2
Neolithic
Subj:
An interesting opportunity for a profile
Date: 2/11/04 10:03:01 AM Pacific standard time
To: Tgeisel@BSU/FBI.com
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Mr. Geiselâ
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My name is Maura County, and I'm a contributing editor at
Discover
magazine. I realize that you're a very busy man, and the last thing you would want to do is humor a member of the much-maligned media (ha!) . . . but I thought I would take a shot, albeit a long one. Allow me to explain.
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As a staffer at
Discover
, and a regular contributor to the archeology beat, I have been absorbed lately with a recent scientific discovery in Alaska. To make a long story short, last year, on April 13, in Lake Clark National Park, a pair of hikers stumbled across human remains on the side of Mount Cairn, about 500 feet from the summit. The body was well preserved, as it had somehow fallen into a capsule of snow beneath a “driftless” glacier. For this reason it was deep frozen and protected from the elements.
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Since that part of the state falls under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, the body was placed into the custody of the local field office of the FBI. At first, it was thought that the body was the remains of a local climber who had been missing for a number of years, but then a quick-thinking investigator decided to call the University of Alaska in Anchorage and have somebody from the archaeology department come out and examine the body.
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At that point, the authorities were beginning to think that they might have the mummified remains of a nineteenth-century climber, or maybe even somebody from an earlier time. But when Michael Okuda, an anthropologist from the U of A, finally got a look at it, excitement started spreading across the scientific community. Okuda could tell even from a cursory examination that the body was old. Very old. From the garb, from the tools found with the body, and even from the tattoos on its mummified flesh, Okuda guessed it was from the Middle Ages, maybe even earlier. But then the body was turned over to the university, and carbon dating was done. And the results were astonishing.
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It turns out that the mummyâwhich has been dubbed “the Iceman” in the mediaâis nearly six thousand years old. An adult neolithic male! Dating back to the mid- to early-Copper Age! Needless to say, it is the oldest perfectly preserved human mummy ever discovered. Which brings me to the reason I am bothering you, Mr. Geisel.
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The reason I'm writing is this: At first, it was thought that the Iceman had died of natural causesâperhaps had fallen or had become too exhausted at such a high altitude to survive. But recent MRIs of the body have revealed wounds in the mummy that could not possibly have been self-inflicted, and were not from an animal. That's right: the Iceman is a 6,000-year-old murder victim!
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So here's what I'm asking: would you possibly be interested in having one of your FBI profilers look at the find, and possibly do a psychological profile of the Copper Age killer? It would make a fascinating article. I know our readers would love it. Of course,
Discover
would be delighted to pay all expenses. We could fly you or one of your people out to Alaska and do a major interview for the magazine.
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Anyway . . . that's about it. I realize this is an unusual request, and I would certainly understand if you are too busy to fool with such a “dead” issue (ha!) . . . but if there's any interest on your part whatsoever, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me at any time.
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Best wishesâ
Maura County, Contributing Editor
Class Mark Publishing
415-567-1259 (wk)
415-332-1856 (cell)
At first, Grove could not muster a response. Sitting on the edge of that hospital bed, he scanned the e-mail for a third time and wondered if it was some kind of a stunt. “You're serious about this,” he finally said, holding the e-mail aloft between his thumb and index finger as though the paper were infested with germs. “You want me to go out there, play Indiana Jones.”
“Think of it as a working vacation,” Geisel offered with a wry smile.
“While Zorn works the Sun City case.”
Geisel sighed. “That is so beneath you, kiddo.”
“What is?”
“Paranoia, professional jealousy, whatever you want to call it.”
Anger stirred in Grove's gut. “Jealousy has nothing to do with it, Tom. It's not about jealousy. It's about the case, it's about Sun City.”
“Alaska is gorgeous this time of year,” Geisel said. “Ever been there?”
“Mummies, Tom? Mummies now?”
Geisel shrugged. “I just figured it was the only way to get you to take a break.”
“By having me go look at a mummy?”
“By having you work.”
Grove pushed himself off the bed and tossed the e-mail onto the bedside table. It fluttered down and landed between a Styrofoam coffee cup and box of Kleenex, where a water ring instantly soaked through the center of it. Grove paced for a moment before pausing and looking up at his boss. “Feels like I'm being exiled to Siberia.”
Geisel smiled. “Yeah, but the food's better in Alaska, and there's no language barrier.”
Grove rubbed his face. “If I do this thing, if I go up there and do this nonsense . . . you have to do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
Grove paused, then trained his gaze on the older man. Geisel was more than a boss, he was a mentor, a friend. Ulysses Grove had never really had a true father. When he was still in his mother's womb, his dad had vanished without a trace, leaving Grove's motherâa first-generation Kenyan who spoke very little Englishâto support her only son. Geisel was probably the closest thing to a father Grove had ever had. But perhaps most importantly, Hannah had always loved Geisel. The two couples had seen each other socially quite often, and the old man had always made Hannah laugh. When she died, Geisel had been one of the few bureau people who had shown up at the funeral.
Now Grove drew on this long history between them when he said, “I want you to promise me if the Sun City perp kills again, you'll put me back in the game.”
After the briefest moment, Geisel nodded. “You got it, kiddo.”
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“Maura, you got a call on line one . . .”
