“Southeast. About two and a half hours from here, not far from the Mexican border. It’s huge.”
He explained that it was one of his favorite haunts when he went off on his frequent trips to study geology. “I go there to read the rocks.”
Thatch spoke enthusiastically about his hobby, the GPS unit forgotten, and Tosca was mesmerized as he described some of his most enjoyable discoveries in the area: the sandstone formations, the canyons and sand dunes left when the sea retreated millions of years earlier. He talked of the exposed cliffs showing their layers of life, marine and otherwise, after a series of earthquakes over the centuries. He described the masses of desert dune primroses and sand verbena.
“There are bighorn sheep, kit foxes, coyotes and…”
“Wait, wait,” interrupted Tosca. “Don’t tell me any more. Let’s go there right now. If the professor decided it was important enough to record that spot, then we need to find the reason.”
“I wonder why he displayed the coordinates so prominently on his wall? Takes hubris to do that if it is related to Paul’s disappearance,” said Thatch.
“Doesn’t surprise me in the least. That man’s ego is as big as an elephant. I’m betting he never imagined anyone would recognize that small piece of Schoenberg’s score after music students stopped coming to his house. Probably gave him immense satisfaction to have it in full view and believe that no one would figure it out. So let’s follow it up.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth following up, Tosca. We should go digging in the desert? For what?”
“Look, if you don’t want to go, I’ll find it myself. It might be the answer to the whole situation.”
Thatch shook his head and said, “All right, you’ve twisted my arm. You’d only get lost out there, so okay, I’ll take you. I’m not sure about your clue. It seems far-fetched to me, but I know you’ll love the desert. It’s a very special place. “
“Wonderful. I’ll get my jacket.” She jumped up. “Come on! Stop lollygagging. Grab that hat of yours, and let’s go.”
“It’s midnight,” Thatch protested. He spoke so quietly that Tosca was stopped in her tracks.
“What? Oh. Really? How early can we leave tomorrow?”
Tosca was waiting on the sidewalk when Thatch arrived at eight o’clock. Agreeing to stop for breakfast somewhere along the way, they set out in his pickup. He wore his Hatillo summer straw Stetson and his oldest cowboy boots. Tosca, her slender figure accentuated by a tailored denim shirt and her only pair of jeans, sat almost on the edge of the passenger seat. In her hands she clutched the GPS unit. At her feet was her parasol.
On Interstate 5 they drove past the two remaining nuclear reactors of the San Onofre power plant. In the early 1990s, the story goes, two terrorists drove by the plant with cameras, snapping pictures as they passed. Both would be known worldwide in 2001 as 9/11 hijackers.
“Who owns this large ranch?” asked Tosca two minutes later, indicating the area to her left.
Thatch turned his head to grin at her. “The United States. It’s a Marine base. Camp Pendleton.”
“Well, pardon me, but I saw a buffalo under that oak tree.”
Thatch laughed. “First, we call them bison, and I’m proud to say the noble animal you saw is the symbol on the flag of my home state of Wyoming. Second, a hundred-head herd is allowed to roam free on Pendleton’s one hundred twenty-five thousand acres. Third, the camp is home to two dozen endangered birds and other species, and fourth, that’s called a coastal oak, ma’am, not just an oak tree. Its acorns are poisonous.”
“I shall be sure not to chew on any.”
Within forty minutes Tosca and Thatch had turned off the freeway to head inland on State Highway 78 toward Escondido. The route took them into Ramona, a high desert, back country community where they stopped for a late breakfast in a rustic Western-style restaurant. Continuing on their way, they passed through Julian, a former mining town now famous for its apple orchards and fruit pies. After several more miles they came to a rural crossroads with a signpost that read S2A, pointing right, and S2 B, pointing left.
“That’s the one we want, S2A. Turn right,” said Tosca, reading from the GPS. Thatch swung the wheel, and soon the paved road gave way to a dirt trail.
“Are you sure this is correct? There’s nothing out this way,” said Tosca, straining to see ahead. Anza-Borrego, she decided, had none of the beauty of an English moor like Bodmin, although Bodmin’s treacherous bogs can suck a cow under.
Here, she was faced with a vast emptiness that she speculated probably had its own brand of deceptively hidden danger. She’d read that illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border often got lost and died of thirst beneath the gray summits of the softly folding mountains in the distance.
