by Lukens, Mark
“There’s no blood in the cave,” Begay finally spoke, staring right at Klein, and then at Palmer.
“What do you mean no blood?” Klein asked and looked at Palmer.
Palmer nodded; he’d noticed the same thing when they had walked through the cave. “I didn’t see any blood on the dirt floor, none smeared on the rock walls, no drag marks from the bodies to speak of.”
Klein looked a little embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed that.
“Not much blood out here either,” Begay said. “Nothing except for that one spot over there by the second trailer. But there’s blood all over the place inside that first trailer. How did this person, or these people, take blood-soaked bodies, all of those pieces of their bodies, from the trailer to the cave without spilling a drop of it?”
“I don’t know. It’s strange, but we’re going to get it all figured out.” Palmer said and then looked over at the line of trucks in the distance near the stand of cottonwoods. He thought about going over there and looking them over.
But before Palmer started walking towards the trucks, the radios from inside both of the Dodge Durangos squawked—an incoherent voice called out through a burst of static from the dashboard radios. The officer with the longer dark hair bolted to his vehicle and snatched the mic up out of his truck. He talked into it for a moment, but Palmer couldn’t make out all of what he was saying—some of the words sounded like they might have been Navajo. After the officer finished the conversation on the radio, he threw the mic back into his vehicle onto the driver’s seat and hurried over to Begay.
Agent Palmer watched the young officer, but the man’s eyes were on his captain.
“There’s been another murder,” the officer told Begay. “Two more bodies discovered.”
CHAPTER 10
Navajo Reservation—the dig site
“We’re going with you,” Agent Klein told Captain Begay as he walked towards his Ford Bronco. “It could be connected to what happened here.”
Begay stopped walking and looked at both of the agents like he was thinking something over. He let out a slow sigh. “It’s not too far from here. I’ll leave my men here to wait for your forensics team.”
“Sounds good,” Agent Palmer said. He looked at Klein. “I’ll follow you.”
As Palmer walked quickly to his rental sedan, Begay gave his orders to his two officers. Palmer got in his car and closed the door on the freezing air. He watched the reactions from the two men as Begay told them to wait behind—they didn’t look very happy about staying here at the dig site.
Palmer tore off his gloves and thrust his hands in front of the heating vents, waiting for the air to warm up. Klein was already in his black sedan, the motor running, smoke pluming up from the tailpipe.
Begay got into his Bronco and started it up. He drove away from the other two Durangos and idled down the trail through the brush that led up to the dirt road that cut through the rock canyon. Klein followed Begay, and Palmer followed Klein. Palmer hoped Captain Begay would drive a little slower over this rough terrain until they got back on paved roads.
*
Once they were out of the canyons and onto paved roads, Palmer checked his cell phone. He had one bar of signal strength, so he dialed the Albuquerque office.
“This is Special Agent Palmer,” he said into the phone. “I’m in the field at a dig site on the Navajo Reservation, and I was wondering how far away the forensics team is.”
He waited for a moment, following Klein’s sedan along the desert road. In the distance jagged mountains and mesas lined the horizon with a sea of brush leading up to them.
“They should be there in the next few hours,” the dispatch told him.
“Can you let them know that they need to bring a generator with them? And some extra gas.”
“A generator,” the woman said. She seemed to be writing it down. “A generator and some gas,” she repeated.
“I’m going with Agent Klein to another crime scene that might be related to this one. We might not be back to the dig site when the forensics team gets there, but there will be two Navajo Tribal officers waiting for them.”
Again it seemed like she was writing instructions down. “I’ll let them know.”
“Okay, thanks,” Palmer said into the phone and hung up.
*
Thirty minutes later Palmer followed Klein and Begay into the small town of Iron Springs. The town was spread out among the dusty hills. They passed a convenience store, a small church, two lines of commercial buildings lining each side of the main street, a fire station/police department, a Mexican restaurant. Beyond the buildings was a water tower rising up into the clear blue sky. Some of the roads branched off from the main road and led to areas of houses or plots of land with trailers on them. They took one of these side roads, heading back out into the barren desert again.
Dotting the tops of the hills in the distance were several trailers, some inside fenced acres of land where groups of sheep, cows, or goats grazed. Once they were past these homesteads, they rounded a curve where the hills rose up sharply on one side, then flattened out again as they descended down into a valley. On the left side of the road were some small, squat houses set far back from the road, and each home sat on at least an acre of land. They drove to the last house and Palmer followed Klein and Captain Begay, pulling over onto the side of the road in the front yard. This house looked neat, the front yard decorated with carefully planted desert fauna in a gravel bed. The house looked recently painted and the metal roof looked newer.
A Tribal Police vehicle, another Dodge Durango, was already parked in the driveway. A police officer with the now-familiar green coat on stood beside his vehicle, waiting for them. A compact car was parked in front of the cop’s car, tucked away and protected underneath a metal awning that was connected to the side of the home. A mid-nineties Chevy pickup truck with a king cab was parked in the patchy grass beside the carport.
