The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  Absurd, but I wished for a scenario like this.

  I saw Lindsay pacing the officials area like a mother bear.

  She damn well better have taken the temperature of the volcano before she came up here this morning.

  The athletes were tense: stretching, tying on bibs, rewaxing skis, zeroing rifles on the range to ensure that the sights are true. The crowd was loose, shooting the shit about who’s off and who’s on today. It was mostly locals with a mix of foreign boosters who follow the circuit. Nearly all the foreigners spoke English, and the predominant accents were Scandinavian and Russian because these are the demigods in biathlon. There was the smell of damp wool and beer and chocolate, and the sound of rifle fire from the range, like corn popping. At the far end of the spectator area a snowshoe volleyball game was in progress.

  Walter was talking to me about the biathlon powder I had identified, and he was almost as eager to dig here for gunpowder as he was to watch the race. Almost.

  I saw Jimbo on the range, zeroing—which meant he’d already checked his clip and reloaded. I’d wait and see what the dig turned up before raising the issue of the cartridge with him.

  The loudspeaker screeched. Walter and I flowed with the crowd and grabbed a spot at the fence that separated the spectator area from the course.

  Whistles and cheers as racers approached the start gate.

  I saw Stobie in the start area, the armorer keeping track of the shooters’ artillery. Stobie’s workmanlike skiing was suited for search missions, not races, and his shooting skills were iffy, but his closest buddies were biathletes and so he’d taken on the job nobody wanted, just to be on the team.

  I shifted attention to the officials area and saw Lindsay ushering Len Carow to a folding chair. That surprised me—the FEMA honcho turning out for the race. My vision jumped, to Krom crucifying Lindsay at Hot Creek and Carow with his pinched shocked face seeing it Krom’s way. So what was Carow seeing here today? Business as usual, don’t cry wolf—because here he was schmoozing with Lindsay. I wondered if she’d had the chance to show him the Bypass. I wondered what he’d said. It struck me that Lindsay was onto Krom’s turf with the evac route and he was onto hers with his monitor at Hot Creek. And I couldn’t help myself, all I could think was it’s my future they’re battling over.

  There was an intoxicated clanging of cowbells as somebody’s favorite came out the start gate. I forced my attention to the race. Skiers start in intervals, and the fifth racer to start wore the red-white-blue racing suit and he elicited a deafening roar. I saw a tall figure with a telephoto lean over the fence for a clear shot—Hal Orenstein, always here for a race, always runs it front page in the Mammoth Times. I saw Bill Bone, puffed up in a parka with the Ski Tip Cafe logo, waving his hands like they were on fire to help the American along. My pulse quickened. The sentiments came. Go for it. Whip ‘em.

  The Americans are often the laughingstocks of the biathlon circuit. Officials joke they should start the Americans ahead of everyone else so the Americans can finish before the timekeepers have to leave for dinner.

  “Go for it!” I yelled.

  Jimbo tore past us in a furious stride and I watched him disappear into the woods, and by the time he’d skied his first four kilometers and come back down the track I knew he had a good time. When he hit the flats I screamed “go go go go go” and got out my camera. In my viewfinder he’s skating for speed and the rifle on his back looks like it grows out of his spine. He’s grimacing at the pain of it.

  He came onto the range, unslung his rifle, and dropped to prone, his skis spread-eagled beneath him.

  My mind jumped and I pictured the soil beneath him, beneath the snow, mostly glacial till but there could be volcanics intermixed, and of course gunpowder, unburned biathlon grains tracked about this entire area. I pictured Georgia lying prone in the snow, a halo of red spreading from her head. And who stands above her with bloody hands?

  Jimbo inserted a clip, dug an elbow into the snow, and brought the rifle to his cheek.

  Five rounds in the clip. Unless he hadn’t checked.

  My brother trued his aim. The target was fifty meters uprange, five black circles on a white plate. Five targets for five rounds. Orange wind flags hung limp. Easy shooting. I raised the camera and through the viewfinder saw a shudder run along his body. He was going to have to kick that pulse down, get into a cadence if he wanted to hold his firing position. I saw him inhale and pull the trigger, so slowly it seemed the pin would never fire, and then he exhaled and the shot finally came like a surprise at the end of the exhalation. One eye winked out on the target.

