Tracking Bear (34 page)

Justine thought it over. “They might have also been responsible for the drive-by at Jonas Buck’s home and Redhouse’s murder as a way to discredit NEED…. But why would Shives assume that the tribe wouldn’t hire him
if that project went through?”

Ella considered it, then spoke. “Maybe he thought that his downgraded security clearance would show up in a background check and raise the kind of questions that would keep him from getting the job. But that’s still a slim reason for murder. And what about Whitesheep? How does he fit in, or is that another situation entirely?”

Justine shook her head and shrugged.
“Maybe he got killed because he knew about Shives meeting Redhouse.”

“Or maybe he knew that Shives had paid the councilman that cash as a bribe, or for information. Whitesheep ended up with some of that money, too.” Ella nodded. “Sounds like the pieces are finally coming together.”

“So what now?”

“We still need to find and confirm a motive for Delbert Shives and Margaret Bruno. Maybe we can
start by asking Permian for more background.”

“For that, I’m sure we’re going to have to find a back door. I doubt we’ll get any official cooperation. They don’t want to be connected to any hint of a scandal now that they’re trying to convince the tribe that they should be the ones to run the proposed power plant.”

“Do you know anyone who works for them?” Ella asked.

Justine shook her head.
“Do you?”

“Not that I can think of offhand. Let’s head back to the station for now.”

It was shortly after eleven by the time they arrived. As they walked inside, Big Ed was out in the hall, and signaled to Ella to come into his office.

Ella followed him there then, as she was seated, their chief closed the door behind them.

“Give me everything you’ve got.”

Ella did, and watched his expression.

“All this time, and we’ve essentially got nothing we can take to a prosecutor,” he said thoughtfully.

“Nothing we can
prove
, but we do have leads.”

He nodded. “I’ve requested a meeting with the committee that’s responsible for funding our department. We’re in a crisis situation, and I’ve got to do something to loosen up their wallets. I had hoped to show them some impressive results on our high-profile
cases.”

“Maybe what they need is a harsh dose of reality. One patrolman’s life might have been saved had he had a working radio. If we’re not given what we need to do our jobs, they can’t expect us to either serve or protect this tribe effectively.”

He looked at her for several long moments. “Maybe I should take you with me tonight.”

Ella sighed. “You’re much better at that kind of thing than
I am. I’m not much on diplomacy.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Any chance of you learning before 7
P.M
.?”

“None,” Ella answered with a smile.

“Then get to work.”

“Yes, sir,” Ella said, and quickly left the office. She didn’t want to take a chance that Big Ed would change his mind and maybe order her to come with him.

The second Ella returned to her office and sat down, her phone began to ring. She
picked it up at the same time Justine came into her office. Ella waved for her to take a seat, then concentrated on the caller.

“This is Jim Apodaca at the Circle E,” he said. “Ms. Bruno just returned the SUV she’d rented from us. She wanted to trade it for a larger model with better off-road capability. She and her friend are getting ready to go on a hunting trip. They had their rifles and camping
gear already with them.”

“Can you describe her friend for me?” Ella asked.

She listened carefully and realized that Jim had just described Delbert Shives. “Don’t touch the car. We’re on the way.”

Justine glanced at her. “What’s going on?”

Ella filled her in. “Jim said that they had two rifles with them.” She glanced at her partner. “I’m getting a real bad feeling that we’re not the only ones
looking for Kee Franklin. He’s in a world of trouble.”

At the car rental office, while Justine went over the car, Ella called Dispatch and put out a Code Five on the large model SUV rental from the Circle E.

“Did Ms. Bruno give you any idea where she and her companion were headed?” Ella asked Apodaca.

“All she told me was that they were going to go off for
a few days to do a little business and maybe get some hunting done. She mentioned they were joining someone else tomorrow morning, then after that, they were planning to rough it for a few days.” Jim shrugged. “Wish my wife liked hunting or camping, but she’s even afraid of bugs. Ms. Bruno looks like she could handle anything.”

