28
Sure about this?”
“I think as local police chief, I’m qualified to identify those bones as human, especially as I had a refresher course just this week.”
First nod.
“I think as local fire chief, you’re qualified to access the site, especially as you had a refresher course just this week.”
Second nod.
“So no, I’m not certain at all. But what the hell, let’s do it anyway.”
Austin scratched his beard, nodded once. Practically a soliloquy from the notoriously recalcitrant man. But he hadn’t stopped tugging at his facial hair since he’d arrived on scene. He was as nervous as she was, no doubt about it.
The call Mandy had received from Theo and Raquel Collins just the other day—hey, we’ve found something—didn’t come close to this level of agitation. It would’ve been too simple for the new homeowners to have magically solved a riddle that had bedeviled countless professionals for thirty years.
But this, not just a scattering of what appeared to be human bones, but the surrounding environment, some kind of cave where no local knew of such a feature. The entrance of which appeared obscured by rocks and branches in a way that was too systematic to be natural.
Someone had once known this cave. And made the effort to seal it up, though time and animal activity had clearly taken their toll.
“Can’t fool search dogs,” Austin muttered now, as if reading her mind. “People’ve tried dousing bodies in alcohol, burying ’em in fish, lighting ’em on fire. A dog’s nose knows.”
Mandy got it. If what they were about to discover was what both she and Austin believed they were about to discover, the search teams should’ve found it thirty years ago; they weren’t that far from the Dixon residence, after all.
“But if the scent trail became inaccessible,” she filled in.
“Forcing the dogs to try to find a workaround.”
“Making it seem like they hadn’t found what they’d found, because well, they hadn’t.”
Austin, nodding, tugging, nodding. Definitely a step removed from his usual cool, collected self. His hand was even trembling, though she was hardly doing much better.
“No one from state can make it till tomorrow—well, technically now this morning. And you know what happens come evening?”
The fucking nor’easter, which had all the local businesses doing the happy dance with its promise of kicking off the ski season, but was definitely starting to mess with Mandy’s life.
“I don’t want to wait that long,” Mandy finished quietly.
Austin stopped working his beard and peered at her directly. “It’s time,” he said quietly, one local to another.
“It’s time,” she agreed.
They got to it.
Thanks to the previous efforts at the well, securing this scene went quickly.
The rapid deploy lights were in position.
Mandy herself oversaw initial photography and documentation, starting with the scattering of known remains outside the grotto, then working her way up.
Fortunately, the snow flurries had subsided, greatly improving visibility.
Her other discovery after sending Raquel and the dog home—there was a direct path to the cave entrance.
She was guessing the same someone who’d sealed up the opening had also taken steps to disguise the established route with various sticks and stones.
But with a little bit of work, Mandy had been able to identify a trail.
Basically, wherever you thought you should logically tread next, hey, kick that rock/branch/boulder out of the way, and yes, you could.
This cave had been known by someone. Used by someone. Then purposefully hidden away by that someone.
She could think of only one major incident that would be worthy of such efforts.
Which had her both highly unsettled and preternaturally calm.
Step by step, that’s what a good cop did.
She swore she could feel her father standing at her shoulder.
Focus. Now, snap this photo. And while you’re at it, document this item over there, plus this possible bone fragment over here. Thatta girl. Steady as she goes.
No need for rappelling this time around. Just Austin’s crew of volunteer firefighters, working their way to the entrance, then carefully dismantling the debris blocking the way.
Until a mere hour later, Mandy and Austin stood before a narrow fissure, almost impossible to see head-on, but which became slightly more apparent when viewed from the side.
The opening appeared deceptively skinny given its towering height.
It didn’t advertise its presence as much as beckon you in.
I’m here, don’t you want to know all my secrets?
Mandy desperately did, even as she feared the answers after all these years.
“You go first,” Austin muttered, his tone definitely tense. He’d still been a troubled twentysomething when the Dixons had disappeared, but there was no way this moment wasn’t as significant for him as for her.
