Rock with Wings Read online

  Chee knocked harder this time. “Mr. Robinson, it’s Officer Chee. I need to talk to you.”

  “You’re a real cop?”

  Only on a movie set would he be asked that question. Chee introduced himself.

  “Sorry, I thought you were with the production. I’m Rhonda.”

  “I hear you’re famous.”

  “That’s me. Queen of the Zombies.” She flashed him a beautiful smile. “Are you here about Samuel?”

  “Not exactly.” He didn’t want to elaborate.

  She walked up the steps, knocked, and yelled. “Greg, open the door. It’s hot out here, honey. You need to talk to the policeman, and then we need to go.”

  Nothing.

  Rhonda pulled a key from her pocket, put it in the lock, and looked up at Chee. “You do it. I’m getting bad vibes here.”

  17

  Morning light nudged Bernie to wakefulness. It was already almost dawn. She ran, showered, had a bite of breakfast, put on her uniform for work later, and headed to Mama’s house. She wanted to talk to Mama about helping Bigman’s wife. If Mama had the energy, it might be a good solution to several problems.

  As she drove, she thought about weaving. Making beautiful rugs took supple hands and multilevel thinking. Traditional Navajo weavers like her mother held several ideas in their mind simultaneously, moving one to the forefront and then another, focusing on details while simultaneously remembering the big picture and making the process seamless. She remembered how Mama could get lost in her weaving, sitting until it finally grew too dark to work and then stirring as if from a dream to consider what they’d have for supper or to ask about schoolwork. That was before arthritis took its terrible toll.

  Darleen had the same ability to concentrate. When she was working on her drawings, it was as though she was in a trance. Weaving seemed to Bernie to be a more practical art, but at least her sister had something in her life that gave her pleasure and might be useful.

  Bernie considered herself a practical, down-to-earth person. She liked facts, nailing down loose ends, corralling rowdy details one at a time and closing the case. She wanted to make the world a better place, not with art but in a concrete way. Her contribution as a police officer was to help make sure people like her mother and Darleen could live in peace.

  If she hadn’t become a cop, she thought, she never would have met Chee, the man who made her life more beautiful. She’d come to a realization last night. Her husband would always love his work. She could be jealous of that passion, or accept it as something she’d known about him from the first day they met. It was who he was. And, she thought, loving his job didn’t mean that he didn’t love her, too.

  She pulled up to Mama’s house and heard the blare of the TV through the open windows of her Toyota. Mrs. Darkwater’s big black-and-brown dog barked and charged at her car. It quieted down when she stopped. Bernie climbed out of the car and stiffened as the animal rushed to her. She thought it meant no harm, but she didn’t like dogs so close, sniffing at her. She hurried to the house and closed the door behind her.

  The two elders sat side by side, watching a game show, one of those where the contestant gets the prize behind the door. They were giving the woman on the screen advice.

  “No.” Mama leaned closer to the TV. “Pick number two.”

  “You’re all right with number three,” Mrs. Darkwater said.

  Bernie stood behind them. “Hello there, ladies.”

  Mama patted the couch next to her, motioning Bernie to sit down. “Welcome, my daughter. You will like this show.”

  Mrs. Darkwater moved over so Bernie could squeeze in next to Mama.

  The woman on TV didn’t listen to Mama. She stayed with number three. The prize was a year’s supply of frozen pizzas. The shiny new RV was behind door number one.

  The scene switched to commercials. Mrs. Darkwater said, “I heard that someone’s car got burned over there by Ship Rock.”

  “It’s a bad place,” Mama said. “When people go out that way, things happen.”

  “Did you hear why it happened?” Bernie asked.

  Mrs. Darkwater spoke first “They don’t need a reason.” Bernie didn’t need to ask who “they” were. She could tell from Mrs. Darkwater’s tone that the reference was to skinwalkers.

  Bernie wondered if her little sister was still asleep. Then she remembered that Darleen’s car was gone. “Where’s Sister?”

  “Oh, she had to go to Farmington. She got a letter from the court.”