Palmer and Klein got out of their vehicles at the same time. They walked with Begay towards the waiting police officer. The officer was young and slightly overweight. His dark hair was cut short, with a neat part on one side.
“What’ve you got?” Begay asked the officer.
The officer didn’t answer. Palmer couldn’t tell for sure because of the mirrored sunglasses the man was wearing, but he would bet a week’s pay that the man’s eyes had darted to him and Klein in suspicion, spotting two outsiders.
Begay picked up on it immediately. “It’s okay to talk in front of them. This is Special Agent Palmer with the FBI, and you’ve probably met Agent Klein before.”
The introduction didn’t seem to set the officer at ease.
“What have you got?” Begay asked again, and his tone was unmistakably more forceful.
“Man and a woman,” the officer said. “Both dead.” He hesitated for a moment like he wasn’t sure if he should say the rest, but then he added: “It’s John and Deena.”
Begay was silent for a moment and very still. Palmer guessed that the news wasn’t a shock to Begay, he apparently knew this house and he knew the people who lived here. “What about David?”
“He’s not in there.” The officer sighed; it was practically a shudder. “It’s bad in there. I’ve … I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“You put out an APB on David?”
“Yes, sir … regional and statewide. I’ve also got John’s sister, Awenita, calling around about David.”
“Who’s David?” Klein asked.
“He’s their son. He’s only nine years old. He might’ve been taken,” Begay said.
Or worse, Palmer thought, but he didn’t want to voice their deepest fears.
The officer turned and led the three of them to the front door of the house.
Palmer pulled out another pair of blue nitrile gloves and shoved his hands into them. He followed the Navajo police officers and Agent Klein into the small house.
The place was neat inside, tastef
ully decorated in southwestern décor. But it didn’t look immaculate; it looked lived in, a real family’s home.
“Who called this in?” Begay asked as they stood in the middle of the living room.
“Awenita,” the officer answered. “She wasn’t getting a hold of them for a few days. Said she wanted to drive over here to make sure they were okay. She said she was getting a bad feeling. She rang the doorbell and knocked on the door, but they weren’t answering, even though both of their vehicles were parked outside. She has a spare set of keys, so she let herself in. She found them back there in the bedroom.” He gestured at a short hallway.
Begay walked down the hall to the last bedroom. Palmer and Klein followed him. They all entered the bedroom. Begay moved to the side to allow the two agents inside.
Palmer could already smell the decaying bodies before he even stepped foot inside the bedroom—it was the same smell from the cave, the smell of death that seemed to get trapped inside his nose for a few days afterwards. He smelled the rot, the urine, and the feces. The stench wasn’t quite as overpowering as the cave had been, but it was close. These two bodies had been closed up in this bedroom for at least two days now, he guessed. Maybe three days.
“Holy shit,” Klein said.
Palmer had his cell phone out, ready to snap some photos.
It was a little hard to tell who was who because of the mutilations, but judging from their clothing, the man they called John was sprawled out on the bed, face-down. He was partially clothed, one foot had a sock on it and the other was bare. It seemed like half of his shirt and part of his jeans had been torn away. The blankets underneath his body were soaked with blood, especially underneath his head, which had been stripped completely of skin and hair.
His wife was a short and portly woman. She was face-down on the floor, the carpet soaked with blood that had turned dark over time. She too was clothed, but it looked like parts of her clothing had been torn away from her body. She didn’t have her shoes on and her feet were purplish in color, one of them more purplish than the other because it looked like it had been twisted around in the wrong direction, her toes pointing up even though she was face-down. Like her husband, the woman’s head was completely skinned; all of the skin and hair gone, leaving only the red glistening meat behind.
Palmer felt another wave of nausea wash over him as he snapped a few photos. The little click-click sound from his phone when he snapped a photo was beginning to get on his nerves now. He wished he’d taken that drink in the car on the way here.
“They’ve been scalped,” Klein said.
“Rounded,” Begay corrected. He pulled a white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. There were already a few flies buzzing around the corpses, some of them bouncing off the glass of the bedroom window that was mostly covered with a sheer curtain.
“Rounded?” Palmer asked.
“Instead of scalping, some tribes used to skin the whole head and scalp, all at the same time. It was called ‘rounding.’”
“Navajos did that?” Klein asked, and his words seemed to drip with accusation.
“No,” Begay answered, staring at him.
Palmer sighed. “Why don’t you go check the other rooms?” Palmer told Klein.
Klein hesitated, and Palmer thought the agent was going to buck him, but then he left the room without another word.
“This isn’t a robbery,” Begay said in a low voice.
“I know,” Palmer answered. “This doesn’t make sense,” he whispered more to himself than to Begay. He took more photos and moved closer to the woman on the floor, crouching down beside her. He looked at Begay. “Did your officer find their faces anywhere? Their scalps?”
“I’ll check,” Begay said from behind his handkerchief. He left the bedroom.
