Merciless

by Lori Armstrong

  He thought about it for a few seconds. “Maybe a little. After my mom died, my dad got married again, and then he died a few years later, so I lived with my stepmom until she kicked me out. Never crossed my uncle’s mind to give me a place to crash, even for a little while.” He shrugged tightly. “But in some ways, I felt sorry for Arlette. ’Cause I know Uncle didn’t want her living there any more than he wanted me.”

  Hadley had just confirmed Naomi’s observation about the tribal president’s attitude about his wife’s niece. “Did you guys know each other at school?”

  He shook his head. “I dropped out when I was sixteen. Needed to get a job. Been working here since it opened.” He talked about his responsibilities until my food arrived, then left me alone to eat.

  The food wasn’t bad, and the portions were huge. After I ate, I still had twenty minutes before I could return to the gloomy basement, so I opted to wander through the casino.

  Not many gamblers were trying their luck at the one-armed progressive jackpot win today. I wandered to the blackjack tables. Only one table had players. And one of those players happened to be Devlin Pretty Horses.

  Just my bad luck I’d seen him two days in a row. Was there truth to Rollie’s comment about Devlin owing money all over town? Surely the casino wouldn’t advance him a loan?

  I watched from behind a video poker machine as the trio at the table played several hands. Devlin’s pile of chips was mighty small. It amazed me how fast the games went and how quickly chips vanished.

  Devlin said something to the dealer. The dealer shook his head. An angry Devlin leaned closer, smacking his hands on the table to get the dealer’s attention.

  The dealer signaled to security.

  Immediately, a strapping guard came over and escorted Devlin out of the building.

  Interesting.

  I watched the dealer talking to a guy I assumed was the casino floor manager. The suit-and-tie wearing guy nodded a lot at whatever the dealer said. After five minutes, I wandered outside and saw Devlin on his cell phone.

  The instant he noticed me approaching him, he ended the call.

  “Hey, Devlin, I thought that was you.”

  “Mercy, whatcha doin’ out here? This ain’t your normal hangout.”

  You would know. “I’m working at tribal headquarters this week, so I came out for lunch. What are you doing here?”

  “The same. I’m about to have lunch with a buddy. He’s running late. I’m just waiting out here for him.”

  Liar. “Have a nice lunch. The taco salad is good.”

  “Thanks. See ya.”

  As I drove back into town, I wondered who I could ask to get the truth about Devlin’s gambling problem. Rollie? No. He kept secrets better than anyone I knew.

  Maybe Penny. She’d seemed more than a little exasperated with her brother last night. I could swing by Sophie’s house tomorrow on my lunch hour when Sophie wouldn’t be there. I hated to go behind Sophie’s back, but these family issues were taking a toll on her, and I couldn’t stand to see her hurting.

  I parked in the tribal headquarters lot. Although the lunch break had done me good, it was almost worse now, knowing I’d have to go back inside.

  • • •

  Wednesday was more of the same in the archives department. Sheldon and I chatted and had a cup of coffee before I locked myself in the newspaper archive section.

  At Quantico we’d learned how to load the film into the microfiche machine. The damn movies made it look so easy, when in actuality, it sucked.

  Sheldon refreshed my memory on the process before I selected a roll. Then I began the arduous process of separating out articles specifically regarding women, looking for any information on car accidents, suspicious deaths, missing persons, reports of suicide, and fund-raisers—which were usually for a health-related issue.

  Residents of the Eagle River Reservation had a high mortality rate. This wasn’t one of those situations where a prescription for Lopressor or adding more fiber to a diet would change those stats.

  I focused on young women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. In a one-year span, forty women died, which didn’t seem significant until I reminded myself the entire population of Eagle River was ten thousand residents. And I was looking at only a twenty-year age span for victims. The only age group that had it worse than women of that age group? Babies.

  I’d been damn glad to go home, because this assignment really was beginning to feel like punishment.

