LC 02 - Questionable Remains (29 page)

"I don't know."

"Sure, I'll watch over you. When you wake up, I'll take
you home."

"I haven't talked to the guy who identified the skeletons
yet."

"Lindsay, walk away from this. Look at what you've been
through. I've just spent a frantic night wondering what happened to you."

"No." Lindsay's voice came a little too loud even to her
own ears. "You don't understand what they did to me, what
they took away from me."

She put her hands on his chest. For the first time, he saw
the condition of her hands. They were scratched and
bruised, and her nails were broken past the quick. They
looked as if she had clawed her way out of solid rock to the
surface. He took her hands in his own and kissed them.

"You're right, perhaps I don't," he said.

"I almost died a hundred times. I've almost been trapped
between rocks, with only a drawn out death to wait for, I've almost fallen into a pit that I couldn't even see the bottom
of, I was almost stuck in a tunnel with no room even to
breathe. I've had to do things that I wouldn't have thought
possible I could do. I have to find out who did this to me,
and I'm going to start where I left off before I disappeared.
I want you to help me."

"Will you at least see a doctor first?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

Lindsay put on a nightgown and combed her hair into a
ponytail on top of her head and climbed into bed. Derrick
tucked her in and kissed her cheek.

"Sleep well. I'll be here when you awaken," he said.

She closed her eyes and went immediately to sleep.

Lindsay awoke with a start, reaching for the flashlight
she had forgotten to turn off. She felt panicked. How long
had the light been on that bright?

"It's okay, I'm here."

Derrick. He had come looking for her. She was safe.

Lindsay raised up in a bed. She remembered now. She
was safe. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Nine o'clock." Derrick sat on her bed and gathered her
up in his arms.

"You mean I've only been asleep five hours?" She rested
her cheek against his chest. It felt safe.

"No. Seventeen hours. It's nine in the morning."

"Ten hours more than usual, so I should be well rested."
She pushed away from him and swung her legs over the side.
Everything about her ached. "I'm so sore," she groaned.

"I found a doctor in town. He said I could just call when
you awoke, and he'd fit you in."

"Thanks. I think I'm up-to-date on the tetanus."

"It won't hurt just to let him have a look."

She gripped the edge of the bed and started to rise. Pain
shot through her hands. "I need a manicure," she said, looking at them. "They look pretty awful. I'll take a shower and
get dressed. You can call your doc."

Lindsay showered and dressed. With her hair clean and
brushed, and bandages covering the deeper scrapes on her
face, she didn't look quite as bad, but her face was still
swollen. She put on a pair of khaki pants and a brown
blouse and surveyed herself in the mirror. Not half bad, but
she wouldn't want her parents to see her like this. She
opened the door and walked out of the bathroom.

"You have a visitor," Derrick said.

"Well, I see Little Rabbit had a time with the old tarman." John West rose from the chair, holding a gray stuffed
animal under his arm.

"Hello, John." She held out her hand. He took it, and
looked at it in his hand, much the same way he had before.

"I see you did have a bad time," he said again. "Here, I
brought you something. A cute cuddly rabbit didn't seem to
fit. I thought Bugs more suitable." He handed her a stuffed
Bugs Bunny.

"Thanks." She caressed the soft coat on the rabbit.

"I'll go and order breakfast," interrupted Derrick. "Come
to the restaurant when you are ready. John, why don't you
join us?"

"No, I have to get back. But thank you."

Derrick left and closed the door behind him.

"Your boyfriend is very trusting. I'm not sure I'd leave
you alone with another man," said John.

"You wouldn't trust me?" asked Lindsay.

"I wouldn't trust the other man."

"Derrick is a pretty good judge of character."

John smiled. "Other than some scrapes and bruises, you
seem to be all right."

"I am now. But I need to find out who did this." Lindsay
looked down at her hands, then back at John.

"Why don't you let the authorities find out who did it?"

"You as well as anyone should understand that I can't
depend on them to get to the bottom of this," she said. "I
appreciate the gift. Does this mean we are friends?"

"No, we are still enemies. The gift is sort of an apology."

