Tracking Bear (33 page)

“Yeah, they found out that if they have them, their insurance rates go down.”

“Yeah, robbers don’t like to see their photos on the news. Let’s go over there and see if we can still get the videotape.”

“Those are usually recycled every twenty-four
to forty-eight hours.”

“Then let’s hope we get lucky. We need a break, and hopefully those tapes will give it to us.”

“Are you thinking that this might be the dark-haired intruder who shot at Wilson, and the one who killed Jason? A woman? Or the man in the cap. His vehicles sound like those seen at more than one shooting lately.”

Ella shrugged. “One step at a time.”

Ella and Justine sat
in the back room of the Jiffy Mart. The clerk, a Navajo kid barely out of his teens, had refused to give them the tapes without a court order or his boss’s permission. Since neither was possible, they had persuaded him to let them view the tapes at the store.

“I wonder if he’s studying to be a lawyer,” Justine said with a wry smile.

Ella chuckled. “He’d be a natural.”

Justine took the tapes
that had been used the day before in the outside security camera and stuck the first one in the machine. They ran it fast-forward, but there was nothing of interest to them there. It wasn’t until they got to the third tape that they found what they’d been searching for.

“There’s Shives,” Ella said, pointing to a figure on the screen. “Stop the tape, run it back and let’s see if we can get a better
look at the woman.”

As the scene unfolded, Ella noticed one thing. “Do you realize that she’s deliberately keeping her face away from the camera? Look closely. When she gets out of the SUV, she holds her hand in front of her face as if brushing away a hair, then she positions herself with her back to the camera.”

Ella and Justine watched a few more seconds, then ran it back and replayed it again.
“That’s one cautious lady. Even though she had no reason to believe we’d ever see this tape, she wasn’t taking any chances,” Ella said.

“You want me to run it through again?” Justine asked.

“No, let’s see if we can read the license plate when she pulls out.”

The SUV backed out, then for an instant, they could make out three numbers.

“It happens too fast to get the rest,” Justine said.

“Yeah,
but there’s something else there…like a rental company sticker.” Ella ran it back then froze the screen. “I wish this was in color. There, what’s that letter? Is it an
F
?”

“Maybe. I can get equipment that will really clear it up, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get a court order to take the tape. Maybe we can phone the store owner.”

Ella ran it back, then moved closer to the monitor. “I’ve
got it. It’s an
E
with a circle around it. There’s a new rental place in Farmington. The Circle of Excellence, or the Circle E for short.”

Justine checked her watch. “Do you want to pay them a visit tonight?”

Ella sensed her partner’s reluctance. “Do you have plans?”

“Yeah, sort of,” Justine said. “But I can cancel.”

“No, don’t,” Ella said after a moment. They’d been running themselves ragged
on this case. “Let’s call it a day.”

Justine readily agreed. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. It’s late. We’ll have better results talking to the daytime people—the ones who actually make the decisions.”

Ella smiled. “Hot date?”

Justine’s face fell. “No. Wilson and I are going to talk, and I have a feeling we’ll probably break up tonight. It’s just not working out.”

“Is he still hinting about marriage?”

She nodded. “And I’ve come to realize that I’m years away from making a commitment like that.”

Ella nodded somberly. “I think Wilson and you have different goals, and that’s hard to reconcile. Just make sure you know what you’ll be giving up.”

Justine dropped her off at the station, and Ella went directly to her vehicle. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she picked up her cell and called
home. Jennifer Clani, Dawn’s baby-sitter, answered.

“How are things going there?”

“Your daughter’s father stopped by after dinner. He took your daughter for a short ride on the pony, and I went with them.”

“Good. Where did you all go?”

“Not far, just a few hundred yards away, then back. Mostly I led the pony while he kept her balanced. She had a wonderful time. She’s now sound asleep.”

Ella
felt her heart sink a bit. She’d really hoped that tonight would be one of the times when Dawn would be awake and lively, and they could spend some time playing together.

