Coyote's Wife (22 page)

Ella and Blalock were on their way back to the station when her cell phone rang.

“Shorty,” Big Ed said, making it unnecessary for him to identify himself, “Ervin Benally is going to hold a press conference in about ten minutes at the StarTalk warehouse. He’s announcing the date of the first delivery of satellite phones destined for key public service employees—those
in rescue units and a few of our patrol officers assigned to remote areas. I want you at that press conference. I’ve also assigned Officer Phillip Cloud to back you up there in case there’s trouble.”

“I’m with Agent Blalock now,” Ella said. “I’ll have him drop me off.”

After placing the phone back in her jacket pocket, Ella filled Blalock in on the event.

“I’ll go with you. I’d like to get
a feel for what’s going on, too,” he said, turning and heading for the StarTalk offices.

Ella lapsed into a thoughtful silence, then at long last spoke. “Ervin Benally has been the primary target so far, but anyone out to get even more attention, or go for the company’s jugular, might decide to switch to his mother-in-law,
Abigail Yellowhair,” Ella said slowly. “The press would eat it up if anyone
threatened her today. That woman has a lot of pull on the reservation.”

“My only knowledge of that family comes from her late husband’s ambiguous reputation. What makes Mrs. Yellowhair tick?”

“Let me give you some of her background. That’ll fill in the blanks for you.” Ella stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts, then continued. “Abigail came from a dirt-poor family. Her brother died from
a ruptured appendix because the family couldn’t get him to a doctor in time. Things were a lot different fifty years ago on the Rez, especially when it came to doctors and clinics. But like the old saying, ‘what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger,’ Abigail persisted.”

“That goes for a lot of others here on the Rez, too, I would imagine,” Blalock said.

She nodded. “Abigail eventually left
the Rez to attend the University of New Mexico. At night she worked at an Albuquerque restaurant to make ends meet, and that’s where she met James Yellowhair, a spoiled rich kid with a law degree and more money than ambition. They got married and, as it turned out, her networking and power broker skills were instrumental in getting him elected state senator.

“After James was killed everyone expected
Abigail to fade into retirement. But she came out of that even stronger, diversified their business holdings, and settled all the legal issues. Her only setback was losing her bid to replace her husband in the legislature. Now, she’s throwing her considerable support behind her son-in-law’s StarTalk venture.”

“For her daughter Barbara’s sake, you think?”

“Not exclusively, no. In my opinion,
StarTalk made sound business sense to her, and she truly believes it’ll be good for the tribe. She loves her daughter, mind you, but something like this would go beyond family loyalty to her.
She’s always been more logical than emotional, which isn’t always a bad thing.”

“I think you admire her more than you’d like to admit,” Blalock said.

“Admire her?” Ella glanced over at him in surprise.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I hate the way she gets things done—basically leaving cleat marks on the face of the opposition. She’s one cold lady. On the other hand, she does finish whatever she starts, and that’s worthy of some respect.”

“Mixed blessing?”

“Yeah, that’s a good way to describe Abigail,” she answered. “I can tell you this. If she and I ever found ourselves on opposite sides, things
would get messy. Neither one of us gives up easily.”

They arrived at the office/warehouse a short time later and both gates were wide open. Blalock parked near the fence where overflow parking spaces had been clearly marked with white lines. Camera crews from the TV stations were there, as well as a small contingent of reporters.

As they walked around to the warehouse’s lot, they saw that the
big loading dock had been set up to serve as the speaker’s platform. The Benallys and Abigail were seated in three chairs facing the small crowd, and Officer Cloud was to one side of the gathering, watching the crowd, not the speakers. He nodded, and Ella nodded back.

Deciding to keep watch from the other side, Ella walked forward and caught a glimpse of Ford ahead, close to a single row of occupied
chairs twenty feet from the dock.

“I see that Reverend Tome is here. Let me find out what brings the clergy to this event,” Ella said.

“You two are getting to be good friends, I hear,” Blalock said, a hint of a smile showing through his Bureau glare.

“You might say that,” Ella answered, then walked away. If Blalock was going to snicker, she didn’t want to hear it.

