Dead mountain, p.17
Dead Mountain, page 17
And then it was over. Everyone shook hands with each other in silence, and they headed back to their vehicles, while some remained behind to finish filling in the graves.
Watts fell alongside of Nora and Skip as they walked back to the car.
“Sorry to hear about the Hawley incident,” said Watts, shaking his head. “He’s an embarrassment to the state.”
“You’re not kidding,” said Skip. “I got everything on video, but I guess he’s erased it by now.”
“Of course he has.”
Lightfeather joined them and they stood next to the car.
“What do you know about him?” Skip asked the sheriff.
Watts paused. “Well . . . We had a little dustup once. It’s a long story. All I can say is, I’m glad you got yourself a good lawyer.” He grinned and laid his hand on Lightfeather’s shoulder. “I’d love to see you put one over on old One-Bally.”
Lightfeather nodded, a twinkle appearing in his eye.
Skip leaned forward. “One-Bally?”
“We know him as One-Bally Hawley.”
“Why?”
Watts gave a low chuckle. “This isn’t the time or place to talk about it. For now, I’ll just say this much: Hawley’s a real son of a bitch, and you’d better be prepared.” He donned his hat, stepped into the sheriff’s department vehicle, then gave them a little wave as he pulled away.
31
CORRIE WALKED INTO her apartment and set her laptop and notebooks down on the worktable. What with the Gold interview and the drive there and back, it felt like a long day even though it was just half past four. High-profile or not, the Dead Mountain case was still full of humdrum work: checking off every lead, filling out paperwork, following up on useless tips. Bellamy, O’Hara, and the others had been out in the field all day, doing exactly that: currently, they’d moved on to interviewing people even tangentially connected with the case. Meanwhile, now that they’d spoken with Gold, she had assigned herself the problem of the knife.
Once she’d learned the initials “MHT” matched nobody in the Tolland family, she began looking farther afield. She’d hit upon the idea of calling the registrar at NMIT, to learn if there were any students with those initials around the time of the Manzano tragedy. She had managed to catch an administrator just before the registrar’s office closed, and it had taken a little standard-issue FBI pressure to loosen the bureaucracy, but in the end she’d been rewarded with a class list of students roughly contemporaneous with the fated nine. One name stood out: Matthew Hartley Tanner, who’d graduated in 2010 with a PhD in biochemistry. He now worked at a company outside Stanford, specializing in the vetting of new pharmaceutical applications for the FDA.
She put some water on to boil, then, checking her watch, turned on the TV. Amid the flood of streaming content, she’d accidentally found a local channel that, as if thumbing its nose at a dystopian present, stubbornly devoted afternoons to airing reruns of chestnuts like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lone Ranger, and Hogan’s Heroes. These brought back good memories to Corrie—afternoons when she got home from school, before her mom finished work, and she enjoyed their background murmur. Besides, she’d had a youthful crush on Clayton Moore—with his black mask and white-handled pistols—that hadn’t entirely gone away.
Corrie opened her laptop and updated her case log to reflect the work she’d done that day. Then she went over her notes and turned down the TV—just as the Lone Ranger was ordering Tonto, in a most un-woke manner, to ride into town—and made a call on her cell phone. She checked her watch: quarter to five, near the end of the workday—a good time to call.
“Tanner,” came the crisp voice on the other end of the phone.
“Is this Matthew Tanner?”
“This is Dr. Tanner. Who am I speaking with?”
“Dr. Tanner, my name is Agent Corinne Swanson. I’m with the FBI, and we’re investigating the recent developments in the Manzano case.”
There was a brief pause. “You mean the two bodies.”
“Yes.”
“Were they really two of the missing?”
“Yes. Beyond that, I’m afraid I can’t go into detail. The reason I’m calling is that a knife with the engraved initials ‘MHT’ was found in a location where some of the victims died. Since you attended New Mexico Institute of Technology around the time of the tragedy and those are your initials, we were wondering if you knew anything about this knife.”
Another pause. “What can you tell me about the knife? What did it look like?”
The guy sounded wary, but naturally so under the circumstances. “It’s a folding knife, with a locking blade roughly four inches long. The initials are engraved on a small silver plaque on the side, inset into a wooden handle.”
“Was it a classic Buck?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s mine, all right. My dad gave it to me when I became an Eagle Scout.”
“And you took it with you to grad school?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
“I thought I’d lost it. You’re saying you found it with the bodies?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
“Dr. Tanner, did you know any of the victims on that expedition?”
“I did. Two of them, Mike and Amanda, lived in my dorm. I mostly knew them through my roommate, who was in the engineering department with them. I was in the chem department.”
“I see. And did you loan either of them your knife?”
“No.”
“Did you loan anybody your knife?”
“No.” A hesitation. “I wouldn’t have loaned it out. It meant a lot to me.”
“Could one of the party have taken it without your knowledge?”
“I guess so—you know what it’s like living in a dorm; people were always borrowing CDs or stealing cookies.” Another hesitation. “That was a pretty traumatic time for all of us at the university.”
