Dead Mountain

Book 4: Nora Kelly

by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Multiple Authors

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Suspense

Synopsis

The latest pulse-pounding thriller from New York Times bestsellers Preston amp; Child
In Colorado near the Cheyenne Mountains, a team of topflight engineers venture on an ambitious cross country ski trip, using their newly invented outdoor equipment. The strapping group of young people are having the adventure of their lives – skiing, laughing, playing in the snow, and mugging for the camera. But when the gang was expected to arrive back from their trip – no one ever returned.
Nora's excavation skills and Corrie's investigative talents are put to the test as they try to uncover what happened to the promising skiers on this cold and isolating mountain. But as more speculations and theories come to light, they fear this may be the hardest case to crack yet.
Praise for the authors: 'Sit back, crack open the book and get ready for the ride of your life.' DAVID BALDACCI
'White-hot bestselling suspense. Simply brilliant!" LISA GARDNER

Release date: August 22, 2023

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

BRANDON PURDUE AND his frat buddy Mike Kottke sat on a rock underneath a big fir tree, near where their Jeep had skidded off a Forest Service road into a ditch and run over a sapling. They were passing a bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and a joint back and forth between them. There was no cell service this far up in the mountains, and it was getting dark. But they were already too drunk and stoned to hike out, and besides it was a good ten miles to the nearest paved road. There was no chance someone else would come along the road they’d taken on their drunken joyride—it was closed, and they weren’t supposed to be there. The only thing to do, Brandon told his buddy Mike, was to sit under a tree and get messed up.

“Don’t bogart that joint, my friend,” sang Kottke in a cracked voice, holding out a hand.

“Get wrecked, dude.” Purdue handed it over to Kottke, who took a toke while offering the bottle in return.

“Dude, you let it go out!” Kottke complained, holding the reefer out at arm’s length and staring at it disapprovingly.

Purdue handed him the lighter. Kottke fussed with it, swearing as the wind picked up. He finally got the joint fired up and sucked in a lungful of smoke.

“It’s getting cold, man,” said Purdue, tilting up the plastic bottle of rum.

“No shit, Einstein. We’re only at ten thousand feet above sea level.” Kottke looked at the roach. “This is finito.” He tossed it. “Got another?”

“Suck on this.” Purdue fumbled in his day pack and drew out a big bertha, lit it, and held it out to his friend. God, he was high. The big trees around them were all moving in the wind, or maybe they weren’t moving at all and it was just his brain that was moving. But it was getting colder by the minute. It was Hallowe’en, and it might go below freezing that night. Definitely would go below freezing. They couldn’t spend the night in the Jeep, tilted as it was in the ditch, its windshield broken, the interior strewn with glass. On top of that, there was a smell of gasoline that made Purdue guess the sapling had punctured the tank. If they tried to start up the Jeep for warmth, they might blow themselves up.

What were they going to do? They couldn’t stay out here in the open, drinking and smoking until they passed out and froze to death. Purdue pushed the thought out of his mind as he took another pull on the bottle of rum. That would warm him up, at least temporarily.

“Brandon, you feel that?” Kottke yelled.

Purdue’s head swam back into focus. “What?”

“Rain. I felt it on my face. A drop of rain.”

Purdue took another gulp from the bottle. As he did, he felt something cold touch his cheek.

Kottke reached into his day pack, pulled out a flashlight, and turned it on. He shone it up into the sky. “It’s snowing!”

“Oh, Jesus.” Purdue let out a groan. Snow. Of course. In the Manzano Mountains at ten thousand feet. In late October. They were screwed.

“Hey,” said Kottke. “We’ve got to find some shelter. Seriously.”

Purdue groaned again. Shelter? They didn’t have a tent, sleeping bags, nothing. Just light jackets. Was there a blanket in the Jeep? He couldn’t remember but didn’t think so.

“Light a fire?” Purdue finally said.

“That’s not going to stop the snow. We gotta find, like, shelter, man.”

Now Purdue could feel the cold sting of snow against his face. The wind was rising. Kottke stood up and circled the area with his flashlight. The ground sloped down into a forest of fir trees. Kottke shouldered his pack and took a few steps forward, shining the beam left and right.

“What are you doing?” Purdue said.

“What do you think? Get up and let’s go find a place to spend the night. We can hike back down in the morning.”

