It was innocent enough. Maria had been expecting it. Every reporter wants to know about the person who is going to bring law and order to their town. All the same, there was a hitch in Maria’s voice when she answered. “Absolutely. We’ll see if we can’t get around to that in the future.” She firmly shook Sherrie’s hand and turned to leave.
Sherrie, however, wasn’t quite through. “I checked your previous employers, and there seems to be some discrepancies in your records from the CIA. They have you working in two different departments—for an entire year. And when I called both departments, they couldn’t give me any information about your position there and why there was a mess up in the records. In fact, one of the secretaries kept saying your name wrong. She called you ‘Mary’ instead of ‘Maria.’ Do you know why?”
Maria leaned her head back and laughed. Then, with a condescending smile, she answered, “Apparently you haven’t gotten your driver’s license renewed lately. There is something called efficiency and then there’s something called the government. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m listed in two CIA offices, but chances are I wasn’t in either. Let’s get together and chat. I’ll do my best to put you at ease.”
But inside of Maria, ease was the last thing on her mind. All that mattered was that no one found out about Tehran. About what she had done to her comrades. The reason she had no soul.
Freddie Crystal’s search lacked neither support nor excitement. For many long days he trudged back and forth across high mountains and deep arroyos, his eyes peeled for Indian carvings that would match the inscriptions he carried in his pocket. Finally one day, in Johnson Canyon, he came to a sudden stop. Directly in front of him on a large open face red cliff was the inscription for which he had been searching.
–Deseret News. “About Town” by Horace Green, Thursday, February 16, 1967.
Chapter 10
PERSPIRATION DRIPPED DOWN THE back of Maria’s neck and trickled in between her shoulder blades. The dry air was hotter today than it had been yesterday. Every bit of her was sticky and wet. Unfortunately, the terrain was too rugged and the path too narrow in parts to be able to take any kind of a vehicle to the cave. It was either hike there or don’t go. She had the feeling by the end of the investigation she would know the trail well.
The pack Maria carried was full of every kind of cave exploration tool possible. She and Pete had brought floodlights, black lights, and lasers. Added to that was a chemical testing kit, video and audio recording equipment, and the list went on. She’d even brought her sleeping bag and tent. It seemed silly for her to keep hiking back and forth, when she could just sleep for a few hours on site and then continue with her in-depth investigation of the scene.
Waiting for Pete and Maria at the crime tape was a deputy from the Sheriff’s department and a Search and Rescue volunteer. They’d spent the night and the better part of the day there. Their dry lips and bloodshot eyes made it clear they needed to go home.
Pete and Maria set up a large tent they planned on making the command center. The engineer Maria had called was on his way as well as a few more Search and Rescue volunteers. In the large tent, Pete worked on getting a radio system set up since cell service was unavailable.
“I think we’re all set,” he said, testing the radio one last time. “We should get pretty good communication with anyone at the first command station by the highway turn off.”
“Thanks, Pete.” Maria was organizing the tweezers, swabs, and specimen containers. She would use them to collect samples of the dirt and any other possible material in the cave. Her goal was to find something out of the ordinary. Something that shouldn’t be there.
“Are you going to be okay?” Pete pointed to the rock that hung over the mouth of the cave. He obviously wondered if he had a volatile female on his hands again today.
“I’ll be fine,” Maria said. “Let’s go.”
Setting up the lighting system inside the cave took a while, but it was worth it. The darkened space came to life like a dentist office—almost so bright you couldn’t open your eyes in some areas. Of course, if the passageway at the far end of the cave hadn’t been blocked off by fallen rocks and debris, the lighting wouldn’t have made the main room so luminescent. The tunnel’s darkness would have sucked in the beams.
All-in-all, the effect was just what Maria had hoped for. The cave felt nothing like it had the day before, which did wonders helping her tense lungs breathe easier.
“Hardly seems like the same place,” said Pete, looking around.
Maria agreed and got to work. The first samples she collected were clumped patches of dirt caked with Mayor Hayward’s blood. The main area where the mayor had bled out was not what Maria was interested in. Instead, she had her eye on the blood “splatters.” A quick test would let her know if all of the samples were from the mayor, or if someone else had left a DNA trail.
While Maria meticulously collected bloodied dirt, Pete used a magnifying glass to scour every inch of the ground.
“Finding anything, Sherlock?” joked Maria after they spent half an hour in silence, each focused on their own task.
Pete ran his fingers through his hair. “I think so.”
Maria looked up, surprised. “What is it? You were being so quiet I thought you were coming up empty handed. What do you have?”
Holding up a small clear evidence container, Pete answered, “Pieces of glass.”
For a second Maria stopped labeling her samples of dirt and where they’d been found on a map of the interior of the cave drawn to scale. “Glass, huh? Any ideas?”
“Several of them are thin and rounded, but one of them is thick—more like the stem of a champagne flute.”
“Interesting.” With that observation, Maria set down what she was doing and scooted closer to Pete. He showed her his find.
Sure enough. It was glass. And he was right. It did look like the remains of a champagne glass. Her mind ran through the possibilities. “We’ll have forensics run tests on the pieces and see what they come up with. Good job, Pete.”
