Bad Medicine (15 page)

“Hello,” she greeted. “You’re down here quite often, aren’t you.” He certainly had
a motive and the opportunity to sabotage the autopsy samples.

“It’s my job. I bring supplies down. If you have any objections talk to my supervisor. I do as I’m told and collect my paycheck,” he snapped.

“You wouldn’t have a more personal agenda, would you?” Ella asked, hoping to goad the man into some unguarded admission.

“No, that’s more up your alley,” he said, then pushed the cart past
her and continued down the hall.

Ella watched him for several more moments. Who better than the senator’s brother to sabotage Carolyn’s work or, at the very least, spy on her? Unfortunately, she had no proof of either.

Ella went upstairs, and as she reached the ER, saw Justine hobbling out of an examination room on crutches. Her foot was bandaged, but not in a cast.

“A sprain?”

Justine nodded.
“It’s not bad. I can still work, though I’m supposed to be keeping my leg up as much as I can.”

“You could take some time off.”

She shook her head. “No way. I want to get started analyzing the writing on that note, and then check out the photos you took back at the site where I got injured.”

“It’s four o’clock now. Neither of us had any lunch, so you might as well go home, have an early dinner,
and go to bed. You can start working on the note in the morning. I can drop you off.”

“I’m not tired, really. What I am is eager to find out who tried to turn us into roadkill. That just pisses me off.”

Ella laughed. “Okay, I’ll drop you off at the station. Have one of the patrols take you home when you’re ready to call it a day.”

A short time later, after helping Justine to her office and
making arrangements to have her assistant’s vehicle brought in from where they’d left it parked, Ella settled down in her office. She was trying to decide which of the overdue reports to tackle first when her intercom buzzer sounded.

“Get in here, Shorty.”

“Will do, Chief.” Ella stared at the stacks of files, grateful for the interruption, but depressed to realize they’d still be there when
she returned.

As Ella passed the soft drink machine in the hall she spotted Sergeant Neskahi. She went up to him quickly. “I’ve got to meet Big Ed right now, but can you come see me tomorrow morning? I need to talk to you.”

“No problem. I have to meet with a suspect’s lawyer tomorrow at nine anyway, so I’ll be around.”

“My office at eight?”

“Sure.”

“One more thing. After four this afternoon,
go down to the morgue and pick up a set of tissue samples from Dr. Roanhorse. I want you to hand deliver them to the state lab today, so arrange for a flight out of Farmington. These samples are from the Yellowhair case and you are not to discuss what you’re doing with anyone not working with my office.”

“Understood. I’ll call to make sure the lab people will have someone there to meet me. It’ll
be after hours.”

“Good thinking, Sergeant. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Neskahi nodded, then walked away to make the arrangements.

Ella hurried down the hall and, knocking on Big Ed’s open door, went inside. Concern was mirrored on his features as he glanced up, a muscle beat at the corner of his mouth, echoing his heartbeat. A big barrel of a man—about a head shorter than Ella who was tall
for a Navajo woman—he delighted in calling
her
Shorty.

She sat down on the chair nearest his desk. “You heard about Justine?”

He nodded. “And I’ll be reading all about it soon in your report, correct?”

That hadn’t been a request and she knew it. “It’ll be on your desk tomorrow, but I can fill you in right now if you’d like.” Seeing him nod, she gave him a full report, detailing everything she’d
learned to date.

“That explains why the senator’s aide came to pay me a visit earlier. He was pressuring me to drop the case.”

Ella started to answer when a loud knock sounded behind her. Senator James Yellowhair paused in the doorway, then made his grand entrance, sauntering to the front of Big Ed’s desk and leaning vulturelike over it.

“Chief Atcitty, I insist that you remove Inspector Clah
from my daughter’s accident investigation,” he said, treating Ella as if she weren’t in the room.

Big Ed stood up slowly. “This is
my
department, Senator, not the merry roundhouse in Santa Fe. Nobody tells me how to assign my people.”

“Your investigator is biased because of her friendship with Dr. Roanhorse, the Medical Examiner. I believe that the doctor falsified the autopsy results but, until
I can prove it, I want someone on the case who’ll conduct the investigation quickly and honestly.”

