Turquoise Girl (7 page)

Ella got out of her unmarked police cruiser and went to the front door, ringing the bell. She didn’t have long to wait before Margaret answered. When Ella flashed her badge, Margaret sighed wearily. “Let me guess. You want to search my house. Again?”

“No, that’s not what brings me here. I’ve
come to talk to Benny. His truck’s in the driveway.”

Margaret opened the screen door and waved her inside. “He’s in the kitchen,” she said. “And he’s a mess this morning, so go easy on him, okay?”

“What happened?”

“I’ll let you ask him yourself,” Margaret answered.

When Ella entered the kitchen, she saw Benny sitting at the center island, staring forlornly at the mug of coffee he held between
his hands.

“I knew you’d track me down,” he said glumly.

As Ella sat across from him, she noticed that Margaret hadn’t followed her into the kitchen. Margaret knew the drill too well to want to stick around when police officers were asking questions.

“Just tell me what I need to know,” Ella said flatly.

“Okay, I admit it. I was the one who called the police about the trouble, and I didn’t
leave my name. So what else do you need to know?”

“Your store is a block away, so how did you find out what was going on? Start from there, and tell me everything you saw and heard.”

He nodded, took a deep breath, then began. “There’s a shoe game every evening at Joe Curley’s house, down the street. So, every once in a while, I close up shop for an hour or so at around eight, and walk down to
check out the action.”

The shoe game, a popular way for Navajos to gamble, didn’t require any special playing pieces, like dice or cards. A team of players gathered up a pile of shoes, and hid something simple, like maybe a pebble, inside one. Then the others would try and guess which shoe it was in. The game required the ability to read faces and note even the smallest of reactions. And, of
course, every attempt possible was made to mislead the players. Bets would then be placed on the likely shoes. It was a bit like poker, but in a more down-to-earth way.

“Everyone’s seen the shoe game sign that sits on his front porch, but your officers never bother us. There’re never any fights or trouble of any kind. We just play.”

Benny fell silent, and Ella waited, knowing he needed time
to gather his thoughts. On the Rez, patience was not only a courtesy, it was a sign of respect for their culture.

“I left early ’cause I’d already lost a bunch of cash and I knew I’d need some time alone to come up with a way to cover for that, or Jane’d kill me. Then, as I went by the café, I heard a woman screaming her head off from somewhere close by, and then there was this big crash, like
furniture smashing or something. Everything went quiet after that.

“I walked over and peeked into the café window, but it was empty and closed. Wondering if the noise had come from the little house in back where Valerie Tso lived, I stepped over there, but just as I got close, her TV came on. Once I heard that, I breathed again. Her car was there, and it was the only vehicle I could see, so I
figured she was okay, and I should get the heck out of there. Valerie…well, she has a reputation with men. If anyone saw me there they’d think the wrong thing and I’d catch hell from my wife.”

“So why did you call us at all? What am I missing here?” Ella asked.

“Later, I was half watching the cable news at the store when they ran that story about the lady in Rhode Island who’d died and none
of her neighbors noticed. Her body had been on her kitchen floor for weeks before they found her. Anyway, I started feeling guilty after that, so I decided to call the station and have them check on Valerie. I was hoping to keep my name out of it. Otherwise, I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do. If Jane ever found out, I’d be screwed in more ways than one.”

“Did you see anyone on your way
to the game or when you were coming back?” Ella asked, keeping Benny on track. “Or any vehicle other than the victim’s?”

He paused, considering her question. “On the way to the game I heard a coyote howl and I remembered my mother’s words. She’d taught me that First Man gave Coyote the name First-to-get-angry. Trouble always follows him. He brings bad luck. And death sometimes. I should have
gone straight home then and forgotten all about the shoe game. Instead, I ended up losing my entire roll on the first bet. After that, I figured I should head back to the store before Coyote brought me even worse luck. But then Coyote really let me have it. First there was that scream, then the awful silence. It was as if everything that hides in the darkness was suddenly holding its breath,” he said
and shuddered.

“Think hard. You were walking home. Did you see any cars drive past you?”

“Yeah, later, when I was farther down the block, two or three went by. But I didn’t really pay any attention to them.”

“Who was at the shoe game?”

He listed several names and Ella wrote them down.

“But they all live in that neighborhood. I bet they walked to the game, like me.”

Ella waited, hoping that
he’d remember something useful, but he just stared at the cup of coffee as if it contained the secrets of the universe.

“I want you to think back,” Ella pressed. “Did you have any customers at the Quick Stop before you left, or maybe right after you came back?”

“Reverend Campbell pulled up just as I was unlocking the door. He came in to get some coffee and a loaf of bread. And right before I
left, one person showed up to get gas at the pump outside. A glonnie, nobody important.”

