Merciless

“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.