She said, “My mom’s annual neighborhood barbecue is coming up soon. Vince Korsak will be there, so it’ll be like a team reunion. Why don’t you join us?”
“Is this a pity invitation?”
“I was planning to ask you anyway. I’ve invited you before, but you hardly ever took me up on it.”
He sighed. “That was because of Alice.”
“What?”
“She hates cop parties.”
“Do you go to her law school parties?”
“Yeah.”
“So what the hell?”
He shrugged. “I just wanna keep her happy, you know?”
“I really hate to say this.”
“Then don’t, okay?”
“Alice is kind of a bitch, isn’t she?”
“Jesus. Why’d you have to say it?”
“Sorry. But she is.”
He shook his head. “Is there anyone who’s on my side?”
“I am on your side. I’m looking out for you. That’s why I told you to stay a million miles away from that Josephine woman. I’m just glad you finally understand why I said it.”
His hands tightened on the wheel. “I wonder who she really is. And what the hell she’s hiding.”
“We should hear back about her fingerprints tomorrow.”
“Maybe she’s running from an ex-husband. Maybe that’s all this is about.”
“If she were running from some creep, she would have told us that, don’t you think? We’re the good guys. Why would she run from the police unless she’s guilty of something?”
He stared at the road. The turnoff to Chaco Canyon was still thirty miles ahead. “I can’t wait to find out,” he said.
After merely ten minutes of standing in the New Mexico heat, Jane vowed she’d never again complain about summer in Boston. Seconds after she and Frost had stepped out of their air-conditioned rental car, sweat was blooming on her face, and the sand felt hot enough to sear right through her shoe leather. The glare of the desert sun was so painfully bright that she was squinting even behind the new sunglasses that she’d bought at a gas station along the way. Frost had picked up matching sunglasses, and with his suit and tie, he could have passed for Secret Service or maybe one of those Men in Black, were it not for the fact his face was flushed an alarming shade of red. Any minute now he would keel over from heatstroke.
So how does this old guy manage?
Professor Emeritus Alan Quigley was seventy-eight years old, yet he was crouched down at the bottom of the excavation trench, patiently digging through the stony soil with his trowel. His Tilley Hat, battered and filthy, looked nearly as old as he was. Though he worked in the shade of a tarp, the heat alone would have felled a much younger man. In fact, the college students on his team had already broken off work for the afternoon and were napping in the nearby shade while their far older professor just kept chipping away at the rocks and scooping loose soil into a bucket.
“You get into a rhythm,” said Quigley. “The Zen of digging, I call it. These young kids, they attack it full-bore, all that nervous energy. They think it’s a treasure hunt and they’re in a rush to find the gold before anyone else does. Or before the semester ends, whichever comes first. They exhaust themselves, or they find only dirt and rocks and they lose interest. Most of them do, anyway. But the serious ones, the rare ones who stick with it, they understand that a human lifetime is just a blink of the eye. In a single season, you can’t dig up what took centuries to accumulate.”
Frost pulled off his sunglasses and mopped the sweat from his forehead. “So, uh, what are you digging for down there, Professor?”
“Garbage.”
“Huh?”
“This is a trash midden. An area where refuse was discarded. We’re looking for broken pottery, animal bones. You can learn a lot about a community by examining what they chose to throw away. And this was a most interesting community here.” Quigley rose to his feet, grunting with the effort, and swiped a sleeve across his weathered brow. “These old knees are about ready for replacement again. That’s what goes first in this profession, the damn knees.” He clambered up a ladder and emerged from the trench.
“Isn’t this a magnificent spot?” he said, gazing around at the valley, where ancient ruins studded the landscape. “This canyon was once a ceremonial site, a place for sacred rituals. Have you toured the park yet?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Jane. “We just flew into Albuquerque today.”
“You come all the way from Boston, and you aren’t going to take a look at Chaco Canyon? One of the finest archaeological sites in the country?”
“Our time’s limited, Professor. We came to see you.”
He gave a snort. “Then take a look around you, because this site is my life. I’ve spent forty seasons in this canyon, whenever I wasn’t teaching in the classroom. Now that I’m retired from the university, I can devote myself entirely to digging.”
“For trash,” said Jane.
Quigley laughed. “Yes. I suppose one could look at it that way.”
“Is this the same site where Lorraine Edgerton was working?”
“No, we were over there, across the canyon.” He pointed to a tumble of stone ruins in the distance. “I had a team of students working with me, both undergraduate and graduate level. It was the usual mix. Some of them were actually interested in archaeology, but some were here just for the credits. Or to have a good time and maybe get laid.”
That was not a word she expected out of a seventy-eight-year-old’s mouth, but then this was a man who’d lived and worked for most of his career alongside randy college students.
“Do you remember Lorraine Edgerton?” asked Frost.
“Oh, yes. After what happened, I certainly remember her. She was one of my graduate students. Thoroughly dedicated and tough as nails. As much as they wanted to blame me for what happened to Lorraine, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
“Who wanted to blame you?”
