Scalp Dance: A Sam Chitto Mystery, page 4
part #1 of A Sam Chitto Mystery Series
So much for justice.
Five minutes before the scheduled meeting, Chitto walked to Wanda’s desk. “Get this to the U.S. attorney’s office soon as you can.” He set his digital camera next to the report. “Pictures on this memory card, too. Need the camera back before I leave.”
Glancing at the report, Wanda’s mouth went straight. “Jeezuschrise—not another one.”
“Yeah, and put a rush on it. I’m keeping my finger on this one.”
“Why? You’ve never done that before.”
Chitto walked away without giving her an answer because he didn’t have one. All he knew was the girl called Teresa-with-no-H had gotten under his skin.
. . .
Pushing through a door marked Director Daniel Blackfox, Chitto saw two men present. Blackfox at his desk, not a gray hair showing though he was in his fifties, and across from him, a man Chitto did not know but who seemed familiar. Long-ago familiar. A couple of inches shorter than he was, maybe five feet eleven. Late twenties. Slim built. Military-style haircut.
Rummaging through papers, Blackfox spoke without looking up. “Take a seat, Sam.”
Facing the stranger, Chitto eased into a chair and sorted through his memory Rolodex. A glimpse of the emblem on the man’s duty notebook revealed he was Chickasaw Lighthorse Police. Still, nothing clicked.
He extended a hand. “Lieutenant Sam Chitto. Know you, but can’t remember from where.”
“Been a while.” Producing a lopsided smile, the man gave Chitto a firm handshake. “Tubbe. Sergeant Frank Tubbe, Chickasaw Nation. We went through CLEET at the same time.”
CLEET. The Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training Program required for employment. Eight, nine years before. Just after he finished a double major in geology and criminal justice at Norman. Tubbe was straight out of high school. A young rooster, ready to flex his spurs. A jagged scar on his head an indication he’d tested those spurs.
“Took a slight detour,” Tubbe said as if reading his mind. “Military duty for a while, then Gunnison County Sheriff’s Department, in Colorado.”
Chitto knew Gunnison County. Remote country. Rough. Main attraction, hunting and fishing. Skiing. A good place to kick back. Or do some serious defusing.
“You still talk like a college professor?” Tubbe asked, grinning.
Chitto laughed softly. “Not so you’d notice. Colorado’s pretty country. Why’d you come back?”
“Feet got cold,” Tubbe said, the cocky grin still in place.
“Enough reminiscing,” Blackfox broke in. “Need to move fast on this one.” He looked between Chitto and Tubbe. “Some jurisdictional issues but something smacks about this one, telling me we need a look-see. Dead man just discovered on the Tuskahoma council house grounds. Feds will be notified quick enough, but I want the lowdown before they bury everything in some moldy cellar. ME’s on the way. Choctaw land so we’ll be running things from our end. Chitto’s in charge. Any questions?”
Chitto stifled an urge to laugh. Hell, yes, he had questions. Especially as it would be his ass in a sling if the FBI found him running his own investigation.
“Fill us in, Dan.”
“Victim decapitated, head found with the body. Wallet in his pocket identified him as Delbert Wilcox. Pontotoc County, over near Ada. From what I gather, married to a member of the Chickasaw Nation. I’m figuring he was a member, too. Talked it over with the Chickasaw people. They sent Tubbe over to work that side of it, given the victim was Chickasaw.”
Tubbe let out a grunt.
Blackfox looked at him. “Need to say something, Sergeant?”
“Ah . . . yes, sir. Did some checking after you called. Victim’s not on the rolls. He’s the husband of Emma Love Wilcox, she’s the Chickasaw. Called the house before I left the office. Her daughter answered, said her mother was at work. Rest of the family appears to be unharmed. Plan to inform them of his death soon as I get back.”
“Smart move,” Blackfox said, “making sure the husband was the only one involved.” He looked at Chitto. “Sam, want you to concentrate on the location, try to determine how this Wilcox ended up on our land. A ceremonial was held up there last week between the second and fifth of this month. Believe you worked it.” He tapped the calendar on his desk. “But that ended four days ago. If there’s a connection, why’d he just show up today?”
