Death Walker

by Aimée

Pressing down on the accelerator, she headed back to the highway. Right now, speed, and the sense of control it gave her, was exactly what she needed.

  Ella shuddered as she made the turn onto the road to the church. How any Navajo, Christian or not, ever managed to go into that place without getting the creeps was beyond her. The blood-soaked tunnels that had once run below and the abominations committed there were still too vivid in Ella’s mind. No Blessing rite would ever erase those memories.

  Ella watched the moon rise in the night sky. Clouds were massed to the north toward Four Corners, and lightning flashed along the horizon. It was raining, at least somewhere. But near Shiprock, the pale, silver orb washed the ground with a soft, welcoming light. Even that couldn’t make Ella relax in this particular spot on the reservation. She opted for a shortcut, anything that would get her to the church and back out as soon as possible.

  Taking a much less traveled dirt track, Ella shifted into low gear. She’d barely gone two miles when the ground became really rough. The high winds and summer rains had eroded this section of road. Regretting her decision to take the shortcut, she considered going back to the main road, then decided against it. She’d be fine if she just went slowly; the Jeep would get her there.

  Before she reached her destination, she was forced to take two more detours around deep cuts in the road. Her shortcut turned out to be costing her more time than staying on the highway.

  Ella expelled her breath in a hiss. That’s the way it always was for her near this church. This particular area just brought bad luck, no matter how logically she tried to look at it.

  Ella glanced at the digital clock on her dashboard. By now choir practice was over, and people would be getting ready to leave. It was nearly nine-thirty. Cursing her timing, she continued on. At least she’d covered the bases and, whether or not she managed to get to the church on time, a cop would still be watching Sadie’s home tonight.

  Ella reached the end of the dirt track and bounced the Jeep back onto pavement. As she shifted back into high gear, she saw headlights speeding directly toward her.

  Checking her seat belt, Ella reached for the radio and called in. Something was wrong. The car coming her way down the church road was weaving practically all over the road. Ella lifted her foot from the accelerator, slowing down, ready to pursue or fire if she came under attack. Racking the mike, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands, ready to maneuver quickly. Her body was tense, a bead of perspiration running down her brow. The driver of the oncoming car was either running away, or running to, something.

  As the car drew near, she recognized it was a VW Bug belonging to old Marie Jim. Ella remembered that Marie had seemed ancient even when Ella had been in high school. The thought of being under attack by old Mrs. Jim was ludicrous.

  Mrs. Jim must have finally seen Ella’s Jeep approaching because she slammed on the brakes and came to a sliding stop at an angle in the road. Ella stopped just short of the VW.

  A few seconds later, Mrs. Jim opened the door and slowly stepped out of the car. Each of her steps was halting, but in the light of their headlights it was clear from her expression that something had upset her terribly.

  Ella snapped shut the security strap on her holster and walked to meet the woman, identifying herself as she approached. She glanced automatically at Mrs. Jim’s car, but if anyone was hiding in there, they were the size of a gnome. The backseat was filled with books and old cardboard boxes. “Are you all right?” Ella asked softly.

  “It’s terrible, just terrible!” Mrs. Jim’s tone was shrill, nearly incoherent.

  “What is?” Ella insisted, forcing her own voice to stay calm.

  “They all left, but I had to go back. I forgot my puffer, my asthma inhaler, and I wouldn’t have been able to get another one until tomorrow. I’m always forgetting it, and then the doctors at the emergency room get angry. On the way back, that’s when it must have happened.”

  “What happened?” Ella tried to remain patient. She liked Mrs. Jim. Most people developed a core of hardness that insulated them from the miseries of the world, but Mrs. Jim never had. In many ways, she was like a child trying to act grown-up. Almost as if sensing that she was different, she kept to herself. She seldom went out socially. So finding her out here at this time of night alone was a surprise. “If you tell me what’s upset you, maybe I can help,” Ella coaxed her.

  “I don’t know what happened. We had choir practice. I can’t sing very well, but no one seems to mind. I do try.” Her expression became distant as her thoughts wandered off track.

  “You had choir practice, then what? What’s the problem?”

