The rest of the hairs were his problem. He would have to study the color and width, the distribution pattern of the pigment. He would run them through an infrared microspectrometer to determine if the color was real or fake. Through neutron activation analysis, he could determine the chemical content. There was plenty to be learned from hairs, even without DNA, it just took some doing. He might be able to determine the gender, race, and even age of the person the hair had belonged to, maybe even a place of origin if there was something unique in the chemical composition that pointed to a specific place. If it was dyed, he might be able to pinpoint when that had happened and what substance had been used.

And then there were the plant fiber samples. He would have to finish analyzing them to determine what type of plant they had come from and maybe to find the plant DNA that could differentiate the original plant from every other example of its type. If it was a local plant, he might be able to isolate where in the city it was found.

His shift had ended. He could go home, and no one could say a word about it. Day shift had come on, and everybody had to share space. Hodges hated sharing space with the day shift. They crowded him.

But Greg was still there, and Wendy and Mandy.

And Catherine. Nick and Captain Brass were out in the field, as was Ray Langston.

No, he was trapped, like a rat in a faulty maze. He was there for the duration, like it or not.

12

"There are a few huge nations," Aguirre was saying, "like the Navajo and the Cherokee, for example, where it's not that hard to find fullbloods anymore. Smaller tribes like ours, though, we're full of what they call thinbloods. Intertribal marriage was commonplace even back before the Europeans came here, so it's not like it's a new thing."

They were back in his official Jeep, cutting across the reservation, Aguirre driving fast over roads in serious disrepair. Every now and then, they passed a house or a trailer, some with wash hanging out on lines, kids in the yard, maybe a couple of goats or some chickens in a pen. Nick had filled in Aguirre and Brass on what Ray had told him about blood quantum, and Aguirre took over from there.

"Story is, blood quantum was invented by the white government as a way to winnow down tribal membership. Drive us into extinction bureaucratically, since they couldn't do it with bullets. I don't know if I believe that, but a lot of people do."

"That sounds a little far-fetched," Brass observed. "I thought the conspiracy theory was more modern than that."

"You want to talk far-fetched, how about those treaties you guys had us agree to?" Aguirre countered. "Look, I'm not some radical, I just try to understand the different points of view. I have to, to keep tabs on what's going on around here. People who grew up poor on the rez want some mechanism to keep newcomers from claiming tribal identity – pushing them to the back of the line when it comes to health insurance, housing, other tribal benefits. But if circumstances you couldn't control, you know, who your grandmother married, mean you suddenly don't belong to the people you thought you did, that's no good, either."

"It's a complicated thing, all right," Nick said. "Seems going by parentage would be easier. If your dad or your mom, depending on if the tribe is matrilineal or patrilineal, was a member, then you are."

Aguirre turned around in his seat and glanced at Nick. "Then what happens if my tribe goes by the mother, but your father's goes by him? Do you belong to both? Or what if you're in a patrilineal tribe, but your mother married into it, moved to the reservation years before you were born, and you've never lived anywhere else or considered yourself a part of any other tribe? It's not so bad if the rules are consistent for generations, because then at least people know what to expect. But when a tribal commission can change them in midstream, then people get messed up."

A snake slithered across the road, pink as a heavy-duty garden hose. Aguirre was watching the road again, which Nick appreciated, considering the sheer number of rabbits, ground squirrels, birds, and other creatures that kept darting into the road. "Some think the line should be cultural, not connected to bloodlines at all. What matters most is how well someone has assimilated the values of the people, not how much of any type of blood they have. Do they speak the language? Do they participate in traditional tribal activities? That's hard to measure, too, but it hurts to see someone raised as white, identified as white, who can claim membership with a piece of paper, when you're fully native but you're knocked out by some intertribal marriage way in the past."

"So… this guy you're taking us to see," Brass said, bringing them back around to the subject of Robert Domingo's murder. "What's his story?'

"Calvin Tom," Aguirre said. "He's exactly the kind of case I'm talking about."

"How so?" Nick asked.

"Calvin is part Grey Rock Paiute and part Navajo. That's not an uncommon mix around here. He was raised on the rez and always considered himself Grey Rock. His mom was almost full Grey Rock and had divorced his dad when he was very young. So all the family he knew was here. He never even met his daddy's people. As a young man, he moved away for a few years, worked in Los Angeles for a time, then I think Seattle. Recently, he came back here, to the place he had always thought of as home. When he got here, the whole membership thing was going on. He applied for membership, but he was turned down."

"I bet he wasn't happy about that," Nick said.

"Not a bit. He bitched and moaned, you know. He complained to Domingo, then threatened him."

"Anybody take his threats seriously?" Brass asked.

"They didn't sound serious, according to witnesses. I mean, he was pissed off, no question. But it was all that 'I'm gonna freakin' kill you, Domingo!' stuff. Every cop hears that crap. I'm sure you hear it every day. If we tried to intercede every time someone said he was going to kill somebody else, that's all we'd do."

"Except in this case, somebody did," Brass said.

Aguirre cranked the wheel hard to the right, and the Jeep shot around a corner, fishtailing a little. If he always drives like this, Nick thought, it's a wonder there are enough people left on the reservation to make the membership rolls a problem.

"Somebody did," Aguirre echoed. "And that is why we're going to visit Calvin Tom."

Tom's place was up a little hill, set well back from the road. A couple of scrawny dogs sprawled in the shade of a broken-down, rust-scaled pickup truck outside. The home itself was a double-wide trailer, blue with brown trim, listing to the left where some of the cinder blocks propping it up had started to crumble under its weight. The whole property looked as if a stiff wind could blow it into the next state. "I'm not saying it's a bad place to grow up. I love it here, wouldn't trade it for anything. But like I said," Aguirre reminded them quietly as he parked, "there's a lot of poverty on the rez. You okay with that?"

"I wish it was different," Nick said. "But we're here to investigate a murder. It doesn't matter to me if the people we're talking to are rich as kings or poor as dirt."

Aguirre chuckled. "I'll try to line up a few of those rich suspects," he said, stepping out into the sun and blinking. "Till then, we're gonna have to go with poor."

Nick and Brass followed the tribal cop to the door. One of the dogs perked up and followed their progress with ears raised, while the other just snoozed. Aguirre banged loudly enough to wake someone three houses over. "Calvin doesn't hear so good. Screwed up his ears working construction."