Death and Desire (23 page)

Water from a tanker truck sprayed the fires, turning them into sizzling rubble. Police herded tight huddles of bewildered Hispanic men and boys into police wagons for transport. I saw Chavez awkwardly stepping into the van. He stared over his shoulder into my lens as I recorded his journey from CEO to prisoner. I moved through the rubble, shooting small vignettes of chaos. Pot hunting had only been a side business for the meth lab.

My throat was parched, and I smelled the toxic stink on myself. Fatigued seeped into the hole the adrenaline rush left. Firemen still kept a steady hose flooding the remains of the lab, mopping up the hot spots. Steam poured off the jagged roof. Police were sifting through debris while armed policemen were stationed around all the buildings. I shot the area with one long slow pan, turning completely around. The images on the tiny monitor looked like the aftermath of a bomb. I turned the camera off and trudged toward Yanaha's.

Yanaha still sat under the leafy willows where I left her. She lifted one arm tenuously and waved to me. “I was worried about you, my child.”

I grabbed her and held her tightly. “You must come into town.”

“I prefer my little hogan.” She smiled wanly.

“You can't stay here. It wasn't the mine. It was a meth lab and the smoke is full of toxic chemicals.”

She sighed and nodded. “I'll go to my grandson's.”

I was relieved she didn't argue. I had to get to work. I helped her pack a small duffel with a few clothes and made sure her medications were included.

She looked tired and fragile when I helped her into the Rav. “All those men. Did anyone die?”

“Some died and several were badly burned.” I didn't spare her the truth.

“Evil,” she murmured. I waited for her to continue. “Evil feasts on the power of ugly emotions.”

“Are you talking about the shapeshifters or the miners?”

“Child, you are thinking in absolutes. Everything in the world is intertwined, and you must not view things as happening inside your logical little boxes. The witches fed off the vileness of the miners, but they needed to destroy us—the points of light—to achieve the highest level of priesthood,
clizyati
, pure evil.”

“But why us specifically?”

“You are curious and write stories about malevolence, robbing graves, and stealing a baby's corpse. You have the power to tell your stories to many people.” She shrugged. “And I live in Kaih Canyon.”

“So why didn't they appear to the miners?”

“We don't know that they didn't, but I know they fed on the miners' viciousness and grew stronger. We were the threat, the ones who needed to be destroyed so the Witchery Way could grow.”

“There's more to this than the fact you live in Kaih Canyon, isn't there?”

A smile of amusement crossed her face and she held up one hand. “I am a shaman, a
yataalii
, for our people and you, child, are inquisitive.”

“I've been told that before. What abilities do you have that threatened the witches?”

“I am able to enter the world of both compassionate and malicious spirits, and I use what I see to foretell the future and practice healing. Ridding themselves of me would have empowered them.”

“You helped Trace with my smudging ceremony, didn't you? You helped him to heal me.”

“Yes, he wanted to complete each step correctly to keep you safe. He loves you very much.”

I stared round-eyed at her. I wasn't sure she knew how much we loved each other, and I didn't know if she was disappointed that I wasn't a Navajo woman.

She leaned over and pressed a dry kiss to my cheek. “I'm very happy he chose you.”

I pushed out a long breath of relief. “Thank you, Grandmother. I needed you to be pleased for us.

“Drive us to town, dear. You're itching to go to work.”

I turned the engine over, reversed in a wide spot by the willows, and pulled out onto the road. “Are the witches gone now?”

“They are never gone, my dear.” She patted my hand. “Fire has cleansed Kaih Canyon today, but the evil ones are always with us.”

Uncertainty battled with my feelings of relief. I had carried the grasses for so long they had nearly turned to dust in their Ziploc bags.

I drove way too fast back to town. Yanaha was quiet and clung to the handhold the whole trip, but she never complained. I settled her at Trace's condo. On the way to the station, I called and left him a voice mail that she was safe and at his place.

