Page 19 of Dead Mountain

“We’ll need to call in OMI.”

Sharp nodded. “Very good. Please carry on.”

He stood back while Corrie resumed her walk-around, once again describing what she observed. She was acutely aware of Sharp’s presence, and his evident interest made her nervous. The Dead Mountain case would of course be revived, and she wondered who would be put in charge. Certainly not her, an agent still on supervised probation. Maybe not even Sharp: there might well be other agents in the field office with seniority, or relevant experience from the original case. Reflecting on the pressure and exposure that would come with the assignment, she felt only relief.

She completed the second round of observations, then went to the supply cabinet and removed a pair of cloth-cutting shears. Sharp remained silent as she cut off the clothing, one piece at a time in methodical fashion, using tongs to remove each piece and lay it on an evidence table, where she tagged them and slid them into envelopes, sealing and labeling each. The process was long, tiresome, and unpleasant. A smell rose more insistently from the corpses, faint yet vile. There was something, Corrie thought, about the smell of decaying human flesh that was infinitely worse than any rotting animal.

Slowly she undressed the bodies, exposing the skinny, shriveled limbs, the skin wrinkled and colored like an old apple, the genitals shrunken almost to nothing. A lot of blood had come from the wounds and, drying, had glued the clothing to the skin in areas. Corrie had to gently work the clothing away from the papery skin, trying not to pull up flesh along with the fabric. Five o’clock came and went. Finally, two and a half hours after she’d followed the gurneys into the lab, the cadavers had been fully inspected and were ready for X-rays.

She glanced up at the clock.

“Six thirty,” said Sharp. “I would say it’s quitting time—what do you think?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Good. We can leave the building together. That should be a bracing experience.”

“Bracing? What do you mean?”

Sharp just raised an eyebrow and smiled.

12

THEY WALKED TOGETHER through the deserted corridors of the building, most of the staff having already left for the evening. As they went through the lobby toward the smoked front doors, Corrie could hear a muffled sound, which grew louder as they approached, and through the doors she could see what looked like reporters with cameras and mikes.

“What’s this?” Corrie said, halting.

“The media,” said Sharp.

“How the hell did they get the story so fast?”

“It’s their job. Police band radio, informants, pals in various nooks and crannies of law enforcement.”

“Let’s go out the rear entrance.”

Sharp turned agreeably and began following her back through the lobby. After a dozen steps, he said, “Are you sure?”

She stopped. “What do you mean? We don’t want to talk to them.”

“We don’t?”

She stared at Sharp. This was new. In her limited experience, the FBI hated to talk to the press and usually avoided them at all costs. Morwood certainly had drilled that into her. “Sir, are you suggesting we go out and engage the press?”

“What I’m suggesting is you weigh the pros and cons before making a knee-jerk decision. The media are not our enemies, and they serve an important role in our society . . . although, lest I sound like a PR flack, they can admittedly be a huge pain in the ass. We always have the opportunity for misdirection or even silence—where appropriate. But this is a high-profile case, with intense public interest. Might it not be worth showing our faces, saying a few words, and establishing that we’re in charge and moving forward with all possible dispatch?”

Corrie considered this. The last thing she wanted was to run interference through a media scrimmage. What if she made a mistake, said something stupid, or stumbled over her words and looked like an idiot?

“We don’t have anything yet to give them,” she said, a little feebly.

“Perhaps not. But I’m not sure that’s the impression we want to give the public at large. This case is still coming together . . . and you have an opportunity here.” Sharp gave her a thin smile. “So what’s it going to be, the hard-charging Eliot Ness or the secretive J. Edgar? I’ll leave it up to you to decide—exit here or sneak out the back.”

Sneak out the back. Corrie could sense he wanted her to deal with the press—perhaps to “toughen up her calluses,” as a guitar-playing friend at the Academy liked to say. Sharp was proving as enigmatic as the Buddha. She found herself wishing for Morwood’s straightforward guidance.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said, striding forward, pushing the crash bar, and opening the door. As they emerged into the portico, the crowd surged forward, boom mikes swinging toward her, video lights switching on, accompanied by the shouting of questions. Corrie was temporarily stunned by the activity, but took a deep breath and kept in mind that Sharp was beside her. They made eye contact and he gave her an amused smile, as if to say, You’ve got this.

She looked back at the crowd. On second glance, it didn’t seem so big after all, or so overwhelming. She held up her hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” she said. “If you could please quiet down, I’ll make a statement.”

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