"What do you mean?"
"I mean that when they found out I was coming up here to investigate the death of Ken Darnell, they knew that if I ever saw x-rays, photographs, or the skull itself, I, above all people, would recognize Denny Ferguson," she said.
"I can buy that. But who are they?" asked Derrick.
"Kelley. Kelley Banks. Ken Darnell is her uncle. She knew I was coming here, and it angered her. She pretended to be concerned for her aunt. Ken Darnell went to her for a body, and she supplied him Denny Ferguson."
"But that would mean Ken Darnell isn't dead," Derrick said.
"Exactly."
Derrick sat on the bed facing her. "I still don't understand the timing. The dead cavers were reported missing when? February two years ago. Denny escaped this past April. The bodies were discovered this May."
Lindsay nodded. "Yes."
"What do you think happened? Do you think Ken is still alive?"
"Yes, and I think we can get the FBI to look for him."
"Why?"
"Because I can link him to Gil Harris."
"Just because Harris met Ken once-"
Lindsay shook her head. "The chewing gum they found on the cliff. It has an extra cusp-possibly Carabelli's cusp."
Okay," said Derrick. "Let me get this straight. The person chewing the gum on the cliff where Gil Harris was killed had Carabelli's cusp?"
"Yes, an extra cusp anyway. I'd be willing to bet it was an upper molar," she said.
"What does that have to do with Ken Darnell?" Derrick asked.
"You know that it's a hereditary trait and relatively rare. Joshua Lambert, nephew to Ken Darnell, has it. Ken Darnell could also have it; certainly someone on the cliff the night Gil died had it. Gil Harris was a caver and knew Ken Darnell. A tenuous connection, but a connection nonetheless. What if Ken was following me and Gil recognized him? It makes sense."
"It's a good enough connection to interest McKinley," Derrick said and pulled Lindsay to him.
She put her arms around his neck then abruptly pulled away, looking past him at herself in the mirror at her skinned-up face and touching her forehead and cheek lightly with her fingers.
"You'll look fine," said Derrick, grinning broadly. "You look great to me right now."
She looked back at Derrick's face as if he were suddenly turning into a unicorn before her eyes. "What?" he asked.
"My face and your smile."
"What about them? Are my teeth falling out?"
"I just had an idea." She hopped off the bed and paced the floor, stopped, and stared at Derrick, but all her attention was turned inward. "Do you have your camera with you?" she said at last.
"Yeah."
"There's a picture I want you to take." She went to the phone and called Agent McKinley, explained her idea and what she wanted him to do.
"That's a long shot," he said at last. But she could tell by the tone of his voice that he'd bought into it.
"You'll do it, then?"
"Oh, yes. It's a very interesting long shot. And this Carabelli's cusp thing-well, that's interesting, too."
"Good. These are the measurements I want your people to take. These specific ones are very important." Lindsay gave him directions on what she wanted done.
"Sure thing," he said.
"I'll be damned," said Derrick when Lindsay had hung up the phone.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"Interesting idea, and it might even be true," he said.
"Can you get the picture?" she asked.
"You show me, and I'll get it." He kissed her. "Your lips aren't sore, are they?"
"They're about the only parts of me that aren't."
"Good." He kissed her again.
Derrick and Lindsay changed and drove to McMinnville. They stopped at a Wal-Mart so that Lindsay could get a pair of sunglasses and a large hat, and they both bought Cumberland Cavern T-shirts.
"Don't we look like tourists?" she said, wearing her new T-shirt and sunglasses, her long hair tucked under her large hat. Derrick had put on his shirt and tied his long hair into a low ponytail. His camera hung by a strap around his neck.
"We look like we got lost on the way to the beach."
Lindsay smiled. "Yeah. But I don't want them to recognize me. How do I look in a hat?"
"You were born to wear them."
