“I don’t know. It was pretty stupid of them to come the first time,” said Diane.
“You’re right about that. Can’t account for stupid. We’ll keep a lookout. We got a little drive we can circle that takes us around to the back where they came in the first time. They try to park there again, we’ll get them.”
“Thank you, Officer,” said Diane. She went around back and spotted David standing at a plane table tripod looking at aerial maps. Hector and Scott were making a grid of Marcella’s yard with string and stakes.
“Are you camping here?” said Diane.
David gave her a look somewhere between a grin and a frown. “Looks like it. It was Scott’s idea. He and Hector are all over the experiment thing. We’ll probably be able to write a paper entitled ‘The Best One Hundred Ways to Find a Buried Body in the Woods.’ Seriously though, they did come up with some good ideas.”
“Why not start in the morning?” she said, looking out over the lit yard at the busy Spearman twins.
David followed her gaze. “I see why Jin hired the two of them. They work very efficiently together.” He looked back at Diane. “We started right after I spoke with you. It gets dark so early these days, Scott thought it would be a good idea to work after dark setting up grid lines so we can start taking samples in the morning. So far it seems to be going well.” He grinned. “They haven’t started singing ‘Kum Ba Yah’ yet. That’s a plus.”
“Wait until bedtime,” said Diane. She looked around the yard. “Where are your tents?”
“Marcella’s daughter and her husband came by the house. They told us to just bed down in our sleeping bags in her mother’s living room. They are very nice people,” he said.
“They are. Did she say how Marcella is?” asked Diane.
“Doing better, tires easily. She said she seems to have clarity of thought. I think Paloma was more worried about that than anything else,” he said. “Neva is coming tomorrow to help. I think she said Mike will come too. That will be good.”
“That’s right—Mike is due back from Africa,” said Diane.
Mike Seger was the museum’s geology curator. He also worked for a pharmaceutical firm, collecting extremophiles from around the world, a job that allowed him to bring unique specimens back to the museum’s rock collection.
“Due back tonight,” said David. “This grid part isn’t going to take as long as I was afraid it would. However, running the samples will take some time. Do you really expect to find bodies?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s a gut feeling. The bone came from somewhere,” said Diane.
“A lot of strange stuff going on around here,” said David. “Somebody was crazy for yard ornaments. We’ve found a ton of them just lying around. Lots of gargoyles. Apparently they haven’t kept away the evil spirits,” he said.
“They aren’t on guard,” said Diane, smiling and looking up at the roofline of the house.
“I suppose that explains it,” said David. He gestured toward the porch where Daughtry fell through the rotten boards. “The policeman said Daughtry was suspended for a couple of days. The chief of police wasn’t upset that he dropped his gun, but that he didn’t report it. I personally think they’re being a little tough on him. But it does look like Ray-Ray What’s-his-name was shot with Daughtry’s gun.”
“Does Hanks know anything more about that?” asked Diane.
“If he does, he’s not talking. I think information primarily goes one way with him. He’s really trying hard to keep control of the case,” said David.
“I’m not taking it away from him,” said Diane. David grinned. “Don’t you dare say, ‘Not yet.’ ”
“Hanks did tell me he got a list of places that employ day laborers, and he’s questioning people Ray-Ray worked with,” said David. “I don’t know if he’s found out anything of value. What I wonder is why they shot Ray-Ray. Maybe he was just a day laborer in the burglary. Maybe he wasn’t needed when it was finished.”
“Could be,” said Diane.
“Or maybe they just shot him because his name was Ray-Ray and they got tired of saying it over and over again. Who would name their child Ray-Ray?” David threw up his hands.
“Have you been able to separate any of the footprints connected with Marcella’s attack from the later ones that were left when we were attacked?”