“I can take care of that.” Big Ed looked at Ella. “I want you to be honest and efficient, Investigator Clah. Understood?”

Ella almost burst out laughing, but managed to stifle the urge. “I’ll do just that, Chief Atcitty.”

Senator Yellowhair looked at Ella, then back to Big Ed. “You’re treating
this as a joke. Both of you.” He dropped his voice to a fierce, frigid whisper. “If you continue to cross paths with me on this, you’ll find I can be a bad enemy. You’ll learn the hard way what kind of pressure I can bring down on your department, Chief.” Anger locked his jaws. His dark eyes, always intense, shone with rage. “In politics we learn to get what we want.”

Ella watched the senator
storm out. “Political retaliation can be nasty business, Chief. He controls a lot of bureaucrats. Maybe you should have let him have his way.”

“I’m in charge of this department, not him.” His gaze locked with hers. “Go out there and get answers for me. Recruit an extra person into your division if need be, but don’t let me down.”

Ella squared her shoulders. “I won’t. You can count on it.”

NINE

Ella sat in the window seat inside her darkened bedroom staring outside at the mesa illuminated by a rising moon. Even her nightly game of solitaire had failed to calm her tonight. Big Ed had taken quite a chance, probably placing both their careers in her hands.

She’d certainly come a long way in the department, yet the threat of political retaliation was not something to be taken lightly.
The most vulnerable area was the department’s already strained budget. Then came the more obvious focus of attack. As police chief, Big Ed got credit for successes, but failures weighed heavily on him, too. She would not let him down.

Ella heard a light knock on her door. “Come in.”

Rose walked into the room, making use of the moonlight that streamed from outside instead of turning on the lights.
“I thought you were still up.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s disturbing you, Daughter?”

“The cases I’m working on right now. People I care about are involved and the answers I find, or don’t find, will directly affect them and their jobs. That scares me,” Ella admitted.

“You’re expected to do your best, that’s all.”

“People have placed a lot of faith in me, Mom. I have to live up
to it.” She told Rose about Big Ed.

“He was standing up for himself as much as he was for you. The senator left him no other choice.”

“The senator’s been making some pretty wild accusations against Carolyn. This is going to be a tough time for her. She’s not likely to have many allies to stand with her throughout all that lies ahead.”

“She’s more alone than most Navajos, it’s true, but that
was her choice. Her abrasive attitude doesn’t do much to help her, either. The woman is argumentative, overly independent, and just outright rude sometimes. And that’s with people she likes. She treats her enemies even worse.”

Ella smiled. “Yes. But she’s my friend.”

“Naturally,” Rose answered. “You’ve always been on the side of the underdog.”

“It’s more than that, Mom. Carolyn has a lot of
courage, and she’s doing a thankless but vital job. In many ways, she and I are alike. We’re both driven to do the jobs we’ve chosen and we both need to feel that what we’re doing makes a difference. We take pride in our work and it cuts deep when someone like the senator attacks our professionalism or our competency.”

“Yes, I imagine so. Lies can hurt, but eventually, truth shatters them. And
the truth always comes out, often when you least expect it.”

“I hope I can find answers soon.” Ella watched a rabbit foraging in the garden outside. Two was snoring noisily in the hall, obviously uninterested in hunting tonight. “It’s so quiet and peaceful right now.” A coyote howled in the distance and Ella shuddered. “But there’s always that undercurrent of danger out there, wandering around,
even in the stillness of the night.”

“There’s something else bothering you, Daughter.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It must be more than that if it makes you this tense,” she said, glancing down at Ella’s hands which were curled into tight fists.

Ella exhaled softly. “I got a note today from my former father-in-law.”

Rose inhaled sharply. “Impossible.”

“Yes, I agree. But someone’s playing mind games
with me and I don’t like it. There’s something nasty brewing out there, Mom, I can feel it.”

“Then trust your instincts, Daughter, like I do mine. You and I are right far more often than we’re wrong.”

