Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“I saw the dust falling,” said Mike. “I believe it’s from the newly opened hole. I haven’t seen any larger rocks breaking away. Before everyone climbs back up, I’ll reposition the rope so that it doesn’t put pressure on the rim of the hole.”

She took a flashlight and examined the newly revealed floor. She found nothing.

“That was a lot of work with nothing to show for it,” she said.

“Maybe this will show something interesting,” said Jin. He stood next to the cave wall beneath the tunnel opening with a squirt bottle in one hand. “I’ll need to turn off all the lights in a minute.”

“No!” yelled Diane and Mike simultaneously.

Neva looked up from the evidence bags and moved to stop Jin.

“Tell me you didn’t spray anything on the rocks,” said Mike.

Jin raised his eyebrows and stared at him for a moment, then at Diane. “We almost always check for blood. I didn’t think-”

“We don’t contaminate caves. The ecosystem here is fragile. I should have told you not to bring any chemicals,” said Diane.

Jin looked around at the barren landscape of rock and speleotherms. “I didn’t know. Who would have thought?”

“The fauna can be very small-microscopic,” said Mike.

“And we can’t leave anything toxic that other cavers might get into,” said Diane.

Jin wrinkled his face. “Didn’t think of that.” He glanced at Mike, who was staring at him with a disapproving frown. “I haven’t sprayed anything. We’re safe.”

Mike nodded, then gave him a crooked half smile. “Good. Then I don’t have to dangle you over a bottomless pit.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Jin. “I’m not wearing my Spide-Man underwear.” He grinned at Mike, then looked at Diane. “I saw some suspicious dark stains that might be blood,” said Jin. “I’ll take samples and photographs. We can map any pattern that way.”

“I have something here.” Neva had donned a pair of latex gloves from the crime kit and was examining what looked like a slip of paper. “I think it might be a photograph, but it’s been soaked through-with blood maybe.”

“Really?” said Jin. “Let me see.”

Diane and Jin walked over and peered at what appeared to be a dirty brown square piece of paper in Neva’s hand. Neva shined her flashlight through it.

“I think I see a shape,” said Neva. “Maybe a person.”

“Maybe,” agreed Diane. “We’ll clean it up at the lab. If we’re lucky, it will have a name on the back. Good find.”

Neva dropped the paper fragment into an evidence bag she retrieved from the crime kit and set it in the row of bags containing evidence that had been collected so far-more than Diane expected.

Jin returned to his soil samples. Diane slipped on a pair of gloves and helped Neva put the mummified remains of Caver Doe into the body bag. With his body fluids gone and only skin and bone remaining, he was light, but he was fixed in a sitting position, so they had to lay him on his side in the bag.

“Do you know how long he’s been here?” Mike peered into the body bag. “He looks a little like that Egyptian mummy you have at the museum-if it weren’t for the clothes.”

Diane shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps between thirty and a hundred years.” She zipped up the bag. “We’ll know when we analyze the evidence.”

Neva let out a breath. “He’s been sitting a long time waiting for someone to find him.” She gave the body bag a pat. “Poor fellow.”

Jin squatted beside a dented, discolored brass lamp setting with collected evidence. “He had a carbide lamp. Do they still make them?”

“Most definitely,” said Mike. “I have several.”

“Many cavers still use them,” Diane said.

“Really?” said Jin. “Interesting. Well, this one looks old.”

Neva stood, stretched, and began packing up the evidence in the crime scene kit. “I’ll bet we can get something from the Moon Pie wrappers. And heaven knows what’s in his backpack. Maybe he kept a journal while he was waiting.” She grinned. “He had to do something to pass the time.”

“Probably just sat and groaned,” said Mike, still staring at the closed body bag. “Depending on how he landed, he could have been in a lot of pain.”

While they discussed the last days of Caver Doe, Diane studied all the objects littering the cavern. They looked incongruous amid the columns of stalagmites and stalactites. “Now we have to haul this stuff out of here.”

Mike came over to her side. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “We can hoist the stuff up to the cavern above and divide it among us.” He lifted Jin’s huge backpack. “You were only going to be here a few hours; why did you bring such a big backpack? What do you have in it?”

“Flashlights, space blanket, bedroll, food, dishes, duct tape, first-aid kit, binoculars, emergency shelter. .”

“Emergency shelter?”

“It’s the stuff I take on long hikes. I thought some of it might be useful in a cave.”

Mike laughed. “We’ll have to teach you how to put it in a smaller pack.”

“It was kind of hard dragging it through the tunnels,” admitted Jin.

Diane winced, trying not to think of the speleotherms he may have damaged with the huge metal frame on his pack.

Mike climbed up the rope to the chamber above while Diane and her crew packed up the lamps and evidence. Now the cavern was illuminated only by Diane’s and Neva’s headlamps and Jin’s flashlight.

Diane’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the loss of light. Everything in her peripheral vision was a dim shadow. It was like closing a door, leaving the cave as it should be-deep and dark.

At the sound of hammering from above, Jin looked up. “What’s he doing?”

“Probably putting in pulleys to make it easier to haul this stuff back up.”

Jin paused. “You mean he carries pulleys around in his backpack, but he scoffed at my emergency shelter?” He grinned, showing a row of even white teeth.

“We work on rope a lot, so we carry a lot of rope gear,” said Diane.

They had moved all their things near the rope. Diane glanced up just as Mike peered down from the hole.

“Stand back,” he yelled. “I’m dropping a rope.”

Diane tied the metal case of the crime scene kit to the end of the rope, and Mike quickly hauled it up. The duffel bag and the lamps were next, and then Jin’s backpack.

While Mike was hoisting the backpack, Diane made a rope harness for the body bag. She tied the harness to the hoist rope and Mike lifted it up through the hole. All that was left was Diane, Neva and Jin.

Jin looked up the long rope and over at Diane.

“There’s no disgrace in using the loops in the rope as hand-and footholds if you need them. That’s what they’re for,” said Diane.

Jin gave her a sideways look. “You say that as if you don’t have to use them when you climb.”

Diane smiled at him. “Here’s some chalk,” she said.

Jin dusted his hands, put his flashlight in his belt and started up. He did better than Diane expected. Mike grabbed his arm at the top of the climb and helped pull him over the ledge. Neva was next. She had a more difficult time. She was strong, but it took a special set of muscles to climb a rope, and she struggled to get to the top and over the ledge. When Neva was up, Diane chalked her own hands and climbed up the rope with only slight discomfort.

It was crowded in the small chamber with all four of them and their supplies. Now they had to get through the narrow passage dragging Caver Doe and all their paraphernalia.

“I called MacGregor and asked him to meet us on the other end of this passage to help carry some of this stuff,” said Mike. “He’ll get a kick out of helping carry the body.”