Blood Quantum Page 8

  Crazy Marge tched at him. "Well, you ain't gettin' any, so don't get you no ideas!"

  Sam made a disappointed face and laughed along with her. Greg was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel himself.

  "Now, who is this person you're lookin' to find?" she asked. Her face had gone suddenly serious. Greg didn't think there was anything crazy about her, except maybe for the persona she adopted. But it worked for her, as she said – people remembered her, and she had made herself a kind of celebrity among her peers.

  Sam showed her the picture, and this time she perused it intently. "He's met with an accident," Sam said. "We're trying to find out who he is, so we can let his family know, if he has any."

  "He's dead." Crazy Marge said it flatly, as if it was an acknowledged fact.

  "That's right," Sam said. "He is. Does he look at all familiar to you?"

  "I know him."

  "Who is he?" Greg asked.

  She tapped the picture with a long nail. Fake, Greg was sure, with a glittering rhinestone stuck on near the tip. "That's Crackers," she said.

  "Crackers?"

  She lowered her voice almost to a whisper, dropping the stage act for the moment. "My real name is Lurlene," she said. "But if you asked anybody around here about Lurlene, they wouldn't know who you meant. Most of us old-timers, nobody here knows us by our given names. I'm called Crazy Marge because… well, you figure it out. He went by Crackers because that's what he was always eating, always had a box of crackers, or else he was scrounging money to get crackers. Sometimes I didn't know how he survived on nothing but crackers, but maybe when I wasn't looking, he ate a salad or two."

  "So he's Crackers."

  "That's right," she said, slipping right back into character. "Always had him a cracker in his hand and one in his mouth. Surprised there ain't no cracker crumbs in his beard in that picture."

  "When was the last time you saw Crackers?" Greg asked.

  She tapped her chin with that same studded fingernail. "Maybe four, five days ago. He kinda kept to hisself. Some people said Crackers really was crazy, but you know, I don't judge people that way. Crazy is as crazy does, right?"

  "Did he have any close friends here?" Sam asked.

  "Like I said, kept to hisself. Some folks, you can't relate to 'em the way you do to others. He's like that. That's why people thought he was crazy, you know? You couldn't really reach him. He was always in his own head. And I tell you what, there was some scary shit in that head. For a while, my place was close to his, and I heard some screams, when he was sleepin'? Like to curdle my blood. Made me worry about him, wonder what he had been through. Or was goin' through in his own mind."

  "Well, can you show us where he lived most recently?" Sam asked her. "Maybe one of his more immediate neighbors can help us."

  "You can try," she said. "They all just know him as Crackers, I'm pretty sure, but you give it a shot." She beckoned them to follow. "Come on, you. I gots stuff to do, don't have all day to be directin' y'all around."

  Greg felt like part of a floor show as he and Sam followed Crazy Marge, who sashayed through the tent city, waving to some, winking to others, offering a word or two to just about everybody they passed, and usually getting a friendly greeting in return. In her company, he and Sam were more readily accepted by those they encountered.

  After about ten minutes, she stopped outside a ragged olive-drab pup tent. It looked like military surplus, maybe from the First World War. There were tears in it, some stitched up, some covered in duct tape, a few just open and catching the breeze. "This is it," she said. "This is Crackers's house."

  "You said he's an old-timer,' Sam said.

  "That's right, like me. Maybe not quite as long. Six, seven years, though, easy. Could be more, I guess. It ain't like I marked it down on a calendar. You know how it is. Some people move in, others move out. Sometimes you don't really notice who's come and gone until it's been a while."

  Greg squatted down and pulled aside the tent flap.

  Crackers was not one of the tent city's better housekeepers, which did not come as a shock considering how he had looked when he died.

  The other thing that didn't come as a shock was that the tent was littered with paper scraps, most apparently written on again and again and again. The ones in his pockets had been just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

  "I'm going to have to get my kit," Greg said. "And process this place. It looks like I'll be at it awhile."

  "I'll have a uniform come over and keep an eye on things," Sam said. "I was hoping this would be easier."

