Page 25 of Unnatural Death

Like the Doomsday Bird, the drone has a lidar laser scanner and L-band GPS capabilities that can penetrate dense foliage. If someone or something dangerous is lurking about in daylight, Pepper will see it.

“But nothing yet. No lions, tigers or bears so far,” Lucy tells us as we shoulder rucksacks and pick up hard cases. “Most of all, no humans. Nobody who might have come out here to teach a lesson, to do a hit Russian style.” We set out with our gear, and the woods smell like fall, sunlight filtering through the bright leafy canopy.

Our boots rustle and crackle through a thick carpet of leaves still soggy from last night’s downpour. Pushing branches out of the way, we’re careful not to snap them back into each other’s faces. When we bump into trees, we’re sprinkled with rainwater, followed by swearing. As I look around, I can’t shake the feeling that something is looking back.

Marino leads the way, with Lucy following, and every other second I’m glancing behind me. I tell myself I’m being silly. All this talk about footprints and wood-knocking have fired up my imagination. I’m on edge as I scan light and shadow, and leaves ruffled, branches rocking in the breeze. A squirrel scampers up a tree. A rabbit hops through bushes, creatures stirring now that the invading helicopter is quiet.

Marino points out an indented mossy area square-shaped and no bigger than the diameter of a phone booth. It would be easy to miss in the fog or dark. Even if you noticed, you might not recognize the significance.

“That’s where the ground closed over an old mineshaft, and it’s not the first one I’ve come across,” he explains. “From what I understand they’re all over Buckingham Run, these deep holes in the ground. There’s no record of how many there are or where. Imagine if you drove your ATV over something like that? Or walked on it …?”

As he warns us to becareful where we step at all times, I’m reminded that Lucy’s not seen anything here from the ground. When she dropped off personnel and their gear, she didn’t shut down the helicopter until now. As I walk behind her, I’m aware of her laser attention probing, her hand close to the holstered .44 Magnum strapped to her thigh.

“… Like falling through a trapdoor or being buried alive,” Marino is saying, and I’m trying not to listen. “Except you might not die right away. Maybe not for days, and nobody would ever find you …”

His graphic descriptions are enough to send most people into a tizzy, and I’m doing my best to block him out. We make slow and painful progress trudging along, avoiding deadwood, boulders, poison oak and briars. The bags I’m carrying bump into my legs, making it harder to stay balanced, the straps digging into my shoulders, my muscles beginning to burn.

I better understand the problem with finding footwear impressions or animal tracks. We aren’t leaving them either, the forest floor of dead vegetation deep in places, and other areas are rocky. There’s very little exposed dirt or mud, and I can’t tell what might have been passing through.

“I’m detouring us around the humongous beehive and spiderweb I told you about,” Marino announces. “They’re over thataway.” He points. “Just follow me and you’ll be fine.”

“We’re right behind you,” I assure him.

“It’s like something you’d expect in Africa,” he says. “I’m talking about a spider as big as my palm with bright yellow legs. I don’t know what it was and didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking at it.”

But he did take a video, making sure I saw that too, and I push the images out of my head. As he continues the tour, pointing out other dangers, I get increasingly uncomfortable. I routinely deal with unpleasantries that the average person can’t fathom. But I’m not fond of slithery critters and creepy crawlers.

Of course, he’s going to point out the sun-splashed rocky area, the thick rotting stump where he encountered the snake. I notice pellet holes and a lot of splintered wood. The dark stains probably are blood.

“… It was coiled and looked as big as a damn fire hose,” Marino is saying as I envision the images he sent. “I didn’t see it until I was close enough that it could have bit me. Blew its head off with the shotgun before I realized what it was.”

“A case ofmis-snakenidentity.” Lucy ducks under low- hanging branches of a fir tree that smells like Christmas.

“It was damn scary to almost step on something like that, enough to give you a heart attack,” he says.

“Some people have bull snakes as pets,” she replies. “The one you shot may have been twenty-five or thirty years old judging by the size. And that’s too bad because they aren’t dangerous.”

“The hell they aren’t. They kill things by strangling them, and the one I’m talking about could have taken out a deer or even a person. Where there’s one, there’s others.” He glances back at me. “So, keep an eye out, Doc.”

“What did you do with it?” I explain that I’d prefer not happening upon the carcass unexpectedly.

“I tossed it off the beaten path. But like I said, while Tron and I were searching inside the mine you could hear stuff moving around in the dark. Something scraping along, knocking into loose rocks. God only knows what lives in there.”

* * *

We’ve reached the edge of the forest, the lake shining deep blue between trees. Emerging on the rocky shore, I’m startled by dozens of hundred-dollar bills floating in the water with dead leaves. The sight is bizarre, like something from a dream.

“When I was told the Mansons kept a lot of cash here, this wasn’t what I expected.” I indicate what’s gently drifting on the current.

“Hundred-dollar bills were scattered all over the place like a money piñata exploded,” Marino replies. “We’ve collected over forty grand so far, the only ones left in hard-to-reach places like up in the trees and in the lake. You and me will grab what we can from the water while we’re recovering the female victim.”

Her body is at least fifty feet out, her buttocks and torso showing above the surface. I can see the two hiking poles speared through her back, the handles sticking up, V-shaped like a peace sign. She’s been in the water long enough for marine life to do plenty of damage, I have no doubt. But the body in the mineshaft is my priority. It’s most at risk for being irretrievably lost.

From the shore I take in the destroyed campsite next to the collapsed wood-framed entrance of the gold mine. Clothing is strewn about, some of it caught in tree branches with paper money, and I find that peculiar. I understand Marino thinking the helicopter might have done it. As I’m looking around, I can’t come up with a different explanation.

Shattered electronic equipment, batteries and solar panels litter the churned-up dead leaves, and it’s as if something huge and heavy went on a rampage. The camouflage tent is flattened, and Secret Service investigators are collecting evidence. They’re taking photographs and video. One of them cuts something out of a poplar tree that has flaming yellow leaves, the cordless electric saw whining and grinding.

“C-notes were all over the place, along with credit cards, driver’s licenses,” Marino continues to explain. “Passports are ripped up, the pages torn out like a person did it. No tooth-marks I’ve seen, by the way.”

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