Changing Woman (5 page)

“Yeah, okay,” Justine said.

Ella didn’t have to look to know her partner would follow her as she stepped over a section
of flattened fence.

“It’s not as big as I remember it,” Justine said, suppressing a shiver.

“Less than twenty graves, I figure. But be careful where you step, so you won’t trip on one of the metal markers and fall on top of one of the graves.” Ella looked around cautiously. “The problem is that not all of the graves have permanent markers.”

“Great. Just what I needed to hear,” Justine replied,
stepping around a wreath of all-weather plastic flowers that must have been blown away from a grave.

They made their way across the concrete pad that was once the floor of the church, crouching low. As they left the church ruins and the graveyard behind them, the wind carried the sound of a truck engine starting somewhere down the hill, then a heartbeat later, screeching tires on asphalt at the
highway below. The roar of the engine quickly faded away to the north.

“That’s probably him,” Justine said, slowly standing to full height. “I have a feeling he was watching us all the time from the truck, wondering if we’d cross the graveyard or not.”

“Maybe, but he’s long gone now. The only chance we had of taking him by surprise was to come up on foot.” Ella holstered her weapon, unhooked
her radio from her waist, and advised Dispatch.

Once finished, she took out her flashlight and made
her way to the area of high ground that would have made the best vantage point for the sniper. Working methodically, she searched the ground with Justine’s help. “Let’s see if we can find the spent cartridge or something that will help us track the sniper, the weapon, or both.”

After several minutes
of fruitless searching, Justine looked up, teeth chattering as the wind whipped against them. “I’ll come back tomorrow after daybreak. If there’s anything here, I’ll find it then.”

“There’s the Stop and Go further ahead, on the north side of the bluff near the main highway,” Ella said, pointing. “You can see the parking lot sign easily from this high spot, and I think the tire marks veer off
in that general direction. Once we get back to your unit, we’ll go talk to the night manager. Maybe he saw the guy racing by.”

By the time they’d walked back down to the neighborhood and had reached Justine’s unit, backup was already at work. Most people had stayed inside, not willing to risk having a sniper use them for target practice—all except for Myrna Manus, who was walking toward them
now.

Ella heard one of the officers who was searching the intersection for evidence speak to his partner. “I knew she was itching to come out. A woman like that doesn’t fear anything. Hell, one look from her, and the bullets would fly into each other.”

“I can’t believe this! Somebody is taking potshots at us down here and our alleged police force is standing around in the street chatting! What
are you people waiting for? Go and arrest whoever’s doing this.”

“We will as soon as we know who to take into custody,” Ella said patiently. She couldn’t help but notice that Justine had slipped away and was doing her best to avoid eye contact with her. She was trying hard to appear as busy as possible near the stop sign as she helped the ongoing search for evidence. “Since we were unable to
catch the sniper, we’ll have to collect what evidence
we can find here and up on the hill, and search for clues and a motive.”

“Then get busy!”

“As a concerned citizen,” Ella added pointedly, “do you happen to have any useful information you can share that will point us in the right direction? I know this is a real reach, but does anyone have a reason to consider you their enemy? Or maybe you
know of someone else in the neighborhood who’s pissed someone off recently? Do you know anyone who might be inclined to pick up a gun and start shooting at people?”

“From what I heard, the sniper was shooting at
you,
not one of my neighbors. Of course he might have easily hit any one of us. If I had to lay odds, I’d say it was a recent vandalism victim upset because none of you cops are doing
your job.”

Seeing other people starting to come outside, Ella hardened her expression. “Go back inside, Myrna, and quit distracting us with your unproductive dialogue. Give us a chance to work here.”

“That’s just it. You’re not
doing
anything.”

“Are you going home under your own power, or would you prefer that I escort you there myself?”

Myrna’s eyes grew wide. “You’ll hear about this, Ella.
I promise you that,” she said and stalked back to her house.

“You’d think the cold weather would freeze that tongue,” Sergeant Neskahi said as he walked up to Ella.

“Nothing would freeze that tongue. It’s always moving too fast. She’s a pain in the—neck.”

