Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1) Page 23
“The cat’s in great shape. But you might want to try a little higher dosage next time. I had to hold him down while we were landing.”
She smiled at the image, took another bite.
“You’ll have to get someone else to sit on him when you bring him back,” he continued. “FBI agents are allowed to wrestle cougars only once a year. It’s in the rule book.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“You look flushed.” He held the back of his hand up to her brow.
She shied away from his long cool fingers. If he caressed her right now, she’d start blubbering or do something equally humiliating. “Did you find Fred Fischer? Or the hunters? Or—please, God—Zack?”
“No Fischer, no hunters. The gate guards didn’t spot any of ’em. No sign of Zack. But you’ll be happy to know that the police in Floral showed up at Buck Ferguson’s house with a search warrant last night.”
She was surprised. “But Kent said it probably wasn’t Ferguson.”
Perez shrugged. “I neglected to pass on that tidbit. One hunter was wearing an Eagle Tours cap, and for all we know, one or more of Ferguson’s rifles had been used. Besides, we wanted to see his reaction.”
“What was his reaction?”
“Apoplectic.”
Sam grinned. “I suppose it’s too much to hope a television news crew was there?”
“No coverage. Sorry. We confiscated his weapons to check them against the bullet we recovered.”
The scene in Sam’s mind made her feel so good that for a fleeting moment she wondered if Perez had orchestrated the raid to please her.
“We can’t let anyone believe that violating federal laws will go unpunished,” he said, dispelling her crazy notion. “Maybe Ferguson will think twice next time about inciting his followers to bring loaded weapons into the park.”
She choked down the last mouthful of sandwich. “Have you checked Ferguson’s whereabouts at the time of Zack’s disappearance?”
Perez handed her a water bottle. “At home, eating dinner, or so he says. No witnesses; the wife was off visiting relatives in Idaho.”
So Ferguson had no alibi. He and Fischer knew each other. Sam’s thoughts tumbled wildly. Ferguson wanted to hunt cougars again; Fischer wanted . . . to kill people? In the bright light of day, that notion seemed bizarre beyond reason.
“Fred Fischer really tried to ransom his own son?” she asked.
“Looks like it. He was sure that Jenny’s parents would come up with the dough. He just didn’t count on us showing up to manage the process.” Perez shook his head. “What a rank amateur. He didn’t even get his hands on the money. His connection with Ferguson is troubling, though.”
“Maybe Ferguson and Fischer are collaborating to sell Zack on the adoption market. Someone brought Zack up here.”
“Oh yeah, Castillo told me. Let’s see it.”
She pulled the small wheel from her pants pocket.
Perez stared at it blankly.
“It’s the wheel from Zack’s truck.”
He slipped a plastic bag from his pants pocket, held it out in a familiar gesture. She dropped the wheel inside. He examined it through the plastic. “Might be from the kid’s toy. And Fischer was probably your thief,” he added. “The timing’s right.”
She shook her head. “No, Fischer would have taken my money. All that was missing from my knapsack was survival gear. Which sounds more like Coyote Charlie; McElroy said he stole food from them at the fire circle. I’ve been doing more research, too. I think Charlie may be an environmental activist from Oregon, a member of a group called Earth Spirits.”
“Speaking of Oregon . . .” Perez pulled a rolled-up tube of fax paper from his jacket pocket.
She studied the crumpled photo he gave her. Slender face, fine straight hair, thin, slightly parted lips. Pale eyes fringed with long dark lashes stared back defiantly, as if the teenager resented having her picture taken. “Am I supposed to know this girl?”
“Dental records matched our skeleton to her. Barbara Jean Bronwin, reported missing from Portland, Oregon, three years ago.”
Bronwin . . . something about the name seemed familiar. “How’d she end up here all the way from Portland, Oregon?”
Perez shrugged. “According to her parents, at sixteen Barbara Jean joined a radical environmental group and spent her days chained to trees. The Bronwins own Portland Plywood, so you can guess how well Barbara’s new political passion went over. Then she got pregnant.”
