The Mountains Bow Down Read online

  Squatting beside her laundry bag, I popped open the snapping top. But Nam brushed me aside.

  “Nam do, Nam do!”

  It seemed important to him, some kind of honor, and he followed my directions carefully, lifting each article of clothing from the bag and laying it on the steel floor. He did the same with the other four bags, moving down the line with me. Periodically he raced back to the laundry chute to replace a full cart with an empty one, then pushing the laundry to the women with the wooden shovels. As I finished examining the clothes, Nam patiently replaced them in their bags. And whenever I asked a question, he was smiling.

  “Does clothing come down the chute?” Smiling, no.

  “Can people wash their own clothes?” Smiling, yes.

  After several minutes, his cheerful attitude made me feel uneasy. Even suspicious. Until I realized the problem.

  It wasn’t him; it was me. Or my country. I’d been ordering Big Macs and standing at customer service counters and waiting on the phone for technical support, seldom getting anything other than some sour, slothful attitude. After years of it, I’d come to expect lowlevel employees to carry chips on their shoulders, taking out their disappointment on me. While I loved my country with a heart beating with American pride, I could see why this ship hired so many internationals. Where poverty was endemic, work was a blessing, not a burden.

  “Thank you, Nam.”

  He nodded, still smiling. “You find what you look for?”

  “Not yet.” I glanced over at Jack. He touched the laid-out clothing with a curled lip. I called over to him. “Jack, you have to check the underwear.”

  “Wha—?”

  “The clothes are all bundled together and that dust can stick anywhere.”

  He was muttering under his breath as I kneeled to examine MJ’s clothing. The dress looked like the one worn last night, a soft bohemian style with draping gothic sleeves. Only it was black, not blue.

  And the sleeves were covered with dust.

  I looked at Nam. “I’m going to take this one with me.”

  His smile faded. “You tell boss?”

  “I promise, you will not get in trouble. May I please have a clean bag, never used?” I had evidence bags in my cabin, in my rock kit, for any forensic work, but that risked waking up my mother. At the thought of her, pushing away sparks of worry and guilt, I reminded myself to call Aunt Charlotte.

  “Harmon, you are . . .” Jack continued muttering.

  I checked the other bags. Trousers, boxers, damp workout clothes, stinking of perspiration. Gross, I had to agree with Jack, but all those years in the forensics lab taught me how to shift my brain into clinical detachment, so that even the most revolting deposits became simple protein-based emissions from the human body.

  “See anything?” I called over to him.

  “Crimes of bad hygiene.”

  Nam waited beside me, helpful without being servile. “Does the ship’s crew wash their own clothes?”

  He shook his head and motioned for me to follow. When I passed by, Jack still had dozens of bags to go. Under the laundry chute, Nam replaced another full cart with an empty one, then led me to the row of lumpy green nylon duffel bags. Each had a plastic tag marked with a last name, a first initial, and a cabin number. The cabins all numbered in the 300s and 400s, meaning below the waterline. Crew. Officers lived way up by the captain’s bridge, in the single digits, with views.

  “When did these come in?” I asked.

  “One, two day,” Nam said. “Not such hurry.”

  Right. The crew needed to be kept content, but the passengers should be very happy, with laundry done promptly. Yanking open one of the drawstrings, I froze. The pants were blood-spattered.

  “Butcher,” Nam said. “Kitchen.”

  Other bags held white cotton-poly shirts greasy with cooking oil. I searched through the clothes for dust and black paint and found sets of two coveralls smeared with a black substance. It smelled like petroleum, engine grease, but I asked Nam to bundle each into separate bags, while I wrote down the corresponding crew names and cabin numbers. When Nam excused himself to rotate the carts again, I took a deep breath and leaned from side to side, trying to unknot the small of my back. My muscles felt like tight fists. Bending forward, I could feel my stomach growling for food. I straightened, taking another deep breath of the warm starchy air and saw Jack walking toward me, looking as weary as I felt. He carried a pair of faded blue jeans.

