Death Walker

by Aimée

  Carolyn retrieved her tape recorder from the bag. “I’ll do my best to get you some answers soon.”

  Ella’s thoughts were racing. She had no wish to battle a resurgence of skinwalkers, Navajo witches. Her mind flashed to the morning she’d seen her father’s mutilated body, then on to the final battle she’d barely survived.

  A group of skinwalkers, including her police chief father-in-law, had killed him to gain power and protect their interests. In the end, her father-in-law also died, and her cousin Peterson Yazzie, a powerful skinwalker, had been captured and jailed.

  She’d learned a lot about herself back then—like the utter reliability of the sense that was now telling her that other crimes would follow this one. Her search for answers would take her down many unexpected roads before the truth was revealed. But, if it was in Ella’s power, the human animal responsible for this brutality would be brought to justice.

  Ella stepped carefully over to the graveled road, then walked to the small group of students. Officer Frank had them all together now, so he must have finished taking their statements. Ella could see the open distrust in their faces. She wasn’t sure if it was because she’d been near the body, or because many in the area still considered her an outsider because of her long absence from the Rez.

  Jimmy Frank glanced up, then walked over to meet her halfway. “I’ve already questioned them, one at a time. Their stories are pretty much the same. They all arrived within ten minutes of the scheduled class time. The victim held his lectures at different sites around the Rez in keeping with each day’s subject. Although his knowledge of tribal history wasn’t based on formal education, the consensus is that no one knew more about Navajo history than D—the victim. His family had protected and preserved the stories handed down for generations. The Navajo People have lost a great treasure with his death.”

  “Did anyone witness the crime, see anyone who could have been the perpetrator, or see anyone who wasn’t supposed to be here?”

  “No, Regina Henderson and Norma Pete were the first to get here. They claim everything was just as we see it now. No cars came their way as they arrived, or passed by since then. The perp must have gone down the other side of the mountain, or left on foot. By the time they discovered the body and backed off, Travis Charley arrived. He stayed here to meet the other students while the girls drove back to Sonostee to call us in.”

  Ella decided to speak to Regina and Norma while Officer Frank marked off the crime scene with yellow tape. Norma, the smaller and younger of the two girls in their late teens, was crying into a soggy handkerchief. Ella noted that Norma reeked of dime-store perfume. It was better than most smells at a crime scene, however. “I’m sorry that you two had to see this,” Ella said sympathetically.

  Norma looked up out of red, tear-filled eyes. “It was awful. Now I’m going to have to go to a hataalii. I know I’m going to have dreams about this. I just know it! And what about his”—she dropped her voice—“you know—chindi,” she mouthed. “I don’t believe in ghost sickness, but you just never know. I mean I’ve heard the stories—”

  “Stop it, Norma,” Regina said sharply. Nervously she toyed with the single strand of heishi beads she wore over her denim blouse. “You’re scaring yourself silly. Don’t talk about it anymore.” She looked up at Ella. “We already told the officer everything we know or saw. Can we go?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw the white crime-scene unit’s van pulling up. Unlike the resources she’d gotten used to during her days in the FBI, the tribe’s resident crime-scene unit was composed of only two people and very limited equipment. Round-faced Sergeant Ralph Tache was the photographer and assistant investigator, and Detective Harry Ute, a cadaverously thin Navajo with a perpetual glum expression, was the crime-scene investigator who’d collect most of the evidence.

  Ella’s gaze shifted back to the students, who all seemed eager to leave. One of the girls reached down to pick up her bookbag, set on the ground just outside the yellow tape boundary. Ella saw her waist-length black hair drape around her, shielding her tear-streaked face. They were all scared, and so was she, truth be told. This death would have implications that would carry far beyond the murder itself. All things were interconnected. That Navajo belief was part of all of them. Evil had surfaced, but now balance needed to be restored. And that was her job, and her contribution to the tribe.

  As Ella saw the young woman crouch by the bookbag, she noticed a piece of freshly chewed gum on the ground. Someone had obviously spat it out. “Does that belong to anyone here?” she asked the group, pointing to the gum.

  The students all shook their heads, then glanced at each other curiously. Finally Ella looked at Officer Frank. The officer pointed to his mouth. “Still got mine. You can have it.” He gave her a weak smile.

  “Make sure one of the team preserves that discarded gum as evidence,” she instructed Jimmy softly, refusing to smile back. “It may have belonged to the victim, but if it didn’t…”

  Ella allowed her gaze to drift over the students. They shifted nervously and stepped down onto the road, farther away from the yellow tape “fence.” Obviously none of them wanted to stay a second longer than was necessary. She couldn’t blame them. Ella had learned to shield herself mentally from the horrors of police work but, to them, this was a nightmare or worse.

  Ella glanced at Jimmy, who was placing one of the crime team’s wire and plastic “flags” near the lump of gum. “You’ve got a way to contact each of them if needed?” she asked.

  Officer Frank nodded. “I know where to find them, and I’ve taken their statements.”

  On the outside, she would have asked if he’d recorded all their addresses. But here on the Rez, street addresses weren’t always practical. Some of these kids probably lived in areas where the closest mesa was the only identifiable landmark.

  “We may need to talk to some of you again later,” she told them calmly, “but for now you can go.”

  The students hurried back to their vehicles, but one of the boys approached Ella. “I saw the ashes on the ground,” he said softly. “Is that business starting again? I’d hoped you’d gotten them all last year.”

  Ella saw the touch of fear in his eyes and knew that whatever she answered now would be carried via gossip all around the Rez. She measured her words carefully. “It’s too early to know, but this killer definitely wants to manipulate our conclusions. That’s one reason to distrust all these signs he’s left behind. We can’t take the word of a killer, can we?”

  The boy seemed to consider her statement, then finally nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.”

  “Don’t play into his hands by allowing him to use fear against us.”

  “That’s already happened,” he said with a shrug. “People will talk about this. That’s just the way it is. But they’ll only talk in whispers, so maybe gossip won’t spread as quickly.”

  Ella realized he was right. “Will you let the other students know what’s going on? Tell them not to give the killer any more publicity or credibility than he’s already managed to get.”

  “I can try,” he said doubtfully, then went to his truck.

  Ella watched the young man for a moment as he walked away. Maybe he’d be able to influence the others and stop the gossip from spreading like wildfire. At the very least, it had been worth a try.

  She shifted her attention to the job at hand and watched Sergeant Tache collect the freshly chewed gum with tweezers. His face was masked in neutrality as if he was trying hard to keep anyone from reading his thoughts. In Tache’s case, however, that normally meant he was totally focused on his work. “Get lots of close-ups of that dry painting done in ashes over there. I’m going to need to do some research to figure out what it’s supposed to mean, if anything,” Ella directed him.

  “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 fini
shed.

  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.