car sitting there,” Largo said. “That guy should have been on the way to wherever—not parked outside Bashas’. The New Mexico State Police are looking for Jackson at UNM Gallup, where Mrs. Benally said he should be.”

Largo turned to Bernie. “Gallup, right? Not the main campus?”

“Right,” Bernie said. “From what Mrs. Benally told me, I don’t think Jackson did it. He enrolled at UNM on a Native Scholarship. Good grades, good recommendations. That doesn’t fit the mold for a guy in a gang.”

“What mother doesn’t think her son is a little angel?” He looked at her again. “Did you find Louisa? Did you ask about the lieutenant’s relatives?”

Bernie paused. “No. No Louisa yet. I could use some help finding her cell number. I left her a note and a voice mail on her home phone to call me.”

Largo nodded.

Chee said, “If Benally isn’t a gangbanger, what motive would he have for the shooting? Seems to me whoever did it must have had an accomplice with a second car. Or he’s hiding somewhere he could get to fast on foot.”

Largo stood, walked to the window. Bernie noticed that the blowing dust had bruised the blue sky into a pale gray.

“If it’s not a gang deal and not these guys, then we have more work.” Largo motioned toward a computer disc in his in-box. “Motive? These are Leaphorn’s last cases as a full-time detective with us, the ones he handled after the department was computerized. And a few on there are from after he retired, where we used him as a consultant. Some of these guys might have a motive.”

Bernie knew what the “some” meant. Revenge was a
bilagaana
value, but some of these criminals had torn themselves away from the fabric of Diné life, lost their direction. Anger consumed them.

Largo moved back to his deck, ran his fingers over the case that held the disc. “I need someone to go through these in case Benally isn’t our boy.”

Bernie started to say something, and Largo silenced her with a look. He turned to Chee. “That someone will be you.”

“Yes, sir,” Chee said.

“You know what to look for. First of all, a link between Jackson, or a friend or family member of Jackson, someone in the Benallys’ circle, and Leaphorn. A reason for a college boy to want Leaphorn dead. Or someone who might have threatened, coerced, blackmailed Benally into this situation. Then, look for cons Leaphorn helped send to prison who might be out now.”

“Want me to work from Window Rock?”

“No. Take this back to the Shiprock office. Less hectic there.” Largo sighed. “It ought to take a long day to come up with a list, but let me know sooner if any names jump out at you. Maybe we won’t even need the list of cons. Maybe Jackson is our man.”

“Anything else?” Chee asked. “What about the lieutenant’s condition?”

“I haven’t heard anything new,” Largo said.

Chee took the disc, rose to leave. Bernie stood, too.

“When I picked up Bernie at Leaphorn’s house, we realized he has a home office there. More files. We’ll need those, too.”

Largo nodded. “Have Bigman get them.”

“I don’t think Jackson did it,” Bernie said.

“Really?” Largo’s voice was sharp with ridicule. “The mother, she’s about the right size, owns the car? Do you like her for the shooter?”

“She’s got an alibi. Shopping.” Bernie worked to keep the edge out of her voice.

“You know you’ll have to testify when this all goes to trial.” Largo frowned. “You need to be a credible, untainted witness, Manuelito. We don’t want anybody saying Navajo Police screwed this up by not following the rules. We don’t want whoever hurt the lieutenant to get off on some sort of oversight or a damn technicality. You may have already done some damage, talking with Mrs. Benally. You should have left every bit of that to Chee and Wheeler.”

Bernie felt her face grow hot, anger rising. “What was I supposed to do, sit on my thumbs?”

“Exactly. And keep your mouth shut.”

Largo pressed his hands together, looked grim. “The way I see it, this is the most important case we’ve ever handled. Your not being involved is routine procedure. Routine. It’s not personal. It’s not punishment. It’s the way we do things. I am not saying this again. Clear?”

Bernie said, “This case
is
personal. I saw him fall. I promised I’d find whoever shot him.”

Largo stood and leaned toward her. “Get out of here, Manuelito. Cool down. Your only, I repeat
only
, job is to find Louisa and Leaphorn’s kinfolks. Period. I don’t want to see you here again. Or talk to you until I invite you back to work.”