  “Well,” Walter said, voice honeyed in satisfaction.

  I gazed upward and made a little prayer. Rifle fire popped. I looked to find Jimbo already up, hunching into his rifle sling. There was a swagger to the way he kicked his skis into motion, which told me what I wanted to know before I checked the targets. He’d aced all five. I punched Walter’s arm.

  “Here’s Eric!” Walter yelled in my ear.

  I followed Eric as he came in a tuck down the track, skated the flats, and hauled onto the range. He just powered those skis. Every muscle popping. He was beautiful. I watched him shuck out of his rifle sling and drop to prone. He shuddered. My heart was in my ribs. I tried to get my breathing down. I watched him raise his rifle, pausing to calculate. He approaches the biathlon like it’s a case. He figures every angle, he has to compensate for that lost eye. I watched him on his belly, measured breathing. I thought, just shoot. Hurry up. He shot, and took a miss on the third target.

  I expelled a breath and hiked a leg onto the fence rung. Eric and Jimbo had another four loops to ski and three bouts to shoot and I was going to have to tough it out with them.

  In the distance came the wail of a siren.

  I watched the Russian and the Finn jockeying for the lead, and then I watched Jimbo on his second lap coming down the track like friction didn’t exist.

  More sirens, close now, and the growl of heavy trucks.

  Walter turned, eyebrows lifting.

  The noise reached the parking lot, crescendoed, and then the sirens cut off and the truck engines idled down.

  Heads turned. In the officials area Len Carow got to his feet, knocking over his chair. My brother, on the range in marksman’s pose, paused with his rifle mid-air. On the track, a skier came up out of his tuck and collided with another skier.

  Lindsay was on the loudspeaker telling the racers to continue.

  The crowd was no longer watching the race. The people nearest the parking lot backpedalled. A path cleared and I could see vehicles massed at the edge of the lot—fire engines, police, sheriff, ambulance—and I thought someone must have had a heart attack. Then I saw the trucks, heavyweight gray-green beasts. A man in camouflage jumped out the back of a truck and others bailed after him and I could read National Guard on the helmets.

  Uniforms—police, sheriff, fire, medics—poured into the crowd and widened the pathway and the Guard massed behind them at the mouth of the parking lot.

  The loudspeaker crackled and then went dead.

  Krom appeared in the pathway, carrying a bullhorn, and on his heels was Mike Kittleman in his volunteer firefighter gear.

  I hadn’t seen Mike since the meeting at the Inn, spiffy in his best suit sweeping the stairs, and I wasn’t surprised to see him again doing Krom’s bidding.

  I figured I knew what that was.

  I knew what was coming. I’d dreamed of this. I knew the words even before Krom raised the bullhorn. I could have chimed in with Krom’s amplified voice. This is an evacuation.

  Blood pounded in my ears.

  Krom’s voice was unhurried, sure of itself. “You will all move,” he told us—and Walter grasped my arm—“in an orderly manner under direction of the officers toward the parking lot, where you will start your cars and exit under the direction of the National Guard.” Krom was grim, big shoulders slumped, bullhorn dropping to his side, but his face was flushed and
his hair ruffled like he’d skied a race himself. He gave off a hot shock of energy.

  I listened for the thunder and my toes curled in anticipation of the shaking.

  I saw Lindsay elbowing through the crowd, her face white, and now Krom saw her as well, sending a nod her way, and then he raised the bullhorn and said, “Race officials, disarm your shooters.”

  Stobie, the team armorer, moved to obey. Jimbo, the nearest shooter, moved to hand Stobie his rifle.

  Now Lindsay and Krom were in a huddle. Abruptly, she knocked the bullhorn from his hand.

  I gasped.

  Stobie’s hand froze on the rifle butt.

  Krom bellowed “disarm the shooters” and bent to pick up the bullhorn.

  Lindsay shouted “wait.”

  Stobie, at an impasse, shook his rump.

  I wanted to scream at him stop kidding around, this is an evacuation, but Stobie would likely be shaking his rump in the midst of an ash fall in the hopes of cheering everyone up.

