Dead Secret, page 4
part #3 of Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation Series
“A button,” said Neva, holding the bag and peering at the silver disk. “David will be happy with this. Did you know he’s constructing a button-recognition database?”
Mike raised his eyebrows. The expression on his face was obvious: He was wondering if maybe David had too much time on his hands.
“David lives for databases,” Diane said.
“And recognition algorithms,” added Neva.
“But buttons?” said Mike.
“Well, we have a button that needs recognition,” said Diane.
“I found a rope among the rocks by the wall over there.” Neva pointed to a pile of rubble not far from where Diane and Mike had climbed in and out of the opening. “It’s pretty rotten. Our guy here ate Moon Pies.” She held up two wrappers, then dropped them in an evidence bag.
“Early energy bars, I guess,” said Mike. “Jin ought to be here by now. I’ll go meet him.” Mike made his way across the rubble to the rope hanging from the chamber above, ready to climb up.
“Hi, guys!” The voice came from above them, and they all looked up to see Jin peering down from the hole in the ceiling.
Dammit, Diane thought as the image flashed through her head of him traipsing over rocks and across ledges, oblivious to the dangers. “Jin, you were supposed to stay outside,” she yelled up at him. “How did you get here?”
“Dick MacGregor brought me as far as that really narrow tunnel. You guys do this all the time?”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here? This is not a cave for a novice. You’ve never been in a cave.”
“Come on now, Boss. You don’t expect me to hear a story about you finding mummified remains in a cave and just stay outside the door. I got my hiking backpack, extra flashlights and batteries, a bota bag of water, and a hard hat. I’m good to go.”
Mike looked over at Diane. “I’ll go up and help him down.”
Mike climbed the rope and lowered Jin’s duffel bag, a crime scene kit, and a large backpack on a frame. Diane noticed a spray of dust come down with the equipment. She looked up at the ceiling but didn’t see any loose rocks. Must be dust and rocks left over from her fall, she thought. She heard Mike warn Jin of the instability of the rocks around the hole as Jin climbed down after his equipment.
Close to the bottom, Jin jumped off the rope and dusted off his hands. Diane and Neva gawked at him. He sported a construction hard hat and a shirt and jeans that were several sizes too big for his thin frame.
“What do you have on?” said Neva. Diane tried to suppress laughter.
Jin grinned and looked down at his pants, lifting them up by the pockets and turning them loose, letting the rolled-up cuffs fall around his running shoes.
“Well, see, when I got here, I was wearing shorts and a tee. Your guy Dick told me that I would get cold down here in the cave, and he loaned me some clothes he had in his car.”
“Make sure you don’t trip on the cuffs,” said Neva. “There’s a lot of rocks around here to fall over.”
“Jin,” said Diane. “Since you are here, you are to do everything we tell you. We’ll be carrying a lot of stuff getting out of here, and it won’t be easy.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Jin didn’t look the least contrite to Diane. He shined a flashlight around the cavern with a happy-to-be-here look on his face.
Mike climbed down the rope. More dust fell from the hole.
“Jin make it okay?” It was Dick MacGregor calling on the walkie-talkie. “He had a lot of stuff with him.”
“He’s here in fine shape,” Diane replied, using her radio. “The equipment looks pretty good too.”
“I told him I didn’t think he could drag all that stuff through that tunnel.”
“It’s all here,” said Diane. She glanced at the pile of stuff Jin brought with him and was surprised he managed to get it through the narrow tunnel.
“I gotta go wait for the deputy outside the cave,” said Dick. “He’s got some kind of paper for you to sign.”
“Thanks, Dick. I appreciate your help.”
“Sure. Always fun to go caving with you guys. You never know what we’ll run into. Went caving all my life and never had near the adventures I’ve had with you guys.”
“Glad we’ve been able to provide you with new experiences,” said Mike into his walkie-talkie, grinning at Diane. “You think the deputy has had time to get up there yet?”
“Probably waiting for me outside now. I’ll go see.”