Purdue lurched to his feet, fighting a sudden rush of dizziness. He followed Kottke down the slope into the forest, stumbling and shuffling. The temperature was plunging and snowflakes swirled around them. Far below, Purdue could see the distant lights of Albuquerque’s South Valley, dissolving in the haze of snow.

“Dude, you see those big rocks down there? We might find an overhang.” The flashlight played into a ravine that didn’t look promising to Purdue at all. The slope got steeper. The smooth, pine-needled forest floor gave way to rough stones and small outcrops, interspersed with dense bushes and roots. It looked, in fact, like a good place to break some bones.

“I don’t know about this,” said Purdue.

“Come on!”

Purdue followed reluctantly, angling down into the ravine. The snow was accumulating now, and the ground was getting slippery. Purdue forced himself to focus on where he was putting each foot, but even so he felt unsteady and slipped constantly, swearing and grabbing for handholds. His butt was already soaked from skidding down and sitting in the snow.

The slope continued plunging toward the bottom of the ravine, which was filled with boulders dusted with fresh snow. Purdue felt like he was sobering up fast. “I’m not going down there,” he said. “All you’re going to do is get our asses flash-frozen.”

“Hey! Check that out!” Kottke yelled, pointing.

Purdue looked over. The flashlight beam, piercing the swirling snow, vaguely illuminated the far side of the ravine. About ten feet from the bottom it revealed a small, dark triangular hole—the opening to a cave.

“You see that?” Kottke asked.

“We can’t fit in there, man,” said Purdue.

“Yeah? Watch me.”

They slipped and slid to the bottom of the ravine and climbed up toward the opening. The rock here was rough lava, with lots of hand- and footholds, and in a few minutes they had reached the cave mouth. Kottke shone the light in. The beam revealed a space opening up beyond—a cavern with a sandy floor.

Kottke crawled through the opening and Purdue followed.

“Oh, man!” said Kottke, staggering gingerly to his feet. He raised his arms. “This is righteous. And I found it!”

His flashlight beam probed the space. It was, Purdue had to admit, an ideal shelter, tall enough to stand up in although narrowing in the back to a crawlspace.

“I’m freezing,” said Kottke. “Let’s light a fire.”

“Yeah.” Purdue peered back out the cave entrance. The ravine had been scattered with dead and fallen trees and branches. It meant going back out.

“You go back out, hand me up the wood,” Kottke said.

Reluctantly, Purdue crawled out. While Kottke held the flashlight, Purdue gathered a bunch of kindling and branches and handed them up. He had no gloves and his hands were wet and freezing, but in very little time he’d amassed a heap of sticks big enough to do the job.

Purdue crawled back in while Kottke lit the fire. Even though the wood was a little damp from the snow, dry grass and leaves had blown into the cave, and he soon had a fire going, the smoke being drawn out through a crack near the front. It was close to perfect—a miracle.

Purdue warmed his hands at the blaze. “You got another doob for us? I need something after all that work.”

“Coming right up.” Kottke unzipped his pack and took out another plastic bottle of rum, a small jar with a couple of buds, a hand grinder, some rolling papers, a Kit Kat, a Snickers bar, a bag of Peanut M&M’s, and a large can of Pringles.

“You came prepared, bruh.”

“If I carry weed, I also carry munchies. Straight-up rule.”

Purdue grabbed the new bottle, cracked the cap, and took a deep swig, trying to revive the warm feeling he’d enjoyed earlier, before the snow began to fall. He watched as Kottke stuffed a bud into the grinder and gave it a good twist, the smell of herb drifting in the air. Then he proceeded to roll a fat one.

The fire was now throwing off so much warmth that Purdue unzipped his jacket. He took another long pull on the bottle. His head was whirling pleasantly once again, he was warm, and they had found themselves a cave. The wind howled outside, the snow falling. Tomorrow would be crap—but that was tomorrow, and for now they had shelter and they were buzzin’.

“Whoooo, this the shit!” Kottke said, firing up the blunt. They swapped the rum and the doobie. Purdue sucked in a hit, then another, then a third.

“Hey, check that out!” Kottke said.

Purdue turned and saw what Kottke was pointing at. In the light of the fire, near the narrow back of the cave, was a long flat surface of stone, and on it were pecked several designs. Petroglyphs.

