Grand walked into the large, bright lab. He didn't come here often but he had fond, very strong memories of the place. He and Tumamait had some of their most impassioned debates here, starting with the day the twenty-four-year-old Grand tested the penetrating power of his first re-created bow and arrow. Could a yew shaft launched from twenty feet away with a granite tip have broken through the skull of a woolly mammoth, and is the skull of a cow really an acceptable substitute? The answers were unequivocally yes to the first and maybe to the second. Years later computer simulations supported Grand's view. But win or lose the debates, Grand had always appreciated Tumamait's questions, which were relentless, unforgiving, and brilliant.
He missed that.
Grand unzipped his jacket but he left it on. Away from the sun at this hour and situated so close to the ocean, the lab vacillated between a stiff late-morning chill and suffocating afternoon heat. With all our science we were still effectively living in solar-heated caves.
Grand wanted to get the hair sample into the DNA soup before class so he'd have the results when he finished up. With luck, DNA fingerprinting would tell him most of what he needed to know. The other morphology tests he wanted to run-carbon-14 dating and gas chromatography to determine the age of the hairs and the ratios of certain key elements of both the hairs and the mineral samples-had to be done elsewhere on campus and would take several hours longer.
Fortunately, the graduate student in charge of the DNA lab during the weekday morning shift was Tami Colgan, a former student of Grand's. A wait of days or even weeks for test results was not uncommon as students, professors, and local attorneys-"the paying customers," as Tami called them-came to the lab for workups. She took his hair sample right away, putting some of it in the soup and having an assistant bring several samples to the Engineering II building around the corner. One of the engineering students had built her own radiocarbon dating unit, so the age of the hair could be determined relatively quickly. Tami also sent the mineral scrapings over to the geology lab for gas chromatography analysis. With Dr. Thorpe off campus, a number of students had declared an unofficial holiday. As a result, the lab was free.
The DNA test facility was located in a windowless, closet-size room off the white-walled main lab. The first part of the analysis consisted of placing a small hair sample into a liquid enzyme that dissolved the DNA from other matter. Once the separation was complete, Colgan would place the DNA on a thin nylon membrane and bombard it with X rays. Since different parts of DNA react differently when exposed to radiation, they form distinctive autoradiographs on the nylon. This pattern resembles a distinctive bar code, the so-called DNA fingerprint The fingerprint can then be scanned into the computer and compared to other patterns on file. Using the high-speed, state-of-the-art equipment, the process of creating a fingerprint would take slightly over three hours. Because radiation was involved, the walls were lead-lined and Tami would only be in there to get things under way.
The young woman promised to get the other tests he requested started, then thanked him for bringing the hairs over. She said she was glad to have had the opportunity to help with real research for a change.
Grand thanked her, then went to teach his once-a-week class on the cave art of the Americas.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Five minutes. That was all blond, lithe, twenty-year-old Patrick Vlaskovitz decided to give The Stratum Lady, their old but still sexy guide through the unwanted subtleties of the earth's crust.
When Professor Thorpe didn't show up for class again, and the usual graduate student substitute was missing and presumed jerking off, sophomore and aspiring naval officer Vlaskovitz-warming a seat here because it was required- glanced over at superskinny, dark-haired Tim Douglass and stocky Pancho d'Escoto, who were sitting in the last row. Vlaskovitz gave his college roomies the high-raised eyebrow "fuck it?" look, to which they responded with the pursed-lip, single-nod "fuck it!" response. And together the three of them walked out of Dr. Thorpe's Geological Sciences 1103A, Structural Geology class. They left the building and strolled into the brilliant orange sunset and out to Douglass's van.
Twenty minutes later they were changed into their black sailing spandex and pulling their Hobie Cat from the garage of the off-campus student residence where they lived.
Forty-five minutes after that they were in the choppy, wind-slapped waters off Goleta Beach.
Ninety minutes after that they were over two miles from shore between Montecito and Summerland with a broken rudder and seriously unhappy dispositions.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hannah Hughes reached Jim Grand's office in the Humanities and Social Sciences Building just over a minute after he did. The reporter was wearing tight black jeans, a loose white blouse, a stylish black blazer, and a very unhappy expression. She had hair-clipped her bangs from her face. The rest of her hair hung straight as a result of the sea spray baking on her sweaty head on the beach during the morning.
"So tell me," she said.
"What?"
"Do I look more like my photo now?"
Grand smiled. "Yes, you do."
"Well, I feel like it," Hannah said. "It's been a day and a half without much to show for it."
"Then relax," Grand said. "I'll be right back."
Grand left to appropriate a chair for her from the office of Associate Professor Wildhorn, who was teaching.
Hannah slid her red bag from her shoulder, put it on the floor, and dropped a pair of paper bags from Chris's Crinkles beside it. She stood there, enjoying the moment of peace. The window was open and the room was filled with cool sea air. Fading sunlight turned the bare white walls amber. There was a small television and VCR on top of a filing cabinet beside the desk, and a map of the region on the wall behind her.
Darker patches of wall above the desk marked spots where pictures had once hung.
Grand came back with a swivel chair. He put it down and shut the door. Hannah sat down.
"I brought us late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you look at it."
"It'll probably be both," Grand said. He cleared a space on the gunmetal desk between a pile of overstuffed folders and videotapes on the right side. He placed the thick bags of take-out there. The desk was also stacked high with ungraded papers, rubberbanded diskettes, unread journals, un-catalogued photographs, and boxes filled with stone arrowheads and spearheads.
"How was your class?" Hannah asked.
"Fine. So tell me about your day and a half. What's the latest from the front?"
"From the sheriff's office? Not much," Hannah said. "Gearhart's a master at presenting this image that everything's under control without telling you how, why, and whether it really is. It's infuriating."
"What did he say?"
"According to the afternoon press conference the search is continuing, widening, and there's no cause for worry. But enough about the dog-and-pony show." Hannah shook her head. "Jim, I don't know what to make of everything that's been happening. Maybe there isn't anything to make of it, but I had to talk to you."
"Okay," he said patiently.
"I told you about the truck accident in Montecito and the possibly missing driver and the fact that none of us was allowed close to the site."
"Right."
"What I didn't tell you was that Gearhart called the owner of the fishing company, who happens to be a friend of mine. He asked if the driver was traveling with a dog." She paused. "Jesus, you know what?"
"No."
"Now it sounds crazy."
"What does?"
"This whole unformed idea of about a million parts," Hannah said.
"Tell me."
Hannah took a short breath. "I'd been thinking that the disappearance of the two engineers was related to what happened to the truck driver, which is why I wanted to ask you about a possible tunnel route from Painted Cave Road to the foothills overlooking the beach. When the sheriff found hairs in the truck cab and my friend told me the driver didn't have a dog, and then you said you'd found hairs in one of the caves, I thought that an animal might be killing people."