Page 16 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

A H, YES,” SAID Ralph Lemmon.

“Sure, I remember Molly.” The professor of archaeology lounged in his office chair behind a cluttered desk, one leg thrown over the other.

He wore a rumpled tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and sported dirty eyeglasses, prematurely graying hair in a ponytail, bushy sideburns, and shoulders flecked with dandruff.

His socks didn’t match.

Nora occupied the lumpy sofa next to Corrie, who had her FBI cell phone out, recording the conversation.

The office was claustrophobic: journals and books were piled up in tottering stacks, the desk heaped with loose papers.

Even the sofa had to be cleared of books before they could sit down.

Corrie had requested that Nora, as a fellow academic, take the lead in questioning Lemmon.

The DNA from the brush had been sequenced, and there was no longer any question: the bones in the desert belonged to Molly Vine.

The primary reason they were interviewing Lemmon at all was that he occupied the Morris F.

Cliffe Chair of American Studies—a position Vine’s PhD advisor, Oskarbi, had once held.

But Nora wasn’t particularly pleased to be here—she’d slept poorly the night before, mostly because of that weird tune on the wax cylinder they’d digitized, which had kept twisting its way into her dreams. Now she felt tired and on edge.

“When was Vine a graduate student here?” she asked.

“Let’s see now,” Lemmon said.

“She’d just arrived as a grad student when I got my doctorate, so that would be about sixteen years ago. She became one of Oskarbi’s groupies.”

“Groupies?” Nora asked.

“How so?”

“Oskarbi liked to surround himself with pretty girls. It was sort of his thing.”

“Was he sleeping with them?” she asked.

At this, Lemmon gave a little laugh.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Oskarbi was a real charmer—handsome, funny, charismatic, full of interesting stories about his life. He was also kind of famous back then, thanks to that book he wrote. He’d made a lot of money on it, and those students of his just worshipped him. He wasn’t a bad dude, really, and if he was sleeping with any of them, I’m sure it was consensual. They were all graduate students in their early twenties, so it wasn’t like he was boning undergrads.” He shrugged.

“He was just one of those men .”

Nora thought she picked up a faint note of envy in his voice.

“More specifically, was Molly sleeping with him?”

“I’ve no idea. But I’m sure he would have if he could. She was one gorgeous creature.”

Creature .

Corrie shrugged that one off.

“Do you have any idea why she left the program?”

“Not specifically. But it may well have had to do with Oskarbi going back to Mexico and resuming his, ah, discipleship.” A snort followed.

“When was that?”

“That would be… about twelve years ago. As I recall, Molly had met all PhD requirements except the dissertation itself. A classic ABD.”

“ABD?” Corrie broke in.

“All but dissertation,” Lemmon said airily.

“It’s not uncommon. But in her case, I don’t think it was the writing of the dissertation that, ah, blocked her. I think it was Oskarbi taking off like that, with essentially no notice. You could have expected he didn’t have the discipline for any extended amount of time in academia. Naturally, it was irresponsible of him, abandoning his students, but then he was always a flake. Too much peyote, taken for ‘research purposes.’” He made air quotes with his fingers and laughed.

“Did you keep in touch with her after she left?” Corrie asked.

“No. I think she continued to pal around with the Oskarbi group, though. They were a closed circle, having done fieldwork together every summer. Most are still around. Some are professors now, a couple here at UNM. Others went into the contract archaeology business.” He paused.

“You should talk to Olivia Bellagamba. She’s director of the Archaeology Center now, but back then she was one of Oskarbi’s minions.”

“Were these groupies all women?” Nora asked.

“No, no. There were a few men, too. He wasn’t sleeping with the guys—at least, I don’t think so. They all adored him, though.”

Nora looked through her notes.

“And Molly did fieldwork every summer?”

“Right. Oskarbi directed a field school for UNM, and every summer he’d take a group of his grad students on a dig. They’d hike into the wilderness and camp out for a couple of weeks. I imagine it was a lot of fun, digging up cool stuff during the day, cocktails around the evening campfire, tent crawling at night.” He chuckled cynically again.

“Where’d they go?”

“Up in the Gallina cultural area, in those canyons along the upper Chama River. There are literally thousands of ruins up there, mostly unknown and unsurveyed. That was Oskarbi’s specialty, Gallina. Pretty mysterious culture.”

“Mysterious? How so?”

“That’s not really my area of research,” said Lemmon, with a sniff that to Nora seemed dismissive.

“You should really talk to Olivia. She’s the expert.”

Professor Olivia Bellagamba occupied a sunny corner office in the Archaeology Center, with windows overlooking the campus and the rugged outline of Sandia Peak.

Bellagamba herself was slim and stylish, wearing a professorial suit in gray worsted wool, a silk blouse, expensive pearls, and Louboutin pumps.

She couldn’t have made a greater contrast to the slovenly Lemmon.

To Nora, she looked more like the CEO of a high fashion company than a dirt archaeologist.

Bellagamba received Nora and Corrie right away, inviting them into a lounge area of her spacious office while a gofer ventured to ask if they wanted coffee, tea, or water.

After they were settled with their proffered refreshments—coffee for Corrie, Perrier for Nora—Bellagamba took her own seat opposite them, crossed her legs, folded her hands, and asked in a cool, low voice, “How may I help you?”

Nora took the lead again, explaining that they were looking into the mysterious disappearance and death of a former colleague of Bellagamba’s.

