Authors: David Thurlo
“I’ll let Justine take over here and join you
shortly. The sniper is long gone by now.”
“Roger that. We’ll wait to question Ben until you arrive.”
Ella reached the small airfield west of the county seat—Aztec—forty minutes later. The facility was small and she didn’t have to search long to find Nez and Blalock. They were standing at the other end of the main counter in front of a closed door.
“I’m here, guys,” she said, hurrying across
the tile floor to join them. “What’s the deal with Ben?”
“He was instructed not to leave town without notifying the police, but he chose to run,” Dan said. “Now we have to find out why.”
“What else do we know?” Ella asked. It was often easier to extract information from a suspect when you already knew at least some of the answers.
“He closed his business and personal bank accounts earlier today
and withdrew all the funds in cash,” Blalock said. “I don’t have the exact amounts because what I got was off the record. Without a court order, I can’t get any more than that.”
“That still doesn’t mean he’s the killer, or one of them,” Ella said. “What we need to find out is why he’s running, and from who or what?”
As they went into the room Norman Ben raised his head to look at them, a total
lack of expression on his face.
Blalock advised him of his rights.
“I have nothing to say until my attorney arrives,” he said stiffly.
“Mr. Ben, we understand you’ve cleaned out your bank accounts and now you’re heading out of the country? What’s the story?” Blalock asked, sitting across from him.
“All the money I’ve taken is mine. It’s not a crime to convert all your funds into cash.”
“But
you
are
running,” Ella insisted in a soft voice. “Why fly out of the area from Aztec when you live so much closer to the Farmington airport? It’s like you’re trying to slip away, unnoticed.”
“I was on my way to visit my Mexican girlfriend. That’s all I’ve got to say. I have the right to remain silent and I’m exercising that right.”
Ella tried pressing him for more answers, but he refused to
even look in her direction. After a few minutes, she stood and looked at Blalock.
“Play it your way,” Blalock told Ben. “We’ll turn you over to the Aztec Police for now and have you locked up as a material witness. Later, after you’ve spoken to your attorney, you and I can have another talk.”
“You’re looking for a murderer and that’s not me,” Ben said in a barely audible voice. “Elroy and I
had plenty of disagreements, that’s for sure, but I never did anything to him. I was as surprised as everyone else when his body turned up over at Hogback.”
“Can you remember where you were on June first, four years ago?” Ella asked.
“That was a
long
time ago,” he said. “Is that when Elroy was killed?” No one said anything, and at length he continued. “Normally I wouldn’t be able to cover a
date that far back, but every June I go to Mexico for a month—and that, by the way, is where I was going now. I include my old desk calendars with my tax papers and those’ll back me up. I’ve also got receipts for the flights and other expenses like restaurants and hotels.”
“It’s not June yet,” Blalock said, “and do you always empty your accounts before you go? Will that show up in your old records?”
Ben didn’t answer.
Two City of Aztec police officers appeared at the door moments later. Ella and Blalock stepped out of the way as Norman Ben was taken into custody.
Once they were alone, Nez looked at Blalock, then at Ella. “How did you narrow all the murders down to June first?” he asked.
She answered him, filling him in on the details. “I don’t know for sure that all four victims were killed
on the first, but it seems a good bet.”
“The bad news is that if the pattern holds, on June first another Navajo will be murdered. That’s a little over a week away, so we should keep that detail to ourselves. We don’t want to start a panic,” Blalock said.
“Norman Ben isn’t in the clear yet, guys,” Nez pointed out. “Being out of the country is a great alibi, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved.
Ben could have hired a hit man, one who had targeted the other victims already. One man—one common burial ground.”
“Without more evidence, substantiating that theory is going to be tough,” Blalock said. “Who hired the assassination of the other three victims, for instance?”
“And why the same day every year?” Nez asked. “I see your point.”
“Let’s go to my Shiprock office,” Blalock said. “I’ve
got access to most law enforcement and regional news databases there. If we dig hard enough, maybe we can find out what’s special about June first. That’s got to be connected to the motives in some way.”
Ella glanced at Dan, who nodded. “Let’s go then,” she said.