Chitto looked at Tubbe. “Wife file a missing person’s report?”
“Uh . . .” Tubbe’s neck reddened. “Needs more investigation. Check on that soon as I get back.”
A grin tugged at Chitto’s mouth. The rooster didn’t look so cocky anymore.
“Good place to start,” Blackfox said. “I’ll contact state and county agencies on the QT, see if anyone’s been picked up on the highways looking suspicious. Like maybe covered in a helluva lot of blood. Sounds like this Wilcox bled out there on the ceremony grounds. From what I was told, he was a big man, so he probably fought back.”
That statement brought Chitto out of his chair. “Like to look at the scene right away.”
Tubbe rose from his chair, too. “Wouldn’t mind having a look-see myself.” He looked at Blackfox. “If that works for you, sir.”
“Work it out with Chitto. He’s in charge.”
Tubbe turned to Chitto but did not speak. Nor was he grinning.
Chitto tried to read the response. Skepticism? Disapproval? No, Tubbe was still thinking like a military man. Preferred working with the head honcho, someone with lots of brass on his shoulder.
“Got no problem with that.” Chitto shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind talking to that widow over in your territory.”
Tubbe made another grunt.
Blackfox looked at him. “Anyone knows why Wilcox would be over here on Choctaw land, she would.”
“Guess that makes sense.” Tubbe looked at Chitto, the grin making another show. “Lead off. I’ll follow you.”
“One more thing,” Blackfox said, talking quietly. “Try not to roil the waters on this one. FBI will get their day, today just isn’t it. So run hard and fast.”
At the door, Blackfox laid a hand on Chitto’s shoulder. “Stay in touch with me on this, Sam.” He glanced toward Frank Tubbe, who was disappearing down the hall. “Don’t let yourself get dragged into anything stupid. That guy strikes me as a ringed-tail tooter. And remember the drill. Night or day, I expect to hear from you.”
Chitto nodded, not needing further explanation as to Blackfox’s personal concerns. Official concerns were another matter.
“Tuskahoma’s outside my district, Dan. Could be stepping on Ed’s toes.”
“Ed’s coming off medical leave, needs time to catch up on paperwork. But I’d have sent you anyway. My gut tells me you’re the right man for this assignment.” He grinned. “Besides, you’ve been wanting a change from the grind. Maybe this will scratch that itch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Chitto drove northeast on U.S. 271 into the Ouachitas, which he categorized as a twisted old sister of a mountain range. Sired by cataclysm, it had been belched up out of fiery depths and folded into stony ridges like a giant staircase.
Which is how the Winding Stair Mountains got their name, he thought.
Like a dark ribbon, the highway threaded its way through valleys that rose sharply on either side, thick with oak, hickory, shortleaf and loblolly pine. Red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures flew close to ground level, disappearing like phantoms in heat waves rising off the pavement. As hot as it was, Chitto knew he would smell pine pitch if he rolled down the windows. There were few other vehicles on the road now that tourist season was over, and he was glad for that. With ninety miles to cover he pushed the speed limit, wanting to get to Tuskahoma and the crime scene as quickly as possible. Though he would’ve preferred looking at the picture-postcard scenery, he put his attention on flying road hazards—birds the size of boat motors.
But Chitto didn’t need a visual to know this land and turned introspective as he drove. As a student, he’d spent long days in these hills. Gathering shards. Chipping fragments. Studying crystals. Once as high and rugged as the Rockies, the Ouachitas had been ground down over millennia to something more akin to hills. One day, if the Earth survived threats from outer space, internal combustion, or a manmade Armageddon, it would cease to be a mountain range at all. But in its lifespan, it had witnessed more change than could be imagined.
If only stones could talk, he reflected, thoughts wandering to Sonny Boy Munro. As much as the lawman in him wanted to attribute the old man’s story about angry stones to age or alcohol, another part of him refused to purchase it. The old mystery man had been stone-cold sober that morning. Chitto was convinced he was remembering something real. Where there was smoke, there was fire.