Ella nodded. She had sensed from the very beginning that Margaret
Bruno could be dangerous. And the more she learned about Bruno, the more worried she became.

Leaving him, Ella went to help Justine go over the vehicle. By the time they were finished, they had several thick, black hairs that Justine was nearly certain had come from a wig. “I’ve also got two sets of prints. I want to run both through FBI data banks. Let’s see if they belong to Shives and Bruno,
or another person entirely.”

“Good idea.”

As they got ready to leave, Sheriff Taylor pulled up in his department vehicle. “Your dispatcher said I’d catch you here.”

Ella told Taylor what they’d learned, then asked, “Have you made any further progress on Whitesheep’s murder?”

“In addition to the five hundred dollars in cash with Councilman Redhouse’s fingerprints on most of them, we found a
few medium-length black hairs in the car seat near the body. They came from a wig, according to our lab. But no prints. I wanted to ask you to send the wig hairs you’ve recovered at your crime scenes over to our lab. Now that we know that the bullet that killed Whitesheep came from the same gun that killed Councilman Redhouse and Officer Franklin, we’d like to compare the other evidence as well.”

“You’ll have what you need by the end of today,” she said, glancing over at Justine, who nodded.

Later, as they drove back to the Rez, Ella lapsed into a long, thoughtful silence.

“Process everything we found in Bruno’s car as soon as possible,” she said, as they neared the station. “Work every shred of evidence from that vehicle. I want anything and everything you can give me.”

As soon as
they arrived at the station, Ella went directly to her office. As she walked through the door, she found Kevin and Ernest Ration waiting for her.

“Hey, guys,” she said, glancing over at Kevin. “What brings you two here?”

“I got the strangest call from George Branch, promising me that if I called ‘my people’ off, he’d cease and desist taking shots at me on air for good. Somehow I ended up with
the feeling that he was setting me up, so I thought I’d better tell the police department.”

“What’s happened to him now?” Ella asked.

“I wanted to know that myself, so I asked him. Turns out that after his last broadcast when he bashed me again, someone subscribed him to an Internet porno network. By midafternoon Branch had so many photos of naked men posted to him at his station’s computer
that his electronic mailbox closed down because it was completely full. The whole thing was an embarrassment to him, and he left work really ticked off. Then he found out that someone had entered his home somehow and rearranged his furniture. There was no forced entry, and nothing was taken, as far as he could see.”

“I bet he came unglued and called Sheriff Taylor.”

“Yeah, the sheriff and his
deputies came out, but there was no evidence that would indicate how the person entered his home and bypassed all of Branch’s sophisticated security systems.”

“So he offered you a truce?”

“Yeah, but the really weird thing is that I’ve done nothing to him. I wouldn’t have a clue how to disarm his security. Yet, the more I tell him that, the less inclined he is to believe me.”

Ella glanced at
Ernest, who smiled broadly but didn’t speak. Ernest was turning out to be a real asset to Kevin.

“Take it as a win and go with it. You have a guardian angel somewhere,” Ella said.

Kevin stood. “Well, I don’t know about that, but things are definitely looking up.” He glanced at his watch. “I better be going. I’ve got a meeting tonight. I’m now on the committee funding the police department.”

“How did you manage that?”

“By default. No one else wants to be part of it because its a nowin job. We all want to give the police department more money to work with, but to do that, we’re going to have to cut other programs. Politically, it’s a powder keg. But there’s a ray of hope. We’re starting to see some profits from the casino near To’hajiilee. It’s doing better than we expected, and maybe
we can funnel some of the profits to the department.”

“If the tribe wants adequate police protection, they’re going to have to fund us somehow.”

“I think it’s going to happen, Ella. Whether you realize it or not, the police department has the full support of the community. The news of how and why Jason Franklin died has gotten out, and it’s made an impact. You have more friends than you think.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Morale has been pretty low.”