“I have several prints on top of one another. I think most of the secondary prints were from the paramedics and Jonas Briggs. Izzy collected the shoe prints of the paramedics, so we have those, and I got Jonas to give me his. I’ve got the computer working on separating the images. I don’t hold out a lot of hope. There’s a lot of smearing. So far, the boot prints I told you about earlier are the only ones we’ve found that are clear enough to match with a specific shoe—if we find the shoe.”
“Where is Neva on her search of the courthouse records?” said Diane.
“I don’t know. She had to go out on a couple of murders over in Jackson County. She’s working on the courthouse project between jobs,” he said.
“What do you have here?” Diane gestured toward the map.
“Aerial maps taken in the area over the years. I’m looking for some common points we can mark with stakes. We’re going to do an overlay when we get the data on the chemical makeup of the soil and see what ground features correlate with what chemical characteristics. Too bad we don’t have any infrared photos.”
“It looks like you have everything under control,” she said.
“It’s coming along. Hope we don’t have any more surprise intruders,” he said. “I got backup just in case. A couple of patrolmen wanted to earn overtime for the holidays coming up. It’s all working out for everyone,” David said.
“I met one of them coming in. They seem to have a plan for securing the property,” said Diane.
“I walked them over the area when they got here,” David told her.
It seemed to Diane that everything was going well here. If she hurried, she could make it home before it got too late to call Kingsley to fill him in on the latest about the three women from Gainesville. It would be interesting to see if he was as suspicious as she was about them.
“I’ll be going,” she said. “Call if you need me for anything.”
“Will do.” He grinned. “By the way, one of the things Paloma wanted was a copy of our research design for her mother. Seems Marcella is very excited about it. I never knew we had so many people around who are data wonks like I am.”
“Yes, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?” she said. “Who would have imagined—”
Diane was cut short by a loud cry coming out of the darkness.
Chapter 33
David and Diane jerked around and stared into the dark in the direction the cry came from.
“David! Help me! It’s Hector, help! Oh jeez, help!”
Scott was perhaps two hundred feet from them. The lighting hadn’t quite illuminated that far and all that was visible of him was a dim reflection of light from his lab suit and his face. He was kneeling on the ground in heavy undergrowth.
Diane hadn’t heard a gunshot. That’s what she’d feared. She and David ran toward Scott, jumping and skipping over piles of rocks and broken concrete, trying not to get tangled in the string, or trip over the stakes. Out of the corner of her eye Diane saw the bobbing flashlight of one of the policemen running through the woods in their direction.
“He’s hurt,” said Scott as they drew near.
“How?” asked Diane, breathing hard from the obstacle course she had just run.
“Hector was standing here. There was a noise, and he suddenly threw up his hands and just disappeared,” he said.
“Scott, what do you mean?” asked David.
“Hector, can you hear me?” yelled Scott.
Diane heard a groan. She looked down at her feet and saw that she was standing on the edge of a wide, dark cylindrical hole in the ground, maybe six feet in diameter. Hector was somewhere below in deep sha
dow.
She knelt beside Scott, feeling in her pockets for a flashlight.
“Anyone have a light?” she asked.
“No,” said David. “Damn. I don’t. One of the policemen is coming. He has one.”
“Oh jeez, Hector, say something,” said Scott.
Diane put a hand on Scott’s arm. “Stay calm. We’ll get him out.”
“What is this? Some kind of animal trap?” said Scott. “Who would do this?”
“It’s an abandoned well,” said Diane.
The patrolman had arrived and shined his light down into the opening.
“Well, hell,” he said.
The bad news was Hector was lying at the bottom of the well. One leg was bent under him. Rotten boards and dirt half covered him. The good news was he was not far down—about ten, maybe twelve feet. Not far at all. But Diane worried about the walls of the well.
She took the flashlight from the policeman and handed him her keys.
“Go to my SUV. In the back is a bag with a rope in it and a backpack. Bring them. Hurry. And call the paramedics.”
He nodded and headed off immediately through the dark in the direction of the driveway. Diane shined the light down the hole at Hector.
