by Lukens, Mark
“Thanks for coming,” Begay told Palmer in a low, grumbling voice; it sounded like a hollow platitude.
Palmer looked back at Begay and saw the same fear and shock in the man’s coal-black eyes. He nodded at him.
“Agent Palmer is a … a specialist in these matters,” Klein said.
Palmer wished Klein would stop talking.
“What we’ve got here,” Begay said, ignoring Klein completely, “it’s not like anything we’ve ever dealt with before.”
Palmer nodded. “Ten dead bodies.”
Begay shrugged. “Maybe. Can’t really tell.”
So, there could be more than ten? Palmer wondered. Less than ten?
“What do you mean you can’t really tell?” Klein asked.
Begay looked at Klein with a hard stare. “You’ll see.”
Palmer looked over at the two trailers. “They in there?”
Begay shook his head no. “It might have started in there … there’s blood everywhere inside the first trailer and a big bloodstain in the dirt over there.” He looked back at the mouth of the cave in the distance. “But all of the bodies are in there.”
“What about the other trailer?” Klein said. “Blood in the second trailer?”
“It looks clean,” Begay answered.
Palmer didn’t say anything.
“Looks to me like a lot of these scientists were holed up in the first trailer,” Begay said, offering his opinion. “Maybe they were trying to hide from whatever was out here.”
“Yeah, thanks for your take on things,” Klein said. “But we’ll take it from here.”
“You mean the scientists were trying to hide in the trailer from the killers?” Palmer asked, ignoring Klein.
“I don’t know what it was,” Begay answered.
“You think this could’ve been some kind of animal attack?” Palmer asked him.
“Forensics will decide that,” Klein snapped at both of them.
Begay shook his head no at Palmer’s question and began to walk towards the first trailer. He shot a glance back at his men as if telepathically telling them to stay put.
The two officers didn’t seem to mind staying right where they were.
Palmer and Klein fell in step beside the big man as they marched towards the trailer, their breaths clouding up in front of their faces in the freezing air. Begay spoke again when they were out of earshot of his men. “My guys are a little spooked.”
Palmer nodded like he understood. He wondered how many murder scenes they had investigated over the years. Couldn’t be that many, he guessed. And probably nothing like this.
Begay stopped at the foot of the portable steps that led up to the door of the first trailer. “It wasn’t an animal that did this.”
“The report I got says the bodies were torn apart,” Palmer said. “Maybe a bear—”
“Bears are hibernating this time of the year. And we don’t see many around these parts anyway. They stay more to the north.”
Palmer nodded. “So you’re saying it was a man?”
“A man didn’t do all of this.”
“More than one killer?” Klein said.
Again, Begay shook his head no. A deep scowl lined his face. He looked down at the frozen dirt for a moment, and then he locked eyes with the FBI agents. “I don’t know what did all of this.”
“Okay,” Palmer breathed out, creating his own cloud of breath in front of his face. “Let’s go inside. See what’s going on.”
“You’re the experts,” Begay said. “That’s why I call you guys.”
Palmer thought he heard sarcasm in Begay’s voice. The big man had the expression of a man who knew a terrible secret—a secret that he was going to let Palmer and Klein discover for themselves very soon.
“A forensics team is on the way from Albuquerque,” Klein told Begay, still not making a move towards the trailer door. “I don’t want anything around here disturbed any more than it probably already has been.”
Begay stared at Klein. “We haven’t touched anything.”
Palmer slipped off his leather gloves and pocketed them in one of his coat pockets. The cold bit at his exposed skin right away. From another pocket he fished out a pair of wadded-up blue nitrile gloves and slid his hands into them. These gloves offered little protection from the freezing air. He looked at the trailer door as he adjusted his gloves, waiting a moment before entering. He wasn’t sure why he was hesitating. He’d been to a thousand crime scenes before, he’d seen hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies, some mutilated beyond recognition. There wasn’t anything here that was going to shock or surprise him.
Yet he wasn’t sure why he was feeling a little nervous right now.
Maybe it was the look in the eyes of these Navajo policemen that was spooking him. These were tough and strong men, and they had seen something here that had scared them badly.
Klein slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and he wasted no time butting in front of Palmer. He climbed the portable wooden steps to the trailer door and entered.
CHAPTER 7
Navajo Reservation—dig site
The first thing Palmer noticed when he entered the trailer was the blood. The room he stood in seemed to take up almost half of the front of the trailer. There were two couches on opposite walls and a small recliner in a corner. Most likely some of the archaeologists had slept on these pieces of furniture for the night while on this dig-site, perhaps taking turns between the couches and the bedroom. To his right, towards the very front of the trailer, there were fold-up tables and a small desk in the corner that looked like something a student might have in his or her dorm room.
Palmer stepped towards the front of the trailer. The desk had a laptop computer on it next to a collection of scientific equipment that he couldn’t name; he thought one of the pieces might’ve been some kind of a microscope. He stared at the laptop and noticed that the edges of the plastic seemed to have been melted, the laptop destroyed. He gently lifted the screen up and saw that it was cracked, the screen dark.
