Coyote's Wife (6 page)

Ervin took his eyes off his damaged vehicle for a moment, and Abigail immediately stepped up beside him. “Just a minor irritation, son-in-law,” she said. “The good people of this tribe know what you’re bringing to them will benefit everyone. Don’t let cowards like these vandals slow down your mission for StarTalk, not even for a moment.”

Ella had to give it to her.
Abigail could grandstand to an audience better than anyone else she’d ever met. She had everyone’s attention now. Ervin nodded almost imperceptively, then taking his cue from her, faced the crowd.

“Some people are afraid of anything that means change, even if it’s for the good of the
Diné,
The People,” he said loudly. “But we have a right—and, in fact, it’s our duty—to stand up to those who take
the law into their own hands and try to take away our choices through their acts of violence.”

People smiled and nodded though, to Ella, Benally’s words were reminiscent of a political speech—covering everything, touching nothing.

She turned away, hoping to leave once Neskahi, who had
disappeared for a few minutes, reappeared. Then she saw him, now equipped with a camera, approach
Hosteen
Nez,
probably their best witness, and begin questioning him.

Knowing Joe would take care of things here, Ella headed out. She was done for tonight.

Ella was in her office at eight o’clock the following morning when Joe Neskahi came in. “I found your statement in my basket this morning, and your note asking me to drop by your office.”

“Sit, Joe,” she said, waving him to a chair. “I wanted to ask you how the investigation went at the chapter house last night.”

“It turns out that wasn’t the first time Ervin
Benally’s been targeted. He’s been getting some threatening e-mails, and someone scratched up the plate glass doors at his company’s headquarters,” he said. “I know Benally’s pickup played a role in that suspicious death you’re investigating. That made me wonder if there could be a tie-in between the incidents.”

“There might be,” Ella said. “Did you get anything else?”

“After you left last night,
I took a closer look at Benally’s SUV and found a dead rat on the driver’s seat. When I spoke to Benally, he wasn’t surprised. He told me that he’s been having trouble with vandals. He’s reported all the incidents that required his insurance company’s involvement, but basically
ignored the rest. Things are getting expensive for him. He knows his personal pickup will be pretty much unusable on
the Rez anymore, with the dead man’s blood all over the interior. Now his company’s wheels are damaged, too.”

“Did you advise Benally to keep us up to speed on the situation? Ignoring harassment isn’t always a good idea. If we could lift some fingerprints off his door or get a computer expert to look into those e-mails, we may end up with a lead.”

“Benally will cooperate from now on. He just
assumed he’d be wasting our time. I told him that we can’t act if we’re kept in the dark. I also explained that the vandals and their partner in the SUV will be facing a variety of charges, including assault on an officer and reckless endangerment.”

“Good. He needed to understand how things work.”

Joe nodded in agreement. “After most of the people left, I waited with the family for the tow truck
from the garage to arrive. Benally had his guard down by then and I could tell how worried he was about the situation. He has no idea who the vandals are, but he believes they’re probably Navajo.”

“Does he think they’re targeting his company, or him personally?” Ella asked. “These weren’t just taggers.”

“I asked him that myself, but he got really defensive. Then his wife, Barbara, and Abigail
Yellowhair came over. They’d heard him raise his voice and I think they wanted to make sure Ervin didn’t blow his cool. Abigail insisted that she was going to repair his damaged company vehicle, and replace the new Dodge pickup George Charley had used,” Neskahi added.

“I’m planning on following up on that investigation later today. Did you get any additional details, like why George dropped Ervin
off and went up into the mountains alone?”

“Abigail confirmed that Ervin and George had planned
to go gather firewood together. Ervin likes to get away from time to time, and he had a new chain saw he wanted to try out. George needed the wood. So Ervin met George at the StarTalk warehouse and they took off in Ervin’s truck. Just before they reached Sheep Springs Ervin got a call on his cell phone
about some problem back at the business. Ervin told George to drop him off at the gas station at Sheep Springs where he’d be getting a ride back to Shiprock. George continued on into the Chuskas to gather firewood. You know the rest.”

“Any fingerprints from last night?” Ella asked.

“Just odd smudges. I think the perps had something on their fingertips, like superglue, or else they burned their
fingerprints off. There were no footprints. Nothing but gravel in the lot, remember?”

“Good work, Joe. Thanks.”

Joe stared at the floor, letting the silence stretch out between them, but didn’t leave. Realizing he had more to say, Ella waited and didn’t interrupt his thoughts.

At long last Joe cleared his throat. “Abigail Yellowhair’s not a suspect or anything, right?”

“Why do you ask?” Ella
answered, curious.

He cleared his throat again. “Abigail wanted me to go to dinner with her. She said she wanted to discuss a few things with me.” He paused awkwardly, shifted in his seat, then continued. “It may sound nuts, but I think she’s into me. Her late husband was big and beefy, too, so maybe that’s part of it. Thing is, I really don’t want to go out with someone close to my mother’s
age, even if she’s still hot and rich to boot,” he said. Then after a brief pause, he added, “But if there’s a reason for me to do so—if she’s implicated in what’s happening with her son-in-law, or if you think she’s holding back—I’d go, but keep it professional.”

“Abigail’s not a suspect at the moment. Nobody is yet.
But here’s a bit of advice. However you choose to handle this, be aware that
Abigail’s a very powerful woman and she
does
hold grudges. If you slight her in any way, or even if she thinks you have, she’ll remember for as long as she lives. Abigail’s made her fortune in business by remembering who owes her favors and playing to that,” Ella said.

Joe nodded slowly. “Thanks.” He stood up. “Will you need me here today?”