Maura County sighed at the crackle of the amplified voice coming over the intercom of the
Discover
offices, interrupting her once again. She was in midsentence, vehemently defending her latest story pitch, when she felt herself balk at the distraction, like a pitcher on the mound staggering in the middle of a windup. She closed her eyes, slowly shaking her head. What was it this time? Another disgruntled advertiser? Another junior college demanding a dozen free subs for their science faculty?
“Better take that one,” Chester Joyce urged from behind his massive Steelcase desk. The old editor in chief was hunched within the padded confines of his ergonomic swivel like a shriveled despot on a high-tech throne. His liver-spotted bald pate gleamed in the halogen office light. He breathed in halting, raspy wheezes between each sentence, almost like punctuation, his oxygen tank sitting on the floor next to him like a favored pet poodle, constantly hissing, constantly feeding air into his sickly lungs.
“In a second,” Maura said, tossing her long blond tresses out of her slender face. She rubbed her small hands together quickly, as though warming them at a campfire, a habit she had when she was struggling or cornered or stressed out. “I need a definitive slot on this one, Chester, I need to hear it straight from the topâ”
“Maura, the thing of it is, we're notâ”
“It's a good story, Chester.”
“I'm sure that it is.”
“Then what's the problem?”
The old man rubbed his grizzled face. “The paleolithic diet, Maura?” He wheezed. “If you'll pardon the language, it just screams
Omni
to me. If I'm not mistaken, this is the twenty-first century.”
Maura squelched the urge to scream. “All I'm asking for is a thousand words.”
“A thousand words is a thousand words.”
Outside the office, the amplified voice: “Maura . . . that call is still waiting on one . . . Maura County . . . you got a call parked on line one.”
“Seven hundred fifty words,” Maura pleaded, hunching forward eagerly in her chair. “Just a sidebar, that's all I'm asking.”
After a long moment Chester Joyce said, “Let me think about it.”
“All I'm asking isâ”
He raised a palsied hand, cutting her off. “I said I'd think about it, now go answer your call.”
Maura nodded tersely, then rose to her full five-foot-two-inch height. “To be continued,” she said, then whirled and strode out of her editor in chief's office with fists clenched.
She marched down the hall toward her cubicle, wondering if she had just ruined her future at the magazine by mentioning Chester's promise to promote her to managing editor. She wasn't good at office politics. She wasn't a schmoozer. All she knew how to do was write and edit, and the only subject in which she had any expertise was science. But now she was beginning to wonder if her two master's degreesâone in physical anthropology, and one in geologyâwere quickly becoming useless appendages. Like a couple of vestigial tails.
Her cubicle sat at the end of the main corridor, a cluttered hive of books and dog-eared binders sandwiched between rows of fluorescent light-drenched layout tables. The ubiquitous drone of light rock music played endlessly in the
Discover
offices, and most of her fellow workers' bulletin boards were adorned with the banalities of personal backstoriesâsnapshots of children, family pets,
New Yorker
cartoons, and jokey bumper stickers. Only Maura's cubbyhole reflected any sort of restless intellect. Photos of Stonehenge, Einstein, Egyptian mummies, and Stephen Hawking vied for wall space with obscure advertising placards from long-forgotten punk rock concerts and French lobby cards for old
theater du grande guignol
performances.
Maura settled into her chair and gazed down at the blinking light on her desk extension, girding herself for another tedious call from an advertiser. Dressed in a sleeveless sweater and faded, patched jeans, she was a small, sinewy woman in her late thirties with a mane of highlighted blond hair cut long across her face. One earâthe visible oneâbore a row of sterling silver studs, and a tiny tattoo of a black rose adorned her neck. Her complexion was so pale the veins stood out on her slender arms like finely marbled china.
“Maura County,” she said into the phone after punching the luminous button, expecting to hear the saccharine voice of some obnoxious media buyer.
Instead, a rich baritone filled her ears: “Ulysses Grove calling . . . from the FBI . . . Behavioral Science Unit.”
Maura frowned. “Behavioral Science . . . um . . . this is in regard to . . . ?”
“The mummy? I assume this is the same Maura County who contacted the bureau a while back about a profiler?”
Maura sat up straight in her chair. “Oh . . . oh yes, um . . . thank you. Mr. Grove. Is it Mr. or . . . ?”
“Special Agent Grove is fine.”
Maura stammered on the words: “S-special agent, um, okay, Special Agent Grove, umâ”
“Ulysses is fine.”
“Ulysses, great. Um . . . yeah.”
“So . . .”
Maura sighed. “Ulysses, I promise you, I'm usually not this flaky. And call me Maura. I'm really sorry, it's been a crazy week.”
“I've had plenty of those,” the voice wanted her to know. Maura could almost see the weary smile on the other end of the line.
She felt a ripple of relief travel through her. She had never in her life dealt with a member of any law enforcement agency. Had never, thank God, been a victim of any crime. Had never even
talked
to a policeman. Hell, she didn't even like cop shows or mystery novels. And here she was, talking to Sherlock Frigging Holmes, and he sounded like a decent enough guy. “Anyway,” Maura finally said, “as you can imagine, everybody in the field's buzzing about this Iceman discovery, especially because it looks like he was murdered. I mean, we're talking a perfectly intact Copper Age man here.
Discover
's already done two full stories about it.”
“I assume they've done DNA sequences on the mummy?”
“Yeah, well, see . . . that's where things get kind of complicated.” Maura pushed herself away from her desk and stood. She began to move around her cubicle like a caged animal with the phone glued to her ear. “There's been a battle between the state of Alaska and the park service over who owns the thing. It's kind of a mess.”