  And then his kidding stopped.

  Time stopped for me, then. Deep inside I’m yelling wait and no one hears. Not my brother, who decides to take back his rifle, and not Stobie, who is holding onto it in vacillation. Not Walter, who is moving for Lindsay. Not Lindsay, who is turning to look in surprise at Mike Kittleman.

  Mike’s sprinting onto the range.

  Mike hasn’t been on a biathlon range for years, ever since Georgia kicked him off the team. I’m wondering what Mike’s doing out there now.

  Jimbo keeps reaching for his rifle and Stobie keeps vacillating, until the hurtling blur that is Mike slams full-body into Stobie and the two of them stumble. They don’t fall, because Jimbo gets into it, grabbing for Mike. Mike whips around and gut-punches Jimbo and my brother goes sprawling.

  People are running. Lindsay is almost to Mike when Walter catches her. I see Eric coming, very cool, kicking out of his skis, and I scream hurry.

  Mike grabs Stobie and they dance round and round in a bear hug. Mike in his fireman’s gear is bulked-up as Stobie.

  And now I understand what Mike’s doing—Krom’s bidding. Trying to disarm the shooter.

  The Mammoth cops are moving in. They’re shouting. They all know these guys.

  Before the cops can reach the dancers Stobie throws off Mike. Except Mike’s got hold of the rifle like a man on a cliff edge holds fast to a tree.

  Stobie and Mike are both in possession of my brother’s rifle when it goes off.

  And then time jumps and neither of them wants the rifle—it’s dropped, abandoned—and Mike stands alone looking down in horror at Stobie’s rag doll form, the doll’s head reddening the snow.

  I no longer screamed. I moved to help, only I hadn’t moved, I was paralyzed.

  It was Krom who took over then, Krom who’d come prepared for disaster. His cops herded people away from Stobie and his paramedics swarmed. His ambulance crew broke for the parking lot and rushed back with a gurney and medical kits. His fire crew hit the sirens. His paramedics bundled Stobie onto the gurney and hustled through the stupefied crowd. His Guardsmen recovered the rifle and moved to disarm the shaken biathletes on the range. Krom kept it all moving at a brisk clip.

  I was moving now, toward my brother.

  But Lindsay was already there with her arms around Jimbo, and Walter was already speaking to Mike, who stood with his hands tucked into his armpits.

  They all seemed to be a very long distance from me, and I seemed to be wading through chest-high snow. I kept moving, and my eye caught on Krom, who was closer, and I was moving so slowly I had an eternity to watch Krom.

  Krom was now head-to-head with Len Carow. Carow appeared to argue with Krom. Krom passed a hand across the back of his neck and shook his head. Carow looked away, his glasses mirroring the sun, and his attention settled on Lindsay. Krom too broke away. His elbow cocked and released in a vicious backhand tennis stroke and the bullhorn cartwheeled across the snow. He headed for the parking lot, where a small army lounged against the trucks, and he returned with a heavy Guard escort.

  “This is an evacuation,” he bellowed—no reassurance, no bullhorn and none needed because a silence had taken the Lake Mary basin—“and you will all move in an orderly manner under the direction of the National Guard toward the parking lot.”

  And then he was coming my way and I looked at him, stricken, and he shot me a hard look and said in passing, “It’s a drill, Cassie.”

  I stood dumb. It’s a drill.

  The crowd was moving fixedly toward the parking lot.

  The taste of bile was in my mouth. Relief tastes like poison.

  I took off after Krom. “You can’t continue.”

  He kept walking. “Why not?”

  “Stobie’s why not.”

  “Unfortunate as hell.” The sure-of-itself voice. “But it’s a better drill now.”

  ~ ~ ~

  In the evacuated parking lot, only three cars remained—my Subaru, Jimbo’s Fiat, and Walter’s Explorer, in which he had ferried Lindsay to the race. It was unclear if Krom meant to leave us behind or if it was an oversight, but Walter, Lindsay, Jimbo, and I stood listening to the fading sirens.

