Empire of Dust (25 page)

He turned and walked back toward the controls of the crane as Father William attached the cable to the metal ring in the slab. Then Father Alexander rammed the control lever so that the slab was jerked upward. When the other priests had positioned it over the hole, he lowered it, faster than he should have, so that it slammed down into position, the lead sheeting sealing any gaps between slab and entrance and cutting off the sound of laughter.

"That should do it," Father William said, grinning.

"It should." But as Father Alexander turned off the engine, he thought he heard, in the sudden silence of the canyon, an echo of an unholy laugh.

L
aika gave the coded knock, and Tony opened the door. She didn't speak until she was inside the room and the door was closed.

"Miriam Dominick checks out clean," she told him. "She seems to be exactly who she says she is. Graduated from college four years ago, lived with her mother and father in Tucson, while she worked at a bank for two years. Never married. Good credit risk, but she never owned anything big, like a car, to test it.

"For the past two years, she seems to have been bitten by wanderlust, traveling alone around the southwest, taking pictures. During that time, the lion's share of her credit card purchases have been for photography equipment. Her last two tax returns show 1099s from six different magazines—none of which I imagine you've ever heard of, because I hadn't—paying her for photos. Mostly a hundred dollars each or less. Lowball markets, no
Arizona Highways
. She's had no arrests, either."

"You didn't find out anything about her—" Tony paused. He wasn't sure of how to bring it up.

"What, relationships?"

"No," he said impatiently. "I don't care about that. I meant her . . . psychic tendencies, for want of a better term."

"Government agencies and banks don't generally record that, Tony." The knock sounded at the door, and Tony opened it for Joseph to enter.

Laika filled him in on Miriam. "I've found some things, too," he said. "It seems that the book code message is at least internally sound. It mentions the year 502 and an antipope. In that year, the pope was Pope Symmachus, the one and only—I guess the name just never caught on the way 'John' did. Anyway, during this time there was another priest named Laurentius who also claimed to be pope, so the followers of Symmachus called Laurentius the antipope. And the St. Peter's reference fits too, since Symmachus was the first pope to make St. Peter's Church his base of operations, and did some expansion to it."

"That proves it, then," said Tony.

Joseph shook his head. "All it proves is that whoever might have concocted this story did their homework with information that I could pull off the Internet in less than an hour."

"And speaking of time," Laika said, "we'd better get going. Yazzie's supposed to meet you two at ten, and it's almost that now. And I've got to get to Albuquerque."

Tony was trying to figure out if there was any reason he could give for wanting to bring Miriam along, when there was a knock on the door. "Yeah?" he said, thinking it was the maid, but ready for anything.

"It's me," came a rough voice. "Yazzie." When Tony opened the door, they saw that the policeman's usually pleasant demeanor was now grim. "I know we were supposed to meet in the lobby," he said, "but I thought you'd want to know as soon as possible. Another corpse was found this morning. Dehydrated to the point of mummification, apparently just like the other two."

"Good God," said Laika. "Where?"

"Up at Canyon de Chelly. Northwest of here, in Arizona. It was a Navajo guide. The first tour group of the morning found him. I was in the office when the report came in, and made arrangements right away that the body wasn't to be moved until we could examine the scene."

"Thanks," said Laika.

"No problem. I just wanted to keep you from robbing any more Indian graves." He didn't smile, and Tony wasn't sure if he was joking. "But there's something else you're going to be interested in, too. Seems there was another one of those drawings made during the night, just a few miles away from where the body was found. Big sonofabitch, not in sand this time, but down in a wash, a quarter mile long was the report."

Tony felt Laika and Joseph's gaze resting on him. "Do you know what it was of?" Laika asked, looking back at Yazzie.

"Another Indian design. An animal with a line from its mouth to its breast. I think they call it a heart line."

"Do you know," asked Tony, as offhandedly as he could, "when the drawing was first reported?"

"Not till after sunup," Yazzie said. They were all quiet for a moment. "Is something wrong? I mean, other than another drawing and another corpse?"

"No, Officer Yazzie," Laika said. "Not at all."

"Well, good. I asked the tribal police to try and keep tourists away from the drawing until you three had a chance to look at it."

"Thanks again," Laika said. "I think this means we'll be changing our plans today. I have to call the university and reschedule a meeting. Dr. Antonelli," she said, turning to Tony, "why don't you call your friend, Ms. Dominick, and see if she'd be able to come along with us today?" Joseph's face clouded, but he didn't speak, and Laika turned back to Yazzie. "She's sort of become our unofficial photographer. We should just be a few minutes, Officer."

Yazzie understood the dismissal, and retreated to the lobby. As soon as he closed the door, Joseph whirled on Laika. "Now
you
?
You're
buying into this psychic seer stuff?"

Laika ignored him, and looked at Tony. "What time did Miriam tell you about her dream?"

"At 1:30 in the morning. I looked at the clock."

"She's got a flawless track record so far, Joseph," Laika said. "And her background check was as clean as a nun's. We're supposed to investigate unexplained phenomena, and this woman's predictions or OBEs or whatever you want to call them are certainly inexplicable at this point. Now, I'm not willing to admit that they're paranormal, but I couldn't swear they aren't, at least until we get some more information, and the only way we can do that is by observing her."

"She's not a goddamn guinea pig," Tony said.

"I don't mean that. If there really is something to her predictions, she might be of help to us. And if not, she can certainly take as good photos of these scenes as any of us can."

"Okay, fine," said Joseph sulkingly. "You're the boss."

