So long, Georgia. I swear we’ll find whoever did this to you.
CHAPTER 3
A small crowd watched through curtains of snow as we dragged into Red’s Meadow. Eric had radioed ahead and it looked like the entire police department had mobilized—and a few town officials, to boot.
Afternoon was fading but the scene was lit with huge police department lanterns.
We halted and I knelt to unfasten my iced bindings, fumbling with cold gloved hands. There was such a din that I jumped when someone touched my shoulder. I turned. A man stood over me, so close I had to crane my neck. I couldn’t make out his face, which was recessed in the depths of a parka hood. I must have shown my shock, for he dropped to a crouch like a large animal making itself smaller so as not to cause alarm.
“Hell,” he said, “it’s me, Adrian Krom.” He threw back his hood and showed his face. “I don’t bite.”
“You just startled me.”
“Cassie, right? You work with Walter.”
“Right.” I’d seen Adrian Krom in meetings—the emergency-ops guy sent by the feds—and a few times in the Ski Tip cafe, where everybody in town gathers at one time or another. I’d never actually spoken with him. I said, “Hello Adrian.”
“Adrian, good. Some people call me Mr. Krom. I hate the formalities.” He folded his arms, still in a crouch. “I prefer to be chums.”
It struck me that he was like Georgia, insisting on first name only. Maybe it was a politics thing.
“Cassie, tell me if that’s Georgia. Have we lost our mayor?”
Ours? Adrian Krom has been in town only two months. We looked in unison at the snow-packed body bag, and I nodded.
“Hell,” he said, voice thickening. He bowed his head.
All I could see was his brown pelt of hair. I hesitated, then patted his shoulder. He reached up and grasped my hand. After a decent interval, I slipped my hand free. He came out of his crouch and stood, looking down at me. “You know what Georgia would say right now?”
I thought, this guy likes his drama. I got to my feet. “What?”
“We’re all in this together.”
CHAPTER 4
I had to park in the Community Center lot and walk four blocks up Minaret Road threading my way through the crowd on the way to work. Feeling I should say something to these people. Some kind of cautionary thing.
Always park your car facing downhill for a quick getaway.
They acted like nothing was wrong, like this was a normal Saturday in January after a good snowfall. The town of Mammoth Lakes in boomtown gear. Every other car carried skis or snowboards and now, before the lifts opened, there wasn’t a parking spot to be had. The road pooled with slush and the snow was embedded with grit and mashed pine cones and shards of Styrofoam cups and it rasped underfoot but that didn’t slow the jostling snow crowd.
No, I amended, they acted like they knew something was wrong and that’s why they came. Ever since the volcano stirred, the snow crowd has swelled along with the ground. That’s what got to me. We could get hit, so we’re edgy. Extreme sports. We’ve never been edgy before—we’ve just been slopes and condos and kitschy shops a half-day’s drive from Los Angeles. Now we’re hot.
And the hometown crowd has been riding the boom. People up and down Minaret Road cleared snow from the paths in front of their businesses. Motels flashed No Vacancy and condos were renting by the week. However, for anyone who cared to see, the signs said otherwise. Sierra Properties windows were plastered with HOMES4SALE. Mountain Hardware screamed CLEARANCE! And new signs were welded to the traffic light poles: orange evacuation arrows that pointed the way out.
Nobody cared to see.
I passed Uphill Sports where guys were unloading snowmobiles from a flatbed truck and I asked how’s it going and one of the guys cupped his palms and intoned “biiig bucks.”
I came to the Ski Tip Cafe and there was a crowd out the door, eager to grab breakfast before heading up to the slopes. Once they’d filled their bellies and bolted, the locals would drift in. The Tip’s owner Bill Bone appeared in the doorway, juggling a clipboard, all elbows and knees, looking like a gawky middle-aged busboy. He called a name and a group cheered and elbowed forward and Bill shot me a gloomy nod. Worrying about running out of eggs, no doubt. I felt a pang of affection for Bill and the Tip, even for its hokey chalet decor. I’d had my first milkshake there, my first legal beer.
I studied the place, with a sudden need to burn it into my memory.
