Grave Echoes: A Kate Waters Mystery (3 page)

Wells played the scene in his mind, looking for gaps or facts that hadn’t been addressed by evidence gathered. “Are there any other tracks on the road?” he asked, inspecting the roadway even though it was nearly impossible to see anything through the downpour.

“None that we can tell just yet. There’s a tread in the mud over there, but we don’t think it is related to the actions of this car.”

Wells noticed one of the forensic specialists walking in their direction. His name was Anthony Cain and he was one of the best forensic analysts in the city, having led the investigation of a nine-car pile-up three years ago on the Sunset Highway. It made national news and got Cain a promotion.

“You look like you’ve got news, Cain?” Wells said to him as he approached. He was short and stocky, with elbows jutting out from muscle plumped by hours of weight lifting.

Cain nodded with a familiar squint in his eye. “Cigarette filters. One of them crushed, the other burnt out, both fairly dry. We’ll run some tests and see if we can’t get a fingerprint or saliva analysis to compare with the victim.”

“Dry?” It had been raining heavily for the last two hours. “I doubt she smoked a cigarette in her condition.” Cain nodded his head, as if knowing the direction of his thoughts. “So someone must have come upon the scene, smoked a few cigarettes, wondering what to do, and left,” Wells added.

“Happens too often,” Ted commented, shaking his head. As tough as Ted looked with his crew cut and towering frame, he had a deep reservoir of genuine compassion.

“People don’t want to have to be inconvenienced from their daily schedule,” Cain replied.

“Why don’t you fax me the reports when you get the results in,” Wells asked Cain before he headed back to the van, the back of it opened up to a mini crime lab for tagging, cataloging, and examining the evidence.

Wells waited for a Honda Accord to drive by, the driver gawking at the carnage of twisted metal. Once they passed, he walked over to a skid mark on the road. He played the scene again, like a slow-motion movie clip. At the time of the accident, the rain was probably just starting to come down, creating a slippery film from the grime on the road. He imagined the girl sped around the corner, underestimating the sharpness of the turn or the uselessness of the brakes on the wet pavement, hydroplaned, skidded, overcorrected, rolled, and ended her journey at the base of a sixty-year-old pine. The clip played out nicely according to Ted’s analysis, but one thing Wells still couldn’t understand was why the girl was speeding in the first place.

He stuck another piece of gum in his mouth and then approached the twisted mass of metal and glass, waiting for forensic photographers to permit him access to the wreckage. The girl lay hunched over with her head tilted into the passenger seat. Blood caked the side of her head and seeped from her nose. She even looked like his daughter Julie, he thought: long dark hair, high cheekbones, thin frame, and young enough to fall prey to trouble.

Wells looked at the road and then back at the girl. Too many people drove fast, he thought, but 20 mph over the speed limit seemed excessive and usually involved a chase, drugs, or youthful dares. Jevanna Waters didn’t seem to be involved in any one of those.

***

The dashboard read 4:42 am and shadows still hung heavy when Kate pulled into the graveled parking lot alongside a clean and sporty silver Land Rover belonging to Stewart Reese, Operations Officer of the PNGS. Kate predicted he’d probably be decked out in his latest L.L. Bean attire. Far from a role model, Stewart’s most recent game of pursuit involved the new intern Nicole Korter. But Stewart Reese wasn’t just married. His wife, Joanna, was also expecting their second child in a few months. The audacity of his flirting had tempted Kate to put an end to his careless ways by a simple phone call. But who was she to get involved and possibly lose her job? No, today would end like all the others—frustrated by his inappropriateness, misdirected priorities, and a stuffy office reeking of men’s cologne. At least Mrs. Reese could have another day of normalcy, she thought to herself, as she gathered her things from the jeep.

The green and brown forest service building backed up against the north ridge of Portland’s industrial region, a ravine that bordered Forest Park, one of the country’s largest city parks. A 12ft. high, barbed-wired fence strung the perimeter of the building and parking lot with video cameras positioned at the front, sides, and back of the property. Even iron bars caged the windows. One would think it was a top-secret government building, and though the PNGS was funded in part by the government and functioned as a partnership organization with the USGS, it was mostly just a regular business with expensive equipment.

