by Jan Burke
“Hold on, hold on!” Stinger said, but this time it was J.C. who interrupted him.
“I’ll show you, if you — if you really want to see where they are.”
“Thanks,” Frank said, “but Stinger’s right. You need to rest a little, get some warm liquids into your system.”
J.C. reached into his daypack, and pulled out a small black rectangular device. This time, Frank knew it wasn’t a phone.
“A GPS device — did you—?”
“It was foggy and I wanted to make sure I could get back,” he said, handing it to Frank. “Yes, I marked it. I knew — I know I’m kind of — well, I’m half out of my head. You’re right. I’m crazy.”
“No, I was wrong,” Frank said, feeling ashamed. “And it was wrong to say it.”
J.C. didn’t say anything.
Frank hesitated, then asked, “J.C., just one more question. You think this is something that just happened a little while ago?”
J.C. shook his head. “It had rained on them. And — Merrick and Manton were cold. I — I couldn’t touch the others. There wasn’t enough — there wasn’t any chance they were alive.”
“Drink a cup of coffee, J.C.,” Stinger said. “Then we’ll walk back to the helicopter and outfit these hotheads here. They haven’t figured out yet how they’re going to signal me if they find his wife down there.”
“You aren’t coming with us?” Frank asked.
“Think on it a minute. You got a man who knows aircraft running around out here. I don’t exactly want to walk off and leave my girl at his disposal. If it starts to clear down there, I’ll fly in a little closer to you.”
“What if he finds you first?” Travis asked.
Stinger smiled. “He won’t be needing that lawyer.”
27
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 19
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
He handed the GPS unit to Travis not long after they had hiked down into the meadow. He heard the sound of vultures fighting, began to smell the decay. He asked Jack to stay with Travis and the dogs, near the trees, while he walked into the fog to have a look.
Jack understood — he knew Frank didn’t want Travis to see what was undoubtedly waiting out there in the mist, to have to live with some of the memories J.C. was living with. He also knew that Frank depended on him to protect Travis, just in case Parrish was still around. In addition to his knives, he was carrying one of Stinger’s shotguns now. Like Frank, Jack and Travis were also supplied with flares and radios.
“Don’t panic if you hear gunfire,” Frank said. “I may have to fire a couple of shots to clear the buzzards off.”
The gunshots worked for a little while — although they didn’t seem to bother the insects much. He knew the vultures would be back — probably before he walked away. He couldn’t think about that now.
He told himself, as he looked through the field of remains, to treat this as if it were a job. He told himself that she wasn’t here in this mess, that he wasn’t looking at anything that had been part of her.
He managed fairly well by telling himself that, until he found Merrick and Manton. J.C. must have recognized their clothing — there was nothing recognizable left in their faces. Frank looked in their pockets. He had known both of them, and while neither were his close friends, he had worked with them at various times. He made himself move away from them, but he could feel himself losing a battle not to become overwhelmed by what he was seeing.
He checked in with Jack and Travis, just to hear living voices, just to reassure himself that there was more to the world than fog and stench, soft tissue and bone, buzzards and insects.
A light breeze had picked up. He could see Jack and Travis now, which was more than he had been able to do a little while ago. The fog might lift enough to bring Stinger down here after all.
He figured the dogs would give them plenty of warning if Parrish was still around. He doubted Parrish was anywhere near them now; Parrish would have made his escape as soon as possible. And Irene was probably his hostage. Or worse.
He wanted very much to be wrong about that; it was another possibility he didn’t want to think about. But that thought returned to him again and again.
Before they left the ridge, he had asked Stinger to go ahead and call the ranger station — there was too much at stake here to try to go it alone. They had to get a search started for Parrish. If Frank was going to be in trouble for coming up here, so be it. That was less than nothing, if Parrish had her. Or if she were here among these bits of flesh and bone.
Be logical, he warned himself. Think of it as if it were any other crime scene. Do your job.
And so he asked himself the standard questions.
What had happened here? A group had been gathered around the grave, working on it. There had been some sort of explosion.
How did that happen? Parrish didn’t have any weapons on him coming in — of that, he was certain. He’d have to let a bomb expert come up with the particulars, but most likely, the device was already in place, triggered by something the excavation team had done — a booby trap. Parrish must have planned that he would lead them to this particular grave all along. He had led them to Julia Sayre, though. So he gave them one, then enticed them with a second.
Treat it as you would any other crime scene, Frank told himself, wishing he had the time and resources that would have been available if that were true. Dental records and a forensic odontologist, for starters. He’d have to make do with rough guesswork for now. And so he asked himself the question he most wanted to answer:
Who are the victims?
The people closest to the impact would have been working on or near the grave. The two anthropologists, Sheridan and Niles.
From fragments of camera equipment, he had already decided that the photographer, Bill Burden, had been one of the victims. God, what a waste! Flash was a great guy, good man to have working on your team. So young . . . but he couldn’t think about that now.
Thompson? Very likely. Frank knew him, knew Thompson wouldn’t be far away from the dig.
