Changing Woman Page 5

  “Contact the Gallup police and the McKinley County Sheriff’s Department. We need to put Mrs. Manyfarms under surveillance,” Ella said.

  “She’s remarried now, her name is Sanchez.”

  “Make sure she’s watched twenty-four/seven,” Ella said, standing up to stretch and yawn. “After that, go home. We need to get at least a few hours’ sleep. We have to report to work early in the morning.”

  “Deal.”

  About a half hour later, Ella walked out of her office. She was dead tired and, to make matters worse, she was getting that odd sick feeling at the pit of her stomach—the kind that usually meant things at work were going to turn to complete and utter crap soon.

  The way Ella figured it, by tomorrow morning Rose would know all about what had happened. It was inevitable, even if she didn’t notice the extra patrols Big Ed had ordered around their home. On the Rez, secrets were as rare as hen’s teeth. After that, Ella could expect Rose to be furious with her for at least a week. The risks associated with police work always affected her deeply, and anger was Rose’s way of dealing with it.

  Trying to push back the gloominess she felt, Ella allowed her thoughts to turn to Harry. She’d invite him for dinner the first chance she got. At least it would help put her mother in a better mood.

  “Harry, come soon. You’re my only hope,” Ella whispered as a cold wind blew around her. Realizing that she was talking to herself, and convinced she’d lost her mind, Ella got into her unit and drove home.

  Ella woke up with a start as a pan, then another, clattered to the floor. She could hear the radio blasting in the kitchen, giving the weather report with the same old forecast—cold and dry. Ella squinted against the first rays of sunlight, trying to orient herself. The clock on her bedstand said it was 6:45.

  With a groan, she placed the pillow over her head and tried to go back to sleep. Within seconds, another pan clattered loudly to the floor.

  Dawn came into the bedroom holding her stuffed dinosaur. “Shimasání angry,” she whispered.

  “What happened? Did you do something?” Ella muttered sleepily, her eyes semiclosed.

  Dawn shook her head.

  “Sweetie, let me sleep a while longer,” Ella begged, curling up beneath the covers.

  The radio in the kitchen changed stations and suddenly country music blasted down the hall. Ella groaned. Who was she trying to kid? She wouldn’t get any sleep. This was Rose’s revenge. “Mom!”

  There was no answer.

  Accepting her fate, Ella got out of bed wearing her ancient Shiprock Chieftains sweatshirt and wool socks. The wood-and-coal stove in the living room, one they’d added to supplement the butane heater, already had a fire going inside and the house was warming up slowly.

  Ella padded into the kitchen while Dawn remained in the living room to play with her toys.

  “Mom, show some mercy,” Ella pleaded.

  “Oh, are you up?” Rose had to speak loudly to be heard over the radio.

  Ella turned the music down, then sat, lowering her head to the kitchen table, using her folded arms as a pillow. “Mom, I didn’t get to bed till after three,” she croaked. “What are you doing to me?”

  “Your daughter gets up at six-thirty in the morning. I was taking care of her,” Rose snapped, making scrambled eggs in the old iron skillet.

  “Fine. Then if you have everything under control, I’ll go back to bed.”

  Rose scraped the scrambled eggs out of the skillet onto a plate with a large metal spoon, banging the spoon against the skillet to dislodge a few chunks of egg. It sounded like the stamping machines at a steel mill. Ella stopped at the door and groaned loudly. “Mom, I swear, just one more loud noise, and I’m going to arrest you for disturbing the peace.”

  Rose glowered at her. “You may be a cop, but I’m your mother. I outrank you. Now explain why you never bothered to tell me that someone was trying to kill you!”

  Ella rubbed her eyes. Rose must have heard about the sniper incident already. It had to be a new Rez record. The only thing she could figure was that there’d been early news reports on the radio or a piece in the Farmington paper. “If you’re talking about the sniper—”

  Rose glared at her. “If you’re not even sure what I’m talking about, there must be a lot more going on you haven’t told me.”

