The killing hour

CHAPTER 36

Virginia

11:34 A . M .

Temperature: 97 degrees

TINA HAD GONE NATIVE. Mud streaked her arms, her legs, her pretty green sundress. She had stinking ooze coating her face and neck, primordial slime squishing between her toes. Now she picked up another sticky handful and smeared it across her chest.

She remembered reading a book in high school, Lord of the Flies. According to one of the notations in the handy yellow Cliffs Notes, Lord of the Flies was really about a wet dream. Tina hadn’t gotten that part. Mostly she remembered the stranded kids turning into little savages, first taking on wild boars, then taking on one another. The book possessed a fearful edgy quality that was also definitely sexy. So maybe it was about wet dreams after all. She couldn’t tell if the guys in her class had read it with any more enthusiasm than they’d read the other literary classics.

But that wasn’t really the point. The point was that Tina Krahn, knocked-up college student and madman’s current plaything, was finally getting a real-life lesson in literature. Who said high school didn’t teach you anything?

She started mucking up first thing this morning, the sun already climbing in the sky and threatening to fry her like a bug caught in the glare of a magnifying glass. The mud stank to high heaven, but it sure did feel good against her flesh. It went on cool and thick, coating her festering skin with a thick layer of protection not even the damn mosquitoes could penetrate. It filled her nostrils with a putrid, musky smell. And it made her head practically swim with relief.

The mud liked her. The mud would save her. The mud was her friend. Now she stared at the bubbling, popping mess and she wondered why she didn’t eat a handful as well. Her water was gone. Crackers, too. Her stomach had a too-tight, pained feeling, like she was on the verge of the world’s worst menstrual cramps. The baby was probably leaving her. She had been a bad mother, and now the baby wanted the mud, too.

Was she crying? It was so hard to tell, with the heavy weight of drying filth on her cheeks.

The mud was wet. It would feel so good sliding down her parched, ravenous throat. It would fill her stomach with a heavy, rotten mass. She could stop digesting her stomach lining, and dine on dirt instead.

It would be so easy. Pick up another oozing handful. Slide it past her lips.

Delirious, the voice in the back of her brain whispered. The heat and dehydration had finally taken their toll. She had chills even in the burning heat. The world swam uneasily every time she moved. Sometimes she found herself laughing, though she didn’t know why. Sometimes she sat and sobbed, though at least that made some kind of sense.

The sores on her arms and legs had started moving this morning. She had squeezed one scabbed-over mass between her fingers, then watched in horror as four white maggots popped out. Her flesh was rotting. The bugs had already moved in to dine. It wouldn’t be much longer for her now.

She dreamt of water, of ice-cold streams rippling over her skin. She dreamt of nice restaurants with white linen tablecloths, where four tuxedoed waiters brought her an endless supply of frosty water glasses, filled to the brim. She would dine on seared steak and twice-baked potatoes covered in melted cheese. She would eat marinated artichoke hearts straight from the container, until olive oil dribbled down her chin.

She dreamt of a pale yellow nursery and a fuzzy head nestled at her breast.

She dreamt of her mother, attending her funeral and standing alone next to her grave.

If she closed her eyes, she could return to the world of her dreams. Let the maggots have her flesh. Let her body sink into the mud. Maybe when the end came, she wouldn’t even know anymore. She would just slide away, taking her baby with her.

Tina’s eyes popped open. She forced her head up. Struggled to her feet. The world spun again, and she leaned against the boulder.

No eating mud! No caving in. She was Tina Krahn and she was made of sterner stuff.

Her breath came out in feeble gasps, her chest heaving with effort to inhale the overheated, muggy air. She staggered toward one vine-covered wall, watching a snake dart out of her way, hissing at her as it passed. Then she was braced against the wall, the vines cool against her muddy cheek.

Her fingers patted the structure as if it were a good dog. Funny, the surface over here didn’t feel like rough cement. In fact…

Tina pushed herself back. Her eyelids were terribly swollen; it was so hard to see… She forced them wide with all of her might, while simultaneously pushing back the vines. Wood. This part of the rectangular pit was held up by wood. Railroad ties or something like that. Old, peeling railroad ties that were already rotting with age.

Frantically, she dug her fingers into one visible hole. She tugged hard, and felt the meat of the lumber start to give way. She needed more strength. Something harder, a tool.

A rock.

Then she was down on her hands and knees, once again digging in the mud while her eyes took on a feverish light. She would find a rock. She would gouge out the boards. And then she would climb out of this pit, just like Spider Man. She would get to the top, she would find coolness, find water, find tender green things to eat.

She, Tina Krahn, knocked-up college student and madman’s current plaything, would finally be free.

Lloyd Armitage, USGS palynologist and Ray Lee Chee’s new best friend, met them shortly after noon. Five minutes later, Mac, Kimberly, and Nora Ray were piling into a conference room Armitage had set up as his traveling lab. It was a strange entourage, Mac thought, but then this was a strange case. Kimberly looked bone-tired but alert, wearing that slightly edgy look he’d come to know so well. Nora Ray was much harder to read. Her face was blank, shut down. She’d made a big decision, he thought, now she was trying not to think about it.

“Ray Lee Chee says you’re working some kind of homicide case,” Armitage stated.

“We have evidence from a scene,” Mac answered. “We need to trace it back to the original source. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that, other than whatever you have to tell us, we needed to have heard it yesterday.”

