The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  “Sorry,” Krom said. “Sorry.”

  I could stand it no longer. I snatched the syringe from Walter and fled to the doorway. Krom heard me. His voice flew after me: sorry, sorry, sorry, a raven of remorse. Sorrow filling the void. And then, abruptly, there was another voice—thunder in the distance. Eruptions again. I saw Walter straighten, listening. I watched ash in my headlamp beam, particles trapped like insects. I prayed through ash. Scare him, Lindsay. Save him.

  Walter paid no heed.

  I came back across the shed, grabbing an alcohol swab from the first aid kit on my way. I knelt beside Krom. Anchoring the syringe with two fingers, I worked open the swab. Clumsy work; Walter was right. I swabbed Krom’s arm.

  He flinched.

  It took me so long to upend the syringe and squirt out a drop, to clear the liquid of air bubbles, that Walter had time to take this in, to calculate that at best I’d released a tiny fraction of the Demerol, to recall that I had not read the recommended dosages and so had not done the math myself, to understand that I was going on his calculations. He’d done the math and loaded the syringe and now I was ready to administer the injection he had prepared.

  I laid the needle to Krom’s skin and pushed. Needle found home.

  Krom flinched, again. And still, I feared him. Masked, hobbled, cuffed—it did not matter. He threatened to pull in the both of us, this black hole called Adrian Krom. And Walter wasn’t scared. I’d thought, ever since Walter had appeared like a ghost at the Inn, that I had to save Walter from Krom’s wrath. No longer. I had to save Walter from his own wrath.

  Walter watched me stonily and I returned his look.

  Two can play this game, Walter. Don’t forget you’ve trained me since I was a kid. I’ve aped your every move in the lab and ransacked your brain. I’m yours. More even than I was Lindsay’s. I’m yours in a way she wanted, but I couldn’t give her. I signed up with you at the get-go and I’ve never wavered. I’m with you, against the enemy. You’re my home base. And you know me. You know that whatever you have in you, whatever accommodation you come to with justice, I’m capable of that too. I’ll go as far as you will. You know that about me, don’t you? Or at least you have to give it consideration. You have to fear I’m not bluffing.

  I said, “We’re a team, Walter.”

  He watched my fingers hook under the flanges, my thumb weight the plunger.

  I hesitated.

  He said, “Trust me, dear.”

  I depressed the plunger, releasing the full load of Demerol into Adrian Krom.

  CHAPTER 52

  “Cassie?”

  I fought through layers of fog, swam through ash, surfaced. My eyes were glued shut. Glue of ash and saline lachrymal fluid. Glue of grief. I rubbed my lashes apart and looked around. In the shed, home.

  “Do you hear that, dear?”

  We listened, trying to fathom this growling sound. What new category of beast was this? There was no point trying to escape because there was nowhere to go. There was no time. The sound was growing louder—a phreatic, perhaps. Sounded like it came from lower on the mountain, just where I predicted it would come. We lay still, watching the sky. No terror. Way beyond that, in another realm entirely. Limbo. We no longer drifted in and out of limbo; we’d taken up permanent residence.

  Krom slept, at peace. He had a face again, of sorts.

  “The color’s different,” Walter said.

  “Of what?”

  “The sky.”

  “Must be dawn.”

  The growling magnified, clarified. Oh, so familiar. I know this beast. I sat up.

  Krom’s eyes opened.

  Walter got to his knees and began to hunt around, scattering our supplies. I pushed past him—I knew just where everything was if he didn’t jumble it up first—and I found the radio and switched it on.

  Static. Batteries had juice.

  I lifted my face again to the sky and saw what Walter meant—the color’s different. Day’s breaking and the sky is white like a dawn that promises an overcast day, a day innocent of ash.

  Voices crackled out of the radio. Voices and static. Logistics.

  The growl from the beast was closer. Plain enough, quite identifiable. Whup-whup-whup-whup, beating the air, whacking us out of limbo.

  Static receded, words clarified. “How many survivors?”

  I gazed across the shed and met Krom’s eyes—which suck dry every look I give him—but this time was different, this time he had no further need of me. This time he broke our contact first and gazed up at the new dawn. I did not care, really.

