Death and Desire (9 page)

I thought about telling him he didn't have to do this, that I could get someone out in the morning. It was hard for me to accept the gift of someone's help, but I didn't discourage him and that surprised me. I had succumbed to his charm. “Thank you. I'll feel much safer tonight.”

“You're welcome. I'd like to keep it that way.” There was an awkward moment between us that I could have filled with kisses, but I was too slow, the moment passed, and my regret stung.

“Let's eat while the pizza is warm.” I busied myself putting two pieces on his plate.

He bit into the hot pizza without stringing cheese from his plate to his mouth. “How did you find your way to Flag?”

I told him about my college days and my first news job in eastern New Mexico. “What's your story?” I had no appetite, but I gamely nibbled a slice.

“After I graduated from NAU with an anthropology degree, I joined the army and served two tours in the military police. I graduated from the National Academy at Quantico.” He shrugged. “Found my way back home and I plan to stay.”

He left an opening for me to walk through. “I'm glad to hear that,” I said.

He beamed. “We'll have to start those cooking lessons.”

“Deal. You want any more pizza?”

“No, I'm finished and I better get started on those locks.” He picked up his small bag of tools and unzipped them.

“I talked with Dr. Alison Garcia over at the NAU today,” I said while he laid out his tools.

He looked up, waiting for me to explain. “She told me about the AAA Indian Auction house down in Phoenix. You heard of them?”

He nodded. “I've heard of them. You thinking about making a trip to Phoenix?” He picked up a small drill. Disapproval wafted off him. His eyes had narrowed, and he had a tight grip on the drill handle. He picked up the first lock set.

“What's wrong? Do you know her?”

“She came to the U long after I graduated. I just know her by reputation. I figure you're good at what you do, but going to that auction house might not be the best idea.”

“Louis and I will be going together.”

“Guns and drugs are mixed up in the black-market pottery. That brings some bad characters to the table.” He stood up and moved toward the front door.

I followed his lead that the conversation was closed. “I can take the old ones off. If you drill the deeper holes in the frame, I can help you install the new ones.”

We worked in comfortable silence. I stood behind him while he squatted before the front door. His shoulders pulled his shirt taunt across his back. “Hand me that Phillips-head screwdriver.” His pants stretched away in the back from his narrow waist. I got a peek at his black underwear. I imagined the front of him clad only in—what? Briefs or boxers? He shifted his weight to the other knee. Black
silky
boxers. He looked over his shoulder at me. “The screwdriver?”

“Oh, yeah.” I handed it to him. I hoped I wasn't turning red. He made quick work of the front lock, then switched out the deck door and moved on to the one that led out to the garage.

He quickly unscrewed the last lock. “You do keep the garage door down all the time, don't you?”

“I do.”

“You know you can lock the overhead door? There's a button for that on the control box.”

“No, but I'll start locking it at night.”

“Okay, all done.” Trace gathered up his tools.

“Thank you. Mac and I feel much better.”

“Burn your outside lights. Make sure everything is locked up tight.” He zipped the tool bag shut. “Thanks for the pizza.” His hand rested on the front doorknob. “I'll call you if we lift any prints off that jar.”

“Thank you again.” Awkward. We were in the awkward zone when two people stand at the front door. Kiss or no kiss? Oh, what the hell, he was a big boy. I stood on tiptoe and kissed him gently on his cheek. His hands circled my waist, and his lips found mine, moving softly across my mouth. The tip of his tongue gently probed, exploring.

My lips burned. I licked across his full bottom lip and sucked gently at the center. His warm brown eyes clouded with desire. Lust flicked through me. A shadow of a smile washed over his face. He bent his head and kissed my cheek. “I'll give you a call tomorrow.” He disappeared into the darkness.

The house felt empty without him. I locked the door and put the key on a small table in the foyer. Mac and I checked the windows and I locked us in the bedroom. The outside light above the deck cast weird shadows on the walls. A quick look through the deck windows and I was satisfied nothing lurked out there. Mac stared expectantly at the bed, hoping for the rare invitation. “Come on, boy.” I patted the bed and slipped under the covers. Sleep didn't come easily, but Mac had no problem. I tossed restlessly, thinking of Trace and that seductive kiss, wondering what his hands would feel like on the rest of my body. My finger traced the kiss he had skimmed across my mouth.

