Footprints, a Seth and Ava Novella

By Claudia Hall Christian

Ava and her team head out to the Pawnee National Grasslands to help exhume the remains of fifteen Native American women. Originally tasked to find the killer of a friend of Frederico Alvaraz, the case blows up as they discover multiple remains buried over decades. In the process of working this case, Ava and her team find hundreds of unprocessed rape kits from local Native American peoples. Soon, they are processing rape kits from Native American peoples from all over the country. As they close in on some of the perpetrators, the men decide to come for Ava.

While Seth was in the hospital after being shot, Ava and her team won a grant to bring modern forensics to 10 cold cases in rural Colorado. Ava was asked by Frederico Alvarez, an investigator for the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, to look into the death of a friend of his, Gina Young Raven. Gina's body was found on the Pawnee National Grasslands, in the farther most north-east corner of the state of Colorado,. Using Seth's military ties, the team discovers 15 burial mounds. The case gets more and more complicated as the team works the case. They need to pull together every resource and all of their friends to solve these murders and bring justice to these peoples.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cook Street Publishing
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781938057786

Claudia Hall Christian

Claudia Hall Christian writes stories about good people caught in difficult situations. Her stories are addictive, heart pounding, and intense. She is the author of the Alex the Fey thriller series, the Queen of Cool, the Seth and Ava Mysteries, Suffer a Witch, Abee Normal Paranormal Investigations, and the longest consecutive serial fiction ever written, Denver Cereal. She lives in Denver where she keeps bees, gardens, hangs out with her Plott Hounds, and husband

Book preview

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Footprints

A Seth and Ava Mystery

Claudia Hall Christian

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Cook Street Publishing

Denver, CO

by

Claudia Hall Christian

StoriesbyClaudia.com

Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations

The Case Book of Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations, Volume 01

The Case Book of Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations, Volume 02

Alex the Fey Thrillers

The Fey

Learning to Stand

Who I Am

Lean on Me

In the Grey

Finding North

About Face

In Deep

The Denver Cereal

The Denver Cereal Fort Lupton

Celia’s Puppies Fort Morgan

Cascade Fort Collins

Cimarron Olney Springs

Black Forest Manitou Springs

Fairplay Idaho Springs

Gold Hill Poncha Springs

Silt Hot Sulfur Springs

Larkspur Glenwood Springs

Firestone Pagosa Springs (2020)

Grand Junction (Denver Cereal V1-10)

Fort Garland (Denver Cereal V11-13)

The Queen of Cool

The Queen of Cool

Seth and Ava Mysteries

Tax Assassin

Carving Knife

Friendly Fire

Cigarette Killer

Little Girl Blue

Billie’s Bounce

Footprints

Suffer a Witch

Suffer a Witch

Copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

ISNI: 0000 0003 6726 170X

Licensed under the Creative Commons License:

Attribution – NonCommercial – Share Alike 3.0

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ISBN-13 : 978-1-938057-78-6 (digital)

Cover credit: Amanda Walker, PA

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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First edition © August 2020

Cook Street Publishing

ISNI: 0000 0004 1443 6403

PO Box 7247

Denver, CO 80207

For all First Responders.

Thank you.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Claudia Hall Christian

One

There she is! Leslie McClintock, MD, PhD, said from the back seat of the SUV.

Honk again, Nelson Weeks, MD, said from his seat next to her.

In a move born out of natural agility and many hours of yoga, Leslie leaned over the front seat and honked the horn twice. They saw Joan Quincy, MD, begin to shuffle toward the SUV.

Nelson hopped out of the SUV. Despite her protests, Nelson slipped an arm around her. She leaned heavily against him. He helped her into the passenger seat and turned up the air conditioning. He got back into the seat behind her.

For a long moment, they listened to the whir of the SUV’s air conditioning. From the far back seat, Fran DeKay passed forward a bottle of cold water from their team cooler. Leslie roused Dr. Quincy to give her the bottle. Dr. Quincy drank the cold water down. She leaned her head against the passenger-side window.

They were waiting for their team lead, Ava O’Malley.

Ava had been arguing with the site’s team lead for the last half hour. The site was the vast expanse of the Pawnee National Grasslands in the far northeast corner of Colorado. The grasslands were considered to be the most isolated place in the Colorado-Wyoming-Nebraska area. A ten-year-old visitor searching for arrowheads had discovered a decomposed body. His terrified mother called the police, who called the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, who had called Ava. Leslie and Nelson had flown a drone over the site where they discovered as many as fifteen burial mounds. FBI Cadaver Dogs confirmed their discoveries.

For the last two weeks, Ava and her team had been working fourteen-hour days to retrieve forensic evidence as well as the remains.

Of course, Dr. Quincy was in the middle of her treatment for colon cancer. She also happened to be the nation’s foremost forensic expert on this type of remains. While she had doctor’s permission to be here, she had grown more and more exhausted by the day.

Unwilling to publicly discuss Dr. Quincy’s health, Ava had demanded that her team head back to Denver for a week.

The FBI Special Agent in Charge had insisted that they could not possibly continue without Dr. Quincy and Ava’s team. He literally emphasized the words possibly and continue as if he were on some reality television show. It was all Ava could do not to gag.

