CHAPTER TWO
Ben Tsosie lived in a small house on the southern edge of the reservation, a modest place he'd bought four years ago when he'd made detective.
Kari had been there a handful of times—once for a barbecue he'd hosted for the department, twice to drop off case files when he'd been on modified duty with a shoulder injury.
She knew the way without needing directions.
She pulled up to find Ben's truck in the driveway and smoke rising from a grill in the backyard. It was just past noon on a Saturday, and apparently he was taking advantage of the good weather. Kari felt a pang of guilt for interrupting what was probably one of his rare days off.
He appeared around the corner of the house as she got out of her Jeep, wearing jeans and a faded Navajo Nation Police softball league t-shirt, a spatula in one hand. His expression shifted from surprise to welcome.
"Kari. Didn't expect to see you today." He gestured with the spatula toward the backyard. "I'm just making lunch. You hungry?"
"I don't want to intrude."
"You're not. I made too many burgers anyway. Come on back."
Kari followed him around the house to a small backyard with a patio, a weathered picnic table, and a propane grill that had seen better days. The smell of cooking meat made her realize she'd skipped breakfast in her rush to meet her father.
"How've you been?" Ben asked, flipping burgers. "I heard the Hopi case wrapped up. Tough one."
"Yeah." Kari sat at the picnic table, grateful for the shade from a juniper tree. "Cultural preservation officer killed two people to protect his daughter's adoption secret. Staged the bodies at sacred sites to make some twisted point about respecting tradition."
"Shit." Ben shook his head. "I saw some of the preliminary reports that came through. Glad I wasn't on that one."
Kari felt the opening. "I never did ask what you've been up to while I've been gone."
"Mostly covering for Rodriguez while he was out with his appendix surgery. Been running pretty much nonstop." Ben moved the burgers to a plate. "But nothing as intense as what you were handling. Cross-jurisdictional politics, cultural sensitivities. Sounds like a nightmare."
"It had its moments." Kari accepted the burger and fixings he brought over. "But it's done now. I'm back, and hopefully things will be quiet for a while."
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. This was one of the things Kari appreciated about Ben—he didn't feel the need to fill every silence with conversation. He was comfortable just being, letting moments exist without forcing them into something they weren't.
But eventually, she had to break that comfortable silence. She hadn't come here for a burger.
"Ben," she said, setting down her burger. "I need to talk to you about something. Something that's not exactly department business, but... it might become that."
He studied her face, his expression shifting from relaxed to attentive. "Okay."
"It's about my mother. About the investigation she was doing before she died."
Ben's expression grew more serious. He set down his own burger and gave her his full attention. "I'm listening."
Kari pulled out the thumb drive her father had given her, turning it over in her hands.
"Mom was investigating a pattern of deaths on tribal lands.
Seventeen cases over twenty-three years, all ruled as accidents or natural causes, but all involving people who'd discovered or were about to expose corporate wrongdoing.
Environmental violations, illegal construction, dumping—things that would've been expensive or criminal if they'd come to light. "
She watched Ben's face, looking for signs of skepticism or dismissal. But he just nodded slowly, processing.
"My father went through all her research files," Kari continued. "Spent three months analyzing them. And he thinks she was right. That these deaths are connected, that someone's been systematically silencing indigenous people who threaten corporate interests."
"And your mother's death?" Ben asked quietly.
"Might fit the pattern. We can't prove it. But the timing, the circumstances, the way the investigation closed so quickly..." Kari's voice trailed off. "It's suspicious."
Ben leaned back, his eyes on the distant mesas. "That's a hell of an accusation. Corporate murder conspiracy spanning two decades."
"I know how it sounds. Believe me, I know. That's why I wasn't sure whether to bring this to you. It sounds like paranoid conspiracy theory, like I'm seeing patterns that aren't really there because I can't accept that my mother just made a mistake and died from exposure."
"But you don't think it's paranoia."
"No. And neither does my father, and he's the least paranoid person I know."
Ben was quiet for a long moment, thinking. When he spoke, his voice was measured. "Okay. Let's say your mother was right. Let's say there is a pattern of murders disguised as accidents. What do you need from me?"
The question caught Kari off guard. No skepticism, no demands for more proof, no lecture about the difference between correlation and causation. Just: What do you need?
"I'm not sure I should involve you," Kari admitted. "If this is real, if someone really is killing people who get too close to the truth, then investigating it puts you in danger. It might have gotten my mother killed."
"Kari." Ben leaned forward, his eyes serious. "We're partners. That means when one of us needs backup, the other one shows up. No questions, no hesitation. You've had my back more times than I can count. Let me have yours on this."
The simple certainty in his voice made Kari's throat tighten. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak for a moment.
"So," Ben said. "What's the plan?"
Kari pulled out her phone, opening the photos she'd taken of Anna's notes. "Most of these cases are years old. Evidence is gone, witnesses have moved on or died, and we'd be fighting corporate lawyers if we tried to reopen investigations. But there's one case that might be different."
She showed him the photo of Evan Naalnish, explained about his disappearance fifteen years ago, about the suspicious land sale three weeks later, about Anna's theory that Evan had discovered something on that land that got him killed.
"Nobody was ever found," Kari concluded. "Which means if we could find his remains, we might be able to figure out how he died. If he was murdered, we might be able to get concrete evidence of foul play. It would validate everything Mom was investigating."
"Fifteen-year-old remains in remote wilderness that's now privately owned and locked down," Ben said slowly. "That's a long shot."
"I know. But it's the best shot we have.
" Kari leaned forward, urgent now. "All the other cases, the victims were found.
The deaths were ruled accidental. We'd have to prove those rulings were wrong, prove someone staged the scenes, prove a pattern across multiple jurisdictions and decades.
