White Fire

The anomaly here was a mark at the point of the blow. She examined the point of fracture. A bear could certainly shatter a skull with the strike of a paw, or crush it with its jaws and teeth. But this mark did not look like either teeth or claws. It was irregular, with multiple indents.

Under the loupe, her suspicions were confirmed. It had been made by a rough, heavy object — almost certainly a rock.

Working even more quickly now, she took a series of photographs of the skull fragments with her macro. This was proof enough. Or was it? She vacillated a moment, then on impulse took out a couple of ziplock bags and slipped the fragment of femur and one of the damaged skull fragments into them. That was proof.

Done. She snapped off the light. Now she had incontrovertible evidence that Emmett Bowdree had not been killed and eaten by a bear. Instead, he had been killed and eaten by a human. In fact, judging from the extensive nature of the injuries, there might have been two or three, maybe more, who participated in the killing. They had first disabled him with a blow to the head, crushed his skull, smashed his bones, and literally ripped him apart with their bare hands. Then they had stripped the meat from the bones with a crude knife or piece of metal. Finally, they had eaten him raw — attested by the tooth marks and the absence of bone scorching and other evidence of cooking.

Horrible. Unbelievable. She had discovered a hundred-and-fifty-year-old murder. Which begged the next question: Were the other ten miners killed in the same way, by humans?

She glanced at her watch: eleven minutes. She felt a sudden shiver of fear: time to get the hell out. Quickly she began packing up her stuff, preparing to exit the shed.

Suddenly she thought she heard a noise. She flicked off the LED and listened. Silence. Then she heard it again: the faintest crunching sound of snow outside the door.

Jesus, someone was coming. Paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding, she continued to listen. A definite crunch, crunch, crunch. And then — across the warehouse, in a window high up in the eaves — she saw a beam of light flash quickly across the glass. More silence. And then the muffled sound of talk and the hiss of a two-way radio.

There were people outside. With a radio.

Heights security? Cops?

She zipped up her backpack with infinite care. The coffin lid was still off. Should she slide it back on? She began to move it back into place, but it made such a loud scraping noise that she stopped. She had to get it back on, though, so in one hasty movement she shoved it back in place.

Outside she could hear more activity: crunching, whispers. There were several people outside and they were trying, not very successfully, to be quiet.

She slid the knapsack over her shoulder and moved away from the coffins. Was there an exit door in the rear? She couldn’t tell now — it was too dark — but she didn’t recall seeing one. What she needed to do was find a secure hiding place and wait this out.

Tiptoeing across the floor, she headed for the rear of the warehouse, where the giant pieces of an old ski lift had been stored — pylons, chairs, and wheels. Even as she moved across the floor she heard the door open, and she ran the last few yards. Now hushed voices could be heard in the shed. More radio noise.

Reaching the stacks of old equipment, she burrowed her way in, getting down on her hands and knees and crawling as far back as she could, twisting and turning among the giant pieces of metal.

A sudden snapping noise, and then the fluorescent tubes came popping and clinking on, bathing the warehouse in brilliant light. Corrie crawled faster, throwing herself behind a huge coil of steel cable and balling herself up, hugging her backpack to her chest, making herself as small as possible. She waited, hardly daring to breathe. Maybe they thought the padlock had been accidentally left open. Maybe they hadn’t noticed her car. Maybe they wouldn’t find her…

Footsteps crossed the cement floor. And then Corrie heard a burst of whispering. Now she could distinguish individual voices and catch snatches of phrases. With a thrill of absolute horror she heard her own name spoken — in the Texas drawl of Kermode: querulous, inciting.

She buried her head in her gloved hands, reeling from the nightmare. She could feel her heart almost bursting with anxiety and dismay. Why had she done this? Why?

She heard a voice speak, loud and clear: the harsh twang of Kermode. “Corrie Swanson?”

It echoed dreadfully in the cavernous room.

“Corrie Swanson, we know you’re in here. We know it. You’re in a world of trouble. If you come out and show yourself now, that would be the smart thing to do. If you force these policemen to have to find you, that won’t be smart. Do you understand?”

Corrie was choking with fear. More sounds: additional people were arriving. She couldn’t move.

“All right,” she heard the chief’s unhappy voice say. “You, Joe, start in the back. Fred, stay by the door. Sterling, you poke around those cats and snowmobiles.”

Still Corrie couldn’t move. The game was up. She should show herself. But some crazy, desperate hope kept her hidden.

Burying her head deeper into her gloves, like a child hiding under the covers, she waited. She heard the tap of footsteps, the scrape and clank of equipment being moved, the hiss and crackle of radios. A few minutes passed. And then, almost directly above her, she heard, loudly: “Here she is!” And then, aimed at her: “This is the police. Stand up slowly and keep your hands in sight.”

She simply could not move.

“Stand up slowly, hands in sight. Now.”

She managed to raise her head and saw a cop standing just a few feet away, service revolver drawn and pointed. Two other cops were just arriving.

Corrie rose stiffly, her hands out. The cop came over, grasped her wrist, spun her around, pulled her arms behind her, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent,” she heard him say, as if from a great distance. “Anything you say may be used against you in court…”

Corrie couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

“…You have the right to consult with an attorney, and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you are indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to you. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t speak.

“Do you understand? Please speak or nod your answer.”

Corrie managed to nod.

The cop said loudly: “I make note of the fact the prisoner has acknowledged understanding her rights.”

Holding her by the arm, the cop led her out of the stacks of equipment and into the open. She blinked in the bright light. Another cop had unzipped her backpack and was looking through it. He soon extracted the two ziplock bags containing the bones.

Chief Morris watched him, looking exceedingly unhappy. Standing beside him and surrounded by several security officers of The Heights was Mrs. Kermode, dressed in a slim, zebra-striped winter outfit trimmed in fur — with a look on her face of malice triumphant.

“Well, well,” she said, breathing steam like a dragon. “The girl studying law enforcement is actually a criminal. I had you pegged the moment I saw you. I knew you’d try something like this — and here you are, predictable as clockwork. Trespassing, vandalism, larceny, resisting arrest.” She reached out and took a ziplock bag from the cop and waved it in Corrie’s face. “And grave robbing.”

“That’s enough,” the chief said to Kermode. “Please give that evidence back to the officer and let’s go.” He took Corrie gently by the arm. “And you, young lady — I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

9

Five long days later, Corrie remained locked up in the Roaring Fork County Jail. Bail had been set at fifty thousand dollars, which she didn’t have — not even the five-thousand-dollar surety — and the local bail bondsman