Death Walker (3 page)

“You’ve got it,” the sergeant answered. “Anything else?”

“I want both of you to go over the area with the usual fine-tooth comb. I want to make sure we don’t miss anything that’ll help us nail this animal.”

Hearing Carolyn clip out a
request that sounded more like an order, Ella turned around. Carolyn’s tone overcame Officer Frank’s reluctance, and he stopped to help her lift the bag containing the corpse into the medical examiner’s station wagon. With the body now securely inside, Carolyn slammed and locked the rear doors, then called to Ella.

Ella joined her. “You ready to roll?”

Carolyn nodded. “I’ll have a preliminary
report for you by tomorrow afternoon. The time of death, maybe this afternoon. We’re not exactly backlogged at the moment.”

“Thanks. I’ll need all the help I can get on this one.” Ella met Carolyn’s steady gaze. “I’ve got a feeling we’re not exactly going to find the killer’s misplaced driver’s license around here. But if we can get a lab to test the gum we discovered, and find it was left by
the killer instead of the victim, the saliva on it could confirm a suspect’s presence at the scene. That, of course, presupposes we have a suspect in mind to compare it to—which we don’t, at the moment. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, the killer was really careful not to leave behind anything else we can use. Certainly not the murder weapon, or even footprints.”

“Let’s see what the victim
can tell us. At least there we have something to work with.” As Carolyn slipped behind the wheel of the M.E. vehicle, she caught the look Officer Frank gave her. “You know, I was never one to run with the pack, but there are times when the personal isolation of this job really sucks.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“At least
you’re
starting to gain a little acceptance,” Carolyn said.

“No, not
really. I may get close, but I’ll never be ‘in’ completely. The department, for one, will never really welcome me with open arms. In a way, I suppose I can understand that.”

“You can?” Carolyn’s eyebrows dipped.

“Sure. First, I’m former FBI, and second, I’m a woman. Face it, that last part alone would have created problems. Guys, no matter what P.D. they serve in, tend to resent the presence
of women. Look at it this way: They put on their badges, and that becomes their trademark. They want the world to believe they’re the biggest, baddest guys around, and the crooks should all be shaking in their boots.

“Then they see someone else wearing a badge, only she’s prettier to look at, and undoubtedly smells nicer. It sorta smashes the tough-guy image they cherish in their little hearts.”

Carolyn laughed out loud. “When you put it that way, I can understand it too.” Ignoring the look Officer Frank shot in their direction, Carolyn put the wagon in gear and drove off.

Ella stayed, supervising the team as they gathered evidence, placing everything inside brown paper bags. She finished her sketch of the body and surrounding area, making note of the exact distances at the bottom of
the page as the detectives measured and called them out. Later the drawing would be redone to scale. Although they’d have extensive photographic records, photos sometimes gave a distorted view of the scene since measurements weren’t included with each photo.

Two hours later, the crime-scene unit packed up their equipment and the scant evidence they’d gathered and headed back to the station. Officer
Frank waited as Ella walked outward from the place the body had been in an expanding spiral, searching one last time for anything that might have been missed. Ella couldn’t help but notice that the officer was giving her a wide berth.

Jimmy shifted, visibly ill at ease. “If you don’t need me anymore, I’ll head back to the station and file my report.”

Ella nodded, her gaze taking in the area
methodically. Absently, she hoped Jimmy was happier with other sorts of crime scenes.

“Are you going to stick around long? There’s not much left to do here now.”

“I’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” she answered. “Thanks for your help. You handled everything like the pro I know you are.”

Jimmy shrugged, smiled briefly, then went to his unit and drove off.

Ella watched, lost in thought, until
his car disappeared from view. An eerie silence suddenly descended over the area. Even the birds were quiet. She suppressed the prickling of her skin that slowly traveled up her arms and neck. Something felt wrong. She shifted her gaze to study everything, missing nothing. That sixth sense most cops developed was working overtime now. The atmosphere of the place had changed, and it was not her imagination.
There was a foulness, an inexplicable something, that touched her heart with icy fear.

Ella placed her hand on the butt of her weapon, her body tense, and started moving slowly back toward her Jeep. No threat appeared. Still, she stayed close to the vehicle, knowing the engine block would provide the best cover around.

