The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  We trudged toward the Inn, snow coating our boots like spats.

  Mike Kittleman was on the porch, sweeping loose snow. Walter and Lindsay went inside but I paused to watch Mike.

  Only Mike would wear a jacket and tie to sweep the steps. He always strives to look his best but he’s a swarthy guy who no matter how close he shaves looks like a thug. Or maybe that’s just through my eyes. Mike is another of the guys in my brother’s circle. I’ve known him since we were kids. We didn’t really have much to do with each other as kids—it wasn’t until we were in our teens that our lives intersected. I glanced across the roundabout to the gondola station where we worked together one summer loading mountain bikes and learned to loathe each other.

  Long time ago.

  I looked at Mike now. He’s the soul of the work ethic. He’s worked his butt off at every job he ever held and accepted overtime like it was a certificate of honor. These days, he’s been working road construction on the evacuation route, along with my brother and a dozen others who finds it pays better than selling lift tickets or ski patrol.

  And yet here he was sweeping snow.

  I knew he saw me. “Hi Mike. Thanks for clearing the steps.”

  He glanced up. “It’s for old people. It’s so old people won’t slip.”

  “And the rest of us?” I smiled, making the effort. “So, you working for the Inn now?”

  He reburied his attention in the broom. “For Mr. Krom.”

  Ah, that explained the tie. I’d seen him moonlighting for Adrian Krom—delivering the bulletins Krom generated, taking notes at meetings—and he always dressed the part. But still. “Is this some kind of memorial? For Georgia?” I sure wasn’t dressed for it.

  The cloth of his jacket pulled tight across his back and for a moment I thought he was hunching into a sprinter’s crouch. Anything to get away from me. But he stayed put, frozen as the bronze mammoth. He tunneled me a look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean is this a memorial? Mr. Krom...Adrian...seemed upset about her death.”

  “Just go in.”

  “Okay.” Why’d I bring up Georgia? I thought again of the biathlon team, back when Lindsay and Georgia had organized the boys into a team. Mike had been one of those teenage biathletes, but he had a temper and he took offense quickly at the needling that was part of team camaraderie. He threw a punch almost as well as he shot his rifle. Finally Georgia got fed up with his fighting and kicked him off the team, kindling Mike’s hatred. I thought, now, Mike was fully capable of holding the old biathlon grudge against Georgia beyond the grave. In fact, he was capable of carrying it to his own grave. And he was clearly working his way into the new power structure in town, with Krom. If Krom was holding a memorial for Georgia, I guessed that wouldn’t sit too well with Mike.

  I headed for the door.

  Mike pulled himself erect, the consummate doorman, but for his right thumb which began digging mercilessly at the knot of his tie.

  CHAPTER 8

  There was a huge map pinned to foam board on an easel by the fireplace.

  There was a coffee urn and Styrofoam cups, but no flowers. The DeMartini twins were here but without harp and guitar, meaning no Pachelbel Canon, no memorial service. People were dressed pretty much as I was, mountain spiffy, meaning nice shirts with jeans, and the good boots. The only tie, other than Mike’s, was Walter’s, with his chamois shirt. Lindsay would normally wear her silk pantsuit to a place like the Inn but she hadn’t bothered to change from her field clothes. That had won a frown from Walter.

  The Inn’s great room was packed. The room is styled on the lofty old national park hotels, with colonnades of sugar pine and Paiute-weave carpets and a boulder-framed fireplace large enough to roast a bear.

  If Adrian Krom called the meeting here to pull in a crowd, it worked.

  I buffeted my way forward and ran into Stobie. I hadn’t seen him since he pulled Georgia’s sled down from the glacier. “Hey babe!” he boomed, the easygoing Stobie I’d always known, not the tense guy on the recovery mission. He caught me around the waist, dipped me, and whispered, “Beer.”

  I whispered back, “I think there’s coffee.”

  “Bill’s birthday. Beer. Designer. Club. Monthly.” Stobie righted me, then bellied through the crowd toward his buddies—Eric and my brother Jimbo. The three biathletes, lifelong friends, lounged against a colonnade, shooting the shit, hanging out.

  As if all was normal.