They arrived at Blalock’s office on Shiprock’s north mesa within the hour. Blalock led the way inside the one-story office building
he shared with several tribal agencies. “I work better from home these days, but the Bureau still wants me to keep office hours when I’m not out in the field. I wish they’d at least let me relocate to Farmington. It would make it a shorter drive at the end of the day.”
Once again, Ella found herself envying Dwayne. He’d found, or at least rediscovered, his soul mate. She wasn’t sure she’d ever
find someone who understood the demands of the job, and who’d value the work she did even when it required her to pay a price.
FB-Eyes unlocked his office door, then took a seat by his old oak desk, which looked to be older than any of them.
“When are you going to get another resident agent?” Ella asked, seeing Dan looking at the wall photos of previous agents who’d worked the Four Corners area.
“With budget cuts and the fact that the Albuquerque field office is low priority, probably not anytime soon. But working alone poses fewer complications.”
Ella sat down in front of one computer, Nez by a laptop, and Blalock at his desk. “Ella, you take the local papers and media, including the cable channels. Nez, you take regional and networks, and do an Internet check. I’ll check agency databases.”
Minutes passed by slowly, then Blalock glanced up at them. “Here’s something. Five years ago on June first, a year prior to the death of our first victim, a young woman named Rosemary Archuleta and her unborn child were killed on Highway 64 near Hogback. The accident was caused by a drunk Navajo driver, Ambrose Todacheene. He was driving his pickup on the wrong side of the road, according to the
report. He survived with cuts and bruises.”
“Let me cross-check with the tribal and Farmington papers and see if I can get something more,” Ella said. A moment later she let out a low whistle. “You’ll never guess who Rosemary Archuleta’s fiancé was.”
TWENTY-SIX
Blalock and Dan both came to look over Ella’s shoulder. “Whatcha got, Ella?” Blalock asked, looking at the screen.
“A newspaper story on the accident that identifies Farmington police officer Ross Harrison as her fiancé.” She scrolled up the screen to show a photo of the accident scene.
“
Our
Ross Harrison, the P.I.?” Dan asked, looking from Ella to Blalock.
“One and the same,” she
answered. “But we’ve known for days that his fiancée had died in an accident. Just no details.”
“Did the drunk who killed the woman serve time?” Dan asked.
“I’ll check,” she replied, doing a search using the accident victim’s name on the newspaper database.
“Here it is. He was convicted of DWI and involuntary manslaughter but only served six months of a two-year sentence. A week after his release,
he died in a one car rollover accident,” Ella said. “Toxicology reports indicated that Todacheene had been well over the legal limit.”
“And Harrison resigned from the FPD not long after that. Anyone believe this is all just a coincidence?” Dan asked. “That road rage theory Sergeant Neskahi came up with may be coming back to haunt us.”
Ella sat back, her eyes still on the computer screen. “Harrison
might have caused that accident. He was still on the force and had access to Todacheene’s address.”
“If Ross is our guy, we’re going to need a lot more than timing to put him away,” Blalock said, moving back to his desk.
Ella’s cell phone rang and she picked it up.
“It’s Marianna,” the officer said, identifying herself.
“Go ahead, Officer Talk,” Ella answered.
“After you put out the BOLO
on Romero, I remembered hearing that his cousin, Hoskie Romero, lived next door to Herbert Lee. Herbert’s a former officer with our department, so I asked him to keep an eye on the place in case Gilbert showed up,” Marianna said.
“And it paid off,” Ella said, reading her tone of voice correctly.
“Yes. Herbert just called,” Marianna said. “He’d gone out to check on his horse when he saw two people
over at Hoskie’s place. Gilbert’s there. Herbert’s certain of the ID because he arrested Gilbert a few times for fighting over by Window Rock. Herbert thinks Gilbert drove up at night on the opposite side of the river, then waded across. When he took a look around, Herbert saw a blue Ford SUV hidden in the brush across the river.”
“Good job, Marianna. Thinking outside the box was exactly what
was needed,” Ella said.
“Do you want me to meet you there?”
“What’s the location?” Ella got an address, then thought about it for a moment. “Let’s join up at the post office parking lot, which is on the way. We’ll get more facts and come up with a plan there. Our ETA is ten minutes.”
As she updated the others, Blalock grabbed an assault rifle and ammunition clips from the closet gun safe.
