Diablo Mesa(18)

Corrie hesitated. Morwood, who seemed out of breath, wasn’t jumping in, and Nora remained silent as well. It was up to her to respond.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid not. We need to give this priority.”

Tappan quickly covered up his annoyance. “Of course. We’re glad to cooperate with the FBI.”

“That’s much appreciated, Mr. Tappan. Dr. Kelly, how long do you think it will take?”

“If nothing more unusual surfaces, I’d estimate two days.”

“How soon can you begin work?”

“Right away,” Nora said. “I can have my team on it in half an hour.”

“Very good.” Corrie looked around. “We’re going to set up a perimeter here, out to a radius of a hundred feet. I’ll have to ask everyone except the archaeologist and her assistants to keep clear of the area. The Evidence Response Team will be performing a sweep with metal detectors.”

“I wonder,” Tappan said, “if I might be allowed to observe more closely than from behind the tape.”

Corrie considered this. Take one, give one. “Okay,” she said. “I don’t see a problem with that. But the rest will have to remain behind the barriers.”

“Thank you.”

Skip and the others drifted back.

“I’ll have to get some tools and roust up my assistants,” said Nora. “I assume you’ll be staying while we work?”

“Yes. We’ll remain until the bodies are out of the ground and in evidence coffins.”

“Where are you planning to spend the night?”

“Roswell.” The drive to Roswell was at least two hours over bad roads, but there was no place closer. Corrie had made reservations at a local motel.

“Nonsense,” Tappan said. “I’ve got a couple of trailers here for visitors and guests. Why don’t you stay? I would consider it a favor, since it would allow your work to proceed more efficiently.”

Corrie glanced at Morwood, who seemed curiously impassive, awaiting her decision. “Thank you,” she said. “We’ll take you up on that. Very kind of you.”

Now Morwood spoke up. “Perhaps Mr. Tappan could show me to our quarters while Dr. Kelly and Agent Swanson get to work.”

The two men walked off, leaving Nora and Corrie alone for the first time.

Nora said, “You’re getting better at this, you know that?”

“I’m trying. There’s a lot of stuff they don’t teach at the Academy.”

“So you’d better tell me now,” said Nora. “Is it going to be ‘Dr. Kelly’ this and ‘Special Agent Swanson’ that—all over again? Or will it be Nora and Corrie?”

Corrie thought for a moment. The titles bolstered her authority, kept everything on a professional level. But they were also tiresome and stiff—and, after all, the two women had saved each other’s lives. “Hell with it,” she said. “Let’s go back to Nora and Corrie.”

Nora smiled, obviously pleased with the dispensing of formality.

“But I’ve got to ask you—how is it you’re involved in this? I mean, it doesn’t seem the kind of thing the Institute normally does.”

Nora’s smile faded. “I’m no longer with the Institute. It’s a long story. We have to go to the field office to collect my gear and assistant—I’ll explain on the way.”

As they walked, Nora told her the story of how she had been fired and then persuaded by Tappan to join the team.

“Do you think a UAP really crashed here?” Corrie said.

“Of course not. Something impacted here, though, and it wasn’t a balloon carrying a monitoring device or a weather station. The GPR survey indicates that whatever it was came down at high speed and gouged out a furrow. The disturbance was later covered up by bulldozers.”

“Weird. Do you think all that has anything to do with the body?”

“Bodies—like I said, I’m pretty sure there are two.” She paused. “It’s a little hard to believe that a murderer would bury bodies way out here, by coincidence, hard up against the Roswell site.”

They stopped at one of a line of Quonset huts. Nora led the way in and introduced Corrie to two young men who were working on Macs.

“These are my assistants,” Nora said. “Emilio Vigil is a postdoc in archaeology at UNM. And Scott Riordan, also a postdoc, from Colorado State.”

Vigil and Riordan shook Corrie’s hand gravely, one after the other. “Pleased to meet you.”

Nora said, “Let’s get to work.”

Vigil, Riordan, and Nora, loaded down with equipment, left the Quonset hut. As they headed back to the site, Nora explained the situation to Vigil and Riordan while Corrie brought up the rear. The FBI team had finished stringing up caution tape and was starting to sweep the area with metal detectors, pausing every now and then to flag something. Morwood returned with Tappan, followed by several workers who set up a temporary shade, some chairs, and a cooler full of soft drinks.

All we need is a hot dog vendor and the ball game can commence, Corrie thought. She turned to watch as Nora, with Vigil’s and Riordan’s assistance, laid out a piece of canvas and arrayed her tools on it. They donned knee pads, got into the shallow gridded square, knelt, and then began gently whisking sand away from the corpse.