Lori Armstrong - Merciless

“Do you hunt?”

“Oh, yeah. I haven’t done it for years since I’ve been gone during hunting season. We scored antelope buck tags this year and both bagged ours last weekend. Usually I hunt alone, but luckily the sheriff and I have complimentary hunting styles.” I paused, wondering if I was blathering. “What tag did you end up with?”

“Deer tag for does. I put in for the elk lottery every year, but I’ve never been chosen.”

I shrugged. “Elk are too freakin’ big to pack out. And guaranteed, the damn thing is deep in the forest when you track one. I’m not that crazy about elk meat anyway.” I smiled. “But I’m all over getting to use a bigger hunting gun.”

Sheldon finally smiled back. “I wouldn’t know.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry about being snappy. I know this doesn’t seem like a stressful job, but it is.”

“Understood. And I am sorry I was late.”

He glanced at the clock. “Do you know where you’ll be working today?”

“With police logs and cases.”

“That room is unlocked. If you’ll excuse me, I have three things to finish before I open the doors.”

It surprised me how many people came in through the course of the day. I hadn’t paid attention yesterday, since I’d been in a room off limits to the general public. Evidently, the reference section was better than those at the high school or the Indian college.

Sheldon and I both worked through lunch. When four o’clock rolled around, I put away all the file boxes and microfiche rolls. I pawed through the extensive military history section while I waited until Sheldon finished helping an elderly woman with her genealogy questions.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you so much for all your help. You went above and beyond, Sheldon, and I appreciate it.”

“You did find the information you needed?”

“I think so. I’ll have to compile my findings and present everything to the boss to see if it gets my ass out of the hot seat.”

He smiled. “You know where to find me if you need anything else.”

“Good luck with the hunt tomorrow.” I wondered if he took offense when I practically skipped out of the dungeon.

• • •

Although Director Shenker wasn’t in the Rapid City office, Turnbull asked to see what I’d found, so I spent Friday morning at home putting all the data together before I headed into town.

“All right, Special Agent Gunderson. Wow me.”

No pressure. I looked at him. “You realize this report is raw. I haven’t had time to create flowcharts, graphs, timelines, or any of that fancy shit.”

“Yes. I get it.”

“I backtracked five years and focused on deaths of women in that initial age group.” My lists referred to the women as numbers, which I hated, but it appeared more concise on paper. “And between us? Not fun information to compile.”

“If we were in a bigger FBI office, you could’ve passed that tedious job onto an intern.” Shay looked at me expectantly. “Bottom line. Any validity to your theory?”

“Yes. And no.”

“See? If nothing else, you’re getting the hang of writing government reports.”

“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?”