CHAPTER SEVEN

Arthur’s cell phone vibrated with a series of long buzzes, wrenching him away from his thoughts as he pulled away from Margaret’s house. He regrouped quickly when he saw Sharon’s name and photo. He put the phone on speaker and answered, “Chaco Pizza!”

Sharon’s laughter on the other end of the phone made him smile. He could see her face in his mind’s eye as he began driving toward the trailer home of Jennifer Peshlakai. When she stopped laughing, she reported in. “The Desert Patriots have a compound northwest of Counselor. Jacob was out on location today, so I hit him up when he got back to the station.”

“Does he think they could be involved in this?”

“He wouldn’t put it past them, but he wasn’t going to speculate. However, he did say there was an unsubstantiated report that a Navajo man in his midfifties was beaten up at a gas station north of Counselor by some roughnecks from one of the oil companies last week, and no one has seen the alleged victim since the attack. And no one has shown up at a rez clinic or a hospital either.”

“Someone has to be missing him?”

“Of course someone is missing him. Just like there’s about a thousand parents still missing the five hundred and twelve girls and women that disappeared off the rez last year. Jacob said there was a missing persons report filed over in Nageezi about a man fitting the description who hasn’t come home after a few days,” Sharon said, “but the Nation Police don’t have any way to connect the two. It’s like he just vanished.”

“No one just vanishes,” Arthur remarked, “unless they want to start a new life or they’re dead.”

Sharon agreed, then added, “Jacob says the Patriots were hired by NMX as security around a year and a half ago to protect their oil and gas wells, man camps and the current fracking sites they have scattered over a good section of the 550 corridor because of all the resistance from the Water Protectors.”

“New Mexico Xploration?” Arthur said.

“That’s right. Seems the Patriots claim to be a Blackwater-­type security company now, and Jacob’s heard of their people already having a few altercations with folks in some of the border towns, but no one there is talking.”

“Are they still run by Elias Dayton?”

“How did you know?” Sharon said.

“We met in a past life.”

“Okay, well, turns out Jacob did a story on him last year. This Elias Dayton claims to be descended from an American patriot from the Revolutionary War, but that can’t be substantiated. They’ve been working the security angle now for the past five years.”

“Text me the location of the compound,” Arthur said, “and I’ll see what I can get from the man himself.”

“What? You can’t just show up there and expect to be welcomed in,” Sharon warned.

“I know this asshole,” Arthur said. “I dealt with him as a Shadow Wolf.” Guiding the Bronco out of the subdivision, Margaret’s kiss still lingered in his mind and on his lips. It was a memory that part of him wanted to hold on to, but another part of him told him he had to let go. The past was the past. Never to again be the present. “Hey, I left you two messages. How come you didn’t call me back?”

“We had a production meeting this morning,” Sharon lied. “The usual boring BS. Add that to the high temperatures causing everyone’s brains to explode, and crime is having a field day today.” She waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, she said, “Will you be ready for tonight, babe?”

“What’s tonight?”

“You know?” Sharon’s voice had become low and a little muffled as she spoke into her end of the phone. “I bought a kit today. It says I’m ovulating.”

“Oh,” Arthur said. “Nothing I like better than performing on a schedule.”

“You told me it didn’t bother you,” Sharon said. “Now it does?”

“No, not really,” he backtracked, “I just feel a little like a dancing monkey in the circus.”

There was a short moment of dead air. “Well, the circus will be in town for about three days, and unless you want the main tent to close up for a month, I suggest you get yourself home tonight and dance for me.”

Arthur chose the lesser of two evils. “Well, since you put it that way …” His words trailed off.

“You be careful now,” Sharon said and ended the call.

She could be very convincing when she needed to be, Arthur reminded himself, and this had been one of those times. He knew the thought of trying for another child meant everything to her. And the fact that she was so excited about the possibility meant everything to him. But he realized that if it were even possible to get back to the way they were before, it was going to be a long and slow path of compromise and understanding. But it was a path worth walking if their marriage was to survive the tragedies of their past. People were imperfect creatures and marriages were imperfect unions, he mused, and the only happily ever afters were those found in Hallmark movies or romance novels. He grinned to himself. But even that came after many miscommunications and juvenile misjudgments.

