No One Left, page 24
“You sure about that?” Lark asked.
“Pinter can back me up.”
James nodded.
Sanchez knew he would not be sleeping that night, so when James and Molly went back to the hotel, he stayed at the station, finishing the paperwork, putting everything in order to take the judge first thing in the morning. He was no longer frightened by Vasco. He was just angry.
Sanchez waited by his radio for confirmation that CJ had been picked up before he and James walked into the attorney general’s office with the arrest warrant.
When Vasco saw them, he smiled. “Just the men I’ve been looking for,” he said.
“Sadly, we’re not here for a social visit,” James said. Sanchez felt like he suddenly had something stuck in his throat. He took a second to compose himself.
“Curtis Vasco, you’re under arrest for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.” The man was still smiling, and Sanchez could hear the quaver in his own voice as he went on. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”
James approached the AG as Sanchez spoke.
“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”
Vasco said, “Oh yes, I understand.” He still looked calm. Clearly, he still thought they had nothing on him.
“Please put your hands behind your back,” Sanchez said. The AG complied, and James clicked the handcuffs around his wrists.
“What’s all this about, Gabriel? Surely this is a mistake.”
“It’s about you being a murderous, cowardly piece of shit,” Sanchez said. James raised an eyebrow in warning and so Sanchez added, “Sir.” James chuckled at that.
“Your P.I. friend has misled you,” Vasco said.
Strangely enough, Sanchez realized he’d wanted to believe that not twenty-four hours ago. He almost had. He knew now, though, that the AG was goading him for information. He was already building his own defense in his head.
“You would think,” Sanchez said, yanking Vasco by the arm James wasn’t holding, “that an attorney general would know to keep his mouth shut while being arrested. I don’t want to hear another word.”
Sanchez needed sleep. He was crazy with exhaustion. But his adrenaline hadn’t come down yet, and so he sat on the balcony of the hotel room with James while Molly slept inside. They were both drinking beers, and it was helping.
“I hate to say it,” James said, “but this case is gonna be a nightmare.”
“I know,” Sanchez said. “I’m willing to fight it out.”
“You’ll only be able to do so much,” James said. “The rest is up to those judges and lawyers, and they’re all Vasco’s buddies.”
“I know.” Sanchez stared at the night sky. The room faced away from the city, and it was dark out there. Peaceful. “You think he’ll get away with it, then?”
“Well, I doubt he’ll get a life sentence. I’ll be shocked if it even makes it to trial.”
“You mean the AG. But CJ . . .”
“We’ll see just how bad of a father he is, I suppose.”
Sanchez took a long sip of beer. “You think Lark will ask me to join homicide?”
James sucked his teeth. “I don’t know. But I will say this, narcotics is a great place to get your feet wet. You see it all. There are so many criminals connected to the drug trade in one way or another. And as you saw, warrants are so damn easy to come by.”
Sanchez smiled. “You just want a man inside narcotics.”
“It’s been nice,” James admitted. “I know how much you want homicide. I’d be happy for you. But homicide is brutal. Day in, day out, seeing the absolute worst of people. I have no doubt you can handle it. Still, my advice is to get a little more experience under your belt. You’ll get that in narcotics.” James chuckled. “Now, me. I didn’t have a choice. I had to do it all. I liked that though. Never knew what the day would bring.”
Sanchez knew James was probably right. Working next to him made Sanchez feel like a real amateur.
“Did you get paid for this case? Before . . . you know . . . we lost Isaiah?”
“A little,” James said. “Isaiah’s friend, Peter, offered to pay the rest.”
Sanchez sipped. “That’s good of him.”
“I’d rather not take it from him, but I guess I have to. I can’t keep working for free.”
“Lark ought to pay you, too.”
James smirked. “I won’t hold my breath.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Sanchez raised his beer in a toast, and James clinked it with his own.
72
KAY
Kay started to sob before Adriel even noticed her. The woman who opened the door for her and Wayne stood to the side, revealing Adriel on the couch, reading something. But then he must have heard them, because he looked up, grinned from ear to ear, and ran into Kay’s arms.
She fell to her knees that way, clutching Adriel, and he did, too. He let her cry into his hair.
“Oh, sweetie,” she finally said. “I’ve missed you.”
She didn’t look for George when she finally disentangled herself from Adriel’s little arms. And when George entered the room, she didn’t acknowledge him. No explanation he gave would ever make up for taking her nephew. Or for the endless hurt he had caused families and struggling parents on the reservation. Struggling just like Linda—her sister, his wife—once had. Even though she now knew he wasn’t a murderer, she could never forgive him, though she also knew she’d have to find a way forward for Adriel’s sake.
She let Wayne speak to George and hoped that even though he hadn’t technically broken any laws, there would still be some sort of punishment involved. Kay had been keeping a mental list of George’s wrongdoings in case Wayne needed any help.