Navajos often referred to the drunks as glonnies. It was an Anglicized version of the Navajo word. But the word could fit a lot of people. “I’ll need a name.”

“Marco Pete. You’ve seen him. He takes his half of the road out of the middle. It’s a wonder he’s still alive.”

Ella knew whom he meant. But it was
doubtful that Marco had been the perp. His hand-to-eye coordination was nothing more than a distant memory, even when sober. She still remembered the comment he’d made last time Joe Neskahi had arrested him for DWI. In olden days the only time a man would cut his hair was after a long illness. Seeing Joe’s short military buzz, he’d asked very sympathetically how long Joe had been sick.

“Was he
drunk?”

“Not at the time. When he comes in I always watch him. If he has trouble finding the hose on the pump, I won’t let him fill up his tank.”

“Any idea where I might find him?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. He drove off the road and ended up in an arroyo. He’s at the hospital in bad shape, last I heard.”

“Getting back to Reverend Campbell. Did you notice anything
unusual about his behavior when he came in and you spoke to him?”

“He didn’t have blood on his hands, or look like he’d been in a fight or anything, if that’s what you’re really asking.”

“No. Just looking for other potential witnesses.” Ella slipped a card out of her wallet and placed it on the table in front of him. “If you remember anything else, call me.”

He nodded. “You telling Jane?”

“I came to interview a witness. What you choose to tell your wife is your business.”

He suddenly looked more hopeful than he had since she’d walked in.

“I’ll think hard on this. Maybe I can remember something else,” he said in a hopeful voice.

Ella was almost out of the kitchen when he stopped her.

“Wait. Something else about Reverend Campbell. He’s been trying hard to get new converts for
his church, stopping by to see people at their homes at night and asking them to come to church and be saved. And if you’re polite to him, he keeps coming back. I think that’s half the reason he’s always stopping by the store for this and that—and what he might have been doing last night. Me and Jane are on his radar, and there have to be others along the street. Does that help?”

“Maybe. Thanks
for letting me know.”

Ella headed to the hospital. She needed to meet with Carolyn and, if Marco Pete was in any condition to answer questions, she’d need to talk to him as well. Ella had just reached the tribal vehicle when her cell phone rang. It was Justine.

“We’ve processed Tso’s home. We found the cash box from the center, still locked,
and a handful of expensive-looking watches and rings that are definitely not his style.”

“Anything at all that might link him to the murder?”

“We found a letter from Valerie on his kitchen table. No date. It looks like a match to her handwriting and, in it, she wrote that she wanted to get back together with him and that he still meant a lot to her. It’s signed ‘Val.’”

“That supports Gilbert’s
claim that she’d loaned him money,” Ella said. “Okay, let’s follow that up. Interview Gilbert again when you get back to the station and see what he has to say. He might have overreacted if she was pressuring him, and something like that could have led to a fatal confrontation.”

As Ella drove to the hospital, she was glad to see that the haze blanketing the river valley, pollution mostly from
the coal power plant, had cleared out because of the breeze. The pollution that came from the smokestacks was believed to be responsible for many birth defects in the area, though no one had ever been able to prove it. The plant itself had been built in the early 1970s so it wasn’t required to meet the modern-day standards set by the EPA. Most of the electricity it provided, ironically, supplied
customers hundreds of miles west in Arizona.

The second the new, modern hospital came into view, her thoughts shifted back to the business at hand. Valerie Tso’s killer needed to be found and soon. The first twenty-four hours were critical, and that time had passed already. Maybe Carolyn could give her some information that would point her in the right direction.

Ella went downstairs to the
basement of the hospital where Carolyn worked. The doctor and she had become friends over the years. Neither had a lot of time to socialize because of the demands of their work, but they still managed to get together now and then.

As she entered the outer office of the morgue, Ella glanced around. Carolyn had no receptionist, secretary, or assistant. First, the budget didn’t allow it, and, more
important, few people beside the police ever came down here anyway unless they’d gotten lost. All too often, bodies brought into the facility remained unclaimed. On the Navajo reservation, it was who the person had been in life that mattered. What was left behind after death was better avoided.

Ella opened the big door to the work area and saw Carolyn in her pale green scrubs at the autopsy table,
still working on the naked figure before her and speaking softly into the mike. Ella didn’t interrupt, knowing that Carolyn had looked up and seen her, and would come out when she could.

Carolyn joined her ten minutes later. “I have a preliminary report ready, and there’s a very interesting detail you should look into. The victim didn’t drown, she bled to death, probably while unconscious. The
lacerations on her hands, and particularly the deep one on her right wrist, were enough. I found a lot of glass from the mirror in those wounds. There was no water at all in her lungs, and only a small amount in the mouth and throat. She’d already stopped breathing when her head was dunked in the tub.”

