Blackening Song (12 page)

“I wish I could answer that,” Wilson mumbled as they walked back toward the crowd and safety.

SEVEN

It was early afternoon when Ella returned home. Her mother was crouched by the flower bed, her long blue denim skirt spread out around her. Her cloth gardening gloves were stained with soil. The mutt lay by her side, absently sniffing the four-inch-tall herbs Rose was planting.

“You’re back early,” Rose observed, disapprovingly eyeing the pistol Ella was carrying. “I hope you didn’t cut
your time short because of me.”

“I didn’t, not really,” Ella answered, knowing she wasn’t being completely truthful.

Rose shook her head. “I suppose that means yes, at least partly.”

“You can’t expect me to go off and not even give you a thought,” Ella replied, patting the dog. The animal had been around for a decade. Nobody had ever decided on a name for him, so he was just Dog. Sometimes
her dad, in a burst of inspiration, had referred to him as Boy.

Rose patted down the dirt around the last plant, then stood, brushed off her skirt, and walked over to turn on the garden hose. “Did you see Wilson?”

“Yes, of course. He and I had a long talk.” Ella wondered now, had they just wandered into each other, or had Wilson sought her out?

Rose placed the hose, running at a trickle, so
it would soak the area she’d just planted. She studied her daughter’s expression. “You’re beginning to understand. I’m glad to see that.”

“Understand? What do you mean?” Ella asked, thrown by her mother’s statement.

“You know precisely what I mean. That boy’s been interested in you since high school.”

Ella gave her mother an incredulous look. “No way. He didn’t even know I was alive.”

Rose
laughed. “My daughter the great detective! You miss what’s right in front of your face!”

“I don’t see it because it’s not there,” Ella argued. Clearly she couldn’t discuss her doubts about Wilson with her mother without affecting their own relationship.

Rose Destea laughed again, then led the way inside. Ella dropped her pistol in her room. “How can you be so smart and still so blind!”

“Mom,
he dated almost everyone
but
me! In fact, he’d avoid me even when he came over to visit with Clifford.”

“Exactly.” Rose walked to the kitchen and poured them each a glass of her special blend of iced tea.

“I don’t get it.”

“You were Clifford’s little sister. He was very careful not to do anything that might strain their friendship. Brothers can be very protective.”

“Well, maybe that was some
of it, but he certainly wasn’t interested in me, not in a boy-girl-type way.”

Rose’s eyes twinkled. “Should I assume you’ve also managed to miss his interest in you now?” A tiny smile played on her lips.

Ella averted her gaze, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. She considered protesting, then changed her mind. Better that her mom thought it was a budding romance than a direct consequence of
the murder.

“No answer?” Rose insisted playfully.

Ella shrugged.

Rose chuckled. “There’s hope for you yet.”

Ella couldn’t believe that her mother was teasing her. It had been ages since she’d done that. As Ella looked around for a coaster to place under her moisture-covered glass of tea, she noted that sacred pollen had been sprinkled everywhere. A thin yellow trail lay on the windowsills,
and in each corner of the room.

“Did you have company while I was gone?” she asked suddenly, suspecting Clifford had been around.

“Company? No guests have been here.”

“Don’t be evasive, Mom. Someone’s blessed the house.”

“Oh, so you see that!” Rose smiled.

“Mom!” Ella tried to make her voice sound sharp, but failed miserably. She sounded like a child, not a top investigator. “Was my brother
here?” Had he been watching the house and seen her leave, or had someone tipped him off?

“You came to that conclusion from a little corn pollen? Our tribe has more than one
hataalii,
daughter.” Rose filled a plate with cookies.

“Yes, but not in this chapter. And you still haven’t answered my question. Was Clifford here?”

“It seems you’ve already made up your mind. Why bother asking me?”

Ella
sighed. She was getting nowhere. Her mother could dodge questions better than any criminal she’d ever met. She smiled, remembering how Peterson Yazzie had claimed the same applied to her.

“Tell me about the barbecue,” Rose said, setting the plate of cookies on the table in front of Ella.

She hesitated, wondering how much her mother was prepared to know. “It was … interesting.”

Rose sat up straight.
“Tell me what happened.”

