So I had to question Rollie’s motive in telling me to look deeper. Was he trying to lead me off course? And if so, why?
At home I flipped on the TV and my laptop, nestling into the living room couch with a beer. I started my Internet search wide, going back twelve months, using the keywords: Indian reservations, women’s deaths, accidents, violence.
1,379 results popped up.
Well, wasn’t that a kick in the ass. I narrowed the search to the local papers in western South Dakota and retrieved more manageable data. I started clicking on links, copying pertinent ones into a separate document.
Three obituaries from last year caught my notice. Each a month apart. The first one was for Tunisia Broken Arrow, age twenty-two. Nothing in the obit about cause of death. The second one for Minneola “Mimi” Diggeman, age thirty. Again, nothing in the obit about cause of death. The third obituary was for Delia Moss, age twenty-seven. No listed cause of death.
How could all of these young women have died of natural causes? I cross-referenced the time frame, and none of the names were listed as car accident victims. Illness possibly? Or suicide?
I changed the parameters, going back twenty-four months, and found three more obituaries. All young women, all dead within a month of one another. None of the obits listed cause of death.
What the hell was going on? The only way to make any sense of this was to see the tribal PD’s report logs. There’d be a written report for a suicide. As well as a written report on a death due to exposure-I noticed these obits were mostly from the late fall/early winter months.
I knew I’d have to bring this up with Turnbull.
My cell phone buzzed with a text message from Dawson: Crushed under the weight of unfinished paperwork. Trying to catch up. Late night and early-morning shift means I’m crashing in my office tonight. Sorry. Miss you.
I miss you, too.
I hated that our schedules didn’t mesh, but that would probably always be a wrinkle in our private life together. No wonder cops had such high divorce rates. I sucked it up, swallowing the missing-my-man girly whine, then shut everything off and went to bed.
• • •
My sleep was fairly restful, considering the previous day’s disturbing events.
But as I drank coffee and looked at what the computer search engine had dredged up the night before, I knew I needed to talk to Rollie again-before I brought up my suspicions with Shay. Since we had interviews scheduled for first thing this morning, I’d drop by his place at the Diamond T after work tonight.