Sharon’s text came through with the Patriot address. Arthur tucked his phone into his shirt pocket and continued toward Jennifer Peshlakai’s trailer off 6400. As he drove, Margaret’s face once again appeared in his heart like a lingering emotion. How could the girl who had been so full of promise, he asked himself, the girl he had once loved, become the woman he just saw, a woman left with nothing but the memories of an all-too-short past and a future that no longer existed? Her life had simply ceased working, like a windup clock that ran out of spring tension, with the firing of two rounds from a rifle. Time had literally been stopped by someone she never even knew existed, and who had taken away her entire world. Maybe he could make a call to see if someone from the local chapter house could check in on her from time to time. Someone was always there handling whatever events they were planning. Maybe that would help ease his mind … and his conscience.

It didn’t take long for Arthur to navigate his way out of the subdivision and make the left turn onto North 3005, just past the red roof of the NHA Housing Management office. The NAPI drip-arrogation crops flanked him on either side as he drove back to BIA Route 36. He turned left again and headed toward Nenahnezad, hoping Margaret had been sober enough to know what she was talking about and had not sent him out chasing wild geese.

When he crossed the 6675 bridge that stretched over the shallow brown waters that split around the sandbar in the middle of the San Juan River, he wondered why the thought of Margaret kept tugging on his mind. Was it because a man always carried with him a torch for his first love? For the girl who taught him how to explore the perfection of the female form and learn of its gifts? Or was it because he felt a deepening, gut-wrenching sadness for her? For what she had now become? He pushed the thought from his mind as he drove by a few small shack homes with even smaller sheds behind them and wound his way around to Old Kirtland Highway. He turned right at Golden’s Food Store and headed east.

Arthur covered the two miles between Fruitland and Kirtland in roughly five minutes before turning south onto 6400 across from a white aluminum building with corrugated sides wearing a black spray can of graffiti on its front wall. He was wishing his wolf-dog, Ak’is, was with him. At least he would’ve had someone to talk to while driving. A one-sided conversation was better than none at all, he figured, but the reality was that it was far too hot for Ak’is to be cooped up in the Bronco while he was talking to people and trying to get information. At least, he reflected, talking sounded better than interrogating.

The parched earth that surrounded most of the homes down 6400 was scattered with sparse trees big enough to be called shade trees and were offset by those brandishing a few green lawns. Stacks of piled branches littered the edges of the road around some of the homes as Arthur kept his speed to the prescribed twenty-five mph. He moved slowly down the empty street, past gravel parking areas, chain-link fences, and the scattered small rows of manicured shrubs that did their best to separate those few existing lawns from the street.

The subdivision looked to have been designed to be large and open, and the clear blue sky that hung above it made everything appear that way. He moved past the CenturyLink substation and the Kirtland Vet Clinic with its cinder block walls of pale yellow, toward the river and hopefully Jennifer Peshlakai’s trailer. Kids bounced on a trampoline in a backyard to his left, and he waved to them as he passed. He got no response, just stares at what they must have considered to be an unidentified intruding vehicle. Approaching a tall row of trees shading a green lawn guarded by a white plank fence ahead on his left, he noticed the single-wide trailer across from the wooden fence Margaret had mentioned.

The street turned to packed gravel as he looked out to examine the barren land on the corner where the trailer sat. It was a forty-four-foot lime-green Bellavista with wooden lattice over the bay window that someone had added above the covered tongue on the front of the trailer. The aluminum skin of its sides was dented and well-worn from years of bad weather and neglect, and the corner dirt lot seemed strewn with rocks and clusters of small tufts of weeds. A cinder block firepit sat far enough from the trailer to be considered safe and surrounded a captive pile of charred logs that had been allowed to burn out on their own.

The whole lot could have been used for parking since it was devoid of any other usefulness, and the only tree visible stood on the other side of the trailer but offered it no useful shade. Arthur made note of the five windows facing the street and of the two doors, the main one most likely entering into a kitchen seating area while the other probably gave egress to a back bedroom. One of the windows he could see was open because the yellowed lace curtains moved in the hot breeze. The steps leading up to the front door were a mixture of leftover aluminum siding and graying wood, and the Yamaha ATV squatting beside them led Arthur to believe someone was home. No one leaves six to eleven grand standing alone like a bashful boy at a dance without an eye to watch over it.

He took a deep breath and drove the Bronco onto the dirt lot and parked near the ATV. A cloud of dust wafted past him as he got out and closed the door. The door once again made that same reverberating hollow sound that always rang in his ears. The only difference was today it sounded as hollow as Margaret’s heart.