Maria ran her hand through her hair, twisting the ends. “I wonder …”
“You wonder what?” asked Pete.
“What does an extra set of footprints, a champagne glass, and a dead body in a cave sound like to you?”
Pete’s face reddened.
“Now, we really have no idea if the champagne glass was the mayor’s or not, but from the onset of things, it sure looks like the mayor was in this cave for a purpose.”
“Like a …” Pete grimaced.
“Like a tryst.” Maria helped him get the word out.
“That’s not good news.” Pete huffed.
Maria had forgotten that Pete had known this man. He’d probably worked at his side for at least the last year. Maybe longer. Maria needed to be a little more tactful in her postulating.
“Pete,” she said, “do you think you might need some distance from the case? Were you and the mayor close friends?”
“No …” he stammered. “It’s just that the mayor’s wife is my second cousin. Personally, I never saw much in the man, but I know at some point she really loved him.”
“At some point?” repeated Maria.
“I-I think they may have been struggling a bit. I just don’t want to have to tell her that her husband was unfaithful. There are already so many other rumors going on about him.”
Maria threw up her hands. “First of all, we obviously need to chat about everything you’ve heard about the mayor, and, second of all, who said the mayor’s tryst couldn’t have been with his wife? Married people do that sort of stuff, you know.”
“B-but then …” Pete stammered, “she would have been the one to kill him.”
“Murder is a nasty thing, Pete.” Maria’s voice softened. “Kanab probably doesn’t have a lot of these kinds of investigations.”
Pete nodded. “It’s my first.”
“It’s hard to stomach. Especially in a small town. But honestly, t
he person who killed the mayor probably lives here. He wouldn’t have gone into this cave with a stranger.” Maria watched Pete closely. He had a tender heart, and she didn’t want to be the person who broke it. However, if he wanted to be a cop he had to learn the truth.
“There’s one thing you always have to remember, Pete. Everyone is suspect. And I mean everyone.”
*
It always surprised Maria how quickly time passed when her thoughts were focused on a project. That was one of the things that nearly killed her in Tehran. Time crawled at a pace slower than the universe ever intended.
This afternoon, however, three hours went by in minutes. Maria still had several spots in the cave from which she needed samples. For example, she wanted to know how long the soot on the top of the cave wall had been there. There was something else on her mind, though no amount of sampling would give her the answer. How long ago had the cave-in occurred? It seemed like it must have been hundreds of years ago, but then again she wasn’t sure. She doubted these things related to the murder. Regardless, everything at a crime scene had to be investigated.
“Can I get you a sandwich?” Pete had just finished a ham on rye he’d brought into the cave in his pack. “You’ve been at it a long time.”
“In a minute,” Maria responded. She paced back and forth in front of the blocked passageway. Large boulders mixed with rocks the size of basketballs to create a naturally made blockade. But was it really natural? The question bothered Maria.
“Pete,” she said, waving him over to her, “do you see how the rocks on this side of the cave-in protrude from the wall more than on the other side?”
Pete licked the last few crumbs of his sandwich off of his fingers and stepped in closer to Maria. His face contorted as he looked where she was pointing.
“Not really,” he finally answered. “I’m sorry. I think this cave-in has been here forever. I don’t think it has much to do with the mayor and … whoever was in this place with him.”
Maria shook her head. “No, something is off. The rock on this side looks stable, like it hasn’t been touched in centuries. But these look like they’ve been moved a little more … recently. The dirt around the rocks has been disturbed and there are some fresh scratches on the cave wall.”
Pete shrugged. “I’m no expert on what an old pile looks like versus a new pile. It all just looks like rock to me.”
The engineer Maria had called up to take measurements was outside having his dinner of sandwiches and an apple. Maria was about to ask his opinion when Pete did something totally unexpected. Especially for Pete.
“I guess there’s one way to find out.” He picked up one of the rocks from the suspicious pile and moved it away from the wall several feet. He did the same to the next rock and then the next.
It was completely against protocol. It was sloppy, and it was possibly dangerous.
But he was doing it, and Maria didn’t stop him. She was too curious, and instinct told her to wait and see what he would find.
In less than ten minutes, Pete had removed enough of the pile to see the very edge of a couple of colorful pictographs painted on the wall.
Pete whistled. “Why do you think someone wanted to hide some pictographs? It sure was a lot of work to …” His voice faltered. He looked around and registered the mess he’d made of the crime scene. “Oh, sorry. I guess I should have asked first.”
“Don’t apologize.” It was good to see Pete take charge for once. “Thanks for getting the job done.” Maria smiled, hoping he’d understand she was complimenting him, returning the nice words he’d spoken about her during the city council meeting that morning.
Pete’s cheeks turned a slight pinkish hue.
“And I think you’re right. Someone didn’t want these pictographs to be seen. The question is, was it the person who killed the mayor? Or was it someone before that?”
Pete waggled his shoulders up and down in a way that said, “I dunno.”
“And what kind of petroglyphs are they?” Maria shone her light on the drawings.