“Her parents. She was their only child, and they were devastated. Since I was supervising the dig, of course they thought I should be held responsible. They sued the university, but that didn’t bring their daughter back. In the end, it probably caused her father’s heart attack. Her mother died a few years after that.” He shook his head. “It was the strangest thing, how the desert just swallowed that girl up. She waved goodbye one afternoon, rode off on her motorbike, and vanished.” He looked at Jane. “And now you say her body’s turned up in Boston?”
“But we believe she was killed here, in New Mexico.”
“So many years ago. And now we finally learn the truth.”
“Not all of it. That’s why we’re here.”
“There was a detective back then who questioned us. I think his name was McDonald or something. Have you spoken to him?”
“His name was McDowell. He died two years ago, but we have all his notes.”
“Oh, dear. And he was younger than me, too. They were all younger than me, and now they’re dead. Lorraine. Her parents.” He looked at Jane with clear blue eyes. “And here I am, still hale and hearty. You just never know, do you?”
“Professor, I know it’s been a long time, but we want you to think back to that summer. Tell us about the day she disappeared. And about the students who were working with you.”
“Detective McDowell interviewed everyone who was here at the time. You must have read his notes.”
“But you actually knew the students. You must have kept some field notes. A written record of the excavation.”
Professor Quigley shot a worried look at Frost, whose face had flushed an even brighter shade of scarlet. “Young man, I can see you’re not going to last much longer in this heat. Why don’t we talk in my office, at the Park Service building? It’s air-conditioned.”
Lorraine Edgerton stood in the last row in the photograph, shoulder-to-shoulder with the men. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, emphasizing the square jaw a
nd the prominent cheekbones of a deeply tanned face.
“We called her the Amazon,” said Professor Quigley. “Not because she was particularly strong, but because she was fearless. And I don’t mean just physically. Lorraine would always speak her mind, whether or not it got her into trouble.”
“Did it get her into trouble?” asked Frost.
Quigley smiled as he gazed at the faces of his former students, who would now be well into middle age. If they were still alive.
“Not with me, Detective. I found her honesty refreshing.”
“Did the others?”
“You know how it is in any group. There are conflicts and alliances. And these were young people in their twenties, so you have to factor in the hormones. An issue I try my best to stay away from.”
Jane studied the photograph, which had been taken midway through the dig season. There were two rows of students, the front row crouched on their knees. Everyone looked trim and tanned and healthy in T-shirts and shorts. Standing beside the group was Professor Quigley, his face fuller, his sideburns longer, but already the lanky man he was today.
“There are a lot more women than men in this group,” Frost noted.
Quigley nodded. “I find it’s usually that way. Women seem drawn to archaeology more than men, and they’re more willing to do the tedious work of cleaning and sifting.”
“Tell me about these three men in the photo,” said Jane.
“What do you remember about them?”
“You’re wondering if any of them could have killed her.”
“The short answer would be yes.”
“Detective McDowell interviewed them all. He found nothing to implicate any of my students.”
“Nevertheless, I’d like to know what you remember about them.”
Quigley thought about it for a moment. He pointed to the Asian man beside Lorraine. “Jeff Chu, pre-med. Very bright but impatient sort of boy. I think he got bored out here. He’s a doctor now, in Los Angeles. And this one’s Carl something-or-other. As sloppy as they come. The girls always had to pick up after him. And this third fellow here, Adam Stancioff, was a music major. No talent as an archaeologist, but I remember he played the guitar quite well. The girls liked that.”
“Lorraine included?” asked Jane.
“Everyone liked Adam.”
“I meant, in the romantic sense. Was Lorraine involved with any of these men?”
“Lorraine had no interest in romance. She was single-minded in the pursuit of her career. That’s what I admired about her. That’s what I wish I saw more of in my students. Instead they come into my class with visions of Tomb Raider. Hauling dirt isn’t what they have in mind.” He paused, reading Jane’s face. “You’re disappointed.”
“So far I haven’t learned anything we didn’t see in McDowell’s notes.”
“I doubt I can add anything useful. Whatever I remember can’t really be trusted after all these years.”
“You told McDowell that you doubted any of your students could be involved in her disappearance. Do you still believe that?”
“Nothing’s changed my mind. Look, Detective, these were all good kids. Lazy, some of them. And inclined to drink a bit too much when they went into town.”
“And how often was that?”
“Every few days. Not that there’s much to do in Gallup, either. But then look at this canyon. There’s nothing here except the Park Service building, the ruins, and a few campsites. Tourists do come through during the day, and that’s something of a distraction because they hang around asking us questions. Other than that, the only amusement is a trip into town.”
“You mentioned tourists,” said Frost.
“Detective McDowell covered that ground. No, I don’t recall any psychopathic killers among them. But then, I wouldn’t know one if I saw him. I certainly wouldn’t remember his face, not after a quarter of a century.”
