“Eric?”
He’s been back at the main trail trying to see whether it goes anywhere else.
Now, as he approaches, I tell him what I’m seeing. A single handprint, plus broken foliage. He comes closer for a look as I stand back with Storm.
“Yeah, that’s a handprint,” he says after a moment. “Adult. If he fell here, his other hand would have gone down on harder ground. Wouldn’t leave a print.”
He demonstrates. Then he looks around and crouches. “This is torn up.” He pushes aside the undergrowth on our side. “Scuff marks here.”
“I was going to suggest removing the broken foliage to get a look at those marks. Sound reasonable to you?”
“Yep.”
He stands back while I get photos of the damage to the undergrowth. None of this will ever see a courtroom, but anything I collect helps us build our case, even if it’s only to be able to show the perpetrator that we aren’t pulling an accusation out of our asses.
Once I’ve done that, we gingerly remove the undergrowth, mostly by clipping it off close to ground level. We put all that aside and stand back to look. The ground shows scuff marks and several boot prints. I photograph them and then pull up a picture on my phone.
“They’re Blake’s,” I say. “Helpful for proving he was here. Not helpful for catching his killer.” I look around. “So he was ambushed while soaking his foot. That also explains the shitty job done retying the bandage and putting his boot back on.”
“Killer puts it back on, along with the bandages, so they don’t get left behind.”
“And, possibly, so if his body is found we don’t realize he’d been soaking his foot, giving us an obvious crime scene.”
And that means our killer knows someone out herewouldbeinvestigating. Or that there’s a settlement—ours or the mining camp—that would take an interest.
We look for any other prints. The problem is twofold. One, the ground is hard except near the water. Two, I tramped about with Storm before realizing this was the crime scene.
We find more scuffs on the hard earth. Then, near the water, there’s what looks like a partial print that’s been erased, as if the killer spotted it and rubbed out any identifying characteristics.
We find more broken foliage, adding to our picture of the scene.
“Ambushed from behind,” I say. “He was standing in the stream or had one foot in it. Hit in the back of the head. Falls across the narrow stream and lands on all fours. Attacker gets the rope around his neck and hauls him back, where these scrabble marks are in the undergrowth. Kills him here. Probably lays him down over there.” I point to flattened undergrowth. “Then the killer needs to drag him…”
I walk to that flattened undergrowth. There are definite drag marks. There’s also a spot where a boot print has been erased. Then the ground gets harder, and the trail is only obvious by the crushed foliage. We follow for maybe twenty feet before it hits rock—smooth rock, easy to pull. Another twenty feet gets him to the cave where we found the body.
“Forty feet,” I say. “How easily could I drag you that far?”
“We can try later if you like, but whoever did it wasn’t dragging him across the bare ground.” He points at some marks. “He was on something. A tarp probably.”
“Which would make it easier. It would also explain why Storm couldn’t follow that section of the trail. Tarps are also a standard part of camping gear. Okay, I can reasonably assume that Gretchen—a woman in good physical condition—could pull Blake on a tarp for forty feet.”
We continue searching for any trace, but after thirty minutes, I make the call. Time to move on and look for Gretchen.
At noon, we reconvene with Anders and Yolanda. They accidentally got a little too close to where the miners are working, but they backed out before being seen. That does mean, however, that they can report that the mining operation is proceeding as usual. The camp hasn’t gone into lockdown, worried about potential spies. Rogers accepted our story that Blake and Gretchen had moved on. Or, I presume, he accepted it after his security team failed to turn up any evidence to the contrary.
That’s one piece of good news. The bad news is that there’s still no sign of Gretchen.
Yolanda and I head back to Haven’s Rock. I’m going to feed Rory and spend some time with her. Yolanda is accompanying me because Dalton doesn’t want me in the woods alone right now, and Yolanda has the least search party experience. He’ll continue on with Anders and Storm.
I take an hour in town, spent with my baby. Then she switches babysitters—Isabel this time—and Yolanda and I head out again with a packed late lunch.
We meet the guys at the rendezvous point, split the food, and break into pairs again. We’re searching north and south of Haven’s Rock now. Again, we’re out there for hours. Again, we find no trace of Gretchen.
We don’t meet up with Yolanda and Anders. We’ve agreed to head back to town for dinner, and we just do that. We do eat together, though, at our chalet, where we can discuss our findings, which are—for both parties—zilch.
“So she’s gone?” Yolanda says. “Killed her husband and got the hell out.”
“Presumably,” I say.
