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Authors: Sarah Andrews

BOOK: Dead Dry
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Michele brushed grit from her face. She said, “Okay … wet, dry …”
“The bedding angles are stacked up like fallen dominoes. The tops of the dominoes show you where the surface of the lake was.”
“Okay.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ray shoot an amused look at Michele. Michele deftly lowered one eyelid and raised it again. This was all I needed: Ray making light of me to flirt with the sheriff’s detective. I said, “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be, Ray?”
“My shift ended half an hour ago.”
“Just my luck.”
I was trying not to look, but I saw him smile.
I pointed again at the bank. “This gravel is still standing
because it’s damp. As the quarry face dries, it will slowly become unstable, but the question is, how fast?”
Technicians had gathered around the jutting boot, taking photographs. Others were getting ready to dig.
I strode over to them. “While you’re digging, I’d like to get some specific pictures,” I called out, “and before you start, it’s critically important to get a look at the top of the bank before anyone disturbs this ground. More could come down. Obviously, the static load alone is enough to crush a man, and you don’t want to find out what a dynamic load can do.”
“What?”
“Static means standing still. Dynamic equals moving.”
The men who had been crouching by the pile quickly straightened up and stepped back.
Michele caught up with me. “Are you going up top now?”
“No, I’m not offering to hike up there and find out the hard way whether there are any cracks in the top of the bank. Damp gravel can stand a long time, but uh …” I waved a hand at the leg.
Michele said, “I’ll get the equipment operator to bring that truck over here. You can stand on top of the cab.”
The man brought the truck over, and I scrambled up. In the rising wind, the effort made my lungs feel like I was inhaling hot sandpaper, but I was able to see what I needed to see. The sunlight and shadow picked out slight depressions in the gravel, but were they footprints? I couldn’t tell. I looked for the kind of cracks that would presage a thousand more yards of gravel about to tumble down into the site and saw none.
The stifling wind dried the sweat on my brow, gluing my hair to it and filling it with grit. From the top of the ore truck, I could just see the tops of the mountains to the east, and the first hang gliders beginning to hover. “What do you think?” I asked the equipment operator. “Does it look safe to you?”
The man tensed at the question. “I don’t know … okay
to work by machine, but I sit up high, where I don’t get hit.”
“Gotcha.”
A second man joined us, and introduced himself as the quarry’s safety officer. He said, “I don’t see any immediate threat of another collapse, but still, we should proceed with caution. If your guys cut a bank more than a few feet high, it’s too dangerous. That’s all it takes to knock a man off his feet, and you’d suffocate before we could dig you out. So if it gets very deep at all, you’ll need to bring in shores to hold it up. We don’t want anyone else getting killed around here.”
I nodded, and we climbed down to instruct the technicians. The men proceeded with shovels, taking it slowly, and, considering the weight of each shovelful and the quickly rising heat of the day, seemed glad to do it that way. It took an hour to completely uncover the body, given the interruptions for photographs.
I watched for bedding, evidence that the pile had in fact slid to the place we found it, rather than being shoveled into position. To do this, I had to dodge in and take close looks at the way individual pebbles had lodged against each other. The risk of further collapse of the bank kept me sweating even more than the heat.
At last the body—or what was left of it—was fully uncovered and more thoroughly photographed than a movie star on a red carpet. It was an odd sight: it lay—twisted and in most places decidedly flattened—on its side, facing the bank, with its knees brought up, as if in sleep. Wherever the skin was exposed it had been battered to a pulp by the avalanching gravel. There wasn’t much left of the face.
“Looks like someone used a sledgehammer on him to get his teeth,” one of the technicians declared. “That sure screws up chances for a dental ID. But there’s relatively little blood anywhere else, which suggests that the man was dead before his body was crushed by the falling gravel.”
Michele said, “Well, unless he somehow climbed the
fence into the quarry and died of natural causes in the precise location a collapse would later happen to occur, he was killed somewhere else, brought here, dumped, and the avalanche was triggered to hide his corpse.”
“I concur,” I said. “His hands look weird. What’s up with that?”
The technician lifted a hand with the end of his pen. “The flesh on the pads of the fingers have been removed. No fingerprints. Someone really did not want this guy identified.”
“Someone who worked for the federal government or did military service,” Michele said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
She held out her own hand, palm up, and wiggled the thumb. “To get a driver’s license, all you have to do is give a thumb print,” she said. “So being this thorough—taking them all off—means our killer has had the experience of having all of his fingerprints taken as a set. The feds do that.”
Ray said, “Or he’s done time somewhere. That makes it a professional hit.”
Michele said, “Who’d hire a pro who has a record? And smashing the face … that suggests anger. That’s personal.”
“Quick and dirty,” said Ray. “Efficiency. That’s a pro.”
Michele asked, “What do you think, Em?”
I pondered a moment. “I agree that whoever did this was brutal. The fingerprints … maybe that argues ignorance of fingerprinting processes. But what interests me is what the corpse is wearing.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Old-style hiking boots with knotted laces, outdoorsy slacks … that color was probably called ‘mushroom,’ very trendy … the fabric is that easy-clean, quick-dry stuff … I can just see them on page six of some catalog advertising togs for well-to-do travelers, captioned, ‘Washable in your third-world adventure hotel sink or wash as you wear in
your Balinese waterfall!’ And that shirt looks like one of those ones that’s supposed to screen out UV rays, or at least it would have before it was shorn to bits by the avalanche. This outfit cost money, except that the boots are past due for replacement.”
Michele said, “You’re good.”
