The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  I thought of the photos in his office.

  “It was dark and raining stones. My truck got separated from the group. Driver went the wrong way, toward the eruption, not away from it. Truck stalled in the ash. Driver and I got out to check the engine. He got hit by a lava bomb. Killed him. I was shit-scared I was going to die. Then I got hit, in the arm. Pain like I’ve never known. I got back into the truck. My arm was a blessing, a sacrifice. I screamed in pain. Pain moved me beyond the fear.”

  He fell silent, waiting for me to speak.

  I did not know what to say.

  He resumed. “Later, I heard about the man and woman who offered themselves up to save their tribe. I decided that’s what I’m going to do with my life.”

  He cupped his hand over mine and pressed. My fingers splayed, the tips coming to rest on the boundary of the scar, where its rubbery surface rose from the soft hairs of intact flesh.

  “And I’ve already proved I can take the pain.”

  I asked, “So we’re the tribe?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Late that night, I stood at the window of the cottage out back of my parents’ house, waiting for Eric.

  I’m bunking here now but this cottage used to be the hangout of my brother and his friends. The paneling is darkened cedar, hung with their old snapshots. It’s one big room with a toilet and sink in the closet, and it’s showing its age. The floor tilts. The wall heater wheezes. The window is crisscrossed by sash bars that have been painted so many times a knife will go in a quarter inch before hitting wood.

  Outside, the yard slopes down to a stream gully. The stream borders the six houses on our side of the street neatly as a fence. Beyond the stream is a meadow. I’ve always liked that because it gives the illusion of wilderness in my backyard.

  I’d picked off two layers of peeling paint when Eric at last appeared. I swung open the door.

  “Evening, Cassie.” He wore his Mammoth PD jacket and he refused my offer of a beer. I ducked into the closet, which stays cold as a refrigerator in winter, and got two Cranapples. When I emerged he was reading the names carved into the old table. All Jimbo’s buds had immortalized themselves there. “This place.” He shook his head and hung his jacket over a chair. “It’s a time warp.”

  A fitting place to dive into the mystery of old gunpowder.

  He moved to examine the photos on the wall. He halted in front of the one where the boys, in their early teens, stand on top of some peak. They must have put the camera on a rock and set the timer because all of them are in the picture: Jimbo, Eric, Stobie, Mike, the de Martinis, Bobby Panetta, and Corey Steiner who’s since moved away. I’ve seen enough shots of them with their tongues out, and worse, but in this one they’re solemn kids on top of the world.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. I gave him the juice.

  He tipped the bottle to me. “Can’t stay long. I’m going to see Stobie.”

  “Jimbo saw him this morning.”

  “Any change?”

  “No. Jimbo would have said. He was rushing for work.” Although the Council was still debating escape route options, work on the Bypass continued. “There’s a change, Jimbo rushing for work.” I took a drink. “Have you seen him lately?”

  “Not after I caught up with him and told him what an idiotic stunt that was at the creek.”

  I tightened, waiting for Eric to mention Lindsay’s name. And mine.

  He didn’t even look at me. He was staring out the window. “What a fuckup. All of it. You know, when we pulled Georgia off the mountain I thought, this is it. This is where the bad stuff happens here, not someplace like L.A. Lot goes down in L.A.—I saw that when I was at the academy. And I know we’ve led some goddamned sheltered lives up here, but our turn had to come sometime. I thought, with Georgia, we’d taken our hit. Some other place was up next. But no. It’s not enough this volcano’s all over us, we’ve got to fuck it up ourselves too.”

  “We had some help.”

  He turned. “Krom? Yeah, guy’s a real cowboy. But he’s got a job I wouldn’t want.”

  “You still think he can do it?”

  “You mean after the creek?” Eric studied his juice. “That took him down a notch or two in my book. Word is, they’re talking about a replacement.”

  “Dicey time to replace him. Changing horses in midstream, and all that.”

  Eric slowly nodded. “So what can I do for you, Cass?”

