Rock Bottom (Em Hansen Mysteries)

by Sarah Andrews

  “And the FBI,” said Faye. “Where do you keep your sat phone, Em? I think it’s time we called in a few of our brethren.”

  “Whoa!” said Maryann. “Wait just a damned minute! We’re on national park ground here, so it’s national park jurisdiction!”

  Susanne said, “He may have been found here, but if the murder took place on the opposite bank, then it would be Hualapai land, because the obvious way to get a body here is by helicopter. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that a body could get all the way here from Ledges without getting caught in an eddy.”

  Maryann said, “You have a point.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “That part’s been bothering me. And if you want to kill someone, you don’t put the corpse in a life preserver before you toss it into the river, because then it’s more certain to be found.”

  I said, “Then someone wanted him found, and wanted him found here. Who?”

  Maryann said, “You’re right, the helo pad is on the other side, river left, and thus is under tribal jurisdiction.”

  “Or would that be Bureau of Indian Affairs?” said Susanne.

  “Or again FBI,” said Faye.

  I said, “I’m still liking the idea that he hiked out through Havasu Canyon.”

  Maryann said, “The top of that canyon’s a long way from anywhere.”

  “Then someone could have picked him up,” said Jerry. “Maybe Julianne.”

  “What?” said Mungo. “Didn’t you see the hole she beat in his dory?”

  “With my rock hammer!” I said.

  “Sure,” said Nancy. “But she was just as crazy as he was. And maybe they had a plan that he was going to disappear and join her somewhere and they didn’t want anyone going looking for him at her place.” Jerry said, “But what kind of a monster would leave his kids?”

  A stifled sob brought our attention to Glenda. She had contracted, head down and arms brought up tight against her breast, hands balled into fists.

  Nancy said, “Sorry about all that, Glenda, but didn’t you know he was boffing someone else on the upper half of the trip?”

  “It’s just so embarrassing,” she sniffed. “And Jesus Christ, everyone, the man is dead!”

  I said, “He damned near drowned Brendan on Sockdolager! He untied the raft the kid was sitting in, and the only thing that saved him was that he had his life vest on!”

  Brendan grabbed my arm. “Don’t tell them that!”

  “Why not?” asked Mungo. “You did famously, kid! You came all the way down that rapid underneath that raft!”

  Brendan leaned into Mungo’s face. “Don’t you see? Dad was mad as blazes, and that’s why the rangers think he killed Wink!”

  Maryann said, “I don’t think for a minute that your father committed murder, Brendan. Wink Oberley has been pulling stunts like that for years, and far less honorable men than your father have managed to restrain themselves.”

  Silence settled across the camp. Only then did I notice that the sun had completely set and that it was getting cold.

  Tiny said, “Okay then, let’s get out of here early tomorrow and get on down the river so we can help our friend. We’ve still got thirty-seven miles of river to navigate, and our shuttle drivers won’t be there with our vehicles until the day after tomorrow anyway. By the time we get to Diamond Creek, we need to have a plan.”

  Faye said, “I’m flying out of the airstrip up at Bar 10 tomorrow morning. I’ll get our company’s lawyer on task and see about bailing Fritz out.”

  “They’ll have him in the holding cell at South Rim,” said Maryann.

  I said, “As long as the batteries hold out, I’ll be on the sat phone making inquiries. Maryann and Susanne, you did not hear a word of this. I’m sure your Ranger Weber takes his job seriously, but if, when we get to Diamond Creek, Deputy Dawg still likes Fritz for this murder, so help me I shall pull out all the stops and show him how it’s really done!”

  Maryann pondered this for a moment, then said, “I believe that I am officially off duty now. Tiny, where do you keep your beer? And speaking of words you did not hear, I have a sat phone call or two to make so I can catch up with my old friend Seth.”