  “Really? What did it say?”

  “I don’t know. She said she didn’t understand it, so she drove over there.”

  “Why didn’t she call them?”

  “You ask too many questions.” Mama got up, using her walker to provide some leverage as she rose from the couch and to steady her steps to the bathroom.

  “I think that one isn’t feeling good.” Mrs. Darkwater fluffed up the pillow Mama had positioned behind her back as she spoke. “She told me she has a pain in her side. Right here.” Mrs. Darkwater put her hand on her own ribs. “I had an uncle with that pain. He went to the hospital in Farmington. They took out the gall bladder. Then he had a stroke. He’s better now.” Mrs. Darkwater gave the pillow a final pat and put it back on the couch.

  Bernie knew how lucky she was that Mama had such a concerned neighbor. “If Sister goes to school somewhere, it wouldn’t be good for Mama to stay alone here in the house. Something could happen.”

  “You worry too much.” Mrs. Darkwater frowned. “When you think about problems, you get more problems and they get bigger. That’s what happens.” She patted Bernie’s hand. “If something happens, you’ll do what you need to do then.”

  It wasn’t the response Bernie was looking for, but she agreed with the logic. First things first. Still, she wanted to have a plan in place.

  She fixed an early lunch for them all, and then Mrs. Darkwater headed home for an afternoon nap. To Bernie’s relief, the dog, which had been napping on the porch, followed after her. Mama looked tired.

  “Before you take a nap, I need to talk to you about something.”

  “I know,” Mama said. “Your sister and that school. I want to take a look at that place. How far is it?”

  “About a four-hour drive.”

  “Darleen will come with us. You both can drive.”

  “I don’t think we need to do that yet.” Darleen should be in on this conversation, Bernie thought. The letter from Farmington must have to do with her sister’s arrest. “We should talk about this later, when Sister is ready.”

  Mama had a question in her eyes. “When we go to Santa Fe, to see the school, will we drive by the car that burned?”

  “No, you can’t see it from the highway.”

  Mama nodded. “Good. What happened to the one who was driving?”

  It never failed to amaze Bernie how quickly news spread on the reservation. “I don’t know, but at least he was not burned in the car.”

  “I’m glad about that.”

  Bernie mentioned Bigman’s wife and her desire to learn to weave. “Perhaps you know someone who could help her. She’s a good woman. She works at the school as a teacher.”

  Mama didn’t respond except with a quick nod. Message received.

  Bernie helped Mama lie down for a little rest, asked her about the pain Mrs. Darkwater had mentioned, and learned Mama didn’t want to talk about that.

  Before driving back to the station, she walked over to Mrs. Darkwater’s house. The dog wagged its tail from the shade of the porch but, to Bernie’s relief, didn’t rise. Mrs. Darkwater sat working on a crossword puzzle. She tapped the point of her pencil gently against the page. “You’re a smart one. What’s a word that means ‘threatened’?”

  “Scared? Or bullied?”

  “Longer. Ten letters.”

  Bernie thought. “Try frightened.”

  Mrs. Darkwater looked at the page. “No. Third letter is a D.”

  “Hmm.”

&n
bsp; She glanced up at Bernie. “Drive back safely.”

  “I will. I wanted to ask you something. How did you hear about the burned car?”

  “Arthur told me. You met him. He’s my husband’s relative who drives the trucks with the packages. One of the other drivers saw it on fire out there.”

  Back in the car, Bernie turned up the radio so she could hear it over the wind noise. KNDN’s broadcasts included a community calendar she always found interesting. That and the music kept her from thinking too hard about the talk she had to give to the Rotary, or about the mysterious Mr. Miller and how his stolen car had ended up burned and abandoned. Clearly, Miller hung with the wrong crowd.

  She drove and listened, warm and windblown, and had almost reached the pavement of 491 when she heard her phone chime—a new text. She glanced at it when she stopped at the stop sign where the dirt and pavement met. A note from Darleen: call u 2nite. Bernie called her, and her voice mail picked up on the third ring.

