Fatalis

Chapter Twelve

Grand called to deputies Scott and Bright, who called up to Sheriff Gearhart. The sheriff and Victor Singer came down one of the steep walls near the sinkhole. Hannah shouted for Walter Jones to hurry over. The Wall was in his Jeep sending photos to the paper. He was closer than the sheriff, and though he had some trouble getting down the side of the ravine, he made it before Gearhart did. He looked where Hannah was pointing and began snapping digital photographs as he approached. He and Hannah had both been in situations where Gearhart declared a place a crime scene and threw them out before they had a chance to get pictures. Occasionally the sheriff did it to protect the integrity of a site; more often than not, Hannah suspected, it was to minimize the space in which she could give bad news. "Photos rock," as the Wall was fond of saying.

Grand crouched on a flat rock beside the small, silty opening. Hannah stood behind him.

The hole was approximately two-and-one-half feet across. Snagged on a rock on the south side of the opening was a black backpack. It was held mere by one of the shoulder straps. Hanging from the backpack were long tattered ribbons that looked like they came from an orange poncho. The frayed pieces fluttered like seaweed as the silty water washed by.

"I'm guessing this opening wasn't here the last time you looked," Hannah said.

Grand leaned looked over the edge. "It sure wasn't."

"Obviously, our sheriff hasn't noticed that the creek bed is a little dry up ahead," Hannah said.

"It's not something he might have noticed," Grand pointed out. "The flow changes seasonally. I might not have noticed myself if I hadn't seen water pouring in when I was down there."

The deputies arrived then. The brawny Deputy Bright ordered Hannah and Grand to step back.

"Hey, we're the ones who found this," Hannah said. She remained where she was as Grand stepped back.

"We'd have gotten here in a few minutes," Scott said. "Please just do as the deputy asked."

Hannah reluctantly took a small step away as Deputy Bright got on his hands and knees in the water. The officer slipped his flashlight from its belt loop and carefully examined the backpack and the sinkhole without touching them. Deputy Scott crouched beside him.

A moment later Gearhatt reached the sinkhole. He was followed by Victor Singer.

"Now how the hell did this get way over here?" Singer asked.

"Maybe one of the men slipped in the dark and went off the road," Scott suggested.

"If either of the engineers went off the road, they didn't slip down this rabbit hole," said Deputy Bright.

"How can you tell?" Singer asked.

"There are large rocks in there," Bright replied. "A guy falling through would have plugged the thing up."

"Can you see the bottom?" Gearhart asked, pointing east.

"No, sir," said Bright. "It slopes off to the west."

"Scott, check the creek bed in the other direction," Gearhart said. "See if one of the men might have wandered off."

"Yes, sir." Scott said.

The deputy set off. Hannah told the Wall to go with him but to keep an eye on his watch. They had less than forty-five minutes to file the story and any additional photographs.

Gearhart regarded Grand. Hannah didn't like the look in his eyes. Something was coming.

"What made you think to look all the way over here?" Gearhart asked.

"When I saw the lake below I assumed the creek was feeding it with overflow," Grand said. "It made geographic sense."

"So you didn't know that the backpack would be here."

"No."

"You just expected to find another sinkhole," Gearhart said.

"That's right," Grand replied. "Sheriff, what are you implying?"

"I was wondering that myself," Hannah complained. "What do you think we were-"

"Professor, I'm not implying anything," Gearhart said, cutting Hannah off, "I'm trying to find two missing men. You were up here when they disappeared. Now if you have any other special knowledge of this incident, I need to know what that is so I can locate them."

"Sheriff, come have a look at this," Deputy Bright said.

Gearhart looked at Grand a moment longer before stepping over. When the sheriff's back was turned Hannah gave Grand's hand a reassuring squeeze. His large fingers closed around hers for a moment, then he stuck his hand in his jacket pocket. Gearhart was doing his usual trying-to-provoke-people thing, get them upset so they open up. The problem was, Gearhart either didn't know or didn't care when someone was truly trying to cooperate. She couldn't imagine what was going through Grand's mind, but the sadness in his eyes was awful.

They watched as the sheriff knelt in the water beside Bright. The deputy used his flashlight to point on the underside of the backpack.

"See those?" Bright asked.

Gearhart nodded. "Lift it up," he said.

Bright carefully pinched one of the straps between two fingers and raised the bag.

Singer stepped closer. "What is it?"

"Gashes," Bright said.

"From what?"

"I don't know," Bright said. "They could be from hitting the rocks."

Gearhart studied them for a moment, then rose. "Except for my deputies, I want everyone out of the ravine."

"What?" Hannah said.

"This area is now a suspected crime scene."

"The entire ravine?"

"Yes," Gearhart informed her.

"Why?" Hannah asked. "What is it? What kind of gashes are they?"

"I'm not going to speculate," he replied.

"You're just going to dictate," she complained.

Gearhart turned from her to talk to Bright.

Since discussion was futile and the party was over, Hannah bolted toward the sinkhole. She was able to get a quick look at the gashes before the sheriff moved between her and the backpack. They were about five or six inches long, several inches apart, and clean.

"Ms. Hughes," Gearhart snapped, "I want you back on the road and in your car and I want you to recall your photographer at once."

"Sheriff, are they knife marks?" Hannah demanded. "Was there a fight?"

Suddenly, one of the road crew workers called from the edge of the sinkhole. "Victor!"

Singer looked up. "What is it?"

"Come here!" the man cried. "We found something!"

Singer, Gearhart, Grand, and Hannah went back up to the road. At Gearhart's orders Bright remained behind with the backpack. Hannah used her cell phone to call the Wall and get him back up to the sinkhole.

The crew had found Stan Greene's backpack. Unlike the other backpack, it was intact. Since this section of the road had fallen in after the rest, Dr. Thorpe suggested that the engineer might have removed it and set it aside before going into the sinkhole. There was still no trace of Stan Greene.

But granite was finally showing through the wet dirt; according to Dr. Thorpe, they had reached the bottom of the sinkhole. Tired but determined, the crew began clawing away at the sides.

Shortly after, the two volunteers of the Special Ops team arrived in the sheriff office's new Hummer, which barely fit on the roadway. The Junior SOV, young baby-faced Albert Moy, was a former Navy SEAL who worked as a tennis pro at the Santa Barbara Country Club. The Senior SOV, craggy, middle-aged Frank Lyon, was a retired movie stunt actor. Grand and Gearhart went off to confer with them and Hannah went back to her Blazer. She had to concentrate on rewriting the article, changing the emphasis from collapsing roads and missing engineers to a story that carefully insinuated an attack on at least one of the men. Despite the sheriff's silence, he had given her that much by declaring it a crime scene.

Hannah also wanted to start working on the follow-up. By tomorrow morning everyone was going to have the basics: what happened, biographies of the two men, interviews with family members, and any late news. The Coastal Freeway had to have those too but also something different.

She'd find it.

For the moment, however, Hannah listened to her tape, plugged in a few quotes from Deputy Bright and Professor Grand, and let herself savor something she rarely had: a breaking story. She also enjoyed something else, one of the things that had attracted her to this profession in the first place.

The sense of being in the middle of a human drama. Of knowing that with the world and the flesh in disorder, the devil could not be far away.