White Fire p-13

by Douglas Preston

  “Shall we go to dinner?”

  “So as not to blight our meal with talk of corpses and cannibalism, perhaps we could spend a few moments catching up with your research first. Please sit down.”

  “Sure thing, but can we please keep it short? I’m averse to heatstroke.” She took a seat and Pendergast did likewise.

  “How are you progressing?”

  “Great. I’ve finished examining four sets of remains, and they tell the same story: all victims of a gang of cannibalistic serial killers.”

  Pendergast inclined his head.

  “It’s unbelievable, really. But there’s no question. I did find something interesting in the last skeleton I looked at. The guy with the weird name, Isham Tyng. He was one of the first to be killed, and his bones do show extensive signs of perimortem damage from a large, powerful animal, no doubt a grizzly bear — along with the usual signs of beating, dismemberment, and cannibalism performed by human beings. I looked up the newspaper accounts of the killing, and in this case a bear was scared off the remains by the arrival of Tyng’s partners. No doubt the bear was scavenging the victim after he’d been killed by the cannibal gang. But this sighting is clearly what cemented the idea in everyone’s mind that the killer was a grizzly. A reasonable assumption — but also, sheer coincidence.”

  “Excellent. The story is now complete. I assume you don’t need to examine any more remains?”

  “No, four is plenty. I’ve got all the data I need.”

  “Very good,” murmured Pendergast. “And when will you be returning to New York?”

  Corrie took a deep breath. “I’m not going back yet.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’ve…decided to expand the scope of my thesis.”

  She waited, but Pendergast did not react.

  “Because, I’m sorry, but the fact is the story isn’t complete. Now that we know these miners were murdered…” She hesitated. “Well, I’m going to do my damnedest to solve the murders.”

  Another dead silence. Pendergast’s silver eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

  “Look, it’s a fascinating case. Why not pursue it to its end? Why were these miners killed? Who did it? And why did the killings stop so abruptly? There are tons of questions, and I want to find the answers. This is my chance to turn a good thesis into a really great one.”

  “If you survive,” said Pendergast.

  “I don’t think I’m in any danger. In fact, since the fires I’ve been ignored. And nobody knows about my most important discovery — everyone still believes a grizzly did it.”

  “Nevertheless, I am uneasy.”

  “Why? I mean, if you’re worried about where I’m house-sitting, it’s miles away from the houses that were burned. And I’ve got a new roommate — Captain Bowdree, as it happens. You couldn’t ask for better protection than that. Let me tell you something: she’s got a .45 and, believe me, she knows how to use it.” She didn’t mention the footsteps she’d found circling the mansion.

  “I have no doubt. But the fact is, I must leave Roaring Fork for several days, perhaps longer, and as a result I’ll be unable to give you the benefit of my protection. I fear that your looking into this case may awaken the proverbial sleeping dog. And there is an ugly dog sleeping in this rich little town, of that I am sure.”

  “Surely you don’t believe the arson attacks are somehow linked to the miner killings? They were a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “I don’t believe anything — yet. But I sense deep, strong water. I’m not in favor of your remaining in Roaring Fork any longer than necessary. I advise you to leave on the first plane out.”

  Corrie stared at him “I’m twenty, and this is my life. Not yours. I’m really thankful for all your help, but…you’re not my father. I’m staying.”

  “I will discourage it by withdrawing my financial support.”

  “Fine!” Corrie’s pent-up anger came bursting out. “You’ve been interfering with my thesis from the beginning. You can’t help interfering — it’s the way you are — but I don’t appreciate it. Can’t you see how important this is to me? I’m getting tired of you telling me what to do.”

  Something flashed across Pendergast’s face — something that, had she not been so angry, she would have recognized as dangerous. “My only concern in the matter is your safety. And I must add that the risks you face are greatly augmented by your unfortunate tendency toward impetuousness and imprudence.”

  “If you say so. But I’m done talking. And I’m staying in Roaring Fork whether you like it or not.”

