Hearts of the Missing

by Carol Potenza

  The silence between the four of them was heavy.

  Finally, Savannah sighed. “Where did you go yesterday? I mean, thank goodness you weren’t at home when she came, but you were supposed to be resting.”

  “Well, I had to get the blessing gifts, so I went to Costco in Albuquerque. Then I was at OMI for an hour or so. I went home after that, but ended up back on the rez trying to find Howard Kie. I didn’t.”

  “Was OMI about Sandra?” Ryan asked.

  Nicky took in a long, deep breath. “This isn’t a good place to talk. I know it’ll be late, but can we meet at your place after the ceremony, Savannah?”

  “Sure. I’m really cold. I’ll go home now and make some snacks.” Her brows puckered and she licked her lips. “Nicky, um, I need to tell you…” Her gaze zipped from face to face and she seemed to force a smile. “Never mind. We can talk later. There’s too much going on. Anyway, you have my permission to take Frank around and explain the blessing. Walk me to my car, Ryan.” He shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Nicky, I’ll see you in an hour or so. You, too, Frank,” she called.

  As Savannah and Ryan walked away, Frank asked, “Are those two—?”

  “Not really, but…” Nicky rolled her eyes. “It’s complicated.”

  She and Frank headed toward the bulk of the crowd. Neither spoke, but it was a comfortable silence and Nicky left it alone. Instead, she studied people as they moved in and out of the darkness. There were only a few booths, mostly selling hot drinks. She nodded to a knot of rescue and police personnel, who stood and talked in a circle. Over by the plaza, drums thumped and gourd rattles shirred.

  Unlike Feast Day, this gathering didn’t have as many tourists. It was easy to tell the outsiders from Natives because tribal members wore traditional clothing and masks or painted their faces. Even the children had masks on, but theirs were made of paper with a string tied behind their head. Nicky smiled at a little boy whose eyes stared out of a purple-crayon-colored raccoon face.

  Nicky and Frank wove in and out of the crowd that gathered alongside the twenty-five or so vehicles to be blessed. Torches, racked high over large metal barrels, gave off the acrid scent of turpentina. Orange and yellow flames cast eerie shadows across the people all around them, the flickering light hiding their eyes and making the masks more ominous. Many of the painted faces resembled skulls—skin coated stark white with a thick black band across the eyes. Thin lines of red or blue outlined the black.

  “Man, I don’t like this,” Frank said under his breath. “It’ll be hard to identify anyone and easy to lose troublemakers in this crowd.”

  The drums pounded louder and dancers chanted a rhythmic song, the chuckah-chuckah of the rattles so fast they hissed. Nicky and Frank stopped in front of a crackling torch. Heat radiated and warmed the exposed skin of her neck. It felt good. The crowd was quieter here, more serious as they watched the ritual.

  “They had the private blessings earlier today,” Nicky explained. “Requests to bless homes and cars—even pets—in exchange for gifts. Tonight is the blessing for public safety personnel. It’s done to give the guardians of the Fire-Sky Pueblo the protection of the tribe’s ancestors.”

  “Who does the blessing? Priests?” Frank gestured toward the adobe church. Lights outlined its steeple against the dark sky.

  “No. The war chiefs. They represent the elemental clans: Fire, Sky, Water, and Earth. Wait till you see their masks. Most are extremely old and very elaborate. When the Spanish first came, tribal elders hid the masks in caves up on Scalding Peak so they wouldn’t be destroyed. Now the masks are kept in their homes and treated like honored guests, given food and light at night because the spirits of ancestral war chiefs are housed inside them.” Nicky nodded toward the street. “Watch.”

  The row of cars parked down the middle of the lane included police sedans and trucks, conservation SUVs, a couple ambulances, even a fire truck. Their doors and trunks stood open to the night air. A group of traditionally dressed men moved along the line of vehicles. One wore a mask and headdress that stretched at least two feet above him. He dipped his hands in a bowl held by an attendant and placed them palms-down on the hood of a truck. His chant resonated from the round openings of the mouth, eyes, and nose of his mask.

