It took a few moments before Tean realized where Vaughan was taking them—a dirty patch of snow barely twenty feet ahead that, he could now see, wasn’t snow at all, but instead was a gray tarp that had been staked at the corners.
“It was upsetting the guests,” Vaughan said as he moved to one side.“If you don’t mind, we’ll hold the tarp to keep it out of sight.Jared?”
The young man—apparently Jared—took the other side of the tarp.He and Vaughan unstaked the far corners and raised the tarp from that end; the side closest to the lodge was still staked to the ground, which turned the tarp into a temporary privacy barrier as Vaughan and Jared held it up.
Below it, a moose had been butchered.
It was the first word that came to mind for Tean.A moose was a big animal—they could be anywhere from five to seven feet tall at the shoulder, and a big male might weigh well over a thousand pounds.A cow was smaller, but they were still big by any measure.This one had been cut open and partially eviscerated, with wounds on the flanks and neck.
Tean knelt.Without gloves, he didn’t want to touch the moose for a better inspection, but he did lean closer.Jem grabbed him by the shoulder, steadying him, and the extra support let Tean bend down to inspect the wounds on the flanks.Long, clean slices.No puncture wounds.No signs of tearing.
“And you can see the tracks, too,” Jared said.
Tean sat back on his heels for a view of the ground around the moose.Sure enough, bloody tracks marked the snow—some clearly animal, and some from shoe prints.He took a pen from his pocket for scale and documented the size and depth of the prints with the camera on his phone.Then he documented the moose’s carcass as well, with close-ups of the injuries as well as larger shotsin situ.
“Don’t know how much help those tracks will be,” Vaughan said.“The guys trampled all over this place before I got out here.”
Tean nodded.“You can cover it again if you’d like.But you might lose the prints.”
“This’ll keep the snow out of them,” Jared said.
“Depending on how much the day warms up, the snow under the canvas might melt—it will collect and trap additional heat.Even if the surrounding area stays frozen, there’s a chance those prints will be gone.”
“You took photos?”Vaughan asked.
Tean nodded.
“We can’t move it until I get a snowcat up here,” Vaughan said.“And we can’t have the guests staring at it all day.”
Tean didn’t say anything.He got to his feet as Vaughan and Jared restaked the tarp.
“Weird place for wolves to be hunting,” Jared said.“My uncle says they don’t like to get this close to people.”
“Your uncle is correct,” Tean said.“Mr.Larsen, could we have a word with you?Inside?”
Vaughan sent Jared back to join the other security guard, and then he led Tean and Jem into the vestibule at the front of the lodge.The narrow space between the two sets of doors was only marginally warmer than outside, but it had the advantage of being private—no one could hear them, and no one could come close enough to eavesdrop without being noticed.The same bellboy from the previous two days, no longer bright and chipper and standing crisply at attention, now sat in a chair on the far side of the lobby.He gave them a considering look, as though trying to decide if he was supposed to check on them, and then sank back down and started playing on his phone again.
“Well?”Vaughan said.
“That wasn’t a wolf attack.It wasn’t any kind of animal attack.The wounds were made post-mortem, and they were made with a knife.Or knives.The evisceration is completely unnatural; the incision is the kind hunters use when they’re cleaning game.Even if it had been an animal, scavengers wouldn’t have left the organs behind.”
“Damn,” Jem said under his breath.
For a moment, Vaughan lowered his head.“You’re saying people did that.”
“Yes.”
“They killed a moose, cut it up to look like animals had gotten at it, and then what?Dragged it out here and left it where everyone would see it?Why?”
Tean turned to Jem; the blond man gave a tiny shake of his head.“I’m not sure,” Tean said.“All I can tell you is that it wasn’t an animal attack.”
“How’d it die?”
“I’m not sure.I’d need to examine it more closely.I might need to conduct a full necropsy.My guess is that it was shot, but we can’t see the injury because of how the carcass has been positioned.”
Vaughan was silent for longer this time.“And the tracks?”
“They are…inconsistent.I’m guessing they were made with either some sort of model, or with a taxidermy specimen.”When Vaughan didn’t say anything, Tean continued, “There’s only one distinct print.It’s the same one for each track.The depressions in the snow vary in depth, but they should be relatively consistent.In some places, they barely broke the surface of the snow; in others, they’re several inches deep.”