Bernie rose, standing next to Chee.

“I don’t want to have to fire you,” Largo said. “But I will if you can’t follow orders.”

4

B
ernie walked to the parking lot in silence, heading to her car. Chee followed.

“You’ve been through a lot today,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to—”

“Don’t start. I don’t need you or Largo to protect me. Largo thinks I should have done more for the lieutenant. No matter what he says, he is punishing me by taking me off the case.”

She felt Chee’s hands on her shoulders, shrugged him away.

“You’re wrong,” Chee said. “Largo doesn’t operate like that and never has. He’s been tough on me, too. Tough but fair. Stop beating yourself up. It’s totally routine for an officer involved in a shooting to—”

“I didn’t act like an officer out there. If I’d been faster, I could have gotten a real description, maybe even gotten off a shot.”

“Stop, honey. It’s over.”

She noticed his look of concern and surprise. She rarely showed her anger. And she couldn’t remember ever being this furious.

“We’re all in this together,” Chee said. “We all want to solve this case. Cut yourself some slack. You’re a great officer. You did your best.”

A wave of grief swept away her anger, grief not only for the lieutenant but for her own expectations of Officer Bernadette Manuelito, now proven to be an incompetent fraud.

She turned away from him, climbed into her car.

“Where are you going?”

“To see Mama and Darleen,” Bernie said. “That’s what I always do on my day off.”

“Good,” he said. “Don’t forget to get something to eat. I’ll call you later.”

Bernie put her key in the ignition, rolled down the windows. Pulled out of the police parking lot. Tried the radio and turned it off again. Took a sip from her water bottle. Warm, of course. The problem with the Toyota’s air-conditioning, an expensive problem, couldn’t be tackled until she got the older bills paid off. By then it would be at least October. Cool again. Problem solved.

As she headed toward Fort Defiance, she realized she should swing back by Leaphorn’s house. See if Louisa was there now, tell her what happened, get that job out of the way. Bernie made the detour, feeling the hot wind in her hair, thinking about the lieutenant. How few family photos he had in his house. No nieces or nephews, brothers or sisters. Leaphorn, she thought, never spoke of family except for Emma.

Her own family was different. She had been wrapped in love by her grandmother, her mother, mother’s sisters, and maternal uncles. Her father’s family, too, had taken an interest in her. Her grandfather on that side had been a Code Talker, and there were plenty of marines in the mix, a modern incarnation of the warrior spirit. When she had decided to become a police officer, they understood and wished her well.

She felt her cell phone vibrate, flipped it on.

“We just got word that Leaphorn made it into Albuquerque.”

She heard something in Chee’s voice that made her ask, “What else?”

Silence. Then Chee said, “The neurology unit there is full. They may have to transfer him again, I’ll let you know.”

“Bring the files home, and I’ll help you go through them.”

“Thanks, honey. I’ll fix dinner.”

She pulled in front of Leaphorn’s house and parked on the street in a patch of shade provided by a straggly Siberian elm. Officer Bigman’s department-issued pickup occupied the driveway, the only other vehicle in sight except for Leaphorn’s truck. Where was Louisa?

She walked inside through the kitchen, calling to Bigman.

“In here,” he yelled. “In the office.” The detective sat at Leaphorn’s desk, wearing latex gloves. The lights on Leaphorn’s computer blinked like Christmas. He pressed a cell phone to his ear.

“No, that didn’t work either,” he said. “What if I just bring the hard drive down there?”

Bernie looked at the big sunflower on the computer screen and a little box that read “Password.”

“I’ll try that,” Bigman said into the phone. He typed something else, waited. “Nope.”

A pause. Bigman laughed. Then he sneezed.

“Not quite. It’s one of those big old-fashioned towers,” he said. “I’ll have to put it on the seat next to me with the seat belt around it. I wouldn’t trust it in the trunk bed. It would probably plot a revolution from back there.”

He hung up, still smiling. Bernie noticed another light, red and flashing on a flat box beside the phone. Leaphorn must be one of the last few people in the universe who still used an honest-to-goodness answering machine.

