Page 9 of Close By (Kari Blackhorse #1)

The dead spoke in silence.

It was an old homicide detective’s adage, one Kari’s trainers in Phoenix had repeated often. Tonight, Mark Harrington’s silence was deafening.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Tsosie: “Natoni’s alibi checks out. Multiple witnesses confirm he was at his family home preparing for ceremony until midnight.”

She texted back a quick acknowledgment, then set her phone aside. Another lead diminished. The investigation felt like trying to grasp smoke—every time she thought she had something solid, it dissipated.

Kari pressed her palms against her eyes, the day’s fatigue finally catching up with her.

The drive back from the visitor center, the hours of review, the lingering headache from too much coffee and too little food—all of it was taking a toll.

She knew she should keep working, but her focus was slipping.

Mistakes happened when detectives pushed beyond exhaustion.

She’d seen it too many times in Phoenix.

She gathered her notes into a neat stack, tucking them into her case folder. There was something she needed more than another hour of staring at the same information. She needed perspective. She needed her grandmother.

Kari checked her watch. Late, but not too late for Ruth, who had always been a night owl. She grabbed her keys and jacket, locking the house behind her.

The drive to her grandmother’s small house took fifteen minutes, the last half-mile along an unpaved road that wound between scattered pinon pines. A single light burned in the front window, warm against the desert darkness.

Kari knocked lightly before using her key. “Shimásání? It’s me.”

Ruth sat in her favorite chair near the woodstove, a blanket across her lap despite the lingering day’s heat. She was weaving—thin, nimble fingers working threads through a small loom. She didn’t look up as Kari entered.

“You brought your troubles with you,” Ruth said. “I can hear them in your step.”

Kari smiled despite herself. Her grandmother’s perception had always been unnervingly accurate. “Long day,” she said, taking a seat on the worn sofa across from Ruth.

“Not just long. Heavy.” Ruth’s fingers continued their rhythmic work. “The dead one. The professor. That’s what weighs on you.”

It wasn’t a question. Kari didn’t bother asking how Ruth knew about Harrington. News traveled like wind on the reservation, especially news about white outsiders who died in sacred places.

“I can’t discuss the case,” Kari said automatically.

Ruth made a small sound, something between amusement and dismissal. “You came here at night with that shadow on your face. You didn’t come to not talk about it.”

The logic was irrefutable. Kari leaned back, suddenly aware of just how tired she was. “Something’s not right about this one, Shimásání.”

“The spirits could have told you that,” Ruth said. “No need for police badges or fancy cameras.”

Kari watched her grandmother’s hands—wrinkled but strong, the hands that had taught her to weave, to identify plants, to form the words of prayers she’d later forgotten. The same hands that had arranged her mother’s hair for burial just one month ago.

“He was positioned strangely,” Kari said, the words coming before she could stop them. “After death. Facing east, arms at his sides, palms up. Herbs placed around the body—sage, cedar, globemallow, according to Natoni Begay.”

Ruth’s fingers stilled on the loom. She looked up, her dark eyes sharp in her lined face. “Someone tried to contain it.”

The way she said it—not as speculation but as fact—sent a chill through Kari. “Contain what?”

“Whatever killed him.” Ruth set her weaving aside. “But they did it wrong. That’s not our way. The position, the herbs—it’s mixed up. Pieces from different ceremonies, put together by someone who doesn’t understand.”

“Who would know enough to try but not enough to do it correctly?” Kari asked.

“Someone who learns from books, not elders. Someone who sees our ways from outside.” Ruth studied her granddaughter’s face. “Like you do now.”

Kari accepted the gentle rebuke without argument. It was true—she had distanced herself from these traditions, filled her mind with forensic science and criminal psychology instead.

“The site where he died,” Kari said. “They call it Monster’s Hand. Five rock columns like fingers stretching up from the canyon floor.”

Ruth nodded slowly. “Yé’iitsoh Bitsilí. An old place. Dangerous during Náhásdzáán Yee Adees’ee?ígíí.”

“The Walking Earth,” Kari translated. “During the full moon. That’s when he went there. When he died.”

Ruth’s expression grew troubled. “Your mother was asking about such places. Before she died.”

Kari straightened. “What do you mean?”

“She was searching old stories. Stories most healers don’t speak of anymore.” Ruth reached for a ceramic mug on the small table beside her, taking a sip of what smelled like cedar tea. “About the time before emergence, when other beings walked this world.”