"Apology for what?" she asked.

"For not believing my father, I suppose. I can't apologize
to him, because he doesn't know I didn't believe him."

"About what?"

"Father goes to bed early and gets up early. Yesterday
morning at five o'clock after he arose, we were having coffee, and he said that an ancestor had come to him in a dream
that night and told him you were trapped in the earth, that
the ancestor heard your cry on the wind and saw your struggle to get out. Father wanted me to get in touch with you or
tell someone." John paused. "See, I had told him of your
problems and about the dead men in the cave," he continued, "I thought that was where his dream came from, and it
may have been. But I should have honored his request. Later,
when your friend Derrick called me, asking if I mentioned
any place you might have gone, that he couldn't find you, I
... well, perhaps if I had called him earlier-"

Lindsay shook her head. "No one could have helped me
where I was."

"Nevertheless, I dishonored my father by not doing what
he asked, by assuming that he didn't know where his own
dreams came from."

"I may have seen one of your ancestors in the cave," said
Lindsay.

John raised his eyebrows, and Lindsay explained what
she had stumbled across.

John was silent for a moment, surprise evident in his
voice. "So you were in the cave of the Uktena?" he said.

"It seems so."

"Interesting. The cave of the Uktena is a myth, I had
always thought."

"Myths and legends often have some basis in fact."

"The conquistador held the Ulunsuti in his hands? What
did it look like?"

"It was very large, bigger than an ostrich egg, and crystal clear," she told him. "I would have liked to have gotten a
better look, but-

"I understand," he said.

Lindsay got up and fished in the backpack.

"Give this to your father. He'll appreciate having a scale
of the Uktena." She put a crystal in his hand.

John stared at the clear-faceted crystal in the palm of his
hand, then at Lindsay. "Thanks, he will appreciate it."

"I believe one of your ancestors may have led me out of
the cave," she said. John raised his eyebrows again, and
Lindsay explained about the smoked markings she followed. "They may have been from someone else, I don't
know. But they led me out of the cave."

"You've had an interesting adventure, Rabbit. I'll tell my
father and see what he makes of it. You'd better go eat. Your
boyfriend is waiting."

"Thanks again for coming all this way to give me the rabbit, even if it was for your father."

"You're welcome." He kissed her cheek, looked into her
eyes for just a moment, then backed away.

"I lost the hat you gave me," she said. "It fell off when
they kidnapped me."

John went out to his truck and came back with a cap with
the West Builders logo. "This is mine," he said. "If you don't
mind wearing my cap, you can have this one."

When Lindsay went to the restaurant where Derrick had
ordered her eggs, bacon, pancakes, and orange juice, she
wore John West's hat.

"You don't seem to have any serious injuries," the doctor
told her. "If you have any intestinal or gastric distress for
any length of time, we might need to check for any parasites
you may have picked up. But I imagine water that deep
underground is probably cleaner than the water we get
here. You may have some scarring on your face."

"A little dermabrasion will fix it," his nurse said quickly. "I had a friend with bad acne scars. She got a little abrasion,
and now she has the prettiest skin."

"That's true," said the doctor. "There's nothing wrong
that can't be fixed. And there's a chance you will have so little scarring you won't need anything done to it."

Lindsay thanked them for seeing her on short notice and
for their kindness. Derrick was in the waiting room of the
small clinic. "Fit as a fiddle," she told him. "I just need
aspirin, plenty of water, and rest."

"Good. Can I take you home?"

"No. I also need peace of mind, and I'm going to get that
before I leave town. I'm going to see this Dr. Olin Ballinger,
the orthopedist who thinks he can identify bones." Lindsay
saw Derrick's jaw tighten. "I have to do this," she said.

"Yeah," he answered.

Dr. Ballinger's office was in a new medical complex. The
recently planted trees and shrubs hadn't had time to take
hold yet. They looked frail. The entranceway smelled like
new paint. Lindsay found the office number on the directory at the front entrance. It said Olin Ballinger, M.D., Sports
Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery.

"Great," she said. "He treats jock injuries and does forensic anthropology in his spare time."

