“Uh, Miss—uh—” he floundered.
I looked at him more closely. “Were you in the path lab when I was talking to Dr. Markovsky just now?”
He nodded and looked around nervously. “I was in the lab that day.”
It took me a minute to untangle the syntax. “When the Horsethief Canyon victims were brought in, you mean?”
He nodded again and flinched as the entrance doors revolved and a couple of women in magenta scrubs came out. One of them called out, “Hey, Emilio,” and waved; he bobbed his head.
I suggested we move around to the side of the building, and he followed me thankfully.
“It must have been a terrible experience,” I said.
“It was, it was.” The Adam’s apple moved like a trombone slide. “Not when we were working flat out, you understand, but afterward. So many bodies, so much blood, it was in my sleep for months and even now sometimes—I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep working, but the hospital, they got us counseling, and it seemed to help.”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and then blurted out, “Here’s the thing. Why no one wants you to see the report, I mean. Someone came and took three bullets. I—no one pays attention to me in the lab, I’m like a ghost to them, being just a tech, you know.”
“Do you know who took them?” I asked.
“The chief came in, Chief Corbitt, he had a strange man with him. The chief talked to Dr. Markovsky, and she let this strange man have the bag we’d tagged with the bullets from one of the dead people. The man—I can’t describe him except he was out of place. He—we were all covered with blood and feeling like crap, and there he was, all clean, his hair combed.”
He fingered his ponytail, as if to make his point.
“He looked around to see if me or Patti were watching—Patti’s the other tech. She was writing up labels and I pretended I needed to tie my shoes.”
“Did you notice which body he took the bullets from?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. I was curious, see, so after everyone left—Dr. Markovsky, she went out with the chief and the strange man—I went to the gurney. It was the Mexican guy who’d been one of the speakers. They showed his face on TV when they were reporting the story.”
“Hector Palurdo,” I said.
“That’s right. He was in the middle of a speech, about how billionaires are turning the rest of us into their slaves, farmworkers, miners, people in warehouses. They showed the speech on television and then the bullet going into his neck. They kept showing it, you know, a thousand times, but I couldn’t stop watching.”
He smiled tremulously. “It’s been weighing me down all this time, me knowing and not being able to say. Dr. Markovsky, she’s not a great pathologist but she’s good enough, most of the time. Only she cares more about what the bosses think than maybe what’s best for the patients.”
My informant scuttled back into the hospital, but not until I promised never to tell a living soul that I’d learned about the bullets from him.
50
A Bad Day at Black Rock
The Smoky Hill River shimmered ice-blue near the mouth of the canyon. The day was hot, which made the water flowing through the grassy plain into the canyon look cool and inviting. Right below me the river had narrowed to a creek, stained yellow-brown by the rocks it had been carving for the last million years or so.
Horsethief was small, like a miniature Grand Canyon, but it was plenty big enough for me. It had taken me close to an hour to slip and cling my way to the ledge where I was taking a breather.
I’d driven down from Salina this morning, following Highway 140, which I’d been up and down so many times in the last three days that it seemed as familiar as the Ryan back home. In fact, since the road went straight through Ellsworth, I’d stopped at Eddie’s body shop to see if he had a 4x4 I could borrow.
Eddie hadn’t been actively hostile, but he hadn’t hired a brass band, either. “Thought you’d made up your mind to go back to Chicago.”
“There’s one more thing I want to see, over at Horsethief Canyon, and then, I swear by my mother’s high C, that I will be covering I-70 faster than a NASCAR driver.”
“Hi-C?” He stared. “Your mother made fruit juice?”
“My mother was a singer. That was the top of her performance range.”
“You are about the weirdest person ever to come into my shop.” He shook his head. “Rick has an old RAV4. I’ll get him to lend it to you—he owes you for what he did, putting out those pics of your Mustang.”
While Rick took me to his place on the edge of town for the RAV4, Eddie hid the Mustang inside the shop. He told me to text him when I got back, in case the shop was closed; he wanted to make sure I’d actually left town. “I don’t want a car that people are shooting at in my garage.”