  “You’re the expert,” he said. “But what do you make of this?”

  Bleached for a high price, the jeans were faded in precise places with strategic frays. But the pale knees looked almost yellow from the dust ground into the denim weave. I moved over to a pendant light, standing directly under it to examine the particles.

  “Can I ask what you’re looking for, exactly, besides dust?” Jack asked.

  “Vermiculite, for one thing.”

  “Later you can tell me what that is. First you need to thank me.”

  I looked up, narrowing my eyes.

  “Those pants came from cabin 1410.” He grinned. “Milo’s cabin.”

  “But I checked that bag.”

  “And I decided to check anything that came in since we’ve been down here in Hades. Five minutes ago a bag came in with his cabin number.”

  I was struggling to get out the words Nice work, but got distracted by a tall lean man who stood over Nam, yelling. He wore a white officer’s uniform with the gold-and-black epaulettes, and when he pushed my best helper ever into the convoy of carts, Nam looked more terrified than when he thought Jack was from Immigration.

  “Put these in a fresh unused bag,” I told Jack, handing back the jeans. “I’ll be right back.”

  I could hear the officer’s words as I approached. He sounded British, or high-Australian, and he wagged something at Nam. A black piece of cloth.

  “You are to sort laundry! Sort!” he yelled. “You do not leave things helter-skelter!”

  I stood behind the officer, watching fear deepen in Nam’s brown eyes.

  “Very sorry,” he was saying. “Very sorry.”

  “You’ll be even sorrier when I ship you back to Thailand.”

  “Pardon me.” I had my credentials open, holding them ready as the man spun around. “If there’s a problem it’s probably my fault.”

  The officer glared at my creds. He had a slender face and with his planar body he reminded me of a javelin. He frowned as I explained how Geert van Broeck gave me permission to check the laundry, and that Nam was helping me.

  “Geert—gave you permission? To check the laundry?” He drew himself up, the javelin ready for throwing. “Check it for what?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You can’t say?”

  “That is what I said.”

  “Nobody told me. Why didn’t they tell me?” Worry suddenly replaced his anger. “Are you investigating us for quality control?”

  “No, sir.” I read his name tag. “Ozzie Stilton, Australia.” I thought of Stilton cheese and my stomach growled again. “Nam’s been extremely helpful. If I’ve disrupted his work, you have my apologies.”

  “His work,” said Officer Stilton, taking the opportunity to reload the blame gun, “is to monitor these bins. He failed. And his carelessness nearly ruined an entire load of tablecloths.” He whirled back to Nam and narrowed his eyes. “Do you want Danillo to come down here and see this?”

  Whoever Danillo was, the mere mention of his name reinvigorated Nam’s terror.

  “Very sorry,” he repeated. “Very, very sorry.”

  Officer Stilton lifted the item in his hand, shaking it. “You think I won’t catch you people, but I will.”

  “Very sorry.”

  “If tablecloths turn gray, the replacement cost will come from your wages. And then I’ll fire you.”

  Since the officer seemed ready to keep piling it on, I said, “Nam, would you please go help that man?” I pointed to Jack, checking the new
bags of laundry.

  “Go?” Nam asked.

  “Yes,” said Officer Stilton. “Go away.”

  When Nam had walked away, I held out my hand. “May I?”

  He offered it without any hesitation, as it would prove the need for Nam’s humiliation.

  “Slipped in with the tablecloths. White tablecloths. Washed in hot water. Hot water. He’s lucky the girls found it before it went into the washing machine.”

  It was a black pair of pants, a cotton-poly blend. Four pockets and a one-inch cuff. Opening the fold, I suddenly stopped.

  “How did these pants wind up with the tablecloths?” I asked.

  “Because these are sneaky careless people.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “They damage the uniforms and try to cover it up. So they don’t get charged for it. Throw it down the housekeeping chute, then steal a replacement from the supply room.”