Armitage, an older man with bushy hair and a thick brown beard, arched a curling eyebrow. “So that’s how it is. Well, for the record, pollen analysis isn’t as specific as botany. Most of my job is taking soil samples from various field sites. Then I use a little bit of hydrochloric acid and a little bit of hydrofluoric acid to break apart the minerals in the sediment. Next, I run everything through sieves, mix that with zinc chloride, then place it in a medical centrifuge until voilà, I have a nice little sample of pollen, fresh from the great outdoors-or from several thousand years ago, as the case might be. At that point, I can identify the general plant family that deposited the pollen, but not a specific species. For example, I can tell you the pollen is from locust, but not that it’s from a bristly locust. Will that help?”

“I’m not sure what a locust is,” Mac said. “So I guess whatever you discover, it’ll be more than what we knew before.”

Armitage seemed to accept that. He held out his hand and Mac gave him the sample.

“That’s not pollen,” the palynologist said immediately.

“You’re sure?”

“Too big. Pollen is roughly five to two hundred microns or considerably smaller than the width of human air. This is closer to the size of sediment.”

The palynologist didn’t give up, however. He opened the glass vial, shook out a small section of the dusty residue onto a slide, then slid it under a microscope. “Huh,” he said. Then “huh” again.

“It’s organic,” Armitage told them after another minute. “All one substance rather than a mix of various residues. Seems to be some kind of dust, but coarser.” His bushy head popped up. “Where did you find this?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“Are there other samples you found with it?”

“Water and uncooked rice.”

“Rice? Why in heaven’s name did you find rice?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. Got any theories?”

Armitage frowned, wagged his eyebrows some more, then pursed his lips. “Tell me about the water. Have you brought it to a hydrologist?”

“Brian Knowles examined it this morning. It has an extremely low pH, three-point-eight, and high… salinity, I guess. It registers fifteen thousand microsiemens per centimeter, meaning there might be lots of minerals or ions present. Knowles believes it comes from a mine or was polluted by organic waste.”

Armitage was nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, he’s thinking the coal counties, isn’t he?”

“I think so.”

“Brian’s good. Close, just missed one thing.” Lloyd slid out the slide and then did the totally unexpected by dabbing his index finger into the sample and touching it to his tongue. “It’s unusually fine, that’s the problem. In its coarser form, you would have recognized it yourself.”

“You know what it is?” Mac asked sharply.

“Absolutely. It’s sawdust. Not pollen at all, but finely ground wood.”

“I don’t get it,” Kimberly said.

“Sawmill, my dear. In addition to coal mines, the southwestern part of the state also has a lot of timber industry. This sample is sawdust. And, if these samples are supposed to go together…”

“We hope so,” Mac said.

“Then your water’s pH is due to organic waste. See, if mill wastes are not disposed of properly, the organic matter leaches into a stream, where it leads to bacterial buildup, eventually suffocating all other life-forms. Has Brian tested the sample for bacteria yet?”

“The amount’s too small.”

“But the high salinity,” Armitage was muttering. “Must be minerals of some kind. Pity he can’t test it more.”

“Wait a minute,” Kimberly said intently. “You’re saying this is from a mill, not a mine?”

“Well, I don’t generally associate sawdust with coal mines. So yes, I’m going to say a lumber mill.”

“But that could give you acidic water?”

“Contamination is contamination, my dear. And with a pH reading of three-point-eight, your water came from an extremely contaminated source.”

“But Knowles indicated this water is at a crisis,” Mac said. “Aren’t mills regulated for how they dispose of waste?”

“In theory, yes. But then, there’s a lot of lumber mills in this state and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the smaller, backwoods operations fall through the cracks.”

Nora Ray had finally perked up. She was looking at the palynologist with interest. “What if it were a closed mill?” she asked quietly. “Some place shut down, abandoned.” Her gaze flickered to Mac. “That would be his kind of place, you know. Remote and dangerous, like something from a B-grade horror movie.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned mills in the state,” Armitage said. “Particularly in the coal counties. That’s not a very populated area. And, frankly, not a bad location for a horror movie.”

“How so?” Mac asked.

“It’s an impoverished area. Very rural. People first moved out there to get their own land and be free from government. Then the coal mines opened and attracted hordes of cheap labor, looking to make a living. Unfortunately, farming, timber, or mining hasn’t made anyone rich yet. Now you just have a broad expanse of bruised and battered land, housing a bruised and battered population. People still eke out a living, but it’s a hard life and the communities look it.”

“So we’re back to seven counties,” Mac murmured.

“That would be my guess.”

“Nothing more you can tell us?”

“Not from a minute sample of sawdust.”

“Shit.” Seven counties. That just wasn’t specific enough. Maybe if they’d started yesterday or the day before. Maybe if they had hundreds of searchers or what the hell, the entire National Guard. But three people, two of them not even in law enforcement…

“Mr. Armitage,” Kimberly spoke up suddenly. “Do you have a computer we can use? One with Internet access.”

“Sure, I have my laptop.”

Kimberly was already up out of her chair. Her gaze went to Mac and he was startled by the light he now saw blazing in her eyes. “Remember how Ray Lee Chee said there was an ology for everything?” she asked excitedly. “Well, I’m about to put him to the test. Give me the names of the seven coal-producing counties and I think I can find our rice!”