“She was beaten, ripped to shreds in a collision with the mirror, then allowed to bleed to
death. Then the killer dressed the body in her Sunday best and her head was immersed….” Ella said thoughtfully. “Like a baptism…”

“Yeah, maybe,” Carolyn said. “But I don’t think those are usually done in bathtubs to dead people.”

Ella smiled grimly, then studied the report Carolyn handed her. The time of death Carolyn had originally estimated had been narrowed a bit more. The victim had died
between eight and ten in the evening. Because Valerie’s hair had almost dried, it was probably closer to 9
P.M
.

“The victim’s connection to Boots…and your family…is really getting to you, isn’t it?” Carolyn observed in a quiet voice.

“It’s more than that. There’s something else that’s just out of reach in my mind…something I should be seeing….” she said, then shook her head slowly.

Carolyn
poured herself a cup of coffee, and without asking handed Ella one, too. “Take a step back and stop trying to force the answers,” she advised. When Ella didn’t reply, Carolyn changed the subject. “I hear that the construction company working at the new power plant site found some artifacts this morning—not long after that trouble last night. The newspapers and media got wind of that, and now all hell’s
breaking loose.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of this. When did you find out?” Ella asked, surprised.

“I went upstairs for lunch and heard it from some staffers while in the cafeteria line. Apparently it made the noon news on the radio stations.”

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve been concentrating on this case and haven’t had time to check in on the rest of the world. I’ll have to dig into
it.”

“Security has been beefed up again. The real bottom line here is that a lot of people are opposed to this new power plant. They think a nuclear reactor is just like a time bomb waiting to go off.”

“I think they should take another long look at the choking smoke coming out of the old stacks then.”

“Yeah, I agree with you.”

Ella stared at Carolyn’s report for several moments longer, lost
in thought. Reverend Campbell had been in the area, he knew Valerie, and there was a religious connection to the crime. His church baptized through immersion, she suspected, remembering the riverside baptisms her father had performed. Campbell’s church was probably similar, though she didn’t know that for sure. But the idea of Campbell being responsible for Valerie’s death was just too pat. Then
again, sometimes the simplest answer was the best one.

As Ella stood, Carolyn glanced up at her. “We need to get together soon, Ella. I’ve found a chocolate cake recipe that’s to die for.”

Carolyn was a large woman who tipped the scale at around two hundred pounds, but she never worried about her weight. Unlike most of the women Ella knew, Carolyn never gave it a thought.

“Your baking is second
to none,” Ella admitted. “But I’ve got to trim down a little. Yesterday I had to chase down a suspect and, for a while there, I nearly pooped out. It was a rude awakening, believe me. I used to be able to run for miles without a problem.”

“It’s called getting older,” Carolyn said after a loud guffaw. “You know, old friend, I think half of the women in this country have a problem because they
try to look like anorexic runway models. Mind you, as an M.D., I can’t recommend being overweight, but the truth is that each of us has to find a weight we’re comfortable with. I’m happy the way I am, and that’s half the reason I’ve never had high blood pressure. Stress is the real killer. Now I agree that you need to stay fit, but portion control might work better than denial.”

“You’ve convinced
me. When this case is closed, I’m coming over.”

“It’s a slow-cooker recipe. That might sound odd, but it tastes like chocolate souffle when it’s finished.”

“That, I’ve got to try.”

Leaving Carolyn to her work, Ella went upstairs to the main desk and inquired about Marco Pete.

The nurse made a quick call, then glanced up at her. “The attending physician says he can’t be questioned. He’s in
ICU.”

“Is he expected to make it?” Ella asked.

“His chances are good. He’s in critical but stable condition.”

Ella left the hospital, considering everything she’d learned. It was possible that Valerie’s killer had run Marco off the road in his eagerness to get away from the crime scene, especially if he thought Benny Joe might report the scream. According to Benny, Marco hadn’t been drunk.
But it could also have been just an unrelated accident. Ella called Dispatch and got the directions to the site of Marco’s accident. She’d head there at the same time she checked in with Justine.

“Gilbert Tso’s lawyer is working overtime to get him released,” Justine warned her immediately.

“If Gilbert bolts we may never find him again,” Ella said quietly. “Just in case he’s released before
we’re ready, see if we can assign someone to keep an eye on him for at least the first twenty-four hours. Maybe an officer looking for overtime.”

As Ella continued down the highway, her gaze swept over the colorful wildflowers at the edge of the road, everything from bindweed with its purple blossoms to low growing pinks. Supplied mostly by runoff from the rare thunderstorms, the flowers came
and went, just like the Navajos who came from the Earth Mother and returned to her someday.

