“You know each other?” Frank asked.
But Stinger was down on his knees, eye-level with J.C. and wrapping a blanket around him, hugging him hard, then holding him by the shoulders, looking into his face. “My God, J.C.,” he said, “next time you play piñata with a bunch of dead coyotes, use something besides your face for a stick — you’re looking as fucked up as I am.”
J.C. laughed, then said miserably, “I was too late, Stinger.”
Stinger hugged him again and said, “Poor old J.C. — Fremont, get with the fucking program. Let’s have some of that coffee. Can’t you see this man is in need of it? And Harriman, where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“To find my wife.”
“Shit—”
Frank cut him off, telling the others, in a few short sentences, what J.C. had found. Jack and Travis registered shock, then, sharing Frank’s anxiety, were all for going down to the meadow right away.
“Hold on, hold on!” Stinger said, but this time it was J.C. who interrupted him.
“I’ll show you, if you — if you really want to see where they are.”
“Thanks,” Frank said, “but Stinger’s right. You need to rest a little, get some warm liquids into your system.”
J.C. reached into his daypack, and pulled out a small black rectangular device. This time, Frank knew it wasn’t a phone.
“A GPS device — did you—?”
“It was foggy and I wanted to make sure I could get back,” he said, handing it to Frank. “Yes, I marked it. I knew — I know I’m kind of — well, I’m half out of my head. You’re right. I’m crazy.”
“No, I was wrong,” Frank said, feeling ashamed. “And it was wrong to say it.”
J.C. didn’t say anything.
Frank hesitated, then asked, “J.C., just one more question. You think this is something that just happened a little while ago?”
J.C. shook his head. “It had rained on them. And — Merrick and Manton were cold. I — I couldn’t touch the others. There wasn’t enough — there wasn’t any chance they were alive.”
“Drink a cup of coffee, J.C.,” Stinger said. “Then we’ll walk back to the helicopter and outfit these hotheads here. They haven’t figured out yet how they’re going to signal me if they find his wife down there.”
“You aren’t coming with us?” Frank asked.
“Think on it a minute. You got a man who knows aircraft running around out here. I don’t exactly want to walk off and leave my girl at his disposal. If it starts to clear down there, I’ll fly in a little closer to you.”
“What if he finds you first?” Travis asked.
Stinger smiled. “He won’t be needing that lawyer.”
27
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 19
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
He handed the GPS unit to Travis not long after they had hiked down into the meadow. He heard the sound of vultures fighting, began to smell the decay. He asked Jack to stay with Travis and the dogs, near the trees, while he walked into the fog to have a look.
Jack understood — he knew Frank didn’t want Travis to see what was undoubtedly waiting out there in the mist, to have to live with some of the memories J.C. was living with. He also knew that Frank depended on him to protect Travis, just in case Parrish was still around. In addition to his knives, he was carrying one of Stinger’s shotguns now. Like Frank, Jack and Travis were also supplied with flares and radios.
“Don’t panic if you hear gunfire,” Frank said. “I may have to fire a couple of shots to clear the buzzards off.”
The gunshots worked for a little while — although they didn’t seem to bother the insects much. He knew the vultures would be back — probably before he walked away. He couldn’t think about that now.
He told himself, as he looked through the field of remains, to treat this as if it were a job. He told himself that she wasn’t here in this mess, that he wasn’t looking at anything that had been part of her.
He managed fairly well by telling himself that, until he found Merrick and Manton. J.C. must have recognized their clothing — there was nothing recognizable left in their faces. Frank looked in their pockets. He had known both of them, and while neither were his close friends, he had worked with them at various times. He made himself move away from them, but he could feel himself losing a battle not to become overwhelmed by what he was seeing.
He checked in with Jack and Travis, just to hear living voices, just to reassure himself that there was more to the world than fog and stench, soft tissue and bone, buzzards and insects.
A light breeze had picked up. He could see Jack and Travis now, which was more than he had been able to do a little while ago. The fog might lift enough to bring Stinger down here after all.
He figured the dogs would give them plenty of warning if Parrish was still around. He doubted Parrish was anywhere near them now; Parrish would have made his escape as soon as possible. And Irene was probably his hostage. Or worse.
He wanted very much to be wrong about that; it was another possibility he didn’t want to think about. But that thought returned to him again and again.
Before they left the ridge, he had asked Stinger to go ahead and call the ranger station — there was too much at stake here to try to go it alone. They had to get a search started for Parrish. If Frank was going to be in trouble for coming up here, so be it. That was less than nothing, if Parrish had her. Or if she were here among these bits of flesh and bone.
Be logical, he warned himself. Think of it as if it were any other crime scene. Do your job.
And so he asked himself the standard questions.
What had happened here? A group had been gathered around the grave, working on it. There had been some sort of explosion.
How did that happen? Parrish didn’t have any weapons on him coming in — of that, he was certain. He’d have to let a bomb expert come up with the particulars, but most likely, the device was already in place, triggered by something the excavation team had done — a booby trap. Parrish must have planned that he would lead them to this particular grave all along. He had led them to Julia Sayre, though. So he gave them one, then enticed them with a second.
Treat it as you would any other crime scene, Frank told himself, wishing he had the time and resources that would have been available if that were true. Dental records and a forensic odontologist, for starters. He’d have to make do with rough guesswork for now. And so he asked himself the question he most wanted to answer:
Who are the victims?
The people closest to the impact would have been working on or near the grave. The two anthropologists, Sheridan and Niles.
From fragments of camera equipment, he had already decided that the photographer, Bill Burden, had been one of the victims. God, what a waste! Flash was a great guy, good man to have working on your team. So young . . . but he couldn’t think about that now.
Thompson? Very likely. Frank knew him, knew Thompson wouldn’t be far away from the dig.
Duke and Earl? He couldn’t be sure. Merrick and Manton were killed by gunshots and not the explosion, which suggested they had been guarding Parrish. Frank had already theorized that Parrish had taken a weapon from one of them in the moments of confusion that must have followed the explosion. Everyone was tired, they had just been through the same routine in the other meadow. Who expected a grave to be rigged with explosives?
Everyone was tired . . . Merrick and Manton were on duty, which meant Duke and Earl were off. They might have been asleep somewhere. Could they have escaped? If they did, they probably pursued Parrish. They would have seen it as their responsibility to catch him. They might be chasing him now. Maybe that was what had happened — maybe they were already on his trail.