Pete moved a few more rocks, revealing a snake with feathers attached to it—or at least some kind of a skinny animal with floppy things coming out of its head. “They kind of look like some of those Aztec glyphs your grandfather had pictures of.”
“You’re right.” Maria grunted. “It was obviously important to someone to hide them. I wonder why?”
Maria’s question hung in the air as she and Pete studied the drawing on the wall. It was clear that some of the pictographs were still hidden. After a few more seconds of silence, Maria announced, “I’m going to go get my camera. I have a former professor who would love to get his eyes on these.”
It was on the last Sunday in November 1922 that the impossible happened–-the incredible thing that changed the lives of the careless youngsters and affected the temperature of easygoing Kanab for years to come.
—The Saturday Evening Post. “Anybody’s Gold Mine,” by Maurine Whipple, October 1949, pages 24, 102-108.
Chapter 11
MARIA HADN’T FELT THIS good in months. Actually, it had probably been a couple of years since she’d had such a strong feeling of satisfaction. It was tragic, of course, to have to investigate a murder, but if the murder was going to have happened whether or not she was there, then it didn’t hurt to feel pride in her work. The investigation was coming along nicely, and she hadn’t even started her interviews yet. They were scheduled for tomorrow.
The broken pieces of glass, an extra set of footprints, and now strange pictographs on the cave wall were all clues. She knew it. Call her crazy—and you’d be right, thought Maria—but this was the same feeling she always got when important things were on the horizon.
The simple dinner of cold cuts and sandwich bread tasted delicious to Maria, who had never been a picky eater. And ever since Tehran, she had viewed eating as a privilege, regardless of what it was.
Taking a few minutes to put up her tent and stow her sleeping bag inside, Maria readied herself to guard the crime scene for the night. Already at least five random “hikers” had “stopped by” to see the cave, and the area was completely off the beaten path. People would always be curious. It was a part of human nature that you had to deal with in law enforcement. Rubber necking was just one small example of it. Add a murder to the mix and people were … dying … to see what it was all about. She smiled to herself. It was a lame pun, but Maria was pleased she’d thought of the word “death” in a way that hadn’t invoked even the slightest bit of anxiety symptoms. She inhaled deeply.
Baby steps, she told herself. Baby steps.
Because of the increase of people possibly interfering with the crime scene, Maria and Pete had asked Search and Rescue for some help guarding the site at night. Living in a small town meant using every possible resource available. Gone were her big budgets and unlimited staff.
About sundown, two individuals arrived with backpacks on. At first Maria thought they might be more inquisitive onlookers until she saw they wore Search and Rescue t-shirts. When they got even closer, Maria realize she knew both of them—Rod Thorton and Tara Crane.
Together.
Oh, great.
Maria’s chipper attitude dwindled. The evening would now most likely consist of watching the two flirts eyeball each other. Rod approached Maria and Pete, waving and grinning. Reluctantly, Maria admitted to herself that he did have a nice smile. White teeth and all. But of course he’d be happy with Barbie doll at his side.
“Hello,” Rod called, speeding up a step or two in front of Tara.
Pete shambled toward Rod in his Smokey the Bear sort of way. While Pete idolized Rod, Maria considered him nothing more than a liability. She was determined to keep this crime scene professional, which meant if Rod and Tara tried any hanky panky tonight, Maria would have to ask them to leave immediately. This was an investigation, after all. Even more importantly, it was her investigation.
“Thanks for coming, you two,” she c
alled curtly. “We’ve got some extra food and drinks if you’re hungry.”
“Thank you for having us,” said Rod. “Search and Rescue doesn’t usually get chances like this. This is more fun than work, if you ask me. It was a great excuse to get out of the office early.”
“Absolutely,” said Tara, whose makeup was still perfectly set even though she’d been hiking for the past hour.
It reminded Maria she hadn’t checked what she looked like since this morning. Then again, she didn’t wear much more than mascara, lip gloss, and lipstick on nicer occasions. She’d never had the time or desire for much else. During her sophomore year in high school, Maria’s mother had taken her to an esthetician, hoping to convince Maria it was time to wear more makeup like the other girls. The plan had backfired, however, when the esthetician had taken one look at Maria and said some people had the type of complexion that didn’t need anything more. Maria had taken the woman’s advice to heart.
Rod and Tara set up their tents. Maria was glad to see they had each brought their own. Pete worked on a campfire while Maria stationed several battery-powered lanterns around the site. They kept their command center close to the front of the cave to ensure no one who wasn’t supposed to went inside.
At half past ten, Pete’s yawns were so enormous and consistent, Maria was sure bugs were going to fly inside his mouth and set up residence. He finally admitted defeat and went to bed, leaving only Rod, Tara, and herself sitting around the campfire.
Tara slid closer to Rod, who was dressed in jeans that had seen the outdoors plenty of times, beefy hiking boots, and a merino wool jacket zipped up past his Adam’s apple. She nuzzled up to him. “Brrrrrr.”
“Are you cold?” he asked.
Let the flirt fest begin, Maria thought. At the very least, she hoped to be slightly entertained by the two of them.
Robbed of Soul: Legends of Treasure Book 1 Page 7