Realizing the turn her thoughts had taken, she shook her head and smiled. She was starting to think like her mother. Who’d have ever thought it?

Pulling off to the side of the road at the site of the accident, easily located from the bright paint used by the investigating officers, Ella studied the skid
marks on the asphalt and the furrows left by the tires as Marco descended down into the shallow arroyo. He’d tried to brake hard at the last minute, that was clear.

Ella walked down the road, looking for other skid marks that might indicate another vehicle taking evasive maneuvers. But there was nothing—not a tread mark, or even a shard of glass—just the normal asphalt surface.

Maybe she’d get
more by studying the condition of Marco’s car. Had he been sideswiped? Were there paint traces there? Ella headed over to their impound yard.

There was still the matter of Reverend Campbell to be considered, too. Justine had interviewed him, and couldn’t recall if Campbell had told her about his visit to the area around the time of the crime or not. Of course, when that interview had taken place,
they hadn’t conclusively established the time of death and they’d been asking about Valerie, not what Campbell had been doing at the time. Campbell had been in the area, apparently, so it was possible he’d seen someone…or maybe he
was
the someone they were searching for. Questions rolled around in her head in an endless loop that yielded no answers.

Ella pulled into the impound lot a short time
later. Gene Begay, in charge of their motor pool, was sitting in a folding chair by the gate, sipping a cup of coffee. He stood and waved as he saw her pull up.

“Thought I’d have company,” he said, coming over to meet her and unlock the gate. “That pickup brought in last night was a mess.”

“Where’s it at?”

He pursed his lips and pointed Navajo style to the far corner of the lot. “I heard about
the murder. Happened about the same time this accident did, maybe,” he said, walking with her to what was left of the pickup.

“Were you friends with the victim or maybe the driver?” Ella asked.

“The victim. But it was a while back,” he answered and looked away. “Long before I took this job.”

“What can you tell me about her?” Ella asked.

“Telling you about her will be telling you about myself,”
he answered slowly. “Don’t know how much good that’ll do either of us. As I said, it was a long, long time ago.”

“I’m listening,” she insisted.

“Back then, she was always hard up for cash ’cause she spent every dime on booze. So she…entertained.”

“You mean she was turning tricks?” Ella countered, getting directly to the point.

“Well, it was more personal than that,” he said. “She would choose
one man and make herself available to him—for a price. I saw her as often as I could after my divorce. It was a no-strings-attached thing, and, except for all the drinking, it helped me with some problems I had after my wife left.”

“How long ago was this?” she asked.

“Maybe three years ago. But since then I heard she got sober, went to school, and got a regular job,” he said, then added, “Just
don’t seem right, her murdered now and all. No justice…no balance.”

Ella nodded. The possibility that an old client of Valerie’s had sought her out and been rejected gave the case an entirely new perspective. “Who else was she entertaining back then?”

“I don’t know.”

Ella gave him a hard look.

“It’s the truth. She never spoke about any other men. For all I know, I was the only one…but I doubt
it.” Gene pointed to the pickup ahead. “That’s the vehicle.”

Ella walked over alone and examined the old Ford. It was covered with dust, and a few sturdy weeds from the trip into the arroyo were still wedged in between the crumpled bumper and the front grille. There were plenty of dents and scrapes, most of them new and shiny, but a lot had obviously been part of the vehicle for decades.

Searching
for characteristic scrapes from a recent collision with another vehicle, Ella studied the driver’s side, especially the front fender and door, but there was nothing there. Either he’d been forced off the road by someone very aware of what he was doing, or Marco had simply had an accident.

Ella forced the door open and looked inside. Several bottles lay on the floor, all of them empties of the
high-alcohol-content cheap wines found everywhere on the Rez, though it was illegal to sell booze on the reservation. As she looked around the back seat, Ella found a small crumpled piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it.

Placing it inside an evidence pouch, Ella headed toward the gate, where Gene was standing, watching. “My crime scene people will be here later today, so don’t move
the Ford without letting us know first,” Ella said. “We need to search it for evidence.”

“It’ll remain untouched,” he said, with a nod.

Ella studied Gene for a moment. At one time he’d been one of the best tribal officers around—dependable and with a cool head. But four years ago he’d shot a twelve-year-old who’d attacked him with a knife. He hadn’t been the same since. He’d started drinking,
his marriage had fallen apart, and, after a year of desk duty and AA, he had requested a transfer and ended up here.

Ella’s radio crackled and she heard a patrolman requesting immediate backup at the construction site for the nuclear power plant. Using the unit-to-unit frequency, she called the officer, Marianna Talk.