  “The bowl holds a special mud they mix and bless in a kiva ceremony,” Nicky said. “That’s why we wash our units beforehand, to cleanse them so the handprints will stand out. Don’t wipe or wash off the prints. They have to come off naturally.” She nodded her head toward the tall mask. “That’s the Sky Clan war chief. All four war chiefs leave their marks.”

  When the man finished, he extracted a bulging grocery bag from the backseat, handed it off, and moved to the next vehicle.

  “When these men are elected to be war chief, that’s the only thing they do for the year. Most take a leave of absence from their jobs, without pay. The tribe supports them with offerings and gifts in ceremonies, just like they would support a priest. I left four extra-large bags of roasted coffee beans for them. How about you?”

  When he didn’t answer right away, Nicky glanced at him. Frank stared at her, an odd half smile on his face. The flickering torchlight caught in his sky-blue eyes and her heart rate quickened.

  His voice was husky when he replied. “I was told to buy laundry baskets and boxes of detergent.” He cleared his throat. “But there are way more than four guys—guys, right?—out there.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Nicky tore her gaze away. “Past chiefs and other attendants. See that short one with the rattle? That’s the governor. He’s wearing his ancestral family mask. The color of the stripes on his shoulder-blanket designate his elemental clan.” The noise of the drums and rattles became louder and she shifted closer so she could speak without shouting. His warm, coffee-scented breath whispered over her face. “Attendants carry the mud, take away the gifts, shake the rattles.… Another one comes at the end and leaves a boxed token in each vehicle. Little hand-formed pots, a piece of polished deer antler, stuff like that. At the very end, someone else closes the doors, so the blessings stay inside. And yes, they are always men. Women have their own sacred roles.”

  She met his eyes again, but this time Frank took a deep breath and stepped back from her. He crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze now firmly on the ceremony. “How are they elected? Can anyone in the tribe become a war chief?”

  Nicky shoved her hands in her pockets, unexpectedly hurt by his sudden withdrawal. She straightened and stared ahead of her. “I’ve never asked. But I know all boys on the pueblo start training very young and that some of them are eliminated each year. To become a war chief is a huge honor. They can also be elected more than once.”

  “The war chiefs are the ones who go up to the off-limit areas on Scalding Peak, right? They perform ceremonies there, too.”

  “Yes. There are days when no one is allowed up on the mountain. They usually send out an email to tell us so we won’t patrol. The rituals are so private and sacred, these and past war chiefs are the only men who know them. They’re passed down orally, nothing written. I’ve heard it’s forbidden for anyone who’s not a war chief even to look into the face of the masks they use, or they’ll be cursed.”

  Frank grunted, but asked no more questions. They watched a little longer, then wandered through the crowd. It wasn’t until Nicky’s gaze swept over the same masked figure for a third time that she realized they were being stalked. Above medium height, slim to medium build, dark clothing, and black stained moccasins. The mask fit over his whole head like a helmet and sprouted antlers. But it wasn’t a deer. More like a bear with horns. The holes cut for the eyes were large ovals, the man’s skin painted black underneath. A short brown snout jutted out above the nose and mouth. He stood in place now, but pivoted to follow them as they walked.

  “Nicky.” Frank’s voice held a note of warning.

  “I see him,” she said. “He’s been tracking us for a while, using the crowd for cover
. I think he was part of the Sky war chief’s attendants.”

  “I don’t like his attitude,” Frank growled.

  “He’s probably someone I’ve arrested in the past. I’ve noticed the masks always seem to give the wearers courage.”

  Nicky stopped and met the deer-bear-man’s stare. She kept her face expressionless.

  If anything, her acknowledgment of his existence made him bolder. From across the street, he took two steps toward them and shook a gourd rattle in sharp jerks, faster and faster until the sound was a continuous buzzing. Then he stopped, dropped the rattle down to his side, and stepped back. A large group of laughing teens passed in front of him. Nicky craned her neck to keep him in her sight, but when the kids were gone, the man had vanished into the blackness of the night.

  “Should we follow?” Frank asked.

  “Other than acting creepy, he’s done nothing wrong.” Nicky’s radio crackled and she answered. “Two-one-three, over.” She listened to the message as Frank walked across the road.