  So yeah, I’d dragged ass, getting to tribal HQ on Thursday morning. Lex hadn’t been thrilled I’d been tasked with car-pool duty again. Especially since Mason had had to work late the last two nights, which left me to ask Lex if he had his homework done.

  I stopped by Sophie’s house to talk to Penny. I half expected Devlin would answer my knock, but no one came to the door. I gave up in case Penny was resting and told myself not to get pissy when I noticed John-John’s El Dorado was parked across the street.

  Instead of going directly to the archives, I stopped in at the tribal PD. While Fergie didn’t have any news on the case—not that she’d tell me anyway, since Turnbull was in charge—she told me a funny story about her most recent night in a patrol car. I realized since I’d joined the FBI, Dawson no longer shared stuff like that with me.

  It was almost nine thirty when I hit the call button to be let into the archives department. Five minutes passed with no response. But every minute I wasn’t in that room looking at sobering statistics was a happy minute. Still, I hit the call button again.

  Sheldon finally answered and seemed annoyed to see me.

  “Morning, Sheldon. I know I’m a little late—”

  “Yes, you are. I understand you don’t punch a time clock, Agent Gunderson, but I do. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only days the archives are closed to the public so I can catch up on my work. Except today, I have to open up at ten since we’ll be closed tomorrow. I wasted a half an hour this morning waiting around up front because I expected you earlier, and now I’m behind. When I get in the back rooms, I cannot hear the buzzer.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to add to your workload when you’ve been so helpful to me.” I followed him to the desk. “You’re closing tomorrow?”

  “Yes. I’m taking a much-needed personal day.”

  I curbed my disappointment there wasn’t coffee. And I knew I had to make nice. This would be a test, making nice without the benefit of caffeine. “Lucky you. Do you plan on doing something fun?”

  Sheldon stared at me, as if gauging the sincerity of my interest. “I’m going hunting.”

  I gave him a big smile. “Really? That’s great! Where?”

  “Near Viewfield. A friend lets me hunt on his place.”

  “Good thing you’ve got permission. I tend to shoot hunters who trespass on our land.”

  He didn’t find my attempt at humor funny. “You can’t possibly catch all the trespassers, hunters or otherwise, with the size of the Gunderson Ranch.”

  “True, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun trying to catch them.”

  Another dour look. “What about the Sheriff? Does he bring his buddies or his family to hunt in such a prime location?”

  Sheldon was pissy today, but I doubted it was due entirely to my late arrival. “Dawson hasn’t asked specifically that we open it up to his friends from Minnesota or his colleagues in the sheriff’s office. There are a few local families that’ve been hunting on Gunderson land for years. They follow the rules, or they lose the privilege.”

  “Do you hunt?”

  “Oh, yeah. I haven’t done it for years since I’ve been gone during hunting season. We scored antelope buck tags this year and both bagged ours last weekend. Usually I hunt alone, but luckily the sheriff and I have complimentary hunting styles.” I paused, wondering if I was blathering. “What tag did you end up with?”

  “Deer tag for does. I put in for the elk lottery every year, but I’ve never been chosen.”
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br />   I shrugged. “Elk are too freakin’ big to pack out. And guaranteed, the damn thing is deep in the forest when you track one. I’m not that crazy about elk meat anyway.” I smiled. “But I’m all over getting to use a bigger hunting gun.”

  Sheldon finally smiled back. “I wouldn’t know.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry about being snappy. I know this doesn’t seem like a stressful job, but it is.”

  “Understood. And I am sorry I was late.”

  He glanced at the clock. “Do you know where you’ll be working today?”

  “With police logs and cases.”

  “That room is unlocked. If you’ll excuse me, I have three things to finish before I open the doors.”

  It surprised me how many people came in through the course of the day. I hadn’t paid attention yesterday, since I’d been in a room off limits to the general public. Evidently, the reference section was better than those at the high school or the Indian college.