In the photo, Barbara Jean Bronwin’s huge dark eyes gazed earnestly into the camera. Like a curious deer. “Fawn Bronwin!” Sam blurted.
Perez raised an eyebrow. She told him about the Earth Spirits and their “Native American” names.
“Sounds like a match,” he agreed.
Sam stared at the photo of the girl. So young, so righteous. Pregnant. She grabbed his arm. “Perez, remember the homeless girl Kent described? The one with the beautiful brown eyes, the one that was ‘out to here’?” She held her arm out in the same gesture Kent had used. “It could have been Barbara. Kent said she was with a man back then. Maybe it was one of the Earth Spirits.”
“Her parents couldn’t supply any names,” Perez said, “and we haven’t located any of her friends yet. Apparently Barbara didn’t live at home much; she’d been reported as a runaway several times. According to the report, a girlfriend said Barbara Jean was going to meet her boyfriend in Arizona. She was last seen hitching a ride in a semi.”
Sam raised her head. “A semi? Fischer—”
He finished for her. “Has been a truck driver for years. And he drives all over the West.”
Had Fred Fischer been the man in the park with Barbara? Sam’s head was spinning. She’d found Barbara Jean “Fawn” Bronwin among the Earth Spirits while searching for Coyote Charlie. But Barbara Jean had a link to Fred Fischer? Fischer, Ferguson, Barbara, Coyote Charlie? Could they all know each other? The six degrees of separation theory was starting to feel very real. “How’d Barbara Jean die?”
“Her skeleton showed no signs of foul play. But that doesn’t mean much. She could have been strangled or stabbed or suffocated.”
Sam rubbed a hand across her brow. He raised his hands. “Who knows?” So many causes of death, so easily enumerated. Perez went on. “She could have died somewhere else and been dumped here. We have only bones to go on; and they’ve been exposed to the elements for six to twelve months.”
“What happened to Barbara Jean’s baby? Have they found more skeletons?”
He shook his head. “They’re still looking. You may be right that Coyote Charlie’s probably involved in this somehow—the fact that both he and Barbara are from Oregon is a heck of a coincidence. If he knew Barbara, maybe he came looking for her. But Fred Fischer’s our current priority, and our first victim is still unaccounted for. Fred Fischer had means and motive, and Zack would go with him without a fight. We’ve got to find both of them.”
A helicopter roared by overhead, flying low over the ruins. It rose higher and drifted out over the valley. She prayed it wasn’t full of hunters.
Sam held her hands to her ears as she watched the chopper grow smaller, thinking about Fred Fischer. “Yesterday, you said Ferguson saved Fischer from reform school. Did you find anything more about that?”
“Ferguson got Fred into a ‘tough love’ sort of school. Woodland Challenge? Something like that.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Wilderness Challenge?”
“That sounds right.”
A small flare of real hope ignited in Sam. She hefted Perez’s daypack, shoved it at him. “We’ve got to go to the Curtain.”
He nodded. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like a good place to cache a body. Or multiple bodies.”
“It could hold half the bodies in Arlington National Cemetery. But that’s not the main reason we need to go there. Wilderness Challenge was the precursor to Outward Bound. They developed the climbing course.”
She lifted the torn flap of her trousers to reveal the red weals, now puffy and edged with yellow ooze. “It smarts, but I’ll live. We’d better hustle. It’s five miles away and straight up most of the way.”
His gaze rose to the cliffs above. “That’s the only way in?”
“There’s an opening in the cliffside about three hundred feet below here, where Curtain Creek empties out of the last chamber. We’ll come out there, beside the waterfall.”
“Can’t we go in that way?”
“We’d have to climb up through the chambers instead of down. It’d take us just as long, and it’d be harder going—the walls are straight up in the uppermost room. Ever used an ascender?”
“A what?”
“Never mind. Let’s get going. It’ll take us at least two hours to get there.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” He stalked away toward the open area near the trail, his phone in hand.