  “See anything?” She joined him and stared down the slope. It fell steeply into a large, marshy arroyo. Scuttling clouds allowed the moonlight to shine forth and darken the shadows. A chill, wet breeze swept upward, heavy with the sulfur smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water.

  Frank shook his head. “We should have confronted the guy, asked him some questions.”

  Nicky looked around one last time, every instinct telling her they were still being watched, but saw no movement, no nothing.

  “I guess.” She pressed her lips together. “Too late now. Come on. They want us to retrieve our units. Ceremony’s over.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Nicky kneaded the knot of pain in the back of her neck as she sat in her truck. God, she was tired.

  It had taken almost everything she had not to blurt out the new information on Sandra Deering at the blessing. With her lack of allies at the police department, Savannah and Ryan were the only people she could talk to. To admit the awful facts of Sandra’s murder and its link to a potential serial killer would expose her friends to the guilt and anxiety that hung over her head. It wasn’t the right thing to do and she wouldn’t drag them down with her. She’d wait for more information.

  She glanced at her phone—almost ten o’clock. Lack of sleep the night before and the long Blessing Day had drained her. Although she hated to admit it, she was at the edge of her stamina and her frustrations about the case and personal life interfered with her ability to think clearly.

  The cold inside her truck made her shiver. She turned the ignition, flipped the heater to high and pointed the output to her chilled hands and face. The air was loud in the confined space of the cab, but it was white noise. Nicky gazed at the ragged adobes built hodgepodge around the old church. It was quiet now. Few porch lights shone and the festival-goers were gone or driven indoors by the cold. Shifting into reverse, she maneuvered her truck to weave around the few vehicles left in the blessing row. Frank’s truck was already gone.

  Frank Martin. On some level, she trusted him. When they were partnered, she could relax because of an equality between the two of them, a subconscious knowledge that he had her back. She liked him a lot, maybe too much. But she wasn’t sure what to do with that guy. If he was FBI, he wasn’t like most of those arrogant jack-holes who showed up on the rez, ignoring the sovereign laws of the pueblo and wanting to do things their own way. He blended in. She’d decided to talk about the case when she got to Savannah’s, trickle out information, test him. Would her revelations tonight spur Frank into his own confession? Could she convince him to allow her to be a part of whatever the Bureau was investigating at Fire-Sky? Damn it all, but she wanted to trust him on every level.

  Her cell phone rang. Julie. She sucked in a long breath and her finger flexed on the wheel.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. What’s up?”

  “Um … not Julie. Actually, she’s in the shower. This is Lio Meloni. I didn’t want to call you on my phone because I wasn’t sure you’d recognize and pick up. In fact, let me send you my contact information. That way if you have any questions about our conversation, you can call me directly. I’ll do it now.” A couple seconds later her phone buzzed and an unknown number came up on her screen. “Done. Make sure you accept it.”

  Nicky frowned and glanced down at her phone. “What’s this about, Dr. Meloni?”

  “Lio, please. We’ve figured out the DNA database we found on Saunders’s computer. Do you need to pull over to take notes?”

  There was a faint, frenetic edge to his voice. And how did he know she was driving? Must be the background rush of air through the vents. Since the interior of her unit was now pleasantly toasty, she turned down the heater and directed the output to her legs and feet.

  “No. Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “We cross-checked the files against the OMI DNA database. Saunders kept all Indian blood information, as well as info on people he’d selected and grouped by race for comparison.”

  “Comparison? To what?”

  “Ethnic genetic variability. The basis for the database was autopsy blood samples that OMI sent to the FBI for CODIS identification. You’re familiar with CODIS? But probably not at a very detailed level, given your background. Criminal justice major, right?” he said. “I don’t mean to be patronizing, but let me explain. It’s important you understand, so I’ll keep it relatively simple.”

  Nicky rolled her eyes and decided not to tell him she’d taken four weeks of FLETC forensic training. Julie had warned her about his quirks.

  “The FBI developed the CODIS—Combined DNA Index System—back in the late 1990s. They built it around thirteen core genetic loci called STRs—short tandem repeats—every person inherits from their parents, or, if you think about it, from their ancestors. Each of these thirteen sites in our DNA is polymorphic, which means there are many, many alleles found across individuals at those locations—loci. Now, by alleles I mean a variety of different DNA codes can reside at the same position on the chromosome. An individual inherits only two of these codes for that particular site, one from each parent. Okay so far? Stop me if I go too fast.”