Jin’s duffel bag carried several battery-powered lanterns that he had padded with bubble wrap. They positioned them around the chamber. The duffel also contained a body bag. Jin grabbed his crime scene kit and walked with them to the mummified remains.
“I wonder what happened. Fall through that hole, you think?” asked Jin.
“No,” said Mike. “Diane made that hole when she fell through the ceiling.”
Jin looked at the two of them, wide-eyed.
“I managed to hang on to the ledge until Mike rescued me,” said Diane.
“Jeez, Boss, you could have broken something.”
“Fortunately, I didn’t. Our guy may have been trying to descend a rope from that opening over there.” Diane pointed to the high opening in the cavern wall. “And the railroad spike the rope was anchored to came loose and sent him crashing to the cavern floor.”
“Bet he broke something,” said Jin.
“I’m sure he did,” said Diane. “Jin, you and Neva process his body. Neva, pack the evidence and take pictures. I’m going to move some of these rocks that I dislodged from that hole in the ceiling and look at the floor. Work as fast as you comfortably can.”
Jin and Neva busied themselves while Diane surveyed the rock pile. Mike had moved some of them from around the bottom of the rope to give them a place to stand. Diane didn’t know if there might be anything under the fallen rocks, but prudence dictated that she have a look.
“You want some help?” asked Mike.
“I hate to ask you to do this.”
“That’s all right. Helping with a crime scene makes my résumé look more interesting. No one has to know that all I did was move rocks.”
It was a bigger job than Diane had anticipated, but they cleared a good portion of the fallen rocks, stacking them to the side.
Diane stood tall and stretched her muscles, she looked up and scanned the ceiling. “I’m a little concerned about the ceiling,” she said.
“I saw the dust falling,” said Mike. “I believe it’s from the newly opened hole. I haven’t seen any larger rocks breaking away. Before everyone climbs back up, I’ll reposition the rope so that it doesn’t put pressure on the rim of the hole.”
She took a flashlight and examined the newly revealed floor. She found nothing.
“That was a lot of work with nothing to show for it,” she said.
“Maybe this will show something interesting,” said Jin. He stood next to the cave wall beneath the tunnel opening with a squirt bottle in one hand. “I’ll need to turn off all the lights in a minute.”
“No!” yelled Diane and Mike simultaneously.
Chapter 5
Neva looked up from the evidence bags and moved to stop Jin.
“Tell me you didn’t spray anything on the rocks,” said Mike.
Jin raised his eyebrows and stared at him for a moment, then at Diane. “We almost always check for blood. I didn’t think—”
“We don’t contaminate caves. The ecosystem here is fragile. I should have told you not to bring any chemicals,” said Diane.
Jin looked around at the barren landscape of rock and speleotherms. “I didn’t know. Who would have thought?”
“The fauna can be very small—microscopic,” said Mike.
“And we can’t leave anything toxic that other cavers might get into,” said Diane.
Jin wrinkled his face. “Didn’t think of that.” He glanced at Mike, who was staring at him with a disapproving frown. “I haven’t sprayed anything. We’re safe.”
Mike nodded, then gave him a crooked half smile. “Good. Then I don’t have to dangle you over a bottomless pit.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Jin. “I’m not wearing my Spide-Man underwear.” He grinned at Mike, then looked at Diane. “I saw some suspicious dark stains that might be blood,” said Jin. “I’ll take samples and photographs. We can map any pattern that way.”
“I have something here.” Neva had donned a pair of latex gloves from the crime kit and was examining what looked like a slip of paper. “I think it might be a photograph, but it’s been soaked through—with blood maybe.”
“Really?” said Jin. “Let me see.”
Diane and Jin walked over and peered at what appeared to be a dirty brown square piece of paper in Neva’s hand. Neva shined her flashlight through it.
“I think I see a shape,” said Neva. “Maybe a person.”
“Maybe,” agreed Diane. “We’ll clean it up at the lab. If we’re lucky, it will have a name on the back. Good find.”
