Chilling Effect (4 page)
Authors: Unknown
updating their Facebook statuses. Whatever the reason, the deserted streets felt creepy.
It was just her on a lonely stretch of land with a dead man in
the house behind her.
After the fourth ring, Joe picked up.
“Hey, Roo.”
His voice was relaxed, inviting. Th e sound of laughter, music,
and clinking glasses fi lled the background.
“I need you,” she said without preamble.
21
MELISSA F. MILLER
“Are you okay?” he asked, instantly serious.
She ignored the question and plowed right into her story. “I’m
on the White Springs Reservation. I came here to meet a witness,
but when I got here, he was dead. My God, he was murdered—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. You’re . . . on a reservation?
How’d you get there?”
“Shuttle service from the resort. Listen, I’m sorry. I know I
agreed not to work on this trip, but Sid asked for a favor and—”
“Th at’s what the call was about this morning?” Irritation seeped
through the phone receiver.
“Yes. Can we focus here? Th ere’s a
dead
guy
dead
. I . . . I’m scared,
Joe.”
Instantly, the agitation left his voice.
“Okay, right. You’re okay? Are you someplace safe?”
She swept the desolate strip of land with her eyes. Was Isaac
Palmer’s killer watching her from behind one of the other shacks?
Or from out in the windswept plains? A red-tailed hawk circled the
fi eld, and a shiver ran down her spine. Th e sight of the opportunistic predator out hunting made her feel as though she were prey herself.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“Text me the address. I’m on my way.”
“Th ank you.”
“Just stay put. Don’t do anything brave—or stupid.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. I’m going to call Sid and then the tribal police. Th en I guess I’l let the shuttle driver know he can take off . I imagine we’l be here awhile dealing with the authorities.” Ever since his kidnapping he’d acted as if her natural response to danger was to rush into it. He didn’t realize that her bravery was a direct response to that fact that
he
had been the one in peril.
he
In any case, he didn’t need to worry about her getting adventurous
22
CHILLING EFFECT
out here on her own—she couldn’t shake the image of the dead man
slumped in his chair just on the other side of the door.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“Love you, too.”
She ended the call and texted the address with trembling hands.
Th e hawk circled again. It called. Its cry chilled her—it sounded
like an infant in distress. Another call, and a second bird joined it in the dusky sky.
She stowed her phone without calling Sid or the police and set
off across the narrow street toward the fi eld on a hunch.
Th e hawks perched on two high branches and peered down at
something in the far corner of the fi eld.
ItI’s probably a dead r
s pr
abbit
obably a dead r
, she tried to convince herself as she
abbit
tromped through the long grass, sage, and juniper bushes.
Th e predators continued their cal ing, louder and more insistent
now.
What was left of the sun was dipping behind a distant rock
formation.
She wrapped her arms around her torso and bent her head
against the wind.
As she reached the spot that the hawks were watching, she saw
what was causing their excitement and sucked in her breath. She was right, it was a dead rabbit. But it wasn’t
just
a dead rabbit.
just
An adult black-tailed jackrabbit, its long thin ears spread against the earth like two antennae, stared up at the sky, a single bullet hole between its eyes.
Someone had been practicing.
Th e tribal police were unimpressed. Or, at least, the baby-faced
Ahmik Hunt, the fi rst offi cer to respond to her call, was unimpressed.
23
MELISSA F. MILLER
“Ma’am, we’re overrun with rabbits. Everybody hunts them,
although it is unusual to see one left for dead like that, to be sure,”
he said.
Aroostine nodded. Most Native Americans frowned on hunt-
ing for sport, and if someone on the reservation killed a rabbit, he would likely eat the meat and put the skin and fur to other practical uses. But this guy seemed to be missing the larger point. She cocked her head and searched his expression, trying to determine if he was being sincere.
“Th is rabbit wasn’t hunted. It was executed. Shot in the fore-
head, exactly like Isaac Palmer,” she explained in the most patient tone she could muster.