And that was the gist of the problem, thought Jane. After twenty-five years, memories vanish or, even worse, remake themselves. Fantasies become truth. She gazed out the window at the road leading out of the canyon. It was little more than a dirt track, swirling with hot dust. For Lorraine Edgerton, it had been the road to oblivion. What happened to you out in that desert? she wondered. You climbed aboard your motorbike, rolled out of this canyon, and slipped through some wormhole in time, to emerge twenty-five years later, in a crate in Boston. And the desert had long ago erased all traces of that journey.
“Can we keep this photo, Professor?” asked Frost.
“You’ll return it, won’t you?”
“We’ll keep it safe.”
“Because it’s the only group picture I have from that season. I’d have trouble remembering them all without these photos. When you take on ten students every year, the names start to add up. Especially when you’ve been doing this as long as I have.”
Jane turned from the window. “You take ten students every year?”
“I limit it to ten, just for logistics. We always get more applications than we can accept.”
She pointed to the photo. “There are only nine students there.”
He frowned at the picture. “Oh, right. There was a tenth, but he left early in the summer. He wasn’t here when Lorraine vanished.”
That explained why McDowell’s case file contained interviews with only eight of Lorraine’s fellow students.
“Who was the student? The one who left?” she asked.
“He was one of the undergrads. He’d just finished his sophomore year. A very bright fellow, but extremely quiet and a bit awkward. He didn’t really fit in with the others. The only reason I accepted him was because of his father. But he wasn’t happy here, so a few weeks into the season he packed up and left the dig. Took an internship elsewhere.”
“Do you remember the boy’s name?”
“Certainly I remember his last name. Because his father’s Kimball Rose.”
“Should I know that name?”
“Anyone in the field of archaeology should. He’s the modern-day version of Lord Carnarvon.”
“What does that mean?”
“He has money,” said Frost.
Quigley nodded. “Exactly. Mr. Rose has plenty of it, made in oil and gas. He has no formal training in archaeology, but he’s a very talented and enthusiastic amateur, and he funds excavations around the world. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars. If it weren’t for people like him, there’d be no grants, no money to pay for turning over even a single rock.”
“Tens of millions? And what does he get back for all that money?” asked Jane.
“Get? Why, the thrill, of course! Wouldn’t you like to be the first person to step into a newly opened tomb? The first to peek into a sealed sarcophagus? He needs us and we need him. That’s how archaeology has always been done. A union between those with the money and those with the skills.”
“Do you remember his son’s name?”
“I wrote it in here somewhere.” He opened his book of field notes and began flipping through the pages. Several snapshots fell out onto the desk, and he pointed to one of the photos. “There, that’s him. I remember his name now. Bradley. He’s the young man in the middle.”
Bradley Rose sat at a table, pottery shards spread out before him. The other two students in the photo were otherwise distracted, but Bradley stared directly at the camera, as though studying some interesting new creature he’d never seen before. In almost every way he appeared ordinary: average build, a forgettable face, a look of anonymity that would easily be lost in a crowd. But his eyes were arresting. They reminded Jane of the day she’d visited the zoo and stared through the fence at a timber wolf, whose pale eyes had regarded her with unsettling interest.
“Did the police ever question the man?” asked Jane.
“He left us two weeks before she vanished. They had no reason to.”
“But he knew her. They’d worked together on the dig.”
“Yes.”
&
nbsp; “Wouldn’t that make him someone worth talking to?”
“There was no point. His parents said he was home with them in Texas at the time. An airtight alibi, I should think.”
“Do you remember why he left the dig?” asked Frost. “Did something happen? Did he not get along with the other students?”
“No, I think it was because he got bored here. That’s why he took that internship out in Boston. That annoyed me, because I would have taken on a different student if I’d known Bradley wouldn’t stick it out here.”
“Boston?” Jane cut in.
“Yes.”
“Where was this internship?”
“Some private museum. I’m sure his father pulled strings to get him in.”
“Was it the Crispin Museum?”
Professor Quigley thought about it. Then he nodded. “That may have been the one.”
EIGHTEEN
Jane had heard that Texas was big, but as a New England girl, she had no real appreciation of just what big really meant. Nor had she imagined how bright the Texas sun was, or how hot the air could be, as hot as dragon’s breath. The three-hour drive from the airport took them through miles of scrub brush, through a sunbaked landscape where even the cattle looked different—rangy and mean, unlike the placid Guernseys she saw on pleasant green farms in Massachusetts. This was a foreign country, a thirsty country, and she fully expected the Rose estate to look like the arid ranches they passed along the way, low-slung and spread out, with white corral fences enclosing parched brown acreage.
So she was surprised when the mansion loomed into view.
It was set on a lushly planted hill that looked shockingly green above the endless expanse of scrubland. A lawn swept down from the home like a velvet skirt. In a paddock enclosed by white fences, half a dozen horses were grazing, their coats gleaming. But it was the residence that held Jane’s gaze. She’d expected a ranch house, not this stone castle with its crenellated turrets.
They drove to the massive iron gate and stared up in wonder.
“How much, do you think?” she asked.
“I’m guessing thirty million,” said Frost.
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