Fatalis

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hannah loathed and detested the bullshit article she wrote about the truck crash. The reporter didn't usually react that strongly to her work, not only because the topics weren't particularly controversial but because the stories tended to have a resolution by the time she wrote about them. An election. A race. A fire. But the mystery of the missing engineers and the dead driver was still ongoing.

What bothered her most was that she felt that she was misleading the public. It was probably like writing for Pravda under the Communists, but it was her own damn newspaper. Journalistic integrity kept her from saying what she really thought, that Sheriff Gearhart and Andrea Danza were hiding something and that the situation at Painted Cave and on the beach might be related.

Hannah was also frustrated that she hadn't been able to reach Jim Grand. She had left a voice-mail message at the office and at his home. When he didn't call back and her deadline neared, she rang the anthropology department at the university and asked if he had a cell-phone number. She was told that he didn't have a mobile phone.

"The signals don't reach the caves he explores," said an assistant.

She had wanted to talk to him for that day's edition. The sheriff and his people were busy searching the hills. But Hannah wanted to know if any of the mountain caverns might reach from the Painted Cave sinkhole to the beach where the Bennett's Surf truck was found.

Having no cell phone wasn't going to help her do that. Hannah thought of asking Dr. Thorpe, but she didn't want Caltrans and Sheriff Gearhart to know what she was thinking. She had a feeling Gearhart's supply of crime-scene tape could cover most of the Santa Ynez Mountains. She also considered asking her friend Allen Daab, a traffic reporter for Los Angeles 's number-one radio station, to take his chopper on a pass over the mountains and try to spot Jim Grand's SUV. But even if Daab agreed to do it, Hannah wouldn't have had time to drive up there and search the caves for the scientist.

All of which left her in a very pissy mood. Even the sun finally coming through the big cathedral window of her brick-walled office didn't cheer her. It warmed the room, lit up the wall-framed photographs of her family, gleamed off the plaques she'd won for college journalism and community service and editorial contributions she'd made to local business leagues. Even the plants on the shelves seemed happier. But not her.

She sat at her desk and glared at her computer monitor and reread the article she had written on the Caltrans engineers. It wasn't so much a story as an update: how many people were involved in the search and how it had expanded. The families had refused to talk to her and Caltrans had nothing to add to their upbeat bullshit statement that they were still hoping for a successful resolution to the situation. She reread the article she had written about the fish truck accident. It told where the crash had occurred and what kind of truck was involved, but not who was driving, why the accident might have happened, and where the goddamned body was. What kind of newspaper was she running if she couldn't get basic information like that? A shitty one, obviously.

The missing body thing annoyed her most of all. Not just the mystery but because Hannah couldn't even say the body was missing. Never mind a lawsuit from the driver's family for pain and suffering if she was wrong. She didn't like being wrong, especially not in print.

Shortly before filing the story she decided to give Grand's office one more try. To her surprise, he picked up.

"Professor!" she said.

"Yes?"

"This is Hannah Hughes."

"Ms. Hughes, hello," Grand said. "I was just listening to your third message-"

"Yes, I'm sorry about all those," she said, "but I really need to talk to you. Actually, I needed to talk to you about an hour ago, but now will do if you have a minute."

"All right," he said. "Unfortunately, I only have about one minute."

"I'll talk fast," she said. "Here's the thing, Professor. Did you hear about the truck crash this morning outside of Montecito?"

"No. I've been in a cave all morning. What happened?"

"A fish truck went off the road and I think the driver's missing. No one's being allowed near the truck, so I can't say for sure. But if it's true, and if it's connected to the disappearance of the engineers, it could be a big story. What I need to know is this. Is it possible that the caves, tunnels, and sinkholes connect the Painted Cave region with the foothills near the beach in Montecito?"

"Sure, it's possible," Grand said. "In one way or another all the underground systems are connected, from Baja California to Alaska, both over the land and under the sea."

"Great. I just want to make sure-we're not talking metaphysics, here?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You know, like in the East. That all things are connected throughout the universe."

"No, we're not," Grand said. "Though I don't repudiate those beliefs."

"Of course not Do you know of any direct routes from the place where we were to the beach?"

"Not offhand," Grand replied. "I'd have to look up some of the geologic charts-"

"Could you?" Hannah said.

"You mean now?"

"Please."

"Ms. Hughes, I've got work to finish up and then a class to teach."

"Hannah. And I'll call you Jim. Look, I know this is an imposition, but it's very important."

"It also may prove irrelevant," Grand said.

"Why?"

"Because of the rainfall," Grand told her.

"I don't understand."

"Some of the old, charted tunnels may have collapsed and some new ones may have opened up," Grand told her, "like the one I was exploring this morning, which lead to a series of tunnels and the subterranean cavern where I found the engineer's flashlight-"

"You found that?"

"Yes."

"Gearhart, you lying SOB," she said. "He said he found it."

"He can have it," Grand said. "The point is, the only way to be sure of any connections would be to find a cave, sinkhole, or fissure near the beach and work your way backward, to the northeast."

"Couldn't you go the other way?"