  Mrs. Jim’s expression grew pained. “I told you. I had to go back. She was okay when we all left, so I’m not sure what happened! But she is very dead!”

  Ella felt her skin prickle. “Who’s dead?”

  “Sadie Morgan. She’s hanging from the choir loft, and there’s blood everywhere.”

  TWENTY

  Ella felt sick, but she brushed aside the sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to act immediately. Perhaps there was some mistake, or Sadie wasn’t dead yet. “Leave your car here, Mrs. Jim. We’ll come back for it later. I need you to come with me.”

  Ella helped Mrs. Jim into the Jeep, brushing aside the old lady’s protests as tactfully as possible.

  “I really don’t want to go with you,” Mrs. Jim practically whimpered. “You can see it for yourself. You don’t need me.”

  Ella called for backup and a rescue unit as she sped to the church, her insides knotted. She didn’t blame Mrs. Jim for being frightened, but she couldn’t leave the other woman alone now either. “You say you went back for your inhaler?”

  Mrs. Jim nodded. “I was almost all the way home, but I knew that Sadie usually stays late after everyone’s gone. She’s been going through all the hymnals, making sure the binding’s okay and separating the ones that will need repair. I figured I’d take a chance. There’s no phone out there, so I couldn’t call, and I wanted to avoid going by the PHS hospital and asking for another puffer. I can barely afford to buy them now. They cost so much.”

  “And so what happened?”

  Mrs. Jim took her inhaler out of her purse, used it, then continued. “The front door was open, so I went down the center aisle and directly upstairs to the choir loft. I found my puffer right by where I’d been sitting and picked it up. Then I heard a squeaking sound.”

  “Like someone opening a rusty door?”

  Mrs. Jim shook her head. “No, more like the sound wood makes when you walk over it, you know?”

  Ella nodded. “Then what?”

  “I walked to the edge of the loft, thinking it was Sadie coming to see who was there.” Mrs. Jim coughed and began to wheeze. She used her inhaler again. “It was her all right, but she was hanging there upside down. I had to bend down and turn my head so I could see her face right-side-up and make sure.”

  “Did you see or hear anyone else while you were inside?” Ella asked. She was afraid to question Mrs. Jim too long and possibly trigger a severe attack. She needed to be at the crime scene now, not driving someone to the hospital. The old lady shook her head, unable to answer out loud immediately.

  Ella pulled to a stop by the main steps. The parking lot was deserted except for an old pickup she assumed belonged to Sadie. Ella turned to Mrs. Jim. “Stay here, and keep the doors locked. If anyone comes up, or your breathing gets worse, honk the horn. I won’t be long.”

  Ella grabbed her flashlight, left the car, and went through the church’s front door, which was wide open. A light was on in the foyer, but the rest of the church was in darkness. The moment she stepped inside, she felt her body tense, and she decided to draw her weapon as well as turn on her flashlight. It was more than the murder Mrs. Jim had reported; this place was tainted with evil. No ceremonies to the Christian god could erase that.

  Ella felt a gust of wind, then heard the squeaking sound Mrs. Jim had described. As she walked dow
n the center aisle, her flashlight beam illuminated the rope that hung from the choir loft. At the bottom, swaying slowly back and forth like a rundown pendulum bob, was Sadie Morgan.

  The woman was hanging by her feet, but her long skirt was still in place at ankle length, wrapped tightly against her legs with masking tape. The killer had wanted her face to be seen, as well as the wound in her throat.

  Ella stared at the trail of blood that had flowed from the victim’s neck. It had marked out a crimson path over her chin and face, and lastly dripped down from her long hair onto the floor. The thick pool had not fully coagulated yet. Also covered with blood and dangling from her neck were the remnants of a thin silver chain. A pendant, possibly a cross, had obviously been torn from the chain, breaking it.

  Both of the victim’s arms dangled almost to the floor, and in the palm of her right hand was another bloody wound. Sticking out of the center, like a nail in Christ’s hand, was a white piece of bone. It was the Packrat’s M.O. again.