  And then I caught sight of Bill Bone himself, over at the snack table restacking the sugar packets. Beer? I thought. Well, Stobie used to bus dishes for Bill at the Ski Tip, so Stobie would know. I suddenly was desperate to get Bill’s birthday gift right. I knew he wouldn’t care—he’ll be monumentally touched no matter what we get him—but it mattered to me. We’re a community, Georgia always preached, we’re more than L.A.’s playground. And no matter how windy Georgia got I’d always find myself grateful to be included. And now we were a community without our longtime mayor, a community without an insurable future, and if we intended to keep acting like a community then we should goddamn know what the proprietor of the Ski Tip Cafe wanted for his birthday.

  I checked my parka and then scanned the room for the man who’d called this meeting. I spotted him finally, the burly man light-footing his way through the crowd, turning anxious heads. A touch more formal than his guests. Brown sweater, brown cords, brown hair, deep tan. Every time I’ve seen him he’s wearing brown. Actually, I hadn’t seen him since Red’s Meadow, four days ago. What stayed with me was my hand in his. I’d had the impulse to keep holding on, because Adrian Krom’s the closest to a safety net we’ll get.

  Mike Kittleman came inside and flattened himself against the far wall. He stood alone.

  I spotted Lindsay and Walter, who were chatting with Jefferson Liu. Jefferson stepped up from his position as head of the town Council to become acting mayor, after Georgia disappeared. And Adrian Krom held his position as Emergency Operations Chief at the pleasure of the Council, and the acting mayor. I guessed silver-goateed Jefferson qualified as one of Mike’s ‘old people’ and I could see why Krom would not want him to slip and fall.

  I came up beside Lindsay, and nudged her. “Anybody else here from the Council?”

  She said, tight, “All of them.”

  Then it’s big.

  There was a shifting in the room toward the fireplace, where Krom leaned against a table. He could not have chosen a better frame: the hearty fire at his back, the table a huge chunk of red fir polished to a cinnamon gleam. Krom held up a hand and the nervous chatter ceased. He said, “It’s been, what? Couple of months. You all know me. Right?” He paused. The room was still. “No, you don’t. Let me reintroduce myself. I’m Adrian Krom. I’m your worst nightmare.”

  In the strained silence, somebody giggled.

  “You say no? I say yes. I’ve been your best friend. It’s not working, chums.”

  I began to grow worried.

  He moved to the easel. The map showed the geography of the town and the greater environs. “Look hard. You know the geography. What the hell were you thinking? I’ve walked it. Have you? Scared the bejesus out of me. It’s time to scare the bejesus out of you. If you’re not scared, if you’re not prepared to see me and this map in your dreams, then go home and watch TV.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Then let’s get serious.” Krom flipped an overlay, superimposing it on the map. It looked like a child’s drawing, a crooked line and two circles alongside. “This,” he dragged a finger along the line, “is the Bypass.”

  I glanced at Lindsay, who’d gone on alert. Was Krom trying to start a war? The Bypass is hers—an escape route, currently only half-done. She’s the one who walked the geography and conceived the Bypass, she’s the one who pushed the Council to fund it, and she’s the one who named it. A mile was already bulldozed when Krom first came to town.

  But until the Bypass is finished, there’s only one road out of town: Highway 2
03, which leads to the major through-road in the eastern Sierra, Highway 395. That highway runs all the way south to Los Angeles and north to Nevada, following the Sierra scarp like a fault. You can’t go anywhere north or south without taking 395.

  Highway 395 runs through the caldera, the gigantic crater that encircles Long Valley and Mammoth Mountain and our hometown. You can’t escape to anywhere without taking 395.

  That’s why any road out of town must connect to 395. Problem is, 203 connects with 395 in a very dangerous place in the caldera—near the heart of the awakening volcano, where the magma has been rising.

  That’s why, when the volcano got serious, Lindsay said we needed a second way out, a way to connect with 395 at a less dangerous place. She’d been saying this for decades, but this time she said now.

  Lindsay was glaring at Krom’s map. He’d drawn a line, extending the half-built Bypass to show the finished route. When finished, it will connect with 395 well north of the caldera’s growing magma chamber.