But Evan? He's just gone. If we find him, if we find evidence he was murdered rather than lost in the wilderness, that's one case we can prove. And proving one validates the pattern."
Ben nodded, following her logic. "What do we know about where he disappeared?"
"His truck was found at a trailhead on the eastern edge of the reservation. He'd told his sister he was exploring an area with unusual geological formations, maybe evidence of mineral deposits or underground water. But the search teams never found his body, his camera, or his field notes."
"Because someone cleaned up after killing him," Ben said. "Took anything that would show what he'd discovered, hid the body somewhere it wouldn't be found."
"That's my theory. That's what Mom thought too.
" Kari pulled up more photos from Anna's research.
"She'd mapped out the area where Evan was last seen, tried to identify caves or ravines where remains could be hidden.
But she never got a chance to actually search—three weeks after Evan disappeared, Devco Holdings bought the land and immediately restricted access. "
"Convenient timing."
"Very convenient." Kari zoomed in on one of Anna's maps. "Devco paid four times market value for land that supposedly had no development plans. They put up fences, hired security, threatened trespassers with prosecution. Why do all that if there's nothing there worth protecting?"
"Could be they're hiding whatever Evan found. Mineral deposits they don't want other companies to know about, maybe. Or evidence of environmental contamination they don't want regulators to discover."
"Or both." Kari set down her phone. "The point is, if we can find Evan's body, we prove he was murdered. And if we can recover his camera or field notes, we might prove what he found that got him killed. That gives us leverage to reopen the investigation into Anna's other cases."
Ben stood, walked to the edge of the patio, looking out at the desert landscape. "Okay. So we need to find a fifteen-year-old body in terrain that's been locked down for nearly as long. Where do we even start?"
"I don't know," Kari admitted. "That's why this is a shot in the dark.
We could spend months searching and find nothing.
The body could be anywhere—buried, hidden in a cave, scattered by animals.
Even if we knew exactly where to look, accessing the land without permission would be trespassing. Devco could have us arrested."
"Not if we don't get caught."
Kari looked at him sharply. "You're suggesting we break into restricted corporate property?"
"I'm suggesting we do what needs to be done to find the truth.
" Ben turned back to face her. "Look, I'm not saying we charge in without a plan.
But if this land was tribal property when Evan disappeared, if there are legitimate questions about what happened to him, then we have grounds to investigate even if the current owners don't like it. "
"That's a legal gray area at best."
"When we're talking about killing people and disguising their deaths as accidents, I'm okay with gray." Ben's voice had an edge now. "We're not going to solve this by playing nice with corporate lawyers."
Kari felt a surge of gratitude and concern in equal measure. Ben was right—they couldn't solve this by following rules that seemed designed to protect corporate interests over indigenous lives. But she also didn't want to see him lose his job, or worse, end up like the people in Anna's files.
"We need to be smart about this," she said.
"Start with the basics. Review the original missing person case, talk to Evan's family if they're willing, look at the geography and figure out the most likely areas where remains could be.
Then we plan how to access the land without getting caught or creating legal problems that would undermine any evidence we find. "
"Agreed." Ben returned to the picnic table. "What about your father? Is he going to keep researching the other cases?"
"I don't think so. I got the impression he's ventured as deep into this water as he cares to go." Kari picked up the thumb drive. "But he gave me copies of everything. Anna's notes, his analysis, the case files. It's all here."
"I want to look through it. Tonight, if you can send me the files." Ben's expression was determined. "I want to understand what your mother saw, what convinced her this was real."
They sat in silence for a moment. Kari thought about all the ways this could go wrong—wasted time chasing ghosts, professional consequences if they were caught trespassing, or worse, ending up as another case file in someone else's investigation of suspicious deaths.
But she also thought about Evan Naalnish's family, waiting fifteen years for answers. About the sixteen other people in Anna's files whose deaths had been too easily explained away. About her mother, lying cold in the desert, her investigation unfinished.
"Thank you," Kari said quietly. "For not thinking I'm crazy. For being willing to help with this."
"Partners," Ben said simply. "That's what we do."
"So where do we start? Realistically, what's our first move?"
Ben thought for a moment. "We pull Evan's case file, whatever the original investigators documented.
We talk to his family—his sister, you said?
—and get whatever information she can provide about where he liked to explore, what routes he took, what he'd told her about this area he was excited about.
We look at geological surveys of that land, figure out what might have drawn Evan's attention.
And we study the terrain, identify caves, ravines, anywhere a body could be hidden for fifteen years without being found. "
"All of that before we even think about accessing the restricted land."
"Right. We do the homework first, narrow down the search area as much as possible. We're looking for a needle in a haystack, so we better make that haystack as small as we can before we start searching."
Kari nodded. It was a sensible approach, methodical and thorough. Exactly what Anna would have done. "I can pull the case file Monday. Talk to Evan's sister, see if she's willing to meet with us."
"I can handle the geological surveys and terrain analysis. I've got some experience with that from search and rescue training." Ben started clearing the table. "It's going to take time, Kari. Weeks, maybe months of preparation before we're ready to actually search."
"I know. Mom spent years on this. I can be patient." Kari helped gather plates. "But we need to keep this quiet. If whoever killed Evan—whoever's behind these deaths—finds out we're investigating, we become targets."
"Agreed. We work this on our own time, keep it separate from department business unless we find something concrete." Ben paused. "You think Captain Yazzie would support this if we brought him in?"
"I don't know. Maybe eventually, if we have real evidence. But right now, all we have is Anna's research and some suspicious patterns. That's not enough to justify official department resources." Kari followed him into the kitchen. "We do this ourselves, quietly, until we have something solid."
"Sounds like a plan." Ben began rinsing the dishes in the sink. Kari watched him, thinking of how much work was ahead of them.
And glad to know she wasn't in this alone.