  Ella swallowed the bile at the back of her throat and went up to the victim. Once again the crime had been carefully staged, down to the inverted hanging and the application of masking tape. If the killer had kept to his signature style, Sadie Morgan had not been aware of her death, but had been rendered helpless and unconscious first.

  As Ella stood near the body she could smell a peculiar scent in the air. It wasn’t incense; it had a more acrid, pungent edge. If it was perfume, then Sadie Morgan had used the most distasteful scent she’d ever encountered.

  Ella went up the choir loft steps, located the light switch, and looked around. There were a few signs of a struggle. A chair had been knocked over, and hymnals lay scattered all over the floor. Then Ella saw a dirty cloth on the floor, and as she approached, she knew the scent had come from it. She crouched beside it. The smell reminded her of the chemicals at Carolyn’s. It was probably chloroform, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Suddenly hearing the sound of her Jeep’s horn echoing through the empty church, Ella jumped to her feet. Reaching for her weapon, she ran down the short flight of stairs and sprinted down the center aisle to the main entrance. It only took a few seconds, but by then the horn had stopped. She stood by the edge of the door for a heartbeat, gun in hand, and peered outside. Seeing the flashing red and blue lights of an approaching police car, Ella sighed with relief, Mrs. Jim had done precisely what she’d been asked to do. She’d seen someone approaching and had honked the horn.

  Ella put her weapon away and tried to force her heart rate down. It was going to be a very long night.

  * * *

  Justine was working with Ella in the choir loft as Carolyn did her examination on the victim below. “I’ll track down the rope, and check for sources of chloroform,” Justine volunteered. That can’t be that easy to find on the Rez. I think it might just give us a good solid lead.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Ella cautioned. “This guy’s crafty. Sick, but smart. For all we know, he drove to Cortez or Farmington for the stuff. Carolyn confirmed my estimate that the victim hadn’t been dead long when I arrived. That’s why I had Nelson Franklin come in. He and Susan Cohoe are the tribe’s best trackers. Franklin prefers his bloodhounds, but Susan works the old way, with her eyes.”

  “I understand they don’t generally like to work with each other, but in this case, they didn’t seem to have a problem. Everyone wants this guy caught.”

  “Do you know if anyone found a set of vehicle tracks leading off by themselves, or in the dirt?” Ella asked. She hoped the killer was still on foot. Franklin and Cohoe were with two well-armed officers.

  “Just one set, but Mrs. Jim said that it probably belongs to Reverend Curley’s car. He often parks off to the side. They led back to the pavement anyway. But the trackers are following a partially obscured set of footprints now that looks promising.”

  Ella tried not to get her hopes up, but it was hard not to feel a sense of expectation. The killer had been right where she was standing a short while ago. The trackers were hot on his trail now, and it looked like the thunderstorm she’d noted earlier was passing to the east. No tracks would be erased by rain tonight. The Packrat’s luck was starting to run low.

  “How’s Mrs. Jim breathing? I haven’t spoke with her since she confirmed the victim was missing a wooden cross from that chain.” With gloved hands, she and Justine finished dusting for fingerprints on the rail from which the body had been suspended.

  “The EMT gave her a shot for the asthma,” Justine said. “She’s calmed down a bit, but she said she wasn’t coming into this church again. Strange, considering she’s supposed to be Christian. Their view of death is just a passing, I thought. And they stare at that crucifix for hours, forgetting why viewing a dead person is so unpleasant for a traditional Navajo.”

  “Yes, but the crucifix is just art. It’s sanitized, you know? The body, dripping blood—well, that’s as real as it gets.” Ella saw Justine check around and along the railing for fibers, hair, or anything that would lead to the killer. Later, she knew, the crime team would vacuum the area.

  “I’ve got to confirm everyone on our list has protection tonight, even if they don’t want it. I want someone right outside my home too. My brother, my sister-in-law, and my mother will all be there.”

  Justine stood up. “I’ll call that in right now. The watch commander should be able to handle it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Ella searched carefully for a few more minutes, then went downstairs. She joined Carolyn, who was crouched next to the most recent victim. Ella glanced at the corpse, which had been laid on a piece of plastic, then looked at Carolyn. “What can you tell me?”