Purdue squinted. In the firelight he could see a spiral, several faces, a zigzagging arrow, a bird, and a hunchbacked figure playing a flute. Hallowe’en. Being here, tonight of all nights, he felt a bit creeped out despite his buzz.

But Kottke, unfazed, just picked up a rock. “Two points if I hit that spiral.” He threw it and missed, striking one of the faces. “Three points for that!”

“No points for that,” said Purdue, determined not to act like a wimp. He picked up a rock of his own. “Five points for the bird.” He lobbed it and smacked the bird right in the middle, leaving a gash. “Yes! Five points!”

Kottke picked up a bigger rock. “This is a ten-pointer.” He heaved it at the spiral and it struck with a crash, shaking a few pebbles loose from the ceiling. “Ten points!”

Not to be outdone, Purdue began prying a bigger rock out of the side of the cave, wiggling it loose. Then he took a step closer.

“Hey, that’s cheating!”

“The hell it is.” He chucked it at the bird, where it impacted with a big hollow boom. Now a bunch of small rocks fell from the ceiling. “Fifteen points!” he cried, laughing uproariously.

“Fifteen points, my ass.” Kottke pried out an even bigger rock, so heavy he could barely carry it, then shuffled all the way to the back and slammed it against the flute player. It jarred the stone wall so hard that it moved, and a sudden grinding noise came from the ceiling. With a yowl, Kottke leapt back as a torrent of rocks were shaken loose and came down with a clatter, raising a cloud of dust. Kottke, who had barely escaped being brained, fell into the dust settling from the small cave-in. He was laughing hysterically.

“Enough of that shit,” said Purdue. “I don’t want to be buried alive.”

Kottke kept laughing. Purdue settled back and took another swig of rum. The bottle was almost empty. God, how much had he drunk? For a moment he forgot where he was, lying on the ground looking up at the firelight on the ceiling, unable to organize his spinning thoughts. He heard more hysterical laughter—was that him or Kottke? The laughter turned into the sound of vomiting, but now he was so tired he didn’t care. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. But he was cold. He managed to crawl nearer to the fire and lay down again in the sand, trying to get comfortable, but the sandy floor had some lumps in it, and he twitched and wriggled. Something was digging into his back, right where he wanted to sleep.

He vaguely heard more retching—Kottke puking again. He flopped over onto his stomach and dug his hand into the sand to move the thing poking his back. As he scraped and dug, he saw that it wasn’t the rock he’d assumed, but something smooth and light brown, like a dome. Even with his head spinning and his eyes barely able to focus, as he brushed and fumbled he saw two dark hollows appear, followed by grinning teeth and a clump of braided hair attached to a dried patch of flesh.

“Holy shit!” Purdue screamed. “There’s a dead motherfucker in here!” He pushed himself backward with his feet and hands, trying to get away from the thing that stared at him out of the sand, black eye sockets and gleaming teeth. “Mike! Mike!”

But Kottke was lying sprawled on the other side of the fire, unconscious, his shirt covered in vomit.

Purdue tried to get up, but, unable to maintain his balance, crawled backward instead, pushing with his feet. Finally, when he had gotten as far away from the thing as the cave would allow, he eased onto his side and curled himself up into a ball, shutting his eyes tight, hoping this would all go away, that it was just a nightmare, while his drunken brain sank into unconsciousness.

SPECIAL AGENT CORINNE Swanson stopped at the secretary’s desk outside the door—the closed door—of the SAC’s office. The young man glanced up at her.

“You can go in,” he said, pressing a button on a terminal on his desk.

Corrie grasped the doorknob of the corner office with more than a little apprehension. It had been almost four months since her last big case: a case involving, among other things, the murder of Hale Morwood, the senior agent who’d been mentoring her since her arrival at the Albuquerque Field Office a year ago. She was still traumatized by his death. Not a day passed without something reminding her of Agent Morwood, a dull, stubborn ache that never went away. Corrie was slow to respect people, and even slower to trust them . . . but Morwood had earned both from her before his death.