They drove to Everything Sporting in Derrick's jeep and parked a couple of blocks away. It was their good luck that there was a small cafe across the street with a clear view of the large picture window of the store. It was rather bad luck that Jennifer and her boyfriend, Craig, were in the cafe. They were sitting in the back, drinking coffee and chatting with the waitress. Derrick and Lindsay sat in a small booth by the front window.
"Where you folks from?" They looked up to see a smiling waitress putting menus in front of them. Lindsay had the urge to bolt from the coffee shop. She felt as if her hat and glasses looked like a Halloween costume.
"Oak Ridge," said Derrick.
"Oh. I see you've visited Cumberland Caverns. Did you like it?"
"Unforgettable," said Lindsay, smiling.
"I don't like caves myself. I'll be back when you've had a chance to look at the menu."
"Do you think I should leave?" Lindsay asked when the waitress was out of earshot.
"You can. Now that I know who they are, I can take it from here."
Lindsay started to stand, but so did Jennifer and Craig. Lindsay sat back down as Jennifer walked in her direction, leaving Craig to pay the bill. Lindsay averted her face and looked down into her purse as Jennifer passed. Jennifer turned to look at Derrick, as many women do. She smiled, and he gave her a dazzling one in return. She left and crossed the street back to her store. Craig followed shortly, not giving them a glance.
"That was close," said Lindsay.
"Why don't you go mail your backpack to the FBI," Derrick said, "and I'll get the photograph. You can meet me down the block."
"All right. Derrick, be careful."
"I'm just going to take a picture. I'll be fine."
Lindsay left him, with some misgivings, and mailed the package off to the FBI by next-day service. She faxed a description of everything that happened to her to Agent McKinley. With those tasks done, she drove to the place where she was to meet Derrick. He wasn't there, so she pulled into a parking space and waited, constantly glancing down the street looking for him. After about twenty minutes, she was beginning to feel uneasy and wondered if she should go look for him. She had opened the door to get out of the Rover when she saw him leave the cafe, holding a bag of something and walking up the street toward her.
He grinned when he got to the car, reaching into the sack and pulling out a Styrofoam cup and a spoon, which he handed to her through the window. "I got you some ice cream," he said.
"It took me a while to get the picture," he added. "Both of them went to an office in the back of the store and stayed a while. I was kind of worried. They had a couple of clerks waiting on people, so there wasn't any reason for either of them to come out."
"What did you do?"
"I did a little looking around. They have some pretty good stuff."
"Did they see you?"
"Sure, but they don't know me from Adam. They came out and told the clerks they were leaving. Seems as though they're going to a party tonight. Jennifer gave me another smile and asked me if I found anything I liked."
"Indeed?" said Lindsay, taking a bite of ice cream.
"I said yes, I found some things I liked very much," he said, and Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Anyway, they went out the back, and I reckoned that they had a private parking lot behind the store. I left as quickly as possible without causing suspicion, though I don't suppose that would have mattered. I was in luck. Around back was a place I could hide behind the Dumpster. I got a good shot by the car with the telephoto lens."
"Perfect."
"I think so. We'll get it developed and send it off."
They d
rove to a one-hour photo store and waited for the print to be developed, and Lindsay sent it by same-day service to Agent McKinley with instructions.
"Expensive," commented Derrick. "I hope they spring for it."
"Right now I don't care," said Lindsay. "I want this over with as quickly as possible."
Derrick reached for her hand and held it. "Are you feeling better?"
"I'll be all right. I may have to sleep with a night-light on for the rest of my life, but I'm all right. Where to now?" she asked.
"Dinner and dancing. We are going to relax the next couple of days before I have to go back to Cold River."
Derrick had found a small restaurant that had dancing. There weren't many people there, the band was lousy, and the lighting was too bright, but it was a welcome change from the past few days and for a few hours Lindsay forgot about Ken Darnell, Denny Ferguson, and caves. She laid her head on Derrick's shoulder on the way back to the motel and fell asleep. She jerked abruptly awake when they passed a car with its lights on bright.
"You okay?" asked Derrick.
"Fine. Are we about there?"
"Almost."