  Ella returned to the table and plopped back down in her chair. This was going to be a long morning. “Mom, what did you expect me to do, wake you up at three in the morning to give you a full report? I’m sure you would have slept real well after hearing that. Come to think about it, maybe I would have managed to sleep late. We could have had this fight then.”

  Ella was fully awake now, glaring at her mother.

  Rose shrugged. “I see your point, but that doesn’t mean I have to like hearing about you being in danger. Do you have any idea who did this?”

  Ella wondered why she hadn’t taken a firmer stand on this issue years ago. Maybe it was because she’d been raised not to fight with her parents. “We’re still trying to find out what happened. Someone took a shot at me, and then I learned that one of the twins from that conspiracy last year has broken out of prison. It’s very possible that he’s the one who came after me.”

  Rose sat across the table from Ella and studied her daughter’s expression. “But you have your doubts about that, don’t you?”

  Ella nodded. Her mother read her like a book. “From a logical standpoint, he’s a really good suspect. He’s got a motive—revenge—and had enough time to have stolen a weapon and come looking for me.”

  “Your intuition is more reliable than your logic. It’s your gift.”

  Ella knew what her mother meant. It was all tied to her family’s past and the strange legacy that had been handed down through the generations. Her brother, Clifford, was said to have inherited leadership qualities and a remarkable gift for healing. Ella’s special ability was said to be intuition. But those who believed in that legacy never took into account the years of study Clifford had dedicated to becoming a medicine man, nor all the training Ella had obtained as an FBI agent, then as a cop. The. legacy held more appeal because there was nothing either glamorous or magical about hard work.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I just have the strong feeling that we need to work slowly and not accept any of the easy answers that present themselves.”

  “In the meantime, will you be wearing that heavy armored vest I saw in the living room?”

  Ella nodded, vaguely remembering leaving it there last night as she’d made her way through the house in the dark. “It’s a loaner from FB-Eyes.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot. I think you should know that early this morning at around five, an officer drove by, stopped, and aimed his searchlight all over. He took a good long look at our house before driving on,” Rose commented.

  Ella looked up at her in surprise. “I slept right through it. My boss ordered extra patrols just to make sure there’s no trouble.”

  Ella finished breakfast with Dawn on her lap, glad to be with her girl for a little longer today even if it had cost her some extra sleep. She had a feeling that she’d be putting in some very long hours during the next few weeks.

  Leaving Dawn with her juice cup in front of the television to watch a children’s program on the educational channel, Ella showered and dressed. By the time she walked down the hall, ready to go to work, she heard her mother in the den. Ella went to find her.

  Rose was standing at the window, lost in thought, a piece of paper in her hand. Hearing footsteps, she turned her head and smiled at Ella. “I came across your brother’s baptismal certificate in the back of a drawer this morning,” she said, and smiled sadly. “I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. Your father wanted your brother baptized and he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I eventually gave in. But I hated it.”

  Rose looked down at her hands. “That was so many years ago, but the time between then and now seems like nothing more than the pas
sing of a few hours.”

  “Do you miss Dad?” Ella asked softly.

  Rose nodded and sighed. “I liked knowing that he needed me to take care of him, whether he admitted it or not.”

  Ella was suddenly aware of how lonely her mother was. It should have occurred to her before now that having her daughter and granddaughter around wouldn’t be enough all by itself for Rose, but she’d never stopped to think about it. “Mom, you need to start going out and meeting new people.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. It just doesn’t seem right. Even when Bizaadii asked me to go have dinner with him at the Totah Café, I said no.”

  She recognized the nickname. It meant “the gabby one” and it had been given as a joke to Herman Cloud, who was known for being a man of few words. Herman was also Philip and Michael Cloud’s uncle, and a longtime family friend.

  “But why? You two have known each other practically forever and you’re both traditionalists, so you have a lot in common. Why don’t you reconsider his invitation?”

