“I don’t,” I said. “But over the long run, Ben won’t be doing you any favors if he’s so openly hostile to the press.”
“There’s more to it than — well, I don’t have any business talking about him in this way, I suppose. I should get back to help him out.”
“Wait a minute, David — please.”
He gave me a questioning look.
“I could take or leave most of the rest of these guys,” I said, “but you and Andy have gone out of your way to be kind to me. I’m grateful for all the time you’ve spent talking to me about your work. So if you tell me that I need to give Ben Sheridan another chance — another dozen chances — I will.”
He smiled at me. “Thanks. Ben has seen me through more than one rough patch. It’s not hard for me to have a little patience with one of his.” He gave Bingle’s fur one last ruffle and said, “Take good care of her, Bingle.”
“I’ll take good care of him, too,” I said.
“Oh, I know that!” he said, laughing as he walked away.
I took my time on the walk. Clouds continued to darken the sky and it rained a little, but not enough to discourage either of us. Bingle enjoyed flopping into a mud puddle before I could stop him, but otherwise, he was content to go wherever I wanted to wander. He was curious about any number of sights and scents and sounds along the way, and some of these, I allowed him to investigate. But if I wanted to keep moving, he never resisted or yanked on the leash or failed to display anything but the best manners.
At some point, I had to own up to the fact that I was escaping. I didn’t really want to see another green plastic bag opened up, another set of decomposing remains. I most especially didn’t want to see what might be at the bottom of that grave.
But as I had told Ben, I had a job to do, and all the arguments I presented to myself about why it was unnecessary for me to be at the site failed to ring true. I made my way back through the woods.
When we were within sight of the meadow, I halted, still not quite ready to leave the quiet of woods behind, to rejoin the men. Bingle lifted his nose, sniffing the air, but otherwise sat quietly beside me.
Flash was standing near the grave, running the video camera. Merrick and Manton were still guarding Parrish, but apparently Duke and Earl had been awakened by Thompson. Like David, the two guards and the detective wore masks and gloves, and knelt at the grave’s edge. David talked to them, giving them instructions. Ben Sheridan was missing from the group.
I knew that I should move closer, should try to think like a reporter, should just get the story and worry about my reactions later. If Parrish stayed true to form, I’d soon be able to see photographs of the victim. That was the important thing here, I told myself — finding out who was in the grave. I should be like Manton, who was moving closer, trying to get a better look. “On the count of three,” I heard David say.
I was distracted from the proceedings by a distinctive splashing sound. I turned toward it just as Ben realized I was nearby.
“Oh, Christ!” he said, hurriedly tucking himself in and zipping his fly.
“One . . .” I heard David call.
“I — I’m sorry!” I said. “I didn’t know you were here!”
Ben was beet red with embarrassment. “I suppose that will be in the paper?”
“. . . Two. . .”
“Yes, of course it will,” I said, my own embarrassment turning to anger. “The headline will read, ‘Who Shrank the Forensic Anthropologist?’ ”
To my utter surprise, he started laughing.
“Three!” I heard David call.
The sound came at us like a prizefighter’s punch — a thundering, out-of-nowhere explosion that shook the earth and nearly deafened us.
I stood frozen, unable to comprehend what had happened. A cloud of dust and debris suddenly billowed over the meadow as the echoes of the explosion continued to rattle and roar through the mountains, until soon the sound seemed to come from every side. There were other sounds, too — screams and the quick crack of shots fired. Bingle gave a yelping cry of distress and charged toward the dust cloud, pulling me off balance; I fell face first onto the ground; he dragged me forward a few feet, but still I held on tightly to the leash. If he had not further tangled it up in the brush between us, I doubt my weight alone would have been enough to stop his progress.
Ben ran ahead. I called to him, but he was already gone, soon halfway across the meadow, answering their screams with his own, even as one by one they grew silent. He was shouting David’s name, shouting, “No!”, shouting words I could not understand as he ran and then — and then Nicholas Parrish emerged from the dust, struggling to keep his balance as he used Merrick’s corpse as an obscene shield. Parrish’s still-chained hand raised a gun — the dead man’s gun — and the dead man’s arm rose with his, Ben too far into the meadow to take cover, suddenly not shouting, not making any sound, just falling.
He did not get up.
17
THURSDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON, MAY 18
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
I stayed where I was. Bingle kept barking, revealing our location to Parrish. For one terrifying moment, fear paralyzed me — it was as if any Spanish words I knew had been taken from me, and I could not think of the command to quiet the dog.
“¡Cállate!” I finally remembered, and had no sooner said it than Bingle fell silent. Hoping to God Parrish didn’t hear me, I whispered, “Ven acá, Bingle. Ven acá.”
Bingle obeyed, crouching low as he came back to me, panting fast and hard, his ears pressed flat, his tail curled between his legs. Afraid.
“Muy bien,” I whispered to him, my voice unsteady.
I moved closer to him, until I was lying next to him. He was trembling. So was I. I ran an unsteady hand over Bingle’s coat.
“Cálmate, tranquilo,” I said into his ear.
I tried to watch Parrish, to stay aware of where he was. I saw him sink down into the grass, still holding the dead guard.
Long moments passed. We did not move from our hiding place. Soon I saw him stand again, free of his gruesome burden, calmly using a key to unlock the one handcuff still attached to his wrist. It dropped away from him and hit the ground.
The air was still thick with smoke and the smell of scattered flesh and blood. Now there was a silence, as unsettling as the screams had been. Impossible, I thought wildly, to conceal my trembling from him in that silence — my fear would be felt across the meadow, telegraphed to him through the ground itself.
The smoke began to clear. The wind picked up, and he laughed into it, raising his arms to the darkening sky, shaking his fists triumphantly, as if calling on the gods to behold his victory.
He stopped and stared into the woods. I felt certain he could see us. Suddenly he started to run — right toward us. I felt Bingle’s hackles rise and whispered, “Quieto.” The dog remained silent.
Parrish kept coming closer, heading for the trees, and my mouth went dry. I reached into my daypack and pulled out my knife and opened it. Not much of a weapon against a loaded gun, but even being shot to death would be better than meeting Julia Sayre’s fate. But then I saw that Parrish was moving at an angle — veering away from us.
He was going to the camp.
I strained to hear his movements, fearing that at any moment he could double back behind me, attack from some unexpected direction. I would have to trust the dog to react to any approach by Parrish.
Before long Parrish was making plenty of noise in the camp, not bothering with any attempt at stealth.
It began to rain again.