People Of Darkness

“Oh,” Sena said. The eyebrows rose again, asking why.

“She thinks an Indian did it. A Navajo. That it’s got something to do with religion, or witchcraft. Something like that.”

Sena thought about it. “Just the lockbox, that right? Nothing else missing?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Most likely somebody figured he kept his money in it,” Sena said.

“Probably,” Chee said.

“But she don’t think it’s that simple,” Sena said. It was a statement, not a question, and Chee didn’t answer it.

He was looking at a framed photograph on the wall behind the sheriff. It seemed to be a disaster scene, twisted steel wreckage in the foreground, a burned-out truck on its side, two men in khaki uniforms looking at something outside the frame, a police car and an ambulance of 1950 vintage. The scene of an explosion, apparently. A small white card stuck in the corner of the frame bore six typed names – all apparently Navajo. Victims, perhaps. The picture was grainy black-and-white, and glass and card were dusty. Sena inserted the pencil eraser between his teeth, leaned back in the swivel chair, and stared at Chee. The sheriff moved his jaw and the pencil waved slowly up and down, an ante

Chee described the hiding place for the box and how it had been pried open. “Nothing else was missing,” he said. “Lots of valuable stuff in the house – right in plain view. Silver. Rugs. Paintings. Worth a lot of money.”

“I imagine so,” Sena said. “Vines has got more money than Saudi Arabia. What’d she say about religion?”

Chee told him, outlining briefly Mrs. Vines’ account of her husband’s interest in the church of Dillon Charley, her speculation that something in the box was important to the cult, and that only Charley had known where the box was kept.

“Dillon Charley’s a long time dead,” Sena said.

“Mrs. Vines said he had a son. She figured he’d told his son about it years ago, and the son decided to come and get it.”

Sena sat immobile, studying Chee. “That what she figured?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“The son’s name is Emerson Charley,” Sena said. “That ring a bell?”

“Faintly,” Chee said. “But I can’t place him.”

“Remember that killing they had in Albuquerque in August? Somebody put a bomb in a pickup and it killed a couple of fellows in a tow truck trying to haul the pickup away. That was Emerson Charley’s pickup.”

Chee recalled having read about it. It was a puzzling case. “I remember it,” Chee said. “Understand they think the bomb was intended for one of the big shots at the hospital. Divorce settlement or argument or something, from what I heard.”

“That’s what the Albuquerque police seem to think,” Sena said. His tone was skeptical.

“Anyway, Mrs. Vines figures Emerson got the box. She wants me to get it back from him.”

“Emerson didn’t get the box,” Sena said. He reinserted the pencil and chewed on it. His eyes were on Chee, but his attention was far away. He sighed, shook his head, scratched his left sideburn with a thick forefinger. “Emerson’s in the hospital,” Sena said. “BCMC in Albuquerque. If he’s not dead, that is. Last I heard, he was in bad shape.”

“I thought he didn’t get hurt,” Chee said.

“He was already hurt,” Sena said. “He’d gone to the hospital to check into that Cancer Research and Treatment Center the university has there. The son of a bitch is dying of cancer.” He focused on Chee again, and emitted a snort of ironic laughter. “The APD and the FBI between ’em couldn’t figure out why anyone would blow up a Navajo when he’s already dying.”

“Can you?” Chee asked.

The pencil waved, up and down, up and down. “No,” said Sena, “I can’t. Not a thing. Did Mrs. Vines say anything to you about some people they used to call the People of Darkness?”

Sena made the question sound casual.

“She mentioned it,” Chee said.

“What did she say?” The sheriff’s voice, despite his efforts, was tense.

“Not much,” Chee said. He repeated what Rosemary Vines had told him about her husband’s interest in Dillon Charley’s church, about his contributing money, helping members when they were arrested, and giving Charley something “lucky” from the box – perhaps a talisman, Chee guessed.

Halfway through it, Sena stifled a yawn. But his eyes weren’t sleepy. “Like she said herself, it was all pretty vague,” Chee concluded.

Sena yawned again. “Well, I’ll send somebody out tomorrow or so and get all the details. No use wasting your time.” Sena examined the pencil top. “You weren’t figuring on taking that job, were you?”

“Hadn’t really decided,” Chee said. “Probably not.”

“That’d be the best,” Sena said. “It was like I was telling you that day you first came in here and introduced yourself – that first week you replaced old Henry Becenti. Like I was telling you then, this jurisdiction business can be a real problem if you ain’t careful with it.”

“I guess so,” Chee said. As far as he could remember, jurisdiction hadn’t been discussed during that brief meeting. He was sure it hadn’t been.

“I don’t know if you ever worked out here on the Checkerboard Reservation before,” Sena said. “You’re driving along and one minute you’re on the Navajo reservation and the next minute you’re in Valencia County jurisdiction and usually there’s no way in God’s world to know the difference. It can be a real problem.”

“I bet,” Chee said. The Navajo Police lived with jurisdiction problems. Even on the Big Reservation, which sprawled larger than all New England across the borders of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, jurisdiction was always a question. The serious felony brought in the FBI. If the suspect was non-Navajo, other questions were raised. Or the crime might lap into the territory of New Mexico State Police, Utah or Arizona Highway Patrol, or involve the Law and Order Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Or even a Hopi constable, or Southern Ute Tribal Police, or an officer of the Jicarilla Apache tribe, or any of a dozen county sheriffs of the three states. But here on the southwestern fringe of the reservation, checkerboarding complicated the problem. In the 1880s, the government deeded every other square mile in a sixty-mile-wide strip to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad to subsidize extension of its trunk line westward. The A amp;P had become the Santa Fe generations ago, and the Navajo Nation had gradually bought back part of this looted portion of its Dinetah, its homeland, but in many places this checkerboard pattern of ownership persisted.

“Tell you the truth, Becenti and I had us some trouble when he first took over the Crownpoint station. The Tribal Council had just passed itself a law outlawing peyote, and they were cracking down on the church. You old enough to remember that?”

“I knew about it,” Chee said.

“Old Henry got pretty carried away with that,” Sena said. “He got so interested in rounding up the peyoteheads that he’d forget where the reservation boundary was and he’d get over into my territory. So I had my boys arrest some of his boys and one thing and another, and finally we got together here and worked out a way so we wouldn’t interfere in one another’s business.” Sena’s eyes were intent on Chee’s face, making sure he’d understood the lesson.

“I’d think enforcing that peyote ban would have been Lieutenant Becenti’s business,” Chee said.

“Normally,” Sena said, “yes. This time, though, we were looking into another crime and Henry was messing us up.” Sena wiped away the disagreement with a wave of his hand. “The point is we learned how to coordinate. Like I’d call Henry when some-thing Navajo came up and find out where he was on it. And Henry’d call me when he had something that was crossing the Checkerboard lines and ask me if we was touchy about it. And if we was touchy, he’d stay over on the reservation and let it alone.”