  I moved to the table. In a green box were the files I brought from my condo. Unpaid bills, journal articles to read, sales on silk long underwear—my hot file. I pulled the front folder and handed it to him.

  He read. He closed the folder and said, neutral, “Nice range of exotics.”

  “They were part of that powder John couriered to the gunpowder lab for us.”

  “Oh?”

  Tonight, when I’d come home from the lab, I’d checked my email and found the report. I sent my thanks and promised to buy the chief examiner dinner sometime. And then I’d phoned Eric.

  Eric returned the folder to me and lifted the Cranapple to drink.

  I said, “The gunpowder was in the soil I traced to a mine claim called Gold Dust.”

  The bottle stalled at his lips.

  “There’s a tunnel, about forty meters before it narrows down, almost as long as a biathlon range. I’ve been thinking—wind wouldn’t be a factor indoors. And it stays cold in there.” I remembered the guys as boys talking endlessly about which ammo worked best in the cold. “The one powder in the evidence that I could ID was Fiocchi. Mike told me it was the best. So Fiocchi was the control, and you test-fired the others against it? Exotics, you call them? But none of them ever outperformed Fiocchi.” The chief examiner at the gunpowder lab had identified the mystery makes as limited-production cold weather powders, off the market for over a decade.

  “Heavy artillery,” Eric said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’m not interested in impressing you.”

  “Then what can I say?”

  “Help me with the chain of events.” I was able to come at it this way, evidence to be dissected. “The evidence—including those unique powders—places Georgia at Gold Dust. It says that’s where she took her last steps.”

  He said, evenly, “Why ask me about it?”

  “Because we just established you guys used to shoot there. Because Georgia used to sponsor you.”

  He drained his juice.

  I said, “How did Georgia find out about the place?”

  “Because we shot off our mouths and she overheard us.” He shrugged. “Made us a deal—take her there so she could be sure it was safe and she’d keep our secret hangout secret.”

  “Did Lindsay know about it?”

  “Never saw her there.”

  “Was there a hot spring at Gold Dust?”

  Eric cocked his head. “Yeah. Great place to soak. Why?”

  I mentally filed that; confirmation of the spring. “Remember the notes Georgia wrote? She found something.”

  “Damn straight I remember.”

  “Evidence says what she found could be a hot spring.”

  He frowned. “If she meant our spring, it’s sure as hell nothing new.”

  “Maybe it was active enough that she thought it was a big deal.”

  He eyed me. “Is it?”

  “It seems to have died. At least, I didn’t see it. Where was it?”

  He shook his head. “Long time ago. Best I recall, few yards from the tunnel.”

  “How many yards?”

  “You want a guess? Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.”

  “Which direction?”

  “Southeast, I’d say.”

  “Can you show me?”

  “What, take you there? Sure. I’ve got Wednesday off. It’s a date.”

  “Not till Wednesday?”

  “I’ve got a job, Cassie. Protect the peace.” He eyed me. “What’s the hurry? If the spring’s no big deal.”

  “The hurry is I’m going back up
there and I’d like to know where to dig.”

  “Then wait until Wednesday and I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want to wait, I want to solve this case and, by the way, find out if there’s anything to worry about. We owe it to Georgia to move our butts.”

  He said, “Don’t make it personal.”

  “How do I not make it personal when the vic is Georgia?”

  “I’m not talking about Georgia. I’m talking about you carrying a load of guilt about your little brother and trying to make up for it with every case you work.”

  I said, tight, “This isn’t about Henry.”

  “You can’t always save the day, Cassie. If you save the day fifty percent of the time then you’re doing damn good.”

  “You speaking from experience?”

  “Yup.” Eric moved for the chair where his police jacket hung. “Glad I could be of help.”

  I got there first and rested my hands on the nylon shoulders. Focus, lady. It’s about Georgia. I said, “I’m not done, Eric. Tell me what you know about Georgia and Gold Dust.”

  “What makes you think I know squat?”

