“Called, yes. We didn’t get involved because I agreed with the tribal cop who suspected a domestic dispute. Evidently, nine-one-one dispatch had several emergency calls involving the vic and her partner, going back a couple of years. The last time cops were called to the scene, guns were involved.”
“So the partner is in jail?”
Special Agent Flack blew a big pink bubble, then popped it loudly. “No. The dude was alibied. Happens all the time down there, cousin vouching for cousin, hey.” Laughter. “Nothin’ the tribal cops or nobody else could do.”
Seemed too cut and dried. Too… easily dismissed.
“Is there a reason to get this backstory on previous and unrelated cases, Agent Gunderson?”
“Yes. I have a gut feeling some of those old cases are somehow related to this new one.”
Silence. Except for Shay’s disgruntled sigh.
“Here in the bureau, we’re less about gut feelings and hunches than we are about solid evidence,” Shenker said.
I let his doubt bounce off me, but I couldn’t keep the blood from rushing to my face. “Even if solid evidence is ignored? Or dismissed?”
Shenker stared at me thoughtfully. “No offense, Agent Gunderson, but you are new to the bureau. Why haven’t the tribal police picked up on it? If it’s so obvious to you?”
Since I’d started working here five weeks ago, I had mostly observed. I asked questions only when I hadn’t been able to find the answers myself. I wasn’t the timid mouse in the corner, but neither was I the roaring lion. I’d backed down on a couple of occasions. But I would not back down on this. “Maybe due to budgetary and manpower constraints, the tribal cops are conditioned to look for the easiest answer first, in order to get the case resolved and move on to the next one. Those officers see a lot of bad shit. It’d be easy to get jaded. My dad dealt with them when he was Eagle River County sheriff. And yes, he complained about the tribal police not wanting to cooperate with any other law enforcement agencies. Not on any level. Something as simple as the tribal police refusing to fax paperwork meant he had to drive from Eagle Ridge to Eagle River. Half the time they’d have no record of the paperwork he’d requested.
“And now after I’ve been in the tribal police headquarters? I see the same problem. To be perfectly blunt, the place is a disorganized pigsty, with who knows what files spread everywhere. So if there is a connection or pattern to these deaths, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the tribal cops didn’t catch the similarities because they wouldn’t know where the hell to find the information.”