Duke and Earl? He couldn’t be sure. Merrick and Manton were killed by gunshots and not the explosion, which suggested they had been guarding Parrish. Frank had already theorized that Parrish had taken a weapon from one of them in the moments of confusion that must have followed the explosion. Everyone was tired, they had just been through the same routine in the other meadow. Who expected a grave to be rigged with explosives?
Everyone was tired . . . Merrick and Manton were on duty, which meant Duke and Earl were off. They might have been asleep somewhere. Could they have escaped? If they did, they probably pursued Parrish. They would have seen it as their responsibility to catch him. They might be chasing him now. Maybe that was what had happened — maybe they were already on his trail.
He needed a body count of the people killed in the explosion itself. But how? He began looking at the more identifiable pieces of remains, quickly assessing them, not doing more than making a rough inventory.
Boots. The boots seemed to have survived the explosion. He started counting them, looking at them. He found nine boots — men’s boots. Maybe the vultures had carried the tenth one away. Five men, plus the two guards. He was thinking about this when he found part of a woman’s shoe, and nearly came apart, then realized that it was a dress shoe, not a hiking boot. It was stained and stank to high heaven. Irene was not carrying dress shoes. It must have been the buried victim’s shoe.
“Frank?” the radio crackled.
“Yeah, Jack.”
“You hear a dog bark?”
“No — but I’ve been kind of distracted. You hear one?”
“I thought I did. And your dogs are acting kind of interested in something on the other side of the stream. The ranger said Irene might be with the dog, right?”
He wanted to believe that, instead of what he did believe, so he said, “Yes. Let me know if you hear it again. Listen, there has to be a camp somewhere around here. Let me know if
you see one. They were carrying a lot of gear; some of it is here, but they had tents and packs — there isn’t even a fragment of something like that out here. They probably set up camp in the woods within sight of the grave. Think you and Travis could look for it?”
“Sure.”
“Just look from a distance, don’t touch anything, don’t go in, try not to do much walking around — just call me.” He described Irene’s gear. “Look for that especially, okay?”
“Okay. You doing all right out there?”
After the slightest hesitation, he answered, “Yeah. Travis, you listening in here?”
“Yes.”
“I want to warn both of you, I can’t account for everybody here at this site. That’s probably good news, but you may find additional bodies in the camp. If there are any bodies, you won’t even have to see them — you’ll be able to smell them. And this guy booby-traps things, so like I said, if you find the camp, just call me.”
He switched the radio to Stinger’s channel. “Stinger, you there?”
“I’m here. Breeze is picking up. I might be able to come in if this keeps up for another hour or so.”
“J.C. doing okay?”
“He’s sleeping. I think he’s had about all he can take.”
“You reach the ranger station?”
“Yep. The Forest Service can’t help us out as soon as they’d like, though. Seems somebody messed with the nearest helicopters. They were glad to know that we’d found J.C.; they’ve been worried about him. He took one of their vehicles to get himself up as close as he could to this place, so they don’t have a hell of a lot of transportation options. Guess there’s a fire road or two that will get them kind of close, though. And they’re calling for reinforcements. We ought to have everybody but the goddamned U.S. Marines here eventually, and I wouldn’t rule them out.”
Frank didn’t like the sound of that; the problems in coordinating efforts could end up outnumbering the help. But he couldn’t search for Parrish alone. “I need you to contact the Las Piernas Police Department, too. Try to be diplomatic if you can.”
Stinger laughed.
“Hey, asshole,” Frank said, “I’m standing here with the bodies of at least seven people I’ve worked with.”
There was a silence, then Stinger said, “That’s more like it. Trouble with you, Harriman, you’re a little too polite. You know, a little wooden-assed.”
“Look—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take care of it. You find your wife — I’ll try to negotiate things so that you don’t get fired.”
“Who gives a shit about — wait — you’ve just given me an idea. Listen — your guy on the ground can patch you through on a phone call, right?”
“Sure.”
Frank gave him a number. “That should get you through to Tom Cassidy. He’s a hostage negotiator. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him — tell him I might need his help. He’ll understand.”
Frank went back to looking at the ground. He came across the tenth boot; it seemed to have been carried to a spot some distance from the others; oddly, it was nearer Merrick and Manton. He saw a dog’s footprints, filled in with rainwater; and with them, a set of boot prints that were slightly smaller than the boots he’d been looking at.
A woman’s boot? He tried to recall if any of the men on the trip were small in stature. No, they were all average height — in fact, most of them were fairly tall.
Were these smaller boot prints Irene’s?
If she was with the dog — didn’t J.C. say that she had been with the dog? It made sense; Thompson wouldn’t want her working on the excavation, and she wouldn’t have minded keeping the dog company while waiting for the results of the dig. She liked dogs.
He figured Parrish would have killed the dog at the first opportunity, but maybe Parrish liked dogs, too. Then he remembered the coyote tree and rejected that idea.
He decided to follow the tracks, thinking that at least he might find out where Parrish had marched her and the dog before killing Bingle.
But there were no footprints for Parrish with those of Irene and the dog.
Hope began to rise up in him. Could she have escaped him somehow? “Irene!” he called out, thinking maybe she could hear him.