“Sure that’s the place?” he said with a chuckle.

Leaving a team to continue processing the scene, Ella gave Neskahi and another officer
instructions to take lanterns and check out the suspected sniper area once more tonight. Once that was covered, Ella joined Justine in her police unit and they drove toward the Stop and Go, about a half mile north of the shooter’s position.

“Ernest Ration, the night manager, is no stranger to
violence,” Justine said. “If he heard the gunshot he would have recognized it for what it was and grabbed
a weapon. He wouldn’t stand around wondering what was going on.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Not that well, actually. He’s never paid much attention to me. He’s an ex-Ranger and friend of George, my oldest brother.”

“But you would have loved a chance to get to know him better, right?” Ella teased.

“Maybe at one time,” she admitted. “But he’s dating a tall blonde from Farmington these days.
My brother described her as having legs that took a week to get to the ground.”

Ella smiled. “I’m getting the picture. What is it with our men and blondes? They see yellow hair and salivate.”

“I think it’s got something to do with testosterone. Anglo men show a preference for yellow hair too, I’m told. Look what they’re missing,” she added, making Ella laugh.

As they pulled up to the small
convenience store, a stocky, broad-shouldered Navajo man carrying a carbine came out. He held it with both hands, ready to fire from the hip or bring it up to his shoulders. Ella tensed, and reached down to unsnap the strap of her holster.

“Easy. That’s Ernest. He won’t shoot. I’d bet he was expecting us,” Justine said.

Justine stepped out of the car. “Hi, Ernest. Remember me? I’m George’s sister—the
cop. Would you put the rifle away, please?”

He nodded once, lowered the weapon so he was holding it in one hand down by his side, then gestured for them to come inside the store.

Ella looked him over carefully. He wasn’t tense, the way an amped-up shooter often was. He was simply carrying the carbine as casually as a hunter might on the way back to camp. Yet there was something about him
that
made her uneasy. She didn’t refasten the strap of her holster as she left the car and went inside.

“I was wondering if something happened up there,” he said. “I heard the shot, definitely from a big, highvelocity weapon. Then I saw a silver pickup come hauling down this side of the mesa cross-country, hit the road burning rubber, and take off toward Cortez.”

“Did you notice the make and model?”
Ella asked.

“No, but I think it was a big Ford or Chevy. He was hauling ass and, in the dark, there was no way I could get a better look.”

“Call the Colorado state police and put an APB on a metallic gray or silver large-frame pickup,” Ella told Justine.

“What about a roadblock?” Justine asked.

“I doubt we have an officer between here and the Colorado state line right now. But, in this case,
it doesn’t make any difference. Face it, the perp could take one of a dozen side roads along the way and we’d just waste manpower running up and down the highway.”

As Justine went back to the unit to put in the call, Ella studied Ernest, who was taking off his brown leather jacket now that he was inside again. He still wore the military buzz haircut and had the confidence of a man who didn’t
have to work up much of a sweat to get troublemakers to back down. “You always keep that carbine handy?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. If I hear shooting, I don’t wait to see how close it can get before I’m ready to deal with it.”

“You might end up walking into a really bad situation someday.”

“I was trained to deal with that. The other guy’s going to be the one in trouble.”

His eyes were
focused and direct. He might have been the man who’d fired at her, though it would have been a nearly impossible shot over open sights, especially
with a carbine. “Would you mind if I took a look at your weapon?”

He handed it to her.

Ella opened the bolt of the semiauto, sniffed for the scent of burned gunpowder, and found none. There was a round in the chamber so she unloaded the weapon by
pushing the round back down into the box magazine with her thumb, then closed the bolt on the empty chamber and snapped the trigger. Then she handed the weapon back to Ernest.

To her, this was a guy hoping to find trouble—a bored serviceman who still hadn’t readjusted to civilian life. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing clerking at a convenience store?”

“That’s where the action
is late at night.” Ernest smiled and shrugged. “Actually, I’m just making a living while I’m trying to figure out what to do next. I may even join the Tribal PD.”