  “Because you were such a jerk on the retrieval. Because you were ready to send two able-bodied people—and Walter’s still able-bodied, thank you—back down the mountain. And Stobie was on board with you. I think you suspected from the get-go it was murder. I think you knew Georgia was snooping around Gold Dust. I don’t know if one of you guys saw her, or what. And then when she was found, I think you didn’t want two forensic geologists up at the glacier finding that soil in her boots.” I held up a hand. “I know you wouldn’t diddle the evidence. I just think you wanted time to look it over and see if you were right, if she’d died in your secret place.”

  Eric flipped the empty bottle, caught it. “That’s conjecture.”

  “All right then, explain this. I asked Jimbo for a cartridge to compare to my evidence and he said he didn’t have one when he did. I asked where you guys used to shoot and he couldn’t remember you tested in the mine tunnel.”

  “Ask Jimbo about his memory.”

  I hadn’t had the heart, after the disaster at the race. “I figured I’d get a straighter answer from you.”

  “You got an answer.”

  “A non-answer. You owe Georgia. You owe a straight answer.”

  His eyes, which absorb everything and give nothing, remained on me. Georgia was there when he lost his left eye. She was there for every milestone. I’m eleven and he’s twelve and there’s a Fourth of July party in the meadow behind our house. The boys are trying to launch tuna cans with M-80s, which are illegal for good reason, but the explosives won’t light. Everyone gives up but Eric, who finally gets one to ignite. It blows up in his face. And it’s Georgia on the spot with the first aid kit, paramedic in a big straw hat bristling with flags. It’s Georgia who drafts tough new regs about fireworks. It’s Georgia who chews Eric’s butt when he recovers and then sets up a junior firefighter course. He grew up fast after that, faster than I’d realized at the time.

  “All right,” Eric said. “Straight answer.” Very slowly, he hiked himself onto the table. “Starts with Jimbo’s Fiat. He and I were heading out to Casa Diablo to get in some shooting practice—targets were still up. Jimbo’s car died. Big surprise.”

  I nodded. Jimbo’s never heard of car maintenance.

  “Georgia comes by, gives us a lift. She’s on her way to Hot Creek—the Council’s debating an ordinance to put the creek off-limits and Georgia wants to take some photos. And,” he gave a brief smile, “Georgia being Georgia, she micromanages. Decides we’re going to drop her at the creek, take her car to Casa and get our practice—she won’t let anything interfere with that, not with the Cup coming—and when we finish we’ll pick her up. Then we’ll go back to town and she’ll drop us at Chevron and we can arrange to get the Fiat towed.” He shook his head.

  Hot Creek, I thought. Always Hot Creek. “When was this?”

  “Few days before she disappeared.”

  I sat on the bed.

  “So we get to the creek lot and there’s Krom’s Blazer. Georgia tells us never mind, she’ll catch a ride with him. But we want to make sure he’s cool with it, that he’ll wait for her to do her business. We all go down, look around, can’t find him. Nobody’s around. Finally Georgia says let’s look upstream. So we go. Beyond the spot where rocks pile up and there’s that whirlpool. Noisy, water hissing.” He expelled a breath. “Point is, Krom didn’t hear us coming. Neither did Mike. They were together.”

  “Together?”

  Eric gave me a flat look. “Together. Come on, Cass, you don’t need me to spell it out.”

  I opened my mouth. Shook my head. “But Adrian’s not...”

  “Looks like he goes both ways.”

  I closed my mouth.

  He cuts a wake with the locals, both ladies and gents.

  Georgia and Mike.

  I thought, tight, looks like Krom would go whatever way would get him what he wants. What did he want from Mike? Loyalty? He’s lining up the troops, those he can count on in time of need? And Mike—there’s a sitting duck. Mike’s last guy stuck with him only a few months before Mike’s temper blew that up. At least according to Jimbo. So there’s Mike, and there’s Georgia. And there’s Krom going after the lovelorn and he even uses the same trysting place. The sonofabitch. He didn’t need to go after me, although I was as much a sitting duck as they were—he found another way in with me, he found the geology.

  Eric said, “You okay, Cass?”