  As Pendergast began to speak again, she got up so abruptly she knocked over her chair and left the room without waiting to hear him out.

  34

  It was one of the most prominent Victorian mansions on the main drag. Ted, who was a fountain of information on Roaring Fork, had told Corrie its story. The house had been built by Harold Griswell, known as the Silver King of Roaring Fork, who made a fortune and was then bankrupted by the Panic of 1893. He committed suicide by leaping into the main shaft of the Matchless Mine, leaving behind a young widow — a former saloon dancer named Rosie Ann. Rosie Ann spent the next three decades hiring and firing lawyers and bringing countless lawsuits, trying tirelessly to recover the repossessed mines and properties; eventually, when all her legal options ran out, she boarded over the windows of the Griswell Mansion and became a recluse, refusing even to shop for basic provisions and subsisting on the kindness of neighbors, who took it upon themselves to leave food at her door. In 1955, the neighbors complained of a bad smell coming from the house. When the police entered, they found an incredible scene: the entire house was packed floor-to-ceiling with tottering stacks of documents and other bric-a-brac, much of it amassed during the woman’s endless lawsuits. There were bundles of newspapers, canvas bags full of ore samples, theater bills, broadsheets, ledgers, assay reports, mining certificates, depositions, trial transcripts, payroll records, bank statements, maps, mine surveys, and the like. They had found Rosie Ann’s wizened body buried under a ton of paper; an entire wall of documents, undermined by gnawing mice, had toppled over and pinned her to the floor. Rosie Ann Griswell had starved to death.

  She died intestate with no heirs, and the town acquired the building. The hoarded documents proved a historical treasure trove of unruly proportions. Over half a century later, the sorting and cataloging process was still going on, fitfully, whenever the impecunious Roaring Fork Historical Society could scrape together a grant.

  Ted had warned Corrie about the state of the collection, which was very unlike the sleek, digitized newspaper archive that he ran. But after combing through the papers for evidence of a cannibalistic gang of killers and coming up empty-handed, Corrie decided to look into the Griswell Archive.

  The archivist, it seemed, came in only two days a week. Ted had warned Corrie that he was an unqualified asshole. When Corrie arrived that gray December morning, with a few flakes drifting down from a zinc sky, she found the archivist in the mansion’s parlor, sitting behind a desk, messing around with his iPad. While the parlor was free of paper, she could see, through the open doors leading off it, floor-to-ceiling metal shelves and filing cabinets packed with stuff.

  The archivist rose and held out his hand. “Wynn Marple,” he said. He was a prematurely balding, ponytailed man in his late thirties, with an incipient potbelly but retaining the confident, winking air of an aging Lothario.

  She introduced herself and explained her mission — that she was looking for information on the year 1876, the grizzly killings, and also on crime and possible gang activity in Roaring Fork.

  Marple responded at length, quickly segueing to what was evidently his favorite subject: himself. Corrie learned that he, Marple, had once been on the Olympic Ski Team that trained in Roaring Fork, which is why he had fallen in love with the town; that he was still a rad skier and a hot dude off piste as well; and that there was no way he could allow her into the archives without the proper pa
perwork and approvals, not to mention a much more specific and narrower scope of work.

  “You see,” he said, “fishing expeditions aren’t permitted. A lot of these documents are private and of a confidential, controversial, or—” and here came another wink— “scandalous nature.”

  This speech was accompanied by several lickings of the lips and rovings of the eyes over Corrie’s body.

  She took a deep breath and reminded herself not to be her own worst enemy for once. A lot of guys just couldn’t help being jerks. And she needed these archives. If the answer to the killings wasn’t here, then it had probably been lost to history.

  “You were an Olympic skier?” she asked, larding her voice with phony admiration.

  That produced another gust of braggadocio, including the information that he would have won a bronze but for the course conditions, the temperature, the judges . . . Corrie stopped listening but kept nodding and smiling.

