May 16
THE NOONDAY SUN cast a welcome heat over the dig site as Nora examined the hearth and shelter area. It had now been fully cleared by Salazar and Adelsky, and the two field assistants stood to one side, proud of their work.
And it was good work. Very good work. The hearth had been meticulously uncovered, a stain of charcoal surrounded by nubbins of bone. It lay inside the shelter built by the stranded travelers, with many of the rotting boards still surviving. She could see its basic shape. The boards had been pried from the wagon and reassembled using nails and spikes to form a sort of lean-to, supplemented by a few slender tree trunks. It gave Nora’s heart a twist, looking at these remains of a pathetic shelter where human beings had struggled and died. Incredible to think of so many crammed into this tiny hovel, covered in twenty-five feet of snow.
To one side of the shelter Adelsky and Salazar had uncovered another area of bones, consisting of two almost complete skeletons, apparently among the last to die, in twisted, grotesque positions, as if they had expired in convulsions. It wasn’t normally how a starving person died, Nora thought. Rather, it seemed to corroborate the accounts that some members of the Lost Camp had kept on raving to the last.
She did a mental count. Samantha Carville; the two Wolfinger murderers; the three skeletons in the midden heap; the pathetic remains they’d found in the shelter pot; Boardman, who’d managed to escape the camp after his crazed wife tried to attack him; and Chears, the lone person to be rescued. Those, along with these two sets of remains her assistants had just uncovered here, totaled eleven—precisely the number of people believed to have been stranded at the Lost Camp. Nora couldn’t resist a feeling of professional satisfaction at this summing up. And they’d managed to achieve it despite Peel’s theft. Of course, a portion of the Parkin skeleton remained missing. But they had combed both Peel’s route and the location where he died, and Nora was certain they’d recovered every last bone and fragment. The fact was, despite the missing skull, the success of this archaeological project had proven remarkable. There was only one thing still undiscovered.
“So, what more do we need to do?” Clive asked as he looked over her shoulder at the remains of the shelter.
“We’re essentially done with the excavation phase. All that’s left is to remove the bones and artifacts and seal them up for transportation back to the Institute. Then we can backfill the site.” She turned to Salazar and Adelsky. “Fine job, you two.”
They smiled, hesitated, and Nora said, “Now I suppose you want to do some gold prospecting?”
“Well,” said Adelsky. “You did promise.”
Nora had to laugh. “You’ve earned a break. Okay, we’ll wait for tomorrow to get the bones tagged and sealed for shipment.”
* * *
After lunch, Nora unfolded her diagram of the cliffs. She and Clive had managed to get some more searching in here and there since the first serious attempt, and now only two sectors remained.
“You really think it’s there?” Adelsky asked, peering upward.
“I’m sure it is,” said Clive. “It wasn’t on the bodies, and there isn’t any other place they could have hidden it, given all the snow.”
“What about this area of the diagram, here?” Salazar was pointing to a spot Nora had recently shaded red, at the far end of the last sector.
“That area is threatened by that stubborn cornice up on the ridge. We can’t search that sector until the cornice either melts or falls.”
“The ‘red sector,’” Adelsky said melodramatically, looking at the diagram. “Sounds like a spy novel. What do you want to bet that’s where it ends up being hidden?”
They gathered the equipment and packs and hiked up the valley. Nora put on the harness and began climbing to various cracks and holes. Salazar belayed her while Clive and Adelsky searched the lower openings that were reachable by scrambling.
Around four in the afternoon Nora called for a halt. They had now covered all of the areas not threatened by the cornice. At the bottom of the cliff, still roped up, Nora cast her eyes over the remaining holes and cracks in the red sector.
“That’s it?” Salazar called over to her.
“That’s it.”
“Damn,” said Adelsky. “As long as we’re here, let’s finish up.”
“Go ahead, knock yourself out,” Salazar told him. “I’ve seen cornices like that fall before. You wouldn’t get me to search in there now for fifty million in gold.”
Nora’s eye traveled upward to the scree slope and avalanche chute leading to the ridge. The chute was swept clear of trees—obviously many avalanches had come down in the past. She raised her binoculars. The cornice was still a good hundred feet deep, and it slumped over the cliff edge as if it would give way at any moment.
“Jason’s right,” she said, taking off her gear. “It’s far too dangerous.”
She looked around at the downcast expressions. Even Clive looked a little disappointed. But as the expedition leader, she knew she couldn’t take such a crazy risk.
Then an idea hit her. She turned back to Adelsky and Salazar. “You guys swept the entire site with the magnetometer. Right?”
They looked at each other. “Right,” they chorused.
“Well, before we pack up for good, let’s use it for one more careful sweep around the corpses of Spitzer and Reinhardt.”
Clive frowned. “Why? We already excavated out several feet from those bodies.”
“I know. But we’ve checked all the cliffs that we can for now. And who knows—maybe they hid the gold a little farther away from their camp than we’ve dug.”
Salazar shrugged. “I’m game.”
The other three walked over to the burial site while Salazar went back to the main tent, retrieved the proton magnetometer, and returned. Nora and the rest stood well back while Salazar set up the sensor and cabling and made the necessary calibrations to the device. Then, with even more than the usual amount of care, he began to traverse the site in an ever-widening spiral.