“I thought perhaps the professor might have had a summer cabin or something,” said Tosca, “but judging by this godforsaken place, I suppose not. It’s horribly desolate.”
“Desolate? This?” Thatch smiled. “You are so wrong. The desert soil is filled with life, Tosca. Everywhere you look are habitats, holes in the ground that are home to white-footed mice, kangaroo rats, honey ants, scorpions, lizards and spiders, too many species to count.”
“Shouldn’t deserts have sand?”
“Yes, and we have lots of that, too,” said Thatch. “The Algondones Dunes farther east rise to three hundred feet for miles and miles. They’re home to albino grasshoppers and horned lizards.”
“So you’re a naturalist as well as a geologist?”
“No, not really. I like geology because it offers mysteries to solve, teasing us to figure out the history of our planet and how it was formed. I like to know who lived here thousands of years ago, what they hunted, the crops they grew, their lifestyle.”
“It’s bleak. Barren. How can you find it interesting?”
“I’ll admit it’s a bleak landscape in parts, but can’t you feel the spirits of those who once were here?”
Tosca studied his face as he talked. “That’s pretty poetic, Thatch. I didn’t realize you’re a romantic.” This man’s character has hidden depths, she thought, and so far, I like every one.
“Guess I just like lonely places,” he replied, “where you can sit in nature and forget everything else in your life except what’s in front of your eyes.” He stopped the car. “We must be close to our target. Maybe the professor came out here camping.” He drove forward again after checking the GPS unit. “Or to get inspiration for his music. Don’t laugh, Tosca, isn’t that what composers do?”
“In this wilderness?” She gestured toward the horizon where nothing but dry arroyos and shale lay ahead.
“Why not? You should see it when the wildflowers are in bloom. There are areas where the landscape is carpeted with purple verbena, pink dune evening primrose, orange poppies and desert lilies. It’s a spectacular sight. Besides, this isn’t as harsh as the Mojave Desert or Death Valley, even though we’re basically in the badlands.”
“Sounds like you’ve been seeing too many Westerns.”
“Nope. It’s places like these that movie ideas come from. They’re based on fact. The badlands are a fact, and you’re in ‘em, ma’am.”
Tosca sat quietly. Suddenly, she called out, “Oh, look!”
“What?” Thatch slowed, glancing left and right.
“Lavender bushes! Fancy finding lavender here.”
“Hey, why wouldn’t lavender grow here? Man, I really thought you were on to something.”
“All right
, skiansekigyon,
then what’s that?” She pointed off to the left.
Thatch stepped on the brake and turned toward her.
“Skiansekigyon?
There’s that word again. I’m not driving one more inch until you tell me what it means.”
“It’s a, uh, an expression.”
“Of what, mental deficiency?”
“Endearment.” Tosca blushed, holding her head low.
“You know,” he said, easing off the brake and sending the truck into motion once more, “you could drive a guy crazy.”
Tosca didn’t reply. Instead, she pointed to several piles of gravel, asking what they were.
“That’s a tailings plant, a gravel quarry.” As they approached he added, “It looks abandoned. No equipment around, and the shack is boarded up.”
“I know what a gravel quarry is, but in the middle of nowhere?”
“Cheaper to buy the raw material here on site. Saves on transportation charges. See those mountains? Companies buy one or a partial, then dynamite it. Machinery crushes and grinds the boulders into different sizes for building materials. Let’s take a look.”
He parked near several mounds of various-sized rocks, gravel and pebbles. One pile was covered with plant growth. They got out of the pickup and walked around, Tosca opening the parasol against the desert sun.
“I wonder if Whittaker hid a clue here, buried inside one of those mounds? Or what if we find a couple of arms with no hands instead of another clue?” She suppressed a shudder.
“You are the most bloodthirsty woman I have ever met.” Thatch shook his head, smiling.
The remark increased her anxiety.
“Maybe this whole thing is a mistake,” she said, eyeing the piles of gravel. “You did say the FBI lab definitely confirmed that there are fingers in that stone, didn’t you?”
“Sounds like you’re getting cold feet, Tosca. Don’t worry. To answer your question, yes, Dan did confirm it, and no, it’s not practical to bury body parts here. Although the site appears abandoned, it’s pretty evident that people come and help themselves to a load or two of gravel to use in their driveways and landscaping.”