  I didn’t dare inspect the cuffs any further. The pants had tumbled down a laundry chute, rubbed against some tablecloths, been picked up by some laundress before being shaken with fury by Stilton. In terms of evidence preservation, it didn’t get much worse. My good fortune was that hoary safe insulation. Folding up the pants to keep the knees and cuffs buried, I asked Stilton what time the pants came in. Casual voice.

  “When?” His brow furrowed.

  “Yes, when.”

  “I don’t see how when is of any importance.”

  I unclipped my cell phone and began hitting the numbers.

  “Who are you calling?” he demanded.

  “Geert. I presume you know Geert.”

  He glanced to his right. Jack walked toward us carrying two evidence bags.

  “It’s been an extraordinarily busy day,” Stilton said. “I can’t possibly know when they arrived.”

  I held my cell phone, one number from contacting Geert. “I’ll let Geert know. He can interview whoever found the pants.”

  His eyes darted. “It was around three o’clock.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Ye-es,” he said, uncertain. “I had . . . I had an appointment.”

  Or he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

  “We’ll need the exact time. And where, exactly, these trousers were found. If anything deviates from fact, I’ll report it to the captain.” For good measure, I added, “And Danillo.”

  Jack’s blue-green eyes cut through Stilton like a paring knife. He handed me the evidence bags.

  “Officer Stilton, meet Special Agent Jack Stephanson. You can tell him what happened. Everything that happened.”

  In the dry air of the laundry room, the officer’s dripping condensation had evaporated. He asked nervously, “Where are you going?”

  “I have an appointment,” I said, turning his words on him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The medical clinic’s automatic doors whooshed open and a nurse looked up from the reception desk. Her starched white uniform pinched at the shoulders, boosting the abundant display of a well-endowed bust.

  I introduced myself and she nodded, saying Geert had already called.

  “Nurse Stephanie.” She stood up, shaking my hand. Her figure had more curves than a sidewinder snake. “I’m in the FBI files.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I got busted once for smuggling wine into Canada.”

  “Oh.”

  “Humanitarian mission,” she said. “Back then Canadian wine tasted like grape-flavored rubbing alcohol.”

  I nodded, looking around the clinic. It was laid out like a wheel with wedge-shaped exam rooms spoking from the circular hub of the reception desk. From the desk, one nurse could see each patient. But the only occupant right now was an elderly man, looking frail in his hospital bed. Beside him a woman of equal age sat and stroked his wispy white hair from his forehead.

  When I turned back to the wine smuggler, she was stepping from behind the circular desk. The swing of her hips probably gave men whiplash.

  “You wanted a microscope?” she asked.

  I followed her into a narrow space that was shoehorned between two patient rooms. It was a compact lab with a stainless steel counter, small centrifuge, microwave oven, and microscope. All the equipment was leashed to the wall for rough water.

  “Gertie didn’t say what you wanted the scope for.”

  “Gertie?”

  “If you repeat that to him, you’ll regret it.” She smiled. “Is blood involved?”

  “Pardon?”

  “If blood’s involved, I have to file paperwork. Regulations.”

  I told her this was bloodless and described what I needed. She took a small key from a pocket near her hip and unlocked the stainless cabinets, pulling out gloves, glass slides, petri dishes, and test tubes. When the phone rang, she excused herself and walked back to the desk. When she walked, I could almost hear cars crashing.

  Flipping on the microscope, I tapped the dust collected from Geert’s office into a petri dish, looking for telltale minerals. Until the 1930s, safe insulation was a random mixture of coal and shale, and whatever other fire-resistant materials the manufacturer had on hand from sand and gravel to ash. More recently, safes contained blends of Portland cement, gypsum, vermiculite, and/or diatomaceous earth. Like closely-held family recipes, each manufacturer used a distinct combination and the ingredients with their relative ratios allowed forensic geologists to link particular safes with specific suspects, all through the mineral trail.

  “If your temperature’s over 102,” Nurse Stephanie was saying into the phone, “I’m locking you in here.” There was a pause. “Why? Honey, have you heard of Swine Flu? SARS? Meningitis? Do those ring any bells?”