 

Marty yelled from his office, “Tell me you haven't been having a tea party somewhere and missed the explosion at the mine. I had to send a guy who's barely out of his internship to cover it. He hasn't found his way home yet.”

I held up the camera. “Got it right here. Louis, you back there?”

He rushed to my side and hugged me. “Thank God, you're okay. Yanaha all right?”

“Yeah, I dropped her at Trace's.” My hand was shaking so badly I couldn't connect the camera to the computer.

“Give it to me. I'll do it.” Louis easily plugged it in. Marty joined us to see the footage I had shot.

“It wasn't the mine.”

“What?” Louis exclaimed.

“They were running a huge meth lab in that Quonset hut Chavez claimed was a dormitory for the men.”

“Police scanner says they found a woman out there,” Marty said.

“Anne Notah was tied to a filthy mattress in the men's barracks.”

“Oh my God, you found her?” Louis said.

“Chavez came back to finish her off so there would be fewer loose ends.”

“You were with her?” Louis demanded.

I nodded. “Trace arrested him.”

“Gal, you got nine lives. Geez, look at the scope of that fire—burned hot and fast. That doesn't look like blood on the walls of the hut. What is it?” Louis tapped the monitor and looked over his shoulder at me.

“Red phosphorus,” Marty read aloud from his tablet. “Poorly processed meth results in red phosphorus, which is ‘highly volatile and can cause flash-burn injuries to anyone near the explosion.' Wikipedia. Love this site.”

“Like this?” I pointed to the monitor.

Pictures of a man curled in the fetal position with extensive burns came on the screen. I slowed the speed of the footage. When the EMTs rolled him over and laid him on the stretcher, blistered red skin slipped from his arms, peeling in long bloody strips.

“We'll blur his face and use that,” Marty said matter-of-factly.

“So we didn't smell meth cooking even though it was right there in front of us because the sulfuric acid in those leach pits stunk so bad. Damn good plan.”

“But the pot hunting,” Marty questioned. “You were sure they looted graves. . . .”

“Wait until the police open that shed.”

“That's the one Torres called a storage unit for the machine shop,” Louis added.

“Watch,” I said to Marty.

“Holy crap, look at the number of pots in there!” Louis hooted in glee.

“The other two sheds are full, too. It was a lucrative side business. Chavez was a greedy son of bitch.”

“You got arrest footage?”

“Footage of Chavez being led away in handcuffs.”

“Damn fine piece of work, McWhorter,” Marty said gruffly.

Marty laid the tablet down and said, “Here's a list of the shit it takes to make meth. Methanol, benzene, trichloroethylene, toluene, and ammonia. Pity the poor bastards cooking it.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Get this story cut. I'm sending it to the southwest bureau. Might make the network tonight.”

Before we had finished the story, the joint task force of FBI, state police, and Navajo Nation Police released a statement that Sancho Chavez and Jose Torres were charged with making meth, the intent to distribute illegal drugs, hiring illegal workers, and the theft of Navajo artifacts. The spokesperson added that Sancho Chavez's phone had been tapped in an ongoing FBI investigation. No statement about what the records revealed. Over fifty undocumented workers were swept up in the raid and were awaiting arraignment. The number of deaths stood at seven, though more were expected. I cut the FBI statement in under my footage of the blast zone.

“I need a statement from Dr. Hebron about the pollution from the blast,” I said to Louis. “Won't take long if he's in his office.”

Dr. Hebron answered his phone on the first ring. “Ms. McWhorter, I thought you might call for my opinion.”

“Will you give me a statement about the toxicity levels after a meth lab explodes?”

“Certainly.” I put the phone on speaker. “All of the debris has mercury and lead in it, heavy metals that will leak into the groundwater. Plus, for every pound of meth created, the process leaves behind five to six pounds of toxic waste.” He gave the perfect short bite.

I hung up and looked at Louis. “The ramifications are going to rumble through the Navajo Nation for years.”