  I pressed the transmit button. “Three.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Two weeks after escaping the hospital, I was back. Visiting, this time. Stobie boomed out a greeting, sounding too healthy to be here.

  I said, “Hey Stobie.”

  “Cool ‘do, babe.”

  My haircut. Real short, real curly. There’d been so many cemented tangles the nurses nearly scalped me. Stobie’d lost some hair as well, on top, along with some pounds, giving him the piebald look of an overworked pack horse. We chatted, lurching from the weather to hospital food to Jeanine’s new gig videotaping snorkelers in Maui, and then I told him Mike had been torn up about what happened at the race.

  Stobie frowned, gathering the events. His short-term memory is patchy.

  “Afterward, Mike visited you. We all did. I don’t know if you heard us.”

  “Sure,” Stobie said. But he clearly hadn’t.

  “I’m not trying to excuse Mike but I want you to know he was really torn up.”

  “Hey Cassie? You don’t have to excuse him. Mike could be a real butthead but aside from that he was okay. I don’t hold blame, about this.” He cocked a finger like a gun at his head, then grinned. “I’m gonna miss the little butthead.”

  I had to laugh, and so did he, and for a sweet moment we went with that, but then I caught the pain in his eyes—or maybe he’d caught it in mine first—and I didn’t want to risk slipping from Mike to Eric because I didn’t want to start Stobie crying—not the Stobe. I didn’t think I was going to cry. Not now. Tonight I’ll cry, alone, like last night. I have a routine.

  Stobie and I lapsed into silence.

  Finally he said, “So what’s new with you babe?”

  I flinched. It sounded so normal. What’s new, what’s up. I reached. “My parents bought a place, here in Bishop.” Few blocks from my scummy new condo. They drew me a housewarming cartoon—me on top of a stratovolcano with my thumb in its vent. I’m sure I’ll come to love it. The way I came to love their cartoon showing Henry snug in his coffin, with Dad’s caption, and Jimbo’s, and then mine. Humor as therapy. I refocused on Stobie. “They’ve got a huge yard, so...Fourth of July, mark your calendar.”

  “Tradition.” He reached for a smile. “What about you? You back to work?”

  “Yeah.” Just let me close it all out. “Actually I, ah, came with an ulterior motive. I hoped you could help me clear something up.”

  He settled against his pillows. “Tell Uncle Stobie all about it.”

  “Remember the horse hair we found on Georgia?”

  “Sure.”

  “It was finally matched—to a horse at Sierra Ranch Stables. Where you work.”

  He took that in. He did not show surprise. He said, finally, “You think I know who took the horse?”

  “Do you?”

  “I can guess.”

  I said, gently, “Is Mike your guess?”

  Stobie worked on that.

  I said, “Eric told me he suspected Mike. Explained why he was covering. Explained why he was such a jerk on the retrieval—trying to send me and Walter back. He didn’t rat you out, Stobie, but I can guess why you backed him up. Why you reacted so strongly when he found the horse hair on Georgia. You suspected Mike, too. And—just like my brother—you let Eric handle the problem.”

  Stobie didn’t flinch. He said, “It was a hell of a messed-up thing.”

  I couldn
’t argue with that. “Any particular reason you suspected Mike?”

  “You fishing, babe?”

  “I’m fishing.”

  “Then let’s reel it in.” Stobie eyed me steadily. “On the way up to the glacier, Eric told me he wanted to send you back. Told me why. And then...the horse hair...that’s when I got my own suspicion.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew Mike. I could believe Eric’s theory. And the horse hair fit with Mike.” Stobie shrugged. “Mike worked at the stable once.”

  I showed my surprise.

  “For about three days. Horseshit grossed him out, and he quit. But he’d know where the keys to the barn were kept.”

  I nodded. Just like he had recalled where the gondola keys were kept. That’s Mike, I thought, never forgets a detail. So it was not a leap to assume that Mike would know, years later, how to borrow a horse on the sly. “Thanks,” I said.

  “Sure.” Stobie suddenly chuckled. “Mr. Clean and the horseshit. Hadn’t thought about that in years.”

  “Mr. Clean?”

  Stobie’s face relaxed, going back in time. “Mike’s nickname, at the stable. First day there, he decides the place stinks. So he comes up with this thing—mixes sagebrush in with the drystall. You know how sage smells real sharp? It worked, but man did he get raked. Mr. Clean.” Stobie thought. “Maybe that’s why he quit. All the teasing.”