  We ate dinner and discussed plans further and then, as the embers in the fire pan winked out, we each wandered off to our own sleeping bag. I gave Fritz’s to Tiny and shared mine with Faye. It was a long time before Brendan found sleep that night; I know, because we all pulled our camp mats out onto the sand and lay in the warmth of our sleeping bags staring up into the night sky, sending messages to Fritz by way of the stars.

  “We’re coming, Dad,” Brendan said, just before he drifted off.

  APRIL 20: NO JOY

  Pilots have a jargon all their own when they communicate over radios. One of the strangest phrases is “no joy,” which means anything from “I am unable to establish radio contact” to “I can’t spot the enemy aircraft you just said is bearing down on me.” These words ran like a squirrel in a cage inside my dreams all night, and in the morning, when Maryann still had not been able to establish radio contact with Seth Farnsworth and Faye had to leave to hike up the Whitmore trail to meet with the four-wheelers from Bar 10 Ranch, it began to sound like a klaxon.

  “I am so sorry I can’t stay with you,” Faye said, as I stuffed granola bars into her day pack. “I left my daughter with—”

  “You already explained all that, and I need you up there in the world making phone calls,” I assured her. “You’ve got to get that lawyer online, get Fritz bailed out, you’ve got my list of questions that need answers, and you know who to ask. Now, just get going before I lose my mind!”

  “You’d think that ranger guy would have figured out by now that Fritz isn’t the one. I keep watching the sky for that damned Park Service helicopter, bringing him back.”

  “Trust me, so do I. Now be careful going up that trail. It looks like there are a lot of tight switchbacks.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I walked her to the head of the trail, near a place where ancestral Indians had painted a series of images in red iron oxide pigment on white stone. I was lonely coming back toward the campsite but came across Susanne McCoy, who was studying a patch of cacti covered with waxy, lipstick red blooms. “There seem to be more cacti at this end of the river,” I said, trying to make pleasant conversation. I was having a hard time thinking of anyone with the Park Service as a friend just then.

  Susanne stood up and turned to face me. As if reading my mind, she said, “You should know that Maryann will do whatever’s in her power to make things right.”

  “You don’t mince words.”

  “No, I don’t, and that’s because like you, I’m a scientist, and we both know that scientists are just another sort of detective.” She turned and swept her arms out in a gesture that took in all the plants in the landscape. “This is where I do my forensics. I look for the bit that doesn’t fit, that thing that has changed. Right now I’m watching for changes from global warming trends, the evidence of crimes we didn’t know we were committing, but also from stupid human tricks like putting that dam in. Yeah, I know, we use the energy, but look at what’s left of the plants that used to flourish along the high-water line over there on the opposite bank. See it? The spring runoff used to come way up the bank. You can see exactly how high because that’s where the last of the leafy green forbs and shrubs like hackberry, catclaw acacia, and mesquite grow. These plants needed the high water stages to get started. What’s left survives because it has roots that go deep, and what you see is at least as old as the dam. Then down at river level we have the nonnative tamarisk. So like you, I’m watching for things that should be there but aren’t or things that are there that shouldn’t be. I liked your summation of what might really have happened with Wink.”

  “Right, the opportunist who wasn’t truly flourishing. He shouldn’t have been on this river trip. He shouldn’t have been at Princeton. He shouldn’t have been in the Army Airborne Rangers. He shouldn’t have had h
is head up his ass.”

  “Or his dick up any number of women,” she said simply. “But given that he was all those places, where did he go from here?”

  “And how did he get back? I thought about that one all night, and each time I see a commercial helicopter come in here I want to ask the pilot if he carried anyone in two days ago who answers to Wink’s description. The only problem is that even if we can establish that he went out via Havasu, he didn’t come back as a corpse.”

  “Because the pilots wouldn’t allow that.”

  “Exactly. Pilots take their jobs very seriously, which includes the safety of those on board. They do not carry people who can’t get on and off under their own steam. So I’m looking for another vector, such as this trail behind me. Perhaps he came back in past Bar 10, and his corpse was carried down that trail on a mule. I’ve asked Faye to check with the ranch to see if there’s any way anyone could slip past their notice.”

