“I’m glad they brought in a mediator. Even though he’s Navajo, at least he’s a Native,” the one with the blue blouse said.
“You know the developer is underwriting everything, even though the Navajos are the ones who set it up. You think a person doesn’t know who signs his paycheck?” Her companion wore a wide silver bracelet in the classic Hopi overlay style, a bear-claw design cut into one piece of silver topped with another and then soldered together.
“Aren’t you the cynical one.” Blue Blouse patted her lips with a napkin. “The delegates, even ours, agreed on him. They could have opted for somebody else, but they thought this man had the integrity to do a good job. Give him a chance.”
“I hope that’s right. And I hope they come up with a plan that protects the sacred places. I don’t care what else the developer and those Navajos do out there.”
Blue Blouse laughed. “Yes, you do. You’d like your boys to be able to live closer. A resort out there would bring some jobs for everybody. You remember Michael’s girlfriend? The one from Third Mesa?”
“Sure. Did she finally get a job?”
“Not exactly but . . .”
The women talked on. Bernie added some salt to her stew and took another bite. She didn’t disagree with the women’s observations on the resort, but she didn’t know all the intricacies of the argument. Until the attack on Palmer that had drawn her in, she had been only peripherally interested. Not that development at the Grand Canyon wasn’t an important topic, but it had been under discussion since she was a girl, one of those issues that never got resolved and never went away.
On the way back in the car she checked her phone for messages. She’d turned it off at Leaphorn’s house out of courtesy and, she now realized, forgotten to turn it back on. When it powered up, she noticed two missed calls from Chee.
She sent a text: Surprise! Leaving Second Mesa now. See you soon. She called Leaphorn to thank him, got no answer, and remembered that the Lieutenant had his therapy appointment. She didn’t leave a message.
The Hopi villages were islands of Pueblo culture surrounded by the vast Navajo reservation. In a region known for long views and empty country, the arid and rugged Hopi mesas elevated landscape to a fine art. Navajo families and their sheep spread out over landscape like this; the Hopi people clustered together like bees in a hive. Many hives, actually, linked by shared ceremonies that brought the people of the mesas together.
She remembered Cowboy Dashee telling her that the gods had given the Hopi their sacred mesas because they didn’t want life to be so easy that the people forgot to pray. Indeed, the dry land made farming difficult. In the old days during the growing season the men of the Pueblo hiked down to the fields to tend their corn and then back up again each day to their homes. The ancient ways were fading, but many Hopi still farmed. The old village of Walpi, which some said was the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States, still had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Tribal members who wanted less isolation and difficulty lived elsewhere.
Dashee, Chee’s friend and now hers, had invited them to dances here. Someday, she told herself, she’d come up here to hear the drums and see the ceremonies.
She heard her phone buzz and reached over to extract it from the backpack on the seat next to her. It was Sandra from the office. She thought about ignoring the call for a split second, then picked up the phone and put it on her lap on speaker.
“Hey there.”
“Hi, Bernie. Where are you?”
“In Hopiland, on my way to Tuba City. I’m surprised you got through. What’s up?”
“A woman called for you, said it had to do with the bombing. I told her the rookie and the feds, mainly the feds, were working on that, but she said she needed to talk to you personally. She sounded upset.”
Policy was for dispatch to contact off-duty officers only if they thought an urgent message could not wait until the person returned to work. Sandra conscientiously refused to divulge personal phone numbers, but had trouble deciding what defined urgent.
“Who was it?”
“Wait, I’ve got it here. Lona Zahne.”
“Let me have her number.”
“I’ll text it.”
Bernie slowed as a truck loaded with firewood pulled out in front of her. “What else is happening back there?”
“The rookie has been talking a lot to Cordova. He’s all puffed up, like he’s personally made a breakthrough in the bombing case or something.”
“A breakthrough?”
“Oh, I’m just guessing. But I did hear that the feds identified somebody from the pictures you or the rookie took. Some bearded guy in the background looks kinda like someone wanted on some other bombing case.”
“Wow. That’s great. Thanks.”
“Be careful out there.” Sandra ended the call.
If there had been a breakthrough, Bernie wondered why Largo and Cordova hadn’t kept her in the loop. As the only two women in the Shiprock substation, Bernie and Sandra had a solid working relationship based on mutual respect. They didn’t make a big deal of it, but they watched each other’s backs.
The road climbed to Third Mesa and past some dry springs, then slipped down into the Moenkopi Valley, a sleepy place, gray now without the summer’s blessing of green cottonwoods and cultivated fields. Past Moenkopi, the Hopi tribal government had constructed the fancy Hotel Hopi, with a swimming pool and meeting rooms. She’d read that future development plans included a marketplace/fairground in the empty lot just beyond the hotel.
She was curious about the meeting and if Chee had adjusted to his unwanted assignment as bodyguard. And she wanted to call Cordova and talk to him about the person who had shown up on the video or the photos she—or the rookie—had taken. But first, she decided, she’d check into the motel.
That’s when the trouble started. The young man was polite but firm.
“I can’t give you a key to that room without Mr. Chee requesting it. Company policy. Sorry.”
Bernie frowned. “Let’s call him. He can authorize it over the phone.”
The clerk dialed a number and let it ring.
“Sorry, he’s not in the room.”
Bernie felt her patience growing thin.
“Of course he’s not. He’s working. Can you call his cell phone?”
The clerk looked at the registration information on the screen again. “He’s a cop, huh?”
“Right. Me, too.”
He looked at her skeptically, but dialed the number and left a message for Chee to call the motel. “Well, that didn’t work. Why don’t you just come back later?”
“No. I’d like to talk to the manager.”
“I can ask him to call you soon as he gets in, or you can come back in a couple of hours and talk to him. You’re welcome to wait in the lobby until we get this worked out.”
Bernie settled into a well-worn chair and called the number Sandra had texted for Lona.