And then I crossed the street to the lab—Sierra Geoforensics big and bold and authoritative on the door—and like everyone else I acted like this was a normal Saturday. Through the lab’s big street-side window I saw Walter inside at his workbench. Entirely normal for us to work on a Saturday on a big case.
This case qualified. Oh yes.
Walter threw me a thin “good morning, dear” as I walked in.
We’d returned yesterday from the glacier too spent to do more than sort our samples. I’d slept badly, dreaming of Georgia. Georgia, I saw, was wearing on Walter as well.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and set to work. On my workbench was the culture dish I’d prepared last night—soil plugs from the left boot. I put the first plug on the stage and bent to the scope. I imagined Georgia at my shoulder, angling for a look. Busybody was her middle name. I took the scalpel and teased apart the clumps of soil. Weathered red cinders and fluffy bits of pumice—volcanic. Yellow sulfur crystals, which could come from fertilizer or pesticides or, more likely, volcanism.
At my shoulder, Georgia cackled. Sulfur was known, in Biblical quarters, as brimstone. Georgia would run with that, I thought: fire and brimstone awaiting the perp.
It didn’t do much for me. Georgia had picked up volcanic soil but that was the norm around here.
I poked further and saw shiny mica, black chips of hornblende, milky quartz, pink feldspar—the stuff of granite. Well, the Sierra is granite country. And now I found grainy white stuff with a rhombic cleavage—calcite. Calcite’s common as furniture.
I told Walter what I’d found. He grunted.
Cinders, pumice, sulfur, granite, calcite: not a telling mix. And not necessarily acquired at the same place, or the same time. Collect a bit of pumice here, a pinch of calcite there.
Still, it was the same mineral suite as the grains Walter had plucked from her clothing, on the ice. Hat, gloves, jeans, parka, front and back. I thought that over. She not only walked in the stuff, she appeared to have rolled around in it.
I turned the scalpel to a nut of compacted soil. It cracked open. Here was something—a wink of silver. It was a disk, concave, with parallel striae. Unmistakable. I let out a soundless whistle. “Walter,” I said, “I’ve got gunpowder.”
Most gunpowder that comes out of a firearm comes out burned and it takes a scanning electron microscope to find that residue, but a few particles usually emerge unburned and those are large enough to be easily seen.
“How many?” he asked at last.
“Just one.”
“Don’t fall in love.”
“Well I haven’t.” A single disk was not significant. Soil is a collector; it likes to latch onto foreign elements. A particle of gunpowder could have blown in on the wind or been ferried on an animal’s fur. Georgia could have picked it up miles from where she died and ferried it herself. It didn’t necessarily say that she last walked in the vicinity of firearms. But, then, maybe she did.
I said, “You finding anything of note?”
He looked up from the glacier basin soil he’d been examining. “Noteworthy, so far, in that it doesn’t match the soils from the clothing or the boots.”
“So she didn’t walk at the glacier. The final place she walked was ... elsewhere.”
“Preliminary, but so it appears.”
I said, “What do you think made her write no way out? That’s strong stuff.”
“That it is.”
“You know,” I said, “that could mean something person
al.”
“As opposed to something involving us all?”
I said, tight, “Meaning the volcano, you’re saying?”
“Meaning the volcano,” he said.
I said, tighter, “What could Georgia have possibly found out about the volcano?”
“I’ve wondered that, myself.” Walter glanced out the window. “That’s why I’ve asked our volcanologist to drop by.”
Not a bad idea, I thought. Although the need of it sent a chill down my spine.
Ten minutes later the door opened and Lindsay Nash, our volcanologist, swept in.
“Let me have your coat,” Walter said, ushering her inside, “and you’ll want coffee?”
“It’s not a coat and I’m still chilly.” She wore a gray and black wool poncho that set off her hair, which was gray with flecks of black like biotite mica in granite. She produced a bag from beneath the poncho. “Use this. It’s fresh. Garuda.”
Walter said, “We have fresh Kona.”
I’ve known them to spend an hour spatting about who should have made dinner reservations, or whose work was more crucial. They’ve danced this dance for over twenty years, spatting like an old married couple although they never got around to marrying. They’d give each other anything—their lives if necessary—but they wouldn’t give an inch without making a point.