Ella told her about meeting and talking with Anna, then described the discovery Wilson and she had made, gauging her mother’s calm reaction carefully. “Why aren’t you surprised?”

“That area around the new church
is
evil. I’ve always felt it, and so have many others. Nothing that you found there would shock me.”

“Is what’s happening at that site linked to the reason
Clifford is on the run?”

“As a
hataalii,
your brother is the sworn enemy of any skinwalker. Keep that firmly in mind while you search for your answers.”

“And what do you think I’ll find?” Ella asked, certain her mother knew far more than she was admitting.

“You’ll have to decide for yourself.” Rose paused. “I received a phone call earlier from Loretta’s brother, Paul. It seems the police have
started watching her. When Paul took her to the market, they saw a car with two men following them.”

“Were they certain the men were police officers?”

Rose nodded. “Paul recognized one of them—and he thinks he’s being followed too. He saw some lights behind him when he went to the pharmacy last night. From what I’ve heard, the police have been questioning all of Clifford’s friends, trying to
find out where he’s hiding.”

“Wilson didn’t mention that,” Ella said thoughtfully, wondering why he hadn’t. “Maybe they haven’t gotten to him yet,” she added. She’d ask Peterson about it later.

It occurred to Ella that except for Wilson, she didn’t know who Clifford’s friends were. It was part of the price she’d paid for being out of touch for so long with her family.

Ella heard a vehicle driving
up the dirt track. Moving to the side of the window, she peered out. “It’s Wilson.”

Rose grinned. “See, he misses you already.”

“Right, Mom,” Ella answered, knowing that she was being teased. “Just an hour without me was too hard for him to bear.”

“Poor love-struck man!”

“Oh, puh-leese!”

Rose nodded toward the door. “Go greet him. It’s you he came to see.”

“How do you know?”

Rose gave her
a steady look and smiled. “My intuition is better than yours. More years, more experience.”

She realized that her mother was right. Ella’s own intuition hadn’t done her much good on this case. She had to start thinking like a cop, not a victim.

Ella waved to Wilson from the porch. Watching him walk, she realized that something was worrying him, and her trained instincts focused on discovering
what he was hiding.

“You should have stayed a little longer at the barbecue,” he said quietly when he reached her.

Ella glanced into the house. Her mother was still in the kitchen. “What happened?” she asked, her voice deliberately low.

“FB-Eyes showed up.”

Ella grimaced. “What’s Blalock done now?”

“He badgered everyone about Clifford. He tried to act polite, but everybody knows that with
him, it
is
an act. He’s convinced your brother’s being hidden by his traditionalist friends, and he wants to stir the progressives into betraying him.”

“He’ll keep putting pressure on people, offering deals or making threats. He won’t let up until he gets some leads,” Ella said ruefully.

“It doesn’t matter what he does. He still won’t get anywhere. Your mother told you about FB-Eyes’ big AWOL
arrest, didn’t she?”

She nodded, then narrowed her eyes and studied Wilson speculatively. “You’re awful damn sure that Blalock won’t get anywhere. Does that mean that you think my brother really is acting entirely on his own, or that you think people would never betray him to Blalock?”

“Ah, the Blalock school of endless interrogation. I see I’m with a graduate.”

“Well, we both trained in the
same place. I’m just not as rude as he is.” Ella smiled. “Talk to me. You know I’m the best chance Clifford’s got.”

“Not if you turn him in.”

“Turning him in may be the best shot
he’s
got.”

“If you really understood what was going on, you wouldn’t be so quick to say that.”

“So enlighten me.” Ella knew she was making progress with Wilson. He was at least talking to her about Clifford.

He took
a deep breath, then let it out again. “I’ve got a better idea. Let me take you on a little drive. By the time we finish, I promise you’ll have answers to many of your questions.”

“Where do you want to go?” Ella’s training told her to be wary. She wasn’t going anywhere without both eyes open.

“You’ll have to trust me.”

“All right. Just let me tell Mother I’m leaving.” After Ella spoke to her
mother, she retrieved her gun and pocketed some extra ammunition before rejoining her guide. “I’m ready.”