  “I’m fine.” Nicky turned onto the main highway to Savannah’s.

  “So CODIS really looks at a total of twenty-six pieces of DNA—two for each of the thirteen sites for each person tested. The exact combination of DNA is almost completely unique to every person on earth, which is pretty cool. Your family, ethnic group—or ancestors—have the closest combinations. This is especially true if a population was isolated at some point, or inbred. Let me see if I can give you an example … Oh! Cheetahs are like that. You know, the big cat? They went through a bottleneck of very few individuals about ten thousand years ago. Each animal is so alike genetically they can graft skin from any cheetah to another and it won’t be rejected. Amazing, huh? Since the introduction of CODIS, scientists have gathered genetic information from different human ethnic groups around the globe. So, if you send your DNA for testing, you can get an ancestral profile.”

  “I’ve done that,” Nicky said.

  “No kidding? Great.” Yeah. He wasn’t interested. “Now, back to what I was saying. Ethnic testing. There are exceptions. Some populations, because of religious or cultural practices, or some other reason, refuse to participate, so they’re underrepresented in genetic databases. American Indians fall into that category pretty much as a whole. I really don’t understand why. Do you have any idea?”

  “Maybe because they’ve been exploited so much in the past, they decided their genetics would be off-limits.”

  He sighed. “I guess, but that’s very shortsighted, especially in terms of medicine.”

  Nicky bit her tongue. A lot of outsiders didn’t understand. They only scratched at the complexity of Native American cultures, extracted what was easy, what made them feel good, and discarded the rest as quaint or archaic.

  “So … what? David Saunders used the CO
DIS markers to ethnically group Native Americans?” she asked.

  “With your lack of background, that’s a pretty good guess, but no,” he said. “CODIS markers aren’t definitive enough to tease out that degree of specific tribal ethnicity, even with the hugely expanded number of individuals he tested.”

  Nicky stiffened. “What?”

  “In fact, Saunders selected another cadre of genetic loci. HLA markers. Human leukocytic antigens. It was brilliant! I swear he must have been collaborating with someone, because this guy was pretty workaday. I mean, he left his passwords taped inside a drawer.”

  “Wait. You said hugely expanded number of individuals.” Eyes wide, she stared at the console before she shifted her gaze back to the darkened road. “How big is his database?”

  “Well, the dates go back almost fifteen years. So far we’ve found three or four thousand profiles. It looks like most are from Indians and added in the last few years, so I doubt they were all from autopsies. I bet someone fed him samples from the different reservations in the state. He built a tremendous database. I’d say he’s reached the level where he could actually come up with a specific percentage of Native American ancestry, and I mean down to the thousandth degree. He could even—for some individuals—tell from which tribe.”

  Nicky almost sputtered in disbelief. Thousands of samples? Her mind raced.

  “Listen carefully, Sergeant, because what I’m about to tell you is very advanced. It turns out the HLA markers were the perfect target for this population. They’re associated with the body’s immunity and recognition of disease. Unlike the STRs, these genes are expressed as proteins and decorate all the cells in the body as a marker that identifies ‘self.’ Turns out that Fire-Sky Indians have a very, very unique set of HLA markers, probably because of the bottleneck effect. Like cheetahs, remember? After their migration to the Americas and before European discovery of the continent, Native populations were completely cut off by both time and distance from other people—thousands of miles, thousands of years—so they interbred. This narrowed their number of unique genes. Their isolation protected them from disease exposure and their immune systems got lazy.” He chuckled. “So their HLA genes shifted to null alleles and Fire-Sky Indians have the highest number of null HLA alleles I have ever seen in a population. Since they were never exposed to deadly illnesses, there was no pressure to keep alleles that could help them fight off deadly illnesses. Of course, with the European and African migration to the Americas a few hundred years ago, that all changed.” The excitement drained out of his voice. “Tens of thousands to millions of indigenous people died from disease, most likely because of their genetics. Questions?”