Double Prey pc-17

by Steven F Havill

  “You can’t slide in there.” The photographer was young and agile, but far from sylph-like.

  “No way, José, ” she replied cheerfully. “But the camera certainly can.” She slipped back into her promo voice. “Releasing an unspeakable evil trapped for centuries within the very bowels of the earth. ”

  As Estelle waited for Linda to maneuver her arms forward, she looked back toward the comfortable wash of sunlight where a fair collection of people now waited. More than once, she’d heard Game and Fish officer Doug Posey’s characteristic bellow of laughter, and Bill Gastner’s quiet, quirky narrative, but another voice or two she couldn’t place.

  “We’re going to need a tarp,” Estelle called. “When Linda’s done, I’ll pass out one item at a time, but it’s going to be a while. Once we move things, that’s it. The site is worthless after that.”

  “Roger that. We got all day,” Torrez said.

  Padrino called it just right, Estelle thought.

  “Yowser,” Linda said. “Kinda interesting.”

  “What’s the preview show?” Estelle asked.

  “Just a sec.” Linda squirmed forward and Estelle reached out and slipped her fingers under the photographer’s belt. She tugged just enough to let the girl know she was there.

  “That’s far enough.”

  “Well, almost, it is.” Holding the bulky camera in one hand, Linda worked the spotlight and tripod a little farther, shrinking back as the heat of the bulb passed uncomfortably close to her face. For a long moment she lay quietly. Estelle could hear her measured breathing. Behind them, out in the morning sunshine, a voice rose a little and said, “Well, damn, ” followed by a string of hushed conversation she couldn’t understand.

  “The air is coming from a hole that’s kinda down from me? This little cave kinda ends, except for that one hole. It’s about the size of a five-gallon bucket. The hole, I mean. Kinda like a chimney, so to speak. Cool beans. Wouldn’t I like to be a little lizard.” She laughed and added, “Not so much.”

  “Can you see the floor of this chamber?”

  “I can’t. It dives down a little, just enough to put it out of sight. If the camera’s auto focus works, it can see. Lemme show you what I got after I try something here.” The something here included another series of flashes, some cautious maneuvering, and a grunt or two. Estelle kept her hand locked around Linda’s belt.

  “Okay. Let’s look.” She shrank back, and the two of them pushed away from the opening. Huddled in the shade of the rocks outside the entrance, Linda fussed with the camera’s controls. The Nikon’s preview screen was bright and clear. The spectrum of color ranged from light to dark grays, with a twinkle here and there from minerals imbedded in the rock. Linda had managed the muted flash just right.

  “Time for big screen, huh,” Linda said as Estelle brought the camera closer to her face, straining to see details of the image. “Let’s chip it to your laptop.”

  “Oh, sí. ” She turned the camera toward Linda so the photographer could see her own handiwork and pointed at the lower left area of the preview screen. “Can you shoot over here a bit more?”

  “What’s the caucus?” The intrusion of Bobby Torrez’s voice was startling. “What do you have?”

  “We have remains,” Estelle said. “It appears to be a partial skeleton. But it’s really hard to tell.”

  “You going to need Perrone?”

  Linda laughed loudly. “I pronounce this guy dead, dead, dead, Bobby. And if he isn’t, then we’re in deep, deep caca. ”

  “Someone needs to alert him that remains are coming,” Estelle said. “The sooner we start the I.D. process, the better.”

  “You’re talkin’ recent?”

  “I would guess any time within the last…who knows how long.”

  “I need to take a look.”

  Linda laughed again. “Mr. Cork,” she whispered to Estelle.

  “I ain’t no bigger than the both of you,” the sheriff said. “Back out of there.”

  “In a bit,” Estelle said. “Let us take one more series.” She touched the screen again. “Right over here. If you can hold the camera right up against the ceiling, looking down.”

  “I can do that,” Linda said cheerfully. After a dozen photos, she asked for the power pack and cord, and with that supply of juice, she continued one photo after another. At eighty-seven, Linda finally sighed with satisfaction.