  “Why kill someone somewhere else and then go to the trouble of bringing the body back to the river?”

  “Simple: Wink went to the trouble of making it look like he’d died in the canyon, then whoever killed him would take advantage of that subterfuge by bringing him back here, in order to obscure the evidence. It’s the old game of misdirection. Obviously Ranger Weber doesn’t see the sleight of hand.”

  “Then how would you prove that he left the canyon and returned?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “There’s where the forensics come in. You look for that telltale indicator that not only says that things have changed, but that something has been brought in from somewhere else. There will be particulates on the body, perhaps up underneath the fingernails, and his stomach will contain a meal that wouldn’t have come from here.”

  Susanne smiled. “Oh, I like that! Something exotic from a buffet in Vegas! And the botany would be all wrong. There would be pollen from even farther out into the Mojave or the Sonoran Desert, or from places overseas that ship things to Vegas.”

  “If he was in Las Vegas.”

  “Everything weird shows up in Las Vegas sooner or later. So what do you need in order to make your investigation?”

  “Access to the corpse would help,” I said. “But I’ll bet I’d be the last person Ranger Weber wants to have sniffing at that body. Conflict of interest and all that.”

  “Well then, there’s the difference between scientists and cops: We’re looking to eliminate what’s not true, while they’re assuming everyone is lying.”

  “Do you have any idea where the body would be taken?” I asked.

  Susanne considered my question. “This is Mohave County. The coroner’s office would be in Kingman.”

  We walked back toward the campsite, where we found all hands busy reloading the rafts. Tiny had Brendan busy hefting and hauling, and the lad hustled past me carrying an oversized load from our tent. “Excuse me,” he said with grave importance. “Coming through.”

  When he was out of earshot I turned to Tiny. “Thank you,” I said. “He barely slept last night.”

  “Keeping busy is not the cure, but it soothes,” he said. He tipped his head toward Maryann. “She got a call through to HQ, and the Man won’t be bringing our man back today.”

  “Shit.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Can you row?”

  “Not really. They had me in traction for a while. My neck is pretty screwed up.”

  “Understatement.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for coming, Tiny. It would be an even bigger mess if you weren’t here.”

  “I’ll accept that praise however faint or left-handed.” He lifted one of his huge hands and used it to pat me on the head, then shambled down the beach toward the rafts.

  We shoved off at around ten with Brendan at the oars and Tiny riding on top of the load in a reclining camp chair that we had rigged for him. Maryann had the dory under tow again, breezily stating that it was evidence in an ongoing investigation, and I didn’t argue. She asked where we planned to camp that night, waved good-bye to all of us while gazing longingly on Tiny, and opened up her throttle. As I watched the binary rig disappear down the river, I wanted to kick myself, because she was right, the dory was evidence. I vowed to examine every inch of it if I got another opportunity.

  The river was wide and lovely but lonely without Fritz. Minutes and hours slid past in a mental storm that clashed with the clear skies and serene landscape. We stopped for lunch somewhere and continued on, clocking down the miles toward the end of what was supposed to have been a joyous journey through river, rock, and time. I had trouble holding in my mind the reality that Wink was dead; I had felt so certain that he had simply slithered away like the snake he was, and yet his body had been found, and it had displayed evidence that another human had killed him. He had died by another man’s hand, not just the ragged run-out of his own miserable luck. My brain flew crazed loops around the idea that Ranger Weber thought that Fritz was that man. How could he? Fritz was such a kind and gentle person. He could not have killed anyone. Could he?

  APRIL 21: PULLOUT

  The morning of our last day on the river dawned cool and crisp in the desert air. We were camped near Granite Park, a place where the river split around a central island of gravel and cobbles. The sandy ground along the river’s edge was dimpled with the burrows of doodlebug larvae, and beyond the braces of willows and ferocious lines of cacti the ground rose and rolled back to a desert scrub of ocotillo and barrel cacti.

