Caching Out (3 page)

“I’m
okay, but this case has got me thinking about things I haven’t thought about
since I left the bureau and moved back home—things like this just don’t happen
in Pine Ridge.” Tate leaned forward and lowered his voice, “No leads and no
obvious reason for the killing. Nothing seems to fit, at least not yet. This
woman didn’t seem to have an enemy in the world, yet someone went into her
house and raped and killed her.”

Jimmy
Echo smiled at Kathy as she sat Tate’s order down on the table, “Think about it
some and it’ll come to you. Might help if you let your hair grow a little
longer!” 

 “I
don’t think the Mayor would understand it if I told him to put this case on the
back burner while my hair grows long so that my spirit will be strong enough to
catch a killer.”

“You’re
probably right about that, but then people not understanding the Native ways
has always been a problem for us. When your
Unci,
your grandmother, left
the Reservation to marry your grandfather, folks in Pine Ridge thought he was
crazy for getting tied up with an ‘Indian’ girl and people on the Res shunned
my mother for leaving them for a white man. But that didn’t stop them from
building a good life together for over fifty years.”

 The
two sat in silence as Tate ate his lunch.

Finally
Jimmy said, “Tate, I know you’re busy, but at least call your mama. She’s
worried sick about you. Says she’s got a real bad feeling about all this and
you know how she is when she gets a feeling about something.” Rising to leave,
Jimmy clasped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “And Son, don’t you worry none
about this case, long hair or short, you’ll figure it out.”

Tate
watched as his dad left the diner, stopping first to speak to several of the
regulars perched on the round swivel seats at the bar.

Taking
the last bite of his sandwich, Tate thought of the last time he’d seen his dad
with short hair. It had been when his grandmother died. He was twelve and had
followed his dad down to the creek behind their house. Silently he watched as
his dad pulled his braid to the side and used a hunting knife to cut it off and
then knelt placing it in the water.  He stood and watched it float away. It had
been a few years later before Tate understood that his dad was honoring his
Unci
by grieving in the Native way, cutting his hair and returning it to the earth.

Tate
dropped a generous tip on the table and rose to leave. Deciding to give Reva a
day’s reprieve before answering questions, he drove to Saralyn Parker’s house,
hoping to find something that had been overlooked the night before. An hour later,
he admitted to himself that it had been a long shot and a dry run. Tate locked
the small house, stepped over the yellow crime scene tape and made his way back
to his SUV.

On
the drive home he made a mental note to call his mom. Tate’s parents were first
rate, family was everything to them. His dad owned the only garage in town and
was the best mechanic in the county. Karlee wasn’t his real mother, but she was
the only mother he’d ever remembered or needed. She’d always loved him and made
sure that he knew it.

On
the short ride to his house, Tate let his thoughts drift to his parents and to
his real mother. Jimmy Echo had married a young local girl shortly after high
school; rumor was that she had been pregnant and ‘that Echo boy had done right
by her.’ Six months after Tate was born, she left. His dad claimed he came home
from work one day and knew something was wrong when he pulled his wrecker into
the drive. Said he heard Tate crying from the moment he opened the truck door. He’d
gone inside and found Tate in his crib, soaked and hungry. There was no sign of
his young wife other than a note saying that she ‘couldn’t take no crying baby
no more.’  As far as Tate knew, she never came back. Never called to check on
him, never cared.

“Not
one damn birthday card,” he muttered.  His dad always laughs when he tells the
story, though Tate suspected that it wasn’t very funny at the time. Jimmy had
picked up a crying Tate that night; changed his first diaper and never looked
back. Seven months later, he married Karlee. They’d tried to have children but
after a couple miscarriages, Karlee gave up, saying that she had a beautiful
son and that was what was most important to her.