The radio crackled, reminding him that he was a long way from being able to feel anything like relief.
He found a place where the grass had been mashed flat, and what might have been blood, but it was hard to say; the rain had washed over the whole area. He was too interested in the next set of marks — someone dragging something — someone? He was still following this set of tracks when Travis’s voice came over the radio.
“We found the camp, Frank. It’s been tossed. Everything is soaked. But no smell of bodies, and we don’t see Irene’s gear here.”
“Okay. I — look, I think I’m seeing her tracks. Do you still have J.C.’s GPS receiver?”
“Yes, should I mark this place?”
“Yes, then come out to the edge of the woods where I can see you. I want to see if there is any relationship between these tracks and where you are.”
But when Travis and Jack appeared with the dogs, Frank noticed that the tracks he was following angled off, away from the camp. What did that mean? If the boot tracks were Irene’s — who was the other person? Parrish? Was he wounded? Was she?
No, hers — if they were hers — were the boot prints, deep, but distorted by something that had come by later, flattening a wide swath of grass. But he remembered seeing marks like these at other crime scenes, wherever a killer had dragged a body . . .
Oh God, no.
He began running alongside the path of the flattened grass. But when he had followed it through the trees, he came to a place where two people had stood — or so it seemed. There were three boots, and a mark he couldn’t make out. And the dog’s tracks. Nothing was being dragged. And then only two prints, but much deeper than before. The smaller boots, but — carrying something? Someone?
Two people had survived. Maybe Parrish had been wounded by the guards, but forced Irene to . . . what? Drag him behind her? He couldn’t picture it. More likely he had tied her up and dragged her along.
The tracks grew harder to follow, and eventually, he lost them. Looking for them, he came across a different set of prints.
Something wasn’t adding up. He counted again. J.C. and Andy had gone to the airstrip — that left Parrish, Thompson, Duke, Earl, Merrick, Manton, Flash, Sheridan, Niles, and Irene. Ten people. If the marks on the grass were made by Parrish and Irene, that left eight. Merrick and Manton shot, that left six.
Six pairs of booted feet. But there were only ten boots scattered by the explosion, not twelve. If someone else survived, who? And where was he?
Most likely, he figured, it was Duke or Earl. They were both veterans, they knew their stuff. Neither one of them would put Irene in danger, but either one would be able to keep track of Irene and Parrish, figure out where the bastard was taking her, keep the pressure on so that Parrish wouldn’t have time for . . . for other things. He began to feel a little better about Irene’s chances of surviving.
“Bring the dogs,” Frank said over the radio. “Let’s see if they can find Bingle.”
The dogs took them to the stream. They moved along one bank, where Bingle’s paw prints could still be seen now and then. But Deke and Dunk seemed distracted, often taking more interest in the local wildlife than in trailing another dog, Deke at one point nearly pulling Travis down into the mud when she decided to chase a squirrel. Jack scolded, and they settled down a little.
Frank, who was wondering if he had just spent twenty precious minutes setting up a squirrel hunt, looked upstream. He came to a halt. “Holy shit — a bridge.”
The others saw it too then — a felled tree, lying across the water. They hurried to it.
“Cut recently,” Jack said, “and I mean, very recently. Everything around here has been soaked with rain. But this pine is fairly dry — and fre
sh enough to smell the cut.”
Frank looked at the ground. The signs were confusing — two sets of boot prints, both people able to stand, and the dog nearby. There were other signs of disturbance — in one place handprints in the mud. Hers? He couldn’t be sure.
Maybe Duke or Earl had made a move here — and failed. Maybe the sixth man lost his life here, and his body was downstream.
But someone had found the strength and time to fell a good-sized tree.
“Let’s see what’s over on the other bank,” he said.
There were more confused prints, but the dogs seemed excited again, whining. Jack found Bingle’s prints again, and they followed them until Travis suddenly shouted, “Her tent!”
It was there, set up in the woods. She had even made something to catch rain. “Irene!” Frank called. “Irene!”
There was no answer.
They looked in the tent; there were signs she had slept here, but Frank soon noticed that there was a mixture of clothing in the tent. The dogs were very interested in one side of it, and looking closer, Frank saw a small amount of blood there.
“She got across that stream and camped here,” Jack said.
Frank picked up one of her shirts; no gash or sign of a wound or bleeding on it, or her bedroll. If she wasn’t the wounded one, maybe Parrish didn’t have her. Maybe she was with the other survivor. “Let’s see if that dog left any other tracks.”
As it happened, they didn’t need to look for tracks.
Deke, catching Bingle’s scent, began barking. Dunk took up the cry.
Near a group of boulders, Jack was the first one to see a large German shepherd emerge. The dog apparently decided that they were all close enough, because he began barking ferociously. Deke and Dunk immediately flattened themselves onto the ground, tails wagging nervously, as if bowing in supplication and begging his pardon.
“That sweater he’s got on has them in awe,” Travis said.
“No,” Jack said, “he’s born to rule. Deke and Dunk are just acknowledging that fact — although I’m sure they’ll test it later on.”