  “That’s really cool,” she said when she realized he was finished. “I’ve never met an Olympic athlete before.”

  Wynn Marple had a lot more to say on that point. After five or ten minutes, Corrie, in desperation, had agreed to a date with Wynn for Saturday night — and, in return, gained complete and unrestricted access to the archive.

  Wynn tagged along after her as she made her way into the elegant yet decayed rooms, packed with paper. Adding to her woes, the papers had only been roughly sorted chronologically, with no effort made to arrange them by subject.

  With the now-eager Wynn fetching files, Corrie sat down at a long baize-covered table and began to sort through them. They were all mixed up and confused, full of extraneous and misfiled material, and it became obvious that whoever had done the filing was either negligent or an idiot. As she sorted through one bundle after another, the smell of decaying paper and old wax filled the room.

  The minutes turned into hours. The room was overheated, the light was dim, and her eyes started to itch. Even Wynn finally got tired of talking about himself. The papers were dry, and dust seemed to float off the pages with every shuffle. There were reams of impenetrable legal documents, filings, depositions, notices and interrogatories, trial transcripts, hearings, grand jury proceedings, commingled with plats, surveys, assay results, mining partnership agreements, payrolls, inventories, work orders, worthless stock certificates, invoices, and completely irrelevant posters and broadsides. Once in a while the tide of documents yielded a colorful playbill announcing the arrival of a busty burlesque queen or slapstick comedy troupe.

  Infrequently, Corrie would turn up a document of faint interest — a criminal complaint, the transcript of a murder trial, WANTED posters, police records pertaining to undesirables and transients who were suspected of or charged with crimes. But there was nothing that stood out, no gang of crazies, no one with a motive to murder and consume eleven miners.

  The name of Stafford turned up regularly, especially with respect to the smelting and refining personnel records. Those records were particularly odious, with ledger pages that listed killed workers like so much damaged equipment, next to sums paid to their widows or orphans, never amounting to more than five dollars, with the majority of the sums listed as $0.00 along with the notation “no payment/worker error.” There were records of workers crippled, poisoned, or injured on the job who were then summarily dismissed with no compensation or recourse whatsoever.

  “What a bunch of scumbags,” Corrie muttered to herself, handing over another batch of papers to Wynn.

  At one point a handbill turned up that stopped Corrie.

  THE AESTHETIC THEORY

  A lecture by

  MR. OSCAR WILDE OF LONDON, ENGLAND

  The practical application of the principles of the aesthetic theory, with observations upon the fine arts, personal adornment, and house decoration

  TO BE GIVEN AT THE GRAND GALLERY OF THE

  SALLY GOODIN MINE

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 2d

  AT HALF-PAST TWO O’CLOCK

  TICKETS SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

  Corrie almost had to laugh at the odd quaintness of it. This had to be the lecture where Wilde heard the story of the grizzly killings. And clipped to the handbill was a sheaf of news items, letters, and notes about the lecture appearance. It seemed ludicrous that the rough miners of Roaring Fork would have had any interest whatsoever in the aesthetic theory, let alone personal adornment or house decoration. But by all accounts the lecture had been a great success, resulting in a standing ovation. Perhaps it was the figure Wilde cut, with his outré dress and foppish mannerisms, or his preternatural wit. The poor miners of Roaring Fork had precious little entertainment beyond whoring and drinking.

  She quickly leafed through the attached documents and came across an amusing handwritten note, apparently a letter by a miner to his wife back east. It was entirely without punctuation.

  My Deere Wife Sun Day there was a Lektior by Mister Oscor Wild of London After the Lektior which was veery well Reseeved Mister Wild enjoyt talking to the Miners and Roufh Necks he was veery gray sheous while I was wating to speek to him that old drunk cogger Swinton button holt him pulld him asite and told him a storey that turnt the pore Man as Pail as a Gost I thot he wud drop and fent…

  Wynn, reading over her shoulder, made a snorting laugh. “Illiterate bastard.” He tapped the lecture handbill. “You know, I’ll bet this is worth money.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she said, hesitating, and then clipping it all back together. As charming as the miner’s letter was, it was too far afield to merit inclusion in her thesis.