Glancing through the rearview mirror, he turned his attention to the land behind and the humans that occupied it. The Arbuckles, a stepsister to the Ouachitas, dipped steeply, near vertical in orientation. That range ran contrary to the adjacent country and formed the southern border of the Chickasaw Nation. And though not visible to the naked eye, he knew that under the grasslands further west laid a shelf of Permian rock. Kiowa and Comanche, Cheyenne and Arapahoe country. Dry prairie underpinned with marine rocks. Fossiliferous shales, limestones and dolomites. Briny sediment that, over time, oxidized and turned the surrounding rock red in color. Broken, bruised and, bleeding, the rocks told the story of the Indian people. Broken, bruised and bleeding, the rocks also told the story of the Indian lands. That much was fact, no mystery involved.
A dark SUV cozied up behind him. Tubbe was hugging his bumper like he was being towed. Tapping the brake or slowing a smidgeon and Tubbe would plow into him like a tank. Just like the land that birthed him, the man’s nature tended toward vertical. The arrogant grin spoke to that. In a pinch, could he depend on him?
. . .
Chitto turned at the Tuskahoma council house grounds, a five-acre tract resembling a county fairground: ball fields, open grounds for festivals, an arts and crafts pavilion. Spotting yellow crime-scene tape at the powwow grounds in front of the capitol building, he drove towards it, Tubbe close behind.
The imposing red brick building, built in 1838 as the first seat of government in the new lands, was now a museum. At the first session held there, the elders decided the capitol would be known as Nanih Waya, meaning “mountain that produces.” These two words held special meaning for the Choctaw. The sacred mound left behind in Mississippi was also called Nanih Waya. Children of the forest, the Choctaw, both the first People and those born in the removed land, held a deep reverence for nature.
Opening his car door, Chitto was stunned at the noise. Cicadas, what locals called heat bugs, droned incessantly. Grasshoppers’ raspy chirping added to the racket. The heat-loving insects had decimated the leaves on the trees, leaving behind skeletal remains. An unnatural cycle had led to systems devouring other systems.
Chitto studied the ground as he and Tubbe approached the others. The Bermuda grass was dry and lifeless, in part due to the dry summer and ravenous insects, but mostly because attendees had trampled it the previous weekend. Packed hard as cement, footprints would be hard to identify. Traces of humanity would be copious, thanks to crowds numbering in the hundreds. The best hope lay in evidence left on the body.
Without fanfare, he introduced Tubbe to Everett Mullins, the squat, bald medical examiner for Pushmataha County, and Tony Cargill, aka Seven. The district officer was in his mid-twenties. The third man, named Hawkins, was there to assist Mullins, and about the same age.
“What’s the verdict, Everett?” Chitto studied the body of a heavily built, nude man lying spread-eagle in the center of the powwow grounds.
“Well, you prob’ly noticed his head’s been cut off.” Mullins’s drawl spoke to his West Texas roots, his macabre candor to forty years of dissecting spiritless remains. “Near as I can tell, severed on the spot.” He pointed to a dark area beneath the victim’s neck. “Figure it happened ’bout daybreak.”
Daybreak. When the Earth was at its darkest. That in-between time when night creatures gave up the hunt and day creatures had not yet begun theirs. A desolate time to die.
“Rub marks on his wrists and ankles indicate he was tied down,” Mullins added. “Holes in the ground where stakes were driven in. All of it removed, nothin’ left behind.”
“Jesus holy moly—” Tubbe squatted on his heels near the corpse. “Pissed someone off, didn’t he?”
Chitto studied the dead man’s face, noting the mass of light, curly hair and empty blue eyes. Not surprisingly, blowflies were at work.
“Doesn’t appear to have struggled much.” Chitto picked up one of the dead man’s hands. Nails were clean—very clean. He frowned, noting the muscular arms, calloused palm and finger pads. Too clean for a working man.
“You saying he just laid there and waited for his head to be lopped off?” Seven looked between the investigators and medical examiners.
“Prob’ly drugged,” Tubbe said. “Could’ve slowed his movements, reactions.”
“That’d be my guess, too,” Mullins said. “Know more once I run tests.”
It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been drugged, Chitto thought. He would’ve been killed regardless.
Chitto glanced around the remote site. Few homes nearby, grounds wouldn’t be highly scrutinized, and it was easy to overlook something when you’re accustomed to ignoring it.
