"Dead Secret" - читать интересную книгу автора (Connor Beverly)

Chapter 3

Diane pondered various hypotheses of how Caver Doe might have come to his end, turning the ideas over in her mind, trying them out in various scenarios. She knew it was pointless at the moment, since she had not examined the remains, but she couldn’t help herself.

She turned away from the chamber and faced the other end of the tunnel. The terminal height of the passage at the point it opened into the cavern measured fifteen feet, and the width was about twenty-five feet. The walls, a light tan streaked with many hues of brown, were patterned with large scallops, some nearly a foot in length, and dug into the stone with such repetition and consistency they looked almost man-made.

The limestone rock made of calcium derived from skeleta, shells, and the secretions of a host of marine life was literally the bones of the earth. She rubbed her fingers over the rock surface-a surface seemingly too hard to have dissolved in a little acidic groundwater. But it had, and that was the wonder of it. Slow-moving, slightly acidic water long ago in the time before man had dissolved this sinuous passage through the limestone. Diane raised a bare hand above her head and paused. There was no air movement.

She decided to follow the tunnel, even though she was without a caving companion for the moment. If she stayed on the main path, taking no detours, entering no mazes, it would be all right.

Adrenaline still electrified her body from her near fall. She was hyperalert as she walked, stepping over the rubble that littered the silt floor, examining the pathway, the ceiling.

At the first gentle curve in the tunnel she stopped and looked back, viewing where she had just traversed. It was a habit she’d developed so she could always recognize passages from any direction-a safeguard against becoming hopelessly lost and having to be rescued.

Diane knew she probably should go back while she could still see the glow from the chamber dimly illuminated by Neva’s light. When she rounded the bend the chamber would be out of sight. Was she going to be cautious or adventurous? She compromised and called Neva on the walkie-talkie.

“I’m going to follow this tunnel.”

“Should you be doing that alone?” said Neva.

Diane had drilled into Neva never to cave alone or go off alone, at least not for any great distance.

“I’m only going to the end of the tunnel. Not any farther. You stay in the chamber. Don’t go anywhere until Mike and MacGregor get back. And keep in touch.”

“Will do.”

She shined her light on the curve of another bend just ahead. She pointed her distometer and measured the distance-16.3 feet. It was indeed promising to be a long, sinuous tunnel.

On the floor of the winding passage she found no objects that might have been dropped by Caver Doe. Nothing. Not even footprints. That seemed odd. Even with the years of dust settling in the cave, there should be some ghost of a footprint left. Perhaps all traces of his passing had been covered by the breakdown. In many spots it was like gravel. She looked back where she had just come. Her footprints on the silt were actually very light, and in some places where the bedrock showed through the silt floor, there were none. Okay, maybe the absence of evidence of his passing was not odd, but interesting.

What was it Mike had told her about meanders? Flowing water left a greater amount of silt on the inside of bends where it slowed down. She squatted down at the turn in the bend and examined the heavy layer of silt. No footprints, but there were wavy smears and striations, as if someone had dragged or wiped something over the surface. The markings in the silt were so slight that they might have simply been products of her imagination-seeing evidence where there was none. She took her camera from a pocket on her pack and snapped a picture of it anyway.

She stood up and was about to continue on when her light caught the reflection of something in a slit between two large rocks. She squatted to examine the sparkle. It was silver, tiny, and had the smooth, rounded, shiny look of something man-made. She moved some of the silt from around it, revealing a thick wire loop-looking object. She grasped it between her thumb and index finger. It shifted slightly, but was stuck. Must be attached to something bigger and held in place by the rocks, she thought.

Diane dug between the rocks with her finger and felt a rounded edge. A button? Caught between the rocks when someone was wiping footprints from the surface of the silt? Or was her imagination making a mystery out of a simple caving accident?

Her digging had partially freed it. If she could just turn the object sideways she could get it out. Her fingernail caught it and swiveled it around on its edge. Diane grasped it and pulled it out, trying not to touch anything but the edges.

It was a button. Metallic-silver with the letters A.S.C. over an eagle with spread wings. Military button? On the reverse side was a thick wire shank-the part that Diane had first caught sight of. She laid the button on top of a rock near its original location, photographed it, made notations in her notebook of the spot where she had found it, and stuffed the camera and notebook back in her pack.

Diane searched her pockets for something suitable to put the button in and came up with a Ziploc bag. She sealed it so that enough air remained inside to reduce contact with the button, though it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. The passage of time and the conditions had most likely resulted in the destruction of anything that might have been clinging to the surface of the button. But you never knew. She put it in the backpack and proceeded down the tunnel.

She stopped at the next bend and examined the silt and found no other marks in the dirt.

“Dr. Fallon.” The radio squawked a string of static syllables.