Her last big case. For the past four months she’d attended the various boards of inquiry, sat for lengthy debriefings, and submitted to several lie detector tests. Given the craziness of that case, the blowback was not surprising. She’d brought the investigation to a successful conclusion, if unconventionally . . . But as soon as it was over, almost the entire project had been classified, which, she realized belatedly, meant she wasn’t going to get much public recognition or the chance of a commendation. Even more troubling was that Special Agent in Charge Garcia had not yet assigned her a new mentor—technically, she was still an agent in training—or even given her a new case of any note. She wasn’t being punished—she would have been told that—but Garcia had kept her on low-profile, low-risk tasks like surveillance, and she couldn’t help wondering if she was under some kind of clandestine evaluation.

Shoving these thoughts aside, she entered the office.

SAC Julio Garcia rose from behind his desk and stretched out his hand to shake hers. Although it was some time since she’d been in his office, it looked exactly the same. The only thing that seemed to vary was the amount of traffic on the freeway beyond the windows.

“Agent Swanson,” he said, “thank you for coming. Please take a seat.”

As always, she was surprised by how such a brawny guy could be so soft-spoken. As she took a seat opposite the desk, he sat down again, pulled a folder close, opened and scanned it.

“So, Corinne,” he said without looking up. “Ready to get your hands dirty again?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, the words almost tumbling out. She felt a rush of gratitude.

He nodded, then looked up at her, neither smiling nor frowning, as was his way, his brown eyes taking her measure. “In that case, I’d like you to meet your new mentor.”

“My new mentor? Yes, sir.” Was the head of the field office going to ghost her himself? But no—Garcia pressed the button on his desk comm and the door opened. A lean, middle-aged man stepped in.

“Agent Swanson, this is Supervisory Special Agent Clay Sharp.”

She rose. The man extended his hand and she shook it briefly. His skin was cool, his grip firm but not ridiculously so—not like some agents who seemed to enjoy crushing knuckles. Agent Sharp was of average height, late forties, with sleepy-looking eyes. He had a handsome, even delicate face, and was dressed impeccably: although his suit was standard-issue FBI blue, it was of a sharper cut than usual and well tailored to a trim and athletic body, complemented by a tightly knotted, expensive silk tie. Rather than a military buzz or the standard side-part, Sharp’s long brown hair was combed back in a smooth coif, completing the picture of a man attentive of his personal appearance but not a slave to FBI style. Corrie couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or not.

She had seen Sharp around the office from time to time but had never interacted with him. He was quiet and somewhat enigmatic, and the other agents seemed to treat him with a combination of respect and wariness. She’d gotten the sense he was what was called a “brick agent”: terse, no bullshit, impatient, and capable.

“Agent Sharp has agreed to guide you through the rest of the mentoring period,” Garcia said briskly. “Since he’s never mentored before—and since you need to get your feet wet again, Swanson—I’ve given you an easy one.” He closed the folder and held it out to them both, ambiguously. Sharp indicated she was to take it, not him—and she did, appreciating the gesture.

“Last night,” said Garcia, “two frat boys from South Valley Tech got stuck in a snowstorm up in the Manzano Mountains. They took shelter in a cave—and found some human remains.”

“Prehistoric or historic?” Corrie asked.

“That’s what you’re going to find out. The information we got from the boys was not very coherent.”

“So it might be a Native American burial,” Sharp said, speaking for the first time in a quiet voice, with an accent Corrie couldn’t quite place. “Or—” he paused— “something more . . . interesting?”

“Exactly,” Garcia said.

It seemed to Corrie there was a hint in Sharp’s comment that Garcia had picked up but she had not. She glanced at Sharp. His pale hazel eyes—more amber than green in the slanting sunlight—looked even sleepier than before. She had the feeling that the sleepier he looked, the more alert he actually was.

“Seems they might have vandalized the site, too,” Garcia added. “Charges might be filed—but that’s not our problem, thankfully.”

Sharp nodded slowly. He glanced at the file in Corrie’s hand, to which an address had been clipped. Then he turned toward her. “Shall we get started, Agent Swanson?”

“Yes. Of course.” As she headed toward the door, she stopped momentarily and looked back at SAC Garcia. “Thank you, sir.”

The head of the field office looked back at her, one hand rubbing his chin speculatively. “Good hunting,” he said.

WHAT DO YOU know of the Manzano Mountains?” Agent Sharp asked as they drove south on Highway 337, followed by the FBI’s Evidence Response Team van.

