Skin of the Wolf by Sam Cabot

James popped into her head with a variant of that sentiment whenever she found herself wondering what the hell she was doing on the NYPD.
    In the Academy, when she’d been young and gung ho, the doubts had come only when some no-neck called her “Pocahontas” or let out a war whoop when she walked by. Her response then was to smirk, deck the guy, and dare him to report her to their training officer. After she’d decked half a dozen guys the whoops became scarcer and she questioned the direction of her life less often. But since she’d made detective she’d begun to wonder weekly, and since she’d come into Homicide—and God knows since they’d partnered her with that loony tunes Framingham—it was pretty much daily.
    She shouldn’t even be here. Seriously, to be pulled out of the rotation and handed this one only because the vic was in the NativeArt department at Sotheby’s? What did the captain think, that she’d pick up some tribal vibe, sniff the air and follow the perp to his effing tipi?
    “It’s not like that, Hamilton,” Captain Greg Friedman sighed with weary patience. “Everyone’s watching this because Sotheby’s is high-profile. It’s yours because of the motive.”
    “You have motive? So there’s a suspect?”
    “Let me correct that. The possible motive. Come on, the whole thing’s politically sensitive and you know what that means around here.”
    “It means I had to leave a hot date halfway through my first beer. What’s the big political issue, if a low-level public servant can be allowed to know?”
    The captain ignored her tone in a practiced way. “Sotheby’s is about to hold a huge auction of Native American art.”
    “Go ahead, say ‘Indian.’ You know you want to.”
    “Masks, dolls, baskets, stuff like that.” He went on as though she hadn’t interrupted. “Worth a fortune. Not everyone’s happy.”
    “Meaning, my people want their shit back?”
    “Some tribe’s filed a lawsuit. Only covers a few of the pieces, though. They’ve been withdrawn but the rest of the auction’s going ahead.”
    “Oh, don’t tell me. You think some Indian offed this girl to stop the auction? Tell me she was scalped. With a tomahawk.”
    “She wasn’t. And I don’t know what happened. But if it was some museum up in Harlem I’d send a black cop. That’s the way it is in this city.”
    “Yeah, okay, I know.” It was true. Ethnic politics in New York were so fraught and so Byzantine that when she was in a good moodCharlotte stood back and laughed. All these gate-crashers getting up in each other’s grilles. Really, she didn’t mind catching this case. Her date hadn’t been that hot. He’d actually tried to talk her out of the beer and into a Cosmo. And this killing would be a relief from the domestics and the drug-relateds. Her objection had been pro forma, just making the point. You had to do that in this Department: woman or man, red, white, black, brown, or Chinese. You had to keep everyone on notice that you knew what time it was.
    “You’ll be the lead,” the captain said. “Framingham’s with you. You have Ostrander and Sun. For legwork, canvasses, take who you need from the One-Nine, that’s the precinct up there. It’s high profile so you can have detectives, unies, whatever. But Hamilton? Any Native American suspects, witnesses, any connection at all, you handle it.”
    “Oh, Jeez. Even the bullshit ones?”
    “When the case is cleared it’ll be in your column. But yes, I pulled you in on this because you’re Native—”
    “Say ‘Indian.’”
    “Because you’re Native, and unless you want to file a racial profiling grievance, that’s the angle you’re going to play.”
    “All right,” she said. “I’m going. But Captain? Tell me this: What if it was Martians? Who’d you send then?”
    Friedman smiled wearily. “Framingham, of course.”
    Here, now, in Sotheby’s storeroom, Framingham was drooling over the paranormal possibilities. The savagery