She shouldered her knapsack. A helicopter roared close again. Damn machine. Pulling out the camera, she snapped a photo as the helicopter hovered low, ripping leaves from the aspens in a golden tornado. Then Perez was by her side again, his hand on her arm.
“C’mon,” he yelled in her ear. “I got us a ride.”
20
Crawling onto the helicopter felt like joining the enemy. Sam had signed dozens of petitions against aerial tours in wild areas.
Perez jumped in. Squeezing through the door, she dropped into the seat beside him, wincing at a sudden sharp pain from her leg wound. She was surprised to find Meg Tanner riding shotgun beside the pilot. The woman interrupted her conversation with the pilot only briefly to acknowledge them. “Agent Perez, Westin.”
“Top of the Curtain, where Outward Bound goes in,” Perez instructed. Tanner pointed to the map she held stretched over the instrument panel. The pilot nodded, and the helicopter rose from the ground.
“The Curtain’s off limits to most visitors. What do you hope to find there?” Tanner asked. She scowled in Sam’s direction. “And why is Westin with you?”
Perez leaned toward her. “FBI business.”
Tanner glared at him for a few seconds, then turned and continued her previous conversation in a loud voice. “The press won’t leave Jenny Fischer alone. I took her home with me last night so the poor woman could get some rest. The damn media! Even the locals have gone berserk—did you hear Mrs. Mendez shot the Carellis’s dog?”
The pilot responded, “Not that golden Lab?”
Tanner nodded. “Thought it was a cougar sneaking up on Molly. And then last night, old Jack Kinley blew away one of his new calves. His own calf, in his own pasture! I hope he’s ashamed of himself.”
Sam’s head ached. She tugged Tanner’s sleeve. “Is the Wildlife Services hunt still scheduled for today?”
The assistant superintendent twisted in her seat. “They’re at HQ now, assigning areas and gearing up. The plan is to start in from the perimeters at noon. With luck, they’ll kill one lion and then this whole mess will be over and done with.” Tanner turned back and resumed her chat with the pilot.
Over and done with? What about Zack? Had everyone already written him off? Sam watched the ground below, unwilling to entertain the ideas of never knowing what happened to Zack and a cougar being killed for no good reason. They passed over Curtain Wash, where the skeletons had been found. The area was overlaid with crisscrossed ropes. Search grid. She counted three people in Park Service uniforms, two in blue windbreakers with fbi printed on the back.
“You got that NCIC stuff okay?” Tanner yelled at Perez. “That list of Charlies?”
The FBI agent nodded, patted his jacket pocket.
Sam leaned close to him. “Charlies?”
“A list of missing Charlies and a list of young Charlie types with criminal records from Oregon dating back three to ten years.”
“And?”
He handed several folded pages to her. “Fifty-six. Too many to sort through.”
She glanced down the first page of names, each accompanied by a brief physical description and the reason the person was sought. Perez had circled two: Charles Richard Allen, thirty-four, reported missing four years ago. Carlos Jose Matera, twenty-eight, reported missing fourteen months ago.
Perez nodded. “Neither seems very likely. Allen was into drugs and pimping; Matera’s only five eight. Our Charlie looked more like six feet to me.” He shrugged. “He’s probably not on the missing list. Lots of adults are never reported—especially if nobody wants them back.”
How sad. At least she had a housemate who would notice if she didn’t come home. Her mind flashed to Adam—would he miss her? She didn’t know what she meant to Adam anymore. And now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure they’d ever really meant anything to each other.
She flipped to the second page of names. Now out of the missing category and into the criminals. Here again, Perez had circled a few: Carl Benson Lagos, twenty-eight, armed robbery; Jason Charles Dane, twenty-nine, trespassing; Karl Jacob Davinski, thirty-two, destruction of construction equipment.
“Wolf Davinski!” She pointed to the name on the list. “He was one of the Earth Spirits, along with Fawn Bronwin. It’s got to be Coyote Charlie.”
Perez’s eyes lit up. He held up his right hand. She smacked it with hers in a high five.