Arthur made his way to the rickety steps and rapped his knuckles on the storm door. After thirty seconds, he knocked again. This time more firmly, rattling the aluminum and plexiglass of the door. Another thirty seconds passed before the inside door swung open and a Native woman appeared. Her black hair was tied back into a ponytail due to the heat, as Arthur knew from Sharon’s past hairstyles, and she wore a ribbed blue Henley tank top with the first two snaps unsnapped. A pair of white shorts cut short enough to expose the front pockets below the frayed edges led to muscular legs that ran down past where the storm door hid her calves and feet.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“Are you Jennifer Peshlakai’s mother?”

The woman looked at him suspiciously. “She in trouble again?” Arthur watched her eyes glance up the street. “What’s she done now?”

“Do you think I could come in out of the heat?” He wiped his forehead. “And do you suppose I could trouble you for some cold water?”

“You some kinda cop?” the woman said. “Show me a badge.”

Arthur put a tentative foot on the bottom of the uneasy steps. The wind had changed direction and brought with it the aroma of shallow, slow-moving river water evaporating over scattered rocks in the hot sun.

Perhaps, Arthur thought, Jake was right about the PI thing. He could have business cards to hand out that would bypass all this wordplay. “Not a cop,” he said, “Diné or otherwise. I just need to speak with your daughter. Is she home? I’m hoping she may know something about the two boys that were killed out by Flat Iron Rock.”

The woman bristled. “Why would she know about that?”

“Because she was a friend of the boys who were killed. And from what I’ve been told, she was a rather close friend. I just need to ask her some questions.”

“If you’re not a cop, what did the boys mean to you?” She looked up the street again.

“Their mother asked me if I would look into it, see if there was anything I could find out.” He paused. “I’m hoping your daughter can help me do that.”

The woman ran a bruised hand over her forehead and opened the storm door. “C’mon in. But make it quick. My husband will be home soon, and you don’t want him finding you here.”

“Jealous type?”

She let the storm door rattle shut before pushing the entry door closed. “He’s a achoʼ.”

Arthur held back a smile. Calling her husband a dick had said it all. As he glanced around the disheveled trailer, he could hear the AC unit on the roof trying its best to make it comfortable during the heat of the day. But, Arthur noted, it also didn’t help that the window where he had seen the curtains moving was missing its glass. The rest of the windows were covered in patterned curtains that at one time had the matched the seat cushions of the dinette. Now both looked as worn out as the trailer’s shell did.

“Is your daughter here?”

Jennifer Peshlakai’s mother pulled a cold bottle of water from the small refrigerator in the tiny kitchenette and handed it to her unexpected guest. Arthur took it and unscrewed the cap.

“No, she’s not,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since I heard the news about the boys.”

The fact that it seemed not to bother her gave him pause. “Have you tried calling her?”

“Of course I’ve tried. Several times.” She stepped over to the patterned covered window and peeked out. “It’s not like her. She always answers.”

Arthur took a drink of the water. “Did you report her missing?”

“What for? She’s a teenager. She’s stayed away before.”

“She’s probably scared to death.” Arthur said, replacing the cap and rubbing the cold bottle over his forehead. “Does her phone have one of those tracking apps?”

She backed away from the window and stood with her arms crossed, her breasts testing the strength of the remaining two snaps of the tank top. “No.” She huffed. “We’re lucky we even have those damn phones.”

Arthur took another gulp and said, “Is there anywhere she might go? Someone she might turn to for help if she were in trouble?”

“Ah, fuck, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t get too much involved in her life. Kids today just want to be left alone. So I left her alone.”

Arthur said nothing.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She went back to the window for another quick peek. “You think I didn’t watch my kid enough, follow her every damn move. Well fuck you! I don’t need your judgment. I get enough of that from the ignorant whites I meet.” She checked the wall clock hanging above the doorway into the back bedroom. “You better get the hell outta here before my husband gets home. You’ve had your water and I’ve answered your questions.”

Arthur gulped down the last of the bottle’s water, put the cap back on, and set it on the worn laminated countertop of the kitchenette.

“Do you know where Tiffany Maldonado lives? Maybe her mother might know something.”

“She hasn’t been home either,” Jennifer Peshlakai’s mother told him. “I called her the night Jenny didn’t come home. You can’t separate those two, you know? BFFs and all that shit.”

Arthur thought for a moment, then asked again but in a different way. “Do the girls and the Tabaaha boys have any mutual friends at the high school? Somebody they might turn to?”

Arthur watched her check the window again and wondered what it was like to live in that kind of fear. He remembered Sharon doing a story on domestic violence among Native people. Her research showed that Native American women suffered from a domestic abuse rate 85 percent higher than the national average. But those were just statistics; this was right in front of him.

There were no bruises he could see, beyond those on her hand, and those were probably defensive. But that didn’t mean they weren’t on other parts of her body covered by her clothes. “How long has your husband abused you?”