"Thank you for concurring, but I wasn't asking for your permission. Tony, call Miriam, and both of you meet me in the lobby in ten minutes."

A
three-year-old dark blue Buick sat near the rear of a deserted service station. The two men inside watched as Joshua Yazzie and Joseph climbed into Yazzie's white Fury, and Laika and Tony got into a cream-colored Camry. When both vehicles had pulled into the late morning traffic, the Buick followed.

Several blocks away, the Fury and the Camry stopped at a transient hotel, and Miriam Dominick came out and got into the Camry's backseat. The cars headed north on Route 666, and again the Buick followed, staying back just far enough so as not to lose the operatives.

One of the men in the Buick dialed a cell phone. "They're on their way north, to the drawing, and to investigate another body that's just been found . . . yes, dehydrated . . . yes, it is a coincidence. Still, things seem to be working out the way we'd planned it. Oh, and the girl is with them . . . yes, I thought you would find that interesting. . . ."

C
anyon de Chelly was a big, sprawling spider web of a canyon, and Yazzie and Tony parked their vehicles at the western mouth. Two tribal policemen, wearing cowboy hats and badges, were waiting for them next to a large truck with big wheels. When Yazzie introduced himself and the others, the officers informed them that the medical examiner had already been and gone, and that another officer had remained with the body.

The officers got in the cab while the others piled into the truck's open bed and sat on the metal benches along the sides. The truck pulled away, bouncing up and down on its big tires every time it hit a bump, which, in the absence of roads, was twice a second. "They call them shake-and-bakes," Yazzie told the ops. "The truck shakes you while the sun bakes you."

Even though the sun was shining brightly, Tony thought, it wasn't really that hot. The altitude made a big difference, and once you were a few hours north of Phoenix, the weather was pretty pleasant. He couldn't understand why everybody retired to hot, dry Tucson or Phoenix instead of the far more comfortable Flagstaff.

They traveled through the beds of dry washes, as well as through some that were still damp. "Where's the water come from?" Tony asked Yazzie.

"The sky. It does rain here, you know. These washes turn into streams, then dry up again after the rain stops. It rained up here a couple days ago."

They drove out of the wash onto sand as dry as any Tony had seen. The contrasts were amazing, he thought, and with the red sandstone walls rising on either side of them, he could easily see how Miriam had fallen in love with this country. She was looking around as though the canyon floor were a wonderland, and he smiled at her joy.

"I haven't been down here on the floor in years," she told him, hugging her backpack. "It would be so wonderful to actually live down here."

"For a vacation, anyway," said Yazzie. "But I had relatives who farmed down here during the summer, and it was rough going. Helluva way to make a living."

They passed a larger shake-and-bake coming out of the canyon, loaded with tourists. They looked a little worse for wear, and Tony wondered if it was the jerkiness of the ride, or if they had glimpsed the desiccated corpse.

In another ten minutes they saw a tribal policeman sitting on a log, and something dark brown and shriveled lying near him. The truck stopped and they got out. "Holy hell," Yazzie said, as they stepped over to the body.

"Yeah," said one of the officers. "His name was Gary Chee. His wallet was in his pocket, what was left of it."

"What do you mean, 'what was left of it?'" Laika asked.

"Take a look." The officer on the log reached into a leather pouch and took out an object in a plastic bag. It looked like a wallet, but was somewhat shrunken, the leather wrinkled. Laika opened the bag and involuntarily jerked back her head from the smell. Tony, a few feet away, could smell it easily. It smelled like something long dead.

"There's another one," the officer said, taking out another bag. "This one belonged to Mrs. Rachel Anderson. It was in his shirt pocket. We found the Andersons when they showed up at the visitors' center asking for Chee. He guided them yesterday, she lost her wallet, and that's what he was out here looking for last night. He found it."

"And something else," said Joseph, looking at the body.

L
aika slipped on a pair of latex gloves and gingerly examined Gary Chee's wallet. The leather was dry but gleamed with traces of a fatty residue. The paper cards were all yellowed and curled, as though they had been dipped in lard and then allowed to dry in the sun. She dropped the object back into the bag and sealed it shut, then knelt by the body.

There was a smell to it as well, sour and pungent. It took her a moment to realize the truth. "It isn't the body that smells," she said. "It's his clothing."

The denim jacket the corpse wore, along with the flannel shirt and jeans, were stiff and yellowed with dried moisture. "My God, what happened to him?"

"It's almost like," Tony said thoughtfully, "the moisture was sucked out of him right through his clothes. That's what's on the clothes, all right—dried body fluids."

"We don't know that yet," Joseph said shortly. "Not until we run some tests."

"Want to put some money on it, Dr. Tompkins?" said Tony. "I'd be willing to bet that those tests show the presence of blood, bile, fat, and any other juices that you can find inside a body. It's like the guy went through a goddamn wine press."

"How can you . . ." Laika looked over at Miriam Dominick, who was standing back from the others. Her tanned face had gone pale, and her mouth was slightly open. "He was a human being. Have any of you prayed for him? Or said a word of sympathy?" Miriam's voice was tight and choked.

"Poor fella," said Joseph. "You wanta get some shots of Mr. Chee here?"

Laika saw Tony ready to rip into Joseph, so she took the initiative, speaking quickly: "I'm sorry, Miriam. But we're here in a professional capacity. We don't intend to be callous, but we don't have much time for spiritual matters. Now, I'd appreciate it if you could take photographs of Mr. Chee's remains from various angles after we finish examining it. Do you feel well enough to do that?"