Page 38 of Dead Mountain

They worked in silence, Nora trying not to think about Skip. As soon as the second body bag was loaded, Tenorio shook her hand and Morrison’s, reiterated his promise of help, and drove off.

Nora turned to Morrison. “I’ll take you back to the Institute, and then I’m going to head down to Estancia to bail my brother out of jail.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Morrison.

“No need.”

“Look, I want to. You could use some support, just the same.”

Nora felt a rush of gratitude at this unexpected gesture. “Thank you, Stan.”

21

THE FILES AND photographs were spread across two long plastic tables in the cavernous evidence room of the Albuquerque FO. This, Corrie knew, was only the tip of the iceberg. There were at least forty more boxes that had been pulled and stacked along the wall beside the tables. She’d never seen a case that had generated even a tenth this much material.

“A bit overwhelming?” asked Agent Sharp, at her side.

“A bit, sir.”

“Do I need to introduce Agents Bellamy and O’Hara?” Sharp had pulled six other agents onto the case, including Bellamy and O’Hara, and Corrie was pretty sure that before it was over there would be more.

“We’ve met, thanks,” said Corrie, nodding at the two of them, who nodded back with murmured greetings. Bellamy and O’Hara were more senior to her, having graduated from the three-year mentoring process. She had seen them in passing, and they seemed like nice, eager-beaver agents—Bellamy a buzz-cut, blue-suited guy and O’Hara similar, only taller and thinner with slightly longer hair. Both were fit, blond, and Nordic looking—so similar they might almost be brothers.

“Since I’m a lot more familiar with the case than you all,” Sharp said, “I took the liberty of making a quick pass through this material and extracting the most relevant files.”

A murmur of thanks. Sharp walked alongside the first table and leaned over the head of it. “I’ve arranged the material in chronological order, and I’m going to go through it as a way of bringing you up to speed. Please feel free to interrupt me with any questions you might have.”

Everyone indicated their agreement.

“You all know the basic story: Nine hikers on a mountaineering trip through the Manzanos. They’re caught in a blizzard that hit peak intensity on October 31, 2008—Hallowe’en. When they fail to return on November 3, a search is organized. On November 6, their tent is discovered. Here are photographs of the site as it was found.”

A half dozen photos, laid out on the table, showed the tent from various angles. It was dark green, easily large enough for nine people, partially collapsed and covered in snow. The front zipper door was open, and the tent had been slashed open on the downhill side.

“Unfortunately, you can see the initial searchers trampled everywhere before any of these photographs were taken. But farther away, footprints were discovered.”

Another set of photographs showed footprints in the snow, distorted by wind and time, but several clearly showing bare feet with the imprint of toes. Others showed socks; some felt booties. One set of prints showed a lone hiking boot, and another, a pair of hiking boots.

“This one,” Corrie said, pointing, “must be Paul Tolland—the corpse in the cave wearing only one boot.”

“Very likely,” said Sharp. He tapped on a piece of paper. “Here’s a chart summarizing the footprints. We have two with both feet bare, two with socks, one with a bare foot and a valenki, two with valenkis on both feet, one with a valenki and a boot, and one with both boots.”

He paused. “It appears one of the hikers with both boots, the ninth victim, is the one that hasn’t yet been found. Rodney O’Connell.”

Corrie noted silently to herself that having two boots would have allowed O’Connell to travel farther.

“They all left the tent together and headed downhill, to the tree line.”

“Any Yeti footprints?” asked O’Hara, to a small chorus of chuckles.

“Believe it or not, they looked,” Sharp replied. “The tent was just below a ridgeline, on the eastern side in the wind shadow. The snow had accumulated to a great depth on that side—and that was the side they ran down. But the western side was scoured clean of snow by high winds. So there could have been prints on that side—we just don’t know. Anyone who came up that western slope would have had their footprints erased. Chuckle all you want, but we can’t just discard the theory: something or someone appeared in the door of the tent so terrifying that they cut their way out and ran. That bear, mountain lion, human, Yeti—” he gave a brief smile— “may have come up the bare slope.”

Sharp moved down the table to another set of photographs and documents. “In any case, the searchers followed the footprints to the tree line, about a mile away. There, they found the remains of a fire built underneath a cedar tree.” He pulled out a photograph showing the snowdrifted remains of the fire. “And around it were three bodies, frozen solid.”

He pulled out three more photographs and lined them up. Snow had been cleared from around each corpse, leaving them in the grotesquely contorted positions they had been found. They were horrible looking: eyes wide open, white with frost, hands clutching nothing, faces frozen in grimaces, wearing nothing but underwear.

“Andrew Marchenko . . . Henry Gardiner . . . Michael Mastrelano . . . ,” said Sharp. “The first three victims found.”

He picked up a nearby folder. “Here are the autopsy reports. I’ll just touch on the main points. The right side of Marchenko’s head was badly burned, his hands and torso covered with cuts and scrapes, and the side of his lower leg badly burned as well.”

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