Volcano Watch

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It’s very strange now.

Everything’s gone quiet. Quakes, which built into a swarm in the past week, have all but ceased. Gas emissions in Hot Creek and on Red Mountain have subsided. Strain rate’s dropped. And in the absence of activity there is a vacuum, a stifling feeling like the sky is falling, only very very slowly.

Lindsay described this kind of thing to me once. It’s called premonitory quiescence — a brief interruption in the unrest that often leads to an eruption.

We’re still at alert level WATCH. Volcano watch.

Phil Dobie phoned this morning. Without Lindsay I don’t have a backdoor into USGS anymore and so I’ve been calling Phil and getting noninformation. As Lindsay put it, Phil has to weigh all the variables before he’ll decide whether to order the burger or the chicken nuggets. This morning he decided on the chicken nuggets. He called me. He said something about owing it to me and to Lindsay’s — and then he muttered something I think was memory—to call and give me a heads-up. The Survey is considering declaring alert level WARNING. I swallowed and asked Phil if he thought we were going all the way. He said without a pause to weigh the variables “it’s not out of the question.”

Phil must have phoned Krom as well because Krom has issued his own decree, closing the town to nonresidents, clearing the backcountry of snow campers.

We’re left in town with only ourselves for company.

Meanwhile I’m on watch, in synch with the volcano.

I sit at my bench and stare at the specimen dish of pumice and bark, and I still can’t say how it got into Georgia’s mouth and I still can’t connect it with Adrian Krom. I can’t place him at the scene of her murder. I stare at the specimen dish of gray limestone, which does not place him at the scene of Lindsay’s murder. I know he killed them, but I can only watch the dust gather on my specimen dishes. My evidence exists in a vacuum.

Today, I could stand it no longer and so I fled to Hot Creek. The gate was unlocked. There were two Survey trucks parked in the lot. I parked and got out. I needed to walk. The gorge was swarming with Survey people. I headed out into the tableland above the creek, intending to pay a visit to Lindsay’s fumarole, her little fellow.

The snow was soft and my boots made no noise and in this vacuum I became invisible. This is how he came back from the airport, I thought. Invisibly. Snowstorm postponed his flight and maybe he took that as a sign. Tonight’s the night. Tonight he has to kill her. There must be a reason, of course — nobody kills without a reason. Nobody’s on the street in this storm, nobody sees him. It’s late, her building’s nearly deserted. He wears gloves so he will leave no prints. He wears a cap so he will shed no hairs. He sheds Sears wool but that’s not going to nail him. He brings clean shoes and changes in the hallway so he will leave no soil trace, or maybe he ties plastic bags over his boots. That alarms her, although not as much as the gun in his hand. Maybe he just intends to scare her, some final humiliation, and things get out of hand. She says something, indicates she will not be cowed. Scared of course but even in fear, we are who we are. Maybe it’s just a look from her that does it. The lift of her chin, and he shoots. Then he goes home, gets some shuteye, and rises early to catch the flight out.

I could not breathe well. This thick air. I once went snorkeling in Hawaii and all I could hear underwater was my own labored breathing. This was like snorkeling, just me and an ocean of snow and the faraway horizon where the caldera lip rises. And that crazy sky, blue as the ocean, sitting down on top of me. I walked faster, underwater breathing, and I wanted to scream to break the silence but the feeling of pressure was so great that I was afraid to open my mouth — it would be like opening my mouth underwater.

Her little fellow was steaming.

I turned and ran for my car through the crazy thick air, breathing ragged, heartbeats like gunshots.