“Hector, can you hear me?” she said.
He moved. “Yeah. What the shit is this?” he said. His voice had a pissed-off, whiney tone, but it sounded strong.
“You fell down an old well,” said Diane. “We’re going to get you out. I need to know how you are. Are you hurt?”
He moved and yelped. “I think my leg is broken,” he said.
“Just one?” Diane asked.
“Isn’t that enough?” he yelled back.
Diane and David briefly smiled at each other.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.
“It’s kind of hard to tell. I’ll try to stand,” he said.
“Not yet. Stay still,” she said, a little too sharply.
“Why? What else is down here—snakes?”
“Hector’s afraid of snakes,” whispered Scott.
“I heard that,” yelled Hector.
“It’s a little too late for snakes. It’s too cold for them,” said David. “I think,” he added, under his breath.
“Okay,” Hector said. Then after a moment he asked, “Where do they hibernate?”
“Rock outcrops,” said David. “In the cracks. Not here.”
Diane suspected David was spinning Hector a yarn. She didn’t think he knew anything about snakes.
As David spoke to Hector, Diane examined the well with the flashlight. The debris piled around and on top of Hector indicated the well had been capped with a wooden platform that was covered in dirt and leaves with grass and briars growing over it. The rotten wood had collapsed under Hector’s weight when he inadvertently stepped on top of it, not knowing it was there.
The sides of the well were lined with varied sizes of chis eled stone blocks held in place with very old mortar. The mortar had cracks and looked weathered. Sections had already crumbled and other blocks looked ready to fall. There was no way to know what kind of stress might make the walls collapse. But they had to do something.
Besides Diane, there were David, Scott, and two policemen. Enough to pull Hector out. More than enough. She guessed it would take only three of them for a vertical pull—maybe four, depending on Hector’s weight.
“How much does Hector weigh?” Diane asked Scott.
“He won’t say,” said Scott, “but I weigh a hundred and sixty-four.”
She did the math again. Three ought to do it. They only had to pull him up close enough to grab him once his arms and shoulders were within reach.
“Hector, you are not that far down,” said Diane. “So, don’t worry.”
“Okay. I won’t worry.”
Hector groaned. Diane could see him struggling to move.
“What are you doing?” she asked, with some alarm.
“I’m trying to get my leg out from under me,” he said. “I need to see how bad it is. And to do that, I need to move some of these damn rotten boards and crap on top of me.”
“Be careful,” said Diane.
“I will, but you need to tell me what you are worried about if it isn’t snakes,” he said. “So I can be careful with some effectiveness.”
Diane hadn’t wanted to panic him, but she didn’t want him bumping against the precarious wall and causing the heavy stones and earth to collapse on top of him. If that happened, he would suffer truly serious injury and could die from the trauma or suffocation before they could get him out.
“I don’t know how stable the wall is,” she said. “It’s very old.”
“Oh. Oh jeez.”
Diane could hear him breathing harder.
“You need to fight the panic,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ve pulled people out of holes before. Piece of cake. We just need to be careful.”
“Okay. No worry. Eat cake. Got it,” he said.
“Are you all right?” asked Diane.
“He’s okay. He thinks he’s funny,” said Scott. “I’ve tried to tell him he’s not.”
They heard another yelp.
“It’s okay,” he yelled. “I have my leg uncovered now. I need to see what kind of—” Hector screamed. “My leg, my leg! I can see the bone. Oh God. Oh God.”
Compound fracture, thought Diane. Damn. That means he’s bleeding.
She refocused the light, trying to avoid his eyes. Hector was sitting with his back to the wall with both legs now straight out in front of him. A piece of wood fell from above onto his legs and he yelped again.
“Move the wood out of the way,” said Diane, gently. “Let me see your leg.”
“You need to get him out of there,” said Scott.
“I need to see how badly he’s hurt,” said Diane. “It will affect how we get him out.”
“Oh God, my leg bone came out!” he screamed.