  I stared at my off-kilter floor. Not really. Tired of being a sitting duck. Tired of stories about Krom’s sex life. Wondering how to balance the scales—sleaze and weirdness on the one hand, and on the other hand the certificates of honor on Krom’s office wall.

  I said, “What did Georgia say?”

  “Nothing. Neither did Mike. But, the two of them—if looks could kill.”

  “What about Adrian?” I asked.

  “Real cool, I’ll give him that, he kept things from escalating. At least enough for us to get Georgia out of there.”

  “And then?”

  “Then she drove us back to the Chevron station. Told us why she was so upset—that she’d had a thing with Krom. She figured we’d caught the drift. We had. We told her it was none of our business and we’d keep our damn mouths shut.”

  “Jimbo too?”

  Eric gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, he can keep a secret. Believe it or not.”

  I found I could believe it.

  Eric came off the table. “I’ll take that beer now.”

  I got two. We drank halfway down.

  Eric said, “Here’s another straight answer for you—about me being a jerk on the retrieval. You’re right about me wanting a first look at the evidence. I was a jerk, Cassie, because I wondered whether things had escalated between Mike and Georgia.”

  I went rigid. “You think Mike killed her?”

  “I think Mike’s basically a good guy only he’s got a problem with his temper.”

  “A problem? He had a problem back in the gondola station when you pulled him off me.”

  Eric made a sound—inhaling, exhaling, the calm-before-you-shoot cadence.

  “And then,” I said, “you just let it go.”

  “I had a talk with him.”

  “Wasn’t enough, Eric. If you’d gone to the cops or his dad—someone in charge—maybe he wouldn’t have had the problem with Georgia.”

  Eric said, tight, “So you buy it? Mike and Georgia at Gold Dust?”

  “How do the two of them end up there? What, Mike drives them to the Lake Mary parking lot and then they companionably take a ski up to Gold Dust?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Let’s say you’re right.” I had to caution myself. I didn’t want to see Krom as the killer. I liked Mike as the killer—I could see that. But just take it one step at a time. “If Mike killed her at Gold Dust, why not bury her there? Why transport her all th
e way to the glacier?”

  “You know Mike. He’s not cold-blooded.” Eric held up a hand. “He’s hot-blooded, Cass, and if he killed her in a fit of temper, he’d be in shock afterward. Take awhile for him to figure out what the hell to do next.”

  “A day, you mean. Long enough for livor to settle in her backside and rigor to come and go.”

  “Yeah. Long enough to work out that he’d be a fool to bury her at Gold Dust, not knowing if anybody else knew she was going there. Long enough to consider alternatives—he’s backpacked all over the place so I’d guess he knew the glacier. Long enough to figure he’d need a horse to transport her.”

  “Speaking of the horse... What’s the lab say about that hair?”

  “Lab says it’s horse. That’s as far as they’ve gotten.” Eric drained his beer. “There’s still one hell of a lot we don’t know about this case.”

  “You know enough to want to cover for Mike.”

  Eric set down the bottle. “Let’s go back to the gondola station.” The edge in his voice cut to the bone. He moved to my brick-and-board bookshelf and picked up a chunk of wormhole sandstone that I use as a bookend. My books slumped over. He anchored his fingers in the stone. “I’ve gone over this for fifteen years. How it could have turned out different. What one little thing I could have done to change things. Or you could have done.”

  I held his look.

  “Yeah Cass, maybe I should have gone to the cops but I thought I had it covered. I thought I could guarantee Mike’s behavior.” He raised the rock and sighted through one of the wormholes. “It was like this for me—framed. The way things are framed when you’re fifteen. Mike’s a buddy, Mike’s got a problem, Mike’s listened to me in the past, he’ll listen again. Real simple. And maybe it would have worked.” He lowered the rock and gave me a hard look. “But what you did, Cassie, was hang me out to dry.”

  I said, “I was scared.”

  “You didn’t trust me.”

  “You were a kid. It wasn’t a kid’s problem. And I got left with it.”

  He took a long time with that, then nodded. “Why’d you go to Georgia?”

  “Because Georgia was the one you go to when you’re scared.”