  I said, “What’s drystall?”

  “Bedding, babe. Soaks up the horse pee. Mashed pumice, basically.”

  ~ ~ ~

  It took me several days to make the leap from horse to cat.

  Under the scope—in the cramped lab space I’d secured on a back street in Bishop—the drystall grains I’d got from a Bishop stable did not match my evidence. It was mashed pumice, all right, but only a second cousin to the pumice I’d taken from Georgia’s mouth.

  But it pointed me in the right direction.

  Through Bobby Panetta I found Ali al-Amin, with whom Mike had planned to room, to whom Mike had evacuated his cat. I knelt beside the litter box in Ali’s tidy laundry room, as Mike’s high-strung Manx paced nervously. The room smelled—cat shit overlain by another, familiar odor. I pulled on my winter wool glove, making Ali as suspicious as the cat, and shoved my hand into the bin of clean litter. Ali warned me not to spill because it was Mike’s special mix and Ali dreaded weaning the Manx to a new brand. I didn’t spill. I withdrew my hand and inspected my glove. It was coated. I brushed it off. Litter still clung to the wool fibers. I brushed again. Not clean yet. Litter had even worked in under the cuff.

  I got out my hand lens and squinted at the grains on my glove. Crushed pumice and Jeffrey pine bark. My glove smelled faintly of root beer. Pumice and Jeffrey pine, drystall and sagebrush—Mr. Clean had clearly taken an inventive pride in his work.

  Mr. Clean was equally fastidious about his cat’s litterbox. I knew because I’d been to Mike’s place once to pick up Jimbo when his car died and the two of them were in the garage looking for jumper cables, and the litterbox was next to the workbench. On a cold November day, I thought, Mike might wear gloves in the chilly garage to prepare his special litter mix, and if he subsequently wore those gloves in another context, at an old mine site handling a body, bits of that special litter mix could fall out.

  I pictured it, Mike and Georgia arguing, and then a shove, and then maybe Georgia falls and hits her head on a rock. I couldn’t see Mike wielding the rock, hitting her. Perhaps he had done, but I couldn’t picture it. Perhaps I’d become more forgiving of Mike but I could not credit him with cold-blooded murder. I was calling it an accident. In my report I’d lay out the scenario, of Mike’s horror when Georgia was knocked out, of his futile attempt to revive her. I’d mention the bruising around her mouth, where Mike had grasped her, thumb and fingers spread just so, opening her mouth to give her CPR. Only she’s not responding and in his panic he jerks his hand and the cuff on his glove rolls and the soil falls in her mouth.

  And when CPR fails, he closes her mouth to end her silent scream.

  CHAPTER 54

  The day after he got out of the hospital, Walter accepted my invitation to breakfast at Bill Bone’s new donut shop in Bishop. While Walter was giving his customary attention to dissecting the coils of a cinnamon roll, I placed an envelope on the table.

  “Georgia,” I said.

  As he read I gazed out the window. Where the Mammoth refugees had snarled traffic a month ago, there was again a jam, this one caused by a parade of geese. A car with skis on the roof honked. Bishop, with the Sierra scarp at its back, is not so unlike Mammoth, which is both good and bad. Walter has no opinion on the subject. I worried about his disinterest. I worried about his mental faculties, although brain scans and clinical tests showed no damage. I worried about every fault line on his face.

  He laid the report beside his plate like a napkin. “Your work is flawless.”

  “Thank you.”

  He drank his tea. “What brought you to it?”

  “Stobie.”

  “Stobie’s doing well?”

  I nodded. Better than you. “So, we have Mike causing Georgia’s death at Gold Dust, probably by accident in a fit of temper. Can’t prove what got them up there together but I’d say jealousy. She shows up at Krom’s office, hyped, Mike’s there and she lets slip where she’s been. He goes to find out what she found. She follows. Or maybe they even go together. Anyway, it ends badly. Mike tries CPR, that doesn’t work, and then he panics. But eventually he pulls it together and gets a horse and takes her to the glacier.” I reminded him of Eric’s scenario.

  Walter nodded.