  She cruised past a new billboard touting Primal Solar and a herd of lean horses standing in the shade of the sign. Pulling off the highway to check on a pickup truck parked on the shoulder with its emergency flashers blinking, she realized it was empty. A car obviously speeding passed her, and she flashed her lights. She thought again of Miller’s car. Was it stolen for a joy ride? Of all the cars in Farmington, why his? Of 27,400 square miles of reservation, why there? And why would a guy in such a big hurry to get back to Flagstaff be in Farmington? She remembered the calls on his phone to the Farmington motel. Interesting.

  When she got to the office, a domestic violence call was waiting, the kind of case she dreaded. Usually it meant a husband or boyfriend hurting a woman, sometimes with the kids as witnesses. Those incidents made her angry, broke her heart, and left her feeling totally ineffectual. Largo knew she’d rather deal with drunks or druggies, gang fights, even suicides. Anything but DV and men who let anger and fear, usually fueled by alcohol, transform them into pathetic monsters. It wasn’t the danger—that was an integral part of police work. She hated the devastation of beaten women and terrified little ones.

  She ran into Bigman in the coffee room and told him the truth, at least part of it. “Largo wants me to settle this burned-car deal. I’ve got to track down a potential witness and see if I can reach Miller—you know, the guy who owned it. Can you take the DV?”

  “I was going to volunteer for it,” Bigman said. “I’ve dealt with these two before. And I owe you for that Rotary talk tomorrow. I’d rather face a wife beater than those men in suits any day.”

  “What about the new guy?”

  “I’m taking him with me. It might get dicey out there.”

  “I meant for the speech. I told Largo I’d do this one, but there will be more requests.”

  “You want to scare him into resigning already?”

  Bernie called the deputy in Farmington who had handled the report on Miller’s stolen car and left a message. She made more calls, attempting to get in touch with the delivery driver who might have seen the burning car. Then, while she waited for callbacks, she got busy with the task she wanted to postpone indefinitely—creating the Rotary talk from the outline she’d made in her head. She didn’t mind writing the speech, but the talking part bothered her.

  She envisioned the Farmington event. She’d be an outsider in a group where everybody knew everybody, a woman among mostly men, a Navajo in a group that was white with a few Hispanics, a young woman in a crowd contemplating retirement. But no matter what the audience, public speaking didn’t come easy to her. She was slightly more comfortable with it than Chee, or maybe even Captain Largo, but that only meant that she’d faced a roomful of strangers eighty-five percent terrified.

  The Rotarians had requested an overview of the work the Navajo police did, so that was what she focused on: the history of the force, the size of their jurisdiction, how they worked with other agencies like the New Mexico State Police and the San Juan County sheriff’s office. Then she’d touch on the issues that continued to face the department and the people they served: lack of community activities as alternatives to crime, the growing influence of gangs and drug trafficking, too few officers, too few resources, too much territory to cover.

  Bernie had made a decent start when Sandra buzzed her. She had a call from a truck driver.

  “Yes, ma’am, I saw that blaze. It was somethin’. I couldn’t figure what it was at first. I thought it might be a house. I wanted to turn down that dirt road and have a look, but I was already off schedule.”

  “Do you drive that route all the time?”

  “A couple times a week I might have packages out that way.”

  “Did you notice anything else?”

  She heard silence on the phone, and then he said, “You mean, like somethin’ I didn’t usually see out there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, now that you remind me, I saw a hitchhiker trying to thumb a ride out to 491. I notice them every once in a while. Not too often, because there’s barely any traffic out that way. I can’t pick nobody up. Company’s strict about that. One time my pal Mario, well, he stopped for this kid—” The driver’s tale grew elaborate, wandering away from the investigation Bernie was pursuing.

  When he paused, she steered him back to the hitchhiker. “You mentioned that in addition to seeing the fire, you saw a person trying to catch a ride. Why did you think that was odd?”

  “Well, he was wearing hiking shorts and had a dog with him. He was tan, but not an Indian, no offense. I wondered if he’d been climbin’ Ship Rock or something. I know that’s against the rules, but people try to do it anyway.”