The entire family. Shut up in a cave bordering their property? How? Why? Of all the possibilities…
The flashlight in Mandy’s hand started to shake noticeably. She forced herself to take another calming breath.
“We touch nothing,” Mandy directed.
First nod.
“Preliminary intel. See what’s to see. Document accordingly.”
Second nod.
“Fuuuuck.”
Mandy adjusted her headlamp and stepped into the gloom.
She’d expected her shoulders to brush against the sides of the entryway, but she passed through easily. Six steps through a corridor, then…
Her light sources were totally swallowed up by a yawning black void. She turned a full three-sixty, without illuminating a single wall. This cave had to be huge.
She set down the RDL and fired it to life just in time for Austin to exclaim, “Well, shit on a brick!”
Even the RDL hardly made a dent. Seriously, how had a cavern of this magnitude remained a secret?
Mandy felt swallowed by the mountain, the proverbial Jonah in the whale. She needed to proceed carefully in order not to disturb anything important. Again, her father at her shoulder. Patience. Real policing isn’t car chases or dramatic confrontations; it’s taking the time to do things right.
She stood to the side of the RDL’s glow, picked a lit path, and slowly worked her way forward, paying close attention to where she placed each foot.
After a moment she noted what seemed to be a weathered twig here, a scattering of gray pebbles there.
Bones. The deeper she headed, the more she spotted.
Disarticulated, jumbled. What happens after thirty years of natural decomp and animal depredation.
Two hundred and six bones in the human body, which if you multiplied by six…
Dear Lord.
She encountered more tumbled boulders she had to veer around. Then, a dark, glossy slab, positioned on its own. More bones, the startling sight of one intact rib cage, followed shortly thereafter by the first mottled gray skull.
While she may not have a professional anthro’s ability to identify and analyze the minor bits, she did know the major pieces when she saw them.
Clearly they were looking at multiple victims and a variety of age groups given differing sizes.
Say, as what you might expect to find in a grouping that included two adults and four children.
Austin had disappeared to fetch more lighting. Now he returned with reinforcements, including several members of his crew. Mandy reminded everyone to watch where they stepped as they dispersed around the cave, locating the outer walls, then firing the RDLs to life.
The whole of the cavern emerged. Vast. Startlingly tall. Additional dark voids indicated alcoves, maybe even tunnels forking out.
Mostly Mandy’s attention was held by the virtual bone field spreading out before them. Like a slaughterhouse, she thought. No logical grouping, say, the remains of a family of six huddled together against a common foe, or a line of precisely laid out remains vanquished by said foe.
This was chaotic, disorganized. Which maybe had been the group’s last moments, but could just as easily be the result of nasty raccoons. Mandy shuddered from the implied violence. Austin, she noticed, crossed himself while muttering under his breath.
Step by step, she reminded herself. She raised the camera and snapped more photos, careful to stay to the edge as much as possible.
She was vaguely aware of Austin ordering his guys out while threatening various unpleasant consequences if anyone breathed a word of this to others.
Austin then hunkered down, quietly taking in the scene.
A moment of reverence? A second attempt at coming to terms with the sheer magnitude of the find?
Mandy was here but not here. In this moment, but also a little girl staring at a murder board featuring four kids not so different from herself. She was the chief of police, she was her father’s daughter.
We did it, Dad. All these decades later. We found the Dixons. We’ll bring them home.
Which is how she got it, walking the scene again and again.
She checked the nooks and crannies; no tunnels but plenty of alcoves, some whose walls bore chisel marks, speaking to previous human interaction. Still no dice. She sent Austin to have his crew fan out and inspect the perimeter. Up, down, around.
But no matter how many times they worked the area, nothing changed. Austin, slowly but surely growing as agitated as she felt. Muttering again, “Makes no sense, makes no sense.”
Finally, they both came to a halt.
And Mandy, so help her God, finally put into words what they were both thinking, because again, you didn’t need to be a trained expert to recognize and count human skulls:
“Austin, if the Dixons were a family of six, why do we only have five of them?”