Page 16 of Dead Mountain

BY ONE, NORA Kelly had finished putting the last screw into the pitched roof structure she and Stan had built over the Native American burials, with materials brought to them in a second FBI Tahoe. Now she was looking down at the two legs sticking out from underneath the rubble: one with a boot, one without. She remembered vividly fifteen years ago, when the Dead Mountain disaster had occurred. She was an assistant curator at the Institute—her first paying job out of graduate school. It had been a huge deal: the disappearance of the hikers, the search, the discovery of the tent and the first three frozen bodies—and then the bizarre developments in the months that followed as additional bodies were found, each circumstance seemingly stranger than the last. Since then, dozens of theories had been advanced, some reasonable but most improbable or even preposterous. Russian spies, UFOs, a homicidal cult . . . the list went on and on, filling the vacuum left by the absence of real evidence. Until now.

She had moved the lights farther back in the cave and was contemplating the scene. The illumination revealed that the back of the cave went on another twenty feet or so before narrowing to a crack. There was a lot of rubble on the floor of the cave that could be hiding more corpses.

She would start with this one and take it from there. She knelt to take photographs and a few more measurements.

“I hate to say this,” Corrie said, “but both of you are going to have to put on monkey suits before going any further.”

It took some time to bring the protective suits and several body bags from the Tahoe. While Corrie and Agent Sharp stood well back by the cave opening, Nora and Morrison returned to the body sticking out from under the rubble.

“Let’s shift some of these rocks,” Nora said.

They got to work. Morrison was stronger than he looked, and as he began picking up rocks and placing them to one side, the rest of the body was gradually revealed. It was desiccated, nearly free of decay, and its clothing looked rummage-sale fresh, save for some chewing and nest-building by mice. The altitude and dry atmosphere were almost ideal conditions for preserving a body.

“Interesting,” said Sharp, looking on from the mouth of the cave. “This victim appears to be more fully clothed than the ones found originally.”

He was right: Nora noted the body was wearing a pair of snow pants, a down vest but no jacket, a woolen hat, no gloves. It lay on its stomach, arms tucked underneath, legs splayed, head turned to one side. It was a grim sight, the desiccation having drawn the lips back from the teeth and left the eye sockets empty, giving the corpse a grinning, Hallowe’en-like aspect. A faint smell of decay arose.

After about forty minutes the body was fully uncovered. Nora turned to Stan. “Could you please bring over a body bag?”

Stan quickly returned with the body bag, unzipped and open, which he and Nora laid out next to the corpse. Then she turned toward the mouth of the cave. “We’re going to need four pairs of hands.”

Nora lined Corrie and Agent Sharp up on either side of the corpse, showing them where to grasp. “On the count of three, we lift, rotate the body face up, and lay it down in the body bag. Gently.”

Corrie slipped her hands under the body’s hip and thigh, while Sharp took the shoulder and head.

“One, two, three, lift. Turn. Now: lower.”

The body was surprisingly light, and the operation went perfectly—but it was followed immediately by a shocked silence. The body’s two mummified hands were clutching a knife, buried to the hilt in its breast.

“What the hell?” Stan Morrison blurted out, stepping back in involuntary horror. “The guy stabbed himself to death!”

10

CORRIE STARED AT the body. The face was frozen in a rictus of pain and suffering, its skin drawn so tight it had cracked in several places, the facial bones coming through. The eyes were dark hollows. It was hard to tell what he might have looked like in life, but her experience with forensic facial reconstruction helped her form a mental picture: a narrow, handsome face, longish hair, very white teeth. Tall, over six feet.

“Do you know which victim this is?” she asked Sharp.

“I’m fairly confident it’s Paul Tolland. He was, ah, six foot two, brown hair.” A pause. “I’m sure it’s him, in fact.”

“Any idea why he might have stabbed himself like that? It’s a hell of a way to commit suicide.”

“Why is everyone assuming it’s suicide?” Sharp asked.

Corrie thought about that. “I guess someone else could have stabbed him in the chest, and he died trying to pull the knife out.”

“That scenario is just as likely.”

Corrie nodded. “Nora, with your okay, let’s get this body out of the cave and into the back of the Tahoe before we proceed further. As I mentioned, we’ll need to get the ERT back here, but in the meantime Dr. Kelly should probably look for more bodies.”

Sharp nodded.

Corrie zipped up the body bag. Sharp took one handle and she took the other, then they lifted it. The corpse crackled as they carried the body bag to the mouth of the cave, then lowered it gently. After reaching the bottom of the ladder—and the astonished deputies—they carried it back up to the Tahoe and placed it in the rear. By the time they returned to the cave, they found Nora and Stan Morrison in the back waiting for them.

“There’s another body,” Nora said. “Also recent.”

Corrie nodded. “Could you please excavate it? I want to make sure we’ve thoroughly searched this cave for bodies before we leave.”

“It’s over here,” said Nora.

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