“What beings?” Kari asked, careful to keep her tone neutral, not dismissive.

Ruth seemed to consider how much to say. “The old ones. Not the Holy People—those who were here before. Some kind, some cruel. Some that hunger for what they lost when the world changed.”

It sounded like myth, like the stories Ruth had told her as a child on those weekend visits. Yet something in her grandmother’s tone suggested more than folk tales.

“What was Mom looking for in those stories?” Kari asked.

“Truth,” Ruth said simply. “Like you are now.”

The parallel was unsettling. “Did she find it?”

Ruth shook her head. “I don’t know. She spoke less and less of her research in the last weeks. Became… careful. Private.” She looked directly at Kari. “She went to Canyon de Chelly the night she died. Did they tell you that?”

“Yes,” Kari said. “They found her body near Spider Rock.”

“Not far from Monster’s Hand,” Ruth said. “During the dark moon, not the full.”

The implication hung between them, unspoken but palpable. Kari’s police training urged caution, coincidence, skepticism. Yet something deeper—the part of her that had sat at her grandmother’s feet as a child, listening to stories of the world’s creation—recognized a pattern forming.

“You think there’s a connection,” Kari said.

Ruth picked up her weaving again, her hands resuming their steady rhythm. “I think you should ask why someone tried to contain whatever killed your professor, even if they did it wrong.”

“You’re suggesting something…” Kari hesitated to say the word “supernatural.”

“I’m suggesting you remember there are older truths than what your police manuals teach,” Ruth said. “Truths your mother respected.”

Kari’s mind worked through the implications.

Her skeptical side insisted this was magical thinking, the kind she’d deliberately set aside in favor of evidence-based investigation.

Yet her instincts—the same instincts that had earned her that high clearance rate in Phoenix—whispered that Ruth’s perspective might hold value.

“I’m meeting with Dad tomorrow,” Kari said, changing direction. “He consulted on Harrington’s research.”

Ruth’s expression hardened at the mention of Kari’s father. Their relationship had been strained even before the divorce. “What does James Blackhorse know of sacred sites?”

“He works with the Museum of Northern Arizona now. Anthropological research.” Kari watched her grandmother’s reaction. “He might have information about what Harrington was looking for.”

“Be careful what you share with your father,” Ruth said. “He sees our ways as artifacts for glass cases. Dead things to be labeled and studied.”

The assessment was harsh but not entirely unfair. James Blackhorse had always approached Navajo traditions with academic detachment—respect without belief.

“I need to understand why Harrington was killed,” Kari said. “That matters more than old family tensions.”

Ruth nodded, acknowledging the point. “Understanding why is good. But also understand what.” Her fingers worked the threads carefully. “Not all killers leave footprints, Asdz?′?′ K’os.”

The use of her Diné name felt like an invitation back to something Kari had left behind. She didn’t reject it this time.

“What do you think killed him, Shimásání?” she asked directly.

Ruth was quiet for a long moment, her fingers still moving on the loom. “There are hungry things in this world,” she said finally. “Things that feed on disrespect, on boundary-crossing. Things that wake when the earth walks.”

Kari waited for more, but Ruth had seemingly said all she intended to. The silence between them was comfortable, weighted with shared history and understanding that transcended their different worldviews.

Ruth set her weaving aside and reached for a small wooden box on the shelf beside her. “Your hands are restless. They always are when your mind is full.”

It was true. Kari had been unconsciously tapping her fingers against her knee, a habit from childhood that surfaced when she was processing complex thoughts.

Ruth opened the box, revealing a collection of polished stones in various colors. “Choose one.”

The familiar ritual brought an unexpected smile to Kari’s face. When she was a child, during those weekend visits to the reservation, Ruth would often invite her to select a stone when she seemed troubled or unsettled. Each selection, Ruth claimed, revealed something about what the heart needed.

Kari’s fingers hovered over the collection before selecting a smooth piece of turquoise with veins of copper running through it.

“Interesting,” Ruth said, studying the stone. “Protection and communication. The same one you chose when you were twelve, after that argument with your father.”

“You remember that?” Kari asked, surprised.

“I remember all your stones.” Ruth gestured to a small shelf across the room, where a row of similar stones sat arranged by size. “I kept them for you.”