Red Mesa (40 page)

“I agree with you about Natoni. I disliked him from the very beginning.”

“He really bad-mouthed you to Justine every time he could, telling her you were just using her to advance your own career, and stuff like that. If you’re looking for enemies who
may have framed you, I’d start with him.” She paused, then added, “Does he have an alibi for the time my sister was killed?”

Ella nodded. “He was with Jeremiah Manyfarms.”

Jayne laughed derisively. “So he’s got no alibi.”

“No, I just told you—”

“Paul is Jeremiah’s adopted son. Didn’t you know that? Paul elected to keep his own name, but Jeremiah adopted him legally when Paul was just fourteen.”

Ella stared at Jayne. “When did you find this out?”

“Justine told me. She was a friend of Manyfarms, too.”

Ella said nothing. The news had taken her by surprise. Suddenly there was a new twist to the conspiracy theory. She’d suspected that Justine was being drugged, and that more than one person could have been responsible for what happened. Maybe Natoni and Manyfarms had worked together on
this.

“Ella, what happened to your truck? These look like bullet holes. That’s something that happened a long time ago, right?” Jayne pointed to the holes in the passenger door.

Ella shook her head. “Somebody wants me dead,” Ella said. “I just happened to be faster, or luckier, than Justine was this time.”

“When did this all happen? Do the police know about it?” Jayne’s voice rose an octave.

“Just the other night. The FBI’s working on it already.” She explained briefly what happened, not mentioning who she suspected, Samuel Begaye. The less said, the better, until she could put the pieces together.

“I’m surprised you’ve even left the house after that.” Jayne slumped down in her seat, then, noticing the holes on Ella’s side, too, she sat up again and scrunched back into the cushion.

After a while, Jayne spoke again. “Listen, I just happen to know where there’s a key to Paul’s trailer. Wanna take a look around inside?”

“I sure do, but I’ll have to do it alone. I’m not a cop anymore, and I obviously can’t get any kind of warrant. If I get caught, it’s going to be a clear case of breaking and entering.”

“We’ll go together. You’ll need a lookout.”

“Jayne, it’s not a good idea
for you to get involved. I thought you wanted to stay out of jail.”

“I’ll furnish the key only if I get to go with you. I hate that man and the way he was using Justine, poisoning her mind. If he’s got anything to do with what happened to my sister, I want a piece of him, too.”

“The only thing you’re likely to get is a ticket to jail. I don’t want that on my conscience,” Ella argued.

“You have
my terms. What’s it going to be?” Jayne folded her arms across her chest and stared at her.

Ella sighed, then nodded slowly. “All right.” It may not have been wise, but she just couldn’t pass this up. What she desperately needed now was evidence, and proof of her own innocence so she could be reinstated. There were other avenues of investigation that a free agent could pursue, but she missed
being able to tap into records to verify a fact or having a team of investigators working with her.

“Where’s the key, Jayne?”

“Drop me by my mom’s house. The cops never saw it because Justine didn’t keep the key in her room. I think she just didn’t want Mom to find it. I know where it is because I saw her hiding it once and asked about it. She told me Paul had given it to her in case of an emergency.”

“Where did she hide the key?”

“Justine put it inside the cactus planter in the living room by the front window. Personally, I think Paul had hoped she’d come by and spend the night with him, but I don’t think she ever did. She liked Paul, but I don’t think she was ready to make any kind of commitment.”

Ella parked by the Goodluck home and waited as Jayne ran inside. She came back out within
seconds, key in hand, and they got under way.

“I don’t want to park right in front of his mobile home, so we have to approach from the back,” Ella said. “But I warn you. It’s broad daylight, so it’ll be risky.”

“It’s probably less dangerous now than in the evening. The elderly lady who lives next door to Paul likes to spy on him, but she watches cartoons in the afternoon. You can hear the television
blaring all the way down the trailer court. I was there once with Bobby, and Paul really complained about her.”

“I really wish you’d reconsider, Jayne. If we get caught, it’s going to be a disaster, and I can’t guarantee that we won’t be seen. For all I know, Paul could be there, whether or not his pickup is outside.”

