“I look for scars from breaks or old wounds and compare them to medical charts to help identify the owners. We can attempt to match the teeth in a skull to dental records. I can tell the sex of the individual, and if female, whether or not she ever gave birth. And to a reasonable degree, the bones can tell me the deceased’s height, weight, and age.”
Jojola had once visited Gates at her Human Identification Laboratory on the University of New Mexico campus. He found her hard at work applying clay to a skull of an unidentified person that had been found in the mountains. Several hours later, he’d shivered as he looked upon an uncannily lifelike bust of a woman.
Gates had a morbid sense of humor about her work that he suspected helped her cope with a grisly business. But she also treated the bones with respect. “After all, they once belonged to a living human being who loved and was loved, laughed and cried.”
• • •
Jojola was pleased that Asher had the sense to bring Gates to the scene, though he suspected it had more to do with her ability to attract the television crews looking for a good story than because the sheriff actually cared about the job she did. He sauntered over to where she was kneeling with her back to him. “Whatcha got, Char?” he asked.
Gates turned and squinted. Her face was deeply tanned from twenty-some-odd years of trekking about in the deserts of the Southwest. She was not a vain woman about her looks, though the clarity of her green eyes set against the mahogany of her face was striking. Deep lines radiated from the corners of her eyes, but he knew a lot of them could be attributed to her smile, and she smiled when she recognized him.
Gates liked the Indian police chief, too. He was smart, spiritual, good-looking, and she found him entertaining to watch. Just seeing his bow-legged stroll was enough to make her giggle, although she knew he could cover more ground on foot than any other human she’d ever met. She nearly laughed out loud seeing him standing there now with the toes of his cowboy boots pointed in nearly opposite directions. She looked back at where several of her current graduate students were working on their hands and knees around a hole they’d been digging.
“Young male, buried in a shallow grave approximately eighty centimeters deep, partly mummified due to desiccation, including what appears to be significant loss of blood prior to death,” she said. “Judging by the decomposition, I’d say he’s probably been here for at least two months.”
Gates paused with a slightly puzzled look on her tan face. He asked what was troubling her.
“Well, I’m just surprised none of the local critters dug him up,” she said. “A bear or badger, either one will scavenge a cadaver…even one of the local ranch dogs. And there’s plenty of sign that your clan cousin—el coyote—has been here. But nothin’ tried to get to him.”
“Is he one of my boys?” Jojola asked.
Gates shrugged. “I don’t deal with conjecture. We’ll try the usual methods of identification—dental records, medical records. We may even try to hydrate the skin on his fingers by soaking them in brine and see if we can get a print….” The scientist would have droned on but she saw the pained expression on his face and stopped. “Sorry, John, sometimes I have to play the role of scientist or the horror of these things would drive me into the looney bin. But if I was a betting woman, and I’m not, I’d say this is probably one of your boys. We’re not finished exhuming the body, but the hair and bone structure of the face are consistent with an early pubescent American Indian.”
Jojola nodded. “Cause of death?” he asked.
“I don’t do cause of death, either,” she replied. “That’s the coroner’s job. I just read the bones and tell him what’s written there.” Again she got the look. “Okay, okay…I happened to notice that the skin and musculature at the anterior of the neck has been cut—approximately twenty centimeters from beginning to end—by a very sharp instrument…a razor or, perhaps, a very well-honed knife. The wound is deep…the bastard who did this nearly severed the head. We’ve had to take extra precautions to brace the skull and neck vertebrae so that they don’t separate from the body when we get him out of there. I will be very surprised if there’s not some sort of mark on the neck vertebrae from the blade of whatever did this.”
As she finished her dissertation, Gates walked over to the grave, and Jojola followed. The area around the hole had been marked off into a gridwork of squares with stakes and string. The graduate students, all responsible for their own grid, were carefully removing dirt and debris. They placed the material in plastic buckets, which were marked with a number corresponding to the grid the material came from. The buckets were then carried to another work station where one at a time the buckets were dumped onto a screen. Another graduate student sifted the material on the screen with the fine dirt passing through, leaving any larger objects behind. Anything that could not be attributed to the natural surroundings—rocks, plants—was taken to another table that had been set up where two more graduate students carefully logged a description of the items, as well as the grid number, in a notebook.
Jojola noticed how careful the students were when removing dirt caked around what was clearly the body of a small human being. They were using small whisk brooms and wooden picks to remove the last bits of dirt because, Gates explained, metal instruments might nick a bone and create false evidence. The anthropologists had worked their way down, centimeter by centimeter, until three-fourths of the body was exposed, revealing that the dead Indian boy—Jojola didn’t need to wait for the coroner’s official report—was lying on his stomach with his arms behind his back and tied at the wrists. Long strands of jet-black hair protruded from the dirt caked on his head.
“Where are his clothes?” Jojola asked.
Gates shrugged again. “They may be under the body, but I doubt it. We won’t know until we can get him out, which may be another couple of hours. But he was nude when buried. We haven’t found much other than the body, except for one rather curious item you might be interested in.”
