He needed a body count of the people killed in the explosion itself. But how? He began looking at the more identifiable pieces of remains, quickly assessing them, not doing more than making a rough inventory.
Boots. The boots seemed to have survived the explosion. He started counting them, looking at them. He found nine boots — men’s boots. Maybe the vultures had carried the tenth one away. Five men, plus the two guards. He was thinking about this when he found part of a woman’s shoe, and nearly came apart, then realized that it was a dress shoe, not a hiking boot. It was stained and stank to high heaven. Irene was not carrying dress shoes. It must have been the buried victim’s shoe.
“Frank?” the radio crackled.
“Yeah, Jack.”
“You hear a dog bark?”
“No — but I’ve been kind of distracted. You hear one?”
“I thought I did. And your dogs are acting kind of interested in something on the other side of the stream. The ranger said Irene might be with the dog, right?”
He wanted to believe that, instead of what he did believe, so he said, “Yes. Let me know if you hear it again. Listen, there has to be a camp somewhere around here. Let me know if you see one. They were carrying a lot of gear; some of it is here, but they had tents and packs — there isn’t even a fragment of something like that out here. They probably set up camp in the woods within sight of the grave. Think you and Travis could look for it?”
“Sure.”
“Just look from a distance, don’t touch anything, don’t go in, try not to do much walking around — just call me.” He described Irene’s gear. “Look for that especially, okay?”
“Okay. You doing all right out there?”
After the slightest hesitation, he answered, “Yeah. Travis, you listening in here?”
“Yes.”
“I want to warn both of you, I can’t account for everybody here at this site. That’s probably good news, but you may find additional bodies in the camp. If there are any bodies, you won’t even have to see them — you’ll be able to smell them. And this guy booby-traps things, so like I said, if you find the camp, just call me.”
He switched the radio to Stinger’s channel. “Stinger, you there?”
“I’m here. Breeze is picking up. I might be able to come in if this keeps up for another hour or so.”
“J.C. doing okay?”
“He’s sleeping. I think he’s had about all he can take.”
“You reach the ranger station?”
“Yep. The Forest Service can’t help us out as soon as they’d like, though. Seems somebody messed with the nearest helicopters. They were glad to know that we’d found J.C.; they’ve been worried about him. He took one of their vehicles to get himself up as close as he could to this place, so they don’t have a hell of a lot of transportation options. Guess there’s a fire road or two that will get them kind of close, though. And they’re calling for reinforcements. We ought to have everybody but the goddamned U.S. Marines here eventually, and I wouldn’t rule them out.”
Frank didn’t like the sound of that; the problems in coordinating efforts could end up outnumbering the help. But he couldn’t search for Parrish alone. “I need you to contact the Las Piernas Police Department, too. Try to be diplomatic if you can.”
Stinger laughed.
“Hey, asshole,” Frank said, “I’m standing here with the bodies of at least seven people I’ve worked with.”
There was a silence, then Stinger said, “That’s more like it. Trouble with you, Harriman, you’re a little too polite. You know, a little wooden-assed.”
“Look—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take care of it. You find your wife — I’ll try to negotiate things so that you don’t get fired.”
“Who gives a shit about — wait — you’ve just given me an idea. Listen — your guy on the ground can patch you through on a phone call, right?”
“Sure.”
Frank gave him a number. “That should get you through to Tom Cassidy. He’s a hostage negotiator. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him — tell him I might need his help. He’ll understand.”
Frank went back to looking at the ground. He came across the tenth boot; it seemed to have been carried to a spot some distance from the others; oddly, it was nearer Merrick and Manton. He saw a dog’s footprints, filled in with rainwater; and with them, a set of boot prints that were slightly smaller than the boots he’d been looking at.
A woman’s boot? He tried to recall if any of the men on the trip were small in stature. No, they were all average height — in fact, most of them were fairly tall.
Were these smaller boot prints Irene’s?
If she was with the dog — didn’t J.C. say that she had been with the dog? It made sense; Thompson wouldn’t want her working on the excavation, and she wouldn’t have minded keeping the dog company while waiting for the results of the dig. She liked dogs.
He figured Parrish would have killed the dog at the first opportunity, but maybe Parrish liked dogs, too. Then he remembered the coyote tree and rejected that idea.
He decided to follow the tracks, thinking that at least he might find out where Parrish had marched her and the dog before killing Bingle.
But there were no footprints for Parrish with those of Irene and the dog.
Hope began to rise up in him. Could she have escaped him somehow? “Irene!” he called out, thinking maybe she could hear him.
The radio crackled, reminding him that he was a long way from being able to feel anything like relief.
He found a place where the grass had been mashed flat, and what might have been blood, but it was hard to say; the rain had washed over the whole area. He was too interested in the next set of marks — someone dragging something — someone? He was still following this set of tracks when Travis’s voice came over the radio.
“We found the camp, Frank. It’s been tossed. Everything is soaked. But no smell of bodies, and we don’t see Irene’s gear here.”
“Okay. I — look, I think I’m seeing her tracks. Do you still have J.C.’s GPS receiver?”
“Yes, should I mark this place?”
“Yes, then come out to the edge of the woods where I can see you. I want to see if there is any relationship between these tracks and where you are.”
But when Travis and Jack appeared with the dogs, Frank noticed that the tracks he was following angled off, away from the camp. What did that mean? If the boot tracks were Irene’s — who was the other person? Parrish? Was he wounded? Was she?
No, hers — if they were hers — were the boot prints, deep, but distorted by something that had come by later, flattening a wide swath of grass. But he remembered seeing marks like these at other crime scenes, wherever a killer had dragged a body . . .
Oh God, no.
He began running alongside the path of the flattened grass. But when he had followed it through the trees, he came to a place where two people had stood — or so it seemed. There were three boots, and a mark he couldn’t make out. And the dog’s tracks. Nothing was being dragged. And then only two prints, but much deeper than before. The smaller boots, but — carrying something? Someone?
Two people had survived. Maybe Parrish had been wounded by the guards, but forced Irene to . . . what? Drag him behind her? He couldn’t picture it. More likely he had tied her up and dragged her along.
The tracks grew harder to follow, and eventually, he lost them. Looking for them, he came across a different set of prints.
Something wasn’t adding up. He counted again. J.C. and Andy had gone to the airstrip — that left Parrish, Thompson, Duke, Earl, Merrick, Manton, Flash, Sheridan, Niles, and Irene. Ten people. If the marks on the grass were made by Parrish and Irene, that left eight. Merrick and Manton shot, that left six.
Six pairs of booted feet. But there were only ten boots scattered by the explosion, not twelve. If someone else survived, who? And where was he?