“Beyond seeing them from far off, not much,” Corrie replied. “I haven’t been in New Mexico very long.” She’d felt guarded and nervous when she first met Sharp, and the feeling had yet to go away. He was a difficult person to read, with his slow manner of speech and inscrutable demeanor. Her previous mentor, Agent Morwood, had also been reserved, but she’d managed to connect with him. She was trying not to compare the two men and let that comparison color her perception—but she wished her new mentor wasn’t quite so reticent. At least now he was talking.

“Your file indicates you’ve been pretty busy. And there’s a part of the file that’s classified . . . even I don’t have clearance to see it. Intriguing.”

Corrie had taken a look at his file, too—at least, what she could glean from it without raising eyebrows. Sharp had been with the FBI almost sixteen years and, unlike Morwood, who’d been sidelined into the mentoring position by an injury, had risen through the ranks as a lone wolf. Before joining the FBI, Sharp had been military, in positions of such high security that only the countries were identified: Yemen, Iraq, and Turkey.

“The Manzanos are part of the Rio Grande Rift—layers of rock that got fractured and heaved upward starting twenty million years ago. There’s a steep western face along the Rio Grande, and a more gradual eastern face. The highest peaks of the range are over ten thousand feet.”

“I see, sir,” Corrie said.

“The Kirtland Air Force Base occupies the entire northern part of the mountains. Largest storage facility for nuclear weapons in the world, overseen by the Air Force Global Strike Command.”

“The largest?” Corrie had had no idea.

Sharp nodded. “South of Kirtland lies a strip of Indian land: part of the Pueblo of Isleta. And south of that is a quarter million acres of national forest and wilderness, one of the least visited areas in the Southwest.”

Corrie wasn’t sure what to say. Sharp seemed to enjoy imparting this information. Asking a few questions, Corrie thought, would probably make a good impression. “What will they do with all those nuclear weapons? Don’t they have enough already deployed?”

“Most of them are intended to replace weapons that have been fired after a missile and bomber exchange—in a war.”

“You mean, to reload the bombers after the world has been destroyed?” Corrie immediately regretted the comment and wondered how Sharp would take it. She found Sharp looking at her curiously. His eyes, which she’d noticed rarely blinked, blinked now—with the slow deliberation of a lizard. Then he issued a low chuckle. “That’s the idea, Agent Swanson, illogical as it may sound.”

They drove in silence while Corrie got up the nerve to ask the question she’d been wondering about ever since the meeting with Garcia. “Sir, just to be clear: Am I officially the agent in charge of the investigation, or are you? Just so I know who’s taking the lead,” she added, stammering.

He looked at her with those sleepy eyes. “Why, you, Agent Swanson. I thought that was understood.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope to earn your approval.”

God, did she sound like too much of a toady? She wished she could get a better handle on this guy.

Sharp took a right on Route 55, and soon they had passed through the tiny hamlet of Tajique in the foothills and were climbing up a series of dirt Forest Service roads. In the investigation folder was a paper map, and now Sharp asked Corrie to navigate, which she did using her cell phone GPS and the map. On the map someone had drawn in pencil the spot where the car went off the road and the location of the cave. Fresh snow had fallen in the high mountains overnight, but the storm had blown over and it was a cold late fall day with a cloudless sky. Soon they were above the snowline, bumping along a terrible road made worse by melting slush. The Tahoe was handling it well, but the ERT van was struggling, which slowed them down.

The piñon and juniper trees had given way to ponderosas, which in turn were replaced by fir and spruce. There were so many branching roads, and so many turns, and it was taking so long, that Corrie began to worry she might have taken a wrong fork somewhere. But she kept her doubts to herself. At least she could see fresh muddy tracks of previous vehicles, which was encouraging.

Finally, they arrived at a spot where the road had been blocked with a berm of earth but with vehicle tracks working their way around it. This had to be the closed road the two subjects had taken. Sharp worked the Tahoe around the berm as well, then waited for the van. In another half mile they arrived at the scene of the crash, where several vehicles were parked: two green National Forest Law Enforcement pickups, the Torrance County sheriff’s truck, and a flatbed wrecker on which sat the crashed Jeep.

Corrie got out of the passenger side, carrying her FBI cell phone and a notepad. She had found the FBI-issued iPad awkward, and she preferred the solidity and permanence of pen and ink. It seemed paper notes were coming back into favor at the FBI, since electronic records could be altered and juries were increasingly suspicious of them.