  “Do you remember how tall he was, anything else about him?”

  “He looked like an average guy in a ball cap. Maybe thirty or early forties. He had on a long-sleeved shirt with those shorts.” The sketchy description of the hitchhiker matched her memory of Miller right down to the baseball cap.

  After Bernie hung up, she talked to Largo about her interview with the driver.

  “It’s summer, Manuelito. Shorts really aren’t suspicious unless you see me wearing them.”

  Navajos of Largo’s generation dressed conservatively, with a tip of their Stetsons toward the cowboy tradition. The generation above them, elders like her mother and Mrs. Darkwater, had been raised to be even more modest. Bernie remembered Mama always in a skirt until Darleen had persuaded her to wear sweatpants for a big, messy job around the house. Their mother had become an instant convert, but still always wore a long skirt, a velvet blouse, and her best jewelry to visit friends and relatives.

  Largo leaned back in his chair. “What I wonder is who burned that car and why, and whether we’ll be seeing more of this out here. Follow up on that gang stuff Wheeler copied for you. I would like to get this off the books. Any luck reaching Miller?”

  “No, sir. I called the number the deputy gave me. No answer, no way to leave a message. I called his old cell phone. Same results.”

  “OK. Back off. Cordova handles that, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She stood to leave. “How did that domestic violence call work out?”

  “The man was gone when Bigman and the new guy got there. The wife had a bloody lip but didn’t want to press charges. She and the kids were shook up. The new guy did OK.” Largo moved forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “You know, Manuelito, sometimes women feel safer with another woman. You could do some good on those cases. You ought to think about that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know you don’t want to be pigeonholed. But because of what they’ve been through, a lot of these ladies don’t trust men much, even a nice guy like Officer Bigman.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll call Cordova and tell him about the hitchhiker.”

  “You’re changing the subject. We could use a specialist in domestic violence. I could get some training for you.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

  “You’re stubborn, t
oo. Good luck with the Rotary tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She left a message for Cordova that she had news of Miller, but nothing more. Maybe she could use the hitchhiker sighting to finally coax some information from his sealed lips. As she prepared to get back to work on the talk, she saw that the Lieutenant had sent her an e-mail:

  Cactus = Sclerocactus mesae-verde, endangered, grows in Shiprock area. See below.

  Listed as threatened by the US and on the NM and CO rare plants list.

  He had included information copied from his research site:

  Found on tops of hills or benches and slopes of hills, from gravelly to loamy and pulverulent clay soil, the plant is very small, with a maximum size of only 2 to 2.5 inches in height, 3 to 3.5 inches in diameter, and with up to 14 spiral-like ribs. The flowers are white to cream-yellow, 3 cm long, 2 cm in diameter and do not open completely. The fruits are green, spherical, with a diameter of 1.25 cm. The fruits brown with age, and split horizontally. The seeds are black. Wild-collected specimens usually die in cultivation.

  The part about the little plants not surviving in captivity caught her attention. Interesting and sad. But it said “usually,” not always. A glimmer of hope remained for her little transplants. Certainly they would have died if they had been dumped in the garbage along with the dirt in the boxes. Had Miller known what the cacti were when he dug them up, or was it accidental that they were in the boxes? If he knew they were endangered, protected by the Navajo Nation, the state of New Mexico, possibly federal regulations, that would explain his reluctance to open the trunk, and his attempt at bribery. Endangered, she realized, was the word Mrs. Darkwater had needed for her crossword puzzle.

  Even though a person could acquire beautiful, healthy cacti with a money-back guarantee from nurseries, poaching had become a growing problem in the Southwest. Bernie had read about thieves in Arizona digging up heavy, centuries-old saguaros to sell for top dollar. Other poachers went after rarer varieties, sometimes on special assignment from plant collectors. The National Park Service tried to save cacti popular with poachers by inserting microchips in the plants to identify them if they arrived in the resale market, but plant thieves usually got away with it.