Enemy Way (7 page)

As they drove through the neighborhood, she was surprised to see how many of the small two- or three-bedroom houses had fresh graffiti sprayed on their walls. When they pulled up to one of the dwellings, a beige mass-produced home that
was one of a few untouched by the tagging, Ella saw Wilson’s familiar truck parked in the driveway beside a late-model compact car. Bracing herself, she stepped out of the Jeep. A strange, intense feeling of danger assailed her. She studied the houses around her, yet she saw nothing threatening. If anything, the street looked almost deserted, like an anthill in winter.

Justine glanced at Ella.
“What’s wrong? You’ve got that look on your face.”

Ella knew that her intuition was well known among the members of the department, especially Justine, whom she’d worked with closely for nearly two years now. “It’s a feeling, that’s all. Stay on your guard,” she said, knowing no further explanation was necessary.

They approached the house slowly, hands on the butts of their pistols. A neighbor
across the street appeared at a window to satisfy her curiosity. Ella reached the front door first and found it ajar. One of the keys from a large brass ring was in the lock. Looking at the other keys closely without touching any, Ella could find only one car key, and it was to Lisa’s make of vehicle, not Wilson’s truck. The keys apparently belonged to the victim.

Ella knocked on the front door
anyway to let Wilson, who she presumed was still inside, know someone was there. She reached up high to avoid smearing any potential fingerprints and, as she knocked, the force moved the door back another three inches. Ella bent down and studied the latch and the edge of the door, now easily viewed. Though she hadn’t noticed it at first glance, the door had apparently been jimmied. Fresh indentations
gouged the metal and the wood around it.

“It looks like somebody used a big screwdriver or a wrecking bar to force the lock. They didn’t leave much in the way of marks, though. Make sure you get good photos of this,” she said, turning to Tache and Ute, who were already putting on their skintight rubber gloves. Ella and Justine did the same, taking a pair each from Ute.

Once she was ready, Ella
walked into the entryway and looked around for Wilson. “We’re police officers! Where are you?”

Wilson appeared from the kitchen, his steps halting. He looked devastated. The color had drained from his face, and his shoulders were slumped.

He gestured by pursing his lips, Navajo-style. “She’s … the body … is in the living room.”

When Ella stepped into the living room, the first thing that struck
her was the chaos, a scene typical to residential burglaries. Drawers had been pulled open and their contents tossed on the floor, potted plants had been overturned and soil was everywhere. Two lamps had been smashed. The TV stand was empty, a dust-free spot where the television had rested left a telltale mark. Based upon the rectangular dust-free spot on the shelf beneath it, the VCR that belonged
there was also gone.

As she took in the rest of the room, she saw Lisa’s broken body just a few feet from the couch, on the far side. Blood had soaked into the carpet beneath her, where it had dried. More specks of blood could be found on items along the floor, including papers from a drawer and a teacher’s grade book, indicating that she had been killed after at least part of the room had been
tossed.

Mingling with more crimson splatter marks on the closest wall was a small smear of a transparent, gooey-looking substance. Ella drew nearer and studied it. A fleck of blood on it told her the goo hit the wall first. It appeared to be either petroleum jelly or maybe hair gel. Justine would know for sure once she tested it.

It was then she registered a faint but peculiar scent still lingering
in the air. It was an acrid, burned-wool type of smell that seemed strongest near the corner. She studied the carpet and found traces of burnt cloth fibers. Perhaps the killers hadn’t escaped unscathed. Maybe Lisa had managed to burn one or more of her assailants. It was also possible that when the body was turned over, she would find Lisa’s clothing had been set on fire.

As Ella crouched by
the victim’s body, she caught a glimpse of Wilson out of the corner of her eye. He was standing near the doorway, looking on, his face ashen. Wordlessly, Ella gestured to Justine to take him out of the room.