“No, but I want you to know that I’m going to push
hard to get you permanently assigned to my team. I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere, but I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, his glum expression brightening immediately.

Making a call to StarTalk, Ella learned that there’d been a problem with a shipment the day before that had required Ervin’s return. Satisfied for now, Ella began working on her report about
the StarTalk presentation. She’d only been at it for a few minutes when her buzzer sounded. Big Ed wanted her in his office. She’d been expecting him to call her in, but she’d hoped for more time to work on the report.

Gathering her notes, Ella went down the hall to his office. She sat down on the chair directly across his desk, sorting through her papers, and Justine, who’d come in behind her,
took the other.

Big Ed’s office, befitting the police chief in the Rez’s largest community, was the largest in the building. A few months ago, Clair, the chief’s wife, had insisting on redecorating. The massive oak desk and the matching bookshelves, even the oak file cabinets, all held her stamp. Only the chief’s old fabric chair remained. Parting Big Ed from that chair would have taken a team
of horses.

Hearing the creak of the chief’s chair as he leaned way back—a feature not found in most current office furniture—
Ella glanced up. “I’ve got my notes on last night’s StarTalk meeting,” she said, “but I haven’t written a formal report yet.”

“We’ll get to that,” he said, setting down the PDA he’d been using. “Right now I’ve got other concerns. I understand one of StarTalk’s employees
turned up dead yesterday.” He tapped his finger on the report Ella and Justine had handed his secretary earlier.

Justine cleared her throat and looked at Ella, who nodded. “I’ve been working on the deceased’s background. George Charley was a warehouseman. In the beginning, we didn’t have any evidence to suggest his death was connected to his place of employment.”

“Subsequent information has
now been obtained that puts some doubt on that conclusion,” Ella added, recounting what they’d learned. “But I should point out that the facts and physical evidence at this stage
do
support accidental death. Of course, if toxicology results indicate the man was drugged, then we’ll be dealing with other possibilities.”

“There’s another, albeit circumstantial, connection,” Big Ed said, his voice
low and thoughtful. “The fact that Ervin was unexpectedly called back to the warehouse…have you verified the reasons for that?”

“It was legit,” Ella said, noting that Big Ed still looked unconvinced.

“Considering all the problems Ervin Benally has been having, I’d like you two to dig a little deeper.”

“We’re planning on it. Our case is far from closed. Even before the trouble at the chapter
house, new questions were already popping up.” She filled the chief in on the strange behavior and comments made by the deceased’s uncle.

“Then as we dropped Mrs. Charley back at her home, we spotted a pickup parked there,” Ella continued. “What made us curious was that the person was already inside the
house. We checked things out and found out that it was registered to Wallace Curtis, who lives
about a mile away.”

“Interesting,” Big Ed agreed with a nod.

“It’s possible we’re dealing with a love triangle,” Ella said. “If so, the wife might have slipped the husband something in his food or drink before he left. Or the chain saw could have been turned against him by someone else. We found another set of footprints in the area, but don’t know how close that person ever got to the victim.
Some of those tracks were obliterated by the Dodge when George left the scene.”

“Let me know what you turn up.”

“We’re waiting for Dr. Roanhorse’s toxicology report,” Ella said. “But I should also mention that it appeared the deceased consumed three beers at the site. The alcohol could have made him more susceptible to an accident.”

“Did the victim have life insurance?” Big Ed asked.

Justine
glanced down at her notes. “No life insurance. He was new with StarTalk, so not even his medical insurance had taken effect yet. He wouldn’t have been eligible for benefits for another five months.”

“I’ll need to know as soon as possible if there’s any connection between this death and StarTalk, other than bad timing. I’ve been getting calls all morning from our elected officials. Most of them
have gone on the record backing the StarTalk satellite phone venture, and they’re worried that bad publicity now could hurt the tribe’s plans to go forward with it,” Big Ed said. “Of course they’re politicians, so what most of them are really worried about is getting reelected. If there’s even a hint of corruption at StarTalk, the opposition will have a field day.”

“If I’ve got Benally pegged
right, he’ll turn this incident around and use it to StarTalk’s advantage,” Ella said. “He’ll
claim fewer accident victims like George Charley will die if they have reliable and affordable phone service.”

“It’s the vandalism Benally and StarTalk have been experiencing that worries me, Shorty,” Big Ed said. “Things like that have a tendency to escalate, bringing on copycat attacks on other targets,
private and public. Mrs. Yellowhair called me the moment I arrived at the station this morning. She reminded me that the new power plant under construction met with the same type of opposition at the beginning.”

Big Ed paused, but they could see he had more on his mind. “Benally…how’s he taking this personally? Is he coping, or getting rattled? Some of these technical geniuses have difficulty
dealing with real-life problems.”

Ella paused before answering. “I don’t know him well enough to say. He can handle a crowd—at least when it’s business-related and nobody actually gets physical.”

“According to Mrs. Yellowhair, the incidents of harassment her son-in-law has been subjected to have increased this past week. She told me that the attacks haven’t included her daughter so far, but
she made it clear that if that happens, she’ll expect police protection for her. The next call I received came from the tribal president.”

Ella wasn’t at all surprised. Abigail believed in taking action…even when she shouldn’t. “Do you think Mrs. Yellowhair will become a problem for us as we investigate?”

“If we don’t get answers fast enough for her, she might. That’s why I’m ordering you to
make this case your priority. Use whatever resources you need. These perps attempted to run you down, and I want to make sure that endangering the life of one of my officers costs them big-time.”

Once the meeting ended, Justine left to see if the ME’s report had come in yet, but Ella remained seated.