Jennifer Peshlakai’s mother looked startled. “He’s never—”

“That’s not what the black and blue on your hands say. You could always pack a bag and go to the Family Crisis Center or the Navajo United Methodist Center, both of which are nearby in Farmington.”

“I told you, he’s never touched me.” She looked at her hands briefly. “I took a spill on the ATV the other day. That’s all. I don’t need CYFD.”

Arthur thought hard about his next question. Because if he were right, the Children, Youth, and Families Department was her next step. “Has Jennifer’s father ever abused her?”

“Stepfather,” she corrected. “And fuck you! Who the fuck you think you are anyway?”

“It’s obvious you’re afraid of your husband, or you wouldn’t be checking the window so often. I’m guessing you keep your bruises well hidden. If he’s ever abused Jennifer, then I’m also willing to bet there’s someone at school she confides in who may know where she might be hiding.” He noticed her begin to pace like a caged animal. “Tell me who you think that person might be, and I’ll leave right now.”

She grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a kitchen drawer and lit one, nervously. Shutting the drawer, she tossed the pack and lighter on the dirty countertop.

“Besides those two Tabaaha boys, there was this one kid she hung around with.” Arthur watched her take a drag and hold it in. He held his own breath waiting for her to exhale. When she did, a gray fog filled the close air of the trailer as she spoke. “There was a Filipino kid … Jason Aquino, I think.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Hell, no,” she declared. “Somewhere across the river is all I know. They had a couple of classes together.” She took another drag on the cigarette and pointed her chin in the direction of the school. “Why don’t you go there and bug them?” Before he could answer, she opened the trailer door and blew the cloud of toxins outside. “Now get the hell out. I told you what you wanted to know.”

Arthur nodded, pushed open the storm door, and trotted down the few steps to the ground. He let out his captive breath and took a gulp of fresh air that tasted like slow-­moving river water. Just as he hit the ground, he heard the trailer door slam shut behind him. Without looking back, he walked to the Bronco and climbed in. After the engine’s eight cylinders fired, he pulled the shifter into reverse and began to back up just as a gray Chevy pickup pulled in behind him and blocked him. A white man of average height and build jumped out, ran to his driver’s-side door and yanked it open.

Arthur had just enough time to slap the shifter back into park before he was hauled from the Bronco and slammed against its side. “Why the hell you coming out of my house, asshole? I don’t like guys coming outta my house when I’m not there. It makes me think bad thoughts.”

Arthur remained calm and went to work quickly. Using the strength of his upper body, both of his arms rose abruptly, taking his attacker off guard. He extricated himself from the man’s grip and gave a sharp knee to the groin which doubled him over enough so Arthur could drive his right elbow hard into the left side of the man’s face, causing his head to snap sharply to the right. Quickly clasping his two fists together, Arthur brought them down on the base of the man’s neck, driving him to the ground.

As Arthur stood while his attacker rolled on the ground, he glanced at the laced window of the trailer. He saw Jenifer Peshlakai’s mother watching as the man—or at least who Arthur now presumed was the stepfather—continued to rock in pain. Arthur knelt down and grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his bruised and bleeding head backward.

“You know what I don’t like?” Arthur said. “I don’t like assholes who get off on beating up women. So when I find your stepdaughter, if she tells me you’ve ever touched her, you’ll have more to worry about than Child Protective Services. You’ll have me coming back here and dragging your worthless ass out of that bed and separating you from your balls with my sheep shears!” Arthur’s hand tightened further around the fistful of brown hair. “Do you understand?”

The stepfather made meager yet agonizing noises through his pain, muffled a bit by the tears he was shedding and the blood that was coming from his mouth. He still did not reply to Arthur’s question. So he asked again, this time using his other hand to put a vice grip on his genitals.

“I said, do you understand? A simple ‘yes’ will do.”

Jenifer Peshlakai’s mother watched attentively … smiling.

“Yes!” the man cried out.

Arthur released his grip and let the stepfather fall backward onto the hard ground. “Have a nice day.”

Arthur stood and climbed back into the Bronco, quickly pulled the shifter into gear, and drove in a tight circle on the lot before heading back up 6400 wondering if had just made things worse. Probably not, Arthur grinned. Who was the guy going to tell? Besides, the whole trip may have been a dead end anyway. He wondered if perhaps Sharon knew anyone at Kirtland Central High. He decided to have her see if she could find out where Jason Aquino lived while he made the drive toward Counselor. It was about time he visited his old acquaintance and got some answers.