Mourning Dove (31 page)

“Okay, but watch yourselves. Police officers can be paranoid, even the innocent ones.”

Ella met again with her team and set a tentative plan in motion. “Next, we need to find out what Samuel’s hours are,” Ella said.

Justine stood up. “Give me a few moments,” she said, and stepped out of Ella’s office.

“We’ll be specifically
looking for other players—people Samuel meets, especially anyone who might be connected to the Army, or gunrunning. I don’t think we’ve got the whole picture yet,” Ella told the others. Just then, Justine returned.

“He’s got the day shift for the rest of this month, not including any overtime he may clock in. Samuel is temporarily assigned to the carjacking strike team, of course, and spends
a lot of time meeting and conferencing with the other officers on the operation,” Justine said.

“So Officer Blacksheep’ll be on his own at night,” Ella concluded with a nod. “Good. Justine and I will cover him tonight until he turns in. You two can take it tomorrow. And—a word of warning. We do
not
want to get caught. Big Ed has enough problems dealing with tribal officials without getting embroiled
in some interagency stink. He wasn’t thrilled with this idea to begin with.”

After her team dispersed, Ella and Justine headed to Farmington, Justine at the wheel. “I’ve got his plates and a description of the pickup he drives off-hours in case we need to look around,” she told Ella. “But my contact said that he has a meeting with his sergeant at the station this afternoon, so he’ll be there
until his shift ends.”

“If he’s already left, then we’ll go to his residence and see if he’s there,” Ella said. “And if not, there are some bars where cops hang that we can check out.”

“Or we can go to the house of the woman he’s seeing these days.”

Ella gave Justine an approving look. “Good work! I’m impressed, partner! You need to take your contact out to dinner—my treat.”

Once they reached
the Farmington Police Station, they cruised around until they found Samuel’s unit, then waited at a visitor’s parking slot, keeping watch.

“How’s it going at home with Rose and Herman?” Justine asked after about five minutes. “I’ve heard that they’re really getting serious.”

Ella nodded. “As serious as it gets. They’re getting married. Mom doesn’t want a fancy affair, so I think it’s going to
happen soon.”

“Are you and Dawn moving out?”

Before Ella could reply, Samuel came out of the station, jacket in hand, moving in the direction of his unit. “Here we go.”

They tailed him across Farmington to a two-story-high warehouse just north of the river. Blacksheep parked face-in beside a loading dock next to three other vehicles, one of them also a police car, then walked up a flight of
steps to a metal door with a sign that said
OFFICE
. He knocked, the door opened almost immediately, then Samuel disappeared inside.

“I wonder if this place is connected to the carjackings,” Justine said. “It looks like a great place to strip a vehicle for parts, or let it cool down before moving it south to Mexico.”

“If it is, two cops are involved. Park around the corner at the curb, and I’ll
go in for a closer look,” Ella said. “It’s dusk so the entire side of the building will be covered in long shadows. There are no windows except the two in the office so if I stick close to the wall, I won’t get spotted unless somebody steps outside.”

“But if they do, they’re going to nail you.”

Over Justine’s protests, Ella inched around the corner, staying low to the ground. The building’s
exterior wasn’t well lighted, and it was past day-shift business hours, so the chances of anyone coming along in what was essentially an industrial park was unlikely.

Stepping lightly on the gravel after noting that the closest window was open several inches, she forced herself to concentrate solely on a silent approach as she moved up to listen. Comments about flushes and a full house, king
high, beer, and pizza made her realize immediately that she’d followed Samuel to a night of poker with the good ole boys. Cursing her luck, she decided to return to the car. Then she overheard something that made her freeze in her tracks.

“I think the carjackers have moved on,” a male voice said. “Or gone to ground. We haven’t even had a bad tip since that incident over by Hogback. It sucks.
We’ve got to take them down, hard.”

“They’re playing it smart, laying low until the heat dies down, Bobby,” Samuel answered. “With the focus on them, they have to be careful. In a few weeks, a month, they’ll hit again.”