Jojola smiled despite the circumstances. Gates could talk all she wanted about her scientific objectivity, but at heart she loved playing Sherlock Holmes. The anthropologist led him over to the evidence table. As she’d noted, they hadn’t found much. A couple of pieces of brown and green glass. A rusted beer bottle cap. Using a forceps, the scientist held up the largest item on the table—a set of amber-colored beads on which a gold medallion hung. “We found this lying on top of the body…obviously thrown in by the killer after the victim.”
“Rosary beads?” Jojola asked. “What is so curious about that…most of my people are Catholic, including all three of our missing boys.” He knew that something was wrong about the beads, but his legs hurt and his mind was tired; he wanted Gates to lead him by the hand on this one.
“Yeah, but how many pueblo children are walking around with a set like this,” she said. “Wood maybe, but I’d bet these cost a pretty penny. The medallion doesn’t feel heavy enough to be solid gold, but it’s at least gold plated. You tell me how many of your boys would have a set like these.”
None, he thought.
“As a scientist, I don’t try to solve crimes. I merely report on the evidence that’s within my field of expertise,” Gates went on before smiling wryly. “But here’s my two cents of deductive logic. First of all, the boy wasn’t killed somewhere else and brought here to be buried. My guess is that darker ground you see beneath the neck and chest will test positive for blood, and lots of it…it’s soaked in there pretty deep.
“Second, I don’t think this grave was just a random spot chosen to hide a body. In fact, it’s not particularly good for that purpose. It’s near a road with some—if not a lot—of foot traffic from hikers. If I have the story straight, a couple was out here walking their dog when it took off after a coyote, then stopped here and started digging. The dog got as far as uncovering the fingers before the couple realized what they were.
“So the killer chose this spot for some other reason, perh
aps one that only makes sense to him. Which leads to my next point and that is that there are ritual aspects to this. In other words, the murder wasn’t committed to silence a potential witness, or in a fit of anger. The knot binding the wrists is fairly intricate—not your standard Boy Scout half hitch or some haphazard wrap—it took time and thought to accomplish. Another thing…there is a rope around the victim’s neck, and my guess is the victim was led here like a lamb to the slaughter.”
Gates saw the sudden revulsion on Jojola’s face. “Sorry. That was insensitive.”
Jojola shook his head and swallowed hard. But he kept his mouth shut, afraid that the anger he was feeling might boil up out of his gut as he pictured the boy—naked, cold, bound, afraid—being hauled across the desert by a leash. He tried, unsuccessfully, to put the image out of his mind as Gates continued.
“Judging by the position of the body with the feet barely in the grave, I’d say the victim was on his knees when the killer cut his throat from behind, then shoved him in the grave. The bastard then tossed the rosary beads in, like some sort of calling card or message.”
Jojola frowned. “You think he was brought here and…and…and what? A human sacrifice?”
Gates nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice grown husky with emotion. “And I think he came here…to the Gorge…for a reason. It meant something to him to kill the boy here. The burial was almost an afterthought. And I bet we find the other two boys somewhere along the rim.”
A chill ran down Jojola’s spine. “So we’re dealing with a serial killer.” It was a statement, not a question.
The anthropologist looked back at the grave before she replied. “You’re missing three boys, all of the same approximate age. You might check with the police in Taos and Santa Fe to see if there are any similar reports of missing Anglo or Hispanic kids, but my guess is he has a thing for Indian children. These guys are addicted to patterns of behavior. There’s one other thing we’ll have to wait on the coroner to determine. Something that might help you nail his ass in court when you catch him.”
“What’s that?”
“Most serial killers have a sexual component to their murders. If the boy was sexually assaulted, the coroner may be able to find enough trace evidence that was the killer’s semen for DNA tests. Catch him, test his blood, and voilà, killer on a silver platter.”
“What makes you think the killer’s a he,” Jojola asked.
“Well, number one is I can name the number of female serial killers in the past twenty years on one hand,” she said. “You men seem to have cornered the market. The other is, the neck wound was a single stroke. Even with a very sharp blade, it took a strong person to do that.”
Gates held the rosary beads up in front of his face. “Something else that might help. Look closely at the medallion.”
Jojola did as he was instructed. The back was blank, but the front side had the stamped image of what looked like a church, or more accurately, a cathedral. The building seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He was about to ask if she recognized it when there was an angry shout.
“What the hell is he doing here?” A burly man in a snow-white, straw cowboy hat, green uniform shirt, and sunglasses was stomping across the desert toward them. He was somewhat hindered in his movements by the too-tight blue jeans he was wearing, which made his more-than-ample beer belly hang over a salad plate–size silver belt buckle like spilled jelly from a tabletop. His body looked as if it belonged to two different men—the top half was disproportionately large compared to the tiny hips and legs that looked ridiculously inadequate for supporting the bulk above them.
“Evening, sheriff,” Jojola said politely when the man drew close. “We heard that a citizen might have found one of our missing boys. I came over to render whatever assistance to your people I can.” As he spoke, Gates sidled out of the line of fire toward where her graduate students had stopped working and were watching the action. She motioned for them to continue their efforts.
