Blood Quantum

by Jeff Mariotte

  "And it looks like it's stayed that way."

  "Yeah. There's a downside, though. Some researchers think that early prevalence in Indian society set us up for greater susceptibility than the white population. Lots of Indians smoke, and lots of them are addicted to tobacco. That and alcohol are both big problems in our communities. At least some of it comes from the way we used it in pre-contact days."

  Brass was about to say something else when his phone rang. He flipped it open. "I gotta take this," he said.

  "Go ahead." Aguirre said. "That's one thing I'm not addicted to. When I'm not on the job, I like to be miles from the nearest telephone."

  *

  'What's up, Nicky?" said Brass.

  Nick was driving fast, on unfamiliar roads, not the best conditions for making a phone call. At least he wasn't texting, but that didn't mean some other driver wasn't. "I just got off the phone with Ray."

  "And?" Brass asked.

  "He's heading out here. But on the way, he stopped to talk to his friend who's married to a Grey Rock woman."

  "What did his friend say?"

  Nick twisted the wheel right for a sharp turn, then cranked it left as he headed into an S-curve.

  "It's not good. He said the tribal police might take sides. I guess Domingo treated them pretty well, made sure they were taken care of. In turn, they watched out for his interests. Now, if the powder keg blows, he thinks most of them will back whoever Domingo's likely successor is, trying to maintain the status quo."

  Brass hesitated before answering. Nick could tell from the background noises that he was in a vehicle and probably had Rico Aguirre right beside him. "Okay, thanks. That's something to keep in mind."

  "That's what I thought."

  "And Nick?"

  "Yeah?"

  "The fuse has already been lit. And it's burning fast."

  20

  The body was desiccated, shrunken, its skin dark, wrinkled, and leathery. Greg's first thought was of beef jerky. Wisps of hair still clung to the head, but the clothing had deteriorated, with only a few scraps of fabric strewn around the makeshift cavern giving testimony to the idea that the mummy had once been clothed at all. Whoever it was must have been there for years.

  Greg's trek through the desert had taken a couple of hours, following landmark after landmark. As opposed to the city streets, out here not much had changed – or, to be more precise, the author of the directions, who was presumably Troy Cameron, had noted landscape features that wouldn't change instead of plants that might have grown taller or withered and died in the intervening years.

  For the last twenty minutes or so. he had seen a pair of turkey vultures wheeling overhead, then a trio, like ragged black shadows against the bright blue sky. He had been starting to wonder how much longer this would take, worrying that he hadn't brought enough water after all. The number of landmarks listed didn't help him gauge his progress, because some were close together while there were great distances between others, even though each was within line of sight of the one before. He was out in the desert with no company but a line of footprints, the carrion birds, din, rocks, and the long-enduring desert plants, the creosote bushes and yuccas and mesquites.

  The earth appeared too hard, dry, and unforgiving to be susceptible to the fragile charms of wild-flowers. But there they were, broad yellow blooms and brushlike red ones and lavender blossoms growing close to the ground like a lace handkerchief someone had dropped. And this was late in the season; early in March, the desert would have been carpeted in places by flowers coaxed from the rocky soil by winter rains.

  Flowers were only one aspect of desert life that seemed to defy scientific reason. Mesquite could push a taproot down a hundred and fifty feet, through hardpan and caliche and maybe even limestone, looking for water, but most of its root structure was within three feet of the surface. They were hardy trees, almost unkillable, and chances were good that some of the ones Greg passed had been there, albeit smaller, in Troy's day. He thought there was a lesson to be learned from them, something about survival and resilience and the willingness to do whatever it took to make it until the next rain, but he was too distracted by his list of landmarks and growing uneasiness about his task to dwell on it.

  He had pressed on, heartened by the fact that three of the landmarks near the end of his list were almost right on top of one another. Finally, he spent some time wandering around a broad cliff face, the rocky patina smoothed by wind and weather. Dark, uneven vertical streaks were probably rust stains from the iron in the rock leaching out to the surface. He was certain he was in the right general vicinity but didn't know exactly what he was looking for. He guessed that Troy Cameron had known his own starting point, so he didn't bother writing it down with the precision he had used on the other notations. All he had written was "Bleeding rock," and the cliff face certainly gave that impression.

  The other person who had come this way had encountered the same problem, so following those prints (her prints, Greg was largely convinced, although it could have been a man with very small feet) was little help. That person had wandered this way and that, looking, no doubt, for the same thing Greg was. Troy hadn't meant the entire cliff, had he? Could Greg have spent hours following a trail that led nowhere at all?

  Finally, he had found a rock shelf, sheltered by the cliff face. On the face itself, someone had marked a crude X, as high as a tall man could reach, above the shelf. The mark might have been an ancient pictograph, except that it was alone, and it had been inscribed there with no particular grace or skill. Someone had simply taken a harder rock and scratched it there, marking the cliff like a treasure spot on a pirate map.

