The Ties That Bind (32 page)

"He's pretty over it," Kara said before she took another drink of water.

"No, I think he just doesn't want to dredge up the past."

"Sometimes it might be a good thing to just let it go."

"Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know." I glanced in the rearview mirror. "All I know is that Bill was a bastard when Sage and River were growing up and that's the way they remember him. He was never around and when he was, he was drunk and behaved like a total prick. And yes, maybe he behaved badly because of the alcohol. Yes, he was sick because of his drinking. It explains why he did the things he did, but it sure as hell doesn't excuse it." I eased off the accelerator, realizing that I'd gotten a bit worked up.

"I agree. But the fact remains that Bill drank, he was a dick, and now he's dead. Maybe River would prefer to just leave that in the past. The guy whose death he's dealing with now was a different man than the father he knew."

I shrugged, not wanting to get further into this conversation with Kara. Whatever demons the past nursed in River, I suspected that sooner or later he'd need to deal with them. For his sake, I hoped it was sooner.

"You want me to drive?" Kara asked.

"I'm all right for now." I glanced at the digital clock above the radio. Almost six. Kara and I had taken our time over our meal, for which I was glad because I wanted to hang around as long as possible. Maybe Sage and River would be ready to go by the time Kara and I were gassed up. No deal, but Sage said she'd call when she and River left. I couldn't shake the weird feeling I'd had since that morning. Everything would be so much better once Sage and River were back in Albuquerque. Just a few more hours. But it was a long drive through one of the most unpopulated parts of the state. That made me nervous, too.

"So what do you think about this whole Jimmy Surano-Jamison Purcell connection?" Kara broke my train of thought and I switched gears, glad for the chance to do some analysis and get my mind off other things.

"They knew each other because they worked together. I don't get the feeling they were buddies or anything. And if Surano's calling Purcell to threaten him, then they probably didn't know each other that well. What I'm not sure about is the Surano-Monroe connection. Surano has a hell of a lot to lose in this, if he's part of the shit. Nestor said he had priors, which means finding a job has got to be hard for him. Maybe Monroe is using that to get Surano to make threats to Purcell."

"But why Purcell? He doesn't know about the notebook."

I thought about it for a bit, seeing the notes I'd taken at our afternoon session with Simmons in my mind's eye. I wasn't too sure Purcell hadn't known about the notebook. I still wasn't sure how much we could believe from Purcell. While we had talked to Simmons, I added information to the lists I'd made on my legal pad.

It helped organize my thoughts with her, and it helped organize my thoughts now. "So maybe Monroe knows that now, but he's pressuring Purcell to put the squeeze on other guys who knew Bill. He's trying to flush game out of the brush. Monroe might want the notebook so he can get rid of it because if Bill collected evidence that'll stick about willful negligence resulting in injuries and deaths, Ridge Star is in a shitload of trouble."

"Maybe Monroe wants Purcell to contact Nestor," Kara mused. "Monroe knew Bill was tight with Nestor, but maybe it's easier for Monroe to get to Purcell."

I passed a truck that looked like a leftover from World War II, chugging up a hill. "Purcell's alone most of the day. And he's pretty isolated out there. Nestor at least is surrounded by other houses that might be owned by family members or at least friends." The insular reservation culture might have protected Nestor from an asshole like Monroe. "I don't know why, but I think there's something about Surano in all this."

Kara glanced over at me. "Well, Purcell's pretty sure he's the one who called him with the threat. Why would he do that, though? Why get involved in all this?"

"Because maybe he already
is
involved." I accelerated to the speed limit and put the visor down to block some of the sunlight. "Maybe Monroe--and whoever else--put Surano up to messing with Bill. Maybe he's even the guy who took Bill out to the Rez, thinking that he was just going to scare him into leaving things alone." And maybe that tactic went way wrong when Bill managed to get away. But why, then, hit him and kill him?
Unless that part wasn't supposed to happen
. I chewed my lip, thinking.

"Purcell said that Monroe's managed to keep himself pretty clear of this," Kara said before she took another swig of water.