“Too bad the Navajo cops didn’t nail them. I would have liked to have been in on it. Maybe with a few more units on the scene, we’d have done more than recover the vehicle,”
another voice said.

“Ben, any action you see around here must be like kid stuff after your tour in Iraq. And I’ve heard there’s lots of black market crap going down over there. Bet it wasn’t easy keeping your mitts clean,” Samuel commented offhandedly.

“Nothing’s clean over there,” he muttered. “The sand’s as fine as powdered sugar. Hard keeping the vehicles from grinding into junk. I used up
all my rubbers keeping the muzzle of my weapon clear. Shocked my mom, asking for more in a care-package. Impressed my dad for a moment, though, until I explained.”

At least three men laughed.

“Seriously. There must have been a lot of ways a guy could
have made himself some serious cash over there,” Samuel said casually. “Lots of G.I.’s risk losing their homes ’cause they can’t make the payments
on Army pay, and that’s just plain wrong. As long as no one gets hurt, I figure a soldier’s entitled to show the American entrepenurial spirit.”

“Hey. Quit using words you can’t spell,” a fourth voice said.

“Forgot to dumb it down for you, Jake. Got a crayon?” Samuel shot back.

Ella stayed where she was. Maybe this was about to pay off. Samuel was obviously angling for information, and if he
got it, she would, too.

“A couple of the guys in the platoon found an angle or two and made some extra scratch,” the one called Jake said. “Can’t say I blame ’em. Serving your country is expensive in more ways than one.”

“So much crap is going on over there, it’s a full-time job keeping your butt out of a sling,” Bobby answered. “After a while, you learn how to play the game.”

“I’m sure glad
to be back in the motor pool here doing brake jobs and tune-ups instead of retrieving broken-down fuel trucks north of Samara. RPGs, IEDs, snipers, sergeants on my ass—I’ve seen enough action to last me a lifetime. But I learned my lessons over there and I’ve got plans. I’m tired of working for someone else. I’ll be leaving the department to open my own shop as soon as possible,” Ben said.

“That’ll
take a bucket of money, won’t it?” Samuel asked.

“Hey, the U. S. of A. has been taking care of my basics for over a year now, and I’ve been saving every dime. My credit’s solid. Hell, if I don’t do it now, when?” Ben said. “Of course, since we’re shipping back out again in a few weeks, my plans are on hold. But this should be a short tour, and no hostiles, unless you include the pissed-off boyfriends
of the German ladies I’m going to be spending time with. Once I’m back, I’m going into business full time—for me.”

“I guess it’s easier to save money when you’re overseas. No groceries, no rent, no new clothes,” Samuel said.

“You still have to play it smart with your bucks,” Ben said. “Date cheap, and save your money for beer.”

“Beer!” Ella heard two men yell at once, then a clink of glass,
like two bottles being touched together.

Samuel laughed, but stayed on the subject. “I don’t think I could have made much of a soldier. I can handle the department, but that’s because I run my own life off duty. But the Army owns you when you’re, like, in Iraq or Afghanistan. I’d question some dumbass order, and get thrown in the stockade. These days you can’t defend a wrong action by saying
your captain told you to do it, you know?” Samuel said.

“True, but you gotta know not to fight the small stuff,” Bobby said. “Like in the department. You don’t narc on your own guys.”

“Yeah,” Ben piped in.

“Most of the guys over there, maybe eighty percent, are righteous,” the one called Jake said. “They just want to get the job done and come back home in one piece. But like you said, there’s
always some kind of black market action. In countries where it’s forbidden, you can still get your girlie magazines, DVDs, pirated CDs, looted merchandise—all kinds of contraband from local merchants, for a price. Sometimes you go along with it, because the guy who’s selling Johnny Walker out of his Humvee may be the one working the fifty the next day, covering your butt in a fire-fight. The lines
between right and wrong start to fade when it comes to the little crap.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “I served in ’Nam, not in the Gulf, but I hear you. Hell, there were times when we had to buy flares on the black market. Now
that
pissed me off.”