“I expect that’ll turn itself around real soon. You’re now getting the full support of the anti-NEED factions because they want to prove that we can find ways of funding our emergency services without a project like that one. You’re also getting the support of the pro-NEED people because they want investors, and a strong law enforcement presence
is a draw.” He paused. “It’s an odd time for the tribe. For the first time we’re not really divided by traditionalist versus modernist. What’s at the heart of this new dispute is fear—some are afraid we’ll repeat the mistakes of the past. Others fear that if we don’t take a risk now, we’ll lose what’s left of our tribal identity and become no more than a welfare community.”

“The ones who appear
to carry the most influence now are people like my mother. She’s not only a Plant Watcher trying to protect our land, but also a respected tribal rights advocate.”

Kevin nodded. “I agree. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Right now she has more actual power than most of us on the council.”

After Kevin left, Ella sat alone in her office. She thought about her mom and what she was accomplishing.
There were no limits to what Rose could do when she made up her mind. But she really worried about her. Even with widespread support, Rose was making enemies—the kind with long memories. If her mother continued down this dangerous path, there wouldn’t be much she could do to protect her.

Ella remained at her computer, checking databases, digging into Margaret Bruno’s past and that of Shives.
But there was nothing there that she didn’t already know. Justine made periodic reports on the SUV they’d brought in from the rental agency.

Justine had run two sets of prints and confirmed they belonged to Margaret Bruno and Delbert Shives. The hairs they’d found were synthetic and a match for the wig hairs they’d found before in the science storeroom at the college. While Justine was examining
vacuumed-up material from the upholstery and the floor mats to try and determine where the vehicle had been, Ella decided to go home and have a quick dinner.

When Ella arrived she discovered the house was empty. A note stuck to the refrigerator told her that Rose had a meeting of the Plant Watchers, and Dawn had gone shopping with Boots. The pony was in his corral, searching quietly for clumps
of grass.

Alone, she sat in the kitchen table and looked around, remembering her teenage years in this house. Her father had usually been away, preaching at a revival somewhere or spreading the gospel to his “flock.” Clifford, more often than not, had hung around with his friends at basketball practice or out in Shiprock. Back then, she could come home, run several miles—track had been her sport—finish
her homework, then try to find a reason to go back out again before her father got home. She and her brother had never understood the relationship between their mother and father, who’d always seemed to be fighting about something, yet chose to stay together.

The total silence surrounding her here at the house now felt odd and disconcerting. In the all-encompassing quiet, the house could only
echo with memories. Ella suddenly wondered how Rose had managed to spend all those years living alone in this place after Clifford had moved out to become a medicine man and she’d joined the FBI.

Ella warmed a bowl of stew in the microwave and sat down to eat. She took a bite, and realized that only the stew at the surface was heated. Stirring it with her spoon, she put it back into the microwave
for another minute. Ella stared at the microwave, and the implications of what she’d just experienced jumped to a completely different experience.

If Wilson hadn’t found anything so far in his storeroom, maybe it was because he’d never looked past the surface, never stirred up the stew, so to speak. When he recognized what was on the top of a container, he never looked any further.

Ella placed
the bowl back into the refrigerator and hurried out to her unit. She knew it was late, but there was nothing she could do about that. This couldn’t wait. The layers of hot and cold stew had just given her the answer she’d needed, perhaps, to solve the mystery that lay at the heart of the murder investigations.

By the time she arrived at Wilson’s door, it was past eleven. Ella knocked and waited.
When no one came to the door, she banged harder on the door. “Wilson, wake up!”

A moment later, a bleary-eyed Wilson came to the door wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“I need your help. Let’s go to the college. I need another look at that storeroom.”

He gave her a dark look. “I’ve spent hours searching already, and haven’t found a damn thing.
Unless you
know
there’s a body in there, I’m going to strangle you for waking me up. I have a seven o’clock class tomorrow.”

“I’m looking for papers—important ones. And I need you to help me find them.”

“You’re crazy. Papers? Go to sleep and let me rest.”

He started to slam the door in her face, but she put her foot in the door, and pushed her way inside.

“Have you gone totally off your rocker,
Ella?”

“Kee Franklin’s life is on the line, and you’re going to help me figure out why.”