“Possible,” answered Mike. “But you never know what’s going on underground. The stream being close to a cave or mine doesn’t necessarily mean it’s carrying material from there.”
“But they might very well have thought that was a plan,” said Frank.
“Well, I guess I’ve seen all I need to see,” said Mathews. “I’m going to leave it with you.”
“Can you find your way back?” asked Frank.
“There’s nothing wrong with my sense of direction,” said Mathews. He headed back the way they had come, retracing their steps.
“Send up a flare if you get lost,” said Frank.
“Up yours, Frank,” he said, before disappearing into the undergrowth. “Doesn’t anybody ever mow up here?” they heard him say.
Frank smiled at Diane. “Gil’s not much of a woodsman.” He looked around at the scene. “What can I do to help?”
“Neva and I are going to take photographs first. Then you can help Neva with some measurements. I’m going to collect blood samples. And we need to search the area to see if there’s anything else to be found. A murder weapon would be nice.” But Diane had a feeling that it was taken, to be used again on the Barres and the Watsons. “Neva, will you have a look at the pan and see if there are any prints on it?”
Neva nodded and they began the meticulous work of collecting evidence. After photographing the area, with close-ups of the blood and the pan, Diane took blood samples from the tree and the rocks and she looked for fibers that might have rubbed off from clothing onto the trees or underbrush. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Mike was a little restless. But Liam seemed perfectly calm. Different training, she supposed.
“Hey, Doc,” said Mike, “why don’t I walk the creek and look for anything that may have washed downstream?”
“I can go with him,” said Liam. “We each can take a side of the creek.”
Diane stood up from her stooped position and looked at them. “When this goes to court, we have to be above reproach in our collection of evidence,” she said.
“I’m a detective and I’ve given evidence in court before,” said Liam. “And Mike here. .” He turned to Mike. “What are you exactly?”
“Geologist,” said Mike.
“See,” said Liam. “Geologist, rocks, cave, mines, gold.” He gestured with his arm over the area. “It fits. I think you’re covered.”
“Okay. Watch where you put your feet. If you find anything, call one of us. Don’t pick it up,” she said. “Take those small orange flags out of the pack and mark anything of note.”
“Gotcha, Doc,” said Mike. “It’s not like I haven’t helped before.”
Diane watched for a moment as the two of them walked along the bank. She saw Liam cross the creek at a narrow point and proceed out of sight. She went back to collecting blood samples. She found a fiber stuck under a spot of dried blood on the tree. She lifted it and put it in an envelope. Neva was drawing the scene as she and Frank measured the distance between objects. All in all, they were going pretty fast.
Diane had taken her last sample and Neva was examining the pan and lifting prints when they heard shouts downstream from Mike and Liam.
Chapter 49
When Diane and the others found Mike and Liam, they were on the bank looking at an object under the water. Diane squatted for a closer look. It was a leather drawstring pouch about the size of a cantaloupe wedged between two large rocks of about the same size as the pouch. Water flowed around and over it. Diane could see from the contours of the bag that there was something in it.
Diane photographed it from several angles. Neva set about drawing it while Frank got Mike to help take measurements.
“See, we were quite helpful,” said Mike.
“Yes, you were. This is only about forty yards from the primary site. What took you so long to find it?” said Diane.
“Is she always this exacting to work for?” Liam asked Mike.
Neva grinned. Mike made a face back at her.
“I assure you, Liam, Mike is more demanding in his department than I am in the whole museum,” said Diane. “Now, what did you do, miss it the first time and find it on the return trip?”
“There was a glare on the water,” said Mike. “I missed it. And yes, we were coming back when we found it.”
“We both missed it the first time,” said Liam. “He’s right. With the glare, we couldn’t see under the flowing water.”
“Just wondering,” said Diane, stifling a smile.
When she and Neva finished recording the find, Diane rolled up her jeans and waded into the water to retrieve it. She had on latex gloves and the chill of the water came through immediately. It was colder than she expected and the phrase
Diane waded out of the water to the bank. Neva had spread out a large envelope she had cut open to make it even larger.
“I thought you’d want to see what was in it right away,” said Neva.
“You did, did you?” said Diane.
The four of them-Frank, Mike, Neva, and Liam-gathered around Diane as she opened the bag. Diane sniffed it first, just to make sure it wasn’t something unpleasant, like someone’s old lunch. Not much of a smell. She looked inside. It looked like rocks. She poured the contents out on the paper Neva had provided.
A glittering array of what appeared to be gold nuggets tumbled out onto the paper. The stones were mostly solid gold but some were clearly quartz with gold flecks.
“Well, I’ll be,” said Liam. “They did find gold-I suppose this is theirs.”
“No,” said Mike, “it’s not gold. It’s pyrite. Or, as some call it, fool’s gold.”
“It’s not gold?” said Neva.
Mike looked over at her. “And here I thought you’d spent a lot of time studying my reference collection in the museum,” he said.
Neva rolled her eyes. “Every chance I get,” she said.
“It’s pyrite-iron sulfide,” he said.
He took a slender stick and divided up the rocks.
“These shiny square pieces are pyrite in its isometric crystal habit.”
“What’s that in layman’s terms?” asked Liam.
Mike smiled at him. “Crystal pyrite. This piece here that’s amorphous in shape is what’s called massive pyrite.”
“What about this?” Liam pointed to the quartz that had the gold flecks.
“Pyrite in quartz,” said Mike. “Like gold, pyrite often occurs in combination with quartz.
“No gold?” said Liam.
“Gold is also found in association with pyrite,” said Mike, “but I don’t see any here in this cache.”
“I hope they weren’t killed over this,” said Frank.
Mike stood up and walked to the creek to an accumulation of sand that had been dropped by the flowing water where it slowed down in a curve. He scooped up a handful of the sand and came back. Over the grassy bank of the creek he picked through the wet sand in his palm.
“We’ve got a lot of quartz, feldspar, magnetite-that’s these black grains. When you’re panning for gold you look for magnetite. It and gold are heavy and they settle out together in streams, and the magnetite is more plentiful and easier to spot.”