  “I don’t think there’s a grain of dust that isn’t recorded,” she said. “And you’re going to be interested in what’s over to the left, way behind the rocks.” She squirmed backward and presented the camera so that Estelle could see the preview screen. “Scroll backward. About number fifty or so, you’ll see it.”

  Looking at negatives morphing out of the old-fashioned developing solution in the dark room trays was spooky enough, but for the most part that era was past. This time, the little screen’s effect was disturbing enough in the dark, musty confines of the cave. The round object that the camera had recorded could be nothing else. The skull rested in a crevice, eye sockets staring down at the dust.

  For a few seconds, Estelle froze, and then let out a long, slow breath. “There he is…or she is.” The skull lay in no particular relationship to anything else in the cave. Some creature had found a bonanza here. The skeleton was scattered and pillaged, the remaining bones nothing more than little lumps of indistinct gray.

  Estelle scrolled through all of the photos once more, and finished the series satisfied that Linda had documented every square centimeter of this dismal little grotto. “Freddy, what did you find,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  For long enough to frustrate Sheriff Robert Torrez, Estelle studied the screen of her laptop, examining the photos downloaded from Linda Real’s camera. The sheriff’s “just do it ” approach was sometimes the best strategy, but in this case, Estelle was loath to disturb the cave until everything that could be documented had been…and until she had a clear notion of how she wanted to go about the recovery process.

  Little things might come back to haunt, she knew…coming back with new questions that could not be answered once the scene had been not only disturbed but eliminated.

  “For one thing, the gun was out of the holster,” she said, and Torrez made a little growling sound of impatience.

  “That’s quite a photo,” Bill Gastner interjected. He reached out and touched part of the photo that was displayed in all its digital clarity on the laptop computer’s screen. “Dust and debris on the inside surface of the leather, at least right there at the mouth of the rig. Even I can see that. And the gun that Freddy had wrapped up in that damn cloth was completely covered with all kinds of shit. Had it been in the holster all these years, it would have been at least a little bit protected. I can think up all kinds of theories…the guy went in to retrieve his jaguar specimen, gun in hand. Then blam. Either the cat swatted him silly, or he had a heart attack, or…” Gastner waved a hand. “Any number of things.”

  “Cat with a bullet through the brain ain’t going to swat anybody,” Torrez said. “So where was the gun, then? Estelle says there wasn’t any disturbance of the cave farther on in. If that’s true, then it don’t look like Freddy crawled any farther back in than you guys just did. He found the gun, and then what? Ran out of light? He just had that one flashlight. That’s all we found on his four-wheeler.” He smiled at Gastner. “You think somebody havin’ a heart attack would squirm into that cave, rather than out? ”

  “I’ve given up thinking,” Gastner replied. “I’m just rubber-necking.”

  “Who was where,” Estelle said. “That’s the whole issue. Freddy rooted around in there a bit, and now we’ll never know exactly where the gun was when he found it. We don’t know the relationship of the gun to the skeleton-if there is one. That’s a part of the puzzle that’s been obliterated.”

  “I’m takin’ a look,” Torrez said. He thumped his heavy flashlight against his thigh, regarding the depression
, the over-hang, and the jumble of rocks warily. Not only a big man, standing more than six feet four inches and weighing a solid 230, the forty-two-year-old sheriff had suffered enough misadventures to stiffen his joints.

  “You want a grid?” Linda asked quickly as Estelle turned to follow Torrez.

  “Yes, everything that comes out of that cave,” the undersheriff replied. She reached for the laptop that Linda offered. “Numbered and recorded.” She scrolled quickly through the photos, selecting an overview that had been taken with the camera held high, up against the ceiling rocks. “Grid that one.”

  Torrez slipped carefully into the initial crevice, taking his time as he examined the carcass of the jaguar. “Surprised there’s anything left,” he said to Estelle, who crouched behind him. “Weather’s going to get in here some, wind, critters.”

  Torrez had spent more than thirty years hunting every game animal in the southwest, tramping the most remote corners of Posadas and surrounding counties. He’d even hunted desolate stretches of Mexico, and more than once, Estelle knew, had risked his own safety by doing so without permit or permission.

  “You want to make a guess on how long this has been here?” she asked.