“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions. We’ll have to leave it to the
ballistics experts to determine whether that’s true.”
“You don’t fi nd it curious that there’s a dead rabbit less than fi fty yards from Mr. Palmer’s corpse?”
He shrugged. “Tell me again why you were in Mr. Palmer’s
house?”
She fl ushed and tried to ignore the heat in her cheeks. She’d
called Sid fi rst, before calling the locals, and he’d been adamant that she not mention the investigation.
“Don’t lie, Higgins, but obfuscate your pants off if you have to”
was his exact quote. Unfortunately for her, she was a terrible liar and, she imagined, an equally bad obfuscater.
“Ah, I’m out here on vacation from back East. So I called Isaac
to see if he wanted to get together for a visit while I’m here.”
All true.
“You two involved?”
“You mean romantically? No, nothing like that. My husband
was taking a tour of some breweries. I don’t drink, so it seemed like a good time to see Isaac.”
24
CHILLING EFFECT
Th e cop seemed to age before her eyes as he squinted at her,
sizing her up. She smiled as convincingly as she could.
“You’re not Chinook, are you?”
She shook her head. “Lenape,” she confi rmed.
“How did you say you know Isaac?”
She stared toward the front door of the house, where the offi -
cer’s colleagues were struggling through the front door under the
weight of a black body bag.
Now what?
She turned back to Offi cer Hunt with a pained expression.
“I’m sorry? What did you say?” she asked to buy time.
It was his turn to blush.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms. Higgins. I’m sure it must have
been quite a shock to fi nd Isaac like that.”
“Th at’s putting it mildly.”
Th ey stared at each other for a long moment. She was about to
break the silence by asking whether there were a lot of execution-
style murders on the reservation when Joe sped up in the rental Jeep and screeched to a stop when he saw her.
Th e cop’s right hand danced toward his service weapon.
“It’s my husband,” she hurried to explain.
His fi ngers relaxed.
Joe ran around the vehicle and caught her in a tight hug.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fi ne.”
Despite her assurance, he held her at arm’s length and examined
her, as if he might fi nd signs of injury.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fi ne—now that you’re here.” She leaned into him and
wrapped her arms around his neck.
Offi cer Hunt coughed awkwardly.
25
MELISSA F. MILLER
“I’ll give you folks some privacy. Ms. Higgins, please make sure
you give your contact information to someone before you leave the
scene.”
She nodded. He touched his fi ngers to the brim of his cap and
walked over to join the cluster of uniforms gathered around Palmer’s front door.
She relaxed, sagging against Joe’s chest.
“I’m so glad he’s gone,” she whispered.
“Why’s that?”
“Sid doesn’t want me to share any details of the investigation
with the locals. So I was sort of sidestepping a lot of that guy’s questions. And you know how I am with lying.”
Under ordinary circumstances, Joe wouldn’t pass up a chance
to tease her about her terrible poker face. But instead of ribbing her, he frowned and stared down at her.
“I don’t like the sound of that. Why wouldn’t the Justice Depart-
ment cooperate with the tribal police?”
She looked up into his guileless blue eyes and crafted a response
that wouldn’t disillusion him too much.
“I’m not sure Sid thinks these guys are equipped to deal with
issues related to a federal embezzlement case, babe.”
He stiff ened and said, “Why? Because they don’t wear two-
thousand-dollar suits?”
Leave it to Joe to identify with a bunch of tribal police. His dis-
trust of what he considered city slickers had only snowballed since she’d joined the Department of Justice.
“I’m sure that’s not it. Can we drop this? I still can’t believe he’s dead. I talked to him just a couple hours ago.”
She watched his indignation morph—fi rst into sadness for the
dead stranger and then into a spark of fear for her safety.
“You don’t think he was killed because he was going to talk to
you?”
26
CHILLING EFFECT
She shrugged as if to say she had no idea. But that was exactly
what she thought.