Nora followed his progress from her iPad. At first, Salazar noted lots of hits on the magnetometer’s console, but Nora could see these corresponded to what they’d already found. As he began to circle the bodies at a greater distance, the hits dropped to infrequent, then to none.
The air of expectation that had settled over the group despite this strategy being a long shot disintegrated. Clive glanced at Nora as if to say, Well, it was a good idea, anyway.
“Got something,” Salazar said.
Immediately, the others snapped to attention.
“What?” Adelsky asked.
“Just a shadow. I’ll check the surrounding area.” Salazar made another few transits with the magnetometer, farther from the bodies, then returned to the spot where he’d gotten the hit and went over it again, still more carefully. “This is it. Whatever’s buried is here.”
“Could it be an iron chest?” Clive asked.
Salazar shook his head without looking up from the console. “Not that large and not ferromagnetic. But there’s something, and it’s subsurface.”
He marked the spot, then stepped back and turned off the magnetometer. Adelsky had already run off to fetch a set of tools, which he handed to Nora. She gloved up, knelt, and began exposing the area Salazar had marked.
It took only ten minutes of careful digging. The magnetometer had picked up a small grouping of bones. Nora excavated below and around it, but there was clearly nothing else.
“It looks like a tiny leg,” said Salazar. “Oh, God.”
Nora already knew exactly what it was—she had recognized it even as she was uncovering it. “It’s Samantha Carville’s missing leg.” And after a moment she added, “To be precise, what we have here is a tibia and fibula, along with the foot bones, belonging to a small child. If you look closely at the tibia, you’ll see knife and teeth marks in addition to the scorching.”
“Jesus,” murmured Salazar.
“Are you sure it’s Carville’s?” Clive asked.
“Who else’s?”
The question needed no answer, and none was offered.
* * *
Half an hour later, Clive was following Adelsky and Salazar back down the trail. Nora watched them disappear into the trees at the edge of the meadow, then returned to the work tent to get the tarps out in preparation for pegging down the site. She had mapped and logged the final bones into the database.
As she was working, she saw a figure emerge from the trees. It was that FBI agent, Corrie Swanson. Damn, will she never leave us alone?
She stood up and waited for the agent to arrive.
“Am I disturbing you?”
Nora shook her head. “Just about done. What’s up?”
Corrie paused. “I had a few more questions.”
Nora sighed. “Okay.” She noticed the agent didn’t have her cell phone out to record. That was a good sign—she hoped. “Shoot.”
“It’s about Dr. Benton.”
“What about him?”
“I’ve now spoken to everybody, and I’m still a little confused about precisely why he approached you for this project, and not a place like Stanford or the University of California.”
“I’m an archaeologist. The Santa Fe Archaeological Institute is world class. End of story.”
“It just seems that Stanford or UC would be the first choice, given they’re California institutions and Stanford is where he went to school.”
Nora tried to suppress an upwelling of irritation. “Why are you so suspicious of Clive?”
“I didn’t say I was suspicious—”
“It’s obvious. Why?”
“Because everything seems to revolve around him, in one way or another. The journal, the dig, the gold.”
Nora stared at her. “What you have are a bunch of vague notions. You’re trying to put them in order, but you can’t. Because there is no order.”
“I’m still in the evidence-gathering phase—”
“Look at it from my perspective. You come up here, hurl around a bunch of accusations without really knowing what you’re talking about. You say a guy who fell off a cliff might have been pushed—without proof. I know Clive. He’s a straight shooter. He could’ve come up here and taken the gold. But he didn’t.”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“Well, if he’d already collected the gold, what would we be doing here?”
Corrie didn’t answer.
“And if he didn’t find the gold, why would he pull in the Institute, when that prevents any chance of him profiting from the gold himself? You’re fishing—and hindering an excavation that’s already had more than its share of problems.” She paused, irritation increasing. “Look, everybody else in law enforcement who’s seen the site is satisfied. It’s pretty clear you’re a rookie, and you’re eager to see bogeymen where there are none.”
Corrie flushed deeply. Nora realized she had hit home with the comment, and immediately regretted it.
After a moment the agent said a terse “Thank you,” turned, and left.
* * *
As Corrie walked into camp, the group sitting around the fire fell silent. She headed for her tent and Burleson rose.
“A Special Agent Morwood called on the sat phone. Wanted you to call back. Phone’s in the equipment tent.”
Corrie headed to the tent, picked up the box with the sat phone, and carried it to her own tent, where she could speak in privacy.
“How are things going?” Morwood asked when she reached him.
Corrie hesitated. “I’m making progress. Everyone’s been interviewed, and I’ve assembled quite a lot of information.”
“Any hard evidence connecting the missing Parkin skull with your case?”
“No hard evidence, but I’m still working on it.”
A silence, and then Morwood said, “We’ve got a lot to talk about, and we can’t do it over this phone. I’d like you to come down tomorrow and meet me at the Truckee sheriff’s department.”
“But I haven’t finished my investigation up here—”
“Agent Swanson, I want you to come down. I’ve already spoken to the sheriff, and he can make available a conference room where we can speak privately. If you leave in the morning, you should reach Truckee around two o’clock. Can we make it for three?”
“I…Yes, sir.”
“Good. Bring your tent and gear.”