“Neva?”

“Just checking in. I found a railroad spike.” Even with the static, Diane could hear the puzzlement in Neva’s voice.

“That’s great. Mark the place where you found it.”

“Sure thing. Out.”

Diane followed the tunnel, watching the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was like a gently waving avenue, not too cluttered, big enough to drive a car through with room to spare. The light shining off the uneven, rippling walls, and the distant outline of the oval cross-section, made the passage look like a vortex funneling her to some mysterious destination. It was a close call, but at this moment the mysteries of the cave held more allure to her than the remains back in the chamber. She wished that her caving partners were here so she wouldn’t have to stop when the tunnel ended.

Just ahead a pile of breakdown with rocks the size of boulders littered the way. Beside the pile she found another passage, a side branch. The entrance was small; she would have to duck to get through it. From her vantage she could see that it sloped steeply upward and the passageway was strewn with large boulders-negotiable, but they didn’t look stable. She scanned the walls around the entryway. Above the opening, almost at eye level, she saw a smudge. It was so faint she almost missed it, but it was definitely an X.

Smiling to herself, she grabbed her camera from the pack and snapped a picture. This was confirmation of her expectation that previous explorers, perhaps Caver Doe, had marked their path. In her notepad she made sketches and drew an X to mark the spot. This would definitely go on their caving itinerary. She was willing to bet this new tunnel led to another entrance aboveground. She didn’t remember Mike or any members of her caving club mentioning other caves or entrances in the area. She grinned. New discoveries were what cavers lived for. Returning her notebook and camera to their backpack pockets, she squatted to examine the floor around the opening for artifacts.

Other than the mark on the wall, it looked as if no one had ever been there. She stood up and continued down the main passage. It was an easy traverse, and she wasn’t taking any detours, so she decided to see where the tunnel ended. She picked her way around the jumble of rocks at the side tunnel’s entrance and then walked down the path toward the next bend in this ghost river. She tried to imagine the water flowing through here aeons ago. The image in her mind would make a good visual display for the museum, she thought. She wondered if she could get footage of an underwater river for the video terminals at the museum geology exhibit.

Around the curve the tunnel forked. Diane felt a vague disappointment that her solo exploration was ended, but she’d already decided that she would stop when she got to the end of the main tunnel. She wished that caves weren’t so dangerous, because she loved to explore them alone.

She examined the walls around the irregular entrances of the fork. No marks. Nothing. The larger of the two passages slanted upward. She shined her headlamps just inside. The walls were close together and, like the first offshoot passage, it was littered with large boulders.

The other tunnel was even smaller, almost a squeeze. She would fit, but she would have to go sideways. Diane leaned inside just enough to see around a rock that partially blocked the way. The passage slanted downward at a steep angle. She had the impression it was twisted around like a corkscrew. She stopped for a moment, holding her breath. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a sound, like white noise or flowing water. The sound was just at the edge of her hearing, like a whisper she wasn’t sure she even heard.

The temptation to follow was almost more than she could resist-just a little way down the tunnel, she could always turn back and still find her way-but Diane ducked out of the entrance before the siren call became too tempting.

She took another look around the two branch tunnels and snapped a picture before she started back toward the chamber.

Returning to the chamber through the tunnel was faster, since she knew the route and the lay of the rocks. As she rounded the last bend back, she saw a light from a helmet. For a moment she thought Neva had climbed up the wall, and Diane was about to chastise her-Neva was new to caving and Diane had warned her never to go it alone. But here Diane herself was-alone. She smiled inwardly.

When the figure grew closer she saw it was Mike. He had a deep crease between his brows, and with the light and shadows on his face, it was hard to read his expression.

“Are you all right?” His words sounded tight. “I was surprised to find you had gone off by yourself.”

Diane was a little startled at his level of concern. “No farther than we’ve strayed many times. I stuck to this main tunnel.”

She started to say something more, but realized that he was worried. It was disturbing to witness an accident, and though her fall had turned out all right, she could have been seriously injured. Mike was as shaken by it as she.

“I’m fine, really.”

His face split into a smile. “Yeah, I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Did you find the coroner?”

He nodded. “The entrance to the cave is in Hall County, but according to the mapping we’ve done so far, it turns out the chamber containing the body is across the county line in Lumpkin County. The Lumpkin County coroner is a man named Brewster Pilgrim. Great name, huh? He said that he ‘would not dream of interfering with a cosmos that allowed a forensic anthropologist caver to discover human bones in a cave’ and that you should ‘have at it.’ Just send him the paperwork.”

Diane laughed and realized just how tense she still was from the mishap. She’d forced it out of her mind, made light of the seriousness of it, but her muscles remembered, and the relief of laughing brought a dull ache to her head. She absently rubbed her temple.

