by Mark Lukens
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 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 nitrite 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, tastefully 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 and 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 in 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 and then 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 ELEVEN
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 her
e? 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 noticed 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 Begay wasn’t completely ruling out the possibility of some kind of supernatural force at work here. Palmer didn’t believe in that idea, he sided with Klein’s idea, but the clues were most likely going to come from Begay and locals like him.
“There are a couple of other odd things,” Palmer said. He nodded towards the line of vehicles a hundred yards away. “The dead batteries in those vehicles.”
“These people have been dead for two or three days at least. Maybe longer. It’s been freezing. Not impossible that the batteries in their vehicles died.”
“And the generator wouldn’t start,” Palmer reminded him. “And the laptop in the trailer was destroyed. What about the radio equipment in the trailer?”
Klein just shrugged.
Palmer was sure Klein hadn’t even looked at the radio closely.
“If these guys were attacked, then why didn’t they use the radios to contact someone right away?” Palmer asked. “Maybe the radio wasn’t working. Just like all of the batteries were dead in their trucks? But if they couldn’t call for help, then why didn’t some of them run out into the desert? How come some of them didn’t get away?”
“We can figure out the why later,” Klein said. “Right now I think we should concentrate on the who first.”
“What about the bodies in town?” Palmer said, looking at Klein. “You want to pin that on Navajo activists, too?”
“I’m not pinning anything on anybody,” Klein snapped. “I’m just exploring theories that make the most sense.”
Palmer waited patiently for Klein to answer the question.
He sighed. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Could be another murder altogether that happened around the same time as this one. Husband could’ve killed his wife, and then killed himself.”
“And then skinned his own face off?” Palmer asked.
Klein didn’t respond.
“Or those two murders could have something to do with the slaughter here and we just don’t know what the connection is yet,” Palmer said. “You have to admit that the display of their bodies seems a little similar to those body parts in that cave.”
“They weren’t torn apart,” Klein said. “They weren’t displayed like the bodies in the cave.”
“Yeah, but they were mutilated. Rounded, as the captain said.”
Klein just nodded.
Palmer looked at the line of trucks again. “One of those vehicles is gone. Looks like it drove right up that embankment onto the dirt road. In quite a hurry to leave.”
Klein nodded. “Yeah, looks that way.”
“Why would Navajo radicals come here, do this, and then steal one of the vehicles?”
Klein didn’t have an answer for him.
“Forensics will get a tire tread sample,” Palmer said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. DMV is working on whose vehicle belongs to who among these archaeologists.”
Klein just nodded again.
Palmer started walking towards the vehicles. Klein hurried to catch up with him. A forensics tech dressed in a white bodysuit and gloves over his clothes stood at the back of the pickup truck, the camper top open and the tailgate down. He looked Palmer’s way as he approached.
“What’ve you got so far?” Palmer asked the tech.
He shook his head like he didn’t understand something. “This is the most bizarre crime scene I’ve ever been to.”
Palmer waited for the man to go on.
“It looks like someone changed the battery in this truck. There’s a battery back here.” He pointed inside the back of the truck.
Palmer and Klein stared at the battery.
“It’s dead just like the one in the engine,” the forensics tech said.
“What are the chances the backup battery would be dead, too?” Palmer asked Klein.
Klein didn’t answer.
Palmer turned around and looked back at the cave. The sun was dipping down lower towards the western horizon behind the jagged mountain tops and the shadows from the ridge had stretched completely across the canyon floor now, the temperature dropping even lower. “Who’s in charge here?” Palmer asked while still looking at the mouth of the cave where a short, heavy man in a white suit had just come out of.
“That’s him over there,” the tech said. “Dr. Alonzo Johnson.”
“Thanks,” Palmer said and he started marching towards the cave without waiting for Klein.
Both agents met up with Dr. Johnson who stood beside a large cooler, drinking
down a cold bottle of soda even though it was freezing out here.
“Dr. Johnson?” Palmer called out as he approached.
The older man looked at Palmer and Klein. His wiry hair was pure white and he had a roadmap of wrinkles etched deep into his dark face. He looked shell-shocked and exhausted from his time in the cave. “Please call me Alonzo.”
“I’m special agent Palmer, and this is Agent Klein.”
The older man nodded at both of them like a weariness was pressing down on him.
“You got any ideas yet about what’s going on here?” Palmer asked Alonzo.
Alonzo took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with fingers that were wrinkled like prunes from wearing latex gloves for too long. He sighed and seemed so tired it looked like he might fall over at any moment. The generator was humming along twenty yards in the background, and he walked away from the noise of it. Palmer and Klein fell in step beside him.
“We haven’t run many tests yet,” Alonzo said. “We’re still trying to figure out what we’re dealing with in there.”
Palmer nodded.
“The pieces of the bodies … they don’t look cut apart. They look like they were torn apart. The flesh is ragged with tears, bones pulled right out of the sockets, some of the bones snapped in half like someone would snap a twig. I haven’t really found any signs of tools or weapons used at all. No knife cuts or ax marks in the bone or on the flesh so far. Nothing.”
Alonzo stopped walking and stood near the twisted trunk of tree. Palmer and Klein watched him—he seemed like he had more to say.
“Of course, these are just preliminary investigations. We need to get the bodies … I mean the parts … back to the lab in Albuquerque. We’ll be able to run a lot more tests there. Right now we’re just doing a lot of bagging and tagging. We’re going to be working all night and well into tomorrow. We’ve got some ice trucks coming tomorrow afternoon to start transporting the … the evidence back to lab.”
“Who do you think could do something like this?” Palmer asked Alonzo. “Tearing people apart like that. Snapping bones.”