“Then park down the road. If his pickup is not there and it looks like nobody’s
home, I’ll walk up to the front door and ring the bell. If no one answers, I’ll use the key and go inside. Then I’ll go to the back window and wave if it’s safe for you to come and join me.”

Ella considered it. It wasn’t a bad plan. Jayne would attract a lot less attention than she would. “Okay.”

Ella parked by the turnoff where the mailboxes were, but close enough to see the trailer. As Jayne
strolled down the road to Natoni’s trailer, Ella couldn’t help but compare her to Justine. The two not only resembled each other, they acted a lot alike, too. Justine had been a gambler in her own way, enjoying taking risks. Unfortunately, Jayne had channeled that same energy into less productive avenues. Still, if Jayne could have gotten her act together, she might have made a decent cop.

Five
minutes later, Ella saw Jayne wave from the back window. She approached carefully, staying out of sight by making sure another trailer always screened her from the old woman’s home. Several minutes later, she was inside.

“Do you smell it?” Jayne asked, her voice hushed. “I noticed it as soon as I walked in.”

Ella nodded. “Justine’s perfume. I want to check out the bedroom.”

With Jayne at her
heels, she went down the narrow hall to the back. The bed was unmade and there were traces of duct tape still attached to the bedposts. Faint, discolored stains marked the pale yellow sheets on one side. Ella’s heart almost stopped when she realized the implications.

“That could be blood someone tried to wash out,” Ella said, thinking out loud, her voice sounding strange, even to herself.

Jayne
shuddered. “Either he’s into some really disturbed games, or he held someone here against their will.”

“Search for anything that belonged to Justine—something she wouldn’t have just left here, like her badge, or maybe something she did leave behind hoping we’d find it.”

Jayne froze and stared at her. “You don’t think my sister could still be alive?”

“What we’ve seen here certainly raises the
possibility. But I can’t prove anything unless we find more evidence to support it.”

“Your intuition…”

“I don’t know if that applies here. It’s true that my hunches usually play out right, but I’m personally involved, and that alters my perspective.”

Jayne crouched by the bed and retrieved something small from the floor.

“What have you got there?” Ella asked.

She held out her palm. “It’s
a piece of rose quartz that’s obviously part of a pendant. See the loop where the chain would go through?” she asked, pointing it out. “Justine had one just like this. It was her lucky charm.”

Ella studied the half-inch crystal, her heart pounding. “I remember seeing her wear this. She always had it with her, just like I always wear my badger fetish.”

“Doesn’t this prove that she was here the
day she was killed?”

“It proves that she was here, but not when, and that’s the kind of proof we need.”

“I’m going to keep it,” Jayne said, slipping it into her pocket.

“All right.” Ella knew that positively identifying it as Justine’s crystal was unlikely anyway.

Jayne looked at her somberly. “You’ve probably heard this kind of talk before, but this time it’s for real. Starting today, I’m
going to get my life turned around. And the first thing I’m going to do is help you find out what happened to my sister.”

“No. This is as involved as you should get. Until I figure out exactly who and what I’m fighting, you’re one of the last people I want involved.” Ella saw the anger flash in Jane’s eyes. “It’s not a matter of trust, cousin. I just don’t think your mother would be able to handle
losing two of her daughters.”

Jayne exhaled softly, then nodded. “You’re probably right.”

After checking the medicine cabinet for anything that might have been used to drug Justine, and finding nothing, they decided to leave, separately.

Ella was first. She slipped out through a side window that was shaded by two piñon pines, then hurried back to the truck. A few minutes later Jayne joined
her after locking up the trailer again.

“Where shall I drop you?” Ella asked.

“Back home.”

“You’re not in the clear with Bobby Lujan. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Somehow I’m going to get the money I owe him and Manny. Mom will help me, particularly if I assure her I’m going to quit gambling and get help from Gambler’s Anonymous. I’ll also have to tell her what they’ve been trying to force
me to do. Then I’ll go meet Bobby at the Totah Cafe and square things. It’s real public there. If he doesn’t leave me alone after that, I’ll file a complaint against him. It’s time I took charge of my own life.”