I
dragged myself out bed. A glimpse in the bathroom mirror did nothing to improve the way I felt. I could have packed for a trip with the bags under my eyes. I made some coffee and gave Mac a scoop of kibbles.

When the coffee quit perking, I took my mug out on the deck to watch as the red dawn chased away the wisps of morning cool. Something was happening around me, at the edges of what I could accept as real. Shapeshifters chasing the Rav, coyotes that left no footprints, unexplainable sensations of doom, a curse in my closet. None of it made sense within my definition of reality. I couldn't see past my self-imposed boundary of what I believed
could
exist. Past that line was a dark and foreign land, populated by things I didn't want to know. Trace and Bidziil, even Louis, didn't disclaim the occurrences. I saw my border between what was, and what could be, shifting on the sands.

I took a sip of my coffee and spit it over the side of the deck. Lukewarm coffee was nasty. Mac followed me back into the house where I dressed for work, intent on getting down to Phoenix.

 

I rushed into the station to meet Louis for our trip to the auction house. “Louis, you ready to go?”

“Sure.” He stood opposite my cluttered desk. “Gal, you look all in. What's going on?” Worry etched his face.

I told Louis about the open door.

“Hell, why didn't you call Eric and me? Who did you call?”

“The Flag police came.”

“Un-huh, who did you call?”

“I called Trace Yazzie.”

Louis's eyebrows shot up, and his mouth formed a perfect little
O
.

“I know it's stupid, not even in his jurisdiction,” I stammered.

A big grin split his face. “Well, gal, you did what you wanted to and good for you.”

I smiled and handed him my bag with the flip camera.

He held out his hand for the bag. “You know this auction house is going to have a no video, no still pictures policy. You still want to drag that camera down there?”

“Your hands are huge. Cup your hand and no one will notice a flip camera in your palm.”

We drove south on 179 through Ponderosa forests that would soon give way to desert cedar and dry streambeds.

“What happened at your house last night?” Louis asked.

“A Navajo witch left a tarantula charm in my closet.”

“Gal, you're in some deep shit here!”

I shivered in the warm car. “You can back out of working with me if you want.”

“No way. We're in this up to our eyeballs.” Gripping the steering wheel with his left hand, he reached over with his right hand and squeezed my arm.

“I'm getting the blessing. Maybe things will get better.”

“Trace helping you with that?”

“Yeah, he's taking me to a Sing for his friend.”

“You two becoming an item?”

“Define item.” I looked at him and smiled.

“Means you have the hots for him and you're not looking for a replacement. I'm a guy married to a guy, but most of us have had a little experience with a woman.”

I threw my hands and up and said, “Louis!”

“Hey! You look surprised. I can prove it to you. Five minutes after a woman gets in bed, if nothing good is happening, she's thinking about what's downstairs in the frig.” He hooted with laughter. “Right? Be honest.”

“I live in a one-story house.”

He was still enjoying himself when he turned into the crowded parking lot of AAA.

“I wouldn't have thought there would be this many people here on a weekday,” I said.

We finally parked at the edge of the lot and hiked in. Louis slipped the camera in his jeans pocket and I pushed the barn doors open into a converted warehouse. The high, open ceilings and concrete floors echoed our footsteps. Lines of folding chairs filled the space. Huge Jumbotron screens flanked all four walls to give bidders close-up views of the items. We slipped into a row where we could see the front platform and a video screen.

“Looks like a megachurch, doesn't it?” Louis whispered, pointing to the speakers hung by each video screen.

“Looks more like they make a ton of money here.” The crowd streamed in. Most were dressed in high-end casual clothes, the kind that gave off the vibe, “I'm hip and cool and really so like you.”

A fanfare of music blared out of the speakers and the auctioneer welcomed us. He ran through the rules for bidding.

“You gonna bid on something?” Louis asked.

“Yes. We'll have an opportunity to go up front and talk to these guys if I buy something.” I leaned in close to his ear. “Start recording.”

The auctioneer moved through the items in the program quickly. He had several people working for him, getting the piece on camera before he started the bidding, writing down the number of the winner, and passing the item to the sold area. Several people bought five or six expensive pieces, perhaps acting as the go between for a well-heeled collector.

After an hour of steady bidding, the auction was down to the dregs, shreds of ancient fabric, little pieces of broken this and that, and intricately painted pottery shards. The auctioneer held up the handle of an Anasazi drinking ladle. “What am I offered? Opens at two hundred dollars. Do I hear two hundred? Nobody wants this piece of antiquity? Come on! Give me a bid! Give me a bid on something older than Greece,” he wheedled.