Neva dropped the paper fragment into an evidence bag she retrieved from the crime kit and set it in the row of bags containing evidence that had been collected so far—more than Diane expected.
Jin returned to his soil samples. Diane slipped on a pair of gloves and helped Neva put the mummified remains of Caver Doe into the body bag. With his body fluids gone and only skin and bone remaining, he was light, but he was fixed in a sitting position, so they had to lay him on his side in the bag.
“Do you know how long he’s been here?” Mike peered into the body bag. “He looks a little like that Egyptian mummy you have at the museum—if it weren’t for the clothes.”
Diane shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps between thirty and a hundred years.” She zipped up the bag. “We’ll know when we analyze the evidence.”
Neva let out a breath. “He’s been sitting a long time waiting for someone to find him.” She gave the body bag a pat. “Poor fellow.”
Jin squatted beside a dented, discolored brass lamp setting with collected evidence. “He had a carbide lamp. Do they still make them?”
“Most definitely,” said Mike. “I have several.”
“Many cavers still use them,” Diane said.
“Really?” said Jin. “Interesting. Well, this one looks old.”
Neva stood, stretched, and began packing up the evidence in the crime scene kit. “I’ll bet we can get something from the Moon Pie wrappers. And heaven knows what’s in his backpack. Maybe he kept a journal while he was waiting.” She grinned. “He had to do something to pass the time.”
“Probably just sat and groaned,” said Mike, still staring at the closed body bag. “Depending on how he landed, he could have been in a lot of pain.”
While they discussed the last days of Caver Doe, Diane studied all the objects littering the cavern. They looked incongruous amid the columns of stalagmites and stalactites. “Now we have to haul this stuff out of here.”
Mike came over to her side. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “We can hoist the stuff up to the cavern above and divide it among us.” He lifted Jin’s huge backpack. “You were only going to be here a few hours; why did you bring such a big backpack? What do you have in it?”
“Flashlights, space blanket, bedroll, food, dishes, duct tape, first-aid kit, binoculars, emergency shelter …”
“Emergency shelter?”
“It’s the stuff I take on long hikes. I thought some of it might be useful in a cave.”
Mike laughed. “We’ll have to teach you how to put it in a smaller pack.”
“It was kind of hard dragging it through the tunnels,” admitted Jin.
Diane winced, trying not to think of the speleotherms he may have damaged with the huge metal frame on his pack.
Mike climbed up the rope to the chamber above while Diane and her crew packed up the lamps and evidence. Now the cavern was illuminated only by Diane’s and Neva’s headlamps and Jin’s flashlight.
Diane’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the loss of light. Everything in her peripheral vision was a dim shadow. It was like closing a door, leaving the cave as it should be—deep and dark.
At the sound of hammering from above, Jin looked up. “What’s he doing?”
“Probably putting in pulleys to make it easier to haul this stuff back up.”
Jin paused. “You mean he carries pulleys around in his backpack, but he scoffed at my emergency shelter?” He grinned, showing a row of even white teeth.
“We work on rope a lot, so we carry a lot of rope gear,” said Diane.
They had moved all their things near the rope. Diane glanced up just as Mike peered down from the hole.
“Stand back,” he yelled. “I’m dropping a rope.”
Diane tied the metal case of the crime scene kit to the end of the rope, and Mike quickly hauled it up. The duffel bag and the lamps were next, and then Jin’s backpack.
While Mike was hoisting the backpack, Diane made a rope harness for the body bag. She tied the harness to the hoist rope and Mike lifted it up through the hole. All that was left was Diane, Neva and Jin.
Jin looked up the long rope and over at Diane.
“There’s no disgrace in using the loops in the rope as hand- and footholds if you need them. That’s what they’re for,” said Diane.
Jin gave her a sideways look. “You say that as if you don’t have to use them when you climb.”
Diane smiled at him. “Here’s some chalk,” she said.