As Ella reached Ford, he
turned and smiled broadly. “I didn’t expect to run into you here at the press conference. And you brought FB-Eyes. Isn’t that what everyone calls Agent Blalock?”

“Yes, but not to his face. He’s here on business, like I am. I was ordered to come, and Blalock offered to give the department a little more backup. Big Ed wants to make sure things go smoothly here today,” she said, casually surveying
the crowd for any sign of troublemakers. “What brings you here?”

“I was invited to attend. I’m sure they see clergy and missionaries as potential clients, too. Pastors sometimes have to travel long ways to visit a parishioner. And you know how unreliable cell phones can be around the Rez.”

There was a scattering of applause as Ervin left his seat at the rear of the loading platform stage. He
walked up to the podium, accompanied by his wife and Abigail Yellowhair, who stood at either side. He reached the lectern, where several microphones had been positioned, then finally looked up at the gathering.

“Welcome, community leaders and members of the press,” he said. His voice wavered for a second, then he stooped down and looked down at a piece of paper he was holding. The paper was shaking
visibly.

Having seen his confident presentation just a few days ago, Ella’s first thought was that he’d been drinking. His eyes were red and he looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. Allowing himself to get burnt out right before an important event seemed beyond bad judgement and not at all like Ervin Benally. Maybe he was sick.

“It’s an honor…,” he began, then blinked, as if startled by the
sound of his voice, then continued. “I want to thank you all for coming today. This … StarTalk is going to usher in a new era of communications for the Navajo people. The
future is now,” he finished, his voice dropping off almost to a mumble.

He paused, trying to stifle a yawn, and somebody in the crowd snickered. Ervin responded with a scowl, then caught himself. “Sorry. Burning the candle at
both ends to get StarTalk operational has taken its toll on me. I’m sure the members of the press here today all know what it’s like always being on call.” He gestured with his hands, palms up, and shrugged. Unfortunately for him, he also dropped his notes. There was another chuckle from the gathering, and he reached down quickly to recover the papers.

His wife Barbara immediately bent down to
help him and they nearly bumped heads. Both of them stumbled, and several people laughed out loud.

Barbara recovered first and reached over, grabbing his arm before whispering in his ear. Ervin smiled weakly, yawned widely this time, then took a step back, waving his hand toward the podium.

Barbara stepped up to the microphones. “Pardon us both. My husband is showing some of the effects of many
long nights working hard to implement our dream. No sleep and too much coffee have given him a case of the shakes, as you can see. So on behalf of our StarTalk family, please let me welcome everyone today.” She continued, giving an excellent presentation, with plenty of sound bites for the media as well as enough details for the press.

Ella listened to the woman, her eyes searching the crowd.
Then her gaze returned to Ervin. A burly Anglo man in a brown suit with the build of a professional football player had come up on the stage. Obviously hired security, the man was now standing next to Ervin, who was clearly having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

Suddenly Ella heard a low whistle overhead, and the next instant a loud bang. Three more explosions quickly followed.
The bangs must
have sounded like gunshots to the crowd, and a few of the reporters crouched low while others scattered. Everyone was looking around, trying to find the source of the disturbance.

Ella, who’d grown up around a bunch of boys, recognized what sounded like souped-up bottle rockets. On the move toward what she believed to be the source of the rockets, Ella took one last glance back at the loading
dock. Ervin was obviously startled and disoriented, as if waking up from a bad dream. He grabbed the arm of the security guard, pointed toward his wife, then yelled, “Get her out of here!”

The Anglo guard responded immediately, grabbing Barbara by the arm, then hauling her and Ervin quickly off the platform and into the warehouse, out of sight.

Abigail Yellowhair remained standing at the podium,
alone. The bodyguard reappeared, advancing toward her. She shook her head, pointing back to the warehouse. “Take care of them, not me.”

“It’s just bottle rockets,” someone yelled. Ella saw a reporter holding up something so his cameraman could record the image. “It’s a prank.”

Several people laughed and one or two others cursed. Ella stopped and looked back at the podium again.