Cars lined the parking lot—everyone already had arrived, even Nicole Kate groaned, hiking her bags of equipment and books up the front steps. The lights outside the building shone brightly, casting a glare against the tinted front windows, but Kate could still see figures standing near the seismograph inside. She imagined the black scrawls across the paper roll, long, black claw marks interspersed with clusters of short scratches, which revealed the extent of ground movement miles below the summit of Mt. Hood. Excited to learn the details, she picked up her pace.

Hoping to sneak through and conceal her late arrival, Kate opened the door gently. The office bustled with a myriad of flashing lights and terminals; faxes and phones rang incessantly; and an uproar of voices chattered of eruption, earthquakes, and emergency evacuations. Computer screens, mainframes, printers, seismograms, clinometers, and a heap of other geological instruments piled on top of old, wooden desks and tables. Cables snaked across the carpet under plastic bridges, and several geographical maps and charts plastered the bone white walls. Ironically, it looked like the epicenter of an earthquake.

Stewart stood in front of the seismological graph talking with Sean and Nicole. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, his other propped up on his hip holding back his jacket in a GQ pose. As she had expected, he was dressed in corduroys, a wool vest, blazer, and his brown suede boots, probably hoping to catch a spot on the evening news. Though he was generously handsome, Kate felt his personality lacked the same luster as his glossy, speckled gray/brown hair. However, it was obvious Nicole thought differently. She stood bashfully next to him and gazed up admiringly with her large, brown puppy-dog eyes. She was young, pretty, early twenties, but her mannerisms still carried an awkward insecurity. Her slick blond hair was done up in a ponytail, and her face portrayed fresh innocence, as if she should be holding a basket of tulips. Stewart leaned into her as she spoke.

Feeling sick from their chumminess, Kate wanted to smack them both, but opted for a sarcastic grin instead as she nestled up to the seismograph with everyone else. On it were several sweeping vertical motions across the roller page, all signifying an earthquake in the Mt. Hood vicinity within the last hour.

“Good morning Kate. I’m glad to see you here bright and early,” he said with a smile too big.

“I came as soon as you called.”

“Morning Kate,” Sean said. There was a haggard quality about him, more so than usual Kate thought. His shirt seemed extra wrinkled and his hair greasier.

“Late night?” she teased him, expecting a devious smirk. Instead, he shifted his serious eyes, turning his attention back to the graph. Kate wondered what was wrong and thought that maybe he couldn’t get a hold of Jev either. She’d have to ask him when they could get a moment to talk.

Stewart moved closer to Kate. His proximity made her uncomfortable since it was usually a precursor to bad news.

“I want you and Sean leading the field work on this one. We’re no longer receiving messages from an electronic distance measurement (EDM) near Devil’s Kitchen, so the USGS wants to retrieve it and replace it with a satellite system this Friday.”

Kate felt like she had just been stung. She had been organizing the emergency evacuation procedures for over a year, collecting data, maps, and records from state and local authorities in case Mt. Hood ever decided to wake up. That time had come and now all her work was going to be handed off to another employee. “Stewart, you’re changing positions in the middle of the game,” she complained. “I haven’t even taken off my coat.”

He began to reach for her collar when she jerked away, thinking his attempt at pleasantry wasn’t going to make up for his tactless decisions.

“C’mon Kate, I need you to work with me on this one.”

“What about the VCAT (Volcano Crisis Assistance Team)? Who’s going to take over my position?”

“Aaron.”

“Great,” she replied. Aaron had only been on the team for a month, but his hotshot degree at Duke seemed to get him what he wanted. “Why are you sending him? He has no experience with evacuations.”

“I need my experience on that mountain. You know the terrain better than anyone.” There was an edge to Stewart that Kate had never seen, as if he was nervous. She had seen him ecstatic, confident, and heated about volcanic activity, but never nervous.