I relaxed an inch, at the sheer normality of it.
Walter took the bag and went to the workbench we used as a kitchen. We have, on Fridays, a supply of donuts, which Lindsay doesn’t touch and I try mightily to avoid. Since Walter and I were on the mountain yesterday, we have Friday’s leftovers today. We always have coffee. Walter dumped out the Kona in the carafe—a good two cups worth—and ground Lindsay’s beans.
Lindsay came to me. “Working hard?”
I went for the light tone. “Always something.”
“If you’d gone into volcanology, it would be something finer.”
She gave me a hug and I smelled perfume in the fine merino wool of her poncho. She’d given me a sweeter version of that scent for my twelfth birthday. That, and a gas mask for a tour of her volcano sampling fumarole emissions. And so it began, Lindsay grooming me as an acolyte. I’d met her via Walter. I’d met Walter the previous year, taking refuge in his lab when my brother Henry stubbed his toe on a rock and was rushed to the hospital. I came back to the lab again and again. Walter taught me how rocks could be used to solve crimes and offered me an after-school job doing scutwork, and that was that. I acquired a new, and mixed vocabulary: fumarole, lightscope, tiltmeter, exemplar. I showed off at home. My father joked that I’d acquired a smarter set of parents. He missed the mark. Even before Henry’s death, my cartoonist parents drew themselves into a closed circle. Walter’s and Lindsay’s lives also revolved around their work, but the difference was that they drew me in.
Lindsay pulled up a stool, blew a patch of my workbench clean, and rested her arm. “Walter says you two need a consult about Georgia.”
I shifted back to uneasy. Lindsay had detested Georgia. I said, “Yeah.”
“This note of hers.... No way out. Very dramatic.”
I took a moment. So Walter had told Lindsay about the note. We’d all agreed on the ice to keep it quiet. But, then, since he’d asked for a consult, I supposed it made sense to tell her everything.
“And why,” Lindsay asked, “do you think this note involves my volcano?”
“Because she said she found something. Because she’d picked up volcanic soil, likely where she died. Because your volcano is a hot topic.”
Lindsay shrugged, acknowledging the truth of that. “Very well, where did she pick up this soil?”
“We don’t yet know.”
“Then give me one of your wild-ass guesses.”
I preferred to call them onageristic estimates; an onager is a wild ass. I said, “Wouldn’t be useful.” At this point.
Walter set a mug of coffee on the workbench in front of Lindsay. He’d siphoned off the first of the brew for her.
“Thank you, honey.” She waited until he’d scooted his stool over to my bench, to join us. She said, “If you don’t know where Georgia died, I don’t see how I can tell you anything about what she may or may not have found.”
“What might you find,” Walter asked, “that would be a new threat?”
“Good heavens, I’ve been trying to teach you two volcanology for decades, and now you want to listen?” She sampled her coffee. “I can tell you this. I keep a close eye on my volcano. Anything Georgia might think she found would be as useless as tits on a boar.”
Walter’s eyebrows lifted.
I smiled. “Just give us a wild-ass guess.”
“Wouldn’t be useful.” She raised her mug to me. “But touche.”
“Here’s the thing, Lindsay,” I said. “Georgia found out something that spooked her so much she damn near ruined a page of her Weight Watcher’s notebook writing it down. And yeah, it could have been some personal trouble, but...”
“But?” Lindsay has a fine aristocratic face and it always shows composure.
“But what if it was something bigger? What if somebody killed her to keep it quiet?”
“How did she die?”
Walter answered. “A blow to the head is the probable cause.”
“That’s not how I would kill her.” Lindsay drummed her fingers on the workbench, her rings popping up like knuckles. “I’d use a gun.”
“Lindsay.”
“I’m thinking ‘means’ Walter. Is this not the way you two talk about a case? This is your territory, not mine.”
I cut in. “We usually say ‘weapon,’ until we know otherwise. We usually say ‘perp.’ As in, maybe the perp came upon her and...saw whatever she found, learned whatever she knew...and the perp was surprised, and used what was at hand. An as-yet unidentified weapon. Or maybe there was a fight.”
