I snorted. “Not even close.”
She raised her chin a notch. “Well, it should be. Cops around here suck.”
“Why’s that?”
Naomi’s gaze narrowed, trying to figure out if I was being serious or sarcastic. After coming to the conclusion I wasn’t jacking her around, she said, “When my mom died? The cops said it was from a drug overdose. But she’d been clean for, like, six months. No relapse or nothing. Then she just disappeared and didn’t tell my grandma or me where she was going. She never did that. Not even when she was really high. Three days later the cops found her dead in a ditch outside of town.”
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me. I’d read that file. I’d included it in my case report. “Did this happen about two years ago?”
Naomi straightened. “Yes.”
“What was your mom’s name?”
“Diane Jump.”
I dug in my satchel and flipped open my notebook. I’d flagged three cases of assumed ODs. The first girl was young, only sixteen, but she’d been in rehab off and on since she was twelve. The second victim was a woman in her late thirties, with multiple arrests and time served in jail for various drug infractions. The last victim was older, in her early sixties, and she’d been a homeless addict for over twenty years.
Again, I’d written down that I hadn’t found any lab reports in any of the individual case files. It was as if the tribal cops had looked at the body, made an assessment about it being a drug-related death, and closed the case.
“Did you find something?” Naomi asked.
“I’m not entirely sure, but there seems to be… a common thread linking some other cases around that time.” I looked at her. “Did the police tell you they ran postmortem drug tests on your mom?”
She shook her head. “She’d been busted for drug possession so many times, they knew her drug of choice was smack. They assumed that’s what killed her.” She couldn’t contain the hope in her voice: “Do you think the cops were wrong?”
I searched her eyes. “Why is this so important to you?”
“It’s not important to me. Well, okay, it is. Like I said, my mom had been clean for the first time in her life. It’d mean a lot to my grandma to know that my mom hadn’t been lying to us. That she’d really started to change.” Her brown eyes were surprisingly defiant. “It ain’t like we’re gonna sue the cops or nothin’. We’d just like to know the truth.”
That’s when I did a dumb thing, even though it’d probably come back to bite me in the ass. “Here’s the deal. I’ll tell you what I suspect, but if you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it. Just between you and your unci, okay? I think someone killed your mom and made it look like an overdose.” I expected tears. Or outrage. Not a sad nod of acceptance.
“Thank you. That’s what I thought, or maybe what I’d hoped…” She cleared her throat and glanced at my notebook as I shut it. “That’s the type of research you’re doing?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of depressing.”
“I’ll bet Sheldon was a big help. He knows everything.”
Again with the familiar use of Sheldon. “Does he help you with research?”
“He’s usually super-busy, but there’s a lot more reference materials for history projects here than there are at the high school. Arlette came down here all the time.”
Why hadn’t Sheldon mentioned that to me?
“She and Sheldon talked books. So after she quit hanging out with me, I started coming down here because I was missing her. I thought maybe…” She blushed. “I thought maybe Sheldon would discuss vampire books with me like he had with Arlette. He’s easy to talk to, even if he does talk a lot.”
How well I knew that.
“And man, didja ever notice he asks a ton of questions?”
“I had noticed that.” I paused, not wanting to seem too eager. “What kind of questions does he ask you?”
“What questions didn’t he ask me?” she half complained. “But it is kinda cool because no one at school cares what I think.”
“High school pretty much sucks ass. That’s why I couldn’t wait to leave and join the army.”
“Really? That’s what I wanna do, too! Since Sheldon served in the military, he’s been telling me what branch of the service I should apply to.”
“I’d definitely tell you to join the army.” I smirked. “What did he say?”
“Any branch besides the National Guard if I wanted to see any real action. With the way he kept grilling me about my interview with the police, I figured he’d probably been a military cop, so I was surprised when he said he was in communications. He wanted to know if I’d heard anything. If the tribal police had possible suspects.”
That was really weird. Why would he care? To get a scoop on gossip?
“Come to think of it”-Naomi squinted at me-“he asked a lot of questions about you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I dunno. He thinks the tribal cops are idiots, too. He said he was interested in how the big guns do it.”
It was unnerving to hear that Sheldon had used my favorite phrase. How closely had he been monitoring me when I’d been working in the archives?
Paranoid much, Gunderson?
I stood. “Well, this big gun is gonna get in big trouble if she doesn’t get something done today.”
“I think I’ll wait a little longer to see if he shows up.”
“You don’t wanna go back to school?”
She wrinkled her nose. “My next class is algebra.”
“Keep your grades up,” I warned. “The military recruiters look at things like attendance, and academic records. It’ll help them choose where to place you after you’re through boot camp.”
“Oh, okay.” She looked at me strangely, almost shyly. “Would you be willing to talk to me sometime about what it’s really like being in the army?”
“Sure. And if you promise me you won’t skip class anymore, I’ll see if I can’t put in a good word for you with the recruiter.”
“That’d be so awesome!” Naomi scribbled in her notebook, ripped out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. “I won’t call you because I know you’re busy, but I got a new cell number, so you can call me when you get time.”
“Why the new number?”
Another scowl. “Because Mackenzie posted my old one in the computer lab with a note that I was a snitch.”
“Doing the right thing doesn’t make you a snitch.” I put the paper in my notebook. “Now get to class and balance some equations.” Her laughter followed me up the stairs.
Lost in thought, I literally ran into Officer Ferguson when I walked through the front door.
“Agent Gunderson. What are you doing over here? Hanging out with your boyfriend?” she joked. Then her face paled. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I forgot the sheriff is in the hospital. Sometimes I just open my mouth and don’t-”
“It’s okay.” I paused. “But I’m curious: Who’d you mean by my ‘boyfriend’?”
“Sheldon. In the archives department. I think he’s got a thing for you.”
I frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“He always asks about you.”
“You have lots of occasions to talk to Mr. War Bonnet, Officer Ferguson?”
She shrugged defensively. “I usually bring boxes of case reports over. Sheldon and I shoot the shit.” Fergie looked over her shoulder and then leaned in closer. “I’ve got a crush on him, okay? Not that I’d ever act on it.”
“Really?” I didn’t want to say eww, but… eww.
“I know what you’re thinking. But last year we had about thirty boxes to transfer here, and I wasn’t sure if Sheldon wanted me to load them in the elevator or bring them around back to the loading bay. When I got down here, I found the outer door open, which never happens on days the archives are closed. I poked my head in before I announced myself and saw Sheldon hefting huge boxes over his head. Then he climbed up to the top of the shelving unit like a monkey. He was wearing one of those wifebeater-type shirts, and it rode up.” She released a soft whistle. “I thought six-pack abs were a myth, but Sheldon has them. Man, and his arms are completely ripped. In fact, his upper body is really toned. It’s a shame he keeps it hidden under such baggy clothes.”