“Yeah. You liberate more than people,” Ben added, then they all laughed. “Now shut up, give me another beer, and deal.”

“Here you go, Richardson. Light beer.
Gotta watch your figure,” the one called Jake said, then laughed.

The talk switched to poker and sports. Ella crept silently back to the unit where Justine was waiting, then quickly conveyed what she’d learned. “Get hold of Neil Carson, the CID guy, and apprise him. Ask him to get us more information on Ben Richardson, one of the men in Jimmy’s Guard unit—the one who’s the mechanic at FPD. While
you’re getting Carson, I’ll call Blalock.”

Moments later, after Ella finished her conversation with Blalock, Justine glanced over at her. “I’ve left voice mail for Neil Carson. He’s unavailable.”

“I’m not surprised. But Blalock’s already working on what we need,” Ella replied.

“So what next?” Justine asked.

“We need someone who can get us some fast information on Richardson—someone who’s not
afraid to cut corners.”

They looked at each other, both already smiling. “Teeny!”

E
lla called her old friend at home, then, not getting an answer, tried his cell, with the same results. “Teeny must have turned off his voice mail for some reason. Let’s go by his office. Sometimes he’s there late but won’t answer the phone unless he’s actively working for a client.”

“I know he loves to tinker with computers—adding memory, tweaking the operating
system, anything to make them faster or more efficient,” Justine said with a nod. “I remember when he’d fix the ones at the station. He’d concentrate so totally on what he was doing he wouldn’t have heard a nuclear blast one desk over. When his special assignment for the department got swept up by the budget cuts and he quit, we ended up losing a good cop and our best tech.”

It took just five
minutes to reach the stone-and-metal office building where Teeny and Blalock both had their offices. Blalock’s office door was closed, but Teeny’s door was wide open and beyond it they could hear country-western music.

Ella knocked on the door as they walked inside, and predictably, Teeny, who was sitting before one of the computers, didn’t stir or take his eyes off the screen.

“Earth calling,”
Justine muttered.

Ella stepped around Teeny’s chair—which was like circling
a major appliance—and stood in front of him. Noticing her at last, he glanced up and smiled.

“Hey, good to see ya. I didn’t hear you come in,” he said, then turning his chair and seeing Justine, added, “You, too, girl.”

“I wanted to make sure I didn’t startle you,” Ella said, remembering one instance when Teeny had
been on a stakeout and another officer had come up from behind him. He’d bounced the two-hundred-pound rookie against a wall before realizing the man was a fellow officer.

“You two want something to eat?” He pointed to a plate half full of his favorite apple-filled doughnuts. “The cinnamon helps you think.”

“And the sugar rush helps you work?” Ella added with a grin. His computer screen was
split into two windows, one with some kind of codes related to computerese, and the other with a colorful graphic display that responded to the music coming from the computer speakers.

Teeny touched a button on his keyboard twice and the music went down about half in volume. “Go on. Help yourselves. Neither of you have to worry about calories, so enjoy,” he said, noting that Justine had already
picked one up.

Ella did the same. They’d be here for a while. “I need your help. I want anything and everything I can get on Ben Richardson, a mechanic working for the Farmington Police Department in their motor pool. He’s also in the same National Guard transportation unit as our recent murder victim. He was interviewed initially after Jimmy’s death, but didn’t add anything we didn’t already
know. Richardson said he knew Jimmy only in passing and hadn’t seen him for several days because he’d come back earlier at his department’s request. There are some additional questions I have for him now, but I’d like more background on the guy before I go talk to him.”

“I can’t go through channels—don’t have official authorization or current passwords. But I do service their network and . .
.”
His words trailed off then he shook his head. “Why don’t you two wait for me in the outer office? You can’t be held accountable for something you never saw or heard.”