The Forest Service Ranger in charge of overseeing the Pawnee National Grasslands had insisted that the forensic dig was disrupting the birds. He was adamant that they finish the digs as soon as possible. He was one of those tough it out kind of men. He kept telling Ava that she and her team were too soft.

Honk again, Nelson said.

From the passenger seat, Dr. Quincy reached over and lay on the horn. With that Ava said something that looked like Would you excuse me? and ran to the vehicle. On the way, she patted the arm of their friend, Frederico Alvarez, an investigator at the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. He looked up from his conversation with the representative from the Northern Arapaho when Ava passed.

Ava got into the driver’s seat. Nelson climbed into the back with Fran. Frederico hopped into the SUV and sat next to Leslie. Without saying a word, Ava started the SUV.

They could hear the FBI Special Agent in Charge and the Forest Service Ranger scream as they drove out. They were on the highway before anyone said anything.

That went well, Ava said.

Dr. Quincy was the first to laugh. They all laughed.

"Hey, we are on the road," Leslie said, when the laughter died down.

There’s that, Nelson said.

Ava, Fran yelled from the back. Ava looked into the rearview mirror. Water? Sandwich?

I need to eat, Dr. Quincy said.

I have yours right here, Fran said.

As the self-designated lab mom, Fran knew exactly what everyone liked when they were eating healthily and when they weren’t. In an effort to bolster Dr. Quincy’s flagging energy, Fran passed forward Dr. Quincy’s favorite comfort food — a sandwich of white bread and American cheese with lots of mayonnaise. Dr. Quincy grinned when she saw it.

Dr. Quincy ate quickly. Nelson passed forward Dr. Quincy’s medication which she took without complaint and fell to sleep. After two grueling weeks, Nelson and Leslie dozed off in the warm car. Fran put in her earbuds to listen to an audiobook.

They had reached Fort Morgan on Interstate 76 when Frederico leaned forward.

Ava? Frederico asked.

What’s up? Ava asked. You’ve been out there with us every day, all day. You are welcome to rest.

Frederico nodded but didn’t lean back.

What’s going on? Ava asked again.

You saw me talking. . . Frederico started. He stopped to see if Ava would respond.

I don’t remember her name, but isn’t she the rep from the Northern Arapaho? Ava asked.

Frederico gave Ava a bright smile. He’d been working with the team to help them learn the names and aspects of the various peoples who were native to this part of the world. He had made certain to introduce to the team the representative of each native people. Every nearby native people had a representative at the site.

Ekta Hóuusóó, Frederico said. That’s her tribe name.

That’s right, Ava said. She goes by Erika Young Raven.

Frederico nodded.

She’s your ex-girlfriend? Ava asked.

How did you. . .? Frederico asked.

We have our ways, Ava said with a grin.

They fell silent for a moment while Ava drove around some road construction.

What did Ekta have to say? Ava asked.

Her sister, Gina. . . Frederico said. He looked up at Ava through the rearview mirror. She was the one I told you about. You know, the first body that was found before we knew about. . . everything. Ekta . . . When her sister went missing, everyone knew what it meant. The people always know what it means when our women go missing.

Frederico swallowed back at the rage he felt.

It means that they are most likely dead, Ava said. Or the living dead — trafficked.

He simply nodded. After a moment, he cleared his throat.

Anyway, Ekta’s mother died of alcoholism when the girls were little, Frederico said. Gina was the rock of the family. She never drank. Never partied. She was going to school online at Metro, in Denver. She’d almost finished her BA and had just gotten into CU Boulder for their ‘American Indian Law’ program.

He looked up, and Ava nodded that she was listening.

They couldn’t afford to have two people going to college, so Ekta worked, Frederico said. She was applying to colleges that year because Gina had been offered a full ride to Boulder. Ekta had gotten into Metro. The sisters planned for Ekta to go to college online and then their little brother. He was just graduating from high school when Gina went missing.

I met him, Ava said. She thought for a moment. I don’t remember his name, but I remember being surprised that he has a Christian name.

David, Frederico said. Gina named him after King David because he was so tiny when their mother died. He’s had to kill giants just to grow up.

He worked hard on this dig, Ava said. Great attitude.

Frederico nodded.

Ekta? Ava asked after Frederico paused for a moment too long. Why was she upset?

Right, Frederico said with a nod. She said that Gina had been raped; about a year before she went missing. Gina reported it to the police. They did a rape kit at the hospital. That’s the last they heard about it.

Ava nodded. As a backup forensics lab, they’d worked on historic rape kits that had been warehoused all over the country. It was something Fran was very passionate about. Ava’s small lab team had even run tests for free for jurisdictions that couldn’t afford to run the tests, and on weekends, so as not to interfere with their other work.

Remember the remains we found last night? Frederico asked.

The Oglala Lakota woman? Ava asked. Uh. . . The name written in her bra was ‘Mina Iron Cloud’?

Frederico nodded.

Ekta said that she was raped, too, Frederico said. She and Gina were in a support group that Gina started.

Long way for someone to go, Ava said, mildly.

Frederico gave her a wry smile.

Injun woman rode faithful horse across wilds of white man’s Wyoming, Frederico said, in a mock stereotypical Native American broken English.

Ava laughed.

No, you’re right, Frederico said. "It was a long way to go for Mina from Pine Ridge