The Rivers Run Dry Read online

  Praise for Sibella Giorello

  “. . . holds the reader in its powerful grip until the very last word. Sibella Giorello writes like a seasoned pro. No mystery lover should pass up this novel.”

  —Fred Chappell, author of I Am One of You Forever,

  on The Stones Cry Out

  “. . . an exceptionally skillful debut . . . readers will follow [Raleigh Harmon] eagerly through this adventure and hope for more to come.”

  —Ann McMillan, author of Civil Blood, on The Stones Cry Out

  “With three-dimensional characters who could be your neighbors, fascinating forensic geology tidbits, and a rich attention to details, The Stones Cry Out is easily one of 2007’s most compelling novels.”

  —Titletrakk

  “. . . creative descriptions . . . authentic dialogue . . . she has that certain X factor . . .”

  —Novel Journey

  “. . . gifted novelist . . . more than once I found myself awed by her vivid word pictures.”

  —Crosswalk

  the rivers run dry

  Also by Sibella Giorello

  The Stones Cry Out

  © 2009 by Sibella Giorello

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Portion of “The Sea and the Mirror” by W. H. Auden, © 1944 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Giorello, Sibella.

  The rivers run dry / Sibella Giorello.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-533-6 (softcover)

  1. Women geologists—Fiction. 2. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation—Fiction. 3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. Northwest, Pacific—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.I465R58 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2008044450

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 PC 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  chapter twenty-two

  chapter twenty-three

  chapter twenty-four

  chapter twenty-five

  chapter twenty-six

  chapter twenty-seven

  chapter twenty-eight

  chapter twenty-nine

  acknowledgments

  reader’s guide

  about the author

  For Joe

  Well, who in his own backyard

  Has not opened his heart to the smiling

  Secret he cannot quote?

  Which goes to show that the Bard

  Was sober when he wrote

  That this world of fact we love

  Is unsubstantial stuff:

  All the rest is silence

  On the other side of the wall;

  And the silence ripeness,

  And the ripeness all.

  —W. H. Auden

  chapter one

  It was early October when I drove east toward the mountains outside Seattle with tainted emeralds on my mind. The autumn sun gilded birch leaves and the blue sky appeared polished by a crisp and steady wind. But the green in the trees stole the show.

  Armies of cedar and fir and hemlock marched up the foot-hills of the Cascade Mountains, long limbs glowing with a peculiar shade of green I’d seen only once before: when a six-carat emerald rolled across a stainless steel examination tray in the FBI’s materials analysis lab. That gem’s green facets glowed with a hue so verdant, so luscious, it whispered sibilant promises in the ears of greedy men.

  Just before the town of Issaquah, I turned south off Interstate 90 and followed Sunset Way to the western side of Cougar Mountain. My car windows were open and the air smelled of pine needles and dry curling leaves and iron-rich soil warmed by the sun. This was supposed to be a routine visit, a courtesy call by the FBI for the local PD. But I’ve learned not to judge any-thing by appearance; that gorgeous emerald in the FBI lab cost three men their lives.

  I parked in a small gravel lot on the right side of the road and walked over to a gray Crown Vic idling beside a police cruiser, the drivers’ windows lined up with each other. When I knocked on the Crown Vic’s window, the glass lowered six inches.

  I leaned down. “Detective Markel?”

  “Yes . . ?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m Raleigh Harmon, FBI.”

  He blinked, then squinted as though the sun hurt his eyes. “Oh. I was expecting . . . when Jack Stephanson said your name . . . I thought . . .”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  Two weeks ago the FBI transferred me to Seattle from Richmond, Virginia, and although Southern women often carried family names forward as first names, here in the Northwest people kept assuming “Raleigh” meant I was a man.

  “Not that there’s a problem,” the detective added.

  He had driven six feet forward, far enough to open his door and climb out. The state trooper left his car where it was, walking over to where I stood.

  “This is Trooper Ron Lowell,” the detective said. “He’s with the Washington State Patrol.”

  The trooper’s blue uniform had vertical creases that looked as though the clothes were ironed on his body. A white braid circled the brim of his felt hat. Trooper Lowell smiled, dipping the hat toward me.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  My heart squeezed with homesickness, for a place where all men had manners like his. Behind us, a car door slammed and a small woman walked toward us. She looked like an elf purged from a fairy tale. Her long red hair leaped over her shoulders in ropes of lava and her enormous black boots scuffed across the loose gravel shards, creating a sound like belligerent applause.

  “This, this is Fern Valley,” the detective said. “She works with Issaquah Parks Department. Fern, this is Special Agent Raleigh Harmon with the FBI.”