Jin dusted his hands, put his flashlight in his belt and started up. He did better than Diane expected. Mike grabbed his arm at the top of the climb and helped pull him over the ledge. Neva was next. She had a more difficult time. She was strong, but it took a special set of muscles to climb a rope, and she struggled to get to the top and over the ledge. When Neva was up, Diane chalked her own hands and climbed up the rope with only slight discomfort.
It was crowded in the small chamber with all four of them and their supplies. Now they had to get through the narrow passage dragging Caver Doe and all their paraphernalia.
“I called MacGregor and asked him to meet us on the other end of this passage to help carry some of this stuff,” said Mike. “He’ll get a kick out of helping carry the body.”
“Yes,” said Neva. “It’ll give him something to talk about—for months, maybe years.”
Diane decided that she would take the lead out of the tunnel and Mike would bring up the rear. She went through, pulling both her and Jin’s backpacks. The metal frame on Jin’s pack scraped the rock wall all the way through the tight tunnel. She emerged almost in MacGregor’s lap.
“Hi! Need help getting the stuff out?” Dick MacGregor was sitting outside the narrow tunnel eating an apple. He stuffed the unfinished snack in his backpack.
“Yes. We could use your help,” said Diane.
Neva’s headlamp was visible as she squirmed through the narrow passage, dragging the crime scene kit and her backpack behind her.
Diane tried to tune out the scraping sounds of the hard metal crime scene case.
“Is the deputy outside?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah. Me and him have been talking. He said the sheriff wasn’t going to like the coroner giving you the body. But, heck, what was he going to do with it anyway? I mean, I think the coroner was right—finders keepers. You going to put him on show with the other mummy at the museum?”
“We’re going to find out who he is. He may have relatives from around here. You ever heard stories about anyone getting lost in a cave?” asked Diane as she helped Neva out of the tunnel with her load.
MacGregor scratched his scruffy dark beard. “No … come to think of it, I never did. I’ll ask my cousin. It’s his family’s land. They might know.”
Jin came tumbling out, pulling Caver Doe in the body bag behind him. They were in a small room devoid of any formations. It had an irregular dome shape and walls a light color similar to the big tunnel where Diane had found the button. It was a cozy room, almost like a bubble between the narrow crack they just came through and the twisting passage they were about to enter.
They waited several minutes for Mike.
“What’s keeping him?” asked Jin.
“He’s getting the rope,” said Diane.
“Oh, yeah. Isn’t it heavy carrying around all that rope?”
“Can be, but it’s good to have it when you need it.”
Finally Mike came through, pulling Jin’s duffel bag and his backpack with his coils of rope tied to it.
“Why don’t MacGregor and Jin carry the body bag?” Mike said to Diane. “I can take the crime scene kit and Jin’s backpack. Neva can carry your pack, and you can carry the duffel bag.”
Diane nodded in agreement. She and Mike were the most experienced cavers, and he had given the heaviest loads to himself and her.
“Can’t believe there’s a dead body in this bag,” said MacGregor. “You don’t think it’s anybody we know, do you?” His voice had a sudden tone of concern in it.
Diane shook her head. “No, this guy’s been here a long time.”
It took them three times as long to get out of the cave as it had to get in, loaded down as they were. Several times they had to stop and negotiate through squeezes, taking off their load and pulling it behind them or pushing it in front of them.
A loaded caravan through a cave wasn’t as much fun as simple caving. Diane felt relieved when they first emerged into the outdoors, but she quickly wished she were back in the cave. It was hot, especially compared to the cool cave. With her long-sleeved caving attire, it wouldn’t take long to get uncomfortably hot. But there was the deputy to talk to first.
He sat on the bumper of his Lumpkin County patrol car with his arms folded in a manner that Diane had seen young children do when they were in full pout mode. Dressed in navy-blue pants and a short-sleeved shirt, the deputy looked to be in his early forties and had wavy blond hair and the beginnings of a potbelly.
“You know, I have other things to do than sit around here all day. Which one of you is Diane Fallon?” His gaze took in all of them, as if one of the males might have been named Diane.