“Has she come up with a name for the pony yet?”

“Yes. Her father suggested Wind because Wind carries secrets, and that’s sort of the way the pony arrived. Your mother approved.”

Ella laughed. “Score one for him.”

Shortly after sunrise, Ella felt someone bounce up on the bed beside her. “
Shimá
, wake up! Wind wants breakfast.”

Ella placed the pillow over her head. “The pony’s probably asleep. Go back to bed.”

“No, he’s awake! I saw him from my window!”

Ella opened her eyes reluctantly and saw her daughter’s face
less than a foot away from her face.

“Yay! You’re up.”

Ella sighed. “I didn’t have much of a choice.” Feeling positively diabolical, she reached for the cell phone on her desk. “Would you like to talk to your daddy and tell him that you’re about to go feed Wind?”

“Yes!”

Ella dialed, glad for a chance at payback, then gave her daughter the phone. Dawn’s conversation with her father bought her
another ten minutes of relaxation and enormous satisfaction.

All too soon, her daughter crawled back in bed beside her, reviving Ella for the second time. “Daddy said that he’ll remember today.”

Ella laughed. “Okay, daughter, it’s time now. Let’s go feed Wind.”

After the horse had been given a flake of hay, and over Dawn’s protests, they went back inside. Ella helped her mother fix breakfast
while Dawn rolled the ball for Two, who dutifully fetched it and brought it back for her.

“That one has a way with animals,” Rose said softly. “A real gift.”

“She’s no different from any other kid,” Ella said, wishing more than anything that it really were so. The legend concerning their clan would follow them always. It was said that each child received a special gift from the Gods.

Rose shook
her head. “She’ll inherit a talent…maybe intuition, or something else entirely that will mark her as special,” Rose said, then grew quiet as Ella’s phone rang.

Justine identified herself. “My car broke down. Any way you can come by and pick me up? I was on my way to the station, but now I’m stuck.”

“Where?”

“By the highway, at the end of the road leading to my mother’s place.”

“Okay, I’ll
be there shortly.”

“Before you leave…did Rose happen to make some homemade tortillas or fry bread this morning?”

Ella laughed. “Hungry, are you?”

“Starving.”

“Okay, hang tight. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Ella clipped the phone back onto her belt. “I’m going to have to rush off. My cousin’s stuck—her car broke down.”

“And I heard you say that she’s hungry?” Rose asked. “It’s so early,
I bet she hasn’t had breakfast. I’ll fix a breakfast burrito for her and you. The eggs are already scrambled.”

Ella started to ask for something simpler, but then changed her mind. The truth was that Rose loved mothering people. To deny her that wouldn’t help anyone—least of all Justine or her right now, since they were both famished.

By the time Rose had loaded up a grocery sack with a thermos
and more food than two people could eat in a week, Ella was ready to go.

“Wow,” Ella said, taking the sack. “That smells wonderful!”

“You’ve each got a breakfast burrito with eggs, potatoes, and a bit of salsa. There’s also a thermos of coffee and several pieces of fry bread in a smaller sack inside.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, giving Rose a hug.

Ella went into the living room and found her
daughter dancing in front of the TV set. Her favorite cartoon character was singing and dancing, and Dawn was imitating his movements.

“Hey, Pumpkin, I’m off to work. How about a hug?”

Dawn launched herself into Ella’s arms enthusiastically, squeezing her as hard as she could. “Bye! Can I ride the pony after day school?”

“Ask Boots,” she said, using Jennifer Clani’s nickname. Lena had given
it to her granddaughter who, as a child, had loved her grandfather’s boots and would always wear them around the house.

“Okay.” Dawn looked back to the TV set and started dancing again.

Ella watched her a moment longer. Dawn was independent, a trait Ella was sure would cause no end of trouble someday.

