“Hold on. That blue sedan has been on our tail ever since we left the mediation. I wanted to see if it would keep following us, and unfortunately, it did. The driver parked over there.”
Palmer glanced out the rear window. “You realize this is the logical stopping point between Tuba City and the Grand Canyon.” She noticed him studying the vehicle. “But I remember seeing the car outside the hotel when Katie brought my things and took me to the meeting. And another time, too, at the Justice Center.”
If she had been in her unit, Bernie would have called Sandra and asked her to run a quick plate check so she’d have a better idea of what she was dealing with. In lieu of that, she resorted to plan B. “I’m going to go up there and talk to him.”
“You know the whole thing is about me.” Palmer grimaced “I’ll go with you.”
“No. Stay here and lock the doors.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave Palmer her fiercest look, then dialed Chee’s number and hung up when it went to voice mail. “Keep trying to reach Chee. Tell him where we are and about the car and that I’ll call him as soon as I know something.”
She touched the holster on her hip and opened the car door.
“Are you sure that—”
She cut him off. “Stay here and call Chee.”
She pulled her shoulders back, stood straight, walked to the sedan, and tapped on the driver’s window with her left hand, her right on the gun. A young man lowered the window. She showed him her badge. “I’m the driver of that Toyota you’ve been tailing.”
“Oh my God.” He slunk back against the car seat. “I didn’t know you were a cop.”
“Why were you following me?”
“It wasn’t you, I swear. I needed to talk to Palmer, and he kept blowing me off. I have to tell him something he ought to know for the mediation. There’s some bad dudes out there and I heard—”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“No. No, ma’am. You wanna see my license or something?”
“Definitely.”
Like the plates on his car, his license was from Arizona. She handed it back to him. “Come inside with me and we’ll talk where it’s warmer.”
When the young man climbed out of the car, she could see that he was small and lean. He zipped up a blue sweatshirt against the cold.
She motioned to Palmer to join them.
14
The restaurant occupied the back of the trading post, past racks of T-shirts with Kokopelli and petroglyph designs, Navajo-and Hopi-style necklaces made overseas, and vintage glass display cases with the real stuff. The Cameron Post, one of the few on the reservation that had once been run by a Navajo, featured supplies attractive to area residents as well as a wide spectrum of Grand Canyon souvenirs for travelers. The Navajo weaver who frequently demonstrated her craft as part of the post’s attractions had already left for home.
Bernie asked for a table for three near the windows facing the Little Colorado. The young man, looking sheepish, followed her and the hostess quietly to their seats. The ambience—the pressed tin ceiling and the huge rugs on the walls reflecting the variety of designs created on the Navajo Nation—gave the restaurant a feeling of times past. Undoubtedly many secrets had been shared here. Appropriate, she thought. A good place to figure out what was going on with this inept stalker.
The hostess offered them menus. After she left, Bernie said, “Mr. Palmer will be here in a minute. Anything you want to tell me before he shows up?”
“Are you really a cop?”
“Officer Bernadette Manuelito from Shiprock.”
“No kidding? I thought you were his girlfriend.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rocket.”
“Rocket? No, your real name. Just show me your ID.”
He looked straight ahead, then said, “Um, it’s Robert.”
She glared at him.
“Robert Palmer. I left my wallet in the car, but I can get it if you want.”
“Palmer, the same as Aza?”
“Yeah, Palmer like Aza, Arnold, Robert. Lots of us Palmers.” He opened the menu. “Are you buying?”
“Are you cooperating?”
He shrugged. “You sure are tough for such a short babe.”
Bernie couldn’t help but laugh. “You sure are tough for such a short guy.”
Robert smiled for the first time. “We gotta be, don’t we? We should let the lawyer buy. He has the money.”
“Are you related to Aza?”
Robert put down the menu. “We go way, way back, all the way back to his time in Shiprock. Back before he got to be a hotshot.”
He stopped talking as Aza approached the table and pulled out a chair. He sat between the young man and Bernie, his only option. Aza picked up the menu and studied it as though he’d never seen one before. Robert stared at the tabletop.
“Enough, you two. Tell me what’s going on here.” She turned to Robert. “You can start.”
But Aza spoke. “I told him back at the meeting I had nothing to say to him. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“Like you left me and Mom alone, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it. You’re so full of judgments and anger, and now you’ve got the police involved in our private—”
“Wait a minute,” Bernie said. “I invited him in. I don’t like being followed, and he said he wanted to talk about a plan to disrupt the mediation. I thought we both should hear him out. I didn’t realize he was your son.”
The conversation paused while the waitress took orders, a Coke for her, a burger for Robert, and a hot beef sandwich for the mediator. The break seemed to have calmed Robert, Bernie noticed, but Aza sat with clenched jaw.
Bernie said, “After the bomb in Shiprock, the Navajo Nation is keeping an eye on Mr. Palmer for his own protection. Robert, acting like a stalker is never cool, but with the mediation and all the security, it could get you arrested.”
“Dear old Dad would probably like that.”
“I wouldn’t like it. You don’t know a thing about me. That’s my fault, I guess.”
“You think?”
Bernie said, “Be kind to each other, you two.”
Her comment hung over the table as the waitress gave Bernie a Coke, brought tea for Robert, refilled the water glasses, and left.
“Kind?” Robert leaned back in his chair. “OK. Nice way to blow me off back at the meeting.”
“I’ve reached out to you more times than I can count, and you’ve ignored me. When you approached me at the session break? That wasn’t the place or the time for a father-son conversation. I take my work seriously. Not that you’d know anything about work. If it wasn’t for your mom’s boyfriend hiring you—”
Robert didn’t wait for Aza to finish. “How do you know that? Anyway, I’m not after a relationship with you, dude. I just needed to tell you something and you wouldn’t give me a chance, so I tried to talk to you at the hotel, but you took one look and had her, the officer, drive away. Like you’re scared of me or something.”
“I needed to go for a drive after hearing some bad news. It had nothing to do with you.”
The food arrived. Palmer sprinkled pepper on the gravy that covered his roast beef sandwich. “What happened to your glasses?”
“I got my eyes fixed.”