That’s
the kind of marriage Tate had wanted when he’d married FBI agent Emma Gage. Em
was beautiful, smart, sexy as hell and he’d loved her on sight . . . who was he
kidding? He still loved her. The marriage had lasted three years before things
unraveled. Tate wanted kids and a job that got him home every night, but Emma
had a career path that didn’t include taking time off for pregnancy or raising
a family. Eventually they’d realized that while their dreams could come true,
they wouldn’t be together.

Pulling
into his drive, Tate shook off thoughts of the past, checked his mail and made
his way into the small two bedroom house that he’d bought when he returned to
Pine Ridge. He rummaged in the frig for a beer and flipped on the TV. Tate
wasn’t surprised to see a local news station talking about the Parker case. This
time the talking head was on remote and stood in front of Parker’s mailbox, the
yellow crime tape surrounded the small house in the background. A photo of
Saralyn sat in the corner of the screen smiling as she posed with her
elementary class. Reaching for the remote, Tate quickly changed the channel.

CHAPTER 4

The
following morning, Daniel Westhaven, the Assistant Medical Examiner of Shannon
County, dropped the ME’s official report on Tate’s desk. “Not much more here
than we already knew, Tate. Royce did find seminal fluid on the exam, but the
sample proved to be pre-ejaculate in nature. No sperm released.”

Holding
his hand up, Tate interrupted Daniel. “So you’re saying he didn’t find release
during the rape?”

Daniel
nodded, “Exactly. He didn’t finish what he started. Either he couldn’t, or
maybe he got interrupted. Royce sent the results to the State DNA Databank for
processing and entry into CODIS just this morning.”

“With
any luck, we’ll get a match. Don’t suppose you know what the backlog is over
there? I know it usually takes ten days for entry into the system, but we need
answers now.”

“No
idea on the backlog, but Royce did tag it as priority which should bump it to
the front of the line for you. Another interesting finding showed up in the
toxicology report which really surprised the hell out of me. Seems that Ms.
Parker might have a thing for drugs.”

Reaching
for the report Tate slipped it from the letter sized manila envelope as Daniel
continued. “We found a trace amount of marijuana along with Ketamine.”

Tate
glanced up, “Ketamine?  That drug was recently linked to a case of date rape
and made national news.”

Daniel
nodded, “Yeah, it’s usually used by vets and hospitals for anesthesia, but
there’s a big street market for it as well. Kids call it ‘Special K’.”

Tate
closed the report and gave Daniel his full attention. “So save me some research
and tell me everything you know about Ketamine.”

 “Well
Ketamine Hydrochloride, or ‘Special K’, can be injected, snorted or swallowed.”
Daniel took a seat across from Tate. “It can take from less than a minute or up
to five minutes to take full effect, depending on how it was taken and the
amount. We did find a small puncture wound on Parker and think that she most
likely injected the drug. It stays in the blood for a few hours depending on
the dose size, but the effects on casual users generally wear off in an hour or
so. With the concentration ratio that she tested, Royce thinks that she must
have taken it right before she was murdered. Sounds like she was having a
little K party that went wrong.” 

Royce
Wiggins was in his mid-sixties and had served Shannon County as Senior Medical
Examiner for more than three decades. Daniel Westhaven had signed on as the
assistant ME about four years ago when age and arthritis forced Royce to slow down
and lighten his workload.

Daniel
was in his late thirties and he took responsibility for most of the field work,
leaving Royce to handle the in-house examinations and much of the paperwork
that came with being the County Coroner. It was a given that Daniel would step
into Royce’s shoes once the old man retired.

Pushing
back from his desk Tate thought aloud, “Maybe she didn’t give herself the
injection. Maybe the killer gave it to her just before she was murdered. From
what I recall in the news report, they said that Ketamine creates a trance like
state that significantly impairs motor function.”

“That’s
true. Users call it the ‘K-hole’ when they get a floating out of body
experience. Says it makes them feel paralyzed.”

