CHAPTER NINETEEN
They stared at one another, neither speaking.
"How long have you used an inhaler?" Kari asked.
"Since I was a kid. I told you, I have a weak constitution." He smiled, looking amused. "I thought you were in a hurry to leave?"
Kari's hand remained near her weapon, but she didn't draw it. Not yet. "Dark blue Explorer. That's what the witness described. The vehicle Jake Honanie saw leaving Emma's neighborhood the night she was attacked."
"There are probably fifty dark SUVs in the area." David's voice was calm, conversational. "That's hardly evidence of anything."
"You're right. It's not." Kari took a small step to her right, angling herself so she could see both David and the garage's side door. "But it's interesting. Especially combined with the acetone on the passenger seat. Did you know that Jake mentioned a 'chemical smell'?"
"I do a lot of preservation work."
"And the breathing problems," she continued, ignoring him. "Both Emma and Jake said that the man who attacked them was making a labored, wheezing sound. The kind of sound someone with asthma would make when they're agitated or exerting themselves."
"Asthma is incredibly common."
"Fair enough. Any one of these details alone means nothing. But together? The vehicle, the breathing, the chemicals, the burns on your face the morning after Emma threw scalding tea at her attacker?"
"I explained the burns. An allergic reaction to—"
"To preservation chemicals. I remember." Kari's voice was steady, but her pulse was racing. "And you had an alibi. Chairman Namingha verified you were at that council meeting all night."
David stared at her, his face revealing nothing. "That's right."
"The chairman has been fighting to keep Patricia's genealogical research private," Kari continued, her thoughts crystallizing as she spoke.
"His grandchildren's enrollment status would be questioned if that data became public.
He has a personal stake in making sure those findings stay buried.
He'd see you as an ally—someone else trying to protect the community from destructive information. "
"The chairman told you I was at the meeting," David said. His voice was still calm, but there was an edge to it now. "Are you suggesting he lied?"
"I'm suggesting he might have been... flexible with the truth.
To protect someone he thought was innocent.
To protect someone fighting for the same thing he was fighting for.
" Kari took another small step, keeping her distance.
"But he doesn't know, does he? He doesn't know what you really are.
He thinks he's protecting a cultural preservation officer who opposed a dangerous research project.
He has no idea he's providing an alibi for a serial killer. "
The words hung in the air between them. David was very still, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
"That's quite a theory, Detective," he said finally. "Based on what? Circumstantial evidence? The fact that I have asthma and drive a common vehicle?"
"Based on the fact that two people are dead, killed because of Patricia's research." Kari's voice was harder now. "Research that threatened to expose uncomfortable truths about tribal ancestry. Research that you opposed from the very beginning, calling it 'dangerous.'"
"Because it is dangerous. I was right about that."
"You were. Because you made it dangerous.
" Kari felt the certainty settling into her bones, the way it always did when the pieces of a case finally aligned.
"Patricia and Robert were going to present findings that challenged enrollment claims for multiple families.
You couldn't let that happen. Not just because of what it would mean for the community, but because of what it would mean for your own family. "
David's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"I saw the genealogical data," Kari said. "Not all of it—the chief took my laptop before I could finish. But I saw enough. Enough to know that your family was in there. That you had secrets you wanted to keep hidden."
"Everyone has secrets, Detective."
"Not everyone kills to protect them." Kari's hand moved fractionally closer to her weapon. "The chairman doesn't know you're a killer, does he?"
David was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer, almost resigned. "No. He doesn't know."
The admission hung between them, quiet but absolute. Not a confession in the legal sense, but an acknowledgment of truth. An ending to the pretense.
"Why?" Kari asked. "Why kill them? You could have fought the research politically, culturally. You had the chairman's support, the council's ear. Why murder?"
"Because politics is slow, and this was urgent.
" David's voice carried a strange calm, the tone of someone explaining something obvious.
"Patricia wasn't going to be stopped by council meetings or cultural concerns.
She believed she was doing something noble, healing historical trauma through truth.
She didn't understand—or didn't care—about the damage that truth would cause. "
"So you killed her."
"I protected my family. My community." David's hands were at his sides, relaxed. "Do you know what it's like, Detective, to trace your family back ten generations? To know exactly who you are, where you come from? To have that identity written in your blood and your history and your very bones?"
"And Patricia's research threatened that."
"Her research would have shattered it." Something fierce flashed in David's eyes.
"Not just for my family, but for dozens of families.
All so she could make an academic point about interconnectedness and historical fluidity.
She was going to destroy people's identities, their children's futures, their place in this community—and she called it healing. "
"So you murdered her. Then you did the same to Robert when he wouldn't stop the research."
David stared back at her, his eyes shining with defiance now.
"And Emma?" Kari asked. "She was just the coordinator. She didn't know the specific findings."
"She had the data. She could have given it to you, could have given it to anyone. As long as she had access to those files, she was a threat."
"And Jake? He had nothing to do with any of this."
"Jake saw me." David's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "Leaving Emma's neighborhood."
"So you followed him back to his workshop."
"I couldn't take the risk. If he connected what he'd seen to Emma's attack, if he mentioned it to the police..." David shook his head. "He was a loose end that needed to be tied off."
The clinical language—"loose end," "tied off"—sent a chill down Kari's spine. This wasn't someone consumed by rage or passion. This was someone who'd made calculated decisions, who'd weighed lives against his perceived needs and found those lives wanting.
"The ceremonial masks," Kari said. "The staging at sacred sites. What was that all about?"