And Sid thought so, too. Th e last thing he’d said to her had
been
“Try to stick around and see what the locals turn up. But for the
love of all that’s holy, Higgins—be careful.”
27
After the county coroner’s van pulled out and bumped along the
road with Isaac’s corpse secure in the back, Offi cer Hunt gestured for an older man to follow him and broke free of the various offi -
cial types milling around the crime scene. Th ey headed across the
street to the fallen log where Aroostine and Joe had fi nally parked themselves, waiting for someone to tell them they were free to leave.
Aroostine rose to her feet and dusted off her pants as they
approached. Joe stood up beside her and followed suit.
“Ms. Higgins, Mr. Higgins—” the police began.
“It’s Jackman, actually. Joe Jackman.”
Joe stuck out his hand. Offi cer Hunt shook it and then resumed
his introductions.
“Right. Th is is Chief Johnson.”
“I appreciate your patience. I know you’ve been cooling your
heels for a while now,” Chief Johnson said. He had the tanned face
of an outdoorsman and the tired eyes of a bureaucrat.
CHILLING EFFECT
“It’s okay. You’ve got a murder to investigate,” she said.
He fl ashed her a tight smile.
“Well, currently, it’s a death. It hasn’t been ruled a homicide just yet,” he cautioned.
She felt her eyes widen. She stole a sideways glance at Joe. His
face mirrored her bewilderment.
“Uh, Aroostine said the guy had been shot between the eyes at
close range. I don’t think he died of natural causes,” Joe countered.
Offi cer Hunt jumped in. “I think we’re all in agreement that
Mr. Palmer died as a result of a gunshot wound. Th e chief’s just
saying we need to proceed in an orderly fashion.”
“Sure. Understood. Did you tell the chief about the rabbit?”
Aroostine had watched the various personnel come and go from
the scene, traipsing through Palmer’s house with bags of equipment, cameras, and fi nally the body bag. At no point did anyone cross the road to examine the jackrabbit that had been shot in much the same
way as the late Isaac Palmer.
Offi cer Hunt scrunched up his face as if he were trying, through
superhuman eff ort, not to roll his eyes.
Chief Johnson turned to the younger man with a questioning
look.
“Rabbit?”
“Uh, right. Ms. Higgins noticed some hawks showing an inter-
est in the fi eld back there. She went over to investigate and found a dead rabbit.” He waved his hand in the general vicinity of the fi eld.
“I see,” the chief said.
Before he could launch into an explanation about the circle of life, she said, “It’s not just a dead rabbit. It’s a rabbit that was shot point-blank between the eyes, at close range, using a small-caliber weapon.
Ring any bells?”
Th e chief’s substantial eyebrows wriggled across his forehead
like gray caterpillars.
29
MELISSA F. MILLER
“You think Palmer’s shooter did the rabbit, too?”
“Well, it didn’t commit suicide, chief.” She managed to keep
her disdain out of her voice, but just barely. Th is guy was a joke.
“Good point. Hunt, go tell one of the forensic dweebs to check
out the rabbit before the hawks turn it into dinner, eh?”
Offi cer Hunt huff ed off .
Th e chief squinted at Aroostine.
“What kind of lawyer did you say you were?”
“I didn’t. But I’m the kind of lawyer who’s on a romantic get-
away with her husband. Why?”
He looked from Aroostine to Joe and then back at her. “Th at
was some detailed knowledge of ballistics for a civilian.”
He waited.
Maybe he wasn’t such a joke after all. She glanced at Joe, but
he gave her an innocent look as if to say, “you got yourself into it, you can get out of it.”
“Well, I have prosecuted some crimes back home. And I watch
CSI, of course.” She smiled, willing him to laugh. Better to let him think she was ditz than to reveal that Isaac Palmer may have been
killed because he was cooperating with a federal investigation of
crimes committed on the chief’s turf.
Th e short burst that came exploding from his throat might have
been a chuckle, but it was devoid of actual humor.