Abigail, the
epitome of confidence, stood tall behind the microphones. “It’s better to be safe than sorry, so please excuse the quick exit by my business partners. There have been some threats lately, as most of you already know, and we’re exercising extreme caution. But there doesn’t appear to be any real danger. This is just another childish attempt by organized troublemakers, enemies of the
Diné
and StarTalk,
to focus away from what’s important. But StarTalk will
not
be stopped from meeting our promises to the Navajo Nation. Those who would interfere with our efforts are clearly
confused and misinformed. We
can
move forward and still honor our past.”

While Mrs. Yellowhair postured before the cameras and microphones, Ella continued in the direction she believed the bottle rockets had come from, just
beyond the six-foot-high block wall. She couldn’t recall what business operated from the adjacent property, but it was time to find out.

Ignoring Abigail’s speech, Ella walked over to the wall, aware that Blalock was coming up from behind to join her. In the distance, she could also see Phillip Cloud moving toward her.

“They’re illegal, bottle rockets are,” Blalock said, joining her, “but they’re
basically harmless except during the fire season. This was meant to undermine Ervin’s public image,” he added in a quiet voice.

“Yeah, and it worked. The man’s unraveling.” Ella climbed up onto some wooden pallets stacked beside the wall, and looked over at an automotive shop surrounded by a wrecking yard full of derelict vehicles and junk.

Officer Cloud, in his tan tribal police uniform, joined
her seconds later. “If you’re going over, I’ll go, too,” he said. “There’s not much we can do here. The press is in a frenzy now that they’ve got footage of Ervin and his wife being yanked into the building by that rent-a-cop. Mrs. Yellowhair came across as the only one in her family with the balls to stick it out.”

Ella nodded slowly. Phillip had just voiced her own thoughts. But experience
told her to look past the surface on anything that concerned Abigail. The fact that she’d remained behind might turn out to be far more than just a show of courage.

“You coming, Dwayne?” Ella asked, hoisting herself up onto the wall.

“I’ll walk around, thank you,” Blalock said, then strode quickly to StarTalk’s front gate.

Ella dropped down onto the ground beside an old rental truck up on blocks.
The big yard, fenced in on every side except the one facing StarTalk, was crowded with wrecked and older-model cars, most of them cannibalized. The smell of dirty oil and dust was strong, and the sound of an air hammer from an open bay of the shop startled her for a second with its machine gun rattle. Ella looked over at Phillip, who’d just come over the wall, wanting to see if he’d noticed
her reaction.

He was looking back at the shop, his hand on his pistol. Glancing over at her, he grinned sheepishly. “Startled me.”

“Me, too,” she admitted grudgingly. “Let’s find out where the rockets came from.”

Several feet into the yard, Ella noticed the sun-bleached remains of an old car backseat against the wall. Two spots in the dusty fabric showed where someone had stood, probably to
look over at the proceedings at StarTalk.

“Their lookout probably stood there and told them when to launch. See the footprints on the seat?” She pointed.

Phillip nodded. “If what they did was stick the rockets into the ground, and tilt them to the west, all we’ll find are footprints,” Phillip said. “But if I’d been launching them, I’d have used a hollow pipe, like with a bazooka. If that’s the
way it went down, we may get lucky and find some prints.”

“Start looking,” Ella said, remembering how her brother Clifford had used a short piece of aluminum pipe to aim and shoot bottle rockets when they were kids. Walking parallel to the wall, she quickly found two sets of footprints and a primitive handmade launching system. The crude but effective mechanism consisted of ten slightly scorched
paper towel tubes taped to wooden stakes stuck in the ground at
forty-five-degree angles, all aimed in the direction of the rally on the other side of the wall. One of the ten tubes still held a bottle rocket which had failed to go off when its fuse burned down. A closer look revealed a firecracker had been taped to the rocket to enhance the bang.

As she turned to catch Phillip’s attention, she
also noticed Blalock walking toward her from the wrecking yard’s gate. “Guys, over here,” she yelled. When they joined her, she added, “Let’s bag these so we can process them for prints.”

“It looks like a kid’s prank,” Phillip commented. “But it had to have been well thought out. Whoever it was brought their launching stuff with them.”