She studied him for a moment before answering. They could use more manpower, but instinct told her he wasn’t cut out for the job. “Police work takes a lot more restraint than the kind of missions you had in the armed forces.”

“Yeah,
I know. That’s why I’m still thinking it over.” “Stay out of trouble,” Ella said, and headed for the door.

Ella met Justine back at the unit. “Drive back to that stop sign. We need to track down the bullet that was fired at me. By tomorrow, kids will be all over the place and evidence will disappear.”

Joining the officers already there, Ella and Justine studied the size of the hole in the metal
stop sign. Only a large, powerful weapon would be capable of punching a hole that big.

“What do you think, an elephant gun?” Justine asked.

“Could be, and because of the range, it had to be high velocity as well. Maybe more like a fifty-caliber. It looks like we’re dealing with one heck of a marksman, too.
He didn’t miss me by much, despite a good cross wind.” Ella studied the copper traces
around the puncture. “It was a jacketed bullet.”

“A few manufacturers make sniper-style weapons of that caliber, but they’re big, heavy, and
very
expensive. Around these parts, they’re primarily used for long-range competitions. But, even so, they’re few and far between,” Justine said. “That should help us.”

Seeing Officer Tache, Ella joined him. The roundfaced crime-scene investigator was taking
photographs with a flash. Seeing Ella, he looked up. “I came up with an approximate trajectory by shining a narrow flashlight beam through the hole in the sign from the direction you indicated the shot had come from.” He pointed toward three white stakes he’d placed in a line on the big lawn across the street. “It’s the best we can do for the moment. But I haven’t found the bullet yet. Any suggestions?”

“No. Let’s work together walking down the sight line. I don’t think it would have ricocheted off the street or sidewalk, judging from the angle.”

Justine stayed close to Ella as they worked, trying to watch Ella’s back. Justine had been bloodied, but her spirit was strong, and her determination and instincts were still 100 percent cop.

“He’s long gone, Justine. You can relax,” Ella said quietly.

“We’re
assuming
he’s long gone. He could come back, or have an accomplice. Obviously, shooting at a cop isn’t a problem for him.”

They used their flashlights to look for indications along the stunted grass that it had been disturbed or gouged. “Ration seems eager to find trouble,” Ella commented. “What’s your brother say about him?”

“Not much, but I’d have a hard time believing he was the shooter,
if that’s what you’re thinking. Talking from strictly a cop’s point of view, the carbine isn’t a sniper’s weapon of choice—not for a target at that range.”

“He could have switched weapons before we got there
to throw us off. Maybe he’s talent someone hired. Some of the gung-ho types harbor the notion of becoming mercenaries.”

Justine hesitated. “Taken from that perspective, he could have been
the sniper, I suppose. He’s got the skill level. He went to one of the turkey shoots last Thanksgiving with one of our patrolmen and won two birds with two shots.”

“But you’re not convinced?”

“No, not really. From what I know and have heard about him, he’s the type who likes having people know all about his accomplishments. My feeling is that becoming a hit man—a job where he couldn’t brag about
how good he was, or at least get a pat on the shoulder—isn’t his style at all.”

Ella nodded thoughtfully. That fit her impression of him as well. Cocky and not subtle about it. “Okay. I just wanted to sound you out on that. Let’s keep looking.”

“Whoever took a shot at us wasn’t playing around, Ella. Somebody’s gunning for a cop, and a jacketed round like that would pierce our vests.”

“I know,”
she said in a taut voice. “Front and back.” After searching for over an hour with a metal detector, they found nothing except roofing nails, a few coins, some bottle caps, and several of those aluminum lift tabs that would probably be around for the next millennium. Disappointed, but hoping they’d have better luck after sunrise, Ella made arrangements to have a two-man team remain in the area
to discourage scavengers until the crime-scene team returned at dawn. The residential street couldn’t be completely cordoned off without preventing people from getting out of their homes, so Criminalistics would have to work quickly tomorrow.

Twenty-five minutes later, her hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup of coffee, Ella sat down at her desk at the station. Justine took the chair across from
her.