As soon as she stopped crying, Adriel tried to sign to her. She wanted desperately to understand, but of course she didn’t. She turned back to the woman, Cynthia, to ask for a pen and paper. That was when she noticed the older man walking toward her. Lester Tallsalt. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He didn’t offer any kind of greeting. Rather, he looked at Adriel. He sat down across from the boy, on the edge of the coffee table.
“He’s saying he missed you,” Lester said.
Adriel gave the man a strange look. It wasn’t quite anger, but something like it. But then he calmed. His brow smoothed.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Kay said. “Are you hurt? Were you afraid? I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”
“He says he’s not hurt. He was afraid for a little while. And then angry. At me and his dad. He says it isn’t your fault.”
“Did you teach him this?” Kay asked.
“Yes,” Lester said, finally looking at her.
“You learned so much so quickly,” Kay said to Adriel. He smiled wide again.
“He’s a very quick learner,” Lester said.
“Why did you bring him here?” she asked.
“Cynthia doesn’t know George. Doesn’t have any connection to him. I thought we needed to get a little farther away. Buy ourselves some time. And I knew she could teach Adriel while we waited.”
“Waited for what?”
“I’m part of a larger organization of lawyers dedicated to seeing ICWA upheld and followed. I’m working with a colleague in New Mexico to protect Adriel from what happens next.”
Kay wondered what would happen next. She knew about the adoption papers. It was part of the reason she couldn’t bring herself to look at George. She wanted to ask this Lester Tallsalt what he meant by that. But she also wanted to enjoy this moment with Adriel. She wanted that more.
“I read about your life,” Kay said. “About what you did to your son.”
“I can never take it back,” Lester said. “But I can help other kids. I dedicated my career to it.”
Kay looked up at Cynthia, who stood a polite distance from both conversations happening in her home.
“She taught you sign language?” Kay asked.
“She did. Cynthia is like my daughter. She was very close with my son. I had hoped they would get married. But Roland was such a lost and troubled boy. We all tried to help. But we couldn’t.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No. I received a postcard a year ago. He was in Nevada. I tried to go to the address, but he’d already left.”
“I’m sorry,” Kay said. She knew that as an elder, Lester had been through so much more than she understood. As they spoke, Adriel had slowly made his way into her lap and now rested his head against her chest.
“How will I learn sign language?” Kay asked.
“Adriel will teach you. I know he’ll be great at it,” Lester said.
Kay could feel Adriel’s head shift and thought he had smiled at that.
Lester walked away, then, and Ariel sat straight up on Kay’s lap, looking at her. He pointed his finger into her chest and made a sign.
“Kay?” she guessed. He smiled and nodded. Then he pointed to himself and made a series of signs.
“Are you spelling out your name?” she guessed. He nodded again.
“How about home?” she asked. “How do you do that one?”
He cupped his hand and touched it to his mouth and then his temple. Kay tried it next.
“Let’s go there,” she said. “I think it’s time to go home.”
73
MOLLY
Molly had gone back to the juniper trees weeks ago. The berries she and Adriel had left on the ground were no longer blue but now brown like the dirt. The meat of the berries had indeed been picked away, and what was left were somewhat round, somewhat oval shells. She gathered as many as she could and kept them for when Adriel returned.
Now, she and Adriel sat on the floor of Kay’s living room, threading strings through the beads Kay had made from the shells. They worked quietly and contentedly, making necklace after necklace. There wasn’t a plan, exactly, but just the act of being together, finally, after so long apart, gave them joy.
The Navajo called these ghost beads, Molly had learned. They were thought to bring protection to whoever wore them, keeping them safe from evil. Molly imagined handing these necklaces out to every kid on the reservation.
She supposed she was glad the attorney general and his son had been arrested. That they would be tried and hopefully jailed. But she also realized how much work still needed to be done. She’d been helping Barbara with the families from the intake list the last couple of days. Not speaking to them. The matter was too delicate for Molly, an outsider, to be doing that. But she did help with the research. Tracking down the paperwork, the adoption records, the child services reports—which were actually NMCA reports that had just been stamped by New Mexico Child Services.
The work Molly was doing would help Adriel’s lawyer, too. The children’s journey through the New Mexico foster care system—and the Children of God Home—revealed Donald Andrews’s methods. The guidelines for these social workers needed to be rewritten. They needed to be adjusted for the Navajo way of life. The way they raised their children. In a community. Most of all, this work needed to be re-delegated back to the government, who had a better chance of being impartial or at least held accountable. Who would, hopefully, seek out Navajo families first when searching for homes for these children.
She had also found herself thinking about Isaiah Winters a lot. He seemed to be forgotten in all of this. The Vascos had admitted to killing Cathy and the judge but hadn’t said a word about Isaiah. James promised they would consider Isaiah’s murder, too, while building the case, and they might be able to get a confession in a plea deal.