They briefly outlined the circumstances of Molly Vine’s death.

Bellagamba listened with attention.

Finally, Nora got to the questions.

“How well did you know Molly?” she asked.

“Quite well,” said Bellagamba.

“We were all graduate students together.”

“Under Professor Carlos Oskarbi, I understand?”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you have any idea why she might have gone off into the desert like that?”

“None,” said Bellagamba.

“She was an old hand with the desert. It makes no sense to me.”

“We’re interested in knowing more about her research with the Gallina culture.”

“That was due to Professor Oskarbi. He was fascinated with the Gallina and communicated his interest to all of us.”

“Tell us more about them. I understand a certain mystery surrounds their culture.”

“That’s putting it mildly. First of all, the Gallina were different from the ancient Pueblo cultures that surrounded them—different pottery, different houses, different way of life. Who they were, what language they spoke, and where they came from is all a mystery. They thrived for roughly two hundred years in a rugged canyon complex in northwestern New Mexico, and then, around 1200 CE, they were apparently invaded. And wiped out. It was brutal. Early excavation accounts speak of the almost innumerable skeletons of people who’d been beaten to death, dismembered, burned—men, women, and children. Sacred kivas had been desecrated and set on fire. And no present-day Pueblo Indians claim descent from the Gallina—quite the opposite, in fact. That alone is extremely curious.”

“I understand Oskarbi ran a field school up there.”

“The professor had his theories about what happened.” She pronounced the word professor as if it were some sort of holy title.

“He did a lot of excavating with his students, looking to shed some light.”

“Did he? Shed light, I mean.”

“Unfortunately, he left before he could publish his results.”

“We heard his departure was rather abrupt. Why did he leave the university, exactly?”

A pause.

“As fascinated as he was with the Gallina culture, the Totonteac and their peyote religion was his first and—it seemed to me—greatest interest. He was obsessed with that Indigenous culture, and at the field school he frequently talked of going back there. No doubt he resumed his earlier studies with his spiritual teacher, Don Benicio.”

“Molly was part of that field school, wasn’t she?”

“We all were as graduate students.”

“How did that work?”

“It was a typical field school. Professor Oskarbi would identify a site in the area he wanted to excavate, and we’d pack in, set up a camp, and dig for a couple of weeks.”

“When was this?”

“Four summers. Fifteen to twelve years ago. Then the professor left. Most of us disbanded after that, going our separate ways. We finished our dissertations, got jobs in the field, or went on to do other things, like Molly.”

Corrie leaned forward, notebook out.

“When was the last time you saw Molly?”

A pause.

“Twelve years ago.”

“Did she show any signs of psychological issues? Depression, suicidal thoughts?”

“Not at all.”

“What was she like? Her personality, I mean—interests, social life, that sort of thing.”

Bellagamba shrugged.

“Normal.”

“‘Normal’ doesn’t tell me much. Can you be more specific?”

“Well-adjusted. Nice. Smart. A good field worker.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Not that I knew of.”

“Was she sleeping with the professor?”

At this, Bellagamba straightened up in her chair.

“I find that question offensive.”

“My apologies,” Corrie replied with an edge to her voice, “but we’re conducting an investigation and asking offensive questions is sometimes necessary.”

“The answer is no,” said Bellagamba, her own voice a few degrees above zero.

“The professor was very correct with his students, and nothing like that ever happened.”

“That you know of,” said Corrie.

Bellagamba said nothing.

After a chilly silence, Nora resumed her own questions.

“Are you familiar with lightning stones?”

“Of course.”

“Molly’s remains were found with two of them. Rare green prasiolites. Any idea what she was doing with those?”

“No.”

“The only other two prasiolite stones came from Gallina,” said Nora.

“Is that where Molly might have gotten them?”

“It’s possible. But in our field seasons, we never found anything like that.”

“Could she have picked them up and not told anybody?”

“Highly unlikely. It wasn’t like summer camp—everything was done by the book. You don’t just pocket artifacts. It would be a gross violation of ethics.”

“So where were these excavations, exactly?” Nora asked.

“Is there anything published on them?”

“As I said, the professor left for Mexico before publishing.”

At this, Corrie broke in again.

Nora could hear the suppressed impatience in her voice.

“Dr. Bellagamba, we at the FBI would like to get a list of Oskarbi’s graduate students during that period, 2010 to 2013. We also would appreciate more specific information on these field excavations—what sites were dug and where. Can you provide us with that information?”

A frosty silence ensued.

“I’m afraid not. You’ll have to get that from the university records office.”

“Why not from you?”

“That was a long time ago. I don’t remember who exactly was in the group.”

“How many were there?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you have a map showing the sites excavated?”

“Those would be in the professor’s notes, which I don’t have.”

“Who’s got them?”

“I wish I could say.”

“And you don’t remember where the sites were.” This was a statement—a skeptical statement—not a question.

“They were in the Chama Wilderness, not accessible by road. We had a commercial wrangler who packed in our supplies on muleback. I doubt I could find them now.” Bellagamba spread her hands.

“Where is Oskarbi now?” Corrie asked.

“I told you. Most likely living with the Totonteac Indians and carrying on the studies he cut short to join academia.”

“You haven’t been in touch with him since he left?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone else who has?” She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.

This woman was going out of her way to be unhelpful.

“No.”

“Where exactly in Mexico are these Indians?”

“I don’t recall. It’s all in the book he wrote about them. You can look it up yourselves.”