Dead Secret

been here?” Mike peered into the body bag. “He looks a little like that Egyptian mummy you have at the museum—if it weren’t for the clothes.”
    Diane shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps between thirty and a hundred years.” She zipped up the bag. “We’ll know when we analyze the evidence.”
    Neva let out a breath. “He’s been sitting a long time waiting for someone to find him.” She gave the body bag a pat. “Poor fellow.”
    Jin squatted beside a dented, discolored brass lamp setting with collected evidence. “He had a carbide lamp. Do they still make them?”
    “Most definitely,” said Mike. “I have several.”
    “Many cavers still use them,” Diane said.
    “Really?” said Jin. “Interesting. Well, this one looks old.”
    Neva stood, stretched, and began packing up the evidence in the crime scene kit. “I’ll bet we can get something from the Moon Pie wrappers. And heaven knows what’s in his backpack. Maybe he kept a journal while he was waiting.” She grinned. “He had to do something to pass the time.”
    “Probably just sat and groaned,” said Mike, still staring at the closed body bag. “Depending on how he landed, he could have been in a lot of pain.”
    While they discussed the last days of Caver Doe, Diane studied all the objects littering the cavern. They looked incongruous amid the columns of stalagmites and stalactites. “Now we have to haul this stuff out of here.”
    Mike came over to her side. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “We can hoist the stuff up to the cavern above and divide it among us.” He lifted Jin’s huge backpack. “You were only going to be here a few hours; why did you bring such a big backpack? What do you have in it?”
    “Flashlights, space blanket, bedroll, food, dishes, duct tape, first-aid kit, binoculars, emergency shelter . . .”
    “Emergency shelter?”
    “It’s the stuff I take on long hikes. I thought some of it might be useful in a cave.”
    Mike laughed. “We’ll have to teach you how to put it in a smaller pack.”
    “It was kind of hard dragging it through the tunnels,” admitted Jin.
    Diane winced, trying not to think of the speleotherms he may have damaged with the huge metal frame on his pack.
    Mike climbed up the rope to the chamber above while Diane and her crew packed up the lamps and evidence. Now the cavern was illuminated only by Diane’s and Neva’s headlamps and Jin’s flashlight.
    Diane’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the loss of light. Everything in her peripheral vision was a dim shadow. It was like closing a door, leaving the cave as it should be—deep and dark.
    At the sound of hammering from above, Jin looked up. “What’s he doing?”
    “Probably putting in pulleys to make it easier to haul this stuff back up.”
    Jin paused. “You mean he carries pulleys around in his backpack, but he scoffed at my emergency shelter?” He grinned, showing a row of even white teeth.
    “We work on rope a lot, so we carry a lot of rope gear,” said Diane.
    They had moved all their things near the rope. Diane glanced up just as Mike peered down from the hole.
    “Stand back,” he yelled. “I’m dropping a rope.”
    Diane tied the metal case of the crime scene kit to the end of the rope, and Mike quickly hauled it up. The duffel bag and the lamps were next, and then Jin’s backpack.
    While Mike was hoisting the backpack, Diane made a rope harness for the body bag. She tied the harness to the hoist rope and Mike lifted it up through the hole. All that was left was Diane, Neva and Jin.
    Jin looked up the long rope and over at Diane.
    “There’s no disgrace in using the loops in the rope as hand- and footholds if you need them. That’s what they’re for,” said Diane.
    Jin gave her a sideways look. “You say that as if you don’t have to use them when you climb.”
    Diane smiled at him. “Here’s some chalk,” she said.
    Jin dusted his hands, put his flashlight in his belt and started up. He did better than Diane expected. Mike grabbed his arm at the top of the climb and helped pull him over the ledge. Neva was next. She had a more difficult time. She was strong, but it took a special set of muscles to climb a rope, and she struggled to get to the top and over the ledge. When Neva was up, Diane chalked her own hands and climbed up the rope with only slight discomfort.
    It was crowded in the small chamber with all four of them and their supplies. Now they had to get through the narrow