  “Nope.” Torrez reached out and ran his fingers down the length of one dusty leg bone, a touch of almost tender affection. “Damn shame.” He turned and regarded the opening to the small cave.

  “If you slide up there to your left, you’ll be able to see over that hump of rock,” Estelle said. She could smell the musty odor, now enhanced by the heat of the bright spotlight. Hitching hardware out of the way, Torrez slid forward on his belly. Despite his apparent impatience, Torrez moved with care, hiking himself forward on elbows and toes, his flashlight probing the harsh shadows left by the spotlight.

  “Huh,” he muttered, and lifted himself as high as he could, his cap and shoulders touching the ceiling. Estelle gauged the width of his shoulders against the opening. He could slide farther in, if the urge was irresistible. Whether they’d be able to pull him out was debatable.

  “Let’s get movin’ on this,” he said, and pulled back. Estelle climbed out past the packrat’s nest where Linda waited, turning the laptop’s screen for Estelle to see. The fine white lines over-laid the image, labeled in bright orange A through K down the left side, 1 through 10 across the top.

  “Perfecto,” Estelle said.

  “Now the fun begins,” Gastner quipped. “I thought maybe you were going to stuff Bobby in there and leave him.”

  “Not a chance,” Torrez growled as he straightened up. Linda offered the computer to him, and he glanced at it without much interest.

  In a moment, a blue tarp had been spread out on one of the few level spots of ground behind the huge boulder. With a roll of masking tape, Linda and Tony Abeyta made short work of the grids, zipping down strips of tape until the tarp was divided into the same one hundred squares represented in the photograph.

  “You be careful in there.” Torrez watched Estelle snap on a fresh pair of latex gloves. The respirator she hooked around her neck was many clicks improved over the small cloth masks that she and Linda had used earlier. The two valves stuck out on either side of her face like parts of some strange insect.

  “There’s a good spot for this so that I can see it,” Estelle said, taking the laptop from Linda. “I’ll hand whatever I find to the sheriff, and assign a number for each piece. For now, let’s keep it simple. Each piece is numbered by its grid location, and then one through how many ever we end up with. As each item comes out, I want it placed on the corresponding grid on the tarp. Tony, the sheriff will hand the items to you. Just pass ’em out so Bill can bag everything with a number and grid tag. So you’ll have something like A-6, number 1. And so forth.”

  “Got it.”

  “You’re trusting me to count?” Gastner asked.

  “You’re probably the only one here who can,” Torrez said.

  “Linda, I want digital for every piece,” Estelle continued. “As soon as Padrino places it on the tarp. Every piece. Every single one. Okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What we’re going to end up with is a copy of what’s in that cave, spread out on this tarp.” She squinted up at the blank blue of the sky. “A perfect day for it. We go slow and sure. We miss nothing.”

  “Did you call Miles Waddell yet?” Bill Gastner asked.

  “I did. Early this morning.”

  “Did he have any ideas?”

  “None whatsoever, but he was annoyed that I wouldn’t discuss this with him. He was definite about one thing, though…he wanted to make sure we had a warrant to be on his property.”

  “And here he is,” Deputy Abeyta observed. Estelle turned and looked to the northwest. The vapor trail of dust rose behind a fancy red pickup.

  “Asking for a warrant is fair enough,” Gastner said. “Kinda wonder why he’d worry about it, though.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The rancher was dressed for town-clean, pressed blue jeans, a white western-cut shirt with embroidered pockets flaps, and a purple scarf knotted around his neck like a 50s country western singer. He picked his way carefully up the slope, not looking up at the officers until he reached the flat by the guardian boulder.

  “Morning, all,” he greeted. “Sorry I’m late for the meeting.” He stopped when he saw the gridded trap. “Well, how about that.” He shook hands with each member of the party like a politician, adding a gallant little bow and a two handed grip for Estelle. “Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on here?” His pleasant smile faded immediately and he lowered his voice as if the rocks might harbor eavesdroppers.

  “Herb Torrance called to tell me about the Romero boy.” He frowned. “I can’t recall his first name.”

  “Freddy,” Estelle said.

