Diablo Mesa(72)

Darren turned to Corrie, eyes widening in the way she’d grown accustomed to as he processed both her youth and her appearance. Corrie returned the look, stone-faced. She was done being pleasant. She held out her hand. “Special Agent Swanson.”

“Um, Darren Schmitz.”

She’d been exercising with grip strengtheners for months, and she took his clammy hand in hers and crushed it, establishing who was boss in the most elemental of ways.

“Follow me,” he said, after retrieving his limp hand.

Schmitz led her to the back of the building and out the rear door. Behind, parked in a shipping and receiving area, was a shabby semitrailer on blocks. He walked over to it. A foot ladder was placed against its side, leading to a door. He climbed up, punched a code into a padlock, and the lock snapped open. He removed the padlock and opened the door, then went inside and turned on a light.

Corrie followed him up the stepladder. Her heart fell. Inside the trailer, old filing cabinets lined the walls from floor to ceiling, along with miscellaneous cardboard and metal storage boxes, in layers three or more deep.

“How is this organized?” she asked.

Schmitz stared. “What do you mean?”

“How do you find a patient’s files in here? By last name?”

“Well, by practice, then by year, and then alphabetically by last name.”

“Really? How can you locate anything in a mess like this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Does anyone know?”

“Nobody else comes in here. I’m the only one.”

“Why do they even keep this trailer? Why not throw all this sh—stuff out?”

“We would have to go through the files before throwing them out. It’s cheaper just to store them.”

“So if you die, how will your replacement find anything in here?”

He stared at her.

Corrie realized she had gone too far. After all, if they’d thrown out the records, it would have made her visit academic. She looked at the nervous, sweating face of Darren Schmitz—it was like an oven inside the trailer—and suddenly felt sorry for him. She shook her head. “I apologize if I seem a little impatient. I appreciate that you’re trying to help. Let me show you what I’m looking for, and maybe you’ll have some ideas about where I might find it.” She put down her briefcase, opened it, and slipped out a file. “Here are the X-rays we took at the FBI lab of a homicide victim’s teeth. Those crowns are unusual—they’re cast in a stainless steel alloy and then finely machined and polished. The work was almost certainly done in the Soviet Union in the forties, give or take.”

The man stared at the X-rays. “Stainless steel?”

“Yes. We don’t often employ that material for crowns in America, outside of pulpectomies in pediatric dentistry. You’d know that better than I. But the victim was an adult, murdered in 1947…and here in New Mexico.”

The man looked up. “Well, the only thing that comes to mind is a filing cabinet devoted to X-rays of dental oddities and pathologies. It was the hobby of a dentist in a practice we acquired years ago.”

“Okay, let’s start there.”

Within five minutes, Corrie found herself staring at sepia-colored X-rays of the precise four crowns she was searching for. She was incredulous at her stroke of luck. They’d found them in the cabinet of oddities, in a section labeled UNCOMMON ALLOY DENTAL WORK. And right there, paper-clipped to the X-rays, was the name and Santa Fe address of the patient, as well as a date: August 3, 1945.

Corrie felt a flush of triumph. What a coup. Lime was going to be thrilled. She couldn’t wait to get back to the office and tell him.

As she slipped into her car, her cell phone rang. Glancing at it, she saw it was Watts.

“I’m afraid we’ve got bad news,” he said when she picked up.

“What’s up?”

“Kidnapping and potential homicide.”

Instantly, she forgot her triumph. “Who?”

“Noam Bitan.”





47



AS THE SUN crossed the meridian on its journey to the western horizon, the dig was progressing at its own swift pace. Nora couldn’t have asked for a better site. The sand was clean, with no artifacts or rocks or anything to slow them down. The area was concentrated—only nine square meters. The work moved even faster when Tappan, with growing impatience, rolled up his sleeves and joined Nora and Emilio. Cecilia Toth came along with a magnetometer at Nora’s request to see if they could image anything down below. Scott was back at base camp, organizing the equipment.

At seven in the evening, when they had reached two meters of depth—six feet—Nora halted work for the magnetometer survey.

The others climbed out as Toth booted up the ungainly looking machine and began adjusting dials. When it was ready, she trundled it down a ramp into the excavated area and began wheeling it like a lawn mower over the flat floor of the excavation.

“Whoa!” she said, halting in the middle of the very first pass. She leaned over the machine, fiddling with the dials.

“What is it?” Tappan asked.

“Just a glitch.” She messed around for a while, then said: “I’ve got to reboot the thing.”

She worked quickly, spidery fingers moving expertly over the controls. Nora and the rest waited.