“Did you see that message machine?”

“Yeah,” Bigman said. “I noticed it when I sat down here. Little cassette tapes and everything. Leaphorn isn’t exactly a high-tech guy, is he? That and this monster of a computer could be in a museum somewhere.”

Bernie said, “He never gave anybody his cell number because he didn’t want to answer it.” She realized she’d used the wrong verb. The lieutenant, as far as anyone knew, was still breathing.

“I mean, he never gives it out.”

Bigman said, “Have you heard how he’s doing?” Sneeze.

“Hanging in there.” She changed the subject. “I’ll check the messages. Maybe there’s one from Louisa.”

“Or one from someone threatening to shoot him. Isn’t that how it works on TV?”

Bernie pushed a button labeled “Listen.” She heard Bigman sneeze again. The tape in the old machine was scratchy, used and erased many times. When the talking started, she recognized Louisa’s voice, noted the lack of a simple hello.

“I’ve been thinking about what we discussed.”
Bernie heard emotion in her voice. Anger? Sadness?
“I would have liked the chance to change your mind, but I guess we’re past that now. I don’t know what else to tell you—”
The message clicked off. No good-bye.

She studied the machine. It didn’t have a screen to display the caller’s name and number.

“Was that Louisa?” Bigman asked. “Did she and Leaphorn get along?”

“Whenever I was around them, they seemed fine.”

“A lover’s quarrel?” he asked. Sneeze.

“I don’t know if they are lovers,” Bernie said. “But I know they are friends. Or maybe were friends. What’s with the sneezing? Are you sick or something?”

“It’s the cat,” he said. “I’m allergic. If I left a message like that, it would mean I wasn’t happy.” He removed the tape that held the messages with his gloved hands. Put it in a little bag.

“What are you doing here, Bernie? I heard you were supposed to take some time off.”

“Largo asked me to talk to Louisa. I was hoping she’d be here.” “I thought she’d be here when I came, and that I’d have to tell her what happened,” he said. “I was glad she wasn’t home.”

“Did you see Leaphorn’s cell phone around here?” Bernie asked. “I’m sure her cell number is in it. I really need to call her, give her the news.”

Bigman sneezed, shook his head. “Not in his truck?”

“No.”

“Then he probably had it with him.” Bigman leaned toward the floor, his ample belly limiting his flexibility. Sneezed again.

“I’ve got to climb down under there, disconnect the computer so I can take it in and the techies can figure out how to access the data.” He motioned to the two cardboard boxes. “Those are ancient police cases he worked before the computer system went in. Most of those guys are probably gone now. I boxed his PI stuff, too. You never know.”

Bigman sat up straight. Another sneeze. Grinned up at Bernie, “Hey, you wanna help? I won’t tell Largo.”

Bernie crawled under the desk. “It’s an amazing mess down here. Cords everywhere.” She heard him sneeze.

“Unplug everything,” Bigman said. “I bet Leaphorn found somebody to set this up, and never looked down here again.”

The dark tight space beneath the desk and the patterns of the cords made her think of Spider Woman, for some reason. Spider Woman, the Holy Person who taught the Navajo to weave and gave the Hero Twins the weapons they needed to begin their quest to find their father the Sun and to rid the world of monsters. She looked at the way the cords came together. “I bet a woman set this up. Whoever did it must have been Spider Woman’s daughter,” Bernie said.

“Who? I never heard Grandma talk about that one,” Bigman said.

Bernie said, “She’s the one my mother always joked about when she had to redo a section of a rug. Mama told me she helps with life’s unexpected complications, untangling messy situations. When I start to tell her about some hairy case, Mama says, ‘Oh, you’ll figure out how to weave it all together. You’re like Spider Woman’s daughter.’ ”

Bigman sneezed. Again. Again. Again.

“Blasted cat,” he said. “I need to get out of here.”

Bernie stood up, rolled her shoulders back. “All done. What cat?”

Bigman used his lips to indicate the stuffed chair. “It was over there when I came in.” The chair was empty. “They know when you don’t like them. That one came up, rubbed against me. I’m starting to itch. I’m gonna sit in the unit and finish the paperwork.”