  Rose smiled knowingly. “Think it through, daughter. How would you really feel seeing your mother in the company of a man who is not your father?”

  Ella wanted to deny that it would bother her, and open that door for her mother, but experience told her that Rose would see through any attempt she made to hide the truth. “It would probably make me feel strangely at first, but I’d get over it. You’ve helped me out so much, Mom. You take care of my daughter and I can never thank you enough for that. But you’re entitled to a life of your own as well.

  “And your friend has been close to me and my brother for a long time,” Ella added. “Remember how he helped me when I returned to the Rez, and how many times he’s helped protect us from our enemies? That man is very special to me. You couldn’t have picked a better companion.”

  Rose nodded slowly and thoughtfully, then looked at Ella. “And what about you? I worry more about your future, daughter. You’re still young, but instead of having a busy social life, all you do is work. Our people believe we have a right to remarry when we lose our mates, and on this I agree, as long as those left behind show respect by waiting a few years before seeking a new companion. What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t like to date coworkers, you know that, and meeting men outside the department is difficult.” She stopped, then in a thoughtful voice added, “But now maybe things will be different…” Ella realized what she’d said, and silently cursed herself for her own stupidity. Rose wouldn’t let this go now.

  “So there is someone!”

  “No, not really.” Ella knew that denying anything was pointless. She was only postponing the matter. The subject would keep cropping up in every conversation until Rose finally got the answer she was looking for.

  Well, at least it had distracted her. Ella stopped by the front door, then glanced back, trying to look casual. “Oh, Mom, my friend the deputy federal marshal is coming back into town as part of an investigation. I may ask him over for dinner.”

  As Ella bent down to kiss Dawn good-bye, she heard her mother chuckling.

  It was eight-thirty by the time she walked through the side door of the station. Lucas Payestewa, the young Hopi FBI agent, greeted her, holding a cup of coffee in each hand. “ ’Morning.”

  Ella smiled at him, accepting the offered cup. It was hard not to like the chubby little fed most of the cops now called Paycheck. “Good morning, and thanks for the brew. Is Blalock already in?”

  “He’s with Big Ed, so we should probably head over there and join the council.”

  A few moments later, both FBI agents, Ella, and the Special Investigations team composed of Justine, Officer Tache, and Sergeant Neskahi were sitting or standing around Big Ed’s desk.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Big Ed said, “Officer Tache can start his report. Ralph?”

  “I finally recovered the bullet this morning. I went out there at around five-thirty after the sky was starting to lighten up, looked around, and resighted the trajectory. That’s when I found it. The round had lodged in a telephone pole after ricocheting off the sidewalk.”

  “Was it a fifty-caliber like I thought?” Ella asked.

  “You were right on the money with that one.”

  “The bullet is pretty banged up,” Justine said, taking over for Ralph as they reached her area of expertise. “We probably won’t be able to positively link it to a particular weapon, but we should have enough points of similarity to disqualify some makes and models.”

  Justine glanced over at Ella. “I also followed up on the report you left on my desk and spoke to the owner of the sporting goods store in Farmington that was robbed. He verified that the ammunition stolen is manufactured by PMC, and consists of full-metal-jacketed rounds of six-sixty grains.” Justine paused. “Those are elephant-hunting-size slugs, equal to more than four of the bullets you use in your nine-millimeter pistol, Ella.”

  Big Ed cleared his throat and watched the people in the room for a minute or two before speaking. No one said a word. They all knew him well enough to wait, knowing when he had something to say.

  “We have a deadly situation on our hands, people. Every officer in the Four Corner states is on the lookout for Artie Manyfarms and that special target rifle. But they have other things to do, too, so we can’t count on anyone else solving our problems. This is now our top priority. I want this sniper, people. I have a gut feeling he’s still on our land.”

  “Chief, pardon me for saying so, but the police are stretched pretty thin all over the Rez right now,” Blalock said. “No one in this room slept more than a few hours last night. You need help. Is there a chance you can import talent from other PDs or the BIA?”

