"Such as?" Greg asked.
"Well, one of the things that struck me is a particular set of directions. Judging by the landmarks noted, they seem to lead from open desert into the city, at least to the city's edge. It's very detailed, although not necessarily the sort of thing one could follow now. 'Left at the gas station,' that sort of thing. What if there are two gas stations close to each other? It doesn't tell you which one. What if it's no longer a gas station? Without a date, you couldn't even go back and determine that there was a gas station in this location at this time."
"Then why do you bring it up?" Catherine asked.
"Because of what we've been able to examine so far, it's the one thing that has been repeated most often. And verbatim, or very nearly so. He wrote it down many, many times, on different pieces of paper, as if to keep it fresh in his mind. The phrasing changes only slightly, and the details are always the same."
"Maybe he was afraid he would lose, or had lost, the other papers," Greg suggested. "And wanted to make sure he had it in enough places that he couldn't lose them all."
"Certainly possible. The main thing is that these directions, for whatever reason, were vitally important to him. To lose them would have been tragic, in some way that I can't yet determine."
"We have to keep in mind, this guy had a bullet in his brain all this time," Catherine said. "That's bound to affect someone's habits and perceptions."
"True," Greg said.
Professor Rambar uncrossed his legs and put his hands on his knees. "I should get back to it," he said. "I'll let you know if we find anything else interesting."
"Thanks, Professor." Catherine watched him stand up and leave her office, then turned to Greg. "What do you make of it?"
"I don't know," Greg said. "I guess if we can determine where in the city those directions lead to, I could try to backtrack it. Find out what it was in the desert that was so important that he needed to keep the directions no matter what."
"It's already been a long shift, Greg. And Professor Rambar said they would be impossible to follow."
"Tell me about it. But he's a documents guy, not a CSI. He doesn't know how often we have to do the impossible. Anyway, we have to figure out who this guy is. And like you said, what if there's some connection between him and the disappearance of Daria Cameron? I'd be glad to take a crack at it, if it's okay with you."
Catherine smiled the way people did when addressing tiny children or the hopelessly confused small children. "You be my guest, Greg," she said. "Knock yourself out."
14
Rico Aguirre was driving Nick and Brass back to tribal police headquarters and checking out Calvin Tom's story on his handheld radio at the same time, when the voice from the other end said, "Hold on a minute, Richie."
"Okay," Aguirre said. Static took over the air waves. Aguirre kept driving one-handed, holding the radio in his right hand. Nick liked the man, but if he never had to get into a vehicle with him at the wheel again, that would be just fine.
A moment later, the voice came back over the radio. "Richie, there's been a shooting reported. Multiple shots fired, multiple victims. Can you head over to Meoqui Torres's house?"
"Yeah, I'm not too far from there. I got these LVPD guys in the car with me -"
"Ray mentioned that name," Nick whispered to Brass. "I think we should check this out."
"We'll tag along," Brass said.
"Other units are responding, too," the radio voice said. "You won't be alone for long."
"Okay, I'm on it," Aguirre said. He handed Brass the radio. He usually wore it on his belt, but Nick supposed that, for all his terrifying driving habits, he didn't intend to try to put it back there while he was behind the wheel. Probably, he usually just dropped it onto the passenger seat. Aguirre hit the lights and siren and started driving even faster. Desert whipped past the windows, and although the wheels gripped the road, when he took corners at speed, he slid over the shoulder and spat gravel and dust into the air.
"What's the scoop on this Torres?" Brass asked. "Our colleague Ray Langston mentioned him."
"Meoqui is one of the most obnoxious guys in the whole tribe," Aguirre said. "Real political, always bitching about something or other."
"Like the blood-quantum standards?" Nick asked.
"Sure, that. Or whatever. When the new casino hotel renovation was announced, he was the guy complaining about environmental issues, demanding an impact report. When we were negotiating with an energy company about putting in a coal plant, he was the one who ended up getting it killed. Plus, he makes movies about it all, so just in case you didn't get tired of listening to him the first time around, you can watch him on DVD. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like the guy. And he's smart as hell. It's just… you know, sometimes even someone who means well can get tiresome. You just don't want to hear about what's bad about everything all the time."
"I know what you mean," Brass said. "Some people just aren't happy unless they're throwing dirt on someone's campfire."
"Sometimes you've gotta have those people," Nick put in. "They can be annoying, but they can keep everybody else honest."
"We're a better tribe with him in it than we would be without," Aguirre agreed. "He's kind of holier-than-thou – like he always knows what's best, and everybody else should just listen to him. And like I said, he just gets old. But I don't wish him any harm."
The Jeep whipped through open desert and past more homes of various sizes but mostly small. Almost all of the people watching them race by had dark hair and dark skin, Nick noted – not surprising on the reservation, but every now and then, he was surprised to see a blond or a redhead with pale skin outside one of the houses, and the contrast always reminded him of how overwhelmingly homogeneous the population there was.
A few minutes later, Aguirre made a screeching left turn onto a smaller paved road. The tires spat gravel for a quarter-mile, and then they reached a yellow ranch house with an open porch across the front. The windows behind it were shattered, and bullet holes pocked the walls. A young Native American man holding a rag over a bleeding wound on his left biceps released his arm when he saw the Jeep and waved the bloodstained rag over his head. He was tall, his head shaved and polished, and in spite of the warmth of the day, he had on a plaid flannel shirt, open to reveal the chest and abs of a guy who took his weight lifting seriously. The sleeve of his shirt was dark with blood.
"This is the place," Aguirre said.
"So it seems," Brass said.
As they ground to a stop in the front yard, Nick saw more people, mostly men but one woman, sitting in chairs or sprawled out on the balcony floor. Blood pooled on the floorboards like spilled paint.
Nick, Brass, and Aguirre were all out of the Jeep before the roostertail of dust they'd kicked up had settled, rushing across the din yard toward the porch.
"The shooters still around?" Aguirre asked urgently. He went into the back of the Jeep and brought out a battered first-aid kit.
"Gone," the guy with the rag said. "Bastards didn't stay long."
"There's an ambulance coming," Aguirre told him.
"It better hurry."
This was the worst-case scenario for a crime-scene investigator, Nick knew. People had been shot. They were bleeding, possibly dying. Finding out who had shot them might depend on keeping the crime scene clear and uncompromised. But saving lives definitely depended on getting to them as quickly as possible, offering first aid, and making sure the wounded were transported to someplace they could get real medical care. Preserving the scene had to give way to the other priorities, Nick understood, even when it made the CSI in him cringe.