David and Diane looked at each other, a mixture of alarm and bewilderment.
“I’ve never heard—,” began David.
“Wait a minute. False alarm,” yelled Hector.
“Hector, this isn’t funny,” yelled Scott. “You are scaring us.”
“No. I’m not being funny. I’ve got good news. I’ve found the buried bodies we’re looking for.”
Chapter 34
“What?” said Scott. “There’s a body down there with you?”
“Not exactly—well, I guess, yes, exactly. But it’s all bones,” Hector said.
Diane heard Hector rustling around at the bottom of the well.
“Hector,” said Diane, “don’t move around so much.”
Using her flashlight she examined the walls of the well and the area around the surface again. There were several trees nearby and one fairly close to the well, not a large tree, its trunk perhaps as big around as her leg. No large roots had worked their way through the cracks between the stones forming the wall, but smaller roots had, and the chances were good that tree root systems were pressing the wall in the direction of collapse. Where was the policeman with her rope?
Diane heard the rustling of someone walking through the leaves and brush and saw the play of a light. She looked up, expecting the policeman. It was Neva, and she had Mike Seger with her. Mike had Diane’s rope bag and backpack.
Mike, the museum’s geologist, was one of the best caving partners Diane had ever had. She was glad to see him there with Neva, another caving partner. Neva wasn’t as experienced as Mike, but she was a reliable and skilled caver. Mike put the bag and backpack down on the ground.
His short brown hair was longer than when she last saw him. His lean features had developed a weathered look since he’d taken on his job visiting the world’s most extreme environments. He usually had a serious look on his face. Here in the dim light his face looked to be carved out of stone.
“Hi, Doc. Good to see you.” Mike’s stern expression broke into a smile.
Diane grinne
d back. “Just the right people at the right time. We need to get Hector out of this well,” she said. “I take it you saw the policeman?” She gestured at her caving gear.
Neva nodded. “Two of them. They stayed to direct the paramedics,” said Neva.
She and Mike squatted down and looked into the well.
“What do we have here?” said Mike. “Hector, buddy, what the hell you doing down there?”
“Falling down a well seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hector said.
Mike felt the ground around the top of the well. “Pretty firm,” he commented. “But some collapse at the edge.”
Diane explained the situation and the dangers and what she wanted to do.
“Let’s get to it, then,” said Mike.
David and Scott moved one of the battery-powered lights closer so they could see what they were doing. Diane and Mike opened the rope bag, basically a large tarp with grommets. It held Diane’s caving rope. Diane took good care of her rope because it was literally a lifeline. She kept it clean and always took out any knots she had tied while caving. It was good rope and a lot of it.
“Do you think we can use that tree over there, the one closest to the well?” she asked Mike.
“Yeh, it looks good,” said Mike. “We only have a what, ten-foot drop? It’ll be over in a few seconds.”
Neva took off her suede and faux fur jacket and hung it over a bush. She began rolling up her designer jeans.
“You warm enough?” asked Diane, looking at the thin sleeves of Neva’s silk blouse.
“I’ll be fine. You know, I’m like you. I don’t know why I bother to dress up,” she said. “Our lives are always on call for some death-defying adventure or another.”
“At least you don’t have on sequins,” said Diane.
Diane began tying the handholds and a foothold in the rescue rope. Neva took the tarp and laid it over the edge of the well to reduce the crumbling of the edge when they pulled Hector out. Mike wrapped and tied off one end of a length of rope to the nearby tree at a height a couple of feet off the ground. The other end he tied into a half-hitch knot at a distance that allowed the rope to reach to the center of the well opening when the rope was fully extended from the tree. He took a rescue pulley from Diane’s backpack, laid the long rescue rope in the pulley, and attached the pulley to the end of the shorter rope by means of a metal alloy snaplink. This arrangement would suspend the pulley and rescue rope midair over the center of the well as they lifted Hector out.
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