He looked at Bernie hopefully. “Someone ought to put it outside, since we don’t know when Louisa will be back. It could make a mess in here.”

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Largo put me in charge of rounding up the kinfolks.”

Dealing with the cat was easier said than done. She called, “Kitty, kitty,” to no avail and looked under the furniture, in the office closet. She walked through the house, searching beneath the beds, in the bathroom. The cat had vanished.

Then, inspired by commercials she’d seen on TV, she went into the kitchen. She found a sack of kibble and some canned cat food in the pantry. Louisa or the lieutenant had stored a gray plastic cat-size cage on the pantry floor. Leaphorn’s—or was it Louisa’s?—blue electric can opener sat on the counter. Bernie opened the Friskies and, like four-legged magic, a small orange-and-white feline with big green eyes appeared at her feet. She picked up the cat’s dish and spooned in the soft food. While it ate, she brought out the cage. The cat finished, looked at her for more. Bernie reached for it, and it backed away. The cat moved close again when she walked to the counter where the Friskies sat.

Bernie grabbed a kitchen towel. At the opportune moment, she tossed a towel over the cat and, while it was confused, snatched it up and wrapped it like a wiggly, yowling burrito.

“Cat, I don’t like this any more than you do, but you can’t stay here alone.”

Unlike useful cats who supported themselves by catching mice, bugs, and whatever else came on the premises uninvited, this one was obviously a house pet. Probably Louisa’s furry darling. Chee liked cats, for some reason. Bernie decided to take the cat home. He could care for it until they figured out what was going on with Louisa, or until they knew the lieutenant’s status. She gently pushed cat and towel into the cat carrier, closed the door, and deposited the noisy package in the backseat of her car. The shade helped keep it cool.

She went back in and wrote another note to Louisa, explaining why Leaphorn’s computer and the cat were gone and asking Louisa to call her immediately. She left it next to the business card she’d put on the table.

She picked up the dry cat food and sealed the open can in a plastic bag she found in the pantry. She noticed the mail she’d brought in from Leaphorn’s truck and thumbed through it. A payment to an insurance company and a white envelope, the kind that come with solicitation campaigns, addressed to Little Sisters of the Poor in Gallup, both stamped and ready for the post office. On the large brown envelope the lieutenant had written in small, precise script “Dr. John Collingsworth, AIRC” and a Santa Fe address. She thought for a second, then reached for a table knife to open it. If it wasn’t important to the case, she’d tape it closed and send it on.

From inside the larger envelope, she pulled out a set of letter-size white pages and a second smaller sealed envelope. She opened the smaller envelope and removed a single sheet of paper precisely folded in thirds. She unfolded it to read Leaphorn’s bill for services to the AIRC, dated yesterday. She looked at the white sheets. Photocopies of listings from auction catalogs and textbooks. Old Indian pots. Nothing exciting. This doctor must be an art collector, and AIRC was probably his clinic or something. She’d take it all to the post office and use their tape to reseal the brown envelope.

Bernie took the cat food, locked the back door, waved to Bigman, who looked up from his paperwork in the front seat of his truck. With the cat’s protests as background noise, she headed toward the enchanted landscape of Two Grey Hills and her mother’s house in Toadlena.

She went to Mama’s at least twice a week, usually driving from Shiprock south on NM 491. The trip began on a wide paved highway, the main route for trucks hauling cargo up to Cortez or south to Gallup. Then she turned onto a decent dirt road, and finally onto the Navajo Nation route that led to the house where her mother now lived.

Today, since she was starting from Window Rock, she took the quieter scenic route, which hugged the New Mexico–Arizona border, climbed over Narbona Pass, and then dropped into the open landscape of the reservation. Normally she loved the panorama of scenery, the play of shadows along Black Creek Valley a bit west of the sprawling town and the vast, empty country that stretched east—shades of brown, gold, and red meeting the dome of blue sky. The cool ascent into the Chuska Mountains brought the vanilla fragrance of the ponderosas through her open windows and, on a clear day, climaxed with a view of Dinetah from the top of the pass.