I raised my hand.

“You gonna buy that broken spoon handle?” Louis hissed.

“We got a bid of two hundred. Two hundred going once . . .” the auctioneer chanted.

A distinguished silver-haired man to my right nodded his head at me and raised the bid.

“Two-fifty, any bidders, two-fifty going once . . .”

I raised my hand. “Three hundred. Three hundred going once . . . going twice . . .” No one stirred. The silver-haired man smiled and saluted me. “Sold for three hundred to the tall brunette.”

We joined the crowd around the payment table. “Do you know where the ladle handle was found?” I asked the auction employee.

He stopped in the middle of wrapping the pottery and stared at me. “Private land.”

“Do you have the paperwork on the provenance of the piece?” I took the bundle out of his hand.

“You're the second owner to hold it since the gal who made it a thousand years ago. You good to go?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes.” I widened my eyes. “I will treasure it.”

“You will treasure it,” Louis snorted as we got to my Rav. “You just paid three hundred dollars for a spoon handle!”

“He can't supply provenance for those artifacts. Did you see the amount of pottery that went out those doors?”

“How you gonna prove it?”

“I just bought an antiquity with no certificate of provenance. That's a felony under federal law—both the selling and the buying. The feds require owners to return illegally held artifacts to the tribe's descendents.”

“Maybe that came from private land like the guy said.”

We pulled onto the highway headed for Flag. “If it did, the pottery still can't be sold without a certificate of provenance, including the former owner's name and the site where it was found.”

“So we got ourselves a hot pot?”

“Lame, Louis, really lame.”

He motioned to the wrapped and taped package lying in the console. “That thing is a problem. You ever hear of Shumwell?”

“No, who's he?”

“Dead guy. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, he was a legendary pot hunter. He stopped looting graves before he died because he felt surrounded by evil. All kinds of bad shit happened to him. He dug into an Anasazi burial site and a rattlesnake bit him.”

“Rattlesnakes are everywhere out here.”

“That's not all.” Louis wagged his finger. “He dug into another burial site and found a mummified baby girl. When he pulled her little body out, he was stung by a nest of scorpions.”

“I'm still not hearing anything that couldn't be a normal by-product of his activity.”

“Normal by-product of his activity,” he mimicked. “You sound like a scientist. After he dug that baby up, he had recurring dreams. The same nightmare over and over. Long knives rose out of her grave slashing his body. He went back out to her burial site and a dirt wall collapsed on him, breaking his ankle. That's when he quit, claiming the Chindi were too powerful. You got a shapeshifter after you! You got to get rid of that spoon handle.”

“I'll take the ladle handle to Yanaha. She'll see to it that it gets to where it belongs.”

“Got you going with Shumwell's story, didn't I?” Louis smiled.

“Did he see shapeshifters?”

“Never heard anything about that. But he damn sure believed in evil spirits before he died.”

 

I pitched the auction-house story to Marty and waved the ill-gotten ladle handle in front of him. I raved about what a great story it would be.

“I hired you because you won an Emmy for investigative reporting. You got shit until you correlate the pottery is coming out of the Flag area and the mining company is digging pots. Until then, we just have a couple of random incidents with no relationship to our viewing audience. So get out there Mc Whorter and pull it all together.” He balanced the spit-soaked cigar on the rim of his favorite ashtray. The one with a picture of a man standing on top of his desk pissing on all his papers on his last day of work with “I'm so outa here” scrolled around the perimeter.

Marty was more pleasant to talk to when he was smoking those damn things than when he was sucking on them. “You're forgetting the police report Niyol filed with Officer Nez. Couple that with Garcia's interview and my story of buying pottery with no provenance. The evidence is all there. You're touching part of it. Correlation made, Marty.”

“Edit it and let me see it before you log it in the server,” he growled.

I raced back to my desk thinking the words “apology” and “you're right” had been missing from Marty's vocab.

Satisfied with my story, I e-mailed it to Marty, then walked down to his office. I wanted it to run tonight. Marty was already reviewing it when I walked in. He looked up over his cheaters and said grudgingly, “Nice save, McWhorter. I wouldn't have expected any less from you. Leads tonight on the six and ten.”