  “That’s the one. Gosh, just too damn bad that things like this have to happen. You know, I’ve seen him out and around now and then, flying low on that four-wheeler of his. Jesus, I’m surprised something hasn’t happened before this.” He turned and looked at Bob Torrez, eyebrows arched. “But that was down there in the canyon, wasn’t it?”

  “Yup.”

  “So what’s the deal here?”

  “You read the papers?” Torrez asked.

  “Once in a while, I do.”

  “You read about the kid finding the jaguar?”

  “Well, I did. Wasn’t that just the damnedest thing, though. But that was over at Borracho, I thought.”

  “That’s what we thought, too. Turns out it was right here.” Torrez pointed at the rock overhang behind him with his upper lip, like a Navajo.

  “Is that right?” Waddell stepped closer and peered at the packrat nest, then squatted down. “You got some lights in there,” he announced. He ducked his head even more, trying to peer into the rocks. “Goes on a ways? I can feel the air.”

  “You ever crawled back in there?”

  Waddell scoffed and stood up. “Not this son-of-a-bitch, no sir. Gives me the heebie-jeebies to be underground. I’m no spelunker.” He stretched out each syllable as if knowing the word impressed him. “So tell me something. You got one, two, three, four people here, and I saw Doug Posey down on the two-track a ways back. What’s the deal? All this just to recover some more bones, or what?”

  “That’s just about exactly the size of it,” the sheriff said.

  “Your tax dollars at work, Miles,” Gastner quipped.

  “Did you know this was here, sir?” Estelle asked.

  Waddell shook his head. “You know, I got a bad knee. I’m not much for hikin’ around in the boonies. I like to keep level ground under my boots. But that’s interesting, you have a pretty good air flow coming out here, too. Most of this mesa is one big jumble of caves, seems like. Somebody’s going to have a ball exploring them. You know, when we were grading that two-track up the side of the mesa, I bet we found five or six spots where air was leaking up to the surface. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
/>   “Indeed it does,” Gastner said, but he didn’t pursue the thought. “You ready?” he said to Torrez.

  “’Bout an hour ago,” the sheriff replied.

  “You know, I was kidding about a warrant this morning,” Waddell said to Estelle. “You guys want to spelunk all day, have at it.” He hadn’t sounded so cooperative on the phone, but then again, it had been early on a Sunday morning. Perhaps he hadn’t had his coffee and Sunday paper yet.

  “We appreciate that, sir,” Estelle said. Waddell glanced in puzzlement at the laptop computer that she carried.

  “Hi-tech stuff,” he said.

  “We’re nothing if not hi-tech,” she said by way of explanation.

  “I’ll just stay on out of the way,” the rancher said. As he backed up, he almost stepped on the gridded tarp. “Now what’s this for?”

  “Like she said, we’re hi-tech,” Gastner said, a pleasant non-answer that seemed to satisfy the rancher.

  “Hey, what do you think about the new digital ear tags? What, GPS located and all that?”

  “It’s coming, Miles. It’s coming.”

  “What the hell are we going to do about that? All this is just getting out of hand, Bill.”

  As Estelle ducked into the crevice, careful not to whack the laptop on the surrounding rocks, she only half-heard Gastner’s reply. Moving carefully to disturb the dust as little as possible, she slid forward, staying far to the right. She repositioned the spotlight to her left so that she could use the flat spot for the computer. In the odd light, a combination of soft darkness and harsh spotlight, the screen was bright, almost garish.

  She touched the respirator to make sure it was secure, took a deep breath, and reached out for the holster-the first artifact. Removing only enough dust to see where the belt fragments might be attached, she saw that a three-inch portion was caught in the buckle, the rest gnawed off. Two trouser loops remained, one dangling by a thread. The piece of trouser fabric was crumpled, no larger than a small napkin.

  “We have a couple of vertebrae caught in the belt, but nothing else,” Estelle said. She could hear Torrez’s breathing behind her, but he said nothing. “I don’t see any sign of the pelvic bones yet.” Taking a moment to orient herself to the computer, she then typed in a number. The bright yellow digits H-3,4 appeared on the screen.