Wilson led her to his pickup, then held out his hand. “Your weapon, please.”

“Why do you need it?”

“A precaution.”

“Against what? You’re in no danger from me. I’m sure you know that.”

“Your choice,” Wilson maintained. “Either give me your weapon or we stay here.”

She reached underneath
her windbreaker and handed him her pistol. “Satisfied?” She could feel her backup weapon safely inside her boot.

Nodding, he placed the pistol in the glove compartment. “A sign of trust between us; the gun won’t be far from your reach.”

Ella could feel that she wasn’t in any danger. By playing along, she might finally get some answers.

Wilson drove toward the highway. The truck bounced hard,
tossing them everywhere. She gripped the dashboard with one hand. Before the main road became visible ahead, Wilson pulled over.

“What’s wrong?”

“From this point on, you’ll have to cover your eyes.” He offered her a clean blue bandanna.

“What?”

“That’s the only way we can proceed. I’m sorry, but it’s for your own protection. Trust me, please.”

“What’s to keep me from removing the blindfold,
or do you plan to tie my hands too?”

Wilson shook his head. “Your word will be good enough for me.”

“Fine. You have it.” She had the gut feeling he was taking her to see Clifford, and this was the chance she’d been waiting for. She fully intended to use her training to keep the upper hand. He might have thought he was in control, but he was wrong. Ella shifted in her seat, angling away from
him so he could tie the handkerchief over her eyes. She didn’t like the feeling, but knowing her hands would remain free made her feel partially better.

“You know that you’re in no danger. Your gun is in the glove compartment, and your hands are untied. Just do nothing until I tell you.”

Ella shifted again until her back was against the seat. “I’m trusting you,” she said reassuringly. She was
less helpless than he thought.

“I won’t betray you,” Wilson answered. “I’m going to reach across you know and refasten your seat belt.”

Although she was perfectly capable of doing it for herself, even blindfolded, she allowed him to help. Ella felt the warmth of Wilson’s body as he leaned over her. His aftershave was musky and masculine. Shrugging off the pleasant warmth she felt from his nearness,
she concentrated on the fact that his scent would help her ascertain his position if he moved away from her while she was still blindfolded.

She felt tension in the air, like an intense, unexpected storm.

Finally he sat back and restarted the engine. The truck jerked forward.

Ella forced herself to concentrate, memorizing every bump in the road, trying to ascertain the direction in which they
were traveling from the warmth of the sun on her face. She kept track of animal sounds, the rush of wind through a canyon, anything that might give her a clue. She heard the distant sound of a lone oil well amidst the sound of birds. From that, and the scent of piñons, she grew confident that she’d be able to find the area again.

After they’d traveled for what seemed like an hour, she began to
feel restless. She had a feeling that Wilson had anticipated her effort to gather clues from the land itself and had driven them in circles for a while. She knew it for sure when the pickup dipped sharply to the right and the underside collided with a sharp crack against a rock. That had happened before.

“We’ll reach our destination soon,” he said encouragingly.

“Try to miss a few of the bumps.”

“Impossible out here. Sorry about that.”

She felt the pickup slow down, then brake to a stop. “Why didn’t you bring me here directly from the ceremony?” Ella asked, her voice taut. “Did you need someone’s permission first?”

“You’ll know the answer to that soon enough.”

Wilson came around the truck and helped her down, then led her forward. She heard another set of footsteps. The strides were
measured, and soft as a skilled hunter’s. They were steps she recognized.

Wilson removed her blindfold, and she shaded her eyes with one hand, trying to adjust to the sudden influx of light. When she could finally see, she nodded a greeting to her brother, Clifford, who was standing to her right.

His back was ramrod straight; a tiny smile played on his wide mouth. He was dressed in jeans and
a chambray shirt that hung loosely outside his pants. Except for the medicine pouch on his belt, he was dressed like any of a thousand young Navajos. But Ella could sense the special charisma that gave Clifford his power over others.

Despite that power, he looked tired. There were dark circles around his eyes, and an aura of intense wariness that reminded her of the hunted, almost feral look
she’d seen on many fugitives over the years. It attested to sleepless nights and the toll fear took when it became a constant companion.