  She shuffled the papers aside and moved on to the next file. She noted that when Wynn carried the bundle back to the shelf, he slipped out the handbill and tucked it in another place. The guy was probably going to sell it on eBay or something.

  She told herself what he did was none of her business. The next big bundle arrived, and then the next. Most of the papers dealt with milling and refining, and this time almost everything related to the Stafford family, which, by all indications, became more oppressive as their wealth and power increased. They seemed to have survived the silver panic of 1893 nicely, and even used the opportunity to pick up mines and claims at pennies on the dollar. There were plenty of faded maps of the mining districts, as well, with each mine, shaft, and tunnel carefully marked and identified. Strangely, though, there were precious few records of the smelting operations.

  And then a document stopped her cold. It was a postcard dated 1933, from a family member named Howland Stafford to a woman named Dora Tiffany Kermode. It opened Dear Cousin.

  Kermode. Cousin.

  “Jesus!” Corrie blurted out. “That bitch Kermode is related to the family who squeezed this town dry.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Wynn asked.

  She slapped the document with the back of her hand. “Betty Kermode. That horrible woman who runs The Heights. She’s related to the Staffords — you know, the ones who owned the smelter back in Roaring Fork’s mining days. Unbelievable.”

  It was only then that Corrie realized her mistake. Wynn Marple was drawing himself up. He spoke in a reproving, almost schoolmarmish tone. “Mrs. Kermode is one of the finest, most gracious people in this entire town.”

  Corrie hastily backtracked. “I’m sorry. I was just…I mean, she’s responsible for putting me in jail…I didn’t realize she was a friend of yours.”

  Her stammered apology seemed to work. “Well, I can appreciate how you might be upset with her for that, but I can vouch for her, I really can. She’s good people.” Another wink.

  Bully for you. In five hours, Corrie hadn’t found anything, and now she was saddled with going on a date with this buffoon for nothing. She hoped it could be made short and in a place where Ted would never, ever see them. Or maybe she could beg off sick at the last moment. That’s what she’d do.

  She glanced at her watch. There was no way she was going to find what she needed in this hellhole of paper. For the first
time, she began to feel that maybe she was overreaching. Perhaps Pendergast was right. She had enough for an excellent thesis already.

  She got up. “Look, this isn’t working. I’d better be going.”

  Wynn followed her to the front parlor. “I’m sorry you weren’t more successful. But at least…” He winked again. “It resulted in our getting together.”

  She would definitely have to call in sick.

  She swallowed. “Thanks for your help, Wynn.”

  He leaned toward her, way too close. “My pleasure.”

  She suddenly paused. What was that she felt on her ass? His hand. She took a half step back and turned, but the hand followed like an octopus’s sucker, this time giving her butt cheek a little squeeze.

  “Do you mind?” she said acidly, brushing it away.

  “Well…we do have a date coming up.”

  “And that justifies you groping my ass?”

  Wynn looked confused. “But…I was just being friendly. I figured you’d like it. I mean, it isn’t every day you get to go out with an Olympic skier, and I figured…?”

  It was the final leering wink that did it. Corrie rounded on him. “Olympic skier? When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror? Here’s what you’ll see — a balding, potbellied, mouth-breathing loser. I wouldn’t go on a date with you if you were the last man alive.”

  With that she turned, grabbed her coat, and left, the cold air hitting her like a wall as she stepped outside.

  * * *

  Wynn Marple sat down at his desk. Both his hands were trembling and his breath was coming shallow and fast. He could hardly believe how that bitch had treated him, after all the help he’d given her. One of those feminazi types, objecting to a little innocent, friendly pat.

  Wynn was so furious, so outraged, he felt the blood pounding in his head like a tom-tom. It took a few minutes, but then finally he was able to pick up the phone and dial.