  “This Packrat is one sick puppy. I’m certain he used the chloroform to knock her out, but she struggled for a while before passing out. It looks like she may have scratched him, so I bagged her hands. I’ll check for skin, fibers, and hair at the lab.”

  “The chloroform was necessary to him in more ways than one. He does like them helpless before he kills, but in this case he also needed that in order to be able to tape her skirt around her legs. Had he waited until she was hanging from the rope, it would have been difficult to reach up that high on her ankles to tape. Nobody’s found any rolls of masking tape around, so he must have anticipated the problem and brought the tape with him. That means he also knew what she would be wearing. Our Packrat is very organized.”

  “You’ve got no argument from me there.” Carolyn studied the body before her. “He also has a flair for the dramatic. He strung her from the rail, then slit her throat. She bled to death in a few minutes. He severed her jugular. Hanging her upside down was just for effect. I mean, it served no purpose that I can see. After that, he yanked off the cross pendant. There’s a cut on the back of her neck, but no blood around it. I guess he thought it was tacky to take a trophy before completing the kill.”

  “That fits our guy,” Ella said. “Warped all the way.”

  “You know, since this must have happened right before you got here, Mrs. Jim was lucky to have missed him. Or maybe he just hid from her.”

  “He’s selective about his targets, so who knows? But if he’s still nearby, I’ll find him. I’ve got people out there beating the bushes, and roadblocks in place to catch traffic originating from here.”

  “You’ve got your investigation under control, so I better get to mine. It’s too late for me to begin the autopsy tonight, but I’ll get back to you sometime tomorrow.”

  “Carolyn, you need an assistant.”

  Carolyn stood up and rubbed her back. “Sure I do, but I don’t think I’m likely to find one. Do you?”

  Ella gave her a rueful smile. “No, not really. Not a Navajo, at least.”

  “Don’t worry. I may get tired, but I’m good at my work. I don’t get sloppy. Not ever.”

  “I know that,” Ella assured her quietly. “I was just looking at the dark circles around your eyes. I have a feeling I have a matching set.”

 
; Carolyn smiled. “You do.” She glanced around. “I’m going to get Officer Leonard to give me a hand. I’ve never liked him,” she added with a trace of a smile.

  Ella sucked in her cheeks to keep from smiling. Officer Leonard seemed to delight in arguing about any subject, but didn’t really seem to have any opinions of his own. He simply took the opposite view of whatever was being said, then debated it at length as if it was his most cherished belief. It was annoying after a while. Like most everyone else, she watched what she said around him, tending to snap cryptic orders rather than risk an endless debate.

  “Officer Leonard, your help please,” Carolyn said brusquely.

  He glanced at the body with distaste. “Couldn’t you get—”

  “Help our medical investigator, Officer,” Ella ordered. “If your religious beliefs include ghost sickness, then we’ll try to find someone else.”

  “I do not believe in ghost sickness. That’s not founded in logic, although many cultures—”

  Ella held up a hand. “Yes or no, Officer? Are you going to help the lady?”

  As he reluctantly turned around and walked to the corpse, Carolyn smiled mischievously at Ella, then turned back to the job at hand.

  As the body was being wheeled down the center aisle, Ella heard a vehicle’s siren start up, and the squeal of tires. Within seconds, the sound of an emergency vehicle had faded into the distance.

  Carolyn came in from outside and joined Ella, who was staring at her curiously. “The vehicle that just left was the rescue squad, not a cop car. Apparently some pickup got caught in an arroyo by a wave of water and people were hurt.”

  “Damn. I was hoping the search team had cornered our killer near the road.” Ella shook her head slowly. “I hope there were no deaths. I suppose we’ll hear soon enough though. It’s so frustrating. We tell kids and adults to stay away from the ditches and arroyos, that they’re deadly. Yet every summer someone gets caught in one. You’d think our people would know the land better. Just because it’s dry at the moment they go in doesn’t mean that in another second a wall of water won’t come rushing straight at them. It’s the way our terrain is. That’s what cut those arroyos in the first place.”