"Chamber is approximately six by ten. We're holding it to three people max, or you can't move around."
"Who found it?"
"Kids. Discovered it last night, I guess, while engaged in some recreational drinking and/or other hobbies. Thought it was cool enough to return tonight with a flashlight. They won't do that again."
"Are they still around?"
"Nah. EMTs gave them sedatives and took them away It's for the best. They were useless to us."
"Lot of suits," Bobby commented, eyeing the area around them.
"Yeah."
"Lead detective?"
Her chin came up. "I'm the lucky duck."
"Sorry, D.D."
She grimaced, her face bleaker now that it was just the two of them. "Yeah, no shit."
The sound of a throat clearing came from behind them. "Sergeant?"
The videographer had emerged from beneath the tarp and was waiting for D.D.'s acknowledgment.
"We'll shoot again in intervals," D.D. told the videographer, turning back toward the assembled masses. "Around once an hour to keep things up-to-date. You can grab a cup of coffee if you'd like, there's a thermos in the van. But keep close, Gino. Just in case."
The officer nodded, then headed for the van where the generator thundered away
"All right, Bobby We're up."
She started walking without waiting to see if he'd follow.
Beneath the blue awning, Bobby found a pile of Tyvek coveralls plus shoe booties and hairnets. He pulled the papery material over the top of his clothes, while D.D. exchanged her soiled booties for a fresh pair. There were two eye-and-snout masks lying next to the coveralls. D.D. didn't take one, so neither did he.
"I'll go first," D.D. said. "I'll yell 'Clear' when I hit the bottom, then it's your turn."
She gestured toward the back and Bobby caught the faint glow coming from a roughly two-by-two-foot opening in the ground. The top of a metal ladder protruded above the earthen lip. It gave him a strange feeling of deja vu, as if he should know exactly what he was seeing.
And then, in the next instant, he got it; he knew why D.D. had called him. And he knew what he would see when he went down into the pit.
D.D. brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. The touch shocked him. He flinched; she immediately pulled away Her blue eyes were somber, too large in her pale face.
"See you in five, Bobby," she said quietly.
She disappeared down the ladder.
Two seconds later, he heard her voice again: "All clear."
Bobby descended into the abyss.
Chapter 3
IT WASN'T DARK. Spotlights had been placed in the corner, moveable light strips hung from the ceiling; crime-scene technicians needed bright lights for their laborious work.
Bobby kept his gaze focused in front of him, breathing shallowly through his mouth and processing the scene in small bits.
The chamber was deep, at least six feet tall; it easily cleared the top of his head. Wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder, it loomed ahead of him for nearly two full body lengths. Not a random sinkhole, he thought immediately, but something intentionally and painstakingly made.
The temperature was cool, but not cold. It reminded him of caves he'd once visited in Virginia; the air a constant fifty-five degrees, like a walk-in refrigerator.
Smell, not as bad as he had feared. Earthy, laced with the faintest odor of decay. Whatever had happened here, it was almost done now, hence the presence of the forensic anthropologist.
He touched one earthen wall with his gloved hand. It felt hard-packed, lightly ridged. Not bumpy enough to have been dug with a shovel; space was probably too big for that kind of labor anyway He would guess the cavern had originally been dug with a backhoe. Maybe a culvert that had been ingeniously reengineered with another purpose in mind.
He moved ahead two feet, came to the first support beam, an old, splintering two-by-four. It formed part of a crude buttress arching over the room. A second buttress appeared three feet after the first.
He explored the ceiling with his fingertips. Not dirt, but plywood.
D.D. caught his motion. "Whole ceiling's wood," she supplied. "Topped with dirt and debris except for the opening, where he left an exposed wooden panel he could plop on and off. When we first got here, it looked like random construction debris lying in the middle of an overgrown field. You'd never guess… You'd never know…" She sighed, looked down, then seemed to try to shake herself out of it.
Bobby nodded curtly. The space was fairly clean, spartanly furnished: an old five-gallon bucket placed next to the ladder, lettering so faded with age, only dim shadows remained; a folded-up metal chair, corners laced with rust, propped against the left-hand wall; a metal shelving unit, spanning the length of the far wall, covered in bamboo blinds on the verge of disintegration.
"Original ladder?" he asked.
"Metal chain link," D.D. answered. "We've already bagged it as evidence."
"Plywood cover obscuring the opening, you said? Find any good sticks around?"