Sharp shut the driver’s door while the van pulled up. The ERT piled out and started unloading their gear. A man in a sheriff’s uniform came over, hand outstretched to Sharp. “Welcome,” he said. “Deputy Sheriff Baca, Torrance County.”

“Special Agent Clay Sharp.” He shook the deputy’s hand.

“Special Agent Corrine Swanson,” Corrie said, trying to sound crisp and professional. Baca was wearing a cowboy hat, had a big black mustache, and was about forty years old with a genial smile. She looked around to see where the sheriff himself was. This, in turn, reminded Corrie of her friend Sheriff Homer Watts, and she wondered what he was up to. Watts’s county, Socorro, was adjacent to Torrance—they were no doubt all acquainted.

“Glad to meet you both,” said Baca. “And welcome.”

The ERT leader, a big guy named Nate Findlay, came over. Corrie had met him a few times in the office: a wisecracker, but one with a reputation for competence. “Agent Sharp, we’re ready to roll,” he said.

Sharp raised his eyebrows and gestured toward Corrie.

“Oh. Right.” Findlay turned to her expectantly. “Ma’am? We’re all set.”

Ma’am was the FBI equivalent of Sir, but Corrie hated it. Couldn’t they come up with a word that didn’t make her feel like a wizened old lady? “Thank you, Mr. Findlay, let’s go take a look.” She turned. “Deputy Baca, could you please escort us to the site?”

“Of course.” He hesitated. “It’s rough going.”

When nobody said anything, he set off down the slope, picking his way on bow legs. There were about four inches of snow, trampled from people coming and going. The slope quickly grew steeper and rockier. It amazed Corrie that two drunken kids could have come this way after dark without breaking their necks. A quarter mile of cautious walking brought them to the edge of a small ravine. There were a couple of officers at its bottom, passing around a thermos of hot coffee. A retractable ladder had been placed against the opposite side of the ravine, and its top end rested against a cave opening.

Again, Corrie was amazed. Those boys were lucky—they could easily have missed that cave and died of exposure.

“Deputy,” she asked, “where are the individuals now? Are they still around?”

“No, they were taken away for a medical evaluation—they’d had a pretty tough morning, hungover from a lot of drinking the night before—and then we let them go.”

“We—you mean the sheriff’s department?”

“Yes.”

“Why not question them?”

“We’ll do that if necessary, after we evaluate the site and see if there’s any reason to press charges.”

“Right.” She made her way down to the bottom of the ravine, through some slippery boulders covered with ice. Sharp and the ERT followed. There wasn’t a lot of space at the bottom. “I don’t see a perimeter,” she told the deputy.

“We figured the FBI would want to set that up themselves.”

She nodded. “Let’s string some tape here, and here.” She directed Findlay to block off the bottom of the ravine below the cave, then turned to the others. “You guys go ahead and suit up. And I’d like a suit for myself.”

“Of course, ma’am,” said Findlay.

A head suddenly stuck out of the cave entrance. “Hey, Baca, we got a second body up here.”

Corrie stared up at the man. “Who are you?”

The man looked down at her. “I’m Sheriff Hawley—and who are you?”

Corrie held up her lanyard and shield. “Special Agent Swanson, FBI.” Distantly, she could hear another voice from behind Hawley.

“Sheriff, could you and your men please exit the scene?” she said.

The man had a fleshy face and aviator sunglasses pushed up on a shaved dome. “We’re working. We’ll let you know when we’re done.”

Who was actually in charge at the site? Was it the county sheriff, FBI, or National Forest LE guys? It just wasn’t clear. Corrie made a quick decision: she was going to take charge. If that turned out to be wrong, it was still better than not taking charge when it was her responsibility—especially in front of Sharp.

“Sheriff Hawley,” said Corrie, “you and your men are at a potential crime scene without protective covering.”

He stared down at her, his face darkening. “Don’t you tell me how to do my job.”

Corrie was afraid to glance over at Sharp—she needed to handle this on her own. She took a deep breath and tried to muster an authoritative tone of voice. “Sheriff Hawley, according to standard law enforcement protocol, you should not be in proximity of a potential crime scene without protective covering until an evidence team has processed the area. So I would respectfully ask you to vacate the site so our Evidence Response Team can enter and perform their work.”

The sheriff continued to stare at her. He didn’t look very bright, and Corrie realized she might have thrown too many big w. . .