"Was Domingo on the committee?"
"The way I hear it, Domingo owned the committee."
"So painting that word on the wall, in blood… the implication is that the murder was about the blood-quantum controversy. Maybe one of those angry people decided to strike back."
"That's quite possible, Ray. When you tell someone who always thought he belonged to a particular tribe that he doesn't, that tears right to the heart. Honestly, I'm a little surprised there wasn't some violence earlier on."
"You said there were complaints. Is there anyone in particular who you think might be especially angry over this? Anyone mad enough to kill?"
Keith gave a wry chuckle. "That's above my pay grade, man. I know there are some activist types who held some demonstrations, put up posters. Firebrands, you know, the kind who run every social movement. The main one, I guess, kind of a ringleader, is a filmmaker named Meoqui Torres. He's called for Chairman Domingo's resignation, demanded the blood-quantum requirements be restored to what they were before. He rubs some people the wrong way, but he has his followers, too."
"Do you think he's capable of murder?"
"I couldn't tell you that. Honestly, I barely know the guy, Ray. I'm just saying he has the loudest voice out there."
"Okay. Thanks, Keith, I appreciate it." Ray rose, extending a hand to his old friend. "If I can do anything for you – or for Ysabel – you'll let me know, right?"
Keith took Ray's hand and drew him into another hug, more awkward this time because of the living-room furniture around them. "Definitely," he said. "Listen, that reservation, with the blood-quantum debate going on and everything? It's a powder keg. Something like Domingo's murder could be the match. If you have to go out there, you watch your back, okay? Just be careful."
"I will," Ray promised.
"Good. And drop by again soon. Ysabel loves having visitors, and I know you made her day."
On his way back to the lab, Ray called Nick Stokes, who was already on the Grey Rock reservation, and told him what Keith had said. "A powder keg?" Nick asked. "Only powder I've seen is the powdered sugar on the fry bread. But I got mine with beans and salsa, so I'm cool."
"His concern sounded genuine, Nick."
"Okay, Ray. Thanks for the heads-up. Brass and I are here with the tribal police, and everything's copacetic so far. All we've learned is that Karina Ochoa definitely broke Domingo's window but probably not his head."
"Ask your tribal police escort for the two-dollar lesson on blood quantum, Nick. And maybe check on this Torres fellow. Meoqui Torres – I don't have a spelling on that first name."
"I'll check on it as soon as possible. Thanks again, Ray. I'll talk to you soon."
"Don't mention it," Ray said. But as he ended the call, he hoped Nick was taking him seriously.
Because when Keith Hyatt had talked about it, he had sounded as serious as the grave.
11
Catherine was on the phone when Wendy Simms tapped on her office door. Catherine now spent her life on the phone, it seemed, or dealing with paperwork or attending meetings. That she still had time actually to go out into the field seemed to be the result of a flaw in the time-space continuum – surely there weren't really that many hours in any given day.
But the phone call was about her water bill, a matter she would have handled at home if she had expected to make it back there today, so she cut it short. The DNA tech had a sheet of paper in her hands and an expectant look on her face, and her slender body bobbed from side to side impatiently, making her ponytail wag. "Sorry, Wendy," Catherine said as she lowered the phone. "What's up?'
"Good news. I think," Wendy said. "Well, news anyway."
"What is it?"
"Those sheets you brought in? I've got a preliminary result."
"Let's have it," Catherine said. She was thrilled to have something back so soon. She didn't know if Daria Cameron's disappearance was at all connected to the man killed on her mother's estate, but she didn't like coincidences. If a link between the two events existed, she intended to find it.
"I've only tested the seminal fluid so far," Wendy said. "Assuming – and before you say anything about assuming, I know, it's just a prioritizing tool – that the vaginal fluid belonged to Daria Cameron and she wasn't letting someone else use her place as a… play pad."
"That's probably a safe assumption. Temporary assumption," Catherine added. "Which will be checked out shortly."
"Absolutely. Anyway, the other fluid came from one Dustin Gottlieb."
"The Camerons' estate manager?"
"I guess so, if he lives on the estate. He has the same address as Helena Cameron, anyway."
Catherine raked her memory, turning up what she had heard about Gottlieb at the scene. "He was fired recently, a couple of months ago. I'm not sure on what grounds. Then a few weeks ago, he was re-hired, put back in his old position. Apparently, some of the other people on the staff were unhappy about that. As, presumably, would be whoever had the job in his absence.'
Wendy nodded along. "And screwing the boss's daughter…"
"He wouldn't be the first guy to advance his career that way."
"Probably not the first guy to end his that way, either," Wendy pointed out.
"True. Whatever happened, there seems to have been a reconciliation between him and Helena Cameron. When I was there, he seemed genuinely concerned for her well-being."
"Wouldn't you be, if she was your meal ticket?"
"Well, of course. But it can go beyond that, too. Maybe he really does care for Daria and her mother."
"In different ways, let's hope."
"Oh," Catherine said, making an involuntary grimace. "Yes, let's hope that. Very strongly."
Greg was on his way to his office when he saw Wendy coming out of Catherine's with a sheet of paper in her hands. "Wendy," he said. "Just who I was looking for."
"You were? I can usually be found in the DNA lab. Which is, you know, next to your office."
Greg tugged his collar away from his neck. He felt as if he needed a shower after spending time in that filthy tent. More than a shower, a whole series of them, increasingly hotter and more sterile, until his entire outer layer of skin was burned off. "Okay, I just got back. But I was going to go looking for you in a minute."
She walked with him toward the DNA lab and his shared office. "What for?"
"I have something that needs analysis, stat."
"Is it evidence?'
"I think so."
"Log it in with the evidence clerk, and he'll bring it to me."
Greg stopped in his tracks, stared at her, then realized she was joking. The evidence clerk was in his office so seldom that Greg had a hard time remembering what he looked like. Maybe they didn't have one at all. Maybe he'd been fired as a cost-cutting measure. That's an excellent idea, Greg thought. That one's going in the suggestion box. Even if it's already happened. "That's very funny," he said. "Do you want it now, or should I bring it to the lab?"
"What is it?"
"Fingernails."
"Without fingers attached?"
"Just the nails."
"Eew. Bring them to the lab."
"They're strange."
"Besides being disembodied, how strange can fingernails be?"
"These are strange," Greg said again. The paper scraps in the tent belonging to the man called Crackers had been almost geologically layered, like the Grand Canyon. But he had found the finger nails and some long, fine, straight hairs right on top, along with shorter brown hairs that he thought be longed to Crackers himself. He didn't know if they meant anything other than that someone had visited Crackers sometime in the relatively recent past. But at this point, he would take any clue he could find that might point to someone who could identify the dead man. "They're actually pieces of nails. They're very brittle. And they have these weird yellowish-white longitudinal lines running through them."