  You and me both, Greg thought. He didn't bother saying it. Some things were just understood.

  Anyway, he would need to save his breath for the task ahead – from the whiff he'd gotten when he stuck his head through the flap, he was sure he would be holding his breath a lot while he worked this scene. The reek clinging to the John Doe's body had nothing over the smell he'd left behind in his tent. Processing the tent would require him to breathe that air for a long time, a task he looked forward to without enthusiasm.

  And once Greg got all of those paper scraps collected, the people in the QD lab would have enough work to keep them busy for years.

  9

  "Nick?"

  Mandy stood in the doorway to the office Nick shared with Greg, her head cocked to one side, dark hair hanging across one eye. She had a clipboard in one hand. Nick had been writing down some aspects of his report on Domingo's house and vehicle while they were fresh in his mind, but he put down the pen. "What's up, Mandy?"

  "I got a hit," she said, shaking back the stray hairs. "On those impressions you collected from Robert Domingo's Escalade."

  "Good," Nick said, glad something was coming easily for a change. His shift had long since ended, but there he was. Mandy, too. Time could mean everything when it came to catching a murderer, and he knew Catherine and Greg were on a case that involved a missing woman. Both were high-priority and meant that shift times were a flexible concept. "Who do they belong to?"

  Mandy consulted her clipboard. "A woman named Karina Ochoa. She's nineteen."

  "A young woman was in the nightclub with Domingo, according to Brass. She left with him. If it's the same woman, then she had a fake ID."

  "She wouldn't be the first. But I don't know anything about that. I do know she's Grey Rock Paiute, and I have an address here, along with her driver's license photo."

  "Let's see."

  She brought the clipboard to the desk and handed it over. Nick studied the picture closely. He had seen the video Brass brought back from Fracas, but the quality wasn't great, and the woman had long, straight black hair partially obscuring her face. On the video, she could have been almost anybody. The young woman in the photo Mandy showed him might have been the same one. But this was a driver's license picture, straight on, her hair off her face, with an impatient half smile. He couldn't be sure.

  "This is great, Mandy. Thanks."

  "I live to serve."

  "Yeah, right. Could you do me a favor? Get this and the video Brass got at Fracas compared with facial-recognition software, see if we can confirm that they're the same person."

  "Sure. I don't think anybody's busy today. That's a joke."

  "I got it."

  "I figured. Seriously, I'll take care of it."

  "You rock."

  "I do, don't I?" Mandy laughed and walked away, leaving the driver's license enlargement with Nick. He called Brass and described what he had.

  "If FR gives us anything more concrete, I'll let you know."

  "Sounds good," Brass said. "I think we should head up there."

  "The reservation?"

  "I'll call someone on the tribal police, have him meet us. We don't have jurisdiction there."

  "That's right, sovereign nation."

  "Exactly," Brass said. "So, you ready for some international travel?"

  "You know me, I'm ready for anything."

  "Then let's pay Miss Ochoa a little visit." />
  *

  The Grey Rock Paiute tribal police headquarters was in a steel building, painted white, with the tribe's official logo – a sharply peaked grey mountain jutting up through fluffy white clouds against a bright blue sky, all of it contained within a triangle shape – on the wall facing the gravel parking lot. By the lime they had parked Brass's Dodge sedan, a uniformed tribal cop was shuffling across the hot gravel toward them. He was wide, his bulk accentuated by his duty belt with its holster and pouches, and his gut overhung the buckle a little. But he looked sturdy, maybe mid-forties, and he was beaming a smile at them all the way over.

  "I was hoping it'd be you," Brass said. "Rico, meet Nick Stokes, with the crime lab. Nicky, Rico Aguirre and I worked a case together a few years ago. How've you been? Looks like your wife's keeping you well fed."

  "Can't complain," Officer Aguirre said. He eyed Nick from underneath a sweat-ringed straw cowboy hat and offered his hand. "Well, at least not where she can hear me." He laughed, then added, "No, really, I'm good, Jim. A little crazed today, because of what happened to Chairman Domingo, of course, but that's what the job's about, right? Pleased to meet you, Nick."