Leaving the laptop open, Palmer walked over to the two tables where collections of labeled pottery and stone fragments were laid out. It looked like it had been a neat display at one time, but now it was a cluttered mess, some of the artifacts on the floor around the table.
Had there been a fight in here? Palmer wondered. Maybe one of these scientists had flipped out and attacked the others, then fled the scene.
Palmer stood next to one of the tables for a long moment, just staring down at the pottery fragments, letting his mind wander. He liked to be the only one at the crime scene, especially when he was the first agent there, but he was here with Klein and the Tribal Police officer. When he was alone, he liked to try to piece together what had happened, let the clues speak to him. He would never go so far as to call it a psychic ability, but if he was quiet and if he just let his mind reach out, it was almost like the murder scene and the dead spoke to him, like they told him a story.
And it felt like this story was beginning to come together in his mind. Maybe it was a disgruntled scientist. Or one of them had had a mental breakdown, like some kind of cabin fever. This person had attacked one of the scientists, maybe killed him in a fit of rage. That’s why there was all the blood on the walls and soaked into the carpet. Knowing he was in trouble, the attacker tried to cover his tracks by killing the others in the cave.
Palmer slid his gloved hand into his suitcoat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He took some photos of the pottery fragments and the destroyed laptop on the desk. The forensics team would take many more photos, but Palmer liked to have his own to study. He took photos of the smears of blood on the corners of the plastic tables. He took a photo of the spray of blood across the artifacts with their neat little white tags tied to them, labeled with numbers, some kind of filing system.
He walked through the rest of the living room area, his footsteps thudding on the floor and making him sound heavier than he was. The cold wood flooring unde
rneath the thin carpet cracked and popped with each step he took.
Begay waited by the front door. Klein had a digital camera that he was using to take photos. Palmer ignored both of them, delving deeper into the clues before him.
The cheap plastic blinds that covered the windows were torn and bent in many places. One of the blinds hung askew over the window behind one of the couches, a splatter of blood dotting the blinds.
Hit with a blunt object, Palmer thought. Blood spray from the wound, most likely from the victim’s head.
The living room opened up to a small kitchen and dining area. The appliances were trailer-small: a mini-fridge, a two-burner stovetop, a tiny oven, a row of small cabinets built over the one-basin sink.
There were more signs of disturbance in the kitchen/dining area, more bloodstains, more evidence of violence. Palmer checked the refrigerator. It was dark and warm. The generator that provided electricity for this trailer had been off for a few days at least.
The kitchen had a built-in seating area that looked like it could barely squeeze three people around the table. The kitchen led to a small hallway with doorways to two small bedrooms and a bathroom. He would’ve expected to find some bodies back here, but Begay had already told him that they were all in the cave.
Klein followed Palmer back to the two bedrooms. There was more blood back here, splashes of it in both rooms. Signs of struggle. Signs of panic.
“You getting any ideas about this?” Klein asked him.
Palmer just nodded and snapped more photos with his phone, each one making that cute little click-click sound that he loved but couldn’t explain why.
Klein huffed a little at his question being ignored, but Palmer walked away from him, walking back to the living room. Begay opened the door and stepped outside like he knew Palmer was done.
It felt good to be back outside even though it was freezing. The inside of the trailer had been stuffy with the stifling heat of violence, a sensation he’d experienced many times before.
Palmer looked over at the line of vehicles in the distance, over a hundred yards away. “Looks like one of those vehicles is missing. Like it sped out of here. Drove right up the embankment onto the dirt road.”
Begay nodded like he’d already figured out those details for himself.
“Might be our killer,” Klein said. “Either he took his own vehicle or stole someone else’s.”
Begay didn’t say anything—Palmer thought the man seemed to be holding some clues of his own close to his chest.
“You check out those other vehicles already?” Klein asked Begay. Klein’s voice seemed accusatory every time he spoke to the captain.
“Yes. They’re all inoperable.”
“Inoperable?” Klein asked.
“That means they don’t work.”
Palmer couldn’t help the bark of laughter that erupted from him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed.
“Yeah, thanks,” Klein said, his voice seeping with venom. “I know what inoperable means.”
“What exactly makes them inoperable?” Palmer asked as he stared at the two vehicles with their hoods up.
“The batteries have been ripped out of two of them. The other two still have batteries, but they’re dead. The keys are in all of the vehicles. We tried them … they won’t start.”
“You’re not supposed to be touching anything!” Klein yelled at Begay.
Begay pulled out a pair of crumpled latex gloves. “We know what we’re doing.”
Palmer didn’t like the fact that the captain and his deputies’ hands (even if they were gloved) had been all over the vehicles, but he didn’t say anything. He had the feeling that Begay knew something about all of this and he wanted to find out what that was. Yelling at him like Klein was doing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. He could sense the frustration these men had built up with each other over the years.
“Was there any blood in the vehicles?” Palmer asked. “Any signs of struggle?”
