“So why is Ben back there studying that — that tree?” Andy asked.
“So that when the next Nick Parrish comes along, you catch him on his first coyote. Ben has done a lot more of this kind of work than I have. Maybe too much.” He glanced over at me. “He’s had a lot of tough cases lately. And a couple of back-to-back MFIs — he’s on the DMORT team for the region.”
“What’s an MFI?” I asked.
“Sorry. Mass fatality incident — anything that takes the lives of a large number of people. Natural or otherwise — earthquakes, riots, bombings—”
“Airplane crashes?”
“Yes. Ben was called out to one of those in Oregon a few weeks ago.”
“The commuter jet that crashed in the Cascades?”
“Yes. Eighty-seven dead. And we had just come home from working the flood up in Sacramento when the DMORT team got called to that one.”
“What’s a DMORT team?” I asked, pulling at the rope as Bingle nudged me with it.
“Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team — it’s a federal program. Let’s suppose you’re a coroner or a mortician in a rural area, coping with — oh, at the most, a few bodies a week. A plane crashes in the local woods, and suddenly you’ve got two hundred bodies to deal with. Usually, in a mass disaster, the local coroner and mortuary facilities can’t handle it. If the coroner needs help with victim identification and mortuary services, the DMORT team can bring in a mobile morgue and the specialists to go with it. There are ten DMORTs, organized by region. Ben’s on the one for this region.”
“But this is different,” Andy said. “Even working on criminal cases, I’ll bet this is the first time he’s seen something like that coyote tree.”
David shrugged. “Maybe. You might be surprised at some of the things we’ve seen, Andy. Things that . . .” His voice trailed off. He shook his head, then called to Bingle. After a moment he said, “Ben wouldn’t take the time back there if he didn’t think he could learn something from it.”
“Like what?” Andy asked.
“Maybe they’re a way of keeping score,” I said.
“The number of victims?” David asked. “Maybe. Or maybe the coyotes are part of some warm-up ritual, a preparation for a kill. Or maybe when he couldn’t find the kind of victim he was looking for, he killed a coyote.”
“But that would mean they’ve been there a long time,” I said. “They would have been in worse shape.”
David nodded. “Unless he’s treated them with some sort of chemical to help preserve them — that’s the sort of thing Ben is probably trying to determine.”
Bingle’s ears suddenly went up, his posture rigid. He sniffed the air, then moved into a protective position near David, hackles raised. “Tranquilo. I’m okay, Bingle,” David said. The dog looked up at him, then sat at his feet.
Soon we saw what Bingle had heard and scented; the four guards and Parrish joined us, and not much later, Flash and Bob Thompson. Ben Sheridan came strolling along last of all, not greeting any of us, lost in thought.
Thompson looked at his watch and gave an exasperated sigh. “We’ve only got a couple of hours of daylight left. Can we make it to where the grave is before sunset?”
“Certainly,” Parrish answered.
He led us down a steep path through dense woods, to a small pond. Thompson was marking it on his GPS when Parrish said, “No, no, not here.” He moved off in another direction, back through the trees, crossing a stream, and after wandering through the forest, brought us to a long meadow.
“Not here, either,” he said, and led us off again.
I asked Thompson what position he was reading on his GPS and doublechecked it against readings I had taken with my compass. I was about to tell him what I had learned, when David called to him.
“Bingle is showing some interest in that last meadow,” he said. “It’s worth spending more time there—”
“We’ve marked it on the GPS,” Thompson interrupted. “I’m giving Parrish one more chance. We can go back to the meadow if he misses on this last try.”
“Look at the map,” I said, showing him the markings I had made. “He’s taking us in circles. That ridge he’s walking toward is the one with the coyote tree on it.”
“Yes, he’s had his little fun and games,” Thompson said. “I’ve told him this next place had better be it, or the whole deal is off.”
We crossed the ridge again, on a narrow path some distance from the coyote tree, and moving downhill again we found ourselves in another long, narrow meadow. It was nearly dark by then; the air was cold, but still.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Manton said.
“Never mind that,” Thompson said. He turned to David. “What does the dog say?”
“Conditions aren’t good to work him,” David answered. “If we get a breeze, I can tell you more.”
“Parrish — exactly where in this meadow did you bury her?” Thompson asked.
“Exactly? I’m not sure. But that’s why you brought the dog, right?”
Thompson’s eyes narrowed. He looked ready to deliver Parrish a beating. He clenched his fists, then turned from Parrish, pacing two stiff steps away before saying, “Make camp here. We’ll look for her in the morning.”
And so we all went to work setting up tents. No one spoke much that night; there was none of the joking or camaraderie of the evening before. Bingle stayed with David, which was all right, I wasn’t going to sleep. I’m sure I’m not the only one who lay awake that night, thinking of Julia Sayre being marched to this meadow, forced to dig her own grave. Not the only one, I’m sure, who thought it was worse somehow that Parrish had transformed this paradise into her hell.
And I’m sure I’m not the only one who wondered just how far away from us she lay.
7
WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 17
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
Just after dawn the next morning, I went for a short walk, telling Manton, who was on watch with Merrick, which direction I planned to go. I hadn’t hiked far when I found a shallow cave, not quite ten feet deep. If it had ever been the lair of an animal, it had long since been abandoned. There was nothing in the way of a cache of food or a nest, no scat, no bones of smaller prey, no bits of fur. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the cave looked a little too clean. No animal I could think of would leave so little evidence of its residence there.
I decided to ask J.C., the ranger, about it when he caught up to us again. It also occurred to me that Parrish could have made use of this place, and if so, the experts in our search group might be able to detect traces of his activities there.
I began to feel uneasy, and try as I might to chalk it up to another round of claustrophobia, I knew that wasn’t the case. I hurried outside and went through the routine of using the compass and altimeter to calm myself down. I made a note of the cave’s location and headed back to camp.
Although it was still early when I returned to the meadow, most of the others were up and about. Manton was studying a photograph of a blonde with shoulder-length hair, holding his thumb over part of the picture.
“Your wife?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Thanks.”
I started to walk away, but as if it had just occurred to him, he said, “Hey, you’re a woman . . .”
I turned back to him. What woman can resist responding to that observation? You always know what’s coming next. Its equivalent is, “Hey, you speak Urdu, translate this.” On behalf of your Urdu-speaking sisters, you listen.
“Tell me something,” he continued. “You think her hair looks better like this?”
“Your thumb’s in the way.”
“No, that’s where she cut her hair, just before I came up here. Pissed me off. We argued.”