Free Turquoise Girl by David Thurlo Page B

up to get gas at the pump outside. A glonnie, nobody important.”
    Navajos often referred to the drunks as glonnies. It was an Anglicized version of the Navajo word. But the word could fit a lot of people. “I’ll need a name.”
    “Marco Pete. You’ve seen him. He takes his half of the road out of the middle. It’s a wonder he’s still alive.”
    Ella knew whom he meant. But it wasdoubtful that Marco had been the perp. His hand-to-eye coordination was nothing more than a distant memory, even when sober. She still remembered the comment he’d made last time Joe Neskahi had arrested him for DWI. In olden days the only time a man would cut his hair was after a long illness. Seeing Joe’s short military buzz, he’d asked very sympathetically how long Joe had been sick.
    “Was hedrunk?”
    “Not at the time. When he comes in I always watch him. If he has trouble finding the hose on the pump, I won’t let him fill up his tank.”
    “Any idea where I might find him?”
    He nodded slowly. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. He drove off the road and ended up in an arroyo. He’s at the hospital in bad shape, last I heard.”
    “Getting back to Reverend Campbell. Did you notice anythingunusual about his behavior when he came in and you spoke to him?”
    “He didn’t have blood on his hands, or look like he’d been in a fight or anything, if that’s what you’re really asking.”
    “No. Just looking for other potential witnesses.” Ella slipped a card out of her wallet and placed it on the table in front of him. “If you remember anything else, call me.”
    He nodded. “You telling Jane?”
    “I came to interview a witness. What you choose to tell your wife is your business.”
    He suddenly looked more hopeful than he had since she’d walked in.
    “I’ll think hard on this. Maybe I can remember something else,” he said in a hopeful voice.
    Ella was almost out of the kitchen when he stopped her.
    “Wait. Something else about Reverend Campbell. He’s been trying hard to get new converts forhis church, stopping by to see people at their homes at night and asking them to come to church and be saved. And if you’re polite to him, he keeps coming back. I think that’s half the reason he’s always stopping by the store for this and that—and what he might have been doing last night. Me and Jane are on his radar, and there have to be others along the street. Does that help?”
    “Maybe. Thanksfor letting me know.”

Five
    Ella headed to the hospital. She needed to meet with Carolyn and, if Marco Pete was in any condition to answer questions, she’d need to talk to him as well. Ella had just reached the tribal vehicle when her cell phone rang. It was Justine.
    “We’ve processed Tso’s home. We found the cash box from the center, still locked,and a handful of expensive-looking watches and rings that are definitely not his style.”
    “Anything at all that might link him to the murder?”
    “We found a letter from Valerie on his kitchen table. No date. It looks like a match to her handwriting and, in it, she wrote that she wanted to get back together with him and that he still meant a lot to her. It’s signed ‘Val.’”
    “That supports Gilbert’sclaim that she’d loaned him money,” Ella said. “Okay, let’s follow that up. Interview Gilbert again when you get back to the station and see what he has to say. He might have overreacted if she was pressuring him, and something like that could have led to a fatal confrontation.”
    As Ella drove to the hospital, she was glad to see that the haze blanketing the river valley, pollution mostly fromthe coal power plant, had cleared out because of the breeze. The pollution that came from the smokestacks was believed to be responsible for many birth defects in the area, though no one had ever been able to prove it. The plant itself had been built in the early 1970s so it wasn’t required to meet the modern-day standards set by the EPA. Most of the