Once he was out of earshot, Ella glanced at Ute, who had begun his initial walk-through of the scene. “Next time you go to the van, call the station and have someone check with the hospital
and doctors in this area and see if anyone’s treated a burn patient this morning. And while you’re processing the scene, see if you can find a lighter or matches, or any flammable liquid that might have been used by the victim or her assailants.”

Ute nodded, wrote down a few notes, then continued his initial survey.

Ella focused on the body again. It had been a brutal killing, almost certainly
carried out to eliminate the witness to the burglary. Carolyn would have to make the final determination, but it looked to Ella as if Lisa had been beaten to death with a blunt object.

As Ella stood up slowly, searching for the weapon among the scattered drawer contents and debris, one thought niggled at the back of her mind. There had been a time when violence like this would have upset her
greatly. Now all that was evoked in her was an incredible drive to find answers. Her reaction worried her. She’d heard of cops who had become so jaded by the crimes they were forced to deal with, that nothing ever touched them. She didn’t want to become like that.

Justine came and touched her on the shoulder. “Carolyn’s on her way. Wilson says he didn’t touch anything except when he pushed the
door open, then closed it partially behind him. He said it was ajar when he got here, with the owner’s key in the lock. He made the call on his cell phone.”

“Thanks.” Ella stood up slowly and began a methodical search from the victim out. A small, gray metal box lay on the sofa just to the right of Lisa’s head. Traces of hair and blood were stuck to one of its dented corners. Tache, now in the
room with his camera, began taking photos while Ute sketched the room in his notebook. Afterwards, they would bag and tag all the evidence.

Leaving them to continue their work, Ella went to find Wilson. She found him sitting in the kitchen, staring at his hands. Ella searched him wordlessly for traces of blood, but he was clean.

“What happened here?” she asked, sitting across from him.

“I …
I don’t know. She didn’t show up for her morning classes, or leave a message to say she was ill. We were going to discuss her grading system over lunch, so I decided to call and see what was going on. I got worried when she didn’t answer the phone, so I came over. Her car was in the driveway, and I noticed her sack lunch was already on the seat cushion, like she was getting ready to leave. The door
was open and the keys were still in the lock, so I called out to her. When she didn’t answer, I came inside.” He paused for a moment. “I found her right where she is now.”

Ella heard Carolyn’s voice and looked up. Spotting her friend the ME as she stepped through the kitchen, Ella excused herself for a moment and followed Dr. Roanhorse into the living room.

The middle-aged, sturdily built ME
stepped carefully around objects on the carpet and arrived beside the body. Ella cleared her throat, then asked softly so that Wilson wasn’t likely to hear her words. “When you turn her over, let me know if you find any burns or burn marks on her or her clothing, will you?”

“Sure. It’ll be a while, though. I want to look the body over very carefully first, and make sure Tache has every angle
I need covered with photos.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Ella replied, then returned to Wilson, who hadn’t seemed to have moved a muscle while she was out of the room.

“I’m sorry for the interruption. Did you see anyone around, or a car or van?”

“I … don’t know. Kids, or maybe a neighbor driving by. But nobody was standing outside that I could see.”

“Did she ever forget things when she left
for work, and then have to come back?”

“Occasionally. Sometimes she’d leave her grade book here, or papers or a lesson plan she wanted to work on at school. Or she’d forget her lunch. First year teachers do that.” Wilson’s voice got a little stronger as he spoke of everyday things.

“That would explain the grade book in the living room and the keys in the door. She could have come back for it,
since you were going to be working on grades with her later on. She probably didn’t notice the door had already been jimmied. If she had, she wouldn’t have tried her key. Does she have any friends or students who might have come by on a weekday morning, or has anybody been bothering her lately, following her or hanging around the house?” Ella asked gently.

“Not that I know of. She got along with
everybody, but didn’t really socialize. Her teaching schedule pretty much takes up the week, and for a new teacher, that’s a lot. Face it, who has time for anything except work anymore?” Wilson looked up at Ella and shrugged. “You know what I mean. It’s the same way for all of us.”

She nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s very true.”

Justine came into the room and signalled for Ella.