  “I’d rather not bring in anyone who doesn’t know the area or the people here, and a lot of the Bureau of Indian Affairs officers are from other tribes.” Big Ed stood and began to pace. “But it’s more than that. Our people need to believe in us, and bringing in outsiders isn’t going to help. The vandalism episodes we’ve been having have really undermined us, and have taken a huge toll on morale. If it looks like we can’t make an arrest without outsiders on our team, it’ll lower this department’s credibility to zero.”

  “Catching the perps is going to take a combination of hard work and luck, Chief. There’s nothing we can do without more cops,” Ella said. “The only tactic that’s worked as a deterrent is increasing our patrols, but just as soon as they’re scaled back, it all starts up again. That’s the way it’s been since last October, off and on.”

  “To catch this sniper we’re going to have to work with the community and encourage people to tip us off if they hear something, like who the next target might be,” Big Ed said. “But unless we stop the vandals nobody will be very anxious to help us.”

  “I’m going to get a map of the area, post it on the bulletin board in my office, then start indicating with colored pins where the incidents occurred, and when. There might be a pattern if we look at it long enough,” Justine suggested. “That could help with placing our manpower.”

  “Chief, maybe we should take a closer look at what Lieutenant Manuelito is doing in the Window Rock area. Petty crime has gone down significantly in that district,” Tache said.

  Ella bristled. Manuelito was a hard line cop who had never given her anything but grief. It was no secret that there was bad blood between them. But, in all fairness, he’d come through for all of them last year when his help had been sorely needed. That particular operation had earned him a promotion and a transfer.

  “I know what he’s been doing,” Big Ed said. “He’s set up random, variable-intensity patrols on a grid system. They tried the same thing over at To’hajiilee, but it didn’t work nearly as well.”

  Ella couldn’t help wondering if Manuelito had simply driven the bad guys toward easier pickings in the more populous Shiprock area, or maybe gone on the take and tipped them off to vulnerable locations. She tried to push back the thought, almost sure that her
intense dislike of the man was playing a big part in her suspicions.

  “These vandals always seem to be one step ahead of us,” Ella said. “I figure that they must have police scanners and know when our officers are responding to calls. That would explain why the community crime watch hasn’t been more effective in helping us catch these guys in the act. The suspects almost always clear the area before we arrive.”

  “Do you have a recommendation?” Big Ed asked, knowing she did.

  “Let’s get encrypted cell phones and use them instead of our radios. We can’t ask our officers to lay out their own money for this, Chief, but this happens to be something we really need to gain the upper hand.”

  “There’s no way I can squeeze the funds for this from our current budget,” Big Ed answered. “But there may be another way. Maybe community business leaders will come forward with a grant if we can convince them it’ll help put a stop to this crime wave, which seems to be focused on our area. Let me work on it from that angle and see how it goes.”

  “I’ll find out if the bureau can help you,” Blalock said.

  “We have to keep up the pressure on whoever’s responsible for the wave of petty crimes, now more than ever,” Big Ed continued. “But I want the SI team’s top priority to be finding this sniper. Clear?”

  All of the Navajo cops nodded.

  Ella stood, and as she did everyone’s attention shifted to her. “First, I want to thank Agent Blalock for the use of the new-model FBI vest. But I’d also like to request that the FBI loan us similar vests for everyone in the SI team. If I’m the target, those who work beside me will also be in the line of fire at a crime scene.”

  “I’ll make the request formal,” Big Ed said.

  “And I’ll push from my end, too.” Blalock looked around the room, reading the expressions of his fellow cops. “In the meantime, let me bring everyone up to date. We’ve traced the serial number of the explosive used to blow up the Dumpster outside the Totah Café. That stick came from a road construction site over by Navajo Lake, where they lost a whole case of high explosives. ATF stands ready to lend a hand if they’re needed.”