  The shelf was jammed with rocks, so it looked less like an open space than a jumble of fallen stone. But there were some on the ground in front of the shelf, and they looked to have been placed there recently, as they weren't covered with the film of dirt that coated everything else. Looking more closely, Greg saw that others had been removed and then put back, as if by someone trying to ensure that whatever was behind them stayed hidden. The hole that was left was almost wide enough for him to squeeze through but not quite. Behind it was a dark, open space, but he couldn't tell how big it was or if there was anything in it until he could get at least his shoulders inside.

  The other footprints were all around there. Whoever had preceded him into the desert had been the one who had taken the rocks out, then replaced some. Why?

  He took a few pictures of the rocks as he had found them, then slipped on three layers of latex gloves – knowing that handling the rocks would tear through at least one or two – and started pulling them away, setting them carefully on the ground behind him. Within a short time, he had cleared enough rocks to give him limited access. He took a flashlight from his backpack. Maybe he should have brought his whole crime-scene kit, but not knowing how far he'd have to walk, he hadn't wanted to risk carrying the extra weight, not to mention the weight of the additional water he would have needed had he done so.

  He beamed the light into the opening, turning it this way and that until he saw the dried, shriveled form inside. It didn't look human at first, but then he spotted the hair, and with that as a starting point, he was able to make out the basic shape, the shoulders collapsed and curled slightly in toward the chest, knees drawn up, feet together. It looked more like some dark, carved wood than human flesh.

  Greg knew that dry desert air could do that to a person. The aridity sucked the moisture from a body, and the rock wall that had been built in front of this one would have protected it from animals. Every schoolkid knew about the carefully embalmed and wrapped mummies of Egypt, but the fact was that anyplace dry enough or cold enough could mummify corpses, as could immersion in such natural preserving substances as peat bogs.

  He took a few additional pictures before dislodging any more rocks and regretted once again the decision not to bring his crime-scene kit. Not that there would be much physical evidence left after ten years, but there m
ight be some. And if there was, he wanted to find it.

  Considering who had written the directions and saved them for so long, he had a feeling he was looking at the corpse of long-missing casino mogul Bix Cameron.

  Since the space was now wide enough for him to wriggle through without worrying about dislodging any more of the rocks, Greg stuck his head and shoulders in. He expected to encounter the close, dry smell of a desert cave, but there was something else in the air. something unexpected. He took another whiff.

  It was sweat. Human sweat, mixed with something else, something with a little of the bite of alcohol, leavened with a floral scent. He smelled himself. Not exactly fragrant but different from the smell in the air inside the cave. The body on the floor hadn't been sweaty for a very long time, nor had it worn any perfume, so the smell didn't come from him.

  Greg tried to picture the footprints, to remember, without climbing back out of the tight space, if any of them had led away from there. He couldn't envision any, but they had strayed all over the place, as his own certainly did, since the other person had seemingly had just as much trouble as Greg finding the exact spot he or she was looking for.

  Instead of turning around to look, he pushed forward. The floor of the rock shelf was dusty, and there were bug carcasses and bits of rodent feces scattered about – he checked his hands, pleased to see that the gloves were holding so far – but the piled rocks had kept the interior relatively clean. He saw scuff marks in the caked-on dust, though, leading past the mummified body. Aiming the flashlight that way, he saw that the cave curved around, and he couldn't see its endpoint from there.

  "Hello!" he called. "Las Vegas Police! Is there somebody in here?"

  He might have heard a faint intake of breath, but he couldn't be sure. He continued past the body, careful not to touch it, moving on hands and knees and trying to keep the flashlight pointed ahead at all times.

  No way of telling what's around that comer, he thought. The cave might continue on for five feet or a hundred or more. There might be someone waiting to ambush him with a gun. The idea made his heart pound in his throat, but there was no way around it. He had to see what was there. And if the mummy was indeed Bix Cameron, he couldn't risk going for backup and letting someone dispose of or damage the body. The casino magnate had been missing long enough.

  "Las Vegas Police Department!" he announced again as he neared the corner. Then he shoved the flashlight around and beamed it into the darkness. No one shot at it, so he risked following it with his head.

  No one would be doing any shooting in that cave, not that day.

  The cave spur reached back only about seven feet. Lying on her side, against the back wall, was someone Greg recognized from photographs as Daria Cameron.

  As Catherine had suggested, there was an orange cast to the young woman's skin. Moving closer, he saw white streaks on her broken fingernails. She wasn't moving, but as Greg crawled nearer still, he saw that her chest rose and fell slightly as she took shallow breaths.

  She wore brand-new hiking boots on her small feet, the tread matching the tracks he had seen outside.

  "Ms. Cameron., Greg said. He couldn't tell if she heard him or not, but she gave no sign of it. He touched her arm gently. "Ms. Cameron, I'm going to get you some help. I'll be right back, okay?"

  She didn't answer. He had not expected her to. If she was conscious at all, it was just barely. He backed out of the space, climbed out the hole through which he'd entered, and tugged his cell phone from his pocket, fully expecting to see the words "No Service" on the display.

  Ten years ago, when Bix Cameron had come there – or been brought there, probably along with his son, Troy – there certainly would not have been service there. But in those ten years, Las Vegas had grown fast, and cellular-phone use had risen dramatically. Coverage areas had expanded as well, and he had two bars. That was plenty. He made the call, then went back inside the cave to wait with Daria Cameron.