Ella asked Wilson
to try and remember anything Lisa had said to him recently that might be of help, then excused herself again and went to join Justine. “What’s up?”

“We found some interesting things. Come take a look.”

Ella excused herself again and walked back into the living room. At the entrance to the bedroom hall, Justine pointed out what they had found. A small bronze sculpture of a rearing mustang had
been dropped near a pair of cheap yellow cleaning gloves. Both items were covered with blood.

“We lifted a partial print from the glove. The killer must have touched it while taking them off.”

“Good job!” Ella said.

“Well, it’s something, but it’s only a partial, so I’m not sure how much will be useable. We need a certain number of points before the print can be used to ID anyone.”

Ella nodded.

“I also lifted one smudged print from the small metal box near the victim but, again, I’m making no promises. There is one thing that I can tell you with certainty. From the footprints near the back porch we know that there were at least two thieves in the house, and they left through the rear door. The tracks there look like they came from expensive athletic shoes. You can see the brand’s logo
clearly in both sets.”

“Like I’ve seen some of the gang kids around here wearing.” Ella finished the thought for her. “I wonder why they didn’t break in through the back door?”

“The lock on the back door is a big deadbolt. It looks like they tried to jimmy it first, failed, and moved around to the front. That lock was easy. They barely left a mark.”

“Did you check in the back yard for tracks
there, too?”

“Not beyond the porch yet.”

“I’ll go take a look at the back door, then look around in the yard.”

Ella confirmed Justine’s theory about the deadbolt, then followed the tracks leading from the house out into the grounds. One set belonged to size eight shoes, the other came from a slightly larger size. The trendy footwear, with its distinctive vinyl soles and the endorsement of a
millionaire sports celebrity, was popular with teens everywhere. She doubted any local stores carried the expensive shoes, and outside the Rez, where they were available, they’d be too common to trace.

Ella kept searching. The yard here wasn’t fenced, and there were no trees. The desert terrain came right up to the house. Landscaping, except for mostly fruit trees, wasn’t that common on the Rez,
where every dollar counted. Footprints were easier to distinguish in the dirt than on grass, so that was good for her.

She discovered car tracks where the footprints ended. The direction the house faced made it unlikely that either of the victim’s neighbors to the sides had seen the vehicle as it approached, unless they had been staring out of their bedroom windows.

Lisa’s house stood at the
corner of a series of lots, and at an angle to an arroyo a few hundred yards away. Lisa would have had a great view, and privacy, which made her house more vulnerable to burglars.

Ella studied the ground, but the car had clearly circled around to the highway, less than a half mile away. As she worked her way back toward the house, she saw another set of tracks that made her blood turn cold. They
appeared to be the same cane-like marks she’s been finding around scenes of violence for several months now.

Justine came up from behind her. “I saw them, too.”

“They were made before the killers arrived. The imprint of one athletic shoe is over one of the circles.”

“I’ll talk to the neighbors,” Justine said. “Maybe someone can tell me if Lisa had any elderly or disabled visitors lately. You
remember seeing marks like these when we were working on another case, don’t you?”

Ella nodded. “But my theory regarding those tracks doesn’t fit this case. This murder probably has nothing to do with skin … the evil ones. It looks like kids broke in to rip off the place, then got involved in more than they’d bargained for. I saw the victim’s grade book in the living room, and noticed her car
was parked only halfway up the drive. She must have left for work, then discovered along the way that she’d left her grade book behind. When she came back to get it, she walked in on the burglars.”

“There
have
been a rash of residential burglaries all over these new areas lately. We suspect that they are the work of one or more of the gangs, but the department hasn’t been able to prove anything
or get a suspect they can take to court,” Justine added.

“I want you to try to find out what kind of walking stick makes an impression like this one, with the two circles and that little indentation in the middle. I don’t know if we can track that, we’ve never had much luck classifying cane prints, but it’s worth a shot.”

“The person who left this trail didn’t bother being cautious,” Justine
said. “Maybe he or she didn’t know what was about to happen.”