“Weapon. Perp.” Lindsay bowed her head, appearing to gauge the depths of her coffee. “Yes, I see that’s preferable.”
I thought, this really is too weird, Lindsay consulting on Georgia’s death. The two of them had dueled for years, the volcanologist issuing warnings and the mayor playing down the threat. And then, when the volcano got truly serious and Georgia called in the feds, FEMA sent us Adrian Krom. That set off Lindsay. She had a history with Krom and argued against his appointment, to no avail. So, weirdly, Lindsay’s new allies in volcano response were her longtime enemies. They made an odd team, if team was the right word. In any case, Adrian Krom and Georgia Simonies and Lindsay Nash were the three people in charge of keeping us all safe. One of them was dead now. I thought of Adrian Krom in Red’s Meadow yesterday, bowing his head upon learning it was Georgia we’d recovered from the ice. And so now there were two people left alive in charge of keeping us safe. Two people who detested each other.
Walter said, mildly, “If you’ll speculate on the means of death, Lindsay, might you not speculate on what Georgia could have found?”
“I’m sorry I can’t be of help.” Lindsay abruptly produced her purse, took two twenty-dollar bills, and placed them on my workbench. “On the other hand, I’d be happy to contribute to the cause.”
I stared.
“Bill Bone’s birthday.” She glanced out the window at the Ski Tip Cafe across the street. Then back at me. “You are the one collecting?”
I nodded.
“I’m thinking,” she said, “a jacket. Raw silk. Cream, or tan, yellow undertone. Depending on how much you’ve collected, we can accessorize from there.”
Walter snorted. “Let him put the money toward that remodel he talks about.”
My stomach tightened. That implied we’d all be here long enough for Bill to remodel the Ski Tip.
Lindsay stood. “My dears, if there’s nothing further?” She took her coffee mug to the sink, running the water until it steamed.
Walter frowned. “You’re going?”
I watched her. Washing her mug just like she always does because
she hates to have anyone clean up after her. As if this visit had gone just like always. But it hadn’t. Lindsay thinks geology is volcanology and here she was talking forensics with us. Or not talking. Talking birthdays. She’d been evasive. Evasive as, I suddenly thought, Eric and Stobie had been on the mountain. I fiercely wanted this Saturday in the lab to turn normal. I wanted Lindsay to pour a second cup and stay. Send out for pizza for lunch. Pat Walter’s butt when she thinks I’m not looking. Normalize the situation.
She caught me staring. She winked. “Got to run—the soaps are on.” This was her running joke, whenever the volcano acted up, whenever the news played it as soap-opera drama.
I fell in. “Take care of it, will you?” This was my running joke, that the volcano responded to Lindsay like a dog to its mistress.
“Don’t forget tomorrow night,” Walter said. “We’ll pick you up at six sharp.”
Tomorrow night was a meeting about the volcano. Adrian Krom called it.
Lindsay moved to the door, blowing us a kiss in lieu of an answer, and she was gone.
She left behind a vacuum, in which Walter clattered his tools and I stared at the dirt from Georgia’s boots. Feeling a tension that tightened my neck. I hitched my stool up to the workbench. Okay lady, you want to know what Georgia found, then find out where she walked.
Just do the geology.
I selected the next soil plug and found myself a prize. By color, there were two distinct soil horizons and, even better, a piece of leaf was caught in between. Normally, when someone walks, new soil is forced into the crevices of the shoe and with each footstep gets mixed with the soil already clinging there. Once in a while the walker takes a lucky step—lucky for us—and picks up something like this leaf which protects the purity of the layers. I pried apart the strata and plucked out the leaf. Long and narrow, going brittle. Mountain willow, I hazarded. It grows at a variety of elevations. Could be a marker or could have been ferried to the site. More important, the leaf isolated the top layer of soil, the final piece of earth that Georgia stepped upon. Gently, I broke the layer into clumps. Cinders, pumice, sulfur, granite, calcite. Not unlike the other plugs.
The Forensic Geology Box Set Page 49