They slept late in the morning and ate a late breakfast in the motel restaurant. Lindsay kept looking at her watch as she ate, wondering how Agent McKinley was faring, wondering if he got the photographs. He'd said he would take care of it himself. Had he? The Lambert farm was not that far.
"You can't let it go, can you?" said Derrick.
Lindsay didn't realize she'd been gazing off in the distance and that Derrick had been trying to tell her about Cold River.
"I'm sorry. No I can't. Not until I know who did this to me."
"You still think Kelley Banks was involved?"
"Yes, she's the one who knew Denny Ferguson. His body type is not unlike Ken Darnell's."
"What about Ferguson's escape? How did she arrange that?" asked Derrick over his coffee. "It's not an easy thing to do, I imagine. I'm not saying you're wrong about her. It's just that breaking someone out of jail's a tricky process."
"I don't know. Maybe Ferguson did it himself and she took advantage of it. I haven't figured that out yet," Lindsay admitted.
"Okay. How did they do the dental x-rays?" asked Derrick.
"I don't know that either. Maybe Kelley had Ferguson see her dentist and somehow changed the name on the charts. Maybe the fingerprint will provide a clue."
"I don't know, Lindsay. All this sounds too complicated to me. I think you need a simpler hypothesis. I just can't see her coming up with the plans and follow-through necessary to break him out of jail and alter the records in a dentist's office," said Derrick.
"If she had the help of her uncle Ken and his wife, Jennifer, she must have been in on it-and with their money, she could have pulled it off," answered Lindsay.
"Still . . ." Derrick was unconvinced. "What motive would Kelley have that would be worth the risk?"
"Money," answered Lindsay. "The combined insurance policies were worth over a million and a half dollars. Perhaps more. Kelley's just three years out of law school in a struggling practice. She probably had lots of school loans to pay back. I imagine her uncle and Jennifer didn't have too hard a time tempting her."
"Maybe," said Derrick.
"Look," said Lindsay. "Lets go to a lake, rent a boat, and relax all day. I promise I won't even think about any of this. It will just be the two of us having a good time, and you can tell me all about Cold River."
Derrick smiled and picked up the check the waitress left on the table. "Sounds good to me."
It was dark when they arrived at the motel. Lindsay felt relaxed and pleasantly tired. "I saw that Tremors is on TV late tonight," she said.
"Haven't you seen that a dozen times?" asked Derrick.
"Yes, but it always cracks me up."
They changed clothes and curled up on the bed with their backs against the headboard, supported by pillows, and settled in to watch the movie. Lindsay laughed herself silly. Derrick, merely amused, shook his head at her and smiled. During a commercial, he went to the vending machine and brought them back cold drinks.
"All right," he said, opening a can and handing it to her. "You've been good all day. I know you want to talk about it."
"What?" she said, smiling and sipping the cold drink.
Derrick ignored her. "Pitt and Hillard died first, and probably in the same place, probably the cave, probably at the time they were reported missing."
"It looks like you've been wanting to talk about it, too," Lindsay said.
"I do," he said.
Just then the phone rang. It was Agent McKinley. "Hello, Lindsay. You put the place in quite a buzz up there."
"Yep. Did that."
"I've got some news for you. You were right on the money. I got the picture of Ken Darnell from Grace Lambert like you said, and our people made estimates of size from the car he was standing by, blew up the face to actual size, and did the same with Craig Gillett. My guy said that you can't change some measurements, just as you said, like pupil to pupil. They are virtually certain it's the same guy. I saw the images superimposed. He's had a nose job, implants in his chin and jaws, changed his hair color, and taken up weight lifting. God, those people are thorough. How did you get onto it?"
"Several things came together. Grace Lambert has Indian ancestry, and it shows up in her bone structure and teeth. When Craig smiled, I noted that he has edge-to-edge occlusion. That's more common among Asians and Native Americans. It just clicked the other day after we discussed Carabelli's cusp. And when the nurse I saw after the cave experience suggested that a little sandpaper would erase any scarring on my face, that got me to thinking about Ken's so-called skiing accident in Colorado just before he disappeared two years ago. His sister, Grace, talked about how banged up he was. I realized that he could have been recovering from plastic surgery and just pretending to have gone to Colorado and had an accident. The broken leg during their visit could have been an act."