“You said your roommate knew some of them well. Who was that?”
“Alex. Alex DeGregorio. He was really torn up about it.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been interviewed in the case the first time around. Maybe he’d taken the knife and given it to one of the hikers.
“I’d like to send you a photo of the knife to get a positive ID. May I do that?”
“Sure. Of course.” He hesitated. “Is there any way I could get it back?”
Corrie assumed he wanted the knife for sentimental reasons. Made sense, under the circumstances. “Right now, it’s evidence. But I can look into returning it later on, once the case is closed.”
After another brief exchange, she thanked him and hung up. Now she had an owner to match the initials on the knife, but it hadn’t really gotten her anywhere. Somebody on the expedition had borrowed or stolen it.
I mostly knew them through my roommate. So the roommate—Alex DeGregorio—had known the victims well. Two agents had been assigned to work their way through a list of interviews at NMIT—academic advisors of the victims and close friends—but they didn’t know about Tanner or DeGregorio. As long as she was checking off leads, she might as well finish this one.
Glancing through the class lists she’d obtained from the registrar, Corrie located an Alexander DeGregorio who had been on campus around the same time as Tanner. His record was less complete than Tanner’s—perhaps he’d transferred somewhere else. A check of the FBI’s database furnished her with an address and phone number in Falmouth, Massachusetts. It appeared to be a business address, but it was the only one on file. She made the call.
“Prometheus Libre Associates.”
“May I speak with Alexander DeGregorio?”
When Corrie was finally transferred to DeGregorio’s office after going through an alarming number of assistants, his secretary informed her that DeGregorio was in the field at Nirwana, Indonesia, and temporarily out of reach.
Corrie left a message for him to call her back. It was now past six, and the reruns on her muted TV had given way to local news. As she reached for the power button, an info ticker crawled across the bottom of the screen, telling of a gangland-style execution—of someone with the odd name of Cheape—that had taken place in Socorro.
Socorro: that was Watts’s territory. She turned on the sound and learned that Cheape, a retired maintenance worker from Kirtland AFB, had been bound with duct tape in his own living room and shot through the back of the head. That would be a noteworthy case for Watts, she thought, which might be interesting to hear about at their next meeting. And there was Kirtland—again.
Her mind temporarily strayed to Watts and his curly hair and white teeth. She quickly pushed these out of her head and turned back to her computer. As she did a deeper search on DeGregorio, she found out the guy had done well after leaving grad school—built up and sold a bioengineering company for a couple of hundred million by age thirty-five, then started a foundation to improve the treatment of Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTDs, endemic to South Pacific countries like the Marshall Islands, Malaysia, Brunei, and Borneo, where he’d spent the first part of his life as a navy brat.
Nirwana, the secretary had said. Corrie googled this and discovered it was a beach community on the island of Sulawesi. The photos on her screen showed an unspoiled idyll of turquoise water, white sand, and lush palm trees.
If you’re going to start a foundation, might as well start one in paradise, she thought. Standing, she wondered if all FBI agents were this cynical—or if that was something else she had Medicine Creek to thank for.
32
THE PRESS CONFERENCE was held on the broad steps of the Albuquerque Field Office. A podium and stanchions had been hastily assembled, and the press had gathered in the parking lot directly in front. As Sharp strolled up toward the podium in the afternoon light, Corrie—following him at a slight distance—was shocked by the vast sea of cameras and boom microphones, the scores of eager faces that made up the gathered media.
Corrie had known the case was big, but looking at the call signs emblazoned on the video cameras—CNN, FOX, MSNBC, various network and cable channels—she realized not only that these people had come from all over the state, but that a lot of them represented national news. She’d seen press vans and gaggles of reporters around town—one had even parked outside her apartment a few mornings ago, forcing her to leave by a back exit—but this was a far cry from the impromptu media briefing she’d conducted eight days before.
Earlier, Sharp had, without preamble, let her know he’d be handling this one—and she’d felt relieved. Behind Sharp stood an impressive, blue-suited row of big shots. Garcia was in the middle, silent and stern, hands crossed in front, the other agents on the case, including Corrie, flanking him on either side.
Briskly, without a pause to test the mike or clear his throat, Sharp began. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, voice echoing lazily across the lot, “we’ve called you here to present our initial findings in the ongoing Dead Mountain case. Our purpose is to present such facts as we know, answer your questions to the best of our ability, quell any rumors, and in so doing uphold our duty to inform the public.”
He’d brought along no notes to refer to, so after a quick glance around he continued. In a calm, almost conversational tone, he reviewed the earlier history of the case, then proceeded to summarize the new discoveries so quickly, and so masterfully, that the group fell silent in order not to miss a single word. He sounded surprisingly frank and forthcoming—naming the two victims who’d been found—except he did not mention that Tolland killed Wright and then stabbed himself in the heart.
When he was done, he swept the audience with his heavy eyes. “We’ll now take a brief number of questions. Please be direct and to the point.”
He glanced over the audience. Everyone, it seemed, raised their hand at once. He pointed. “Ms. Fleming.”