“What happens on the mountain overshadows anything else on the ground. You should take it as a compliment.”

“That you’re ignoring everything I’ve been working on for the last year?” Kate crossed the room, grabbed the top Styrofoam cup in a long tower on the counter, and poured herself a hot cup of black coffee. It wasn’t as strong as she liked, but the warmth was still inviting. Stewart followed her.

“Look,” he said, refilling his cup. “I’m not ignoring what you’ve done; I’m just having someone else pick up where you left off and if it’s that big of a deal, I’ll give you the credit for all of it after this blows over.” He took a drink of his coffee. “I need you up there Kate. You know that mountain better than anyone.”

She held his gaze for a moment and then turned to Sean. He was watching them and nodded at her with two-thumbs-up. She could tell he was happy about the arrangement. Sean and Aaron kept their distance as much as possible at work. While Sean was easy going, some might say lazy, Aaron was rigid and tedious and took his job very seriously. The kind of smarts Sean had was the kind of wit that came with spontaneity and luck, something Aaron couldn’t or wouldn’t relate to.

Kate dumped a packet of sugar in her coffee and stirred it with a stick. “All right.”

“Good. Do you have the evacuation reports?” Stewart asked.

She pointed to the bright orange bag on the floor, plump with satellite software, and binders full of reports and evacuation procedures. “Every last one.”

“Never doubted you,” Stewart said.

“A little?” Kate pinched her fingers together.

“Maybe just a little,” he admitted. Then, without further concern, Stewart picked up a fax and sat on the corner of Nicole’s desk. Kate expected her to run behind him and rub his shoulders, but she didn’t. Aaron sat in the opposite corner, dressed in his blue, wrinkle-free twill and khaki pants. He spoke on the phone to the local news channel about the location and intensity of the quakes, and whether or not the mountain was going to blow, a question all geologists loved to answer “When,” not “If.”

“You know,” Sean said to Stewart with broadening grin, “I told you last month gas emissions were increasing. But what was it you said… no way was Mt. Hood going to wake? That I must be delirious?”

Stewart scowled. “Well it doesn’t mean shit if the mountain isn’t bulging and there aren’t any quakes. You can’t make a logical prediction without accumulated data, something only an experienced geologist would know.” His hard eyes flashed at Sean.

“Maybe not logical, but pretty damn accurate,” Sean added. He had the grin of a poor winner.

Stewart didn’t fall for it. “I wouldn’t let luck inflate your ego—you’ll need a hell of a lot more than a chance forecast when you report to the big dogs in California.” Sean shrugged and turned to Kate, who shook her finger at him disapprovingly. His recent potential to become family had put a casual spin on their working relationship. Kate couldn’t tell if it was for the better or worse.

Stewart turned to Sean. “I need a new laser rangefinder for the climb. Why don’t you head over to the Vancouver office and get one.” Though Stewart and Sean bickered nonstop, it was apparent through their actions they were good friends, because Stewart knew how much Sean enjoyed running errands outside the office.

“I suppose.” He passed a sly smile to Kate.

She shook her head and steered for the back room where she imagined Bruce working exuberantly, skipping from monitor to phone to printer like Peter Pan. His passion for volcanoes was almost romantic.

Stewart stopped Kate with a shout. “Hey, tell Bruce to contact A.J. Flight. I want to get a ride over this baby.”

Kate turned. “Speaking of babies,” she paused to make sure she had his full attention. “Did you find out what you’re having yet?” She glanced at Nicole, who shifted away from the conversation.

“Yep, another girl,” he replied, followed by a sigh.

“Well, there must be something you still need to learn from our kind.”

“Beats the hell out of me,” he said. “Women are like volcanoes. They act up at the most unpredictable times, and smooth over once they get a little attention.” Nicole scolded him with a glare, but Sean’s laughter seemed to reinforce Stewart’s jibe. Stewart looked at Kate, grinning with something like sheer satisfaction. She expected such a response and was ready for a comeback.