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."You guys be careful," she said."The roads are slippery.Get some decent lunch somewhere.Eat something with vegetables, like a salad or something."In the truck, Del said, "Jesus Christ--vegetables."The drive to south Dakota County took forty-five minutes, a slow trip against rush traffic, "Money, Guns, and Lawyers" bumping out of the CD player, the wipers beating time.The roadside ditches were showing long strips of water, and Del told a story about a Caterpillar D-6 that once sank out of sight, was never recovered, and was presumably on its way to China after encountering a bog in weather just like this.When they arrived, they found a green Subaru Forester parked on the shoulder of the road, with a magnetic door-sign that said Archeo-Survey, Inc.Just beyond were three sheriff's cars and a battered Jeep Cherokee.One of the cars had its light bar flashing out a slow-down warning.A half-dozen men in slickers turned to look at them as they pulled off the road."Cop convention," Del grunted.Lucas parked, got out of the truck, walked around to the back, lifted the hatch, found his rain suit, and pulled it on.Del waited until he'd pulled the hood tight around his face, then they walked down the road to introduce themselves to the others."Don Hammond, chief deputy down here," said the largest of the cops."These guys are Rick and Dave.You know Terry Marshall." Marshall nodded at Lucas; little flecks of rain speckled his steel-rimmed glasses, and he looked tough as a chunk of hickory.Hammond continued: "The sheriff'll stop out later.You sure picked a good morning for it.""It's all I had," Lucas said.They all looked up at the sky, then Lucas asked, "Where's the radar guy?""He's up in the woods with his helper," Hammond said."They're setting up reference points.We were waiting for you.""What do you think? Bunch of bodies?" asked the deputy named Dave."I can't take the chance," Lucas said."I'd say it's about one in ten.""Good.We got, like, two shovels, and I got an idea who'd be using them.""LARRY LAKE?" LUCAS asked.He was struggling up the steep hillside, slipping on the oak leaves, Del, Hammond, and Marshall trailing behind."That's me." Lake was a lanky man with an uncontrolled beard and aviator-style glasses.He wore a red sailing-style rain suit with green Day-Glo flashes on the backs and shoulders.His face was wind-tanned, and two pale blue eyes peered out from behind the glasses.He was standing beside a yellow metal box on a tripod, which was set up over Aronson's grave.As Lucas came up, he saw that the metal box housed a lens."Are you Davenport?""Yeah.""I better get paid.This is miserable.""Yeah, yeah, yeah.How long is it gonna take?""I got my guy over there setting up the last of the reference pins, so we'll start the survey in ten minutes or so.I'm gonna get a cup of coffee first.""How long is it gonna take after that?"Lake shrugged."Depends on how much you want surveyed.We could show you some of it in a couple of hours, a lot more this evening, more tomorrow.whatever you want.We could do the whole hill in about three days.We're using this grave as a center point." He touched his ear, and Lucas realized that what looked like a plastic tab near his mouth was actually a microphone.Lake, talking to the mike, said, "Yeah, Bill.Yeah, the cops came up.Just a sec." To Lucas and the others: "This'll take a second, then we'll go some coffee."He looked through the lens on the survey instrument, sideways across the hill to where Bill was holding a red and white survey rod with a knob on top.Lake said, "Two forward, a half left.A half forward, one inch right.Two inches back, one half inch right.You're good--put in a pin.Yeah.Yup.Down at the truck."AT THE TRUCK, Lake's assistant got a gallon thermos out of the Subaru and started pouring coffee into paper cups, as Lake explained what he'd been doing."We set up four control points around the center, which is at Aronson's grave, so we've got a big rectangle laid out on the hillside.The next thing is, we stretch lines from the pins at the top of the hill to the pins at the bottom.Those lines are marked at one-meter intervals.Then we stretch another string across the hill, between the vertical lines, as a guide.We'll walk back and forth with the radar, along the string, and move down the hill one meter with every sweep.We can probably get you a fifty-meter-square block in about two hours.""If there's a grave, how do you find it later?" asked Del."Our computer'll actually generate a map, to scale," Lake said."If we find a possible site fifteen yards north and five yards east, it'll show on the computer plot, and then I'll just use the total station--""The total station's the box on the tripod," one of the deputies said."--I'll just use the total station to spot the center of the suspected site, and you guys--not me--start digging.""How accurate is it?" Lucas asked."At that distance?" Lake looked up the hill."A couple thousandths of an inch."THE WORK WAS even more miserable than it looked.Lucas and Del, alternating with Hammond and Marshall, stretched a long piece of yellow string between the corresponding one-meter markers on the vertical strings of the survey box, so it resembled the letter H.The cross string had to go around trees, got caught in branches; whenever it got tangled, whoever went to untangle it inevitably slipped on the sodden leaves and slid in the mud down the hill.Lake, in the meantime, walked back and forth across the hillside, straddling the yellow string, with two boxlike radar units hanging down from one shoulder.After the cops figured out the routine, the work went quickly, except for the falls.An hour into it, Lucas noticed that neither Lake nor his assistant ever fell down."How come?" Lucas asked."We're wearing golf shoes," Lake said.He picked up his feet to show Lucas the spikes."You've done this before," Del said."Once or twice," Lake said.LAKE HAD EXPECTED some results in two hours, but the rain, the falls, the jumble of trees stretched the two hours into three.When they'd run the last line between the bottom points of the survey box, Lake said, "Let's throw the gear into the truck and run into town.Find a cafe.""How long will it take you to process?" Lucas asked."We'll dump the information into the computer on the way into town.We'll pull up some preliminary results right there."They went to the High Street Cafe in Cannon Falls, took over the round booth by the window, and dragged some chairs around the open side.A half-dozen coffee drinkers sat down the length of the breakfast bar, farmers waiting out the rain.They made no attempt not to stare as Lake produced a fifty-foot extension cord, got a waitress to plug it in, and started the computer."Data looked pretty good going in," Lake muttered."It's not like we came up dry.""Can you actually see bodies?" asked Marshall."No, no.Nothing like that.What we see are soil changes.They'll look like grave shapes.""Trouble is," his assistant chipped in, "sometimes you see a lot of grave shapes, especially in the woods like that.If a tree tipped over fifty years ago, and its roots pulled up a hole in the ground, the radar'll see it."Lucas looked at the screen.One word: Processing.They all ordered pie and coffee, and Del leaned over and said, "Still processing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]