  Nick shook his hand, the skin callused and hard. "You, too, Rico."

  "You can call me Richie," Aguirre said with a grin. His eyes were hooded, not much more than slits, his nose broad and prominent. Deep-cut lines on his face looked like those of someone who laughed a lot. "Most white people do."

  The police headquarters was a few miles beyond the reservation's boundary with Las Vegas. The morning sun shone down on rolling hills in shades of tan and brown, some of them dotted with cacti and other succulents, a few of the valleys carpeted in spring wildflowers. In other places, the land was almost as barren as a moonscape. In the distance, beyond the rectangle of headquarters, a purple mountain with a three-pointed peak shouldered up into an azure sky, almost a match for the logo painted on the building. There was beauty all around, but it was the kind of beauty one had to look for, the subtle beauty of a desert springtime.

  Aguirre noted Nick's gaze. "What do you think of our land? Did the Great White Father rip us off?"

  "I don't know," Nick said. "It's pretty empty, but that's not a bad thing. Maybe you guys got the better end of the deal by not getting the Strip."

  Aguirre laughed again. "See, you're only here a few minutes, and you're already thinking like an Indian." He turned to Brass, suddenly all business. "So you want to talk to Karina Ochoa?"

  "Do you know her?"

  "Jim, I'm Rico Aguirre. I know everybody."

  "Is that a fact?"

  "No, but I thought maybe you'd buy it anyway. I do know Karina, though."

  "That's good, because I tried to get a map to her place online, and it seems the mapping services don't do too well on the reservation."

  "'Cause we put a magical protective shield over it."

  "Right," Brass said, sounding less than convinced.

  "Man, you just can't be fooled." Aguirre addressed Nick. "Most people believe we're all mystical and spiritual and stuff. If I told them I solved a case through diligent police work, they'd think I was full of it, but if I told them I magically made the guilty party appear in a dream, they'd be all over it."

  "We're a little more reality-based at the crime lab," Nick said.

  "Not that I can't do magic, mind you…"

  "Can you keep the day from being hot?" Brass asked. "Because it's starting to feel like it might be a scorcher, and that kind of magic I could go for."

  "Sorry, Jim. I can only do so much."

  "Okay, then, why don't you start by taking us out to Ochoa's place? If we need you to extract a confession from her magically, we'll let you know."

  "That I can manage." Aguirre led them to a white Jeep with tribal police markings, parked in the shade of a spreading mesquite tree. His duty belt creaked as he walked, spinning his key ring on his finger. "Our chariot awaits."

  When they were settled inside, he started the Jeep and drove out of the parking lot, turning right on the road Brass and Nick had taken to get there. "What do you want to talk to Karina about? She a witness to something?"

  "She might have killed Robert Domingo," Nick said.

  Aguirre let the Jeep slip off the side of the road, then corrected his course. "No. You've got the wrong person, then."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just know Karina. She wouldn't do anything like that."

  "People can surprise you, Richie," Brass said.

  "That's true. And I don't know her all that well. But from what I do know… it just doesn't sound like her. She's kind of a political type, hangs around with some people who like to make a fuss. But she's liberal, a peacenik type, not someone I can see getting involved in murder. I don't believe she would ever get violent."

  "We know she was at a club with Domingo last night," Nick explained. "We know she left with him and went for a ride in his Escalade. Someone smashed in one of the windows with a brick. We think that was her, too, but we're still waiting for DNA results on the epithelials. A little while later, someone smashed his skull with a heavy cigarette lighter."

  Aguirre was nodding along as Nick spoke. He had pulled off the main road and was driving up a steep hill, taking tight switchbacks with comfortable familiarity. The road was jarring, every bump feeling as if it was compacting Nick's spine a little more. "I'm sure you guys have your reasons for being here. I just have to believe there's a disconnect somewhere along the way. I read the report on Chairman Domingo, and that was some brutal stuff. Maybe she broke that car window, but I don't see her bludgeoning anybody to death." He pulled into a packed-dirt driveway that led around a smaller hill, and parked in front of a tiny pink-stucco house. "You'll find out for yourselves in a minute. This is her place."

