Song of the Lion (Leaphorn & Chee #21)
Anne Hillerman
Dedication
Song of the Lion is dedicated to the men and women who work in law enforcement on the Navajo Nation and to the memory of Shiprock District
Officer and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Alex Yazzie, who gave his life on March 19, 2015, while responding to a domestic violence
incident.
1
Navajo Police Officer Bernadette Manuelito stood in the lobby of the Shiprock High School gym, fondly known as the Chieftain Pit of Pain, trying to decide if she should buy a hot dog or a Frito pie from the booster’s stand. Despite the decibel level produced by more than a thousand fans screaming and stomping on the bleachers, she recognized the new sound even as she felt the building shake.
She waited for the lights to go out, but they didn’t. The crowd in the bleachers grew quieter momentarily, enough that she could hear the shrill whistle of the official as he called a time-out. The older guys, a team assembled for homecoming from veteran players who had captured past state championships, had handed the upstarts more challenge than the kids expected. Spectators cheered every basket and blocked shot.
In Bernie’s mind, the noise from the parking lot changed everything. She nudged back her panic and hurried toward the exit, pushing through a few folks also hoping to leave the building. They sensed danger and wanted to escape; she headed toward it.
Her brain raced with scenarios. The explosion could be a bomb, and there might be more bombs out in the parking lot, hidden in the gym, even on the roof. The bomber could be lurking in the dark with a gun, waiting to pick off victims as they came into his sights. And there might be more than one perpetrator.
Because Shiprock, NM, was a small town, Bernie knew the gentlemen hired to provide security for the game. They knew she was a cop, even though tonight, off duty, she looked like a short young Navajo woman in jeans with a red Chieftains sweatshirt under her jacket. She approached the first guard she encountered, a portly man leaning against the wall, sipping on a drink from a blue plastic cup. “Henry, stand by the door. Keep everyone inside. I’m checking to see what happened out there.”
“OK. Why?”
“We don’t want anybody hurt. Have Larry help you.”
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Just do it.”
She ran outside.
The scene took her breath away. Orange flames blazed through a thick smoky haze, illuminating a mound of destroyed metal in the parking row closest to the gym and reflecting off other vehicles with broken windshields. A few car horns blared into the night, but alarms weren’t common here. The blast had ruined the security lights closest to the main doors of the Pit, but those farther from the scene illuminated the broken glass, bits of metal, and other debris that had flown everywhere.
She scanned the area for the bomber but saw no one. The wind blew the toxic stench toward her, searing her lungs and burning her eyes.
She jogged closer to the flattened pile of chrome, steel, and melted plastic, near enough to feel the intensity of the fire. She dreaded what she had to do next. If anyone had been inside what was left of the car, he or she wasn’t a person anymore. Bracing herself, Bernie peered through what would have been the windshield. Nothing in the wreckage looked even partly human. She exhaled and stepped back.
Had it been a bomb? Probably, she thought. Why else would a car explode in the middle of the night? Was the bomber out here waiting for a crowd to gather before detonating the next blast? Watching for the flash of emergency lights and uniforms to shoot first responders?
She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket.
Sandra, on duty at the Shiprock Police substation in dispatch, recognized her cell number. “Bernie?”
“I need all available backup ASAP to the parking lot at Shiprock High School gym. A car exploded. Lots of damage. I’m starting to look for victims. It’s bad.”
“Are you alone?”
“Except for the rent-a-cops and the thousand people inside for the game. I need help here faster than fast.”
“Got it.”
Bernie made a check of the proximity, stepping over or around the debris, using her phone as a flashlight to look inside the ruined cars closest to the one on fire. If the bomber, an accomplice, or a bystander had been injured by the blast, she had to find him.
She heard the gym doors open and close, saw the inside light beam into the dark night. She turned toward the sound and yelled, “I’m a cop. It’s dangerous out here. Go back inside.”
The door closed. She continued, checked inside and between the nearby cars, and saw no one dead, injured, or hiding. Several of the vehicles closest to the blast site had broken windshields and shattered side glass. Embedded bits of metal from the explosion had damaged others. She felt glass crunch beneath her boots.
Because the veteran players from the school’s past state championship teams had family, friends, and old fans in the area, the parking lot overflowed with cars, SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks. Basketball ruled the rez. Shiprock High School fans were famous for their loyalty to the Chieftains, both boys’ and girls’ teams, current contenders for the AAAA division title. Every Chieftains home game filled the three-thousand-plus-seat arena. Moms and dads, cousins and grannies lined up with folding chairs and coolers before the doors opened for the junior varsity game, followed by the B team, followed by the big event.
Tonight, they had packed the gym to the fire marshal’s advised capacity and probably beyond. The numbers meant confusion in the parking lot turned crime scene when the final buzzer sounded. It was the ideal setting for chaos.
Bernie wasn’t an expert on explosives—the Navajo Police relied on the federal agents for that. But if, as she expected, a bomb had caused the blast, she knew she and whoever arrived to help needed to preserve as much evidence as possible before the game ended. Among the people in the gym might be witnesses and even the bomber.
Having found no injured people, she used her phone for crime scene photos, beginning with the car that looked like the target vehicle. She stood in front of the flames, working quickly, listening both for help on the way and for the gymnasium door opening to release curious and probably scared basketball fans.
She put her hands in her pockets for warmth and felt the flyer a young man had handed her earlier calling for an environmental protest in Tuba City. Was the explosion a precursor to a weekend of trouble?