CHAPTER SEVEN
Patricia Lomahongva's house was a modest single-story dwelling on the edge of the village, surrounded by a carefully tended garden that showed signs of recent neglect—weeds beginning to push through the flower beds, a few tools left out that should have been stored away.
The kind of small disorder that accumulates when someone is absent or preoccupied with other things.
Such as, perhaps, the genealogical project Patricia had been working on.
Polacca unlocked the front door with a key provided by Patricia's sister.
The house had that particular stillness of a home whose occupant wouldn't be returning, a quality Kari had encountered too many times in her career.
Personal belongings arranged just as their owner had left them, frozen in time, waiting for someone who would never come back.
The interior was neat and comfortable—furniture that had been carefully chosen but wasn't expensive, walls decorated with family photographs and a few pieces of traditional Hopi pottery.
A handwoven basket sat on the coffee table, its geometric patterns precise and beautiful.
Everything spoke of a woman who valued her heritage, who lived simply but with intention.
"Her home office is this way," Polacca said, leading Kari down a short hallway.
The office was a converted bedroom, its walls lined with bookshelves filled with genealogical reference materials, tribal histories, and three-ring binders meticulously labeled with family names.
A large desk dominated the space, its surface covered with file folders, sticky notes, and a desktop computer with a dark monitor.
Kari moved to the desk and began carefully examining the materials.
The top folder contained family trees—hand-drawn diagrams showing relationships spanning multiple generations, with notes in Patricia's handwriting about sources and dates.
The next folder held DNA test results, pages of genetic markers, and percentage breakdowns that meant little to Kari without proper context.
"This is extensive work," Kari said, flipping through another folder. "How long had she been doing this?"
"Years. Maybe a decade?" Polacca stood near the doorway, her arms crossed. "Like I said at the Cultural Center, she helped a lot of families."
Kari opened drawer after drawer, finding more of the same—meticulous documentation, careful research, the accumulated evidence of Patricia's dedication to helping people understand their ancestry.
But nothing jumped out as obviously relevant to her murder.
No threatening letters, no angry emails printed out and saved, no indication of specific conflicts.
Kari turned her attention to the computer and pressed the power button. The machine hummed to life, and after a moment, a login screen appeared asking for a password.
Kari studied the desk, looking for the kind of security vulnerabilities that people often created for themselves.
A sticky note with a password written on it, a notebook with credentials, anything that might give her access.
She found several sticky notes scattered across the desk's surface, each with what looked like reminder notes or fragments of information.
"Call Maria - results ready"
"Check sources for Tewa connection"
"Presentation outline - May 15th"
None of them were obvious passwords, but Kari tried variations anyway, typing in words and numbers that might have significance. Patricia's birth year. The date on the presentation note. Common password patterns. Nothing worked.
She opened the desk drawer, searching for anything that might help. A small notebook caught her attention—an address book with names and phone numbers. She tried several of the names as passwords. Still nothing.
"Having trouble?" Polacca asked from the doorway.
"It's password-protected. I was hoping she'd left herself a reminder somewhere, but she was probably too smart for that." Kari sat back in the chair, frustrated. "We might need to bring in a tech specialist to crack this."
"That'll take time. And authorization from the family."
"I know." Kari turned back to the desk, still searching.
There had to be something. People rarely made their passwords truly random—they chose things that had meaning to them, things they could remember.
But without knowing Patricia personally, without understanding what mattered most to her, Kari was just guessing.
She was trying another combination—the name of Patricia's late husband combined with a year—when Polacca's phone rang. The officer pulled it from her pocket, glanced at the screen, and answered.
"Polacca." She listened for a moment, and then her face tightened, her jaw setting in a way that suggested the news wasn't good.
"When?" Polacca asked. Another pause. "Same as the other?" She listened, then said, "We're at the Lomahongva residence. We'll be there in twenty minutes."
She ended the call and looked at Kari. "There's been another murder. Body was discovered about an hour ago at an ancient site east of here. Male victim, arranged the same way Patricia was."