  We all stared at the Bypass on the map, our lifeline. There was a camera flash and then the Mammoth Times editor Hal Orenstein slipped to the front of the crowd, his stringbean form hunched to angle a shot for the local paper.

  Now Krom studied the drawing anew, as if the flash had illuminated something revealing. He let the moment run, then turned to us. “Why are you building this? Isn’t the point to evacuate and live to tell the tale?”

  I reached for Lindsay but it was too late. She was on her way.

  “I know your attention is on the caldera,” Krom was saying, “and rightly so—but what exactly is the point in running your new escape route smack dab through this?” He fingered the circles. “Volcanoes, chums.”

  I saw what he was doing. It wasn’t fair. He was diverting attention from the active caldera to the Inyo System, which is another volcanic system entirely. Inyo’s volcanoes have been dormant for hundreds of years. They’re dormant now. Otherwise, Lindsay wouldn’t have championed a road that ran right past them.

  She strode up to the easel and peered at Krom’s drawing. She shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe the line he had drawn was the Bypass and the crude circles he had drawn alongside were meant to represent the old Inyo explosion craters. She said, “Are you a volcanologist, Adrian?”

  “I’m trying to run a meeting, Lindsay.”

  “Are you a volcanologist?”

  He folded his arms.

  “Are you a volcanologist?”

  “For anyone here who doesn’t know, I’ve worked around volcanoes for over a decade.”

  “Not Inyo, you haven’t.” She drummed her fingers on the drawing. “I monitor the Inyo system every day and I assure you it’s quiet.”

  “Can you assure us it will be quiet tomorrow?”

  She smiled, almost in pity. She took the marker from the easel tray and went to work on Krom’s overlay and when she’d finished, the map was marked with circles and stars and crosshatches, crude as his. “Vents,” she said, “and domes and fumaroles and seismic hot spots. The whole system is capable of mischief. We live in active country. There’s no way around it. You have to go through it. You can’t build a road that does not go through it.”

  A chill ran through me. I thought, suddenly, no way out.

  “You understand now, Adrian?” She tossed the pen to Krom.

  He caught it. “Do you work for FEMA, Lindsay?”

  She eyed him. She saw the tables turn.

  Say something, I thought.

  “Lindsay?” he said, gauging the attention of the room, “are you on staff with the Federal Emergency Management Agency?”

  She said, icy, “I consult.”

  He smiled. “FEMA worked hard to overcome its past troubles. I’m certain they welcome your expertise.”

  “Yes Adrian. They do.”

  “Delightful. And so you know how to work the channels to get the resources?”

  “We’re building the road.”

  “Who calculated capacities? Who ran the numbers on visitor population fluctuations? What’s the peak vehicle load, adjusted for weather and disrupted communications?”

  “There is nowhere else—adjusted or not—to build an escape route.”

  “How many emerg-ops have you run?”

  She said, “You mean like Rainier?”

  That sent a puzzled buzz through the room. But I sucked in a breath, as did Walter and acting-mayor Jefferson Liu, beside me. I thought, now she’s the one being unfair. Rainier was Adrian Krom’s worst nightmare, the volcano that nearly ended his career. But he’s been working his way back. The last thing he needed here was to have to defend himself for a mistake he’d long ago corrected. The last thing we needed, I thought, was to question the capability of our emerg-ops guy.

  Krom said, icy, “Who ran the numbers, Lindsay? The numbers here. Let’s stick to the point. Nobody from FEMA ran them here because you started before I got here.”

  Jefferson Liu cleared his throat. “Winter was coming, Adrian.”

  “Winter’s here,” Krom said. He turned to the easel and drew a new line connecting town to Highway 395.

  I strained forward, along with everybody else. Hal’s flash lit it up. This new line connected with 395 well south of the active magma chamber—and it did not run near the Inyo system, like Lindsay’s Bypass. My God, I thought, Adrian Krom had come up with an alternate escape route.

  Lindsay lifted the overlay and squinted at the map. “Pika Canyon?” She let the overlay drop. “That’s what you came up with? It’s a bobsled run.”

