10 Eliminating the Impossible

Chap­ter 10 of the book delves into the metic­u­lous oper­a­tion led by White to infil­trate Osage Coun­ty with under­cov­er agents, each assum­ing a covert iden­ti­ty to pen­e­trate the com­mu­ni­ty and gath­er intel­li­gence on the series of crimes plagu­ing the area. The oper­a­tives — a for­mer sher­iff pos­ing as a cat­tle­man from Texas, a gar­ru­lous ex-Texas Ranger, a past insur­ance sales­man now oper­at­ing in Fair­fax, and Agent Wren appear­ing as an Indi­an med­i­cine man — embed them­selves with­in dif­fer­ent sec­tors of the soci­ety to cast a wide net for clues. These char­ac­ters metic­u­lous­ly main­tain their cov­ers, engag­ing with the locals, includ­ing the influ­en­tial William Hale and unsus­pect­ing Osage mem­bers, to unearth leads with­out arous­ing sus­pi­cion.

White’s inves­ti­ga­tion hits a series of obsta­cles from the onset, with cru­cial records miss­ing and tan­gi­ble evi­dence from crime scenes either van­ished or tam­pered with. The dis­cov­ery of Anna Brown’s skull, how­ev­er, pro­vides a grim but vital piece of evi­dence, reveal­ing the like­ly cal­iber of the weapon used and rais­ing sus­pi­cions about the alter­ation of the crime scene, pos­si­bly by insid­ers. White, guid­ed by the prin­ci­ple of elim­i­nat­ing the impos­si­ble to uncov­er the truth, dives into cor­rob­o­rat­ing ali­bis of sus­pects pre­vi­ous­ly entan­gled in the web of deceit sur­round­ing Anna’s mur­der.

Agent Burg­er, pre­vi­ous­ly embed­ded in the inves­ti­ga­tion, becomes a cru­cial ally, offer­ing insights that help White sift through the maze of hearsay and dead ends. Their col­lab­o­ra­tive effort begins to shine a light on dubi­ous ali­bis and poten­tial sus­pects, includ­ing dis­cred­it­ing the alle­ga­tions against Anna’s ex-hus­band, Oda Brown, and scru­ti­niz­ing the vio­lent Rose Osage and her com­pan­ion Joe Allen for incon­sis­ten­cies in their sto­ries.

In a strate­gic move to pen­e­trate deep­er into the con­spir­a­cy, Agent Burg­er secures the coop­er­a­tion of Kelsie Mor­ri­son, a nefar­i­ous char­ac­ter with inti­mate con­nec­tions with­in the sus­pect pool, by strik­ing a deal to elim­i­nate a war­rant against Mor­ri­son in exchange for infor­ma­tion. Despite the inher­ent risk of Morrison’s poten­tial unre­li­a­bil­i­ty or betray­al, detailed mea­sures are tak­en to ensure his trace­abil­i­ty, includ­ing the archa­ic Bertillon­age tech­nique and fin­ger­print­ing, under­scor­ing the blend of ear­ly foren­sic sci­ence and raw detec­tive work dri­ving the inves­ti­ga­tion.

This chap­ter not only high­lights the com­plex­i­ty of the Osage mur­der cas­es but also under­lines the lengths to which the inves­ti­ga­tors are will­ing to go, employ­ing both inno­v­a­tive and ortho­dox meth­ods, to peel away the lay­ers of cor­rup­tion and deceit shield­ing the truth. The nar­ra­tive steadi­ly builds a vivid tableau of the inter­twin­ing lives with­in this fraught com­mu­ni­ty, set­ting the stage for fur­ther rev­e­la­tions and the pur­suit of jus­tice.