"You sure do draw a lot of conclusions from one look inside people's mouths, don't you?" Agent McKinley said. Lindsay thought she detected a hint of incredulity in his voice.
"Yeah, occupational hazard, I guess. What are you going to do now?"
"I've called the police in McMinnville. They'll arrest Ken and Jennifer Darnell and hold them for the FBI. The Darnells are implicated in four murders now. I've alerted the insurance companies. They are happy, as you can imagine."
"The Darnells have probably already left town," Lindsay said. "People who plan as meticulously as they do would already have an escape plan laid out."
"I don't doubt it," he agreed, "but they'll be found."
"I suggest that you might look for a way to check Kelley Banks's financial records," said Lindsay. "I'll bet she paid off her student loans and had money to invest. She's Denny Ferguson's attorney and Ken Darnell's niece. She has to be in on it."
"Poor Grace," said Lindsay, when she had hung up the phone. "This isn't what she expected. I've no doubt she'll regret the day she ever asked me to look into this for her."
"Look at it this way," said Derrick, putting an arm around her. "Her brother is alive. You found that out."
"Yes, but this business is going to upset the whole family," she said.
"Are you thinking about the little girl?" asked Derrick.
"Marilee. Yes. She's so cute and so smart. But she's not my little girl." Lindsay sounded wistful.
"You know, Lindsay-" he began.
"What?" she asked, sensing where he was headed.
"Now is not the time," he said, and Lindsay didn't pursue it.
They were quiet for a while, content to watch television.
"What was the purpose in waiting so long to have the bodies discovered?" Derrick asked after a while.
"I suppose to completely divert suspicion. Jennifer was already well off. They could afford to wait for such high stakes," said Lindsay. "Maybe, too, they didn't have another body. They're not that easy to come by
, you know, ones that won't be missed or be identified as someone other than who you want it to be. They have to be the right sex, the right size, the right age, the right ethnic group. I guess they thought a convicted escaped killer who fit the description would be ideal. Kelley sure had me fooled. She seemed to really care about her client."
"Are you so sure about her involvement?"
"She has to be in it. The Denny Ferguson connection can't be a coincidence."
"Anyway," said Derrick. "It's over for you."
"Yes," said Lindsay. "It's over for me."
Chapter 18
ROBERTO LACAYO KNEW they were getting close to the place where he had to make a decision: go to Santa Elena or go with Piaquay. He was beginning to appreciate the beauty of this land. Perhaps he had appreciated it for longer than he had been willing to admit. Why had he not escaped long ago, headed to the far south, looking for a Spanish fort? Because traveling alone in this land is dangerous, he said to himself, but that wasn't all of it.
Piaquay stopped to make camp. It was earlier than he usually stopped for the day, but Roberto quit trying to guess how he made decisions. He watched the Indians in their usual practice of building rock pedestals on which to put their possessions, dragging up a log to sit on. They never altered their habits in some things. In others, such as building a fire to cook their food, they sometimes did and sometimes did not. Roberto never understood why, and they would not tell him. It came as a surprise to him how much lie wanted them to like him.
He found a log he liked and could drag, and lie placed it near them. They sat and ate while Nayahti told stories of the things he saw while he was traveling. Roberto could understand a little of what he said, enough to know he exaggerated, but he also knew that Indians were born storytellers, constructing long, wonderful narratives about places and animals, war and hunting parties. Later, Kinua played his pipes. Roberto looked up at the green canopy above him. It was like a cathedral. He closed his eyes and listened to the high-pitched melody drift around him. It was unlike the music of his homeland. It reminded him of the deep forest, green ferns, and flowing rivers of this land. He wondered if that was what they thought about when they composed their music.
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