  Finally, Walter stirred. He said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Lindsay, you’ll take Jimbo home in his car and fix the both of you something to eat. Cassie and I are going to remain to take a few soil samples. We’ll keep the cell phone on and you’ll call us if you get any news from the hospital—if we need to come. Otherwise, we’ll meet you at the house within three hours.”

  And do what? I wondered. Make hot cider?

  CHAPTER 16

  I was going up the stairwell from the parking garage to the hospital when I ran into Mike Kittleman, on his way down. The stairwell was lit like a sunrise with sodium bulbs and the concrete steps had a wet-dog smell.

  Mike sidestepped to go around me.

  “Hang on,” I said.

  His face was sickly in the yellowish light.

  I said, “It was an accident. People know that.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  We stared at each other. The fundamental and unchangeable connection between us was enmity. I thought, Mike wouldn’t take my hand if he were drowning. He wouldn’t offer me his. If I were drowning alongside his cat, he’d save the cat and then think twice about me. It came back—as it always does with Mike and me—to the gondola station, loading mountain bikes. He was fifteen and I was fourteen, and he always bossed me around and I always took it. I could feel the heat of that summer day when Eric dropped by, when the gondola stalled. Smell the hot oil odor of the machinery Mike was fruitlessly trying to fix. Hear myself telling Mike to stop before he broke something. I could see myself sashaying over to Eric like a cat with her tail in the air, telling Mike, you better let Eric fix it. And Mike leapt, face grimed with oil and red with heat, and he got me by the hair and put a screwdriver to my neck, screaming shut up, shut up, shut up until Eric took him down. In the aftermath, it became Eric’s and my problem.

  I regarded Mike, now, and the man on the stairs called up the same image the kid had called up: that of a guy with a need to make the world like him better than it did. With a temper to reciprocate.

  I said, “Everybody saw it was an accident.” Everybody didn’t see it that way, really. Plenty of people blamed Mike, although officially it was indeed declared an accident and no charges were being filed. Plenty of people, actually, blamed Krom for letting things get out of hand. A few people were even muttering about asking the Council to replace Krom. A few people were saying a surprise drill was just what we needed to keep us on our toes. Nobody seemed to notice that Krom had turned Lake Mary into a battleground, and that Lindsay had come out the loser.

  Mike started down the stairs.

  I said, “I know how you feel.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  Oh yes I do, I know how it feels to blame yourself for something that happens by accident. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t intend something
awful to happen. Death by inattention. Doesn’t hurt any less. I said, “You pull yourself to pieces.”

  He kept moving.

  All right, I thought, you stubborn shit, don’t take my hand. And I’ll feel no qualms asking you the question I couldn’t ask Jimbo. “Can you help me with something, Mike? How many kinds of biathlon powder are there?”

  That stopped him.

  It was the question heavy in my mind when Walter and I dragged back to the house yesterday, but one look at Jimbo and I’d held my tongue. In the parking lot, after the race—after the drill—I’d thought Walter was wrong to keep us there. All I’d wanted to do was go somewhere and kick something. But he’d been right. Kicking through snow and digging like a dog had been right. And it worked, for awhile. And it paid off. We’d done a field test right there, sorting under the hand lens with a pocket knife. Dimples was there all right—no surprise—but there were also four other makes. And none of those four matched any of the mystery makes of gunpowder in the evidence, whose silver faces were burned into my memory. It made no sense. Just like it made no sense for Jimbo to lie about having a cartridge.

  Mike turned. “What’s this about?”

  “Biathlon powder.” I didn’t add ‘in the evidence’ but he was smart enough to make that leap. I didn’t want to risk adding that I was asking him because he used to be on the team. “Mike, is there more than one make?”

  “Why do you wanna know?”

  “I can ask somebody else if you don’t know.”

  “I know.” His coarse skin bloomed with sweat. “Fine, there’s half a dozen makes. But only three I think perform when the temp gets down in the teens and I think Fiocchi and Lapua are the best of those and my personal choice was Fiocchi.” He glared. “And your brother thinks so too, I happen to know.”

  Dimples.

  My confusion deepened. So there are several makes of biathlon powder, and none but dimples matches my evidence. Therefore the unidentified gunpowder is not biathlon powder. Then what is that stuff and where did Georgia pick it up?