  I saw Bill emerge from the kitchen carrying a tray of crullers. Limited menu here; limited seating capacity. Still, chatter was thick, more faces were familiar than not, and Bill was back in business. Good for him. I turned back to Walter. “You up for tying some loose ends?”

  Walter shrugged. He was circling his tea cup, round and round.

  “Question is, who found the body? Some random climber? Possible, but real coincidental. So try this on for size: after Georgia disappears, the town’s in an uproar and Mike starts worrying someone will connect him with Georgia and Gold Dust, that he’ll get nailed. He worries himself sick. Decides it’s better if she’s found in the bergschrund—it’ll look like an accident. So he goes up there and scrapes the new snow off the body, so it will be believable someone could find her. Then he calls in the anonymous report.”

  Walter nodded.

  “But weather’s iffy so there’s a delay before we go up there for the recovery. That’s where Adrian comes into it.”

  Walter eyed me. “Is this speculation, now?”

  “Partly. John told me he told Adrian about the climber’s report as soon as it came in. Adrian would surely wonder if the body was Georgia. And he’d surely think of Mike, how jealous Mike was of Georgia. And so he confronts Mike, and Mike caves and confesses. Can’t you just see it? Help me, Mr. Krom, I’ll do whatever you say. And yeah, I’m into speculation now.”

  “Continue,” was all that Walter said.

  “Once Mike’s confessed to Adrian, he’s surely going to have to reveal the fissure at Gold Dust. Maybe, Mike himself had been worrying about the fissure and that’s what made him confess. Either way, Adrian will sure want to see that fissure. So Mike takes him, shows him, and Adrian reacts. Holy shit.” I recalled that feeling myself. “But Adrian also sees an opportunity. Remember, he’s been battling with Lindsay about escape routes ever since he came to town. He can’t abide using hers. He wants to build his own. And here, with the fissure, he finds a solid reason to kill her road.”

  Walter flinched.

  “Now all he has to do is publicly champion Pika as his route, and then get the fissure ‘discovered’ to discredit her route, and he’s the hero.” I paused, to be sure Walter was with me. I wasn’t speculating this time. I was extrapolating, from hard evidence. From the monitor I’d found in Walter’s pack—the monitor he had taken
from Lindsay’s safe. This case had hurt so long I wanted Walter with me.

  Walter cocked his head.

  I said, “Mike being the killer—however accidental—explains the timing, something that never quite fit. I’d suspected that Georgia showed Adrian the fissure and he killed her to keep her quiet—give him time to set his plan in motion. But why wait a month? Why not champion Pika right away? Now it makes sense. Adrian did go public right away—Mike confesses to Adrian, shows him the fissure, Adrian makes his plan and then calls the meeting at the Inn.”

  Walter frowned. “Why didn’t Adrian kill Mike? Given your supposition that he would have killed Georgia.”

  “Plan A. Remember, there had to have been an original plan, before he came upon me and the geology. So plan A, I’d say, was to force Mike to confess when the time was right, which would reveal the fissure—and keep Adrian’s part in it quiet. I’m sure he promised to stand by Mike, get him a good lawyer, send him love notes in prison. Do we have any doubts Mike would do whatever Adrian asked of him?”

  Walter expressed no doubts.

  “It didn’t come to that, of course, because plan B worked. I found the fissure. Mike didn’t have to confess. And Adrian found other uses for him. And—caveat—I’m speculating again but it’s not particularly wild-ass. Adrian needs to keep track of me while I’m hunting for the site of death, just in case I don’t keep him in the loop. He needs to know if and when I find it. So he sends Mike.” Poor loyal love-besotted Mike. “It’s possible he found another use for Mike—blowing up 203—but I don’t think so. I don’t think Adrian would have risked that. I think he planted the explosives himself. I don’t think Mike would have done it.”

  Walter said, “I agree.”

  “In the end, Mike became a liability. Adrian couldn’t have him making peace with his conscience in front of you. Or Eric.” I took a drink of milk and it coated my mouth. What I wanted was coffee. I wanted the bitter scalding heat. “And so Adrian asked Mike to step out into the eruption and Mike went.”

  Walter took a long time with this. He seemed to watch Bill, with a moment’s freedom behind the counter playing online poker on his new laptop. Eight hundred birthday bucks well spent. Walter came back to me, finally. “Is that it?”