He pointed at one of the mounds and continued talking. “Contractors take some, too, if the pieces are the right size. I’m surprised the original owners didn’t clean the place out themselves when they closed it instead of leaving the stuff here. The piles probably reached more than twenty feet when the quarry was in operation. In any event this would be a poor place to hide something. People are coming and going all the time, and it’s a little too close to Ocotillo, a little trailer community down the way.”
They got back in the truck, Tosca closing the parasol and laying it by her feet. Like many Brits, she’d always wanted to visit California but knew little about the deserts or the heat. Thank goodness Thatch’s truck had air conditioning.
“Would someone like Professor Whittaker know about this place?” she said.
“Maybe when he was a kid. Could have come out here with his family. You’d be surprised how many dads bring their children to camp and hike in Anza-Borrego Park. There’s fishing in the mountains, too, and a lot of ATV off-roading. I used to bring my kids out here on weekends. Nowadays I come to study the geology.”
“Alone?”
“Yep. This place is a mystery in itself, and it’s an incredible treasure trove for geologists, if you’re interested in rocks, of course.” He slid a glance toward Tosca. “Which obviously you are.”
“Only those in rock gardens,” she answered demurely.
He asked her to check the GPS. She read out the numbers.
“Let me see that.” He took the unit from her, handed it back, turned right onto the scrubland and parked. He pointed to a low-lying, straggly bush in front of them.
“That’s the spot.”
They walked over to the bush, Tosca opening her parasol to shield herself from the sun’s intense heat.
“No sign of digging,” said Thatch. “There wouldn’t be, I guess. It was around five years ago, if the forensics tests are correct, so there’d be enough erosion by now to expose anything buried here.”
“Wouldn’t that depend on how deep something was buried? So what do we do now?” Unable to keep the disappointment from her voice, Tosca walked aimlessly around the site, kicking at the small round boulders at her feet.
“Wait a minute, Thatch, aren’t these rocks the same kind as Whittaker’s?” She bent down and picked one up, passing it over to Thatch.
“Yes,” he said, hefting it in his hand. “These are the concretions I told you about. They’re found only in one area of this region, right here. Some are cannonball shaped, like this. They’re normally resistant to erosion. That’s why I was surprised to see the one from the professor’s yard had crumbled until I realized it was man-made.”
“How did he copy them?”
“It was easy. He used a cement and sand composition to resemble real ones. In fact,” he said, kicking one at his feet, “this one is just about the same size as the one you stole.”
Grinning, Tosca twirled her parasol and said, “Now look, Thatch, if Paul’s hands were inside the professor’s man-made concretions, I am as sure as a billy goat there’s a clue to the rest of that poor student right here.”
Walking farther afield, she closed the parasol with a firm snap and jabbed it several times at random into different parts of the soft sand. Sinking halfway up its length at one place, the parasol suddenly jarred in her hand.
“Thatch, I’ve hit something!”
“Probably the bones of a jack rabbit.”
“Can we dig it up and see?”
“Sure. I’ve got an old army shovel and a geology kit in the truck. Be right back. You won’t faint, will you? I’m right here,
skiansekigyon.”
Tosca burst out laughing, “You nitwit. That’s the male version, the word you say to another man.”
“Whatever.” He grinned, shrugged and went to retrieve the shovel from the truck. When he returned he said, “You can remove that purple weapon now.”
Tosca pulled up the parasol, shook it and opened it up. Sand fell from its folds. She shook it again and held it over her head, grumbling quietly about the searing heat.
As Thatch bent to his task, digging deeper and deeper, she kept up a running commentary of instruction.
“Watch out. You’re letting the sand fall back in. Be careful. Goodness me, you’re not a very good digger, are you? Aren’t you supposed to use a brush?”
“A brush would be great, but I’m a geologist, not an archaeologist, so I don’t carry one around, and my rock hammer would be unsuitable. Hey, Tosca, I’ve hit something.”
“What is it, a box? Maybe more music scores with numbers?”
Thatch stopped digging and threw the shovel aside. On his knees, he gently cleared away the sandy soil with his hands, exposing the corner of a tarp and a colorful turquoise beach blanket. Shielding it from Tosca’s view with his body, he unwrapped one side of the tarp and blanket carefully, rewrapped the coverings and got to his feet,