Louis threw his hands in the air. “Why would anyone cook up shit from a bunch of toxic chemicals and then put it in their body?”

We added ten seconds of Hebron's interview to the end of the story. Marty tagged the file and e-mailed the story to the NBC bureau chief in Phoenix. Within fifteen minutes, the bureau in Phoenix verified the story was on its way to New York.

Louis, Marty, and I watched the NBC nightly news at five-thirty. The anchor teased my story before the commercial break. “The story of a suspected cartel super lab on the Navajo Nation.”

As the story finished running, Trace called. I stepped into my cubicle, pretending I had a vestige of privacy there. Before I could say hello, I blurted out, “My story went national.”

The pride in his voice thrilled me. “I'm proud of you. You're damn good. I've been worried sick about you. How are you?”

“I'm fine and so is Yanaha. I picked up food for her and got her settled at your place with the television. Left you a message.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything new?”

He snorted in disgust. “Sancho Chavez hired a high-powered law firm out of Phoenix to represent him.”

“What happens to all those illegals?”

“They'll be tried in American courts, and if found guilty, serve their terms here, then be deported when they're released.”

Something was off. His voice was flat and he sounded like he was making a press statement instead of talking to me. “What is it?”

“Susan Etisitty's dead,” he said quietly.

“What?
How
?”

“Suicide. Took a bunch of pills. I sent Dave over to check on her when she didn't show up to work.”

“Did she leave a note?”

“No. But it wasn't hard to figure out why she did it. We didn't announce that Gage had his cell phone on him when he died and the last call on his phone was to Susan.”

“Oh, God no. She lured Gage out of hiding to their deaths?” My voice broke. “Wait a minute. Why did Gage turn his cell on? He knew that was dangerous.”

“Because Susan drove out to the Towering Cliffs Trading Post and left a written message with the owner for Gage to call her if he came into the Post. That's not unusual. The trading posts have always been used as message drops. The clerk identified Susan from a picture.”

“So Gage called Susan, and she set him up to be killed.”

“That's the way I read it. The FBI had a wiretap on Sancho Chavez's cell and hard lines from the mine. Susan got caught up in the wire tap. Her number came up three times in Chavez's incoming calls.”

“Crap, so she was dirty. Was Tomas Reyes?”

“Hell no,” he said in disgust. “The border patrol assigned him to get close to her and watch her.”

“Did you know?”

“No, damn it. The border patrol wasn't sure she was working alone.”

“Was she?”

“Damn right she was!” I heard his hand slam down on his desk.

“I'm sorry, that hurt. You don't deserve that. Forgive me.”

“I'm sorry I snapped. Been a helluva day. Gage should have taken my protection instead of trusting Susan. He and the kid would both be alive.”

“At least her grandparents will never know what she's done.”

“True. Susan's isn't the only story of a local caught in this mess. Alison Garcia was arrested.”

“For what?”

“She was fencing pots to collectors out on the West Coast. We'd been looking at her for a long time, but couldn't prove it. The Chavez wiretap implicated her.”

“I can't believe it. It's the antithesis of the way she talked. All that pompous bullshit about stealing native heritage was an act of racism . . . Wait a minute. Can I have these two stories?”

“There're yours. I have a couple of more hours of work here and now you do, too. I'll call you before I leave.”

“Come home to me. I need you.”

 

I was spooning Mac on my sofa, his raucous doggy snores nearly drowning out the television. Trace knocked quietly before he turned his key in the door. Energy surged into the room. His boot heels thudded on the tile floor, and his duster swirled around his jean-clad legs. My heart pounded as he swept into the room. He knelt beside me, gathered me in his arms, and buried his head between my breasts. “Think you could make some room for me on your sofa?”

“Bet I can, cowboy.” I nudged my sprawling dog awake. “Mac boy, go to bed. We have plans for the sofa.”

Trace sat where Mac had been snoozing and put his strong arms around me.