Bernie stood in the drive watching as Darleen’s car disappeared. Then she walked past the loom and climbed the steps into the trailer. The house, stuffy and lonely, added to her out-of-sorts feeling. A phone message from Louisa contributed to her funk.
“Can you call me when you get a minute? Or stop by anytime, you two. It always brightens Joe’s day to have you guys over.” Joe, of course, was the man she called the Lieutenant, the legendary Leaphorn, her mentor and Chee’s former boss. Recovery from the damage a crazed woman had done with a bullet to his brain was coming slowly.
She hadn’t been to see Leaphorn or Louisa, his housemate and more, in over a week. Life moved too fast. She’d be in touch after she learned what schedule Largo had planned for her. The only certain thing about police work, Bernie thought, was that you never knew what might come next. Largo mentioned that the techies had removed the questionable camera from her unit, and the DEA, or whoever, would check to see if perhaps someone could salvage the recording and the incriminating conversation it should contain.
She showered, put on her uniform, and headed to the office, hoping to take another look at the boxes of dirt before the DEA folk arrived. Coming in the station’s back door as she always did, she hadn’t even sat down when Sandra, the receptionist, buzzed her.
“There’s a gentleman here who needs to file an accident report.”
“I’ll be right out.”
She didn’t see many men wearing ties in Shiprock. A good bolo, maybe, but seldom an official necktie, even if the guy was due in court or running for Tribal Council. The light-skinned gentleman in the business suit, his hair cut close to the scalp, was the sort Bernie only encountered when she’d been arm-twisted into representing the department at a meeting someplace fancy.
“I’m Officer Manuelito,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to report some damage on my car. I was at that little restaurant down the highway from here, and somebody backed into me and then drove off. Not a lot of damage, but any little thing costs a fortune to fix.” His straight white teeth gleamed when he smiled at her. “So I need to file an accident report for my insurance.”
“I can help you with that.” She knew the café. It sat right off the main road north to Cortez and south to Gallup. It was Shiprock’s most popular place for travelers, both Navajos and bilagaana, and for locals too. The tight parking spots and steady traffic contributed to frequent accidents.
She called up the necessary file on her computer and typed in the date, learning that he drove a black Porsche Cayenne. He showed her a photo of the damage.
“I’ve never seen this kind of SUV. It looks like somebody crunched into your front bumper with a trailer hitch.”
“That’s what I thought. Whoever did it was long gone when I came out, and I didn’t hear a thing. Made an interesting dent. The car’s a hybrid, runs on battery power as well as gasoline. Helps save the planet, at least until we can buy solar cars.”
Bernie nodded, glad that the accident didn’t involve injuries or other complications. She’d finish this quickly and examine the dirt. “Your name, sir?”
“David Oster.”
“Address?”
He gave her an address in San Francisco.
“San Francisco? You’re a long way from home.”
“That’s right. I’m missing the fog but enjoying the sun.”
“Welcome to Navajoland. I’m sorry about your car. What brings you out this way?”
“The sun, actually. I’m with Primal Solar.”
“Primal Solar?” The name stirred a memory in the back of Bernie’s brain. “I’ve heard of that.”
“We’re the company responsible for some of those photovoltaic panels that got ripped in half by the wind or crushed by the snow. I’m here to make good on those mistakes and to find a site for our next solar farm.”
“Solar farm?” As far as she knew, every farm used the sun to make things grow.
“That’s engineer talk for an array of panels installed together to create a lot of energy, enough for the reservation and to ship to California. Solar power is the way of the future. Clean, renewable, nonpolluting. I can’t imagine a better project to spend time on.”
Some twenty thousand families lived on the reservation without power, as though they were in a third-world country. It was ironic, Bernie thought, since the Navajo Nation was home to some of America’s biggest reserves of coal and uranium, as well as abundant sun and wind for alternative energy. Bernie knew people who had tried solar power. At first they had been happy with their electricity for lights and refrigerators, then sad when the panels stopped working.
Oster continued explaining. “We’ll do some training and leave a pool of support personnel homeowners can call if they have problems down the line. We’re hiring.” He handed her a business card. “If you hear of people who could use a job, ask them to call or go to the website.”
“Do you have an office in Shiprock?”
“I’m working from my motel in Farmington for now, but I need an office here while we’re doing the assessments and making the repairs or replacements on the old system. Do you know of any space available?”
“Check the shopping center near Smith’s,” she said. “They had some empty storefronts last time I looked.”
“Smith’s?”
“That’s the big grocery.” She told him where to find it.
Bernie printed two copies of the form she’d put together and gave them to him. He pulled a slim silver pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, tapping it against the paper.
“I noticed that you spell Shiprock here as one word. I thought it was two.”
“The rock itself, the big blackish formation, that’s two words. The town is one word. The US Post Office wanted it that way.”
He smiled. “One more thing to confuse us newcomers. Here’s another question for you. Is there a Starbucks around here? Or someplace where I can get a latte and use Wi-Fi?”
“We’re still waiting for the first Shiprock Starbucks.” The wait would be indefinite, she thought. No one she knew would pay those prices for a cup of coffee. Well, maybe Darleen and her friends. “The library has Internet and computers. It’s across the highway from the medical center, near the Boys and Girls Club. As for coffee, I think the best is Giant.”
He looked puzzled.
“The Giant service station.”
He nodded. “Giant. That’s a new one on me. When I hear Giant, I think of the baseball team.”
Now she was puzzled.
“You know. The San Francisco Giants? The team that has solar panels at the ballpark?”
“I’m not really up on baseball. Basketball is king around here. The station is up there past the bridge.”
“I must have missed it.”