  Fern Valley’s pinched expression silenced every question about her name.

  The detective continued, “The vehicle in question belongs to one Courtney VanAlstyne. She lives in Kirkland. We called the residence, a roommate answered. She hasn’t seen the girl since Sunday.”

  It was Tuesday, two days later, and the vehicle in question was an army green Land Rover parked perpendicular to a cedar log boom that ran the circumference of the gravel parking lot. Behind the log boom a bulletin board was mounted on pl
ywood and dis-played a map of hiking trails stretching across Cougar Mountain. A ring of maple, oak, and aspen trees dropped dying leaves on the Land Rover, smothering the windshield with a flat conglomerate of burnt oranges and bruised reds.

  “Who found the vehicle?” I asked.

  When no one answered, I asked again.

  Fern Valley rolled her big blue eyes. “Sunday afternoons I clean the trailhead,” she said.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  She sighed, a sound like steam escaping a tight seal. “I come out here Sundays to clean the trailhead, okay? That’s when I saw a car. I came back Monday; it was still here. So I called the cops. They said wait another day. I came back this morning, it’s still here. I’ve been waiting for you to show up. Get this thing out of here, okay?”

  I glanced at Detective Markel. He wore an expression that compressed his emotions into the diplomatic mask of law enforcement.

  “We’re exercising due caution,” he explained. “We still haven’t established what—”

  “I’m tired of people treating the mountains like some foot-ball stadium,” Fern Valley interrupted. “You know how many beer cans and condoms I pick up out here? It’s sickening. Now we’re supposed to run some Park and Ride? Nobody respects the land. Nobody.”

  Detective Markel waited, attempting to ensure the rant was over. For now. Then he turned to me. “We sometimes get people going on overnighters—hike all day, camp the night, drive home the next morning. But this particular trailhead isn’t known for overnighters. It’s more of a quick run. Most campers drive over to Tiger Mountain. Wouldn’t you say, Ron?”

  Trooper Lowell had his thumbs hooked into the wide black leather belt holding his holstered gun and a radio with a cord running to the mic clipped on his left shoulder. He reached up, brushing away a gnat, shifting his stance. The black shoes gleamed with an obsidian polish.

  “Ma’am, we run plates on every vehicle that’s left on park grounds more than twenty-four hours,” he said. “Sometimes we get folks hiking to the trail’s end, like Detective Markel said, but it’s taking longer than they expected. Or maybe they get drunk and a friend takes the keys. Maybe the vehicle’s out of gas. We hear ’em all.”

  “And if the car is left for more than twenty-four hours?” I asked.

  “We tow it. That’s after we run the plates, of course, see if it’s stolen or any outstandings exist in the way of warrants. Issaquah PD handles the tow.”

  I glanced at the detective. His black hair was greased, combed, riding waves to the back of his head.

  “But you didn’t tow this car,” I said.

  “Well, no.”

  “Because?”

  “Because it’s not so cut-and-dried,” the detective said. “After we phoned the roommate, we called the girl’s parents—the title lists them as the vehicle’s owners. The mother said she hasn’t heard from the girl since Sunday. She begged us to launch a search, we ran the dog out here yesterday but he went around in circles. Up the trail just a ways, then circle back to the parking lot. The father came out, watching the whole thing. He was pretty upset, you can imagine. When the dog came up with nothing, we decided to call you guys for some forensics. You know, just in case.”

  “See?” Fern Valley hissed. “If I didn’t say something they would’ve just let this thing sit here leaking oil into the land. Do you have any idea what motor oil does to the ecosystem, to the streams? The salmon? Like the salmon don’t have enough problems.”

  I thanked Fern Valley for her time, gave her my card, and told her she could leave now. She spun, red hair scything the air, and stomped back to the white pickup parked at the edge of the gravel. The truck door read “Issaquah Parks Dept.” I watched the truck pull onto Sunset Way, the tailpipe belching noxious clouds of exhaust.

  The trooper, on the other hand, received my genuine smile and a business card with all my FBI contact numbers, including my cell number. But his reaction was more wounded than Fern’s. He suddenly looked childlike, the most athletic boy dismissed early from the big game. There was no polite way to explain that evidence collection had a better chance of withstanding cross-examinations in court if only essential personnel were involved; nobody wanted to be told they were inessential, particularly in law enforcement.

  “You don’t want me to stick around?” he said. “I can help. Really.”

  “Thank you, Officer Lowell. We appreciate your time. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Ma’am, I’m happy to help.”

  “Yes, thank you. We will be in touch.”