Corrie, looking in the indicated direction, was astonished to see one of CNN’s major anchors.
“Where were these new bodies found in relation to the campsite?” the woman asked.
“Roughly three miles to the north. The specific location has been secured, and let me warn the public and press to please not attempt to access or approach it.”
“One member of the expedition is still missing?” another reporter asked.
“Yes—Rodney O’Connell.”
“Any idea where he might be?”
“Unfortunately, no. But we’re searching.”
“Were these victims undressed, like the others?”
“These had greater protection against the cold, but by no means sufficient for the conditions.”
The voices began to shout over each other. A skeletal woman with blonde hair made herself heard. “Some of the victims found earlier—many, in fact—were in a strange condition, burnt feet and hair, missing eyes and the like, that has never been satisfactorily explained. What was the cause of death in these newly found victims?”
“You described the condition of some of the bodies as not being ‘satisfactorily explained.’ That remains the situation today. There are certain deaths for which we still lack clarification. Once we have that evidence, we won’t hold it back.”
Sharp waited for the commotion to die down, then he selected another raised hand.
“When this tragedy first came to light,” asked a man beside a camera labeled Tripp NewsNational, “many theories were brought forward. Has the discovery of these two bodies pushed any of those theories to the front?”
“Not yet. As I said, we’re still analyzing the evidence.”
“A lot of time has passed since the tragedy,” said another national anchor. “There’s been a huge improvement in forensic technology in those intervening years. Can we assume the discovery of these two bodies caused a fresh examination of the original evidence?”
“We would be remiss if it had not.”
“And has any of that technology revealed new leads?”
“Yes, but it’s too soon to say what those are.”
“What’s going on with the ancient Indian bones that were also found in that cave?” yelled somebody else.
“The bones have been repatriated to Isleta Pueblo and buried, under the auspices of tribal leaders, on sacred ground. For more information, you’ll have to speak with the tribe itself.”
“What about the radiation?” came a new voice. “Were the new bodies contaminated like some of the others?”
“We’re looking into that,” Sharp said. Not a white lie, exactly, but—since the answer they’d already received was positive—an omission of detail.
“Where did the radiation come from?”
“Again, we’re actively pursuing that question.”
“As everyone knows, strange moving lights were seen in the mountains the night of the hikers’ deaths,” another voice called out. “Have you considered the possibility of some sort of alien attack or encounter?”
“Those aliens I’ve spoken to deny any involvement.”
A murmur of amusement rose up. Corrie marveled at how Sharp was playing this unruly crowd like a conductor taming an orchestra.
“What about the Boston Project?” came a shrill voice.
“The Boston Project?” repeated Sharp.
“The secret project launched in parallel with the Manhattan Project! The one involving biowarfare and genetic engineering.”
Corrie’s heart sank as she recognized Melody Ann, the leader of the Manzano Families group she’d seen gathered in protest outside Agent Gold’s house the day before.
“The so-called Boston Project,” said Sharp mildly, “was thoroughly and completely debunked years ago. We do not believe there ever was such a project.”
Melody Ann was surrounded by the same people as before, only this time there were more of them. Several were again holding signs that read, TRUTH. Corrie wondered how that mob had gained entry to a press conference—then realized it would be awfully difficult to turn away family members.
“I represent the Manzano Families,” Melody Ann continued, “and we believe there’s a cover-up in process here: one that’s been in the works since our children first went missing. How can you be so sure that the Boston Project isn’t real?”
“Thank you for the question,” said Sharp, addressing this woman as if she were a professional reporter. “I mentioned that we’re reexamining all aspects of this case, new and old. It’s important that we keep an open mind.” He paused to let this sink in. “So let me direct my response to all the various Dead Mountain theories that stray into the realms of the exotic or unusual.”
He looked around. “We have, in fact, considered every single one of these: aliens, a Yeti attack, Russian espionage gone awry, North Korea, ghost hyenas from the asteroid belt, and, of course, the so-called Boston Project you mention. We have found absolutely no evidence so far to support any of these. But let me repeat, so as to be very clear: until such time as we actually solve this case with solid, tangible, irrefutable evidence, we would be doing the victims a disservice if we did not keep our minds completely open.”
“You claim to have investigated, but we don’t believe it!” cried Melody Ann. “This whole thing is a smokescreen, a misdirection. You!” she said, pointing at Corrie. “What are you hiding? What are all of you hiding?”
Corrie felt as if she’d been suddenly tossed a bundle of rattlesnakes, but Sharp didn’t miss a beat. He leaned into the mike, and the power of his amplified voice rang loud and clear, overpowering the strident woman. “You have my promise that we will make ourselves available again as soon as we know more. Thank you for coming, and good day.”
And with this he turned, nodding at Garcia and motioning for Corrie to precede him back into the field office. A fresh volley of questions rolled over their shoulders, along with a group of voices—Melody Ann’s included—chanting the names of the victims: “Henry Gardiner . . . Luke Hightower . . . Andrew Marchenko . . . Lynn Martinez . . .”
