Hazelius stepped forward. “And I’m Gregory North Hazelius, director of the Isabella project.” He shook Greer’s hand. “The victim was a scientist on my team. I want to know what happened here, and I want to know now.”
“And you will. As soon as our investigation is complete.” Greer turned to Bia. “Site secure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now listen up: I’m going to ask everyone from the Isabella project to please return to their base. Dr. Hazelius, I’d like you to gather everyone at some central meeting place at . . .” He looked at the sky, then his watch. “Seven o’clock. I’ll be there to take everyone’s statement.”
“I’m sorry to say that won’t be possible,” said Hazelius. “We can’t spare everyone all at once. You’ll have to take our statements in two shifts.”
Greer pulled down his glasses and stared hard at Hazelius. “I will expect everyone in the same place at seven o’clock. Understood?” He spoke precisely, enunciating every word.
Hazelius returned the gaze, his face mild, unthreatening. “Mr. Greer, I’m in charge of a forty-billion-dollar machine inside this mountain, and we are in the middle of a critical scientific experiment. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anything to go wrong, especially if I had to tell DOE investigators that the machine had been left unattended —at your insistence. I have to keep three team members in the mountain tonight. They’ll be available for questioning tomorrow morning.”
A long pause, then Greer nodded curtly. “Fine.”
“We’ll be at the trading post by seven,” said Hazelius. “It’s the old log building—you can’t miss it.”
Ford headed back to the Jeep and climbed in, Kate following. He turned the key, and they pulled back onto the road.
“I can’t believe it,” said Kate, her voice shaking, her face pale. She fumbled in her pocket, tugged out a handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. “This is terrible,” she said. “I just . . . can’t believe it.”
As the Jeep hummed down the road, Ford had a final glimpse of the two coyotes, who had finished their meal and were hanging back, skulking out of range, hoping for a second helping.
For all its beauty, he thought, Red Mesa was a hard place.
AT SEVEN O’CLOCK SHARP, LIEUTENANT JOSEPH Bia followed Greer and Alvarez into the former Nakai Rock Trading Post. He remembered the place from his childhood, when old man Weindorfer was the trader. He felt a twinge of nostalgia. In his mind he could still see the old store—the flour bin, the piles of stovepipe for sale, the halters and lassos, the candy jars. In the back had been the stacks of rugs Weindorfer was taking in trade. The drought of 1954–55 killed half the sheep on the mesa, but not before they had peeled the land. That was when Peabody Coal was hauling out twenty thousand short tons a day. The Tribal Council, with money from the coal company, had paid off everyone who lived on the mesa and resettled them in HUD housing in Blue Gap, Pinon, and Rough Rock. His parents had been among those moved down below. It was the first time Bia had been back in fifty years. The place looked completely different, but he could still smell the old scent of woodsmoke, dust, and sheep’s wool.
The scientists had gathered, nine of them, tense and waiting. They looked like hell, and Bia had the feeling something else was wrong besides Volkonsky’s death. Something that had been wrong for a while. He wished Greer hadn’t drawn the case. Greer had been a good agent once, until what happened to all good agents happened to him: he’d been promoted to special agent in charge and then ruined by spending most of his time shifting paper from point A to point B.
“Good evening, folks,” said Greer, slipping off his dark glasses, with a warning look to Bia to do the same.
Bia left his on. He didn’t like people telling him what to do. He had always been like that—it ran in the family. Even his name, Bia, came about because his grandfather refused to give his last name when he was hauled off to boarding school. So they wrote down “BIA”—for Bureau of Indian Affairs. A lot of other Navajos had done the same, making Bia a common surname on the Rez. He was proud of that name. The Bias, even though they weren’t related, all had something in common—they didn’t like to be pushed around.
“We’ll get through this as quickly as possible,” Greer was saying. “One at a time in alphabetical order.”
“Have you made any progress?” Hazelius asked.
“Some,” said Greer.
“Was Dr. Volkonsky murdered?”
Bia waited for Greer’s answer. None came. They’d been dealing with the question from the get-go, but the forensics would have to be analyzed. There’d be a wait for the ME’s report. All being handled in Flagstaff. He doubted he’d see more than a summary. He’d been included only because some FBI bureaucrat needed a name to fill a blank space on some form—proof that the Tribal Police had been “liaised with,” to use the favored FBI term.
Bia told himself he had no interest in the case anyway. These were not his people.
“Melissa Corcoran?” said Greer.
An athletic blonde rose to her feet, looking more like a tennis pro than a scientist.
Bia followed them into the library, where Alvarez rearranged a table and some chairs and set up a digital recorder. Greer and Alvarez handled the questioning; Bia listened and took notes. The questioning went fast, one after the other. It didn’t take long for a consistent line to develop: They’d all been under pressure, things weren’t going well, Volkonsky was an excitable type and he’d been taking it especially badly, he’d begun drinking, and there was a suspicion of harder drugs. Corcoran said he’d banged on her door drunk one night, wanting to sleep with her. Innes, the team psychologist, talked about the isolation and said Volkonsky was depressed and in denial. Wardlaw, the SIO, said the Russian had been acting erratic and was careless with security.
All this had already been confirmed by a search of Volkonsky’s place: empty vodka bottles, traces of methylated amphetamine powder in a mortar and pestle, ashtrays overflowing with butts, stacks of porn DVDs, all in one trashed little house.
The stories were consistent and believable, with just enough contradictions to be unrehearsed. Working the Rez, Bia had seen a lot of suicides, and this looked pretty straightforward, aside from a few elements. It wasn’t easy to shoot yourself and roll your car into a ravine at the same time. On the other hand, if this had been a murder, the killer would have torched the car. Unless he was smart. Most killers weren’t.
Bia shook his head. He was thinking instead of listening. It was his worst habit.
By eight thirty, Greer was done. Hazelius saw them to the door, where Bia, who until now had said nothing, stopped. He removed his shades, tapped them on his thumbnail. “A question, Dr. Hazelius?”
“Yes?”
“You said Volkonsky and the rest of you are under a lot of stress. Why exactly is that?”
Hazelius answered calmly. “Because we’ve built a machine that cost forty billion dollars and we can’t get the goddamned thing to work.” He smiled. “Does that answer your question, Lieutenant?”
“Thank you. Oh—and another thing, if you don’t mind?”
“Lieutenant,” said Greer, “don’t you think we’ve covered enough ground here?”
Bia continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Will you hire a new person to take over Mr. Volkonsky’s responsibilities?”
A beat, and then, “No. Rae Chen and I will handle them.”
Bia slipped the shades back on and turned to go. There was something about this case he didn’t like, but he was damned if he could put his finger on it.
17
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. FORD eased open the back door of his casita and slipped into the shadows, a rucksack on his back. Stars jammed the sky. A chorus of coyote yips rose in the distance, then died. The moon was nearly full, and the high desert air was so clear that light silvered every detail of the landscape. It was a beautiful evening, thought Ford. Too bad he didn’t have time to appreciate it.
He scanned the little settlement. The other casitas were dark, except for the last one at the far end of the loop: Hazelius’s, where a yellow glow in the back bedroom diffused through the curtains.
Volkonsky’s casita lay a quarter mile the other way down the loop.
Ford darted across the moonlit yard and gained the shadows of the cottonwoods. He moved slowly, avoiding