  I sat in our raft and one last time took the satellite telephone out of its protective box, switched it on, and called Faye Carter.

  “Em! How are you doing?”

  “Lousy,” I said.

  “I’d offer comfort, but let’s conserve connect time. The lawyer has been working on getting someone lined up in Arizona. I’ve got child care coverage lined up, so I’m standing by to fly wherever you need me to go. And I’ve got a message from your workplace that sounds urgent: Some girl who says she knows you from the river has been trying to reach you. Write down this number.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name is Holly Ann St. Denis. She said it was about Wink Oberley and that she met you on the river.”

  “The girl who played the guitar! This is good!” I said.

  “Who is she?”

  “She was with that religious group.”

  “Whatever.” Faye dictated the number.

  I read it back. “Did she say what it was about?”

  “She said she’d speak to you only. Now here’s the bit from Bar 10: The place is wide open and they’d have seen anyone who came or went. There was unusually little air traffic over the ranch in that time period, i.e., none. And it’s like forty miles across open desert to get to the nearest highway. He did not leave nor return through that quarter.”

  “Do they track other aircraft?”

  “No, but I’m working on getting the records for any aircraft that made short trips from surrounding airports during the time of interest. And like you asked, I’ve got the names of the people who found the body, but I’m having trouble getting phone numbers. The only person from that group who was available to talk to me said the corpse was unrecognizable but—”

  The connection ended. When the next satellite rose above the horizon I dialed the number Faye had given me for Holly Ann. I got a recording: “Praise God! Leave a message!”

  I told the telephone, “Hi, Holly Ann, this is Em Hansen. I’m coming off the river today. In about five or six hours you’ll be able to call me on my cell phone. Please do. Here’s the number—” The connection went dead. I dialed again and left my number. On my next satellite connection I talked to Faye again, but she said she’d already given me what she had, and I switched off to spare the batteries. I put the phone away and took a last walk along the river’s edge, trying to focus on the sprays of yellow flowers that bloomed in profusion there.

  Tiny held
court at breakfast. “I hardly got to spend any time with you all, and I wish the circumstances could have been better, but it’s been great anyway,” he said. “Maybe we can all get together later in the year and float the Green River through Desolation Canyon, or some other stretch of God’s watery heaven. Anyway, in the meantime we’ve got a mate to get out of hock. I’m to blame that he’s there. Fritz is being held for killing a guy I should never have invited on this trip; no offense, Glenda. Well, we got us one of the best detectives in creation here, our own Em Hansen, but the law’s gonna look on her as something of a hostile ’cause they’re holding her man. So we all gotta help, right?”

  A general hubbub of consent followed, and Jenny reached out and gave me a hug. I had to squeeze my eyes shut so I didn’t burst into tears. I had never had so many friends pull together on my account, and their love almost knocked me over.

  Jerry said, “I organize things for a living, so I’m running your nerve center.”

  “That would be great,” I said, “and can you and Don head to the South Rim? Fritz should have someone there with him as soon as possible.” I fought back a wave of fatigue laced with more jangled emotions. “Sorry, everybody, my brain has been sliding in and out of a strange fog. Okay, so, I really need to see that body. Anybody who can come with me into Kingman, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I’m with you,” said Mungo.

  “Sure,” said Molly. “What’s in Kingman?”

  I said, “I’m going to have to get into the county morgue.”

  “How jolly,” said Nancy.

  I felt oddly swoony and put my hand on my stomach.

  “Are you all right?” asked Jerry.

  “It’s probably that I haven’t eaten yet.”

  She turned to the kitchen table and produced a bowl of oatmeal and a mug of herbal tea.

  I lifted the tea to my nose. For some reason it smelled awful, and I couldn’t help wincing. “Sorry,” I said and handed it back to her. Not being able to eat scared me, and I thought, I’ve been through plenty of murder cases, so why’s this one getting to me?