About twenty minutes later, she pulled up beside her partner’s unit, and Justine jumped out,
locked the door, then hurried into Ella’s SUV. “It’s freezing out here this morning,” she said.

“Did the heater in your unit work?” Ella looked over and saw the windshield on Justine’s unit had started frosting over.

“Not without heat from the engine. The car ran fine almost up to the turnoff, then it made a strange, coughing sound and stopped cold.” Justine took a deep breath, and zeroed in
on the sack. “That smells wonderful.”

“Help yourself. Mom packed enough for an army, as usual.”

Justine unwrapped one of the breakfast burritos, handed it to Ella, then took the other for herself. “Thanks for bringing all this stuff, Ella. I left home this morning before anyone woke up. I’d have to answer too many questions if I’d stayed for breakfast.”

“Then I assume you and Wilson did break
up?”

She nodded. “I really like him, Ella, but things weren’t right between us.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Justine shook her head. “I’m all talked out right now.”

“I understand.”

Both of them remained silent, and Justine finished her breakfast quickly. “Do you want me to drive while you finish yours?”

“You really must have been hungry,” Ella said. “Yeah, let me pull over.”

Moments later,
sitting in the passenger’s seat, Ella finished breakfast as they headed into Shiprock. The coffee her mother had made was strong and hot, and the aroma filled the car. She gave Justine the extra mug her mother had packed after pouring coffee into it from the thermos. “Don’t stop by the station, let’s go directly to the car rental place in Farmington. Those agencies open early.”

“Seven o’clock,
in their case. I called them this morning to verify their hours.”

“Did you also call maintenance and ask them to dispatch a tow truck to go get your unit?”

“Yeah, right before I called you about an hour ago. The really depressing thing is that they told me they had two other calls to get to first.”

Ella exhaled softly. “It was cold last night, and things are getting worse. The tribe
has
to
allocate more funds to the department.”

“I’ve been really thinking of supporting NEED—actively. Maybe join their organizational meetings, rallies, and so on. A lot of cops are doing that.”

Ella nodded. “I can’t say I blame them. The tribe has to come up with some long-term income sources to keep things running. Uncle Sam can’t be depended upon to help, not with all the cutbacks in federal spending.
The tribes, more and more, are on their own.”

Ella turned on the small portable radio she carried in her car. The Farmington radio station’s morning broadcast with George Branch was on. Ella turned it up and listened, curious to see if Kevin was really out of the woods with the man. Her stomach clenched as she heard Kevin’s name mentioned.

“Councilman Tolino has come up with a lot of ideas,
but he fails time and time again to implement them. Councilman, if you’re listening, put your money where your mouth is. You say you’re pro-NEED. Okay, we believe you. Now do something to make things happen. The last time the council took a vote, you were absent. Were you hiding?”

Ella switched it off. Poor Kevin. He’d celebrated too soon. She thought of Ernest Ration, and smiled. Somehow, she
had a feeling things would get interesting in the next day or so.

“I wonder what Kevin will have to say about that?” Justine asked.

“I guess we’ll find out. For what it’s worth, partner, I’m leaning toward a pro-Need stance myself. A nuclear power plant on the Rez entails risk, but this time the tribe has to take the chance. At this point, I’m for anything that will give our people a way to
become self-sustaining,” Ella said.

When they arrived at the car rental place, Ella hurried inside the small building. Beside it was a large parking lot, half-filled with new, mostly white vehicles of different models. A young Anglo woman in her midtwenties greeted them from behind the desk. Seeing the badge pinned to Ella’s belt, she gave them a worried look.

“Is something wrong, Officers?”

“We need to speak to a manager, please,” Ella said. She knew she was out of jurisdiction here, but it was a legitimate phase of an ongoing investigation.

She had barely finished her sentence when a man in his late thirties wearing a blue blazer and tie came out of an adjoining office. He glanced at Ella’s badge, then back at her. “I’m the owner, Jim Apodaca, Officer. How can I help you?”