  Vermiculite always jumped out first, often detectable with the naked eye. The sheets of golden silica looked like a book left out in the rain and dried by the sun, the pages rippled and curling.

  “These people,” Nurse Stephanie said.

  I glanced up. She stood across the way, in the doorway of the elderly couple. Manicured hands planted on her fender-bender hips.

  “That sneaky witch, she’s contagious. And she thinks she can hide from me? Well, she called the wrong nurse. I’ll find her, mark my words.”

  Diatomaceous earth was the most interesting addition to safe insulation. A mixture of hard-shelled algae, known as diatoms, and silica containing trace amounts of sodium, magnesium, and iron, it was porous, nonreactive, and inexpensive, making it a favorite with safe manufacturers. But it was also a favorite among forensic geologists because that hard-shelled algae worked like fingerprints. Each population of phytoplankton had a particular growth and morphology, along with pitting in the silica. But as I stared through the microscope at this dust, all I saw was a vague cloud. Unfortunately, the scope’s magnification wasn’t strong enough to see separate grains.

  I walked over to the round desk. Nurse Stephanie was on the phone again.

  “She sounded like an old bag,” she told someone on the other end. “But that could be because she feels like crap. I did hear a piano in the background. Good piano. Where’s Frank Holman playing tonight . . . in the pub? Okay, go check in there for a woman who looks like she’s about to barf in her shirt.”

  She hung up and said, “I’ll get that witch, you watch.”

  I nodded, with no doubt whatsoever. “Would you by chance have any hydrochloric acid?”

  “What’re you—crazy?”

  “Just a ten percent solution.”

  “Honey, we treat people for stomach acid, we don’t hand it out.”

  “Then could I have some plain aspirin? Noncoated.”

  “That we can do,” she said. “How many?”

  “Twenty to start.”

  She stared at me. Like she was going to throw me in with the fugitive fever woman. “Twenty,” she repeated.

  “With half a cup of distilled water.”

  “You want cookies with that?”

  Back in the lab, I deposited ten of the aspir
in tablets into the half cup of distilled water, then asked Nurse Stephanie for something to test pH levels. She unlocked a cabinet and laid strips of yellow paper on the stainless counter with a laminated card showing the colors on the paper that would correspond with various acid and alkaline levels. I dipped a pH strip in the water, then compared it to the chart. Still too alkaline. I dropped in two more aspirin, swirling the water.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “I’m making an acid solution to dissolve soft minerals.”

  The Portland cement was basically limestone and along with gypsum dissolved quickly in a ten percent solution of hydrochloric acid, leaving behind the durable diatoms. The fingerprints. Once again I thought of the rock kit in my cabin with its four-ounce bottle of hydrochloric acid. But I couldn’t risk waking my mother, or having to explain what I was doing—or where I’d been.

  For now acetylsalicylic acid—aspirin water—would have to do. But it was taking longer.

  “Does the microwave work?” I asked Nurse Stephanie.

  “I heat my food in there.”

  “I’ll clean it when I’m done.”

  With a sterile dropper, I added the acid solution to a sample of the dust, setting the petri dish inside the microwave, hoping heat would accelerate the processes. As I was tapping in ten seconds, I heard the nurse speaking to someone by the desk.

  “Honey,” she said, “you must be in violation of something.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Jack.

  “Why do say that?” he asked.

  “Because you’ve got fine written all over you.” She winked. “Need a shot?”

  “If I did, you’d be the nurse to do it.” He grinned.

  I suppressed an eye roll and waited for the microwave. The phone at the desk rang. And rang. When I turned around, she was walking slowly around the desk, brushing against Jack. He stared at her, immobilized by her sensuality.

  I took the sample from the microwave, then carried it to the microscope.

  Jack stood in the doorway, recovered. “Three twenty-three,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The laundry girls found those pants in the bin at 3:23 PM.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “One gal was going off shift. She carried the pants into Stilton’s office. He wasn’t there. And he was supposed to be there. The girls think Stilton’s having an affair with the woman who works the folding machine.” He smiled softly. “I got all the gossip.”