Burleson felt his neck. “No pulse.”

They all stood around the body, shocked and staring.

“But how…” Maggie stuttered, “how did he get in there, all wet like that?”

Nora recovered her wits. “Excuse me, everyone, but I think we should leave everything just as we found it, go back to camp, and—” she swallowed— “phone this in.”

40

CORRIE SWANSON SAT bolt upright in bed as her cell phone blasted out the theme to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. She fumbled the phone off her bedside table.

“Yes?”

“It’s Nora Kelly. I’m calling because…”

Her voice on the satellite phone seemed very far away.

“What’s happened?”

“There’s…a murder.”

Her voice kept cutting in and out.

“Who? How?”

“Wiggett. They found him…crack of rock near…”

The sleep cleared swiftly from Corrie’s brain. “I’m not getting all of what you’re saying. But I’m getting enough. Don’t touch anything and keep everyone back. What’s this about a crack?”

“His body was jammed…hidden with rocks…”

“Any idea who did it?”

“No idea…Someone shadowing us…God knows…”

“Listen, get everyone into camp and keep them together. Nobody should go anywhere alone. Even for visits to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

Corrie looked at her watch. Almost 5 AM. Sunrise was still an hour away. Maybe the sheriff or local Forest Service would have access to a helicopter. “We’ll be up there as soon as we can.”

“Thank you.”

“In the meantime, tell everyone not to discuss anything or do anything. That’s going to be hard, I know, but I need everyone’s observations to be fresh and uncontaminated. Nobody is to go back to bed.”

The only response was a crackle of static.

Corrie hung up and dialed Morwood’s room.

* * *

The sheriff department’s helicopter was in Sacramento undergoing maintenance, and the two FBI choppers in the area were both occupied in a drug interdiction effort with the DEA. And so Corrie found herself once again on the back of a horse, riding into the mountains with the usual suspects—Sheriff Devlin, his deputy, and the two Forest Service LEOs. Morwood could not accompany them due to his lung condition, but he had made it clear to her she was in charge, and that she was responsible for evidence collection and keeping the bulls out of the china shop. And then he reminded her that she’d better get along with Devlin and the others.

She wondered how the hell she was supposed to balance all those things.

And just before she left, Morwood had concluded with an unwelcome observation. “Agent Swanson, this presumed murder in no way proves any connection with the Parkin case. So don’t let your speculations run amok. Just gather evidence, keep your thoughts to yourself…and do your best not to alienate the locals.”

Great.

On top of everything, a storm was approaching. It was something the local papers called a “pineapple express”: a river of moist air that flowed in from the Pacific and drove across the Sierras, unloading on the high country. It was the same kind of weather system that had trapped the Donner Party—only this time it was coming down as rain and sleet instead of snow.

Corrie made sure to ride in front, right behind the wrangler, while the good old boys rode at the end of the train, their loud talk and laughter drifting forward. Once again, they seemed to be having a grand time. At first it irritated her afresh. But then she thought: Why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves? There was nothing in the book that said law enforcement officers had to be grim and silent, and she imagined that being a sheriff in Truckee wasn’t the most exciting job in the world.

The county coroner, Dr. Anand, wasn’t part of the jolly little band, preferring to keep to himself. He was a small, aloof, studious-looking man with round glasses and a shiny bald head. She wasn’t sure he was all that good, given what she believed to be his error in classifying the Peel death as an accident. But she hoped for the best.

They arrived in camp around 1 PM. Everyone was standing around waiting for them, looking agitated. Corrie dismounted as Nora approached.

“Show me the body,” Corrie said as she untied the saddlebags containing her forensic evidence collection gear. “I want to secure the site immediately.” Before the others get here, she thought to herself. “The rest of you, please stay here.”

She sensed that Nora understood the situation. “Just up the creek a bit and through the forest.”

Corrie draped the bags over her shoulder and followed Nora upstream through a stand of fir trees, then cutting off-trail toward a line of cliffs. Wiggett’s body lay on its back in the grass next to a large cleft in the cliff face that rose before them.

“He was in there?” Corrie asked, pointing at the cleft.

“Yes. Wedged in vertically, soaking wet. Those rocks on the ground, there, had been stacked inside the crack to hide the body.”

“Who found him?”

“Maggie and Burleson. Maggie, ah, claimed she saw a light or something that guided her over.”

“Light? As in a flashlight?”

“No. She said it was the spirit of Samantha Carville.”

Corrie gave a snort of derision and then instantly regretted the display of disrespect. “Did Burleson see it, too?”

“He says he did see a light, but thought it was a reflection from their own headlamps.”

Corrie looked around. A reflection off what? There was nothing. Perhaps there was someone shadowing the group after all.

“What was the temperature of the body when you found it?”

“Cold.”

Pulling a roll of tape from her pack, Corrie tied it to a nearby tree and walked it around the area, unrolling it to enclose the crime scene. When she arrived back at the initial tree, she tied it off. As she was pulling booties, mask, and a hair net from her pack, Sheriff Devlin arrived, with the others in tow.

“Sheriff,” Corrie said, trying to sound welcoming. “Thanks for assembling your men so quickly. I was hoping…perhaps you and the rest could help me while I go over the crime scene.”

“Well, sure.” Devlin hiked up his duty belt with a grunt, eyes fixed on the body. “You see the marks on his neck?”

Corrie had seen the marks right away, but she said: “Oh. I’d missed those. Thanks for pointing them out—significant, wouldn’t you agree?”

The sheriff nodded, pleased.

“If you and the others could control the perimeter,” Corrie said, “keeping people out while I work—that would be greatly appreciated.”

“Sure thing.”

Corrie ducked under the tape and slowly approached the body, looking around carefully. A heavy dew lay on the grass, but unfortunately it had already been trampled by many feet during the discovery of the body. She snapped pictures of the ground and surroundings, finally focusing on the corpse.

Judging from an area of flattened grass beyond the trampled area, one thing was clear: Wiggett had been killed elsewhere and hauled over to the crack. The problem was, the grass disappeared into the woods—and drag marks didn’t show well under the trees.