“May
we speak privately?” Ella asked.

Apodaca waved her inside his office. “Are you from the tribal police?”

Ella nodded, then signaled to Justine to stay in the outer office. She knew Justine would strike up a conversation with the receptionist. One way or another, they’d get the information they needed.

“The tribal police have no jurisdiction here, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, but we’d like your
cooperation on an investigation that leads off the Navajo Nation. We need some information.” Ella described the SUV and the woman, then gave him the three digits they’d gotten from the plates. “We need to know the name and the address of the person who rented this vehicle.”

He leaned forward, a worried frown on his face. “Was one of our vehicles used to commit a crime?”

“We just need to locate
the driver and talk to her,” Ella replied without answering directly. “We’re investigating a missing person’s case, and we think she may have information that could help us.”

The owner leaned back in his seat and regarded her warily. “I don’t know about this…”

“Your cooperation might end up saving a man’s life. We could go through local police agencies for this information, but we wanted to
save some time. That’s why we came directly to you.”

He took a deep breath then let it out again. “All right. But please don’t make our involvement public. It might hurt my company, and we’re just trying to get off the ground here.”

“No problem.”

He pulled his chair forward and faced his computer. “Okay, give me what you’ve got again.”

Ella read the numbers on the license plate and gave him
a description of the SUV again. Seconds ticked by, then he stopped typing and turned the monitor around so she could see the information.

“That vehicle is rented to a woman by the name of Margaret Bruno. She’d first rented a four-door sedan, but she returned it to us and asked for a four-wheel-drive. She has a Texas operator’s license, but gave a local address. Do you need that information?”

“No, it’s not necessary. I appreciate your cooperation. Now I need to ask you for another favor. Once the SUV is returned, I want you to call me
before
you clean or detail it. I’d like to go over the vehicle for evidence.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“I can’t tell you that, but believe me it’s very important.”

“Can you
guarantee
that you’ll keep my name and my company’s name out of it?”

“I can’t
guarantee it, no, but if we tie anyone who rented one of your vehicles to a crime, we’ll give your company the highest references, saying that you cooperated and helped us solve a very important case.”

“All right, but you can also thank me by recommending my company to all your friends.”

“You’ve got it.”

She knew how hard it was for anyone to start a business in this area. Times were tough
for people, especially in a poor area of a poor state. Money was scarce, and businesses were taking a substantial hit.

Thanking Apodaca, Ella left his office and met Justine in the lobby. They walked outside and, as soon as they were both in the car, Ella spoke. “How did it go? Did you get anything out of her?”

Justine smiled. “I knew that was what you wanted me to do, so we talked. She remembered
the woman who’d rented the SUV because she’s first rented a sedan. Apparently she was a pain in the butt all the way around. She didn’t know her name, but she said that the woman told her she was an ex-cop, and she wasn’t going to be jerked around by anyone.”

“I got the name. It was Margaret Bruno.”

“Sure sounds like her personality. But that’s not who was driving the SUV. The description doesn’t
fit.”

“The hair color doesn’t, that’s true, but the rest does—more than you realize. Think about it, Justine. Margaret is tall, and not very busty. With a baseball cap and the right wig, she could pass as a guy, particularly to a scared convenience store clerk who’s afraid to take a good look at her face. We know she got into the power plant disguised as a male teacher the day of that training
fiasco. And think about the woman we saw in the tape—it could have easily been Margaret in a dark-haired wig. Remember that all along I’ve said that whoever tailed me had special training operating a vehicle.”

“But why would Margaret go after Councilman Redhouse?”

“I’m not sure yet, but she’s our best suspect, and we think Shives might be the Anglo connected with Whitesheep and Billy. Admittedly,
it’s easier to tie her into the murder of Officer Franklin and the confrontation Wilson had with the thief. Her connection to Shives and his to Kee Franklin is already established.”