Dan looked at Ella. “It’s outside my jurisdiction, but I want in.”
“Done. Call Sergeant Marquez and have her set up roadblocks on all county routes leading east off the Rez,” Ella said with a nod.
“Roger,” he said.
On the drive east through Shiprock, Ella called Justine at the station. “Bring the team and come well armed. I have a feeling this isn’t going to go down easy.”
“We’ll give you plenty
of backup,” Justine said. “Tache’s here and so’s Neskahi. Benny’s around someplace, too. I’ll also send a unit up the south side of the river to cover escape routes. We don’t want Gilbert giving us the slip this time.”
As she raced down the highway, Ella knew danger lay ahead. Her badger fetish felt warm against her skin, a sign she’d learned to trust.
Soon they met at the post office parking
lot and everyone gathered beside Ella’s SUV. Marianna briefed them on the layout around Hoskie’s place, and Ella drew up a tactical plan.
“Let’s go, people,” Ella said at last.
Hoskie Romero’s home was typical for the Rez—a simple rectangular wood frame with a gray stucco scratch coat and a tan fiberglass shingle roof. Since rifle bullets could penetrate those walls and expose officers on opposite
sides of the building to friendly fire, Ella instructed everyone to use handguns and shotguns only.
Blalock and Benny approached along the river’s northern bank, covering the narrow margin between the house and the waterway itself. Marianna and Dan covered the road and open area on the north side. She and Justine approached from the Shiprock side while Tache and Neskahi came in from the east.
All had voice communications via their handhelds.
They advanced steadily, closing in on the house, using whatever cover was available. With all escape routes covered, Gilbert would have two choices—surrender, or shoot it out. Considering the guy’s track record, Ella braced herself for the worst.
With Justine covering her, Ella took a position behind Hoskie’s old orange-and-white pickup, which
was parked fifty feet from the front entrance. The truck was locked, so she jammed a sliver of wood into the mechanism and broke it off. It would slow down anyone with a key.
Ella unsnapped the bullhorn she’d attached to her belt earlier. “Police. You’re surrounded. Hoskie and Gilbert Romero come out now, unarmed, with your hands in the air.”
Less than a minute went by, then the front door opened,
and a man came out with his hands over his head. It wasn’t Gilbert, she’d seen his photo.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled out, seeing Ella aiming her pistol straight at him. “I’m not armed.”
The fact that he was shirtless, barefoot, and wearing snug jeans made that easy to verify at a glance. Ella studied the front door of the house, then the two facing windows, wary of an ambush.
Marianna Talk spoke
over the radio. “That’s Hoskie. I recognize him from Herbert’s description,” she said.
“Come over here, behind the pickup,” Ella shouted. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”
As Hoskie approached, Ella reached out and pulled him behind cover, forcing him to lay down face-first. She handcuffed, then frisked him while Justine kept watch on the house. “Who else is in there?” she asked.
“Gilbert, my cousin, and he’s freakin’ crazy! He showed up this morning while it was still dark, dripping wet after wading the river. When I saw the gun and a bloody bandage on his arm, I told him to take off. But he wouldn’t leave. He’s been eating my food, listening to the news, and watching out the windows. He finally dozed off, but then you guys showed up and he told me to get out. He wants to
fight and die with a gun in his hand. Like I said—he’s crazy.”
“What kind of weapons does he have?” Ella asked him.
“That pistol I told you about, a nine-millimeter of some kind. He called it a Car. It’s an automatic with a clip, not a cowboy gun.”
“A Kahr, no doubt. What about ammo, what’s he got?” Ella asked him.
“Just what’s in the gun,” Hoskie answered. “He bitched for an hour about not
switching to a full clip. He said he dropped the other one in the river and couldn’t find it. I don’t own any guns or bullets, but he looked around in case I was lying.”
Ella conveyed the information to her team, then sent Hoskie over to Justine. She handcuffed him to a tree, safely out of sight.
“If he wants a fight, we shouldn’t wait till dark, Ella,” Blalock said over the radio. “I’ve got
some tear gas in my unit. I say we force him out—now.”
“If we do that, he’s going to come out shooting. He’s decided on suicide by cop,” Ella said.