Stolen Lives : The Lives Trilogy Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

really remembering, but letting Summer fill in the rest of the details.
    “He was taken one month to the day before his thirteenth birthday and was missing eighteen months.”
    Summer sighed again, glanced back at the body and then at the three Indian officers about twenty yards or so away.  The one sitting on the hood of the car was short and fat, barely fitting into his uniform, and it wasn’t because of a bullet-proof vest.  One was short and thin, leaning on the left side of the car.  The third was the tallest of the three and had on the cleanest of the greenish-brown uniforms.  Their uniforms sort of reminded her of Park Service uniforms.
    “What’s with them?” she asked.
    “I dunno,” Pete answered.
    “Um...” George started, waiting for permission to speak.
    Both adults turned towards him and waited.
    “I think they’re worried about the boy’s chindi .”
    “The boy’s what?” Pete asked.
    “The boy’s spirit.”
    Pete squinted at the boy; Summer folded her arms impatiently.
    George explained the Navajo belief.
    “What do you mean finished ?” Summer asked.
    “The chindi will want justice, to know that the killer will be caught and that the body will be taken care of . . . finished .”
    “They believe in ghosts ?” Pete asked skeptically.
    George didn’t answer but stared at him impassively, annoyed that he had failed to take the Dine ’ belief seriously.
    “You knelt down right next to the body.  Don’t you believe in this . . . chindi thing?” Summer asked.
    “I asked the chindi’s permission, so I could help find the killers and bring the boy help.”
    Pete and Summer exchanged a glance, shrugged and then looked back at the deputies.
    “I suppose if they don’t feel comfortable, they can leave,” Summer suggested.
    “They won’t,” George said looking at his cousin Leonard - the short one standing on the left.  “This is reservation land.  They’re responsible for it.”
    “This is a federal crime,” Pete said.  “They don’t have jurisdiction.”
    “This is Navajo land,” George said.
    Summer and Pete shrugged at each other and then Pete walked over to the boy’s body, looking closely at the wound.  Small entries, fitting those of a .38 and similar to the wounds they found on the other boys.  He glanced at the report he held in his hand.
    Pete ran his finger through the report and asked, “George, where did they piss?”
    “Over here,” he said as he squatted near the foot of the dead boy.  “Right here and over there.”
    “Did you guys get samples for testing?” Pete asked the gangly agent who had driven them to the crime scene.
    The driver looked over at the other agents, and one nodded as he scribbled in a notebook.
    “What about the blood sample back where the van was?”
    “Just like you asked,” the agent said impatiently.
    Pete turned to the photographer.
    “You get enough pictures?”
    “I got everything you asked for.  I got the body, the hands with cuffs, the wound, everything.”
    Pete gently turned over the body, almost reverently.  Thankfully, the boy’s eyes were closed, as was the boy’s mouth.  Sand covered his face.
    “Take several more.  I want close-ups of the face.  Then send them to the Center, so we can confirm the boy’s name.”
    “We already have a preliminary ID,” one of the agents said.
    “I want a firm ID,” Pete said angrily.
    George knelt down, placed his hand gently on the boy’s chest and seemed to mumble something.  He took a long look, then stood up and turned away to watch dust devils dance on the desert horizon.  Pete and Summer noted the care and concern the Indian boy expressed in that gentle, simple gesture and took an immediate liking to him.  Then Summer called over the Medical Examiner and asked him to give her a verbal report.
    “Just what the kid said.  Two shots, one exiting the left cheek indicating a back and right side angle, up from the vic’s head.  No exit on the other.