“Wound made with a sharp instrument,” Mullins said, moving around the body to take pictures.
“Ax?” Chitto shot pictures of his own.
“Can’t say for sure. I’d’ have expected more tissue damage from an ax.” Mullins rubbed his face. “Not so easy to cut off a person’s head as you’d think. Weapon was razor sharp, like a giant scalpel. Prob’ly put something under his neck that would resist the impact. Whatever it was, took it with ’em. That’s just speculation, but notice the pattern on the ground where his neck was. Not so much blood.”
Chitto snapped a picture of the ground beneath the victim’s head.
“Could’ve been a machete,” Tubbe said.
Machete? Chitto glanced at the scar in Tubbe’s hair. Gut instinct told him the Chickasaw would be a formidable opponent or a good man to have on his side.
He turned to the field officer. “Who found him?”
Seven laughed softly. “Would you believe a couple of the council members? Lady council members. Guess there was a meeting today.” He pointed his chin toward a building to the left of the capitol. “Over there at the council house. Got their names, in case you wanna talk to ’em.”
Chitto nodded, idly wondering if his mother might have been one of the two that found the dead man. He quickly dismissed that idea, knowing the officer would have recognized her name. Besides, his mother would’ve called him right away. She always called with issues dealing with law enforcement on tribal lands.
But she didn’t call . . .
Chitto picked up a stone, working it between his fingers as he looked at the council house. No cars in the parking lot. Windows dark. The meeting was over. He wondered if his mother had missed the meeting. If she was sick. If something was wrong with his grandmother.
He flicked the stone away. Even if she had been absent, he would hear from the others. The entire council would ride his back until he got this business cleared up—even after Blackfox brought in the FBI. Regardless of jurisdictional issues, the council held the tribal police accountable.
He pointed to the pile of clothes on the ground. “Anything in his garments? Besides his wallet, I mean.”
“Couple pennies.” Seven handed Chitto the man’s wallet, sealed in a plastic bag.
“Car keys?”
“No sir, not even car keys—” Abruptly, he looked at Chitto. “Know another funny thing? Clothes were just taken off the clothesline. Got those little pinch marks clothespins leave.”
Tubbe threw his head back, laughing. “Pinch marks, huh?”
Seven colored. “My wife line dries the clothes.”
“Go on.” Chitto looked at the officer. “You were gonna say something else.”
“Oh. The, uh, the shoes were clean, too.”
“Shoes,” Chitto repeated, noting the flush on Seven’s face.
“Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s gonna make it a hard go to find any trace evidence.”
Tubbe grunted.
Chitto looked at him. “What’s your thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” Tubbe said, talking slow, “the killers knew something about forensics.”
Killers . . .
Tubbe was right. It would take more than one person to transport a big man and stake him out, even one that was drugged. Two or three, maybe more. And one of them strong enough to lop off a man’s head.
“Hell,” Mullins snorted. “With all them damned crime-scene shows, everyone knows ’bout forensics these days. CSI Las Vegas. CSI Miami. CSI New York. Maybe I oughta start one called CSI Indian Nation.”
That idea brought a snicker from the others.
“Okay I take the body now?” Mullins asked.
Chitto looked at Tubbe. “Want to look at this dead naked guy some more?”
“Hell, no. Kind of bothers me, the way he’s laid out in all his glory like that.”
Nodding, Chitto looked at Mullins. “Bag him. You find anything at the autopsy, let me know. Maybe his stomach will provide some leads.”
“Unless he was starved a couple of days,” Mullins drawled. “Or given a purgative.”
Chitto didn’t say anything to that, but the comment prodded another question. How long since the dead man went missing?
“Think I’ll have a walk around.” Tubbe looked at Chitto, grinning. “You feel the need to accompany me?”
Chitto couldn’t help but smile. Tubbe was following protocol, but not without using the spurs.
“Go ahead,” he said, knowing nothing would be found. “I’ll look through his things.”
Chitto pondered the incongruities as he sorted the clothing. The victim’s wallet left behind, so someone wanted others to know of his end. Yet the rest of his humanity eliminated.