I added, “So I’m thinking he’s someone who
had
money but doesn’t anymore. And I’m thinking he’s someone I would know.”
“You do?”
I said, “He’s dressed the way I am—or would be, if I had the cash. He’s an outdoorsman who has used his boots as they were designed to be used: for hiking. They don’t make boots like that anymore, and what’s left of his hair is gray, consistent with buying boots like that new in his twenties. Let’s say he’s now in his late fifties, but his work still takes him outdoors. That’s a geologist or perhaps a biologist. If he was a forester, he would have worn a different style of boots and some kind of uniform. An engineer would not have worn a shirt that style, and …” I broke off to address myself to the technicians, who were beginning to collect evidence. “Make sure you put plastic bags over his boots, okay? The welts and treads harbor soil and grit that might have come from somewhere else. And bag the hands, too, please, if you think there’s anything left underneath those fingernails.”
“Gotcha covered,” one of the technicians said.
The other technician stepped forward to search the corpse for identification. He gently peeled back the collar. “No laundry marks,” he said, “but this isn’t the type of shirt you send out to the laundry. Not an obscure brand, so no reason for the killer to remove the label, I suppose.”
Michele said, “I don’t suppose he was kind enough to leave the wallet.”
The technician rocked the body as he reached for the obvious first place to look—the back right pants pocket—giving the fabric a slight tug in the process. A large piece
tore away, revealing the corpse’s right buttock, which, having been turned away from the flying gravel, was intact, but at first glance still badly bruised.
The technician gingerly withdrew his hand. “No wallet,” he said.
“Not fond of underwear,” Michele said. “And what’s that? A birthmark?” She stepped closer and bent to look. “Or … a tattoo?”
“A bruise from the assault, perhaps,” said the technician. “If he’s only been out here less than twelve hours, lividity won’t have set in yet.”
Now Ray got into the act. “No, that’s a tattoo, all right. It looks like … a map or something. Like North America, only … it’s cut in half on the diagonal.”
I stepped into a position where I could see, too. It was indeed a map of North America, but as it had appeared during the Cretaceous Period one hundred million years ago, “cut in half” by the great shallow seaway that once stretched across the continent from northwest to southeast. Suddenly my head rang and felt light. “I know this man,” I said, my voice coming out very small. “I’ve … I’ve seen this tattoo before.”
“You do?” said Ray. “You have?”
“Who is it?” asked Michele.
All eyes turned to me just as I desperately needed privacy. I sat down on the edge of the shallow trench they had dug around the corpse and put my head between my knees, fighting a wave of nausea. I tried to make words, but they had somehow gotten thick, and my lips had turned to rubber. Even in the cloying heat, everything felt very cold and far away.
Michele put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Do you know his name?”
“Afton McWain,” I said, trying to lift my head without it falling off my neck. “I knew him in the oil business. Denver.” The ringing in my ears increased, and I pushed my head back toward the ground.
Michele went into a crouch. “Take your time,” she said. “So you’re sure this is him?”
I said, “Is there a little red star right where Denver would be? Look on the left shore of the seaway, about halfway up.”
“The what?”
“The seaway … that split in the map. Is there a star?”
The technician said, “Yup, a five-pointer.”
“That’s our boy.”
I started to shake. My mouth began to run, a poor attempt to eject the shock. “Afton is—was—famous, or infamous, depending on who you ask. Everyone knew him. He made sure of that. Big ego. But really smart. Excellent geologist. Really knew his rocks. He discovered several oil fields. Regular wizard. Wanted to be the next Bob Weimer. You don’t know him, but he’s the grand man of all that, and Afton worked
hard
to try to match him.”
I pointed a shaking finger toward the corpse. “That tattoo was kind of a badge of honor, like he claimed the Cretaceous. That’s how old the rocks in the D-J Basin were. Are. Denver-Julesberg. It’s—it’s—a—the—what you call the geology—the structure of the Denver area. Big down-warp in the rocks, like a big dish. A basin. Am I making any sense at all?”
Michele said, “You’re doing fine. So … what? He was into skinny-dipping or something?”
I realized that she was giving me an out, a reason for having seen him naked. “I went on a field trip he led once. Colorado Scientific Society, five or six years ago, the western slope of Colorado. He was the big cheese for the Cretaceous rocks. The trip wound up near some hot springs, you see, and he … arranged for everyone to …”
“Quite the show-off,” she said.
I said, “I’m from Wyoming where they teach us to keep our clothes on at high altitudes, so we don’t get sunburned.”
Michele eased herself onto the bank next to me. “I’m
thinking more and more I missed something by not taking geology.”
I was beginning to tremble. I knew that tears weren’t far away. “Like I said, geology is a good time …” I knew I was having a reaction to the stress of trauma, but that didn’t stop it from coming. I knew also that the shock of seeing this particular old colleague squashed a few inches thick was not all that was causing my reaction, and that made me feel even more out of control. The tears began to spatter from my eyes. “I didn’t know him all that well, but his wife was a chum of m-mine.
Is
a chum. Unless … unless she’s under there somewhere.”
The technician who had torn open the pants spoke. “I’ve checked the rest of his pockets. Nothing but one bit of gravel.”
Michele said in her matter-of-fact way, “Then the killer has never been to the hot springs with him, or he’d have given him a buttectomy, too.”
I said, “Does he have a hand lens around his neck?”
The tech asked, “What’s that?”
“It would be on a cord around his neck. He was that kind of geologist. Never took it off. It’s a ten-power magnifying lens, what a jeweler would call a loupe.”
The technician lifted the collar of the shirt. “No cord, but there is a line in his tan, or I can kind of make one out.”

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