Then she heard the faint rustle of someone moving slowly through the brush.
Her gaze fastened on the piñons to her right. She crouched down on one knee, pistol now in hand, and waited.

The seconds seemed to stretch into eternities, but something told her to stay right where she was. She trusted that instinct; she had learned the hard way. Her eyes trained on the trees ahead, she waited.

Then she heard a faint padding of steps across the dew-hardened top crust of sand.
Abruptly a coyote stepped out into the clear and stood watching her, less than twenty yards away.

It was strangely fearless, not knowing she had her gun aimed at its lungs. The creature fixed its strange yellow eyes on her. Then it bared its teeth and growled sharply just once, as if telling her to back off. The sound penetrated her like a needle to the marrow. Her finger moved onto the trigger
but she didn’t fire.

For a second, both she and the creature stood their ground, the animal not knowing or caring that she held its life under her fingertip. Then, abruptly, the coyote turned and disappeared into the brush.

Ella stood up slowly, sweat pouring down her body. It was only an animal. She shouldn’t have let it rattle her. She walked in the direction the coyote had gone, wondering
what had brought it here. They usually stayed away from the road, unless there was a dead animal to scavenge upon. She studied its tracks, but only found a few where it had been standing. The animal had walked through the one area of solid sandstone around, making it almost impossible to track him.

She turned around and stared downhill, at the desert floor, which stretched toward distant mountains.
Was it skinwalkers, or just nerves? She wasn’t sure anymore. Experience had taught her one thing: Out on the Rez things were never quite what they seemed.

TWO

Ella drove back north to the station at Shiprock, staying within the speed limit and trying to sort out her thoughts without affecting her driving. Big Ed would be expecting a report from her, and she wanted to review mentally what she’d be telling the top cop.

As her surroundings shifted from piñon woodlands to high-desert terrain, Ella’s thoughts kept flashing back to the crime scene.
Ignoring the horror of the act itself, she tried to consider the evidence. Most of what they’d found would have to be shipped to the state crime lab in Santa Fe, and processing would take time. Local department facilities were limited to taking fingerprints when booking a suspect and simple blood-typing.

The FBI labs in Washington could do wonders with their state-of-the-art equipment in terms
of both speed and accuracy, if she could get them involved.

Almost an hour later she pulled into her parking space beside the station. She still wasn’t quite sure whether to tell Big Ed about the coyote. Big Ed was a no-nonsense cop. He had respect for the Navajo culture, but for police work he relied on facts—hard and straight. In her opinion, his biggest flaw was his lack of imagination. He
went strictly by the book. Ella suspected it was mostly because he didn’t know how to operate any other way and, for routine crimes, the strategy usually paid off.

Ella went directly to the chief’s office. After knocking on the open door, she walked in. Detective Harry Ute was already there, relaying the crime team’s findings to Big Ed. She nodded a greeting to both men, then sat and listened
until Ute was finished.

Then she gave both officers her preliminary report. “That piece of gum,” she concluded, “
if
we can link it to a suspect, might end up being our best piece of evidence. I just hope it didn’t belong to the victim, or one of those kids.”

“What about other prints, on the car, or on the artifacts?” Big Ed asked Ute.

“Everything was literally covered with prints. It’s hard
to isolate any single set. I can send what we have to the state crime lab in Santa Fe. They have the LP50. They can check what the system has on file against the prints, something like a million on record. If they can get a match-up, then we’d have a suspect with a record, and a starting point for our investigation.”

“That search will take a while, even with luck. They’re backlogged over there
with staff and budget cuts,” Ella observed.

Ute shrugged. “We also have our own files to check.”

“That gum was fresh. If it belonged to the killer, then we can use it to rule out the students and others we round up along the way. The FBI has tests that could give us a blood type based on the saliva, and some other identifying factors as well. It might help us narrow down the suspect list, once
we begin contacting people who knew Dodge.”

“I can ask the bureau to cooperate and allow us to use their lab,” Big Ed said. “Nobody’s faster than they are when they put a rush on things. But that request would have to be filtered through Blalock.” He met Ella’s gaze. “If you asked him yourself, it might be faster. Blalock and I have had our differences. I know you and FB-Eyes are old friends.”