"Not really. He was at Purcell's today acting like an asshole and Purcell's got other witnesses--that would be us--though Monroe doesn't know that. Purcell might come clean to Simmons, now."
And with Bill's notebook, she's got some ammo to question Monroe.

"Okay," Kara said, but in a tone that suggested she wasn't convinced. "So let's suppose that Monroe just wanted to scare Bill off the investigation and maybe get his notebook. How did it manage to get so screwed up?"

I didn't answer right away, thinking. We crested a hill south of the town of Bloomfield, east of Farmington, where farmers had managed to coax fields of crops from desert plateau. I was struck again by the sight of pumpjacks chugging away on the edge of rows of corn. "I'm guessing they didn't figure Bill would be able to get away. What if Surano--because I don't think Monroe would get directly in on this--took Bill out to that wash that Tom Manyhorses was talking about and he left him there, tied to something? What if he knew the rumors about it and knew that Bill was sort of into Navajo beliefs because he hung out with Nestor? So Surano figured it would scare Bill to be out there and he'd agree to stop his investigating and to hand over his documentation."

"Huh."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kara nod. "But Bill got away," she said. "He managed to somehow cut through the rope and he started walking back toward the road. Maybe he was on his way to Manyhorses' place."

"But his body was past that. He didn't stop at Manyhorses' turnoff. He kept going." Why didn't he go up the road to Manyhorses' spread? I frowned, remembering the vast openness of the area. How far was Tom Manyhorses' house from the main road we had parked on to find the spot where Bill died? I hadn't thought to ask. Did Bill decide to take his chances on the main road rather than go up any side roads? Maybe that's what he was doing. He didn't want to go up any lesser roads in a dark, creepy area of the Navajo Reservation.

"How about this as a scenario," I said. "Bill is walking on the main road because he doesn't want to take his chances on those other roads. He doesn't know the area, but he knows the road they brought him in on. And maybe he sees a vehicle approaching but he's not sure it's friendly. So he finds a place to hide. Maybe he goes off the road a bit and hides behind some sagebrush or something. He was wearing dark clothing, after all. So the vehicle approaches and passes and it's the guy or guys who brought him out there and he knows at that moment that as soon as they find him gone, they're going to go looking for him."

Kara picked up my train of thought. "So he starts walking or running toward the highway. How fast could he go?"

"Not very, compared to a car. But he's scared. Adrenaline kicks in." I slowed down behind an RV, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.
But that still doesn't make sense
. Why wouldn't Bill stay hidden? All he had to do was go away from the road a bit and lie down behind some sagebrush. Chances were the driver of the vehicle wouldn't have seen him, even if he was looking for him, because he wouldn't know for sure when Bill got away or how far he might have gotten.
What were we not seeing?

Kara reached over and turned the car radio on, but she switched it to CD and the world beat album I'd left in there started playing. She sat back and stared out the window and after a while, I figured she'd fallen asleep.

"Bill was into Navajo beliefs," she said, startling me.

"And?"

"And he was taken to a part of the reservation that has a rep for weird stuff."

"Ridge Star was trying to scare him. That's a good place to do it." I pictured Bill, being hauled out of a pickup in the dark and tied to whatever his captors had put out there. He had to know what was happening. He probably knew the guys who took him out there. Did he think they were going to kill him? Is that what they wanted to do?

"Think about it," Kara continued. "What if Bill was hardcore into Navajo beliefs?"

"All the more reason to try to scare the shit out of him out there. Maybe they just wanted him to give them his documentation and quit Ridge Star and they figured that was the best way to do it."

"Kase, you're not following up on the 'belief' part," Kara said. "When you really, really believe something, chances are you're going to attribute things that happen to you to your beliefs."

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Was that a part of this puzzle? Chris had said the same thing the day before, about how what you believe can make you see things. "Damn, you sound like Dad. I thought you weren't into all that religious studies academic crap," I teased.

"Whatever. You grow up in it, some of it gets stuck on you," she retorted. "Anyway, think about it. There's Bill out there by himself, tied to a stake or whatever, freaking out, and he sees something."