Barbara Jean Bronwin and Karl Jacob Davinski. BJB + KJD. At some point, Barbara and Charlie—Karl—had been a couple, at least in someone’s mind.
They made the Curtain in less than ten minutes and descended into a noisy maelstrom of blowing grit. “Want us to stand by?” the pilot yelled.
Perez shook his head, signaled for the helicopter to lift. Yes, get the infernal machine out of here, Sam thought, hunched into a protective huddle.
As the helicopter faded away, she heard a flutter of feathers and a chirrup. A curious magpie swooped to a perch above them, hoping for a handout. The birds were already learning that helicopters meant people, who usually carried food. A trace of sage floated in the air. The poor plant had probably been ripped to shreds by the rotor whirlwind.
Curtain Creek trickled across the mesa floor, shimmering in the morning sun, then disappeared into a long gash in the earth. The slot canyon zigzagged away from them, rending the mesa floor as if a lightning bolt had broken the mountain in two.
“This is the famous Curtain?” Perez peered down into the crevice. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“The beauty is all inside.”
“And how are we going to get down there?”
She moved to a stack of smaller rocks wedged between two giant boulders. After she had lifted away several of the smaller rocks, the edge of a metal footlocker was revealed. “The park service keeps climbing gear here for emergencies.”
Perez watched her turn over several more rocks until she located the key to the brass padlock. She rummaged through the locker, extracted two tangles of nylon webbing and steel rings. She handed one to him. “Your harness.”
She showed him how to strap on the webbing. When he’d buckled the last strap into place, he spoke in a low voice tinged with a British accent. “Ready, Q. Bring on the parachute.”
“No chute, Bond. You’ll want to remember that on your way down.” She pulled out two figure-eight-shaped devices and two long coils of nylon rope.
He whistled a low note. “You must have at least two hundred feet of rope there.”
“Three hundred and fifty, actually.” She handed him a coil. “This is yours. Pick an anchor.” A few yards away, a heavy steel ring had been set in concrete that filled a natural crack in the rock surface. Three more rings appeared at irregular intervals.
“Hardly in keeping with the natural surroundings,” he commented.
“It’s better than having people chisel into the rock or tie off to trees. And, as Kent would say”—she felt a sharp jab of
pain at the thought of her wounded friend, but pushed it aside to continue—“it saves scraping up climbers from the bottom of the Curtain. It would be virtually impossible to get a stretcher down there.”
He grimaced. “Let’s not talk about scraping up climbers or stretchers right now.”
She threaded the rope through one of the figure-eight descenders, clipped it to the D ring at Perez’s waist, and pressed the rope into his right palm. “Hold this, and grab the other rope with your left.”
She rigged up her own figure eight. “Hold the rope loosely in your left hand, just below your hip. Keep hold of the rope above the descender with your right hand.”
“The friction of the rope pulling through the descender slows you down, so there’s no need to grab the rope unless you want to stop completely. Lean against it, and walk backward. Keep your fingers loose.”
He did as she instructed, staggering back on his heels with jerky steps as the rope slid through the device.
“You’ve got it.” She straightened, letting her rope slacken to the ground. “That’s as much practice as you’re going to get. The only way to learn rappelling is to do it.” She stuffed some ascenders into a pocket, then pulled the shoulder straps of her pack over her harness. Perez did the same with his.
They backed up to the crevice. Perez peered over his shoulder at the drop below, his face grim. Sam stifled a smile, remembering how nervous she’d been the first time she’d rappelled. “Balance on your heels and let out enough rope to hang your rear end out into space.”
They let their ropes out and sank into sitting positions in the harnesses, their boots poised on the brink of the crevice. At least the man knew how to follow instructions.
“Now, keep your legs in front of you and just walk down the rock face.”
With his legs straightened, the opposing rock wall was only inches from the back of Perez’s head. He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “We’re not going to get wedged in here, are we?”
“Don’t worry—the space opens up down below. Let’s go.”