That brought a moment of silence from the sheriff.
“C-six, three,” she said. That fragment, probably bone, had been roughly the size of a dime, and perhaps an eighth of an inch thick-a tiny piece that her fingers, clad in the thin surgeon’s gloves, had found almost by accident as her hand relaxed for a moment. “And if that’s a piece of the skull, that means he was in this cave when he was shot.”
“Or shot himself,” Torrez amended.
“I would bet against that.”
“Not to mention one little thing…it’s hard as hell to shoot yourself in the back of the head. I mean, you can do it, but not too many folks try.” He coughed gently. “Maybe it’s the idea of seein’ their own face explode out right in front of their eyes.”
Estelle shifted and examined the ceiling with care…dust, loose rocks, stains here and there that were most likely bat guano. An earth tremor of insignificant magnitude could rearrange this place in an instant-and probably had over the years.
“It would be no small trick to push a body up in here. Close to impossible. But if the victim willingly crawled in, and then pop. Right in the head.”
“Could.”
“I need a sifter screen,” she repeated.
“Lemme see,” Torrez said. “You going to stay there, or are you comin’ out?”
“I’ll stay put.”
Five minutes later, she glanced back over her shoulder to see the sheriff working his way back in, mask hanging down under his chin.
“Doug Posey’s going to run over to Torrance’s and see what he can find.”
“He’s going to go back past Waddell’s well and take the county road?”
“I’ll tell him to.”
“I don’t want any more traffic down through the canyon. Not until we have the chance to take a careful sweep through there.”
“He knows that,” Torrez said. “You need to back out of there for a while.”
He tapped the sole of her right boot again.
The sun felt unusually hot and welcome as Estelle emerged out from under the overhang. Head clear of the overhanging rocks, she turned and saw Linda Real with camera poised, a wide grin on her face. Always the shutter-bug opportunist, Linda rapped off four or five exposure before Estelle could raise a hand in self-defense.
“The earth insect look,” Linda said. “I love it.”
Estelle removed the respirator, aware for the first time of how hard the rubber seal had been digging into her face. Her cheeks ached, but fresh, unfiltered air tasted wonderful.
Bill Gastner stood at the far end of the blue tarp, hands on his hips. He held out both hands toward the bones, as if they might suddenly reassemble themselves. “Let the fun begin, Madame Undersheriff.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The packrat had been busy. His collection formed a veritable rodent mansion, a vast mess six feet across and eighteen inches high, filling a shelf under the ragged overhang of limestone, dried roots, and a scattering of plants tough enough to survive.
Tony Abeyta used a small army shovel to transfer the rodent’s hard work a bit at a time into the screen shaker. Herb Torrance had found a piece of galvanized screening that had once formed the bottom of a rabbit hutch, and it had taken him no more than five minutes to build a two foot wide, four foot long frame from cast-off lumber, creating a rough version of the archeologist’s site sifter.
Unable to resist the pull of curiosity, Torrance had arrived at the site a few minutes after Abeyta. He and Miles Waddell stood down in the parking lot that the wide spot in the two-track had become, smoking and talking with Bill Gastner. The retiring livestock inspector had assigned himself the task of keeping civilians out of the crime scene, and he’d retreated to the vehicles with Waddell and Torrance. The ranchers provided an interesting comparison, and Estelle saw Linda Real zoom her lens to take their portraits-Waddell slender, elegant, almost effeminate in his precise movements, while Herb Torrance looked elderly and battered, a stoop now in his bony shoulders, a bad knee that gave him a hitch, and a face lined and blotched from too much sun.
The two men watched the operation up slope with interest and a continuous cloud of cigarette smoke.
The quarter inch squares of the sifter were coarse enough that most of the rodent’s collection was caught for examination. The little creature showed an affinity for strips of inner bark from juniper, no doubt a fragrant, soft lining for his bed chamber. The small, stunted acorns from scrub oak, several steel staples that had drifted loose from a barbed-wire fence post somewhere, bits of this and that-the collection was vast and aromatic, at least aromatic from the rodent’s point of view.
On the eighth shovelful shook out on the sifter, Tony Abeyta said sharply, “Hold it a minute.” Doug Posey and Bob Torrez had been manning the crude device, and they waited patiently while Abeyta flicked bits and pieces to one side. The metallic wink that had attracted the deputy turned out to be an irregular bit just large enough that it had jammed in the screen rather than passing through. “Linda?”
Linda Real leaned forward, focused quickly as Abeyta pointed with a pencil.
“Okay.”
The deputy flicked the fragment loose.
“Part of a molar,” Estelle said. She nudged the fragment into a small plastic evidence bag. “A gold cap.” She glanced at the sheriff, whose face remained expressionless. Holding it up, she rotated the bag this way and that. The flavorful root of the tooth had been gnawed down, leaving the glob of gold and traces of adhesive.
The eight shovelfuls of detritus had barely dented the voluminous nest, and Abeyta resumed his excavations energetically, digging deep into the rodent’s favorite stashes. Another tooth followed shortly, this one still embedded in a fragment of jawbone.
Concentrating on the screen’s surface so hard that her eyes started to water, Estelle straightened at the sound of a vehicle, expecting to see Dr. Alan Perrone’s BMW. Instead, two state police cruisers lurched along the two-track, the first a large SUV, followed by one of the ubiquitous black and white Crown Victorias.
“A convention,” Torrez muttered.
“More help with the sifter,” Estelle said cheerfully. The two vehicles parked behind Waddell’s truck. In a few moments, after a short chat with Bill Gastner and the two ranchers, State Police Lieutenant Mark Adams reached the boulder, accompanied by a young officer whom Estelle didn’t recognize.
“Whoa,” Abeyta said, and the shaker stopped. Linda’s digital camera snicked another series, and Estelle bent close, slipping her pen into the mouth of the single shell casing. She tipped the case upward to read the head-stamp markings.
“Forty Smith and Wesson,” she said.
“So there we go.” The sheriff watched her tip the casing into another evidence bag. “Just about impossible to thumb cartridges into a magazine without leaving a print. There are some clear ones on the cartridges in the pistol’s magazine, and they ain’t Freddy’s. I’ll bet on that. ‘Course, with this one, by the time the skin oils dry out, the case gets rolled and licked and kissed by the rat and all his buddies, I wouldn’t like to bet on prints.”
“I’ll take what we get,” Estelle said. “At the moment, the rat’s our ally here.” She saw Torrez smile a greeting at someone behind her, and the undersheriff turned to see Mark Adams as he stepped carefully around the tarp. The lieutenant said something to his companion, who remained by the corner of the boulder.
“Sir, how’s it going?” she asked.
“What in the hell do you guys have going on here?” Adams said. “Hey, Linda. How’s my favorite shutterbug?”
“She’s fine,” Linda replied. “Welcome to the party.”
“This is Charlie Esquibel,” the lieutenant said. “New to the district.” He half turned and made quick introductions, then lowered his voice as his gaze swept over the scatter on the tarp. “So. Do we know who?”