Palmer studied the bodies for a moment, waiting for Begay to return.
Klein came back and stood in the doorway. “Nothing else in the house,” he said. “I checked all of the other rooms. No blood anywhere else.”
Palmer nodded. “I need to call the forensics team and let them know they’ve got another crime scene.”
Begay came back into the bedroom. “The officer didn’t find anything else,” he said.
“I need some of your guys posted here until forensics gets here,” Palmer told Begay.
The captain nodded. “I’ll leave someone here as long as they are needed.”
Palmer sighed. “I think we better get back to the dig site,” he told Klein.
“You can follow me back there,” Begay said, already walking back down the hall towards the living room and not waiting for an answer. It seemed like Begay was going back to the dig site whether Palmer wanted him there or not.
CHAPTER 11
Navajo Reservation—the dig site
An hour later Special Agent Palmer and Agent Klein got back to the dig site and met the forensics team. The team was already set up and working. Another generator sat close to the other one at the mouth of the cave and it was running, illuminating the string of construction lights that led into the cave. Three other members of the forensics team were combing over the line of abandoned vehicles. They must’ve drawn the long straws, Palmer thought, to not have to work inside that cave.
Palmer and Klein walked over towards the line of vehicles. Begay had parked his Bronco next to the two Durangos, and he was talking with his officers, the three of them keeping out of the way of the Feds, but their eyes darted over to Palmer and Klein as they walked away.
Palmer stopped a hundred yards away from the closest vehicle in the line, a Ford F-350 with a camper top on the back. The three members of the forensics team were all working on that vehicle: dusting it for prints, taking measurements, bagging any evidence they found and labeling it.
Klein stood beside Palmer and watched the activity for a moment, and then he looked at the agent. “What do you think we’re dealing with here? I mean, you got any theories yet?”
Palmer watched the men and women work on the truck for a moment, not even glancing at Klein. They were out of earshot of the team members, but all three of them looked so involved in their work that they probably wouldn’t have heard them even if they were closer.
“At first I thought one of the archaeologists went nuts and killed one of the other people here,” Palmer finally said. “And then I figured that person might have killed the others to cover everything up. But after we went in the cave, I changed my mind. I don’t think one person did all of this.”
“I don’t either,” Klein responded. “I think a group of people killed these people and put their body parts in that cave. Maybe four or five killers at least.”
Palmer could tell that the agent couldn’t wait to talk about his own theories, to compare his ideas with a legendary serial killer hunter.
“Might be true,” Palmer answered. “Hard to tell if all ten people are in that … that arrangement in the cave. If they’re all there, then one of them wasn’t the killer.”
“Looks like they’re all there in that cave,” Klein said, making up his mind already. “There’s too many body parts in there … has to be all of them. So that means other people killed these scientists. We already know that much.”
Palmer was sure Klein had some suspects in mind already. “I thought of robbers,” Palmer said. “Maybe a group of people trying to steal the artifacts these guys dug up. Maybe some gold trinkets or something. But then when Captain Begay told us that Anasazi writing had never been discovered before, I thought that those tablets in that cave might’ve been valuable. But if that’s the case, then why leave all of those tablets behind, displayed like that in front of the body parts?”
Klein nodded, like he could see that possibility, but Palmer could tell that he already had his mind made up about who he suspected, and he couldn’t wait to tell him about it.
“And it doesn’t seem like any of the artifacts in the trailer were taken,” Palmer added.
“I no
ticed that, too,” Klein said.
Palmer thought it might be a lie.
“So then I thought it might be a group of eco-terrorists that did this,” Palmer continued. “Or possibly some local Navajo extremists who were opposed to this dig site on their land. I figured maybe they were trying to send a message and … and then maybe things went too far.”
Klein smiled at Palmer, staring at him and nodding. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking the whole time. But not tree huggers. I don’t think they would do something like this. But I could see a group of Navajo radicals sneaking down here and slaughtering these people. A warning for others to stay off their land, just like you said.”
“But the lack of blood in the cave and between the trailer and the cave bothers me,” Palmer said.
“Yeah, it’s a puzzle,” Klein agreed excitedly. “But I think they set this up to look like a mystery.” He lowered his voice a little. “You heard what Captain Begay said earlier, something about it not being people or animals that did this.”
So Begay’s words hadn’t slipped past Klein after all.
“I think these guys set this up to look like one of their mythical monsters did this,” Klein said. “There are still a lot of people around here who believe in witches and skinwalkers and corpse sickness, all of that kind of bullshit.” He looked away and shook his head. “You don’t know the kind of crap I have to put up with here.”
Palmer didn’t respond. It seemed like Captain Begay wasn’t completely ruling out the possibility of some kind of supernatural force at work here. Palmer didn’t believe in that kind of stuff. He sided with Klein’s idea, but that didn’t mean they should ridicule Captain Begay and his men because the clues to this case were most likely going to come from Begay and locals like him.