Molly had written a letter to Peter the night before. She told him how sorry she was for his loss. That even though she hadn’t known Isaiah well, he had trusted her with information and treated her with respect, and she would never forget that. She told Peter that what he had done for Isaiah would impact the lives of so many children. She thanked him for his courage.
She finished another necklace, tied the ends together, and looked up at Adriel. He was still concentrating on his, his tongue sticking out just a little. Molly had never had a sibling. But she imagined this was how it felt. The love she had for Adriel. She waited until he looked up from his work and then she signed, “Beautiful.”
74
JAMES
It was dark out, and Adriel was asleep inside George’s trailer. George and James stood outside, James sipping a beer, George with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“I can’t ever repay you,” George said.
“I don’t need you to.”
“You never told Kay that we spoke?”
James sighed. “Once I had a look at the case, I knew you didn’t kill them. Can’t stand to see a man framed.”
George nodded. “I don’t know where to go from here.”
“You just focus on that boy. On bein’ a good dad. We all make mistakes. Hell, I made a giant one for near fourteen damn years. I can’t get that time back. You can’t undo what you did, either. But I’ll tell you what. Bein’ a dad is the best job there is. It’s a gift. You treasure that. You’ve got lots of years ahead with Adriel. Lots of time to show him what it means to be a dad, a man, a Navajo. A Christian, too.”
George nodded again. “Kay will never forgive me.”
“Maybe not. But she loves Adriel with every ounce of her being. You might not have a friend in Kay, but Adriel does. He has a fierce protector with Kay in his corner. Use that when you need to. She’ll do anything for that boy.”
George breathed deeply. “Thank you.”
James held out a hand, and George shook it. “Glad you’re both home.”
It was cold out now, the weekend after Thanksgiving. But still, a bead of sweat dripped down James’s back as he sipped water from a plastic cup. He and Wayne were shooting hoops outside the station. Wayne took one more shot before wiping his brow and joining James on the bench.
“George said he’ll testify to the US Attorney’s Office,” James said.
“He’ll be working with Barb to get some of those kids home, too,” Wayne said. “And helping to find others on the reservation doing what he was doing. And whatever else I come up with. He’s real eager to atone, it seems.”
James pulled his T-shirt away from his body. He was getting chilly now that he was cooling down.
“How about the AG?” Wayne asked.
“Both Vascos are out on bail. They expect the trial to be a real circus. If it even goes to trial.”
“I bet.”
“Haven’t heard anything more from Cecil,” James said. “But I assume he’s got something to do with Judge John’s disappearance.”
“I’m sure. Word on the council is that John was graciously given the ‘option’ to quietly resign. But first he had to officially deny Forever Families’ adoption request of Adriel Morris. Nobody has seen or heard from him since.”
James whistled. “Sure do hope he isn’t tied to a brick at the bottom of the San Juan River.”
“Not sure I care to look into it,” Wayne said, leaning his head back.
“Well, if John’s out there somewhere, the federal government will find him. He’s wanted in their case.”
“They make any arrests yet?” Wayne asked.
James shook his head. “They’re close, though. They’ve got what they need.”
He squinted. In the distance, he could see the big rigs on the highway looking like toy trucks. A green one, white one, black one. That life was only six months past, but it felt like a lifetime ago. It was already impossible to imagine his life without Molly in it. He was in awe of the little investigator she was becoming. He shook his head in disbelief at how lucky he was.
Wayne got up and stuck out a hand for James to shake. “Good work, cowboy.”
James smiled and shook Wayne’s hand. “You too, LT.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In response to more than one hundred years of Native American children being forcibly removed from their homes and sent away to either government boarding schools, religious boarding schools, or into the foster care system, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was enacted in 1978 by the United States Congress, one year before this story takes place. The law states that if a Native American child is removed from his or her home by Child Protective Services, the state must find extended family members to care for the child, if possible, and if not, another member of the child’s tribe. But a 2005 government report found that thirty-two states failed in some way to abide by this law.
Though not New Mexico specifically, some states have avoided their part in upholding the law by passing off responsibility to private organizations, who often profit from these children—sometimes by designating the Native American children as “special needs,” much like in this book. Since its passing, ICWA has been challenged numerous times in courts across the country. One of those cases—Haaland v. Brackeen—made it to the United States Supreme Court in 2023. The Indian Child Welfare Act was upheld at that time.
Beginning in the early 1800s, an unknown number of Native American children were forced to attend government and religious-run boarding schools across the country. The federal government has recognized 408 government-run boarding schools that operated between 1879 and 1969, while a separate nonprofit identified an additional 115 religious-run boarding schools, some of which operated as early as 1801. Evidence of physical and sexual abuse was found at many of the schools, and though school grounds are still being scoured in search of remains, the number of child deaths occurring at these schools is estimated to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.