“When I was at the accident site, the place where the senator’s daughter died, I felt danger all around me. I could feel someone was out there, watching me, but I couldn’t see anyone.”

“Then it’s
starting again,” Rose said sadly. “The problem is that we’ve never really defeated all of our enemies. We’ve won battles, but the war continues, and will probably go on as long as the
Dineh
exist. It’s by understanding the role darkness must play that we find harmony.”

“Finding the pattern, then walking in beauty,” Ella said thoughtfully.

Rose stood. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it to work with
a clear mind tomorrow.”

As Rose left Ella lingered by the window seat. The sounds of the night filled the room, making her uneasiness more pronounced. She kept her fear at bay by assuring herself that there was no logic in her response; there was no immediate threat here, except for the cost her insomnia might have on her the following day.

Ella crawled into bed and closed her eyes. Slowly her
thoughts receded and blended into gray, brooding landscapes woven by the pattern of her dreams.

*   *   *

Ella went out to her car shortly after seven the following morning. Her mother was already in her herb garden weeding and watering the parched ground, while Two searched around for the elusive rabbit. If only the much delayed rains would come. Hard times would be upon them soon unless the
drought conditions eased.

When Ella arrived at the police station Justine was already there. Justine hit the vending machine with her crutch, trying to get it to relinquish its booty, and almost fell.

Ella caught Justine just in time and steadied her. “You shouldn’t waste your time with this bandit. It has never worked quite right.”

“No kidding.”

“Why do you put money in it when you know it
malfunctions?”

“It has always delivered for me. Will you hit it again, right above the dent where everybody else hits it?”

Ella complied.

A second later the candy bar dropped. “See? It’s just slow sometimes,” Justine said. “We just have to prod it along a bit.”

Ella walked with Justine down the hall. “Anything new?”

“I have the photos you took of the area after the van almost ran us down.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Interesting, yes, but I have no answers. Those quarter-sized imprints with that strange center are unusual. I haven’t been able to determine what they are.”

“Did you get anything from the handwriting comparison?”

“You’re not going to like the answer,” Justine warned. “I can’t prove it’s a forgery. The handwriting is that close.”

Ella felt a shudder travel over her.
Justine was right. She didn’t like this one bit. “We know my father-in-law is dead, so that means whoever wrote that must have known the chief well. He must have handwriting samples to mimic, too.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“Not yet, but it’s a start.”

Sergeant Neskahi was waiting in Ella’s office by the time she walked in. “Good morning,” she greeted. “How did your delivery to Santa
Fe go last night?”

“No hitches. I signed everything over to their senior tech. The paperwork was all completed according to procedure.”

“Great. Now let’s hope we get the results back before the turn of the century,” Ella smiled.

“I better be on my way,” Justine said.

“No, stay,” Ella said. “This will concern you as well.”

Justine hobbled to the nearest chair and dropped down heavily.

Ella
crossed over to her desk and sat down in the tall-backed swivel chair. “I’d like to have you on my team again, Sergeant. How do you feel about that?”

“Will it be a permanent assignment?”

“No. Would you like it to be?”

Neskahi considered it. “I don’t know. I’d have to give that some thought. But for now a temporary assignment is fine with me.”

Ella knew from talking to Neskahi before that he
loved being out on the Rez, with its endless vistas and lonely roads. But he had always sought out more responsibility. He was a good cop and he knew it without being proud: an admirable trait for any Navajo. She pointed to the cork bulletin board on the wall above her desk. “The employees on that list that don’t have a red tack next to their name need to be checked out. Also, do you have any contacts
at the mine?”

“I have a cousin who works there. He doesn’t talk much, but if you need something specific I think I can persuade him to cooperate.”

“We need a good, solid lead on Bitah’s death. The mine is in a state of siege and we need an inside source. See what you can do.”

Neskahi stood up. “I’ll get started.”

As he walked out Ella glanced at Justine. “I’m going to talk to Frank Smith this
morning. Bitah and a lot of other Navajos didn’t like him, but the Anglos claim he was a good worker known for minding his own business. I want to get a handle on him myself. In the meantime, I want you to continue the background reports and get anything else you can on Bitah or his associates.”