"I was being respectful." David's voice took on a defensive edge.
"If they had to die because of what they'd discovered about our sacred heritage, then they deserved to die in sacred places, surrounded by the ancestors whose memory they'd threatened to distort.
It was more dignity than they'd afforded us. "
"You killed them and then lectured me about respect for cultural traditions."
"Because I do respect them. More than you do, certainly.
More than Patricia did with her invasive research.
" David's hands clenched into fists. "You don't understand.
You're an outsider. You see our culture as something to be analyzed, categorized, protected in museums. You don't understand what it means to be Hopi.
To have that identity in your blood and your soul and your very existence. "
"I understand that two people are dead because you valued your secrets more than their lives."
"I valued my family more than Patricia's research project.
" David's voice rose. "I valued the future of dozens of children whose enrollment would have been challenged.
I valued the stability of our community over the academic ambitions of two anthropologists who thought they had the right to expose everyone's ancestry for the sake of 'truth and healing. '"
He took a step forward. Kari's hand moved closer to her weapon.
"Don't," she said quietly.
David stopped. "You know I can't let you arrest me," he said.
"You don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice." David's eyes flicked to something behind Kari—the workbench along the wall. "You broke in here without a warrant, like a common criminal. None of this is admissible."
"Maybe not. But once I convince the chairman to change his tune and your alibi falls through, you'll be under the microscope. There'll be nowhere for you to hide, and it'll only be a matter of time before I gather enough evidence to put you away."
"I believe you," David said quietly. "Which makes me think it might be better if you never leave this room at all."
Kari's heart hammered, but she kept her voice level. "Officer Polacca knows I'm here. If something happens to me, you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
"She knows you came to apologize and ask for my help.
She doesn't know you broke into my garage and came at me with wild accusations.
" David took another step forward. "I'm a respected cultural preservation officer.
You're an outside detective who's been antagonizing our community since you arrived. "
"So, what, you're going to kill me and claim self-defense? Do you even hear yourself?"
"Maybe I'll say you left. Make your body disappear."
Kari almost laughed at how ludicrous the idea was. "You really think you'll get away with that?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. Then again, if the heat gets to be too much, there's always Mexico."
Kari's fingers brushed the grip of her weapon. "You're not going anywhere, David. I want you to put your hands in the air."
"With what proof?" David sneered. "All you have are theories and circumstantial evidence. The DNA on the knife wasn't mine. The chairman gave me an alibi, and it won't be as easy to get him to 'change his tune' as you think. You have nothing that would hold up in court."
He was getting louder, more animated. Kari didn't like where this was going. She needed to control the situation, and that meant getting him cuffed. She would deal with the details later.
"David," she said again, "I need you to put your hands—"
"This is all bullshit!" he said loudly, tossing his hands in the air. "You break into my garage, you accuse me of murder—not once, but twice—and I'm supposed to just—"
He moved then, fast and fluid, not toward Kari but toward the workbench. His hand closed on something—a large wrench, heavy enough to be a deadly weapon.
Kari drew her weapon. "Drop it. Now."
David froze, the wrench in his hand, his eyes on her Glock. For a moment, neither moved.
"You won't shoot me," David said, but there was uncertainty in his voice now. "Not without cause. I'm just holding a tool in my own garage. You'd be executing an unarmed man."
"That wrench makes you armed. Drop it, or I will shoot you."
"While I'm standing here holding a tool?" David's voice took on a mocking edge. "That's a bad shooting, Detective. Career-ending, probably. Especially when you're in someone else's garage without permission."
He was right, and they both knew it. The legal justification for shooting him was murky at best. But more than that, Kari didn't want to shoot him. She wanted him arrested, tried, convicted. She wanted justice, not just an ending.
"Put down the wrench," Kari said, her weapon steady. "Step away from the workbench. This doesn't have to be difficult."
David's fingers tightened on the wrench. "Either you shoot me, or I take my chances fighting you for that gun. Those are the only ways this ends."
"There's a third way. You put down the weapon, I arrest you, and you face trial. You can tell your story, explain why you did what you did. Maybe a jury would understand."
"They wouldn't." David's voice was bitter. "They'd see a Hopi man who killed to protect secrets. They'd see a criminal, not someone trying to save his community from destruction."
"Then help me understand. Help me explain it to them." Kari kept her voice calm, trying to de-escalate even as her finger rested on the trigger guard. "What was in Patricia's research about your family? What were you trying to hide?"
For a moment, she thought he might answer. His grip on the wrench loosened, his shoulders sagging with what looked like exhaustion or regret.
Then his eyes flicked to something above and behind Kari.
David moved fast, not toward her but toward the wall. His free hand slapped something—a switch she hadn't noticed. The overhead fluorescent lights went out.
In the short time they'd been talking, the evening must have advanced because now there was almost no light coming from the window high along the wall. The garage had been plunged into near darkness, made worse because Kari's eyes were still adjusted to the glare of the overhead lights.
She kept her weapon trained on where David had been standing, but she couldn't see him anymore. Could only hear the shuffle of movement, the scrape of feet on concrete.
"The thing about this space," David said, his voice coming from somewhere to her left, "is that I know every inch of it. Every tool, every box, every place to take cover."
Kari moved quickly to her right, away from where his voice had been, trying to put something solid at her back. Her eyes were starting to adjust, shapes emerging from the darkness.
The covered vehicle. The workbenches. Stacked boxes creating narrow corridors between them.
"You, on the other hand," David continued, his voice now coming from a different direction, "are just guessing."