Kari felt her stomach drop. "Same killer?"
"Looks that way." Polacca was already moving toward the door. "The chief wants us there immediately."
Kari took one last look at the computer screen, at the password prompt that was keeping her from whatever information Patricia had stored there. Then she shut down the machine and followed Polacca out of the house.
* * *
The second crime scene was in many ways identical to the first—an ancient burial site marked with police tape, artifacts arranged around the body in careful patterns.
But the impact of seeing it was different.
The first scene had been shocking, a singular violation.
This second scene was confirmation of a pattern, proof that whoever had killed Patricia Lomahongva wasn't finished.
Kari ducked under the police tape and approached the body slowly, her eyes cataloging every detail.
The victim was a Hopi man, probably in his mid-forties, wearing casual clothing that suggested he hadn't been dressed for any kind of ceremony.
Like Patricia, he'd been positioned with his arms and legs at specific angles, his head oriented toward the east. Around him, ancient pottery shards and bone fragments created a ritual tableau.
A Hopi officer was photographing the scene from various angles, while Dr. Nakai, the medical examiner Kari had seen earlier that morning, knelt beside the body, making preliminary observations.
About fifty feet away, a Hopi man in his fifties sat on a rock, his face pale and drawn.
The one who'd found the body, Kari assumed.
"What do we know?" Kari asked Polacca quietly.
"Victim is Robert Nuvangyaoma. He worked at the Cultural Center as an anthropologist in the research department." Polacca's voice was controlled, but Kari heard the strain beneath it. "I knew him. Not well, but enough to say hello in the hallway."
"I'm sorry."
Polacca didn't acknowledge the condolence, just continued in that same flat tone. "He left work yesterday around six PM. Didn't come home. His wife reported him missing this morning, but we hadn't had time to do much with it before..." She gestured at the scene.
Kari moved closer to the body, careful not to disturb anything. From this angle, she could see the victim's face—peaceful in death, eyes closed, no obvious signs of trauma visible. But there was something about the arrangement that struck her as both familiar and strange.
"The positioning," Kari said, gesturing to how the body lay. "Is it accurate? From a Hopi cultural perspective?"
Polacca moved to stand beside her, studying the scene with an intensity that suggested she was seeing things Kari couldn't. "The basic elements are correct. The orientation, the placement of the hands, the way the artifacts are arranged around the cardinal points—it follows traditional patterns."
Kari circled around to view the scene from a different angle.
As she moved, something caught her attention—the way certain stones were positioned, the direction a particular pottery shard was facing.
She thought about the Navajo burial practices her grandmother had described over the years, the subtle differences between how different tribes approached death, and the honoring of remains.
"There are Navajo elements too," Kari said slowly. "Look at how these stones are placed. And the way that bone fragment is oriented—that's not Hopi practice, that's Navajo. But it's not quite right. The angle is off by maybe fifteen degrees from where it should be."
Polacca moved to where Kari was standing, following her gaze. Her expression remained neutral. "I think you're reading too much into it. Rocks are rocks. The placement could be coincidental."
"Multiple elements that just happen to align with Navajo ceremonial traditions? That's a lot of coincidence." Kari knelt down, careful not to touch anything, studying the arrangement more closely. "Whoever did this has knowledge of both Hopi and Navajo practices. That's unusual."
"Not as unusual as you might think. Our peoples have lived side by side for centuries. There's overlap, shared knowledge, and intermarriage. It doesn't mean anything sinister."
Kari couldn't tell whether Polacca genuinely saw the situation differently or just liked being a contrarian.
"I'm not suggesting it's sinister. I'm suggesting it's a clue.
" Kari stood and faced Polacca directly.
"The killer has deep knowledge of multiple tribal traditions.
That could mean someone of mixed heritage who learned from both sides of their family.
Or someone who studied both cultures extensively—an academic, maybe, or a cultural preservation specialist."