I was hoping my message to Donna Lutas about sending the bullet casings off to my forensics lab would make my stalkers lose interest in me. There was a flaw in that logic, which occurred to me only when I was back on the road: I had the casings because someone had shot at me.
However, I was glad to have a beater with Kansas plates as a disguise—unless, of course, Rick had already told my shooters about it. A horse box would have been even better, I realized when I got to the canyon parking lot. The whole Kanopolis park was apparently a beloved destination for riders, and when I stopped at that first ridge to look back, I watched a line of horses wade across the river and up the trail facing me.
The path I was following was so narrow and rocky that a horse might not have been able to make it. It was hard enough for me, and I could grab onto shrub branches and rock outcroppings for purchase. I was glad I had my boots but wished I’d been smart enough to buy some hiking poles before leaving Salina. I hunted in the underbrush for a dried branch to use as a makeshift walking stick. It gave me a bit more confidence on a trail turned slick by all the recent rains.
Most of the rock faces were sandstone, colored a vivid ocher that stained my hands and jeans. Now and then I’d come across a smoother surface that looked like marble, pale white with gray and pink tones. Some rock formations rose up in layers, as if a giant had built a great orange wedding cake. Others formed caves that looked as though they’d been drilled into the rock face.
When I stopped for water, I realized I was on my own. The horses had disappeared, following wider trails, and I didn’t encounter any hikers.
I watched the eagles and hawks circle and swoop down to the river. An eagle flew over the gorge close to me and landed in a nest built onto an outcropping on the other side. The fierceness of its glare, and the size of its claws, made my palms tingle.
Some caves I passed were barely big enough to hold one person. Others looked as though a whole family could camp out in them with room for their horses or wolves or other pets.
I worried that I wouldn’t be able to identify the place where the Tallgrass happening took place, nor yet the spot where Morton had lain in wait, but at the 142-minute mark, the riverbed opened again. The river was higher now than it had been four years ago, the ranger at the park entrance had told me, but looking down, I could still see where a bowl of land formed a natural amphitheater.
People had hiked in, biked in, ridden horses in, to be part of the Meet-Up. The ranger explained the event had gotten permits to use big buses as well. Kansas had been in the midst of a severe drought at the time; the high grasses and scrub on the river’s edge today had been dried-out river bottom four years ago.
From the photos I’d examined online, I could place where the stage had been set up, its back to the rock face facing me, with the sun setting behind it. Artie Morton’s cave was almost directly above me. All I had to do was hoist myself up about fifty feet of rock face. My sweaty hands kept slipping as I fumbled for holds. I had not brought the right equipment—no hiking poles, no grip gloves. I ditched the stick so I could use both hands. Right hand up, grip hard, swing knee up, find foothold, left hand up, left foot follows. Ignore pain shooting t
hrough fingers and low back. Once, I put a hand up and an angry beak pecked me. I’d come close to a nest. Not an eagle, mercifully enough—I probably wouldn’t have a hand left, but I was so startled I slid back about ten feet.
I pulled myself up the last few yards and sat panting in front of the cave, my arms trembling from overwork. My hands were blistered and bleeding, and the place where the bird had pecked me had swollen up.
Looking down on the bowl, I pictured Lydia Zamir standing there with her guitar, an electric smile flowing between her and Hector Palurdo, between her and the audience. The crowd would have gathered on both sides of the river, people standing on trails as well as in the floodplain. People linked arms, they felt good singing “Savage” with Lydia.
And then, a barrage of rifle fire. Shooting a gun from a distance turns death into something unreal, so I suppose Artie Morton hadn’t felt any compunction or remorse. Perhaps even pleasure at watching the small figures below scream and run in terror.
The sun had started its descent to the western horizon. Back to work. I got to my feet and pulled my work flash from my day pack. The cave had a narrow entrance that curved like labia, pink stone folded back on itself and tilted slightly toward the sky.
