Scalp Dance

This mystery mingles Choctaw culture, science, and murder and features Lieutenant Sam Chitto of the Oklahoma Choctaw Tribal Police, who considers himself a man of principle. He's a man of the Law—the letter of the Law—and he's a man of his word. But he's at a breaking point, ready to quit the force. His father's murder is ten-years cold, his young wife's premature death haunts him, and tribal police in Oklahoma are being prevented from ensuring the People receive justice. A mix of tribal and non-tribal lands has created a checkerboard law enforcement community—federal, state, municipal and Indian—a land that lawbreakers jokingly refer to as lawless. Indian women are the ones paying the highest price. One in three can expect to be raped in her lifetime, and tribal police cannot arrest the assailant if he is not Indian. And then, Chitto is assigned to work undercover on a mystifying case. In pre-dawn light, a sacred Choctaw ceremonial ground is transformed into an execution site. The naked, beheaded corpse is the husband of a Chickasaw woman and stepfather to her young daughter. Except for the victim's driver's license, no evidence is left behind—with one exception: his freshly laundered clothes retain the odor of fabric softener. A series of seemingly unrelated incidents come together to help Chitto solve the case, but he is forced to make a decision that could not only challenge his personal code of ethics but also cost a man his life.