"Or he thinks he sees something," I corrected, grasping where Kara was going. "But it doesn't matter whether it was real or not." I stared out the windshield at the road, at the asphalt shimmering in the heat. "Because he believed he saw something."

"Exactly. And he's more scared of whatever it was he thought he saw than of the Ridge Star assholes and he busts out of the wash and takes off, freaking out the whole way."

"Of course," I said, half to myself. "Which is why he just went for the main highway. He thought something was chasing him." Something dark and scary, with bad intentions, from the nightmares of Navajo ideology. Something whose sole purpose was to cause harm to humans. But even if Bill was barreling down the road, thinking a skinwalker was after him, wouldn't the sight of a vehicle bearing down on him shake him out of it? For a moment, at least?
There's still something else. Something I'm not seeing.

"I wonder--" Kara started. "Okay, let's just go a little further. What if they took Bill out there and tied him up to keep him there, in one place, so that they could do something specifically to scare him?"

"What do you mean?" I glanced over at her then back at the road. "Like, they were going to do something more to scare him?"

"Yeah. Like...I don't know. Dress up in some costume and try to scare him even more."

"That's kind of elaborate, don't you think?" I imagined Bill tied to a stake and Jimmy Surano or somebody coming up out of the wash wearing a couple of ratty coyote skins, making spooky noises. "And kind of lame. I mean, some guy dressed up in a weird outfit is going to scare another guy?"

"Why not?" she shot back, defensive. "Bill's already a believer. They leave him out there for a while to get all worked up. But maybe they didn't go too far. They drove away, then parked on the road to Tom Manyhorses' place and waited a while, then one guy gets out of the car and goes back to the wash with his outfit--"

"And scares the living shit out of Bill." I nodded. It was nuts, but this whole thing had been nuts. "So what happens is Bill breaks the rope or maybe he's been working on getting away since they left and this guy shows up imitating a Navajo witch and does scare him even more and he breaks away and takes off running."

"And the other guy chases him, but Bill thinks he's running for his life, so he's faster."

I chewed my lip again, mulling the image of Bill racing away from the wash. "I don't think even a guy running for his life is going to get too far out there."

"Agreed," Kara said. "He doesn't know the area so he'll stay on the main road. But he's scared out of his mind and they could have underestimated him." She handed me the bottle of water and this time, I took a swig and handed it back.

"So here comes Bill, like a bat out of hell, and he gets past Manyhorses' turn-off and he continues on but there's the bad guys' truck, parked up that road and the guy who scared Bill at the wash alerts the dude in the truck or car or whatever and that's how the truck ended up
behind
Bill." I decelerated behind a car pulling a camping trailer, chafing a little because I wanted to get home and call Chris and run all this by her. Not because I wanted to continue this investigation as a pseudo-private investigator, but because my analytical streak demanded it, needed some closure. And maybe I wanted her to talk me out of this insane scenario that Kara had helped plant in my skull.

Kara leaned back. "How far to Cuba?"

"Forty miles or so."

"Stop when we get there. I'm going to need to pee."

"Duh. Two glasses of iced tea and a bottle of water will do that to you." I flashed her a grin even as she stuck her tongue out at me.

"Now shut up so I can get some sleep." She adjusted her seat back and crossed her arms, assuming her dozing-in-the-car position. I adjusted the air conditioning and moved my own seat back a bit to give my legs a little more stretch for the drive. The landscape 550 was passing through showcased eroding desert buttes and hoodoo spires, the latter casting eerie evening shadows across the ground.

I adjusted my speed, not wanting to get nailed with a ticket, and thought about Bill's last hours of life, and the circumstances that took him to a darkened wash cloaked in ancient local fears. Did somebody dress up like a skinwalker and try to scare him? And if so, did they seriously think that a Halloween-style prank would put Bill off his investigation into dangerous working conditions at Ridge Star? Somebody felt Bill couldn't be fired, because he'd probably whistle-blow. So maybe they wanted to force him to quit. But even if they did force him to quit, so what? That wouldn't shut him up. Why the hell would a couple of guys set up such an elaborate scenario to scare him?