Imagination is not a good quality for an investigator: I hesitated at the cave’s entrance, skittish about eagles or mountain lions. Or snipers. I made myself step inside, shining the flash, keeping a hand on the labia so I could vault back to the outside.
Rock dust coated the floor and walls. Maybe blood tourists were too lazy to climb this high; they contented themselves with stones from where the murder victims had fallen. At the entrance, the roof of the cave was high enough for me to stand, but it narrowed about four feet back. The lip was exactly the right height to support a rifle stand. Artie would have stashed his ammunition sometime in advance of the slaughter. He’d have lain prone, rifle sight at eye level if he propped himself on his elbows. He pulled ammo from his stash and fed it in, firing seven hundred rounds.
The trial transcript told me that a SWAT team had arrived at the cave by helicopter, but Morton had seen their approach up the river. He’d rappelled down the back of the cliff to the mountain bike he’d hidden in the brush at the bottom.
I didn’t see any shell casings, or any sign at all of his presence in the cave, except for a crumpled pack of Salems. Artie had been a smoker, but I had a feeling these had been left behind by a tourist, maybe even an ordinary person who didn’t know the cave’s horrific history.
I climbed back through the pink stone lips and looked up to the top of the cliff. It was about fifteen feet above me, but on the south side, the rocks had crumbled enough that scrubby plants were taking root. These were tough little desert grasses that cut into my fingers but made it easier to inch my way to the top.
The top fit the contours of the cave beneath, wider at the front, tapering to a narrow ridge. The back, like the south side, was filled with grasses and spiky shrubs, leading down to a different part of the canyon.
I got down on my hands and knees and began parting grasses, moving loose shale and pebbles that might have built up in the last few years. I started at the west-facing front of the ridge, where a second shooter had probably lain, firing his shells at Hector. Three hits, the three bullets he’d taken from the morgue. He’d collected the spent casings, slipped down before the choppers arrived, mingled with the hysterical crowd. At any rate, whether he’d collected the casings or not, I wasn’t finding anything up here, not even an empty cigarette pack.
I stood and surveyed the canyon below. I needed to abandon my quest and get back to the trailhead before dark. I felt discouraged and foolish in equal parts. Why had I thought there’d be any evidence after all this time?
I took a last look down at the amphitheater-shaped land at the canyon bottom. And flung myself flat before my brain registered gunfire. I scuttled backward, behind a higher rock, and peered out. A figure across the gorge, on a pillar as high as mine. A black silhouette against the sun. Another burst of fire, bullets whining off the rocks.
I moved farther back, and the ground collapsed beneath me. Dirt, rocks, detective, hurtled down the back cliff face. I grabbed at shrubs as I fell and rocks pelted my head. I landed on a bush. Rocks and dirt crashed around me.
51
Rust in the Joints
I lay in the bush’s branches with my eyes shut, ignoring the thorns poking through my jeans and T-shirt. When the rockslide ended, I opened my eyes long enough to see that I was on a ledge about halfway down the back of the cliff. I knew I needed to get up, make sure my legs and arms worked, find a way to the bottom, and hike out to the trailhead, but I was tired. My hands were horribly slashed; I didn’t know how I’d drive, even if I made it to the RAV4.
A shooter who wanted to kill me so badly that he had stalked me through the canyon would make sure I was dead. He would cross the river and climb to the top of Morton’s cave. He’d look over what was left of the edge and fire right into me.
I would die here, ignominious, flesh stripped from my bones by eagles. Maybe that was a noble death, feeding a great bird. Who would write my epitaph? Here lies V.I. Warshawski, detective too stupid to stay in the city she knew, chasing the criminals she understood.
I touched my head and chest with bleeding fingers. You’re lucky to be alive, V.I. Don’t waste it on self-pity.
I struggled free of the bush. Stood. No broken legs or arms. Lots of raw skin on my arms and hands. My day pack was still with me. I took a long drink of water. Tried my phone, but there was no signal deep in the canyon.