“Daniel,
I’m still going to follow up on possible drug abuse by Parker, but I think it’s
more likely that the killer used Ketamine to subdue her. Would you agree that
if the killer used it that it’s possible she was awake but unable to move when
he raped and killed her?”

            “Hell
of a way to go,” Daniel said. “If your assumptions are right, then she probably
watched while he cut on her. Royce did confirm that the smaller cuts, eye, ear
and those on her arm were not what killed her
and
that they were made
while she was still alive.”

 “He
would have had to subdue her in order to make cuts that exact. I already
expected you would find something in her tox screen, I just wasn’t sure what it
would be.”  Tate frowned, “So what happens if he gives his victim too much?” 

Daniel
shrugged, “Well, most likely it would have stopped her breathing, since a true
overdose would paralyze the organs including the lungs, but since Royce
confirmed that she was alive when the cuts were made, we know that didn’t
happen. Ketamine increases blood pressure and heart rate, so it might impact an
unhealthy or elderly person differently than it would a young and otherwise healthy
user.”

 “So
he’s educated on administering Ketamine, giving her enough to immobilize her
but not kill her and he’s skilled with a knife. Now the marijuana use puts a
bit of a spin on things.” Tate’s voice did nothing to hide his frustration. “You
say it was just a trace amount?”

“Yeah,
she could have smoked any time in the last thirty days and we’d have pulled a
trace reading on the report.”

Tate
sighed, “Well, this just gets worse by the minute. Unless she was taking
something legal that created a false positive on the marijuana, then it’s
possible that she was both a pot smoker and abused the Ketamine. Or maybe the
killer injected her then forced her to smoke the weed. Ask Royce to do a hair
follicle at a ninety day and full year interval. That should tell us if she is
a regular smoker or not.”

Tate
slid the report pages into the case file and flipped the folder closed. “Thanks
for bringing the report over, Daniel. I appreciate that you guys down at the
ME’s office understand just how sensitive this is. We haven’t had a murder in
Pine Ridge in so long that folks are shocked and running scared.”

 “It
just doesn’t seem right that an elementary school teacher would be on drugs.”
Daniel said. “Hell, I’ve got little ones that will be starting school next year.
I hate to think that we might be sending our kids off to spend the day with a
user.”

“The
world is a scary place. I know that the school system does random drug test on
all the staff, so if she were a regular user then she probably would have lost
her job before now. Hell, maybe she is a casual smoker. Guess I’ll go back to
her house and check to see what she’s got there, even though we’ve had two empty
searches already. I can’t rule out drugs being part of the motive now and if
they are, it points a strong finger toward the Reservation since that’s where
we have the biggest population of users in the state.” 

Daniel
nodded, “You do know that while there is certainly a marijuana problem at the
Res, more of the users there are into crack cocaine, right?  I pull shifts over
at County Hospital twice a month and there’s always someone being brought in
with a suspected overdose. A couple weeks ago we had one show up and confirmed
an OD on heroin. Surprised the hell out of me since I didn’t know that there
was enough money on the Res for anyone to get their hands on anything other
than the cheap drugs, like marijuana or crack.” 

“Yeah,
I knew that there were other drugs out there. Rumor has it that the gangs are
pulling down some big money delivering for their primary supplier, and we both
know that for an addict more money equals better drugs. Any idea what Ketamine
goes for on the street?”

Snorting,
Daniel replied, “No idea. That’s more your department than mine.”

 “Just
a casual question, Daniel. You find anything more on that symbol she had cut
into her arm?  Maybe it’s Lakota after all?”

“If
I were guessing, I’d say it’s not a Native American symbol, Lakota or otherwise.
You thinking someone from the Res did this?”

Tate
shrugged, “Just thinking outside the box. I need to understand what the symbol
means and why the perp would mark the victim this way. I haven’t ruled out that
the guy wants us to think that the killer is someone from the Reservation. I’m
not aware of any murders on or off the Res where the killer marked the victim
this way, but I don’t want to overlook anything either.”