  Sheldon and I both worked through lunch. When four o’clock rolled around, I put away all the file boxes and microfiche rolls. I pawed through the extensive military history section while I waited until Sheldon finished helping an elderly woman with her genealogy questions.

  “Leaving so soon?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you so much for all your help. You went above and beyond, Sheldon, and I appreciate it.”

  “You did find the information you needed?”

  “I think so. I’ll have to compile my findings and present everything to the boss to see if it gets my ass out of the hot seat.”

  He smiled. “You know where to find me if you need anything else.”

  “Good luck with the hunt tomorrow.” I wondered if he took offense when I practically skipped out of the dungeon.

  • • •

  Although Director Shenker wasn’t in the Rapid City office, Turnbull asked to see what I’d found, so I spent Friday morning at home putting all the data together before I headed into town.

  “All right, Special Agent Gunderson. Wow me.”

  No pressure. I looked at him. “You realize this report is raw. I haven’t had time to create flowcharts, graphs, timelines, or any of that fancy shit.”

  “Yes. I get it.”

  “I backtracked five years and focused on deaths of women in that initial age group.” My lists referred to the women as numbers, which I hated, but it appeared more concise on paper. “And between us? Not fun information to compile.”

  “If we were in a bigger FBI office, you could’ve passed that tedious job onto an intern.” Shay looked at me expectantly. “Bottom line. Any validity to your theory?”

  “Yes. And no.”

  “See? If nothing else, you’re getting the hang of writing government reports.”

  “Ha-ha. What I found is a lot of deaths. Mostly explainable. But each year for the past five years, there have been three or four deaths in a short period of time that weren’t explained or investigated.” I pointed to one report. “All with a … theme. If that makes sense. Three years ago, all three victims were killed in car accidents. Strange car accidents with no rhyme or reason. No witnesses. No other passengers in the car. And all the cars were found in remote areas.”

  Turnbull frowned.

  “Then two years ago, all the women who died had been documented former drug users.”

  “Not unheard-of. The relapse rate is pretty high around here,” he pointed out.

  “I understand. But these three women were all found outside in the elements. Not in their homes or their cars, where they could crash after shooting up. One was found in a ditch. The next one was found in a field, and the third one was found by a set of railroad tracks a mile outside of town. And the tribal police didn’t order an autopsy or blood work, or work the cases at all—including calling in the FBI. They assumed cause of death was due to drugs. Which is just so fucking … lazy, I can’t believe it.”

  “How long was the time frame between victims?”

  “For the alleged ODs? One month. For the alleged car-accident victims? One month.”

  “So these situations, for lack of a better term, took place regularly over a three-month period?”

  “Yep. And when I looked at last year’s victims, women who’d at some point been involved in violent domestic situations, the time spread was also one month. And again, the women were left outside. No need to take blood samples when the woman was gut shot and died, or when the woman was nearly decapitated and died, or when the woman was stabbed repeatedly and died. Each year I found a couple of cases that could go either way, as far as fitting the pattern, but I left them out of this. For now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what Agent Flack pointed out. No need to investigate when it appears to be a cut-and-dried fatal domestic. There were six other cases like that in the last two years.”

  “Jesus. I can’t believe no one noticed this.” He glanced up at me. “I know getting this information sucked, Mercy, but this really is outstanding work.”

  “Thank you. Last thing. I’m pretty sure Arlette is the first victim this year.”

  Shay nodded. “But there’s no discernable pattern yet, so we’ve got no way of knowing what type of woman the second or the third victims might be.”

  “Right. What I didn’t have time to check was the tie between victims in previous years. Besides the surface similarities in the manner and timing of death. So my question: Do we consult a profiler? See if they’ve got theories on the type of person we’re dealing with?” I paused a beat too long, and Shay glanced at me sharply.

  “What else?”

  “Or maybe they’ll tell me that, as a newbie agent, I’m completely off my rocker. That I’m seeing conspiracies where there are none. That maybe this is all coincidence.”