  His brown eyes roamed my face, searching for some motive. Finally, he tipped the lapis blue hat, and his cruiser made a wide U-turn through the parking lot, disappearing down the two-lane road lined by trees with flaming leaves.

  I walked to my car, popped the trunk. The detective followed.

  “Did you notify the media?” I asked.

  “The family wants to keep this very low-key,” he said. “No media.”

  “That won’t help you find her.”

  “What I told them. But they won’t listen. The mother said, ‘Publicity will only make her circumstances worse.’”

  “What circumstances is she talking about?”

  “They think she was kidnapped.”

  “Pardon?”

  “For money,” he said. “They’re wealthy, like, really, really wealthy. They talk about kidnapping like nothing else could’ve happened. We told them it would still help if we went public, but they’re adamant. All the time begging us to find her, with no media involved.” He sighed.

  “Fingerprints?” I asked.

  “Just hers. On the steering wheel, door handles, stereo. The usual.”

  Before I headed out this morning, my new colleague, Special Agent Jack Stephanson, had warned me the Issaquah PD would be skittish about disappearances like this. Several years earlier a local family sued the police department, alleging detectives hadn’t responded diligently when their teenage daughter went missing. A chronic runaway with a known drug problem, the girl’s case had received standard procedure from overworked and understaffed detectives. But when she surfaced as the second victim in a serial killing that stretched across Seattle’s east side, the subsequent lawsuit raked millions from city coffers and lined the pockets of trial attorneys. These days even Seattle’s smallest police departments called in the FBI for technical backup, asking for the kind of tests and procedures that might dissuade lawyers from trial. And whenever possible, they did what parents asked.

  I snapped on latex gloves and squeezed my hand into the wheel well, carefully removing the soil nestled inside. The small grains crumbled between my fingers, a dirt dried by an August drought and a similarly rainless September. I deposited the sample into a sterile cotton bag, marking the paper tag with a Sharpie, pulling the drawstring tight. I ran an index finger across the tire treads. They were new tires, still holding extraneous molded rubber pieces from the factory. I found a slug of soil inside one of the treads and placed that in another cotton bag.

  Then I glanced around the parking lot. The shards of gray granite were too large and loose for wheel impressions. Even if the tires had left an impression, the trooper drove directly behind the Rover, obliterating any trace. Kneeling down and opening my work bag, I took out a canister of fingerprint powder, one jar of Vaseline, and about twenty sheets of white card stock paper.

  “Please pop the front doors,” I said.

  The detective shimmed a flat metal Slim Jim between the door’s frame and window, popping the lock. At the back of the car, I smeared Vaseline across the rear tires, coating the treads until they glistened, then laid the card stock on the gravel directly behind each wheel. Walking to the front of the car, where the doors were open, I could smell sun-soaked leather and a vanilla air freshener so heavy it powdered my tongue like talc.

  “On the count of three,” I said, “push it back.”

  We leaned into the door frame from opposite sides, pushing agai
nst the Rover until the rear wheels rolled across the paper with a crunching sound.

  “Okay, that’s good,” I said.

  I picked up the paper from under the car. The bottom sheets had torn against the rocks, but I needed only the top. With the small box of fingerprint powder, I gently blew magnetic fragments across the Vaseline. The black tread marks swept into view.

  “Neat trick,” the detective said. “It looks like the car drove over the paper.”

  I nodded, greasing the front tires, laying more paper on the gravel before we pushed the Rover forward into the log boom. I slipped all four tread impressions between separate vellum sheets and took photographs of each tire with a digital camera.

  “Do we really need all four tires?” the detective asked, frowning. “No offense meant.”

  “None taken. Every shoe leaves a different print, depending on the manufacturer and wear. It’s the same with tires.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “We once had a case where a suspect’s vehicle had four different tires, all different makes. Each tire left a completely different tread mark at the scene. Because we had a record for each, when prosecutors showed the statistical anomaly, it sealed the verdict. You want legal protection, that’s what I’m offering.”

  He nodded, but worry knotted his forehead. The FBI billed the local police departments for time, material, and expenses, and small town PDs were already strapped financially. The detective would have to defend every forensic procedure.

  “I won’t run any tests until I hear back from you,” I said. “The soil analysis is the most expensive, save that for last, if y’all even need it.”

  “Y’all?”

  “You and your department.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Virginia.”

  “That explains you calling me ‘sir.’ How long you been out here?”

  “About two weeks.”

  “You enjoying our Indian Summer?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He lifted his head, the black hair sparkling with illumination, bright coal dust riding a crystal stream. “Yep, we’ve got some good weather. But when it starts raining, let me know what you think.”