Derrick cast Lindsay a sideways glance. They took the
elevator to Ballinger's second-floor office.

"You're a little tense, aren't you?" Derrick said.

"Why shouldn't I be? You don't see me doing knee
surgery in my spare time, do you?"

They entered Ballinger's office. The waiting room was
plush, done in light blues and salmon pinks-soothing colors, Lindsay supposed. The receptionist was behind a sliding window.

"Just sign your name," she said, looking sympathetically
at Lindsay.

"I don't have an appointment today." Lindsay said.

"Dear, I don't think we have-"

"I did have an appointment late Monday afternoon." The
woman's friendly smile was fading. Lindsay could tell she
put a high value on promptness. "However, I was delayed
by my kidnapping and attempted murder." A look of surprised horror came over the woman's face. "I'm Dr. Lindsay
Chamberlain, and I was hoping you could fit me in. I don't
want to get in front of these people who've been waiting. I'll
be glad to wait until Dr. Ballinger has a few minutes."

"Oh, yes, I remember, Dr. Chamberlain. It's about those,
uh ... We wondered what happened to you. We called Dr.
Prescott-he said-well-"

"Dr. Prescott? Is he using that title?"

The woman looked surprised. "I just assumed-I mean,
he is the coroner."

"I see. Regardless of what Mr. Prescott may have told
you, I'd like to talk to Dr. Ballinger."

"Please take a seat. I'll go see if he's free."

Lindsay and Derrick took a seat directly in front of the
receptionist's glass room.

"A little hard on the woman, weren't you?" said Derrick.

"Was l?"

"Are you sure you're up to doing this now?"

"I'm fine." She hadn't meant to sound so sharp. She
reached for his hand. He squeezed it reassuringly.

Lindsay and Derrick waited an hour. Lindsay flipped
through magazines without much interest, always fighting
the feeling that she had to be constantly on the move, oror what? Die? She sighed.

Finally, the nurse called them into the office. Dr. Ballinger
was a large man, relatively slim, with dark receding hair, an
expensive suit, Rolex watch, and gold-rimmed glasses.

"I'm not sure what I can do for you. This business," he
waved his hand as if the business were there somewhere in
the office, "is an official matter."

Lindsay ignored his claim to official secrecy. "How did
you identify the bones found in Hell Slide Cave?"

"I did surgery on Mr. Hillard. I know my work. I had
dental x-rays for Mr. Darnell. The other, I forget his name,
was identified by his driver's license, found with the body,
I believe. The coroner was satisfied. The circumstances were
very clear."

"Did you examine the bones for any other cause of
death?" asked Lindsay.

"They were caught in a rock slide."

"Do you have the x-rays?" she asked.

"I'm not sure you have the authority to view them," he
answered.

"Do you know that you comingled the bones?"

"I what?"

"Comingled the bones. You do know what that means,
don't you?"

"Yes, I know what comingling is." His tone was decidedly unfriendly now. "However, I dispute that allegation."

Lindsay took out the photographs of Blaine Hillard's
remains and laid them out on the table, pointing to Hillard's
two left ninth ribs. Dr. Ballinger refused to look.

"Dr. Ballinger, why are you afraid to examine these photographs?" asked Lindsay.

"I don't need to. I remember working with the bones. No
comingling took place."

"Dr. Ballinger. Every competent bone expert in the world
would identify both of these bones as left ninth ribs. Unless
you contend that Blaine Hillard wore one of his ribs upside
down. This petulance you are showing is childish and
unprofessional." Derrick quietly reached for Lindsay's arm
and gently squeezed it.

"Dr. Chamberlain, I've given you enough of my time-"

"Did you know that Blaine Hillard may have been hit
with a tire iron before he was covered with rock?"

"I didn't find-"

"You didn't know how to look."

"I assure you, I'm competent to deal with bones."

"Then you can't have failed to notice that the rates of
decomposition among the skeletons are not the same. Why
didn't you report that to the authorities?"

Lindsay had caught him totally off guard. He stared at
her. "What?"

"I could see that in these photographs. It would have
been very evident in the bones. I can't understand why you
kept this from the sheriff."