  She had come there to die where her father had, where her brother had been badly wounded and had lost touch with his own identity.

  Greg didn't intend to let that happen.

  He was still sitting beside her in the dark, speaking in quiet tones, telling her about his life, current events, sports, whatever he could think of, when he heard the thwap-thwap-thwap of the Life Flight helicopter's blades, muffled by the stone walls but still distinctly recognizable. He touched Daria Cameron again – she had not budged but was still breathing – and raced out of the cave, waving his arms in the air to bring the chopper down as close as it could come.

  21

  Robert Domingo had taken a swipe at someone, presumably his assailant, and as a result, there were bits of tissue under his fingernails, more than enough skin cells for Wendy Simms to run DNA tests on.

  The usual tests hadn't turned up much useful data. There was no match to anyone in the databases, although that wasn't necessarily telling. There were far more people not in the databases than people who were, and although it would have made her life easier if everyone on earth was sampled at birth, she knew that was not only impractical but would have been an enormous violation of personal privacy.

  Failing any progress there, she turned instead to one of the not-so-usual tests, a brand-new method at evaluating DNA data that had been developed recently at the University of Arizona. The idea wasn't tomatch the DNA sample with any specific individual but to see what other information it could tell the careful investigator about its source.

  When she had printed the results out and studied them, she grabbed for the phone and called Ray Langston.

  "It's Wendy, Ray. I found out something interesting about the Domingo suspect."

  "You have an ID for me?" he asked. She could hear the excitement in his voice and hoped what she did have wasn't too much of a letdown.

  "Not a suspect… but I think I can narrow the field a bit."

  "Narrow is good." He managed not to sigh, but just barely. "A name and address would be better, but I'll take narrow."

  "It's a male," she said. "Or he's a male, I guess. And he's not Native American."

  "He's not?" He sounded as surprised as she had been.

  "Nope. He's probably blond, in fact. With blue eyes. You are definitely looking for a Caucasian. If you guys are only considering people from the reservation, I think you're missing the boat."

  "I'm trying not to miss the boat," Ray said.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Do you have anything else for me?"

  "That's it for now. Ray. White male, blond and blue-eyed. It may not be a lot, but I bet it rules out a lot of suspects among the Paiutes."

  "That it does, Wendy. Thank you."

  *

  Catherine had already turned into the Cameron driveway and was sitting at the front gate waiting for the loud buzz that would admit her, when her phone rang. Did Conrad Ecklie have spies watching her? Maybe he was keeping tabs on her with satellite surveillance.

  It was not the undersheriff on the other end of the line, though, but Archie Johnson. "I've been doing some snooping around online," he told her.

  "Which is basically your job."

  "It's like getting paid to play," he said. He loved technology of every stripe, and if he hadn't been employed by the crime lab, she had no doubt he would have been involved with it in some other way. "But this snooping was mostly into financial data, which is pretty dry stuff, not all that much fun at all. Still, it's intriguing. Do you have any idea how much someone can find out about your personal financial matters if they know how to look?"

  "I'd have to have money even to have personal financial matters," Catherine answered. "Instead, I have a teenage daughter."

  "Well, let me tell you, Helena Cameron's daughter isn't a teenager anymore. And Helena Cameron is not the wealthiest woman in Las Vegas anymore, either."

  "Was she ever?"

  "Top ten, anyway, once upon a time."

  The gate buzzed and parted in the middle, each side ro
lling away from the other, and Catherine inched forward until she could safely pass between them. "I'm at the house now, Archie. Talk to me."

  "Okay, here's the short version. She did have a lot of money, mostly in investments – stocks, real estate, and such. But that's all past tense. Her stocks have been cashed out, buildings sold, casino holdings gone. What she is left with are a few bank and money-market accounts, some small-time stocks and bonds, the stuff that was never worth much to begin with. Everything that was really valuable has been liquidated."

  "Over what time period?"

  "Mostly the last five to seven years."

  "That's interesting."

  "I don't know if I've described her situation clearly enough," Archie went on. "She's close to bankruptcy. The estate you just drove onto? It's in foreclosure."

  "I'll try to finish up and get out before she's evicted," Catherine said. "Anything else?"

  "Just that her daughter's condo is in the same boat. Helena bought it for her, but she's stopped making payments, and Daria hasn't made any. The foreclosure sharks are circling there, too."

  "Thanks, Archie. This is fascinating stuff."

  "I thought you'd want to know."

  "You thought right. Now, go home – you've put in enough hours today."

  "I'll go home," Archie said. "As soon as you and everybody else from night shift goes home."

  "Then it'll be a while. Tell you what, as long as you're sticking around anyway, do one more thing for me…"

  *

  Catherine parked in what was fast becoming her usual spot, shaded by mature palms and facing onto the reds, yellows, pinks, and greens of the rose garden. Her hand was on the door handle when her phone rang already. Archie already? Or Ecklie this time, having observed her driving onto the estate and listened in on her phone call?

  Neither, as it happened.

  It was Greg, but there was a lot of background noise. 'We have her, Catherine!" he shouted.