I scraped dirt and rocks from the edge of the ledge with my feet, looking for handholds, checking for cracks that might give way when I started my descent. The south side looked to have the easiest angle and the most out-hanging bushes. I lowered myself cautiously. And stopped. In front of my nose, covered in dirt and nearly blending with the rocks, was a shell casing. I leaned against the rock face, stuck out a hand, picked it up by the edges, and managed to shove it down the front of my jeans.
Found a place to stick my right foot, left foot. Lowered myself to a squat, grabbed a bush, found a handhold, slid my right foot down and around until it caught in a crack. Repeated with left.
Birds darted around me, lizards, insects. Every time an animal made a noise the skin on my neck crawled, thinking of the shooter. Above me? Below me? Sliding back the bolt on the rifle.
My hands slipped and I slid to another outcropping, but I was nearly at the bottom. I looked down to see a figure standing almost directly below me. I took a breath and launched myself. Landed in yet more scrub.
“Crap, Chicago. You trying to kill us both?”
The face looking down at me was a black man’s. I was dizzy, stunned with the fall, and thought for a moment it was an old lover, Conrad Rawlings.
“Franklin Alsop,” I croaked. “The prairie preserver. What are you doing here?” My throat was so dry my voice was barely audible, even to me.
“Looking for you, you stupid city woman. What did you think you were doing?”
“Someone was shooting at me,” I said.
“You think I’m deaf? Those shots echoed up and down the gorge.”
“Where is he? If he thinks I’m not dead he’ll be up on top of Morton’s cave ready to shoot down.”
“He might have done; he was on horseback, crossing the creek, when I came along. I told him park rangers were coming in ATVs—no shooting allowed in the park—and he took off for some other part of the canyon. Can you walk? We need to get going.”
I could sort of walk, meaning one foot followed the other.
“What did he look like?” I asked Alsop as I hobbled in his wake.
“Like a cowboy from a dude ranch. Big hat, saddle with fancy silver or maybe platinum cut into it. Rope and rifle across the saddle handles.”
“His face,” I said.
“Can’t tell you. He had on that big-brimmed hat, and he wasn’t very close to me. He didn’t speak,
either, so don’t ask me what he sounded like.”
The setting sun turned the canyon walls a deeper orange-red. The raptors continued their relentless sweep of the riverbed, but other birds were starting to give their end-of-day calls.
“Where are the ATVs?” I asked. My legs and feet felt like large wood blocks, as if they were prostheses that I was having trouble manipulating.
“ATVs? Oh, that. Just something I told the guy so he wouldn’t shoot me. Although it’s true there’s no hunting allowed in the park, and if the rangers had heard the shots they’d have been there.”
“What made you show up when you did?”
“I went into Ellsworth for some supplies and ran into Eddie. He told me how you’d taken Rick’s RAV4 and he didn’t trust you to come back with the car or your own body in one piece. He mentioned the pair who took apart your motel room the other night. Neither of us thought you were smart enough to keep yourself from getting hurt here, although if I’d thought someone was going to shoot at you, I would have brought Eddie along. I don’t own any guns, but Eddie has a couple of rifles and some handguns.”
I forced my wooden legs to keep moving. I was having trouble with my joints. Rust in the screws. I had told the workshop to use titanium, but they’d put in plain old iron.
Alsop was slapping my face, pouring water over me. “No sleeping on the trail. You can do this, city girl. We’re closer to the end than the beginning. Keep moving those legs. One after another.”
I kept moving the legs, one after another, and finally made it to the parking lot at the trailhead. Alsop said he’d bring Rick over in the morning to collect his wheels; I was going back with him.
I slept most of the way to Black Wolf, didn’t see where Alsop cut across the field in his Jeep. At one point, we stopped and Alsop got out of the car. He disappeared into the dark and was gone for what felt like a long time, but I was past a point of keeping track.
“Checking. I think we’re clear.”
Dead Land Page 32