I switched off the lamp and sat in darkness, quiet except for the low hum of the projector’s fan. The machine’s heat warmed the room, but the picture I had just seen gave me a chill. I was working a case for a sheriff whom I did not know and did not trust. I was in contact with a self-described outlaw — a potential suspect — whom I likewise did not know but, oddly, did trust. The solid footing I normally felt underfoot seemed to be falling away on either side, leaving me teetering along a knife-edge ridge, defined only by dark and dizzying drops on either side. For the first time in my career, I began to consider withdrawing from a case. Every internal alarm I possessed was ringing like crazy; the stakes seemed too high, the truth too tainted by secrets that lurked deep within the mountains or the hearts of the clannish people who dwelled there.
I drew a deep breath. Flicking the lamp back on, I clicked to the next slide. She — Leena, as I now knew to call her — lay on the stone shelf, immobile forever now. I was startled anew at the freshness of her waxy death mask, at the remarkable preservation the cave’s climate and the body’s chemistry had effected. It was odd to think that after years of near-perfect preservation, she existed no more: in examining her, I had destroyed her. It was necessary, but it was sad — all the more so in hindsight, in light of the small life she was nurturing when she died.
I flashed up the other images of Leena, pausing briefly on the best side view of the abdomen. Now it seemed obvious that she was pregnant, but I knew that was only because my mind’s eye was superimposing the shape of the tiny skeleton I had extricated from her abdomen. Finally I stopped on a full-frame close-up of her face. For long minutes I studied it, trying to decipher whatever secrets it held. Had her expression held any faint clue that hinted at her pregnancy — some inner smile or worried tension? If so, it had been replaced by a more gruesome expression. Was it terror, or accusation, or just the mechanical distortion of mummification?
“What’s your story, Leena Bonds,” I murmured, “and who killed you and your baby, and why?”
As soon as I said it, I knew that, come what may, I would not withdraw from this case.
CHAPTER 18
I got no answer at the first number Jim O’Conner had given me, so I tried the second number. “Howdy, Doc,” rumbled a deep voice after the second ring.
“Hello? Is this…Waylon?”
“Shore is.”
I was taken aback to get the mountain man instead of O’Conner. “Sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, Waylon. I was trying to call Jim. How’d you know it was me?”
“You city folks ain’t the only ones got Caller ID,” he said. “We’re gettin’ kindly high-tech our own selves, Doc. Hell, I got me a cable modem and high-speed Internet, too.” I tried to picture what sort of web sites Waylon might be inclined to surf — hunting equipment? survivalist how-to sites? backwoods personal ads (“broad-minded moonshiner seeks adventurous black sheep for loving relationship”)? — then shuddered and strove to banish the images from my mind. “Jim’s out of town for a few days. Whatcha need?”
“Listen, Waylon, I’m hoping maybe you can do me a big favor. You know the cave we found that body in — Russell’s Cave, I think it’s called?”
“Course. Used to play in it when I was a kid.”
“Is there any way you could take me there? I need another look around, and I don’t want to bother the sheriff or his deputy. If you can’t do it, just say so — I know it’s a long ways off the beaten track. It took us over an hour by ATV just to get up there.”
There was a long pause on the other end, which I figured meant he was groping for an excuse.
“It took you’uns a hour to get there? On ATVs, you say?”
“At least an hour, over a pretty rough trail up the mountain. My legs are still sore; a return trip might just put me in a wheelchair.”
He laughed. “Well, Doc, I might be able to help you out. How ’bout you meet me at the Pilot station at the interstate exit in about a hour?”
“How about an hour and a half? I need to stop by my office and get my camera and a few tools.” He agreed, and I hung up, hoping I wasn’t making a foolish mistake.
I’d expected Waylon to be driving a pickup; what I wasn’t prepared for was the sort of pickup it proved to be. A battered rust bucket, sporting a patchwork of Bondo, gray primer, and multihued body panels scavenged from disparate hillside junkyards: that’s what I’d expected. The vehicle waiting for me at the gas station made my full-size GMC Sierra look shabby and sissified by comparison. A Dodge Ram 3500, it measured at least a foot longer, wider, and taller than my truck. Waylon owned the Arnold Schwarzenegger of pickups. Twin vertical exhausts, which could have been transplants from a Kenworth semi, flanked the rear corners of the cab. Rear fenders flared widely above dual wheels, tricked out with monster tires on sculpted alloy rims. Waylon ambled out of the minimarket and fished a keyless remote beeper out of one of his myriad pockets; when he clicked to unlock the doors, it sounded as if the locking mechanism on a bank vault were ratcheting open. An air horn beneath the vehicle emitted a locomotive-sized blast. Waylon motioned me in.
I stepped up — way up — onto a running board and hoisted myself cabward with the help of a vertical handrail just aft of the door. Grunting from the climb, I plopped into my seat — a swiveling captain’s chair, sheathed in buttery glove leather. The dash and overhead console bristled with enough electronics to make a NORAD technician envious: GPS, moving-map display, satellite radio, CB radio, hands-free cell phone, CD/cassette/AM-FM deck, even a passenger-side DVD screen. A small refrigerator — sized to hold either a case of beer or a haunch of venison — whirred quietly between us.
I swiveled in my seat and surveyed the aft cabin.
“You need something, Doc?”
“No, I was just looking for the hot tub,” I said. “You seem to have everything else in here.”
Waylon rumbled out a laugh. “I might oughta put me one in. Thing is, if I did, I never would get my girlfriend outta here.”
He turned the key, and somewhere beneath us, a sleeping giant of a power plant awakened. “Cummins Turbo Diesel,” I’d read on the side of the hood as I clambered up. The cab quivered gently as the engine idled; the rumble bore more than a passing resemblance to Waylon’s laugh: low-pitched and muffled, but simple and powerful. “Sounds like you’ve got some serious horsepower there,” I said.
“It’ll do. They’s actually a gasoline engine with more horsepower, a 10-liter V-10, but it gets shitty mileage. This here’s got more torque, anyhow. Tow twenty-three thousand pounds with this rig. Besides, you can’t beat a Cummins. Go three hundred fifty thousand miles ’fore it needs a overhaul.”
Another pipe, topped with wire mesh and a chrome cap, projected above the hood from somewhere on my side of the engine compartment. “What’s that thing sticking up? Looks like a chimney flue.”
“Snorkel intake,” Waylon said. “You can ford a crick six foot deep in this thing. I’ve done it. Helps if you got some weight in the bed, though, especially if they’s some current. She’s one hell of a truck, but once she starts to float, the handling goes all to hell. You don’t want to have the windows down, neither.”
As he roared beneath the interstate and headed up-country, Waylon half-turned to me. “Doc, I got to do a little financial business on our way back from the cave, so I need to make me a quick stop on the way up. If you don’t care to.”