  He sighed. “You brought up the same points Shenker will when we take this to him. We’ve been on this Shooting Star case over a week, and we’ve got more questions than answers.”

  “Speaking of the case … out of curiosity, why wasn’t Latimer Elk Thunder brought in for a formal family interview? Arlette was his niece. And doesn’t it strike you as odd that we found out more about Arlette from her friends than from her aunt?”

  “Now that you mention it, I expected he’d make a much bigger deal about the murder, given how quickly he bypassed tribal PD and came straight to the FBI.”

  “Think Arlette’s death was a warning to him? He realized that too late and now he wants to shove it under the rug? By enforcing a no-contact-with-the-family edict? Hoping the FBI will go away? Because we’ve learned that Arlette was more of a nuisance in his life than a beloved family member. I heard that from more than one source.”

  “Are you saying you think the tribal president had something to do with his niece getting staked?”

  I hedged. “If the murderer’s intent was to rattle the new tribal president, it didn’t work.”

  Shay removed a slip of paper from his stack of folders and slid it to me. “We’re thinking along the same lines. I made a list of Elk Thunder’s most vocal detractors.”

  I scoured the short list. Rollie Rondeaux. Terry Vash. Arthur “Bigs” Bigelow. Bruce Hawken. Penny Pretty Horses. Not surprised to see Rollie’s name, but I was surprised to see Penny’s. “Are these names in any special order?”

  “Contributors to Roger Apple’s campaign for tribal president and his staunchest supporters.” He tapped on Penny’s name. “I know you’re surprised to see her. But remember, she worked for the tribal council for the last twenty-five years. She had a strong opinion on who should lead the tribe.”

  I whistled. “Arlette was found on Terry Vash’s land.”

  “I picked up on that, too.”

  We looked at each other.

  My cell rang. The ID read LEX, and I noticed the time. “Shit. I was supposed to pick Lex up from school. Twenty minutes ago.” I answered with a cheery, “Hey, Lex. No, I didn’t forget.” Liar. “I got waylaid in Rapid City.” I wait
ed while he hotly contested that response. “Don’t do that, I can call Hope or Jake to come get you. They’ll be there in fifteen minutes tops. It’ll take me an hour if I leave right now.” I briefly closed my eyes. “Fine. Call him and ask him if you can walk to his office. Just text me and let me know what I’m supposed to do.” He hung up on me.

  I would’ve hung up on me, too. Dammit.

  “Problem, Mama Mercy?”

  “Yes. I screwed up and now—”

  “Prince Dawson and the king will make you pay?”

  “Oh, bite me. I’m still adjusting to this family-scheduling stuff.” Mason would be more understanding than Lex about my lapse. I hoped. “I’ve gotta go.” I gathered my papers.

  “I’ll need a copy of those. I might get a chance over this long weekend to look at them.”

  I frowned. “Long weekend?”

  “Veterans Day, remember? The office is closed on Monday.”

  “Damn. I forgot.” That meant school would be out, too.

  Shay smirked. “You seem to be forgetting a lot of things lately, Sergeant Major. See you Tuesday.”

  9

  Tuesday morning, Turnbull’s number flashed on my cell phone screen just as I’d left my house. “Gunderson.”

  “Agent. We’ve caught a case.”

  Best to save my breath asking questions. He wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone anyway. “Where are you?”

  “In your neighborhood. I’ll meet you in the parking lot at Besler’s grocery.”

  “I’ll be there after I drop Lex off at school.”

  “Is Dawson punishing you for your oversight last week? He has you working as a kid’s taxi service?” Turnbull said with a hint of snark. “What’s next? You’ll swap the FBI for the PTA?”

  I shot a look at Lex, his Broncos winter hat pulled almost over his eyes. He stared straight ahead, his jaw set in the same stubborn manner as his father’s.

  “Who pissed in your corn flakes this morning, Agent Turnbull? Jesus. Have another cup of coffee and quit being an ass. I’m on my way.” I hung up.

  Lex looked at me, shocked.

  “What?”