Hoax: A Novel by Robert K. Tanenbaum

Author:Robert K. Tanenbaum [Tanenbaum, Robert K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2015-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

21

“GO AHEAD, MY SON,” FATHER EDUARDO SAID AS HE PLACED his arm around Charlie Jojola, who stood with his head down in front of his father, Marlene Ciampi, and Lucy Karp.

“You tell them,” the boy implored.

The priest shook his head. “It is not right for me to say something that was revealed in confession,” he said. “In fact, I cannot make you do this at all. But I think you know that you should.”

The boy nodded. He scuffed his feet in the sand of the recreation center courtyard, but wouldn’t look up or speak.

With his heart sinking, John Jojola thought this must be some new trouble his son was mixed up in. But he tried not to let the disappointment show in his voice. “Come on, Charlie, spit it out.”

Charlie frowned. “You’ll get pissed, and I won’t get my new shoes.”

“How did you know about the…,” Jojola began to say, then thought, Heck, teach a kid since childhood how to cover his tracks, he ought to be able to disguise that he’d been snooping in the old army chest I keep under the bed. “Doesn’t matter. Yeah, I may get angry if you’ve done something wrong, but a man takes responsibility for his actions whatever the consequences.”

Jojola stopped himself. He didn’t have the energy for this on Saturday morning after a long, sad week. Two days earlier, on Thursday, another boy had been reported missing from the reservation and was presumed dead. And a few days before that Char Gates had called to tell him that another grave had been found along the rim of the gorge about two miles south of the first one. “Same MO,” she’d said. “Throat slit. Rosary beads.”

Now, this fourth abduction had the reservation as stirred up as a nest of hornets. The hotheads were forming vigilante posses to roam the desert at night, and he was worried that they’d end up shooting each other or some tourist out for a moonlit hike. Angry words were also flying around about the lack of effective police work; never in front of his face, but he knew it when knots of men would stop talking as he approached. An agent from the Santa Fe office of the FBI had finally shown up on Friday, took a few notes, said he would talk to the sheriff about forming a multiagency task force, and left.

After the agent was gone, the pueblo’s council decided to close the reservation to all but tribal members. Jojola approved of the decision. It would be very hard for an outsider not to be noticed now, and the chances of some tourist getting shot for asking a child for directions would be greatly reduced. But the tribe counted on tourism dollars, and the decision was not an entirely popular one, especially at the height of the season; more accusations had flown about responsible parenting being a better alternative. Nor did closing the reservation mean the children were safe; with permission or without, leaving the reservation to hit the candy and toy stores was too much of a temptation, especially for the boys most at risk.

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