As Ella watched her cousin enter her home, she wondered if Jayne’s resolve would really hold. It wouldn’t be easy for her. No addiction was easy to shake.

As she got under way, Ella
dialed Blalock’s number and, after filling him in on what she’d learned about Bobby Lujan, asked him to check up on the man’s alibi. What she needed now was a third person who could verify that Paul and Jeremiah had really been together that night and at Manyfarms’ place.

Ella dialed Wilson Joe. “I need a favor,” she said, suspecting that by the time this case was finished, she’d owe half the
reservation something.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m uncovering all kinds of interesting information about Paul Natoni and Jeremiah Manyfarms. Did you know those two are related?”

“You’re kidding. Where did you hear that?”

“Jayne Goodluck told me that Justine had mentioned it to her. Manyfarms is Natoni’s alibi, so I need to check that out and verify that they were where they said. Natoni
told Blalock that he and Manyfarms watched the basketball game that night.”

“I watched the same game. Let me ask Jeremiah about it, and Paul, too, if I can find him. Then I’ll let you know if they actually saw the game or not. I’m off at three today. Meet me at my home in another hour. How’s that?”

“You got it.”

Ella returned home, hoping to spend some time with Dawn, but her mother and Dawn
were still away. The silence in the house seemed oppressive. Ella went to her computer, but there was no new mail and no messages from Coyote.

Finally, too restless to stay at home, especially now that she had at least one reason to hope Justine could still be alive, Ella drove out to Wilson’s place. She took the long way, and arrived twenty-five minutes later. He used to live farther away, but
now his home was a tribal-built house near the college. She waited in her truck for him to arrive, and it didn’t take long.

Ella met him at the door ten minutes later. From his expression, she could tell that he’d found out something important.

Wilson led the way to the kitchen, pulled two soft-drink cans from the refrigerator, and handed her one. “I spoke to Jeremiah in his office, and I worked
the conversation into a discussion of the game. I described a play that never happened, and he went along with it. He never saw the game. All he talked about was the kind of season one of the key players was having, not the game itself.”

“Interesting.”

“It gets better. I was about to leave when Paul Natoni showed up at the door. Jeremiah never bothered introducing us. All he said is that he’d
been waiting all day for this guy to show up and he had to excuse himself.

“I tried to talk to Paul, but he cut me off and went inside Jeremiah’s office, closing the door behind him. I decided to stick around for a bit, and that’s when I heard them arguing.”

“About what?”

“Jeremiah said that he was being careless, but that’s all I heard before I had to leave. For all I know, it was in reference
to furniture.”

“Huh?”

“I checked around. Natoni now has a job at a rental and used furniture store.”

“I’d love to go and lean on both of them, but if I do, the department will have me up on interfering with an ongoing investigation. I’ve got to use the back door whenever possible on this case.” She met Wilson’s gaze. “I can’t tell you how much I hate that.”

He smiled. “I can imagine. Remember
what it was like when we were trying to clear your brother? You hated having to walk the fence. If anyone was born to be a cop, it’s you.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But who knows? Given enough time, I may decide I like the freedom of freelance better.”

“Yeah, I can see that happening,” he said sarcastically.

Ella was about to respond when her cell phone rang. She flipped
it open with one hand and identified herself.

“This is Tache,” a hurried voice said at the other end. “Paycheck received another of those ‘anonymous’ tips. He was told to go past the turnoff to Red Mesa and check behind the next billboard south of there. The person said that they’d find everything they needed to convict you.”

“What? When did this happen?”

“Less than five minutes ago. A search
team is being organized and I’m calling from the van. I’m already on the way.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” Ella disconnected the call.

“What’s wrong, Ella?” Wilson put his hand on her shoulder gently. “You look almost sick.”

“I just might be. I’ve known all along that someone’s out to frame me. But now it looks like they may have come up with a way to get me arrested.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Ella was crouched behind an outcropping of rock overlooking the area where the police search team was working. With the sun at her back, and at that distance, she was nearly invisible.