Free Turquoise Girl by David Thurlo

sixties, poked her head out a window. “Nobody’s home.”
    “Do you know where I can find Mr. Joe?” Ella asked, showing the woman her badge.
    The neighbor came out onto her front porch a moment later,motioning Ella over. “I’m Alice Bitsillie,” she said. “I recognized you when you drove up. I know your mother.”
    “I’m looking for Benny. Do you happen to know where he is?” Ella asked her.
    Alice nodded somberly. “His wife thinks he comes home right after work. Wait ’til she finds out he’s going to visit Margaret Napolean. You know who she is?”
    Ella nodded. She’d heard of Margaret. The departmentsuspected Margaret of moonshining, though they’d never been able to prove it.
    “I don’t know why he does it. Margaret’s nothing but trash and Jane’s a good, hard-working woman. But who knows with men? If you want to find him right now, I suggest you go over there.”
    “Thanks for the information.”
    “Do me a favor?” As Ella stopped, Alice continued. “Don’t tell him how you found out where he was.I don’t want problems with a neighbor.”
    Ella drove to the northwest side of Shiprock, past the old boarding school staff housing. The department had run a few stakeouts on Margaret’s place on weekends, hoping to get lucky and get enough evidence to tie her to some nasty batches of moonshine that cropped up on the Rez now and then. Unfortunately, due to their manpower shortage, they’d never beenable to maintain the kind of watch necessary to get the evidence they needed.
    Part of the problem was that Margaret had the sympathy of most of the officers. When money was tight, as it was all over the reservation, people often came up with entrepreneurial, if not legal, ways of making ends meet. And, as long as the brew didn’t make anyone go blind…
    A short while later, Ella pulled up in frontof a modern-looking home, one of the site-built houses that the Navajo Housing Authority had constructed for members of the tribe. The structure itself, instead of stucco, had siding and was well designed and constructed. Even from the outside, she could tell that it had a hogan-shaped great room on the east side. The front yard, landscaped with native plants that required little water, lookedwell kept and attractive. The tags on the late-model Ford pickup in the driveway matched Benny Joe’s.
    Ella got out of her unmarked police cruiser and went to the front door, ringing the bell. She didn’t have long to wait before Margaret answered. When Ella flashed her badge, Margaret sighed wearily. “Let me guess. You want to search my house. Again?”
    “No, that’s not what brings me here. I’vecome to talk to Benny. His truck’s in the driveway.”
    Margaret opened the screen door and waved her inside. “He’s in the kitchen,” she said. “And he’s a mess this morning, so go easy on him, okay?”
    “What happened?”
    “I’ll let you ask him yourself,” Margaret answered.
    When Ella entered the kitchen, she saw Benny sitting at the center island, staring forlornly at the mug of coffee he held betweenhis hands.
    “I knew you’d track me down,” he said glumly.
    As Ella sat across from him, she noticed that Margaret hadn’t followed her into the kitchen. Margaret knew the drill too well to want to stick around when police officers were asking questions.
    “Just tell me what I need to know,” Ella said flatly.
    “Okay, I admit it. I was the one who called the police about the trouble, and I didn’tleave my name. So what else do you need to know?”
    “Your store is a block away, so how did you find out what was going on? Start from there, and tell me everything you saw and heard.”
    He nodded, took a deep breath, then began. “There’s a shoe game every evening at Joe Curley’s house, down the street. So, every once in a while, I close up shop for an hour or so at around eight, and walk down tocheck out the action.”
    The shoe game, a popular way for Navajos to gamble, didn’t