Begay shook his head. “No. Nothing we could see.”
Klein just snorted out a sarcastic chuckle.
Palmer kept looking at the line of vehicles in the distance. “Blood all over the place inside the trailer. But none in the vehicles. If they were being attacked, then why wouldn’t they have run for their vehicles?”
“Because the batteries were dead?” Klein offered.
“All of the batteries died at the same time?” Palmer asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He looked at Begay. “If these people were attacked or even killed in the trailer, but their bodies are in the cave, then why isn’t there blood all over the place out here? Why isn’t there drag marks in the dirt?”
“There’s that one area of blood over near the second trailer I told you about,” Begay said, pointing at a spot a few yards away from the middle of the second trailer.
The three of them walked over to the area. Palmer stared down at the large dark spot in the sand. “This is the only place you’ve found blood out here?”
Begay nodded.
“There should be more blood than this,” Palmer said and looked around like he might spot it.
“Maybe the killers cleaned up the blood out here,” Klein said. He obviously was onboard with the multiple-killers-theory. “They could’ve kicked sand over the blood, brushed branches over any drag marks in the sand to cover their tracks.”
Palmer nodded like that could be a possibility. “Why would they go to all of that trouble to clean up the evidence out here but leave blood all over the place inside the trailer?”
Klein didn’t have an answer for him.
“And why would they be so meticulous about the drag marks but overlook this large pile of blood right here?”
Klein just shrugged.
Things were beginning to get strange.
Begay watched Palmer carefully like this was previously-covered ground in his mind—but he was no closer to answers than Palmer was.
“Alright,” Palmer told Begay. “Let’s go into the cave and see the bodies.”
Palmer had a feeling that things were about to get much worse.
CHAPTER 8
The cave
Begay instructed the police officer with the ponytail to grab the large battery-powered searchlight with the pistol grip handle and hand it to Klein. The officer looked relieved that he wouldn’t have to go back into the cave.
Palmer, Begay, and Klein walked towards the mouth of the cave. They stopped at the generator underneath the small tent near the entrance, the whole area shielded by a scrub of junipers.
“It doesn’t work,” Begay said.
“Does it have gas in it?” Klein asked him.
“Full tank.” Begay looked right at Palmer. “It just won’t start.”
Palmer thought about the batteries in the vehicles, the laptop inside the trailer, and now the generator. It was like nothing electrical was working around here. He made a mental note to call the Albuquerque office and let them know that the forensics team would need to bring a generator and some gas with them.
As they stepped inside the crack in the canyon wall, the mouth of the cave, Palmer felt a little nervous. His breakfast sandwich and the coffee from earlier (along with the few sips of vodka) had settled like a small stone inside his stomach. He didn’t have too many phobias—you couldn’t really have a lot of them in his line of work—but he’d never been fond of enclosed spaces. Basements he could handle, man-made structures he trusted … there was always a way out. But nature didn’t always work like that, nature was random, and sometimes you could just walk and walk and you couldn’t find a way back out.
A flash of last night’s dream ran through his mind: the rooms in the building that seemed to go on forever, the maze of appliances and furniture in the impossibly large room where he’d been standing in front of the metal sink and washing a piece of flesh off in the water …
He pushed the memory of the dream away and pulled his phone out, taking some photos
of the generator and the junipers near it. Taking the photos helped him feel detached from the situation a little, like he was more in control of it somehow.
As soon as they stepped inside the cave, Agent Klein turned on the spotlight. He took the lead with the light and seemed to revel in the importance of his job, although his hand trembled slightly which caused the light guiding their way to waver a little. But at least the light was strong and bright.
The three men followed the electrical cords laid out end-to-end along the dirt floor of the cave that led deeper and deeper into the darkness. The mouth of the cave closed in quickly to a narrow passageway after the first fifty feet. Walls of sheer, smooth rock closed in suddenly as they walked single file into the deeper darkness, Klein in front, shining their way with the spotlight. Palmer was right behind Klein and Begay was a few steps behind him.
No one spoke as they made their way slowly through the crevice of rock. The walls seemed to be closing in and Palmer felt like something heavy was pushing on his chest, making it difficult for him to inhale enough air. He felt a wave of panic wanting to take over.
Fight it, he told himself.
The sounds of their boots and shoes were loud in the numbing silence inside this rock tomb. Their breaths sounded labored and louder inside the mountain, each exhale echoing back at them.
To distract himself, Palmer shined his cell phone flashlight at the rock walls as he walked past them.
The walls were definitely closing in, the path getting narrower with each step they took—he was sure of that.
Palmer looked for traces of blood on the walls as they walked past them, but he didn’t see any at all. He shined the light beam from his phone down at the hard-packed dirt floor, expecting to see smears of blood and drag marks from the bodies. But there was nothing—only a fine, powdery dust and small rocks kicked to the base of the rock walls after countless trips back and forth through this passageway by the archaeologists. He saw that the construction lamps had been set on the floor every hundred feet or so, connected together by the electrical cords. He wished those lights were on right now.