“Don’ give me no evenin’, sheriff bullshit, Jojola,” Asher roared. His jowly face was beet red and he was wheezing like an old bellows from his effort to cross the thirty yards of desert, but he still managed to bellow, “Yer out a yer friggin’ jurisdiction. Even if you weren’t, the feds would handle anything more serious than another damn drunk Indian passed out in the gutter.”
Asher was several inches taller than Jojola and outweighed him by fifty pounds. A Colt revolver hung Old West–style from the gun-belt around his hips. But he still remained at a safe distance from the Indian police chief as he ranted.
“That’s true, sheriff,” Jojola conceded mildly. “But seeing as how the deceased was kidnapped from the reservation, I’d think the media…” he nodded to where the members of the press, who were beginning to wander over to see what all the shouting was about “…might be interested in a show of interagency cooperation. And since the feds, as usual, are nowhere to be seen, I’m all you got.”
Asher stopped at the mention of the media and looked behind him. In his opinion, the press was a bunch of smarmy liberal bastards, no matter how many beers he bought them on the county tab. They’d love a story for the evening news about how the conservative white Republican sheriff berated the poor noble savage. He lowered his voice to a menacing hiss. “Bullshit! Now, get the hell out a my crime scene ’fore I have you arrested fer interfering with an investigation…chief.” The way he said chief made it clear he was not referring to Jojola’s official position, but as a sarcastic slur.
“No problem, sheriff,” Jojola replied, his voice grown flat and his eyes flinty. “I was just leavin’.” He took a step toward the sheriff and said in a low tone. “But if you ever disrespect me or my people like that again, I’ll cut your tongue out of your fat face and feed it to my dog.”
The smirk disappeared from Asher’s face and was replaced by fear as he stumbled two steps back. His hand drifted to his revolver but another look at Jojola’s face told him it was safer to draw a handkerchief from his back pocket and use it to mop up the beads of sweat that had popped out on his forehead.
Intended as an insult, Jojola turned his back on the sheriff, exposing himself to a coward’s attack. He walked past two sheriff’s deputies who also had wandered over to see what their boss was yelling about.
“If he shows up here again, arrest him, ya hear?” Asher snarled to the deputies as he stormed past them and headed to his car.
“Yes, sir,” they replied, but it was clear from the look on their faces that they did not relish even the idea of trying to apprehend Jojola. They’d heard rumors that back in his drinking days, he’d sent four of their predecessors to the hospital when they tried to rough him up as he was staggering back to the reservation. And that was just with his fists, feet, teeth, knees, dirt, and rocks. Now, they could see the bone handle of his big knife jutting out from behind his back where he kept it in its sheath.
Jojola chuckled as he walked away. Sometimes having a reputation as a dirty fighter wasn’t a bad thing, he thought.
12
AS HE TRUDGED BACK TO HIS TRUCK, JOJOLA CAUGHT A SUDDEN movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just fast enough to see a bushy gray tail disappear into a clump of low-lying junipers. “Well, brother,” he said, “I see you are up to being helpful today. Thank you for leading us to one of our missing sons.” One of the junipers trembled slightly, as if something had brushed past it.
John moved closer to the trees to see if he could get a better look at the coyote. He wondered if it was the same animal that had crossed his path on the highway. But as he moved around the clump, he came across the tracks made by two humans headed in the direction of the grave. One was made by small bare feet. The boy. The others by a very large man. Two hundred eighty pounds at least, he judged from the depths of the tracks in the sand, which also revealed that the man was wearing sandals and walked with a limp.
Jojola turned back to the stand of junipers. “Thank you again, my broth
er. There will be a bone for you outside my door tonight.”
The beauty of the day was now lost to Jojola as he drove back toward the reservation. He couldn’t get the image of a huge dark shadow of a man limping across the desert pulling a crying child on a leash. He picked up his cell phone and called the Taos Police Department, asking for Detective Jorge Avila, a friend of his.
After the usual exchange of pleasantries and insults, Avila asked, “What’s up?” He liked Jojola but knew the Indian wouldn’t have called during business hours just to chat.
Jojola told him about the grave by the gorge, but not the suspicions about a serial killer being on the loose. “You have any reports of missing children, or hear of anything from the guys over in Santa Fe, particularly boys between the ages of say eight and thirteen?” he asked.
Avila hesitated long enough to let Jojola know that he was aware that he wasn’t being told the whole story before answering. “There’s always some kid running away,” he said. “They usually turn up at a friend’s house or Albuquerque, but you know that as well as I do. Nothing out of the ordinary though. Why?”
“Just workin’ a hunch, Jorge,” Jojola replied. “I’ll fill you in later if it pans out. Thanks.”
“Sure, John, you tight-lipped son of a turkey buzzard,” Avila said with a laugh. “Vaya con dios, amigo.”
Jojola laughed back. “You go with God, too, my friend.” He hung up just as he pulled into the parking lot of Father Eduardo’s youth center to pick up his son, Charlie, who was standing and laughing with three adults, two of whom he recognized. One was the priest. The other was a young white girl he knew only as Lucy. Outwardly, she was not terribly attractive, even for an Anglo. He estimated her to be in her early twenties with a nose that rivaled his own and short, mousy brown hair. He’d originally taken her for a young man, as she had few curves to suggest otherwise.
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