“I’ve got some aspirin,” said Mike.

“I’m fine, really.”

“The coroner’s sending a deputy to make it official. I got hold of Jin,” said Mike. “He’s bringing what you need from the crime lab. MacGregor’s waiting outside the cave for him. I’ll go back up and get your equipment when it arrives.”

“Good job. I’ll have to start paying you out of the crime lab budget before long.” They stood looking at each other, their headlamps making a pool of light surrounding them. “How is Neva doing?” asked Diane after a pause.

“She’s happily searching a grid pattern of the chamber floor. She showed me the railroad spike she found. Said you seemed happy about it, but she wasn’t sure why. When I climbed up I saw the spike in the wall and the place where it looked like one was pulled out. You thinking that’s what caused his fall?”

“It’s likely. At first, however, I thought he might not have been paying attention to the floor and walked out into thin air.”

“There is a drop there that could be a hell of a first step. Find anything else up here?”

Diane fished the bag with the button out of her pack. “I found this wedged between two rocks.”

Mike looked at the button, then down at the rock-strewn floor of the tunnel and back at Diane, his eyes wide. “I thought Neva was a detail freak. There’s thousands of rocks here. How could you possibly find that little thing between two of them?” He took the plastic bag from her and peered at the button. “I think you pulled it off your shirt.” Diane was wearing an open plaid flannel shirt and a white tee underneath. Mike handed her back the plastic bag and tugged the button side of her flannel shirt. “Nope, they’re all here. . Hey, this is a guy’s shirt.”

“You don’t recognize it?”

He looked closer. “Yes, it’s my shirt. The one I gave you last month when you got yours all mucked up. So you’re wearing my clothes. This means I’m making progress.” He grinned broadly.

Diane suddenly felt self-conscious and wished she hadn’t brought the shirt’s history to his attention. “You said it was too small for you and that I could keep it. Besides, I understand you and Neva are dating.”

“You interested in my love life, Doc?”

“Just making conversation.”

“We’ve gone out a few times. We’re good friends and I like that.” He let go of her shirt.

“It’s a good caving shirt. Don’t take it as a proposition-or wishful thinking.”

He put his hand on his chest. “Doc, you’re always cutting out my heart.” He gave her a crooked smile.

“You look all broken up,” she said with her best poker face, cuffing him lightly on his chest and starting back to the cavern.

“Find anything interesting down the tunnel?” asked Mike.

Diane stopped. “Several things.”

“Why don’t you show me while we wait for Jin to get here?”

“I really need to get back and help Neva search the cavern for any dead-caver clues.”

“Will it take long to show me?” Mike nodded his head in the direction Diane had just investigated.

“No, but. .”

“I’ll help with the search when we get back.”

“All right, but let me check in first.” Diane put the button back in her pack and shifted the pack so that the walkie-talkie clipped to it was near her shoulder. “Neva, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “I kind of like this cavern. And I have someone here to keep me company. He’s a little old for me, but he’s a great listener, lets me do all the talking.”

“That’s my girl,” Mike said, mostly to himself.

Diane grinned. “Take a break. I’m going to show Mike a couple of things and I’ll be there to help you finish.”

“I don’t need a break. I’m fine.”

“All right but don’t tire yourself out. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“No problem.”

She turned to Mike. “When we finish here, would you go to the entrance to meet Jin? I don’t want him coming into the cave. He’s never done any caving that I’m aware of.”

Mike nodded, and Diane watched the light from his duel headlamps dance up and down on the walls.

She led the way, backtracking to the first offshoot tunnel. They picked their way through the rubble to the opening.

“Here.” She pointed at the mark above the entrance. “There’s no way to know who made it, but it could have been made by our guy to find his way back.”

“You’re thinking there has to be another entry point,” said Mike, leaning forward to get a close look at the faint X over the entrance.

“Maybe. Until we made the new hole in the roof of the cavern this may have been a separate cave with its own entrance, unconnected to the cave we came in-unless, of course, one of the passages connects them up somewhere else.”

Mike squatted and examined the rocks around the mouth of the entrance, moving some of the rock, touching the silt and sand with his fingers. Then he stood and stepped through the opening. Diane followed directly behind him, the passage so narrow that they fit only single file. The tunnel was filled with tight meanders between huge boulders and uneroded protrusions from the wall of the cave. Some of the boulders were caught between other rocks as if they had tumbled down the passage.

“I don’t like this,” said Mike. “I’m thinking they marked the opening to tell them not to go here. It looks too unstable. Some of the rocks at the entrance have been thrown out from a recent rock slide. Be easy to get trapped if one of these big guys shifts-”

His voice was cut off by a grinding rumble above them.