Ella tried not to laugh in her boss’s face. Some things never changed. Agent Dwayne Blalock, nicknamed FB-Eyes by Navajos because he had one blue eye and one brown eye, had been assigned to her father’s case. He had been more trouble than help, but eventually they had come to terms. Blalock had mellowed some since then, but he was still far from diplomatic. He had no friends among the
Dineh,
her
included. That mouth of his was guaranteed to create problems no matter where he went.

“Well, it’s not like I’m his favorite person either, but I’ll ask.” Ella held back the obvious downside that she would hate owing Blalock a favor.

Big Ed grinned, guessing what was on her mind. “Don’t worry. He’ll need our help sooner or later, and come running for payback. Then we’ll cooperate with him, and
the slate will be clean.”

“Let’s hope we don’t choke on his request,” she said softly. “He’s not exactly shy about cutting corners to look good to the bureau.”

Big Ed laughed. “You know the FBI way. I have full confidence in you.”

Ella said nothing. She appreciated her boss’s confidence, but she was being put between a rock and a hard place and she didn’t like it. Well, maybe she could tap
dance around the issue when she approached Blalock. She’d learned a few tricks herself in the bureau. Of course, most of those tricks were ones Blalock would recognize.

“I’ll start looking under rocks for him now,” she said with a weak smile.

Ella had already started toward the door when the police chief’s secretary came in. She placed a fax in front of Big Ed, then wordlessly turned and walked
out.

Ella was in the main hall, buying a can of soda from the machine, when Big Ed yelled for her to come back. “I think your prayers were just answered,” he said with a tight-lipped smile as she reappeared in his doorway. “You may be able to
exchange
favors.” He handed her the fax. “He’s asked specifically for your help. You’ve had training in hostage situations.”

“No more than anyone else
in the bureau,” she said with a shrug. “But what I
do
have is firsthand experience in that kind of situation
as
a hostage,” she said, remembering that terrible day a year ago in California. “You’ve heard about that.” Ella had been eating supper at an L.A. diner when a disturbed young man had entered, armed to the teeth with pistols and explosives. Ella managed to kill the perp, but not before
he had seriously wounded several people.

“Well, he’s got a crisis in Farmington. The perp’s a Navajo man. He tried to grab his own kid from his Anglo ex-wife after beating her up, but the police showed up before he could get away.” Big Ed handed her the fax. “The address is on there.”

Ella glanced down at it. “This is outside our jurisdiction. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Cooperation between
the Farmington police, the bureau, and our department is officially encouraged nowadays. You might still find egos that’ll be bruised, but this job comes at their request. Get your tail moving.”

“Will do.”

Turning toward the door, Ella nearly collided with Big Ed’s secretary. The look on the woman’s face was enough to keep Ella in the room.

“Now what?” Big Ed grumbled, then looked down at the
note she’d handed him. “Oh, shit.” He stood immediately and reached for his cap. “Gotta go.”

“What’s wrong?” Ella asked, trying to read the note upside down.

“See for yourself,” the chief mumbled, handing her the message as he stepped past her out into the hall.

Ella read the note. “Bus accident at Sheep Springs. Many passengers trapped in wreckage. All available rescue units in route. Fatality
rate high.”

She placed the note back on the desk. The accident had occurred at the turnoff that led to Crystal—
and
to Red Flint Pass. There was nothing she could do to help, unfortunately, so it was time to get to her own assignment. Perhaps she could make a difference in Farmington.

Ella strode out of the building to her unit. Placing the bubble on top, she raced east down the highway out of
Shiprock with lights flashing and siren wailing.

As she drove, Ella considered the chances of there being a connection between Dodge’s murder and the accident. It was very unlikely. The two events had occurred several hours apart. The only link, sadly, would be if curiosity had increased traffic in the area. But curiosity would have come mainly from non-Navajos. The
Dineh
wouldn’t seek out a
murder location. Still, it was possible that the disharmony created by the murder would be blamed for the disaster and, if so, the fear that would be engendered would certainly complicate things.