"Not if you don't want Gearhart to know."

"Oh, right," she said. "Good point."

Shit, Hannah thought. A hive of "he's," a journalist's nightmare. The maybes, could he's, might he's. Though Hannah was taking notes, she knew she wasn't going to get much of this in today's already-late paper. She wouldn't be able to prove most of it in time.

Okay, she told herself, she was semi-resigned to that. But if there were anything to her theory she was going to get it into tomorrow's edition. And to do that, she was going to need help.

"Professor," Hannah said, "would you possibly, please, consider working for us?"

"What?"

"As a paid, independent consultant," she said. "Accompany me to the foothills and look around. Help me see if there's an opening that could connect to the Painted Cave sinkhole, and if so whether it looks like someone or something has been using it."

"And if the answer is yes?"

"Then we'll call in Sheriff Gearhart," she said. "Not to show him up, I swear," she added quickly. "I just want to be in there getting dirty. He can't blow me off if I have some kind of evidence."

Grand thought for a second. "Ms. Hughes, ordinarily I'd be happy to. But I've got some important research to do right now."

"Professor-Jim, I understand but I'm begging you. This is breaking news and you're the only one who can help me get it right."

"I'm not the only one-"

"You're the only one I trust," she said. "And I don't want to go nosing around up there alone or with the Wall."

More silence.

Hannah had to fight to resist playing the don't-you-hate-Gearhart-too? card. She was afraid that bringing Grand's late wife into this, even obliquely, might shut him down rather than fire him up. Grand's hesitation was killing her, but Hannah pressed her lips together. She didn't know if even a gentle please at this point might push him the wrong way.

What the hell, she decided. "Please?" she said softly. "I need this."

Grand was silent for a second longer. "You're obviously not going to make today's edition," he said.

"Correct."

"Then I'll tell you what," Grand said. "I've got to run some tests. I should be done with those in two or three hours. Can we meet somewhere around four o'clock?"

"Four would be terrific," Hannah said. "How about I swing by the school and pick you up."

"All right," Grand said. "I'll be at my office in the Humanities and Social Sciences Building. If you miss me there I'll be in the physical sciences lab. That's off Mesa Road, parking lot eleven-"

"I'll find it," Hannah said. "Got an interesting project working?"

"I found something in one of the caves," Grand told her. "I want to run the basic DNA tests, try to figure out what they're from and how they got there."

"Anything newsworthy?"

"Not for the Freeway," Grand said. "Just some hairs, probably from an animal-"

Hannah felt as though she'd raced over a speed bump. "You found what, where?"

"Excuse me?"

"You found animal hair in one of the caves?"

"I think that's what they are, yes."

She was still feeling the jolt. It could be nothing. She didn't want to get too excited. She also didn't want to scare Grand off. She forced herself to calm down. "Professor, you said your classes are over at four?"

"Right."

"That'll give me enough time to finish up. I'll see you then."

"I don't understand-"

"I'll explain when I see you," Hannah promised.

The young woman hung up. It took her a few moments for what she'd heard to settle in.

It could be a coincidence: fur in the truck on the beach and fur in a cave in the mountains. One could have come from a dog, another from a bobcat or bear. But if it weren't a coincidence, it could be the biggest local story ever. Her mind raced from rabid animals to a mad killer in a fur coat. It was possible. That was the wonderful thing about journalism. Though nothing could be reported until it was proved, nothing could be discounted until it was disproved.

Hannah added some of the information Grand had given her. She wrote that the sinkhole the two engineers had been investigating could lead anywhere, even to the shoreline, and that-to hell with caution and to hell with Gearhart-a lead was being investigated that could link the men's disappearance to the crash of the fish truck.

Hannah read the new material. She frowned. She didn't say or imply that the driver was missing. And what she wrote was true: She was investigating the link. Reluctantly, Hannah added a line to that effect. She didn't want to imply that the sheriff's office was following the lead. She reread the addition and was satisfied that she hadn't written anything inaccurate or misleading. If it turned out there was a connection between the two incidents, the Freeway would be the first news source to have reported it.

Hypercharged, Hannah spell-checked the stories, E-mailed the crash feature and the search-and-rescue update to the printer, then went to work on the rest of the newspaper, meeting with Karen, talking to her writers and art director, and reviewing manuscripts.

But her mind wasn't on the work. It was on caves and fur.

There was a trick one of her investigative methodology professors had taught her, to play word association when you had no other clues or leads. First impressions were a good guide.

Butcher knife wound and dead husband? The guy was a philanderer.

Single woman strangled from behind? She got in a last word for which her boyfriend had no other comeback.

Caves and fur? she thought.

Fred and Wilma Flintstone, she answered.

Hannah frowned. She hadn't done well in the course, either. She wasn't good at making blind jumps. She needed to examine things closely, follow them from point to point to point. That was one reason this was so frustrating. Gearhart was holding information that prevented her from doing that.

But Hannah was dogged in that pursuit and, unlike Gearhart, she had only one goal. Not self-aggrandizement, not a bigger audience, not wealth or fame. She had the only goal you could reach by going straight ahead.

The truth.