  The yard was nonexistent, just raw desert right up to the front door. A couple of window air-conditioner units poked out, dripping into the dirt and breaking the smooth planes of the walls, but otherwise, the house was a flat-roofed box. White lace curtains in the windows added a homey touch. "She live here alone?" Nick asked as they got out of the Jeep.

  Aguirre scanned the desert beyond the house, alert for anything. Nick wasn't sure what he was watching for, but the murder of their chairman must have had everybody on edge. The tribal cop had seemed loose, casual, but Nick had noticed that his gaze caught every motion on the way over, every roadrunner or snake in the road, every hawk wheeling overhead. "No, her mom and a couple cousins live with her."

  "Crowded."

  "That's what poverty's like," Aguirre said simply. He strode to the front door and knocked twice.

  "Karina Ochoa!" he called. "Get your clothes on, it's the law!"

  Guess they have different legal standards here, Nick thought. If announced myself that way, I'd be written up for harassment.

  A slim young woman opened the door, laughing. "You crack me upRichie," she said. She saw Brass and Nick looking at her, and her smile faded. "Who are they?"

  Brass showed his badge and walked toward the door. "Miss Ochoa, I'm Jim Brass with the Las Vegas Police Department, and this is Nick Stokes with our crime lab. May we come in?"

  She glanced at Aguirre, who nodded. She looked like the woman in the driver's license photo and could easily have been the one in the video as well. Her hair was long and straight, as black as spilled ink. Her eyes were dark brown, and there was a light, metallic eye shadow above them, a heavy black line around them. Her plump lips had dark lipstick on them. She wasn't dressed as she had been at the club but simply, in a blue tank top and black shorts. Metallic green polish, like a beetle's back, decorated her toenails. Nick couldn't help noticing her slender legs, accentuated by a silver chain around her right ankle, but he was professional enough to put them out of his mind and focus on her as a human being – and a potential suspect. "Sure, I guess," she said.

  Inside, she sat them down on a faded sofa in a living room covered in toys and children's books. At the back of the room was
a small kitchen with a table and six chairs. Two doors led out; one was closed tight, the other slightly ajar. Brass took a photo from his jacket pocket, a still from the surveillance video at Fracas, and put it down on the table in front of her, on top of a pile of Dr. Seuss. "That's you, isn't it?"

  She barely glanced at it. Her mood had changed from jovial to sullen. Aguirre leaned against a wall, arms crossed over his deep chest, watching quietly. "Looks like it."

  "And that's Robert Domingo with you."

  "If you say so."

  "And this was taken last night, at a place called Fracas."

  She tilted her chin up, as if warding off any inference that the nightclub was an improper place for a girl her age. Oddly, the gesture reminded Nick of low young she was, underage for the club, a child trying to pass as a grown-up. "So?"

  "So you may or may not have heard, but Robert Domingo was murdered last night."

  "I heard." Her voice betrayed no emotion, and her expression didn't budge. Nick noted a thin blue vein in her neck pulsing, and he wondered how much effort it was taking for her to remain so outwardly calm. A lot, he guessed.

  Brass sighed. "Okay, I guess I have to come right out and ask. Did you kill Chairman Domingo?"

  Finally, emotion flashed across her face, her brow furrowing, her mouth dropping open in a scowl. "Hell no!" she said. "Of course not!"

  "But you were with him at the club and then later in his vehicle."

  "Yeah, I was with him."

  "Were you and Domingo dose?"

  "No."

  "Then why -"

  "Just tell them, Karina," Aguirre suggested. "Tell them about your buddies."

  "Okay, whatever. You see the way we live, right? My mom is keeping my little cousins in her room because you cops are here, but normally, this house is crazy with noise and activity. Domingo, though, he had, like, two houses at least, one here on the rez and that big one in town. I have these friends, that's what Rico's talking about. I guess you'd call them activists or whatever. Always making signs, trying to hold protests, whatever."

  "Protesting against Domingo's chairmanship?"