  “No,” Krom said, “it’s a forest service road.”

  “It’s a one-lane dirt road through a narrow canyon.”

  “And,” he said, “it can be extended a couple of miles to link up with 395.”

  “It would take three times as long to evacuate on that as it would on the Bypass.”

  “You’re the volcanologist,” he said, “you tell me. Is there any one of your babies that will take out that road?”

  Her fine features hardened.

  Krom scanned the crowd. “Jimmy! Can you build that?”

  Jimmy Gutierrez, cornered, came forward. Jimmy’s chief engineer on the Bypass. He’s a perpetually sunburned man with a mass of white hair and the gangly mien of a hound, and he paused beside Lindsay. Chief engineer of her escape route. “See Lindsay,” he said, nervous, “Adrian did have me look at a few alternates—just rough estimates.”

  She lifted her chin.

  Walter whispered, “Let’s get her out of here.”

  “Wait,” I said, heart slamming. I wanted to hear what Jimmy had to say.

  Jimmy began shredding his Styrofoam coffee cup, and turned to Krom. “It’s like I told you before, Adrian. Pika’s not plowed and it’s gonna be hard getting the big cats and dozers up in there and at the other end you gotta go from scratch. You’d have to divert everything we got going now on the Bypass to this here if you was serious about doing it.” He stored bits of foam inside the diminishing cup. “Can’t do both. It’s a question of time and resources.”

  “No,” Krom said, “it’s a question of safety.”

  Lindsay looked like she’d been slapped.

  I had the urge to step between Lindsay and Krom but I didn’t know what I would say if I did. I didn’t know why it had to be a question of safety, anyway, because between the two of them, they should know. Why couldn’t the volcanologist and the emergency-ops czar work it out?

  “Jeff!” Lindsay looked to the acting mayor. “You saw no reason to doubt the safety of the Bypass back in November when you voted to build it.”

  Jefferson massaged his goatee. “I didn’t know we had an alternative.”

  ~ ~ ~

  People milled on the porch outside, zipping jackets, plunging hands into gloves, broaching the cold of the night.

  Walter jostled me. “Do you see her?” In the crush of the meeting’s adjournment, we’d lost Lindsay. We made our way forward and went safely down Mike’s sw
ept stairs and came upon Krom. He stood shivering in his sweater.

  Walter said, “You’ll catch your death out here, Adrian.”

  “Seeing the guests off. Couldn’t get near the coat-check.”

  I said, “What about the road?” and Walter sent me a look, and I said, “I’m sorry, I’m cold, so I’m just cutting to the chase.”

  Krom laughed. “So you are. Don’t worry, I’ll convene the Council and we’ll discuss the options. Lindsay will join us.” His attention shifted. “And here she comes, as we speak.”

  In her field clothes, Lindsay looked like she looks when she’s tramping happily around the caldera looking for trouble. She waved. She had a cell phone in her hand.

  “There you are,” she said to me and Walter. “I just got off the phone with Len. That’s Len Carow, Cassie—he’s Adrian’s boss at FEMA. We all met on Adrian’s first volcano. A fellow named Rainier.”

  I thought, oh shit here we go.

  She turned to Krom. “Be good to see Len again. Tomorrow, nine A.M. shuttle from LA—assuming his DC flight gets into LA on time. Must say, I’m miffed he’s waited so long, since I’ve been asking ever since you got here that he send someone to replace you.” She gave a graceful shrug. “Bureaucracy. You hear nothing and then the big man himself decides to come.” She pocketed the phone. “Fait accompli.”

  Krom was silent, like he was trying to figure how many ways that phrase could be translated.

  “Len simply couldn’t understand, Adrian, why you wanted to throw months of roadwork and our hard-earned funds by the wayside. He wants to see for himself.”

  Krom spoke then. “Be careful what you ask for, Lindsay.”

  She smiled her cat’s smile.

  CHAPTER 9

  I took Highway 203 out of town, counting cars.

  This has been the road out of town since the town was built. The Bypass, or any other emergency evacuation route that gets built, will be a secondary way out. Right now, this is the only way out. Highway 203 runs five miles from town down into the high desert, intersecting Highway 395.