Was this how it worked?Was this how the powerful protected themselves, by burying inconvenient truths under layers of bureaucracy and jurisdictional complications?By paying lawyers and accountants to create shell companies that couldn't be traced?By pressuring federal investigators to close cases before they got too close to something that mattered?
Ben pulled out his phone and called Kari.She answered on the third ring, traffic noise in the background suggesting she was driving somewhere in that enormous, confusing city.
"Ben.What's going on?"
"The FBI closed the Naalnish case.Ruled the death inconclusive."
Silence on the other end.Then: "That's not possible.You saw the skull.I saw the photos you took."
"They're claiming it could have been a rock fall.Cave collapse.Natural causes that happened to crush the back of his head in a way that looks exactly like blunt force trauma."Ben made no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice."Three days of investigation, and they're walking away."
"Something's wrong.Someone's pressuring them to close this."
"That's what I think too.Yazzie tried to find out who owns Devco Holdings.It's buried under shell companies, layers of them.Whoever bought that land didn't want to be found."
Kari was quiet for a moment.When she spoke again, her voice was tight with the same anger Ben was feeling."Your mother was right about Evan.She said he was murdered, and he was.If she was right about him, she might have been right about the other cases too.And if someone is covering this up..."
"They might have covered up the others as well."Ben finished the thought."Including what happened to her."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication.
"Did you find anything on Elite Vision?"Kari asked."Diana Shepherd?"
Ben winced."I'm sorry.I got buried in the Naalnish case and your mom's files.I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet."
"It's fine.I've been making progress on my own out here."
"Did you find Tayen?"
"Not yet.But I found something else."Kari's voice changed, taking on the focused quality it always had when she was working a case."The model that Tayen's roommate said disappeared?Amanda?She didn't disappear.She's dead.Overdose, supposedly.But the agency told the roommate she went home.They lied about it."
"An agency covering up a model's death.Institutions lying about what happened to people in their care."Ben rubbed his eyes."Where have we heard that before?"
"I know.Different city, different circumstances, but the shape of it feels the same.People disappear when they become inconvenient.Deaths that get ruled accidents or overdoses when they might be something else entirely."
"Did you find anything that connects to Tayen directly?"
"Amanda was her friend.And Amanda died the same day Tayen vanished.A paramedic who responded to the scene thought it looked staged, but the cops wrote him off."Kari paused."A detective here told me about a photographer who worked with both of them.Blake Montgomery.He had complaints filed against him a few years ago.Aggressive behavior, inappropriate conduct.The complaints got dropped when the women withdrew their statements."
"Sounds like someone worth looking into."
"That's where I'm headed now.His studio's in the Arts District."The traffic noise on her end shifted, horns honking in the distance."I'll call you tonight.Let me know if anything changes with the FBI, if they say anything else about why they closed it so fast."
"I will."
After she hung up, Ben stood in the parking lot for another minute, watching the heat shimmer off the asphalt.Then he got in his truck and headed toward the eastern edge of the reservation.
He had a promise to keep.He'd told Kari he'd check on Ruth, and he wasn't about to break his word.But there was another reason for the visit.Ruth Chee had known Anna better than almost anyone.She'd watched her daughter spend years researching those seventeen deaths, had listened to her theories and her fears.If there were secrets in those files, secrets that connected to Devco Holdings or to whatever had really happened to Evan Naalnish, Ruth might be able to help him find them.
The drive took him through landscapes that had been home to his people for generations.Red rock mesas rising against the blue sky, juniper forests clinging to hillsides, dry washes cutting through the earth like ancient scars.The land here held stories.Stories of those who came before, and those who would come after.Stories written in rock and sand and the bones of the earth itself.
Ben wondered what stories the land where Evan Naalnish had died would tell, if anyone bothered to listen.What secrets were buried there alongside his bones?What had he found that was worth killing him over, worth buying the land and fencing it off and keeping everyone away for fifteen years?
Ruth's house appeared around a bend in the road, a small structure of wood and adobe dwarfed by the vast landscape surrounding it.Smoke rose from the chimney despite the heat, and Ben could smell something cooking as he parked and walked toward the porch.Mutton stew, maybe, or green chili.His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn't eaten since breakfast.
The old woman was waiting for him at the door, as if she'd known he was coming.Given what Ben had seen since partnering with Kari, the things that defied easy explanation, he wouldn't be surprised if she had.
"You look troubled," Ruth said, her dark eyes studying his face with an intensity that seemed to see right through him."Come.Eat first.Then tell me what's weighing on your spirit."
