Chapter 34: Hunting in Wind River Valley
"Just thinking about something,"
Chuck said honestly.
Monica almost blurted out, "Are you thinking about something Professor Alicia Harper said?" But then another possibility occurred to her, and she quickly corrected herself: "That math problem on the hallway whiteboard?"
"Yeah,"
Chuck said, still distracted. "It's a fascinating puzzle."
"..."
Monica was speechless.
If her brother Ross had said that, she would have definitely called him out for being pretentious.
But coming from Chuck, she actually believed it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but worried about interrupting Chuck's thought process, so she held back and looked up at the darkening sky. Her trendy outfit felt a bit chilly in the crisp fall air.
After sitting there for a while, Monica couldn't help but speak up. "You're flying to..."
By this point, she'd completely forgotten where Chuck had said he was going.
Of the 50 states plus D.C., most Americans are familiar with the major metropolitan areas on the East and West coasts—places like New York and California. The states in the Midwest, Mountain West, and rural areas are largely forgettable to most people.
Wyoming was a perfect example.
So much so that Monica couldn't even remember what Chuck had told her earlier.
"Wind River Valley, Wyoming."
Chuck looked at her. "There's a case waiting."
"Oh, right."
Monica suddenly remembered. She knew Chuck's other profession—private investigator. But she couldn't help asking, "Who hired you?"
"Rookie FBI Agent Jane Banner,"
Chuck said matter-of-factly.
Clearly, handing out those business cards had been the right move.
It hadn't been long, and already he was seeing results.
"She's a woman?"
Monica zeroed in on the key detail and asked instinctively, "Is she attractive?"
"Beautiful."
Chuck was brutally honest.
"...Compared to Professor Alicia Harper?"
Monica's eye twitched. In that moment, she really wished Chuck wasn't so painfully direct. A little smooth talking would be a major plus.
"They're both in the upper tier of attractive women,"
Chuck thought for a moment and offered his clinical assessment.
"Upper tier of attractive women?"
Monica didn't know how to process that phrase.
The word "attractive" automatically made her think of her own appearance struggles.
In the past, others had considered her overweight, but now she was half that size.
Alicia's looks and figure were perfection in her eyes—the kind that would make any woman jealous. But in Chuck's terminology, she was just "upper tier attractive"—like the ceiling of the attractive category?
If that was the case, then what had she been before? The basement level of the attractive world? Sub-basement? Underground parking garage level?
And setting aside this new rating system, she saw the real problem. Regardless of whether "upper tier attractive" was positive or negative, the fact that this rookie FBI agent Jane Banner could be mentioned in the same breath as Professor Alicia Harper, and that Chuck had been called out to Wyoming after just one phone call, was definitely not good news.
Professor Alicia Harper was stressful enough competition, and now there was another one... The thought made Monica feel completely deflated.
For a moment, the scene fell into awkward silence.
Chuck checked his watch, then stood up and said, "It's getting late. I need to head to the airport."
"Want me to drive you?"
Monica had been planning to offer Chuck a ride to the airport without even asking, but she found herself asking anyway.
Taking the initiative was absolutely exhausting.
"Sure,"
Chuck nodded.
Monica's face brightened with relief, and she quickly stood up, then reminded him with confusion, "The parking lot's that way."
"Hang on a second,"
Chuck shook his head and walked back into the campus building.
Monica, puzzled, followed him anyway.
A short while later, Monica was driving Chuck to the airport. Watching Chuck's plane disappear into the night sky, Monica felt utterly lost. Clutching the car keys Chuck had handed her, she smiled bitterly, "Great, I'm just an unpaid Uber driver... and now I'm an Uber driver with no passenger."
She had been mentally prepared for this, but she hadn't expected Chuck to waste precious time obsessing over that math problem.
She thought to herself that maybe she couldn't compete with Professor Alicia Harper, or perhaps even with FBI rookie Agent Jane Banner, who apparently ranked in the same "upper tier attractive" category as Professor Alicia Harper, but could she really not even compete with mathematics?
Wyoming.
On the Wind River Indian Reservation,
even though it was still late fall everywhere else, this area was already buried under heavy snow. Rookie FBI Agent Jane Banner was shivering in the brutal cold.
Fresh out of training at Quantico, she'd been assigned to the Las Vegas field office.
Initially, it hadn't seemed like a challenging assignment, considering the booming casino industry.
But just a few days into the job, while she was settling in, her supervisor called. Without any time to pack properly, she was on a plane flying thousands of miles to this godforsaken place.
Although surprised, she felt a surge of excitement. After all, for a rookie agent, getting this kind of independent assignment was incredibly rare.
If this case hadn't occurred on an Indian reservation, she knew she never would have gotten the opportunity.
The reason was obvious to everyone in the Bureau.
The federal government barely cared about what happened here!
Congress didn't allocate resources for it!
Getting assigned anyone—even a rookie fresh out of training—was considered a generous gesture.
But her initial excitement quickly froze the moment she stepped off the plane. It was absolutely frigid.
Wearing just a light jacket over her FBI windbreaker, she was completely unprepared for sub-zero temperatures.
Fortunately, there were some decent people around.
Sheriff Angela Bishop from the tribal police department saw her predicament, took her home, and lent her a set of proper winter gear. She finally stopped feeling like a popsicle.
She immediately requested to examine the crime scene.
This was her first major case, and she had to nail it!
The mountainous terrain wasn't suitable for vehicles, so she had to ride behind the sheriff on a snowmobile to reach the location.
When they arrived, she saw a barefoot Native American girl lying in the snow, with obvious trauma visible: bruising around her mouth and evidence of sexual assault.
She looked at the sheriff, who looked back at her.
If it wasn't murder, then the tribal police had jurisdiction, and she could pack up and leave.
If it was murder, then the FBI had jurisdiction—but only if they could prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
And it had to be rock-solid evidence.
Otherwise, her supervisor would definitely yank her back to Vegas. There were too many high-rollers and VIPs flooding the casinos every day who needed federal "protection" (surveillance) (monitoring). Resources couldn't be wasted on a place where Washington didn't give a damn and left communities to fend for themselves.
Even though she was new to the job, as a woman, she could tell immediately that the Native girl had likely been assaulted and then tried to escape on foot.
But the female sheriff had obviously considered this angle and raised valid concerns—in weather this brutal, it would be impossible to run very far barefoot without dying of exposure, and there were no nearby crime scenes or suspects that fit the profile.
Jane had the body sent to the medical examiner for autopsy and forwarded all relevant evidence to FBI headquarters. After going through all the proper procedures, she found herself completely stumped and unsure how to proceed.
(End of chapter)
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